In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the incredible power and importance of prayer. He compares the resources available to us through prayer to a hypothetical scenario of receiving $5 million in a bank account. The speaker encourages listeners to pray about everything and to give their concerns and desires to Jesus, trusting Him to work and move in their lives. He shares a personal experience of realizing that Jesus is always with us and can fulfill our deepest longings. The speaker concludes by highlighting the significance of private prayer and the transformative effects it can have on our lives.

I would ask you to turn in your Bible to the 6th chapter of Matthew. This message has changed twice since yesterday. So I sure hope Jesus pulls this off, because if he doesn't, we're all in trouble. At least I am. But I believe he wants to speak to us tonight on this subject of praying in secret. Secret prayer. Praying in secret. And the Lord speaks to this issue in the 6th chapter of Matthew. We're going to read verses 5 through 8. If every Christian took our Lord's words and promises like are found here seriously, it would revolutionize not only their Christian life, but it would revolutionize the church. Leonard Ravenhill used to say, one day a Christian is going to come along that really believes the Bible and we'll all be embarrassed. Because oftentimes, we don't take the promises of God and the resources that are available to us seriously. For instance, if you found out tonight after you got home from church, you got a call from an attorney. And they said, listen, we need you to come by Chase Bank tomorrow, because someone has deposited into an account with your name on it, five million dollars, and all that's necessary for those resources to be available to you is to come by and sign papers tomorrow. I guarantee you that would change the rest of your night and tomorrow. And yet, the resources that we have in prayer are so phenomenal, almost so unbelievable, what our Lord Jesus Christ said about prayer, that it would make Fort Knox look like my daughter's piggy bank. It's unbelievable what He said. Let's read it and just let it soak in and see what He said and believe it. Stand with me, please. Let's read verses five through eight and hear this as if it's the Lord Jesus speaking to you, because He is. He says, and when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corner. And then here's their motive. In order that they may be seen by men or seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have their reward. But when you pray, go into your room, into your secret place, into your closet, into your inner chamber, into your private place. And shut the door and pray to your Father, notice, who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Some translations say openly, publicly, but the heart of the matter there is He will bless and answer and reward those who do that. And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. Father, tonight would you speak to us by your Spirit, through your Word. Give us ears to hear, and Lord, would you tonight do a new work in our hearts and in this church regarding prayer. We ask this for the glory and honor of Jesus Christ, in His name, Amen. Thank you, you can be seated. Praying in secret, that a person goes to church, even faithfully, sings the praises of God, loves the music, is moved by majestic music, loves Brother Juan's preaching, loves Bible study, they like to be with the church, they read good books. Those things are no certain signs as to the reality and vitality of a person's walk with God. You can have all that and not truly be walking with Jesus Christ. One of the most foundational evidences of a person's life as to reality, that is, are they in Christ? Do they truly know the Lord Jesus? And as to vitality, are they communing with Him, walking with Him? It's not that they go to church, not that they read their Bible, not that they're in a small group, not that they serve in some position, not that they believe in Calvinism or Arminianism, or they do this or that, or that they're even coming to understand truth. And they're getting faithful in church. At the heart of the matter is this. Is there in the heart any discipline in and desire for secret prayer? Now let's check ourselves out by that standard. The Lord Jesus Christ says to His disciples of all ages in this passage, when you pray, secret prayer. I want to ask you a simple question tonight. Do you pray to God in secret? Now the question's not about church or music or Bible study or acts of service or mission trips or ministry opportunities or being involved in the youth group. No. Do you pray to God in secret, consistently? I didn't say perfectly, but consistently. Matthew here records our Lord says, when you pray. In that statement, in Matthew 6, there is an assumption by Jesus. And what is it? The assumption on the part of the Lord that true believers, true Christians, not church leaders, not pastors, not elders, not strong, deep Christians, but every true Christian does pray. Now think about it. When a person appears dead, they've been in an accident or they fall over, and it has to be determined if they're dead, what do