20160619 ASHPM Our Heavenly Father
Every day we experience the presence of Father God, His Mercy His Grace and His Love.
God has promised to never leave us or forsake us.
He is with us in the good times and the bad.
He is Our Gracious Heavenly Father and He loves us and cares for us more than any human parent ever could.
Throughout the Bible God is described using the term Father, let me give you a few examples:
Moses speaking to the Israelites in Deuteronomy Chapter 1 verse 31 says “you saw how the Lord your God cared for you all along the way as you traveled through the wilderness, just as a father cares for his child.”
Psalm 68:5 - Father to the fatherless, defender of widows—this is God, whose dwelling is holy.
In Psalm 89 verse 26 Ethan the Ezrahite says You are my Father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation. (Ethan the Ezrahite is mentioned in 1 Kings 4:31 as a wise man, yet not as wise as King Solomon, who “was wiser than anyone else, including Ethan the Ezrahite.” 1 Chronicles 2:6 says Ethan had four brothers and was the son of Zerah. He was of the tribe of Levi.)
Psalm 103:13 The Lord is like a father to His children, tender and compassionate to those who fear Him.
Isaiah 63:16 Lord, Surely you are still our Father! You are our Redeemer from ages past.
John 20:17 After He rose from the dead, Jesus told Mary to go to His disciples and tell them He was alive and He said, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’
Acts 2:33 Now Jesus is exalted to the place of highest honour in heaven, at God’s right hand. And the Father, as He had promised, gave Him the Holy Spirit to pour out upon us.
1 Corinthians 8:6 There is one God, the Father, by whom all things were created, and for whom we live. And there is one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things were created, and through whom we live.
2 Corinthians 1:3 All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort.
James 1:27 Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.
1 Peter 1:2 God the Father knew you and chose you long ago, and His Spirit has made you holy. As a result, you have obeyed Him and have been cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ.
1 John 3:1 See how very much our Father loves us, for He calls us His children, and that is what we are! But the people who belong to this world don’t recognize that we are God’s children because they don’t know Him.
Those are just a few of the many verses in the Bible that refer to God as Father.
Romans 8:14-15 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when He adopted you as His own children. Now we call Him, “Abba, Father.”
Here is the question: What did God the Father do to make YOU a child of God?
Here is the answer: Galatians 4:4-6 When the right time came, God sent His Son, born of a woman, subject to the law. God sent Him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that He could adopt us as His very own children. And because we are His children, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, “Abba, Father.” Now you are no longer a slave but God’s own child. And since you are His child, God has made you His heir.
God the Father sent God the Son.
Jesus became flesh and blood.
He came into this world as a fully human baby.
Fully human yet also still fully God.
The Father sent the Son to take away all our guilt and shame.
Jesus was born to die in our place.
God the Father sent Jesus so that you could be forgiven of your sin.
Jesus served the will of His Father perfectly throughout His life and ministry.
Only by living a perfect life could Jesus be the perfect sacrifice to atone for our sins.
Jesus was nailed to a cross, to rescue all who would repent and place their trust in Him as Lord and Saviour.
All of us who are disciples of Jesus are assured of forgiveness and the gift of eternal life.
The Fathers plan for our salvation required Jesus to carry the punishment for all of our sins - past, present and future.
His sacrifice was sufficient to pay for them all.
Because Jesus died and then rose from the grave, we now have free access to God.
We can approach Father God as His children.
We are reconciled to Him and we can call Him Abba
Father, a term of endearment and love. Daddy.
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You know our theme for this year is Dynamic Disciples or Dynamic Discipleship and our focus this month has been on prayer.
What I want us to think about this evening is a very simple pinciple of discipleship that each of us need to follow in our lives. The principle of Dependence on Our Heavenly Father.
When you read the Gospel accounts of Jesus life it’s obvious even to the casual reader that Jesus life was devoted to Father God.
It’s no surprise that our lives as Dynamic Disciples should also be devoted to God as well.
The dependence Jesus had on God the father and His devotion to doing the will of Father God is evident in Jesus consistent and constant prayer life.
In John 17:1-26 Jesus prayed that many would believe and be made complete.
In Luke 6:12 Jesus prayed before choosing the disciples.
In Luke 22:31-32 Jesus prayed for others.
In Luke 22:39-46 while in the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus prayed for himself.
In Matthew 5:44 Jesus taught the disciples to pray for those who persecute God’s people.
In Matthew 6:9-13 and Luke 11:2-4 Jesus taught the disciples how to pray for the glory and coming kingdom of the Lord.
When we read the Gospels it is obvious that Jesus prayed to God the Father consistently and often.
Jesus prayed before or after every major event.
The content of the prayers of Jesus was a little different to ours.
Because Jesus was perfect He never needed to repent or confess sin in His prayers.
But, in every other way we can model our prayer life on His.
Jesus prayed with thanksgiving to God the Father.
Jesus prayed with supplication, he earnestly appealed to Father God.
Jesus submitted Himself to the authority of God the Father in everything He did.
God the Son was in constant and consistent communication with God the Father.
Let’s consider Luke 11:1-4 for a moment:
Once Jesus was in a certain place praying. As He finished, one of His disciples came to Him and said, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”
Jesus said, “This is how you should pray:
“Father, may your name be kept holy.
May your Kingdom come soon.
