2024-07-07 You Have A Father

Well, we are continuing our series on / / Prayer & Fasting from Matthew 6 in the Sermon on the Mount. Last week we did an introduction to the topic of prayer, reading through a larger portion of Scripture, Matthew 6:5-18, and then really zeroed in on Jesus’ invitation to a life of private prayer.

If you remember from last week we looked at the 4 times Jesus says, / / “When you pray…”

/ / “When you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly…so everyone can see them. I tell you the truth, that is all the reward they will ever get.” (Matthew 6:5)

This was all about motive, right? What is the reason we praying? To be religious, to check our christianity box? To look like a good christian before other people, or maybe to feel good about ourselves that we pray more than someone else does?

And, so what was the antidote to this problem that Jesus was outlining?

/ / “But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private. Then your Father, who sees everything, will reward you.”

See, if we were really doing it for prayers sake, if we were really praying for the sake of our relationship and connection with God then no one would ever have to even know about it. It wouldn’t matter if people knew we prayed. It wouldn’t matter that it was all by ourselves, in the quiet and secret, privately before God. That would actually be all that matters, right? To be before God privately, in conversation with a Father who cares for us, loves us and knows what is best for us.

So, first Jesus corrects the motive of why we pray and brings it back to a deep connection with God. Then he goes on with another issue - what you say when you pray.

/ / “When you pray, don’t babble on and on as the Gentiles do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again…”

I wouldn’t say that repetition is the problem here. Look at what Jesus says, “They think their prayers are answered MERELY by repeating their words again and again…”

Now, this is an interesting one. There have been a lot of studies and research done on the power of positive thinking, on the ability to speak things into reality, or, focus on things so much that our lives direct toward those things. And so this is really challenging again the reason we pray. Are we praying to get stuff? Are we praying to force God to do what we want?

We want something, so we pray and we pray and we pray until he does it?

Is that any different than saying we’re putting it out there for the universe so that the universe will direct good things to us?

Again, I don’t think the repetition is the issue. But when we see the natural ability within ourselves, with how our brains work. Honestly. The stories you hear of people putting a picture on their vision board, and living their lives believing for that thing, and their trajectory is influenced and molded by their desire to attain what they want. Do we call that an answer to prayer?

We see this after every championship in sports. “I want to thank God. He’s the one who got me here.”

Maybe. And I won’t discount that. And giving God glory is always a good idea. But you worked for that. You put that thing in front of your face every day until you succeeded. You put yourself in the gym, on the track, on the court, whatever it is, over and over and over again, day after day, failure after failure until you saw success in your life.

I did not. So I am not a champion athlete.

What’s Jesus challenging? The greek and roman mentality that there are gods of various influence that you must appease through constant “prayer” so that they will do what you want. You need rain, go to the rain god everyday, bring your gifts and your words over and over and over until you bend the will of that god to give you rain. Why? Because you did it enough.

And the antidote to this? The fourth “When you pray…” statement, said a bit differently. And let’s just read a few verses here. Matthew 6:9-13, And I’m going to read it from the ESV today:

/ / “Pray then like this:

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

Your Kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

Ok, so, “When you pray, don’t pray in public for recognition, pray in private. And when you pray, don’t use empty words, thinking the words themselves are what have influence or power, but instead, pray like this.” And he gives this short little prayer that is just packed with the heart and soul of both personal and corporate prayer, and over the next 6 weeks we are going to peel the layers of this back and focus on why Jesus would tell his disciples to pray this way.

The first thing we have to recognize, I think, is that Jesus is not saying, “This is the only way to pray” or “Use these words exactly when you pray” although that’s certainly not a bad thing. What we have come to call the Lord’s Prayer is probably the most prayed prayer in the world. Again, certainly not a bad thing. But, what I would suggest this morning is what Jesus is really saying is, “This is a model for prayer, follow it when you pray to keep your heart in the right posture before God.”

There are recorded prayers throughout the New Testament. From Jesus and from others. So we know that there is more to this than just giving us the right “words” to say. I would say this is about saving us from falling into those temptations he’s just warned against.

Don’t pray this way, but pray this way. Don’t do that, do this. Don’t seek human recognition, seek your Father in the private place and He will reward you. Don’t let words just be words.

And let me just say as well, praying this prayer directly is powerful. There are prayers that have been, let’s say, crafted, that are well thought out and that we can use in time of need.

