“Our Father”
Matthew 6:9b
Pastor Jefferson Williams
Chenoa Baptist Church
2-03-19
Let us pray
I meet Dolly for the first time a few weeks ago. For those of you who don’t know her, you are missing out on a treat. She taught the sign language for “I love you” and told me that even though she had just met me she “could already tell that she loved me.”
While I was talking to her, a chaplain was talking to another resident nearby. I overheard her say, “Would you like to pray?” The women said yes and they both began with “Our Father in Heaven.” Even though dementia had obviously stolen some of her faculties, she still knew every word to the Lord’s Prayer.
Recap
Two weeks ago, we studied Psalm 19 and asked the question, “Can God be known?” David answered with a resounding yes! We can know God through His world and through His Word. Most of all, we can know God through the incarnation of Jesus Christ.
Last week, we studied two ways that Jesus taught His disciples, and us, not to pray – to be seen by men and by babbling on and on. If you seek the applause of men, you will get it, but that’s all you’ll get.
Jesus taught us to get alone and talk to God in simple language and to seek the reward of knowing God in a deeper, more intimate way.
He then transitioned and said, “This, then, is how you should pray…” The next section of Scripture has become known as “The Lord’s Prayer.”
For 2,000 years, churches all over the world, in a multitude of languages, have prayed these words.
Each week, I want us to hear this prayer in a different language. Today, we will listen to it in Aramaic, the common language of the people of Palestine. This would have been how Jesus said these words.
Overview
Let’s get 30,000 feet up and get the big picture of this prayer. I’m thankful to Darrell Johnson for these points.
The Scope of the Prayer – The prayer covers the spiritual, relational, and physical dimensions of our lives. It relates to our past (forgiveness), the present (daily provision), and our future (guidance and protection).
The Flow of the Prayer – There are two sections of the prayer – six petitions. The first half uses the pronoun “Your” and the second half uses the pronoun “our.” We begin with hallowing God’s name and praying for His kingdom to come and will be done. It puts our agendas in the proper perspective.
The Verbs of the Prayer – the verbs in the Lord’s prayer are in the imperative mood. That means they are commands, not requests. Are we commanding God to do something through this prayer? It helps to know that the first three verbs, (hallow, come, and be done), are in the passive voice. That doesn’t mean we command God to “do it” but we pray for it to “be done.”
D. Elton Trueblood wrote, “We mistake the kingdom requests greatly if we think we are the true actors in the drama. We may be needed, but the fundamental work for which we pray is for God to work.”
The Center of the Prayer – the Lord’s Prayer is the center of the Sermon on the Mount. And the center of the prayer is “on earth as it is in heaven.” This is a revolutionary prayer. We are part of bringing the kingdom of God to this lost and dying world.
The Focus of the Prayer – The focus of the prayer is on God and not on us.
“You cannot pray the Lord’s Prayer and even once say I
You cannot pray the Lord’s Prayer and even once say My
Nor can you pray the Lord’s Prayer and not pray for another
For when you ask for our daily bread you must include your brother
For others are included in every one of these pleas
But from beginning to the end it never once says Me.” ?
A Proper Perspective
Instead of launching into requests and petitions, Jesus begins by setting the tone in the preface to the prayer:
“Our Father, who is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:9b)
When the disciples watched and listened to Jesus pray, they were awestruck by the intimacy He had with God, who He called His “Father.”
In their culture, to call God “Father” was revolutionary. God is called “father” only 14 times in the entire Old Testament, and only in the context of the “Father of Israel.”
Jews of Jesus day would struggle to say the name of God out loud and Jesus then directs His disciples to call Him “Father.”
Father is the name by which Jesus addressed God in the New Testament, sixty times except for one. Jesus cried out from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46) And in that cry, He was quoting Psalm 9.
But it wasn’t just the Greek “father” which is “pater” but the Aramaic term “Abba,” which meant “daddy or papa.” It was an intimate term of endearment.