you look for? What do we call them? Vital signs, right? Does he have a pulse? Is he breathing? Is he moving? You check for vital signs in relation to the Christian life. Prayer is a vital sign. It's a sign of true life. Prayer is the breath of the soul that the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, imparts to the heart. Our Lord Himself, the Lord Jesus, made the strongest, most wonderful statements regarding prayer that can be found anywhere in all of Scripture and in all of history. Now, we read from Matthew, but you turn to Luke, and it's very interesting. Luke is particularly the gospel of prayer because it speaks about even Jesus praying and teaching about prayer more than any other gospel. Luke alone records that when Jesus was baptized, He was praying. Matthew, Mark, John don't say that. Luke alone records that Jesus and the three disciples went up to the Mount of Transfiguration to pray. They went there to pray. Matthew, Mark, and John don't say that. Luke alone records that while He was praying on the Mount of Transfiguration, it was while He was praying that He was transfigured, changed. The glory of God and the presence of the Lord came upon Him as He was praying on the mountain. There's nothing more transfiguring than prayer. You can go to home groups until you're burnt out on it. You can read the Bible twenty chapters a day. You can serve until you're dog-tired. But there is something about prayer that does for a Christian's life that nothing else can do. Secret prayer. It is prayer that brings the Christian into continual fellowship and freshness and usefulness, and that brings God's presence upon our life and our labors and our efforts. Walking with the Lord Jesus down the avenues of secret prayer. Do you, if you are a Christian, if you're a professing Christian, do you pray in secret? If not, then why do you think that your life is pleasing the Lord or bearing fruit? It's a searching question. It's a very searching question. And the Lord Jesus here in Matthew 6, when you pray, and in Luke 11, or Luke 18 rather, it says that men ought always to pray. Jesus issues you and I the call to prayer. And when I'm talking about a prayer life and praying in secret, I'm not talking about saying blessings, you regularly say blessing over having a meal. I'm not talking about having a three minutes devotion in the morning and you read Our Daily Bread or whatever, and you throw up a prayer and you ask the Lord to bless your day and bless the dog and then you're on your way. No, I'm talking about a real prayer life. A real prayer life. I'm so sick and tired. I'll just get honest. I'm so sick and tired of the church of Jesus Christ having the idea that only preachers and elders and church leaders are to have a deep and real prayer life. God wants to give every child of God, every sister in Christ, every young person who wants to serve Him, all of us, He wants to give all of us reality in prayer where prayer is real to us and it works. And it's the most exciting thing in our life. The Lord Jesus says, when you pray, do you and I pray in secret. So He issues the call to prayer. Where are those in the church of Jesus Christ? If there are those who love the fellowship of the saints, but they come and they're just soaking in and their heart longs to serve Christ, but they haven't found a place of service yet. So they're kind of waiting and wondering, what can I do for God? What can I do for the kingdom? Here's something you can do. Become an intercessor. Hide yourself away in prayer, because God does more through prayer in the hidden place than in all the outward service of the temple and the tabernacle. I promise you that. You see, when we depend on men, we will see what men can do. And when we depend on denominations, we see what denominations can do. When we depend on education, we'll see what education can do. But when we depend on prayer, guess what? We'll see what God can do. There's a big difference, beloved. Do you pray in secret? If not, why not? God, the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit in our day, is issuing a call to all the saints of God, all of which are priests before the Most High, to enter into more of a prayer life than they've ever had before. Beloved, this thing is like the ocean, and we've only struck our big toe in the shallows. When you pray, Jesus said, why is it so important? Here's why. Because those who learn to wield the sword of prayer affect things for the kingdom of God. Think about it. Prayer can do things that all other ministries can't do. You don't need a degree. You don't need to go to seminary. You don't have to be smart or beautiful or intelligent or rich. You don't have to have an outward ministry. You don't have to have a committee. Praise God for that. And prayer can touch... When you kneel in prayer and you cry to your Father in heaven for a missionary in Peru or Panama or Italy or Africa or New York City, things in the heavens begin to happen, and God does things truly for those people just through your prayers here. Prayer is affectionate. It works. God works mightily, gloriously in answer to prayer. And tonight, I want you to think of this promise Jesus gave us. He said, when you pray... Now, I