HoHum:
What have you asked (and received) from your father or mother that you would never ask from any other person?
WBTU:
I’m just Dad to them- no reason to put on airs with good old dad. Believe it or not, that is the sort of attitude Jesus urges on His followers. This is fundamental to the red letter prayer life. Because prayer- as Jesus taught it- can be and should be relational. Repeat the Model Prayer from Matthew 6:9-13. The second word in this prayer is Father (Cover Our next week, this one better for Father’s Day). Jesus was not the first person in history to address God as Father, but he clearly surprised His contemporaries not only with the relationship He claimed with His Father but also with the relationship He urged His followers of which to be a part. Our mission is to love people and lead them to a relationship with Jesus Christ- also a relationship with the Father. After Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene, Jesus told her in John 20:17, “…Go… to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” Those early followers of Jesus, who first heard and recorded the words of the Lord’s Prayer, used many terms and titles in praying to God. Here is a short list of the way they probably addressed God in prayer: The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; The Most High God (El Elyon); The Creator of all; the Shield of Abraham; Master of Mighty Deeds; The God who is holy; Adonai (my Lord); The King who loves righteousness and justice; Lord God, King of the universe; Living and eternal King. Such ways of addressing God are biblical and proper, but when Jesus chose a mode of address for His example of how to pray, He took a far more personal approach. With one word, Jesus redefined prayer as relational more than ritual. What is a ritual? The ritual of the birthday cake. Light the candles, sing the song and then blow out the candles (Oh, but now we light the candles, blow them out and then sing the song). What things might become rituals here? Contrast ritual and relational prayer. What value do we find in each?
Jesus taught His followers that a close, intimate relationship with God is the basis of prayer to God. Jesus is encouraging us to call God Papa, Daddy. It is impossible to overemphasize how important this is to the red letter prayer life. It may be the most important thing Jesus taught about prayer.
Thesis: In that single word (Father), Jesus conveyed deep truths
For instances:
I. When we say, “Father,” we assume a relationship
There are some men who are just the male component of a baby- no relationship- it is a stretch to call them a father. God is the Father of all humanity? Well, in one sense yes but in another sense no. Charles Spurgeon says this, “I have never been able to see that creation necessarily implies fatherhood. I believe God has made many things that are not his children. Hath he not made the heavens and the earth, the sea and the fullness thereof? and are they his children? You say these are not rational and intelligent beings; but he made the angels, who stand in an eminently high and holy position, are they his children? "Unto which of the angels said he at any time, thou art my son?” (Hebrews 1:5) I do not find, as a rule, that angels are called the children of God; and I must demur to the idea that mere creation brings God necessarily into the relationship of a Father. Doth not the potter make vessels of clay? But is the potter the father of the vase, or of the bottle? No, beloved, it needs something beyond creation to constitute the relationship, and those who can say, "Our Father which art in heaven," are something more than God's creatures: they have been adopted into his family.” 3 times in the NT the phrase “adoption to sonship” is used. I heard a story about two brothers: one born into a family and the other adopted. Arguing about who was loved more, the biological son reminded the other he was adopted and therefore blood is thicker than water. Without hesitation the adopted son responded, “Mom and dad are stuck with you, but they chose me.” Ephesians 1:4: “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.” Have to accept the adoption- how do we do that? By being born again through the water and the Spirit- John 3:5. E. Stanley Jones wrote, “The first thing in prayer is to get God. If we get Him, everything else follows. Allow God to get at you, to invade you, to take possession of you.” Often joke when talking to my sons on the phone, “Did you check the oil in your car?” Because sometimes have a hard time communicating. When a son is gone for a long time, I miss them, want to talk to them. Same is true of our relationship with God the Father. I miss my time with you by Larnelle Harris- “I miss my time with you, Those moments together, I need to be with you each day, And it hurts Me when you say, You’re too busy,, Busy trying to serve Me, But how can you serve Me, When your spirits empty, There’s a longing in My heart, Wanting more than just a part of you, It’s true, I miss My time with you.” N.T. Wright said, “As soon as one becomes a Christian, he or she can and must say, ‘Our Father’; that is one of the marks of grace, one of the first signs of faith.” No wonder Jesus made Father the first word in the prayer He modeled for His followers. Pray relationally.
II. When we say, “Father,” we avail ourselves of intimacy
Jesus could have used other terms to address God but Jesus struck a much more intimate tone in teaching His followers to pray. He encouraged a prayer posture that is less like a subject approaching a king and more like a child climbing onto a father’s lap. Those early disciples clearly took his praying and teaching to heart, as shown in the writing of Paul: Romans 8:15-
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.” And Galatians 4:5-6: 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.” I personally love to be called Dad. When my children come to me and say, “Father,” I usually say, “What do you want?” Larry Crabb wrote: “Relational prayer is the center of all true prayer…. Fix relational prayer in the exact center of your life. See every day as an opportunity to relate more intimately with your heavenly Papa and to bring His kingdom into your specific circumstances by the way you relate to others. That’s what Jesus did, in the power of the Spirit. And He invites us to do the same thing.”
Author Michael Green writes: Great people have discovered and taught many true and noble things about God. Nobody has known him with the intimacy of Jesus, who could call him Abba, "dear daddy.” When Mahatma Gandhi was dying, one of his relatives came to him and asked, "Babaki, you have been looking for God all your life. Have you found him yet?” "No," was the reply. "I’m still looking.” The humility and the earnestness of a great teacher like Gandhi shine through a remark like that. But it stands in the most stark contrast with Jesus’ claim in Matthew 11:27: “All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.
III. When we say, “Father,” we accept an apprenticeship
My dad loved the military. He worked in a factory for 45 years but was part of the reserves for many years. He retired with 20 years of service and still wished he could serve. My dad encouraged me to seek to be a military chaplain. I said no. I think my dad was disappointed. In Jesus’ day this was rare. Sons and daughters did whatever their parents did. If father was a stonecutter, we became his apprentice and then his partner, until one day we took over the business. That way with Jesus’ earthly dad Joseph- Joseph was a carpenter and then Jesus took over the business until he was baptized and started his public ministry. Now when Jesus told his followers to relate to God as a father, He said it in that context. Good chance the early disciples understood it in that context. Even though our cultural context can be quite different, the context of Jesus telling us to pray relationally still applies. In other words, when we say “Father,” we should understand that we are not only assuming a relationship and availing ourselves of intimacy; we are also accepting an apprenticeship. What am I talking about? Let’s go to Mark 14:32-36: They went to a place called Gethsemane, and Jesus said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” He took Peter, James and John along with him, and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled. “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,” he said to them. “Stay here and keep watch.” Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. “Abba, Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” N.T. Wright says of this account: “Calling God “Abba, Father” was not simply comfortable or reassuring. It contained the ultimate personal challenge. In John’s Gospel, Jesus uses the image of father and son to explain what he himself was doing. (John 5:19- Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.). In that culture, the son is apprenticed to the father. He learns his trade by watching what the father is doing. When he runs into a problem, he checks back to see how his father tackles it. That’s what Jesus is doing in Gethsemane, when everything suddenly goes dark on him. Father, is this the way? Is this really the right path? Do I really have to drink this cup? What we see in Gethsemane is the apprentice son, checking back one more time to see how the Father is doing it and wants it done. That’s why calling God “Father” is the great act of faith, of holy boldness, of risk. Saying “Our Father” isn’t just the boldness, the sheer cheek, or walking into the presence of the living and almighty God and saying, “Hi, Dad.” It is the boldness, the sheer total risk, of saying quietly, ‘Please may I, too, be considered an apprentice son.’”
Where does God want you to be an apprentice?