I’ve mentioned many times the Serenity Prayer, which many people in recovery use as a lifeline of prayer: “God, give me the grace to accept with serenity the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

There’s another prayer I often use that helps me just focus on Jesus. How many, when you sit down to pray, suddenly are flooded with thoughts, distractions and your to-do list? There’s a prayer called the Jesus Prayer. It’s the simplest little prayer, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

Sometimes I find myself just praying that. Not in repetition because I think that is what God needs to change his mind, but in sequence because that helps me direct my focus on Him and to clear my thoughts of all the distractions.

Now, one more quick thing before we get to the verse we will focus on today.

Some of you may have wondered why there’s a missing line in that prayer. Some of you may not have noticed, and that’s ok.

How many grew up praying, or hearing this with an additional line at the end, / / “For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”

I love that line. So much so that I wrote a song called “Thine is the Kingdom”! So, why is it missing? When I preach I mostly read from the NLT and the ESV, but the NASB, a version I also highly respect for it’s translation, has this line in it.

Why? Well, this is a matter of biblical accuracy and one of the many reasons we can trust scripture.

Most bibles will have this, but I can’t speak for all, so I’ll reference the ones we offer here for free. And if you do not have a good bible, grab one from the back table on your way out. We have regular and large print. But if you read this passage of scripture from the NLT we have on the table, you’ll noticed in Matthew 6:13, which is the end of this model prayer from Jesus, you’ll see an “*” (asterisk). That means there’s a note about that verse. And if you go to the far right column of the page, and to the bottom, you’ll see all the notes that are referenced on those two pages, with a little chapter and verse reference number. Find 6:13 and see what it says, / / “Some manuscripts add ‘For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.’”

Now, some people get unnecessarily bent out of shape over things like this. I just saw it recently. Someone had posted a picture online over missing scriptures from the NIV and how the publishing company that prints and puts out the NIV was evil and had secret agendas to corrupt scripture.

Except, that’s not the case at all. Now, I’m not saying be aware that not everyone is always 100% honest or truthful and that we shouldn’t be paying attention to whether these types of things do or have taken place. BUT, in the case of the ones that were referenced, each one of them said something similar to what we see here on this verse. Some manuscripts have this, some don’t. And bible translators and publishers decided on the basis of quality and quantity of manuscripts to determine if these things are included. Now, these are few and far between. I think there are less than a handful of these types of situations, and most of them are explained in this way.

And like I said, this is one of the many reasons we can trust scripture, the quality and quantity of manuscripts that have been found… but I don’t want to get too far into it today, so I’ll leave it at that. But, if you were wondering, “Where is my For thine is the kingdom, power and glory, forever…” that’s where it is. or is not.

So, now to the first thing Jesus says about how we should pray - which is our focus for this morning, Matthew 6:9, / / “Pray then like this: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.”

The NLT says it this way, / / “Pray like this: Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy.”

I’ve told you about a website called biblehub.com before, and they give you a huge list of different translations of the bible. Well, of the 32 translations of this particular verse that first come up on biblehub.com, 20 of them use the word “hallowed”. Most of the rest say something to the effect of “may your name be kept holy”.

A couple of them that stood out to me as I was reading them were:

CEV - / / “Our Father in heaven, help us to honor your name.”

GNT - / / “Our Father in heaven: May your holy name be honored;”

So, There are three things we want to look at from this opening verse:

/ / We Have a Father

He is in Heaven

His Name is Holy

The first is a matter of revelation, the second is a matter of truth, and the third is a matter of posture. And I’ll explain what I mean by all of that.

/ / 1. We Have A Father

This is the most important part of this first line. And with this opening line of this “model prayer” we have an invitation from Jesus to call God Father. He is saying, / / “This is how you should pray. Our Father…”

This would not be an entirely new concept, but was for a sure a point of contention between the religious leaders and Jesus, this idea that he was calling God his father, personally. And now he’s inviting all of us to say it.

The Old Testament does refer to God as Father in some places, but it was far more common to refer to God as God, Adonai, Yahweh. Terms of reverence.

And the issue the Pharisees had was that in the Old Testament conversation about God as Father, that terminology was directed toward Israel as his children. God was the Father of Israel. But Jesus changes everything and starts saying God was HIS father. Just as we’ve seen Jesus do before, “You’ve heard it said, but I tell you…” He’s correcting their understanding of what the OT was saying.

So, without saying it, Jesus is saying, “You’ve heard it said that God is the Father of Israel, but I tell you, God is not just the Father of Israel, not just My personal Father, but He is the Father of all humanity.” This is the invitation, right? Jesus says in John 14:6, / / “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.”