Give us each day the food we need, and forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.
And don’t let us yield to temptation.”
These verses from Luke 11 record one of the few occasions when the disciples actually asked Jesus to instruct them in a specific way.
During His three years with His disciples, Jesus had taught them many important things.
The disciples wanted to learn from Jesus.
They were with Him almost everyday and they had observed His prayer life.
They saw His commitment to spending time with His Father.
They saw the way Jesus communicated with God the Father in prayer.
They saw how close the Son was to the Father.
The disciples wanted to learn how they could pray as Jesus prayed.
They had a real thirst for something more in their own prayer lives.
A thirst that we as disciples of Christ and Children of God should also have.
The instructions Jesus gave those disciples all those years ago are still relevant to us today.
Maybe this picture by the artist James Tissot can help us imagine what that moment would have felt like?
(http://www.spendayearwithjesus.com/_img/tissot/00.159.167_PS1.jpg)
The disciples gather round Him and wait for Jesus to teach them how to pray.
They sit down and get ready for the lesson of lessons.Silently they wait, attentive and ready for a long lecture on how they should pray.
And Jesus tells them.
He uses just 40 words and then moves on to a parable about someone who wants to borrow three loaves of bread so that he can feed an unexpected guest late at night.
Hold on a second.
Is that a puzzled look I see on the disciples faces?
Are they thinking, “Was that it?” - “Surely that’s just the introduction?”
No, Jesus had already moved on and the parable He told them was about the need for persistence in prayer: Listen to Luke 11:9-10 “so I tell you, keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.”
In what we have translated into English in our Bibles, in only forty words, Jesus explained to His disciples how to pray.
Then He told them to keep asking, seeking, knocking, so that the will of Father God can be revealed by prayer.
By using this parable Jesus was emphasising the need to be in constant and consistent communication with God the Father.
Bringing our petitions to Him.
Seeking His will, seeking His answer.
When we pray Father God may say yes, He may no, or He may say, wait - be patient - not yet!
Every prayer has an answer, though sometimes not the answer we were hoping for!
Just 40 words. That’s all it took to give the Disciples all the teaching they needed, to give us all the instruction we need on how to pray.
Real prayer can not be taught in a classroom - it needs to come from your heart.
When we pray, we speak to God the Father, through God the Son, by the Power of God The Holy Spirit.
Over the years I have read many different books on prayer, books written by very Godly men like
Dr O Hallesby, E.M. Bounds, Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Philip Yancy, Bill Hybels, Timothy Keller and others.
Do you know what I have discovered from reading all those books?
What I have discovered is we do not learn how to pray by reading books on prayer, we learn how to pray by actually praying!
If we want to pray like Jesus, then we need to spend time in prayer.
The author Andrew Murray in his book, With Christ in the School of Prayer, wrote, “Reading a book about prayer, listening to lectures and talking about it is good, but it won’t teach you to pray. You get nothing without exercise, without practice. I might listen for a year to a professor of music playing the most beautiful music, but that won’t teach me to play an instrument.”
When Maureen wanted to learn how to play her cello, she could have read every book ever written about technique, watched hours of video on YouTube, gone to every cello performance in this country.
But none of that was actually playing the cello was it?
Until the moment she actually sat down, positioned her cello in front of her, picked up her bow and drew it across the strings for the first time, that was the moment she really began learning how to play.
Many of you know my daughter is studying French and Spanish at University.
Even though she has been studying French since she was six years old, as part of her University course she was required to spend a year in Paris.
Why? Because the only way you can really learn another language is by actually speaking it.
Prayer is similar; we learn how to pray by praying.
It’s experiential learning, not just theory.
Jesus did not provide His disciples with a complex formula.
He did not give an endless lecture on content, structure and composition.
Just 40 simple words, a simple model for our prayers to Father God.
I will close with this: Praying to our Heavenly Father, should be one of the easiest things for us to do as disciples.
As a child of God, speaking to our Heavenly Father should not be a struggle. Yet sometimes it is a struggle isn’t it?
Maybe sometimes prayer does not come as easily as it should.
Maybe sometimes we are fearful of praying about what concerns us because we worry about what God’s answer will be.
What if my will is not aligned with God’s purpose?
What if God’s plan for me is not what I have planned for myself?
Or maybe we simply assume if God knows everything anyway why do we need to pray?
If God already knows what he’s going to do what is the point in praying?
Martin Luther once said about prayer, “At times I, who teach this and prescribe it to others, have learned from my own example that praying comes close to being the most difficult of all works”
Prayer is an important part of our daily discipleship.
When we pray, we are in direct communication with the omnipotent, omnipresent God.
The God of Heaven, The Great Creator of everything, The ultimate Ruler of the universe.
When we pray we speak to the God of infinity.
We approach the Majestic King of Kings, the Lord of Lords.
When we pray we have free access to God and we can call him, “Father.”
Wow! Isn’t that amazing?
Doesn’t that fill you with joy?
We have free access to our Heavenly Father, we pray and He listens! But He doesn’t just listen He acts, He is active, He is working.
Friends, Jesus has taught us that we can come before our Heavenly Father in prayer.
So next time you pray, pray as His child and call out to your Abba Father.
Keep on seeking, keep on asking. Keep on knocking. Keep on trusting.Keep on praying.
Let’s pray.