want us to go back to it and look at it. Just let this sink in tonight, and may the Spirit of God, may the Holy Spirit change our Christian life. Let's be real Christians. Radical about believing the promises of God. Notice what our Lord said. Verse 6. Let's just focus there on that verse. Jesus said, but when you pray... So who is He talking to? He's talking to you. When you pray, He's talking to me. He's talking to every professing child of God. Every professing Christian. When you pray... Stop right there. Turn it into a question. When do you pray? Well, I pray over meals. Well, I pray in the bathroom. Well, I pray going in the car to school. Do you think that's what the Lord meant? We pray like it's fast food. Convenient, quick. He said, when you pray, what does He say to do? Think of the promise. He says, when you pray, do what? Go into your room. Go to your private place. Go to your inner chamber. King James says, your closet. What does He mean? He means that a true believer has some place that they go. Now, your inner chamber, your private place, it may be your back porch. It may be your recliner in the living room at 5 in the morning. It might be your car. It might be walking around the block. It might be out in the pasture somewhere. Where is yours? Where is your private sanctuary? Do you have one? Our Lord says, when you pray, go into your private place. Go into your secret place. And what does He tell us to do next? What does it say? Enter into your inner room and what? Shut the door. Shut it. You know what He's saying? You cannot have a prayer life if the madness and the noise and the busyness and the insanity of a screaming world is coming in your ears and your eyes. You've got to get away. You've got to get alone. You've got to shut the world out. When do we ever get alone with God in a quality way? And we're there until the Lord Jesus by the precious Holy Spirit draws near and we meet with Him and He changes us and changes struggles and He takes away disappointment and He takes away despair and He takes away heartache and He takes away joylessness and He ministers to our hearts and He pours in the oil and the wine of the wounds that the world has put in us. When do we meet with God like that? And reality happens. When you pray, He said, enter into your closet and your private room. What is yours? If you can't answer that, it means you may not have one. And therefore, you're not taking seriously the invitation and the command of our Lord when He says, when you pray, go into your private room and shut the door. Where no one sees or knows. You know, when you pray around other people, it's easy to have wrong motives. Why? Because we become conscious of others. And we worry about, are they going to judge my prayer? Am I saying it right? Am I supposed to say thee or, you know, and all that stuff. But when you get alone with God and you shut everybody out, there's no one there to impress. There's no one there to give you praise. There's no one there to observe. They'll somehow be impressed with what reality you have or your spirituality. So Jesus says, get away from the crowd. Shut the world out. Shut the crowd out. Shut people out. But you know what's true for most of us? People are more real to us. Than Jesus. And we often need people. We need to be around others much more than we need to be with Him. But the Lord says, when you pray, shut the door or go into your room and shut the door. Get away from the crowd. Shut yourself off from human contact and interaction and be alone in that place. Oh, the challenge of that discipline. Listen, if we're going to know the Lord Jesus in intimacy and not just in shallow profession and in shallowness, if we're going to mature and go deeper with God and our life is going to reflect His glory and His passion, and we're going to walk deeply with Him and our life's going to count for the kingdom, we've got to press into this area of private prayer. We really do, beloved. And I want to tell you what. There's a lot of churches in our country that have everything organized smoothly and they run slick as oil. But there's not a lot of reality of deep prayer going on. And it's prayer that affects the kingdom. It's prayer that brings people under conviction of sin and brings conversions. It's prayer that brings the Holy Spirit and causes messages to be effectual that are preached here week in and week out. It's prayer that brings wisdom to our leaders. It's prayer that changes lives and marriages and restores children. It's prayer that God answers to effect real change. It's not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord. Prayer, reality in prayer. So in that place of privacy, go in. Shut the door. And you know what Jesus said here? It's just so wonderful. And pray to your Father who is what? What does it say? Look at it if you have your Bible. Pray to your Father who is what? Now, wait a minute. I thought God was everywhere. I mean, don't we believe in the, what's the big theological word? The omnipresence of God. God's presence fills the universe. In fact, the universe is within. I mean, He's beyond it all. He's everywhere. And yet Jesus here says, when you and I draw aside and we shut the world out and we go to