This absolutely stunned his disciples. So much so, that they said, “teach us to pray.” They wanted to know God the way Jesus did.
Which Father?
Let me stop right here and affirm that many of you are uncomfortable right now. When you think about the word, “Father” it doesn’t bring up warm feelings or good memories. For some of you, the word father is a loaded word. Your father wasn’t loving or kind or maybe he wasn’t there at all.
And because of your painful past, you might have a skewed view of God.
Maxine’s mom and dad divorced when she was five. Her dad lived in Texas. She and her twin saw him two weeks in the summer and he called every Friday afternoon.
It wasn’t until college that she realized that her view of God was shaped more by her father than by the Bible. She saw God as loving but distant, not really interested in the details of her life. It wasn’t until college that she learned that God wasn’t like her dad at all and that He loved her and was very interested in her life. It changed everything for her spiritually.
For some of you, you need to remember that this prayer begins with, “Our Father” not “My father.” God is all the things your father wasn’t and so much more.
There has been so much pushback against this term that many churches have stopped using the term Father in relation to God. They consider it offensive and harmful.
I was at a meeting where a pastor said the opening prayer with these words, “Dearest Heavenly Mother…”
God is Spirit so He is obviously not male or female. But He reveals Himself in Scripture as relating to us as a father to children. Not just to individual children but corporately as the Church.
We are the Church
The prayer is addressed to OUR Father.
When we enter into a relationship with God, we enter into a relationship with His people. We are saved by Christ and saved into His body, the Church.
I’ve had people say to me that they love Jesus but don’t care much for the Church. This is like inviting me to your house and saying, “I’d really like you to come eat dinner with us but don’t bring Maxine. We aren’t a big fan of hers.” The Church is called the “Bride of Christ” and he died for His church. Being part of the church isn’t option to a child of the kingdom.
Western culture idolizes the individual but Jesus didn’t give us this option. We pray recognizing that we belong to a larger family. Under spreading trees in Africa, great cathedrals in Europe, underground churches in China, and houses churches in India, our brothers and sisters gather and invoke the name of our Father as they pray this prayer.
Who's your daddy?
In many liberal churches, you will hear about the “Fatherhood of all men.” I want to make it clear this morning that Scripture teaches no such thing.
God does create all men and God will judge all men but He is not the Father of all men. Jesus made this clear in startling terms by telling the Pharisees that their real father is the devil not God!
“Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I have come here from God. I have not come on my own; God sent me. Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires.’” (John 8:42-44)
All men are born into Adam but only those who have been born again into Christ can approach God as father.
Sinclair Ferguson writes,
You cannot open the pages of the New Testament without realizing that one of the things that makes it so new is that here men and women call God “Father.”
If you are not a born again Christian, then you can call God creator or judge but not Abba.
If you are a born again Christian, then Jesus took the wrath of God the Judge for you so you could experience the love of God the Father.
The theological term for this idea is adoption and it is one of the things that makes the good news soooooo good!
A New Family
I was at the gym and stopped in to talk to Rod and Laura at the Crossroads Café. Darsh, their daughter, wanted to show me something. She was so excited as she showed me a little black and white thumbnail picture of an Indian infant. She beamed as she told me, “That’s going to be my little sister!” Rod and Laura are adopting.
We’ve had many friends that have walked the journey of adoption and it is always amazing to see the child settle into their forever home and simply learn to be loved.
Scripture says that if you have been born again through faith in Christ, God has adopted you into His forever family.
John, Jesus’ best friend, put it this way:
“Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.” (John 1:12-13)
Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus, the religious center of the Roman world:
“For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love He predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.” (Ephesians 1:4-6)
Paul wrote to the church Galatia that was struggling with being slaves to legalism:
“But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba Father.” So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.” (Galatians 4:4-7)
He wrote practically the same thing to the church at Rome about the transformation adaption brings about:
“For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ…” (Romans 8:14-17)
In Ephesians, Paul writes that we were once children of darkness and now we are children of light (Eph 5:8), that we were dead in our trespasses and sins but now are alive in Christ (Eph 2:1), and that we were once children of wrath and disobedience and now we are children of love, faith, and obedience (Eph 2:23).
