Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.Therefore don’t be like them, for your Father knows what things you need before you ask him.Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.Be not therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.
10 sermons cite this verse
… but they think they'll be heard for their many words. Therefore, do not be like them, for your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him. I'll stop there. It's a tragic thing, but really, sin knows no boundaries. It can follow us to the very throne of heaven where I'm actually missing the whole point of what prayer should be. Focusing the intention upon myself. This was the problem with the Pharisees. They prayed to be seen by men. The Pharisees loved the theater of prayer. It was sort of like a performance. They would go to a street corner and stop and pray loudly and people would look, oh, look at that religious man. Oh, how devout he is. how impressive he is. Jesus is saying, God's not impressed. He's not impressed one bit because you're doing it for others to see. And so he's showing us that is not how we should pray, nor should we offer ritualized, repeated prayers. That's why I don't really love memorized prayers, that people pray over and over again, just say, 10 our fathers, and you'll be okay. Is there some magic in a little prayer that we pray. When we pray, God looks on the heart. It's a conversation with God. For instance, here's a memorized prayer. We'll say to our children, okay, honey, it's time to go to bed. Now pray this prayer. Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. …
… I wanna read the context of what he's writing together in Matthew 6, verses one through 18. We'll start with verse one here. Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. Otherwise you have no reward with your father in heaven. So, whenever you give to the poor, don't sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets to be applauded by people. But truly, I tell you, they have their reward. But when you give to the poor, don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing so that your giving may be in secret and your father who sees in secret will reward you. Whenever you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites because they love to pray standing in synagogues on the street corner to be seen by people. But truly I tell you, they've received their reward. But when you pray, go into your private room, shut your door, that's our word, and pray to your father who's in secret and your father who sees in secret will reward you. …
… do, for they think they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. What is that about? I thought the purpose of prayer was to inform God what I need and what I want. And Jesus says, no. God is not up in heaven with a notebook and a pen telling you to slow down so He makes sure to get all of your requests. He knows them before you even ask them. That begs the question, what's the point of prayer then? Oh, and this is where we realize the point of prayer. the point of prayer is not to inform God but to experience intimacy with the God who knows you and me better than we know ourselves this is going so much deeper than a list of requests before God, not that it's bad to lift things up but to know that our Father knows the depth of our hearts, that there is nothing hidden from Him that He understands and knows us our circumstances. …
… And when you pray, do not keep babbling like the pagans, for they think they will be heard because there are many words. Do not be like them, for your father knows what you need before you ask him. Then he goes on and he gives them the Lord's prayer, which most of us are familiar with. He talks about forgiveness, but skipping ahead to verse 16. When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting. Truly, I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face so that will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your father who is unseen. And your father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. Thanks be to God for the power of his word. I love this text, but it's a challenging, it's a convicting text. He's telling us, let's go back to verse one. …
… Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Now, when I pray this portion of the prayer, when I get to the thys, and I appreciate, you know, we're praying kind of the old King James English here. We could say your will be done, but I like the thy because it rhymes with my. And when I come to this portion, I really punch the thy. I mean, anytime I say it, thy kingdom come, thy will be done. Why do I punch it? Because my basic orientation in life, and so is yours, is my kingdom come. My will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And so Jesus is upending what's going on inside my heart. He's turning me inside out and he's calling me to pray. And when I pray this, remember, or I'm praying, in essence, I'm praying, Lord, help this be the desire of my heart. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. …
… When you pray, do not use vain repetition as the heathen do, for they think they will be heard for their many words. Therefore, do not be like them for your father knows the things you have need of before you ask. I love that. He says, when you pray, don't repeat your prayer over and over and over and over and over again. The heathen pray that way because they think that by praying a prayer over and over again, they can earn the answer. They engage with God who gives them points for repeated prayers. Don't do that. That's what the heathen do. And then the reasoning behind that. He says, for your father knows what you have need of. to come before my father first of all it doesn't remove from me the responsibility to pray for my daily needs here it says give us this day our daily bread so the very next verse is he gives the assignment to pray for our daily needs so it's not he knows what you need so don't pray he doesn't say that he says he knows what you need so come before him as a father who does not need to be persuaded to take care of his children. Be a part of the ever evolving economy of heaven where in your partnership, you make agreement to see the release of his supply and his abundance. …
… people, they will be heard. Verse eight, do not be like them for your father knows what you need before you ask him. So right from the beginning, Jesus says, when you pray, don't be like the hypocrites who love to perform. And don't be like the pagans who think that because they use so many different polished, fancy words, God will hear them and move on their behalf. And what Jesus is trying to show us, and if you're taking notes, this is the first point, is when it comes to prayer, God wants your heart. When it comes to prayer, God wants your heart, not the perfect, polished, packaged, put together you, who uses these big words in prayer because you think that God will maybe be in pressed because of your fancy language. Like sometimes you come to prayer and you're like, I don't even use these words when I'm talking to my friends, but holy, reverent, thrice, amazing father, deity in the sky, would you just hear me? And you're like, I don't even know what half of those words mean when I say them. I just feel like I'm supposed to say them when I pray. …
… Don't be like them. Your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. You've got to earn His ear. Second, seek to pray spiritual prayers. In our tendencies to ask for the next dollar, the next meal, the next tangible thing, which He wants to hear, our tangible needs. Sometimes we can forget to pray spiritual prayers. Like the Apostle Paul prays in Ephesians 1, 16 to 19. He prays that the Lord Jesus Christ, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he's called you. prayers like Philippians 1 9 to 11 Colossians 1 9 to 12 2 Thessalonians 1 11 spiritual prayers for spiritual good in our own lives and others third pray out loud or in writing it really helps to form and finish thoughts not just let it be amorphous here in the head but somebody else is in the house whisper them on your lips you can write them down form and finish your prayers finally pray with others maybe one of my favorite quotes here from Tim Keller's book on prayer has to do with praying with others he says by praying with friends you will be able to hear and see facets of Jesus that you have not yet perceived. …
… that they will be heard for their many words. So do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. Pray then in this way, Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. And thinking about Father's Day, again, I was drawn to this passage because it repeatedly addresses God as Father. That's what we need to understand in its most full sense, the relationship that we enjoy with the eternal God. He is our Father. In what sense? Well, we could say He's our Father in the physical sense. In the natural sense, Malachi 2.10 says, do we not all have one Father? …
… IMPRESS GOD, NOR DO WE PRAY TO INFORM GOD. LOOK IF YOU WILL IN VERSE 8, BE NOT THEREFORE LIKE UNTO THEM, FOR YOUR FATHER KNOWETH WHAT YOU HAVE NEED OF BEFORE YOU ASK HIM. YOU DON'T PRAY TO IMPRESS GOD, YOU DON'T PRAY TO INFORM GOD. YOU DON'T TELL GOD ONE BLESSED THING WHEN YOU PRAY THAT HE DOESN'T already know. I've asked you before, has it ever occurred to you that nothing ever occurs to God? I mean, God knows everything. God knows the beginning from the end and He knows what you have need of before you ever ask Him. So if you don't pray to impress God and you don't pray to inform God, what do you pray to do? You pray to invite God and to enjoy God. Look, if you will, as, as He continues to tell us, but after this manner, therefore,