our place for prayer and we shut the door, guess who's there waiting on us? In a special way. In a unique way. He promises that your Father who wants to hear you, not just preachers, you teenagers, you love the Lord Jesus Christ, when you draw away and learn to pray and be with Him, when you draw aside and you go to that place of prayer, you might not know how to pray exactly, but you open your heart. You get real. You get honest. And in childlike faith, you left your heart to your Father. Guess who is there in secret waiting on you to meet with you? Your Father who sees in secret. Jesus said in another place, your Father who is in secret. Oh, this is a glorious reality. One afternoon, I drove out in Denton, out in the country, one Sunday afternoon, and I stopped for some time alone. And I started thinking about good friends of mine. Some dear brothers in the Lord across the U.S. And I started missing them. And I started saying, I'd love to see him. I wish I could have 30 minutes with him. Wouldn't it be great, I said to myself, if we could be here together and have some prayers, encourage each other. And then it just struck me. It was like the Lord said, listen, there's one here with you right now. It's far greater than those brothers. And my heart was moved to realize that I, 24-7, have an audience with the King, who is my Father, who waits for me in secret. And He waits for you in secret to come shut the door. And He's there to meet with you and encourage you and change you and hear your cries. So we ought to just get real and open up our hearts and throw all religiosity out the window. God's not impressed with our fancy words in prayer. That doesn't mean anything. Open our hearts, unclog the channels, and lay bare our soul and our heart before Him like an utterly dependent child to our Father. And guess what? He's there and He hears. And we have His ear. Our Father is in secret and He sees in secret. And Jesus said, those who do this, those who draw aside and shut the door and seek Him in secret, and they claim the promise, whether they feel God near or not. Listen, did you know the Bible never tells us to feel anything ever? Believe the promise of God whether you feel good or you feel rotten. He never changes. And if we draw aside and we shut the door to be with Him, it doesn't matter how long you've been a Christian, a week or 50 years or how immature you might think you are. The ground is level at the foot of the cross. And God will hear your cries in prayer as much as Pastor Juan's or anybody else that you know. Draw aside. He waits in secret and He longs in secret to answer and give. Adam Iron Judson, the great Baptist missionary in history, said this, I am persuaded that we are all more deficient in a spirit of prayer than in any other grace. Beloved, I want to tell you something. We Baptists have got a lot of things right, but we've stayed shallow in this area. And God wants us to press in. Jesus said to the disciples, hey fellas, cast your nets out into the deep. Go in deeper in prayer. Deeper in prayer. God can make you dear sisters in the Lord, intercessors in ways that you've never known. There's a church I preach in Missouri, and about 15 years ago, the young people, they were 13 and 15 and 18 years old, they began to be burdened for their lost cousins and friends. And these five or six or seven young people, they began to gather regularly in prayer, and they would just begin to call out the names of these unconverted friends and family before the Lord in prayer, and tears would come, and they would start crying out to God to save them. And I want to tell you what, it was not a year before the Spirit of God began to save every one of those young people that they had prayed for. God got the whole list of them. And you can do things for others through prayer that you can do no other way, except by prayer. And Judson said God loves impertunent prayer. You may know the name George Mueller, the great man of prayer. Really, there are no great men of prayer. There's no great people of prayer. There are just true Christians that take the promises of God seriously. And like with childlike faith, they just plead the promises of God. And they continue to do so. And they stay at it because Jesus has told them to stay at it. Mueller had two friends, two men, that he prayed for every day for 50 years. And those two men were converted and saved after Mueller died. Beloved, are there those you used to pray for, and you used to have a burden for them, and you could pray with tears, and you stopped praying for them? Men ought always to pray and not what? Faint. Not give up. Never, never, never, never stop praying for people that God burdens your heart to pray for. Because it's your prayers that will be instrumental in their lives and the Spirit of God working to bring their circumstances around where they finally come to an end of themselves and God has His way in their hearts. The certainty, Jesus said this in that verse, when you pray, go into your secret place and shut the door and pray to your Father who's in secret. And what does it say then? And your Father who sees in secret, what? Will reward you openly. Other translations use different words. It's the idea