Welcome to our Together on Mission podcast, where we seek to be with and like Jesus, as we begin a conversation with Jesus in the morning with the scripture, prayer and meditation, and then continue that conversation with Him throughout your day. Your host is Travis Feynon, the pastor at the Inland Vineyard Church in Corona, California. In this season of the podcast, we're going to be talking about diving deeper in our relationship with Jesus through scripture, prayer and meditation. We will focus on hearing the voice of God and being guided by the Spirit of God, not only when we chat with Jesus in the morning, but as we journey with Jesus throughout the entirety of your day.
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Daily Together on Mission podcast. This is Travis and it is so good to be together. And somebody came up to me on Sunday saying that they are just really enjoying the podcast, and I'm so thrilled about that. I really, really am.
Somebody else came up to me on Sunday and said they've just begun to be a part of the podcast, and it's a really neat tool in their life with Jesus and are particularly enjoying this session or the season of the podcast where we are talking about prayer and that's what we're doing. We're starting a conversation with Jesus in the morning. We're not having the talk in the morning where we say amen at the end of the talk and then go off and do our day. We're starting a conversation with Jesus in the morning and then we're continuing that conversation with Jesus throughout the day because it's his day and we get to partner with him in that and then when we're falling off to sleep, that is when we say amen because we have spent the day with Jesus.
So welcome, good morning. The title of the podcast today is Simple and Practical. And we will be in Matthew chapter six. Prayer is simple and prayer is practical.
I know that I've mentioned that a number of times in the last few weeks, but in my opinion, that is one of the most important realities when it comes to prayer. And on one occasion, Jesus was with his disciples, his students and they came up to him and they said, Lord, teach us to pray. And that in and of itself is a very powerful moment because the disciples saw themselves as students and saw Jesus as a rabbi. They saw Jesus experiencing a life of prayer that was an abundant life and they said, man, we would like a little bit of that, Lord, will you teach us how to pray?
We see how the Pharisees pray. We see how that happens and it's like, Lord, will you teach us how to engage the one that you know as Father, will you teach us how to pray? And of course, Jesus says, of course I will. And so Jesus begins in Matthew six with what not to do.
He says, when you pray, don't be like the hypocrites. In other words, don't wear masks on stage. For they love to pray standing in the synagogue on the street corners, in other words, on stage, to be seen by others and truly I tell you they've received the reward in full. Now we have talked about this, but Jesus is saying, don't do it on stage.
Don't put on a show. Don't think that it's what you say or how you say it. Jesus is saying, prayer is not about pressure, it's not about putting on, it's not about posing, it's not about performing. And again, we've talked about this, but it bears repeating because I think we would probably be astonished.
And we should think about this for a minute as to how much of the way that we think about praying has come from how the Pharisees did it, or thought about prayer. So much of that way of thinking about prayer has infiltrated our understanding of the practice of prayer. And I think that bottom line, that's why many Christians don't go to prayer because of all of the things that have been onboarded to the subject of prayer. And Jesus is simply saying, don't do it that way.
That's not prayer. Whatever else that is, that is not prayer. Let me tell you what prayer is. And then Jesus says, so do it this way.
And before I read what Jesus says, I just wanna front load it with how practical and how simple this advice is, how earthy this advice is, how natural this advice is. And so Jesus says, all right, when you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father who is unseen as so practical. I mean, that might be the most practical thing that Jesus ever said. And so the question presses, right?
When was the last time you kept this very practical command? Go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father who is unseen? And when Jesus gives a command, it's all love. I mean, let's say your child comes in from playing in the backyard in July, and their thirsty or your grandchild comes in from playing in the backyard, and they're thirsty.
And you say, get a glass, go to the fridge, fill it up with water, and enjoy the drink. That's a command, and it's all love. And you would enjoy watching your child grab a glass, go to the fridge, get a cold thing of water, and enjoy it and be refreshed by it. You would love that, and that's a pretty good framework to understand any command of Jesus.
And specifically, this command of go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father who is unseen. And so back to our question, when is the last time we've kept that command? And look how simple and natural it is. And Jesus, by the way, I mean, we're reading between the lines here, but Jesus has no framework of this being difficult.
It's like going to the cabinet and grabbing a glass and going to the fridge and getting a cold glass of water and just enjoying it and being refreshed. I mean, Jesus has no framework of this being a difficult thing, but natural as breathing. And that is so important. And then Jesus says, and then your Father, who sees what is done in the secret, will reward you.
And so what does Jesus mean by in the secret? And I think we've missed what Jesus meant. Jesus did not mean that you must hide the fact that you're praying. That's not what he's saying at all.
You see, in the secret place has to do with the opposite of what the Pharisees were doing on stage. So in the secret has to do with natural, relational, simple, leaning in as opposed to trying and putting on and forcing. And again, we have on boarded so much of trying and putting on and forcing when it comes to prayer. See, the in the secret is the opposite of the on the stage kind of prayer.
So let's think about that for a moment. I mean, how do we feel when we're on stage? We're being watched, we're performing, we're doing something, we're working at it. But how do we feel when we're in the secret and just kind of relaxing?
And so Jesus says that's how you're to see prayer. It's in the secret, it's natural, it's not for us. Just go into your room, close the door and pray to your father. And then Jesus says, and just one more time, just in case guys, you're not picking up what I'm laying down, when you pray, don't keep on babbling like pagans, right?
You think they're heard because of their many words. So Jesus is contrasting his life of prayer, which is relaxing and natural with this religious approach to prayer, which is work and presentation. And of course, I would not want to say that prayer is never work, sometimes intercession and prayer has an element of work to it. And we'll get to that in future podcast, but certainly that's not the framework that Jesus had when it came to prayer.
Get a simple, a natural framework. Go into your room, close the door, pray to your father, enjoy that in the secret kind of life with God, not the on the stage, critique oriented kind of life with God. And then Jesus finishes by saying, your father knows what you need before you ask him. God already knows, he just likes to talk.
Again, it's like one of our children or grandchildren, even if you know how they're feeling or what they want to say or what they need, you still love to hear them speak to you and enjoy your presence. And that is Jesus's perspective on prayer. So let's go to our room, let's close the door, let's enjoy that in secret and lean into the father and maybe read a bit of Matthew chapter six and just enjoy and be refreshed. Let's start a conversation with Jesus that will last throughout the day and we'll talk soon.
Thanks for listening to the Together on Mission podcast. We truly hope that you were blessed and encouraged by it today. If you had any questions about the Inland Vineyard Church, our ministries or our Sunday services, feel free to connect with us on our brand new app, which you can find in the Google Play and the App Store and check out our social media pages like Facebook and Instagram, or even check out our website at inlandvignard.org.