In adoption, God loves us no less than God loves Jesus. It is the knowledge of the Father-love of God that leads to the true knowledge of God.
This may be one of the best promises in all of Scripture! God could have saved us and justified us without adopting us. The angels aren’t God’s children. They are God’s servants. But we are adopted as sons and daughters and we are co-heirs with Christ!
John obviously was still astonished when he wrote these words:
“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” (I John 3:1)
God is the best Father. He is perfectly loving, wise, kind, and wants the best for His children. He will teach us, guide us, protect us, and provide an amazing inheritance. He knows us inside and out and, as we learned last week, knows what we need even before we ask!
J.I. Packer wrote:
If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child, and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all. . . . “Father” is the Christian name for God.
It is in the truth of our adopted status as sons and daughters of God that we can approach God in prayer.
John Calvin wrote,
“Who would break forth into such rashness as to claim for himself the honor of being a son of God unless we had been adopted as children of grace in Christ?”
The Oval Office is one of the most secure places in the world. A student that went through our ministry actually works in the West Wing but she’s never been in the Oval Office. But there was a very famous picture of John John playing underneath the resolute desk as his Abba, President Kennedy, was working. He wasn’t just anyone. He was the son of the president!
Because we are adopted sons (prince) and daughters (princess) of the King, we have the legal status of God’s children (Gal 4), we have an unbelievable inheritance, and we rest in the grace that He will never “unadopt” us, we can approach the throne of God boldly:
“Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” (Hebrews 4:16)
In the Heavens
We begin the prayer our Father. But least we become too familiar; Jesus reminds us that this Father is “in the heavens.”
He is not “the big man upstairs.” He is close (immanence) but He is also in heaven (transcendent). He is majestic. He is glorious. He is sovereign. He is powerful.
Solomon wrote:
“Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few.” (Ecc 5:1-2)
The Westminster Shorter Catechism describes the preface of the prayer this way,
“The preface of the Lord’s prayer teaches us to draw near to God with holy reverence and confident, as children to a Father, able and ready to help us, and that we should pray with and for others.”
PAPA Prayer
Larry Crabb wrote a book on prayer called the PAPA prayer. I’d like us to spend time in prayer using his acrostic P.A.P.A.
Present yourself to God without pretense. Be real. Be present. Tell Him what is really going on inside your heart.
Attend to how you’re thinking about God. No pretending. How are you experiencing God right now? Is He a vending machine, a frowning father, a distance, and cold force? Or is He your glorious strong but intimate Father?
Purge yourself of anything blocking your relationship with God. Put into words whatever makes you uncomfortable or embarrassed when you are real in relationship with Him.
Approach God as the “first thing” in your life. Admit that other people and things really do matter more to you right now, but you long to want God so much that every other good thing in your life becomes a second-thing desire.
When Love Take You In
Many of you are deeply bothered by our culture’s preoccupation with the death of the unborn. The answer is not ranting on Facebook but supporting the Hope Pregnancy Center and championing adoption. Human adoption is a beautiful word picture of what God did for us through Jesus.
Unconditional love took us in based on nothing in and of ourselves and we become legal children with a forever home.
I want to end today with a video by Steven Curtis Chapman called, “When Love Takes you In.” When their daughter was about ten years old, she came to them and said, “God told me that you guys are going to adopt.” Steven and Mary Beth told Emily that she heard wrong! Emily said, “Okay, I’ll just start praying that you listen better.”
Needless to say, they did adopt and he wrote this song about that process. I want you to put yourself in the little boy or little girl’s place. Are you a child of God? Have you been adopted into God’s family? Has love taking you in?
Video: When Love Take You In