of with certainty. He will bless the soul who does this. Now, this is where the rubber meets the road. Do we really believe God? Do we really believe what Jesus said and promised? And will we take Him in His Word and try it? Test the waters. Begin to do this more and more. This is the certainty of answered prayer. God does reward and answer. He does supernatural and mighty things, impossible things in answer to prayer all the time. But it's not for the casual prayers, no. It's for those who will pray in secret. Who do say in their hearts, you know, I love worship and I love being with the people of God, but my soul isn't just satisfied with that anymore. I want to go deeper. I don't want just the outward. I want to learn what it means to dwell with the Lord Jesus and be with Him alone and find my satisfaction in Him where He is more real to me than any other human being. And He hears my cries and others are affected through my prayer life. That's what God wants to give some of you, a prayer life that affects things. Let me tell you about answered prayer. You know what we do? Here's what we do. We often pray only about things that we see can humanly be possible. When God wants us to pray for the impossible, because when He does the impossible, guess who gets the credit? Hey, we're on base, but Jesus gets up and He hits the home run. Who gets the credit when the home runs hit? Not those who are just on base, the home run hitter. When we pray, we're on base with Him and we're asking Him to hit the home run and do things that only He can do and He gets the credit. Last year, I just returned from Romania and my wife, Linda, calls me. She was caring for an elderly lady about 15 miles from us and she called me and she said, Honey, Mrs. Waters, she loves chicken fried steak and you cook a good chicken fried steak. Would you cook us a chicken fried steak? Well, I was tired. My body was still on jet lag and I said, okay, praise the Lord. So I cooked that and headed down there. Well, I'll just get real honest here. But there's a point to this, so follow me. When I got about five minutes from, I came to an intersection and I had to go to the restroom immediately. I couldn't wait like up there. I had to go. So I stopped and I went in. I was in a hurry to get there and so I was standing there and I had my keys on my little finger and I flushed the toilet and when I did, those keys dropped off and guess what? They were gone. I mean, all of me right then was bad, just everything about me. Those keys were gone and I stood there and I went. No, this didn't just happen. How could I be so stupid? Well, I called her. She came over. She had a spare keys and she looked at me like only a wife can look at a man who just flushed his keys down the toilet. And when I drove off, the Holy Spirit spoke to my heart and He said, won't you pray about this? And my human reasoning wanted to say, well, what? Well, what am I supposed to pray? And He said, ask Me for your keys. And I wanted to say, yeah, right. And I said, okay, Lord. I didn't even know what to say. I said, okay, Lord, if You can give me my keys back, I ask You for them. As God is my witness, I was back at that intersection a month later. I looked over there and I saw that convenience store and I thought, hmm, no. But I drove over there. I went in. Now, I didn't say, listen, a month ago, I flushed my keys down the toilet. Did y'all get them? I didn't say that. I just said, listen, has anybody turned in any lost keys? And the girl opens the door and she pulls out a plastic baggie and there are my keys. Now, I don't think an angelic plumber went in there. I don't know. But I drove off. And you know what the Lord said to my heart? Is there anything too hard for Me? Anything. Beloved, don't just pray over what you think is humanly possible. The things that are beyond your ability and beyond your capacity, that's what God wants to answer in prayer so He gets the credit and the glory. We ought to pray over everything. I lost my wallet, my checkbook one time over in the neighborhood and I didn't know where. And I was all frustrated because we had to go to Missouri the next day to do a wedding. And Linda said to me, well, have you prayed over it? And I rolled my eyes. And so I said, OK, I'll pray. And we prayed. And the next morning I went out to check the mail. The mail wasn't there yet, but guess what was in my mailbox? My checkbook. Somebody had found it, brought it by the house, put it in the mailbox. Listen, we learn to pray about everything and draw a sign and give it to Jesus and ask Him to work and act and move in hearts and ask Him to do things that nobody can do but Him. Then He gets the glory and the credit and the honor. He gets the attention. He gets the fame and not man. But our failure is that we limit God to doing what we think is humanly possible. Now, I could say a lot more about this, but let me just remind you of how God answered prayer in the Bible. Remember Hezekiah? God told Isaiah to go to Hezekiah and tell him, set your house in order for you're going to die. And Isaiah went there and told him that. The Bible says that Hezekiah humbled himself. He turned to the wall and with tears, he began to seek God and cry out for mercy. And as Isaiah was walking home, the word of the Lord came to Isaiah. He says, you go back and tell him that I've seen his tears. I've heard his prayers. Behold, I give him 15 more years of life. God will answer. Nineveh cried desperately to God when Jonah came and God turned from the evil that He said He would do to him. Elijah, or Elisha rather, prays over a dead child and it comes back to life. Elijah prays and there's a national drought and famine. And then he prays again and there's a flood. You know, in the day of Abraham, God had closed all the wombs of the ladies in Abimelech's house and Sarah's as well. And Abraham prayed and God healed every one of them. They all had children. The Bible says that Job, the Lord turned his captivity when he did what? When he prayed for those lousy friends of his. It was when Jonah cried out from a whale's belly, that God heard his cry and told the fish to spit him out on the beach. Beloved, the Lord Jesus wants us to realize that the fervent, real, genuine, effectual, heartfelt prayer of a righteous person, that means a Christian, any true Christian, avails much, accomplishes much. And you'll get excited about prayer when you begin regularly to meet with the Lord and you enjoy His presence and you desire prayer. See, that's why we don't pray like we ought, because we view it as a legalistic ritual that we have to do every day. When you learn to enjoy His presence and you desire His presence, it's like a date because of a love relationship. And you begin to see God answering your prayers. Then that's when it really, really gets exciting. And He said, He will reward you. Oh, maybe not outwardly before men, but He'll reward you. He will begin to bring blessing and change. Things will begin to happen that haven't been happening in your life before. And He will reward you with life and empowering in your walk with Him and change and character and peace and health and joy and victory over sin and a history of answered prayer in your life. Where you can look back and you can say, God answered this prayer. He did this in answer to prayer. He changed their life in answer to my prayers. He saved their soul as I continued in prayer. God wants to give us all a history of answered prayer. And let's close with this thought. Here's the heart of the matter. When there's no church meetings and there's no music and there's no CDs going, no sermons you're listening to, nobody around, when it's you and your Bible and God alone in your life, what happens in secret? Why did Jesus pray? Because He loved His Father and He needed His Father. Do you pray in secret because you love Him and because you need Him? And you know, in our day in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, with all the busyness, we need Marys who say, you know, there's a lot of folks out there that are Marthas that are great at the serving. And it's all well and good and it's needed. But I'm not satisfied with the noise and the bustle and the activity and all the clatter of the outward court. I want to know what's behind the veil. I want to be with Him in private and seek Him and really know what it means to lay hold of God in prayer. God is calling His church who really want to hear His voice to concentrate in prayer and to enter into a prayer life that you've never had before. God is able, the Bible says, to do exceeding abundantly above all we can ask or think. And we need to go before the Lord in our hearts and we need to say before Him what that disciple said to Him that day when they came and they found Him in prayer and when He had ceased, one of them came to Him and they said, Lord, teach us to pray. They didn't ask Him to hold a seminar on prayer or teach principles about prayer. They said, Lord, teach me to do it. Teach me to pray. You know, the one way to learn to pray, you know what it is? Pray. Pray. Just get along with Jesus. Say, Lord, I'm a disciple. I'm a novice. I'm a nobody. I'm weak, but You're strong. I'm ignorant about this, but You're the great Teacher. But I have the desire in my heart and I know that came from You. I want to learn to pray. Teach me to pray. Draw me to pray. Change my heart to teach me to pray. I like being with people more than You, Lord. Change my heart where I like being with You more than with people. Lord, teach me to pray. Do you think the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit will honor that prayer? Every true Christian that wants the Kingdom of God advanced in their church and in their community and in the nation every day ought to say from their heart, Lord, teach me to pray. Amen. Let's pray right now. In these moments, I just encourage you to hear the call of the Spirit to you. To give you more of a prayer life than you've ever had. And for you just to be before the Lord about this issue and to say to Him, Father, take me from where I am and teach me to pray. And cause me, shape my life and so work in me that I'll be one of those Jesus had in mind when He said, when you pray, enter into your closet and pray to your Father who is in secret. Father, we ask you from our hearts tonight, teach us, draw us, change us to be real people of prayer. Thank you, Lord, so much. In Jesus' name, Father, Amen.