This is why I keep saying, the journey, or / / the life of the Christian is to follow Jesus by being with him, becoming like him and doing what he does, by the leading and power of the Holy Spirit, because of and toward the love and acceptance of the Father.

And we can read all we want about God as Father. But true revelation can only come through the power of the Holy Spirit. Father is too much of a messy word in this world. Some of us had good fathers, some of us had bad fathers, some of us had completely absent fathers, some fathers left, some fathers died, some fathers were abusive and angry. Some fathers operate more out of pain than they do out of love. Some fathers, doing the best they can with what they have and doing well, still fall short of the perfection that is God the Father. And on top of that, we often have father figures in our lives that don’t always do well. People we look to as a father figure, and maybe they betray us, or hurt us. Even the best of earthly fathers, and father figures will never be all that God the Father is.

And we simply cannot come to an understanding of the perfection that is God the Father without the revelation of the Holy Spirit!

So, even this morning, as we are talking about this - let’s rely on Holy Spirit as we look at what Jesus reveals about the Father.

God works through the natural, and he works through the spiritual. The Spirit of God brings revelation and we can truly and genuinely experience God. And he also works through the truth. Jesus said in John 8:31-32, / / “You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings. And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

There is freedom in knowing the truth. Which means in areas where we may not have known God as a Father, or where we may have experienced negative fathers or father figures in our lives, the truth that God IS our Father is an invitation to freedom. You do not have to have an earthly representation to experience God as Father. And this is what Jesus is inviting us into when we follow him.

“If you are my disciples, remain faithful to my teachings….

Follow me…I will lead you to the Father, because no one can come to the father except through me.”

So, I want to look at four different aspects of the Father that Jesus reveals to us in His teaching and ministry that I believe can bring us to truth, which can lead us to freedom, which can lead us to revelation of God as Father for our own lives, which brings security, comfort and confidence.

/ / God is Father of All

The first thing we need to realize about God as Father is that He truly is Father of all. He is not Father of those who choose to be his children, but he is Father of all humanity. We see this perfectly represented in the Old Testament. Whether they were faithful or faithless, Israel was always God’s children, and his desire was always that they return to Him.

We do not become valuable to God when we become Christian. The very reason Jesus came to this earth was because we were already valuable to Him. John 3:16, / / “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.”

This is preemptive love. / / God LOVED the world… that word is the greek word [kosmos’] it’s where we get our word cosmos, which means the universe seen as a well-ordered whole.

We’ve talked about this before, God is the God of all creation. Everything seen and unseen is His handiwork. And He is invested in His creation, and most of all the humanity within it. God has never ceased to be God of all creation.

Also, within this, / / God has always been Father. God did not become a Father when Jesus was born to Mary. We believe / / the trinity is the fullness of God in eternity. Meaning, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit have always existed and will always exist. Outside of time and space, / / before time was even created by God, The Father had a Son, the Son had a Father.

In the beginning, with the creation story, the Father existed. Humanity is created out of the will and love of God the Father, the word who is Jesus Christ, and the breath of God, the Spirit.

Paul says in Ephesians 4:4-5, / / For there is one body and one Spirit, just as you have been called to one glorious hope for the future. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all, in all, and living through all.

Now, I don’t think we can get this confused with the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ that we receive through faith. Being the children of God doesn’t automatically mean we are following Him, doesn’t automatically mean we are living in His house.

One thing I’ve seen about humanity, regardless of how good God is, whether we know he’s our father or not, we are pretty good at removing ourselves from His presence.

So, the first thing we have to see, / / God is Father of all.

/ / The Father Accepts You

In Luke 15 the Pharisees and teachers of religious law were upset with Jesus because he was hanging around people they saw as sinful, as undeserving of Jesus’ attention. They were offended that Jesus would eat at the same table as tax collectors and others that they really hated, and had excommunicated from their society. And in response to this, Jesus tells three stories, parables. The first is about a shepherd who has 100 sheep, and one runs away. He searches tirelessly for that one sheep, until he finds it. And when he does, he rejoices.

The second story is about a woman who had 10 silver coins, lost one, and searches all night until she finds it. And when she does, she rejoices.

Of both of those stories Jesus says, “Isn’t heaven the same? When one sinner returns, heaven rejoices.”

But then he tells a much longer story, and Luke says he does so to really drive home the point. And this is the story of the prodigal son, or some call it the lost son.

If you know the story, a wealthy man has two sons, and the younger son asks for his portion of the inheritance. Now, you wouldn’t normally get the inheritance until your father dies, but this son doesn’t want to wait. And he takes the money, and runs off, wastes it all on the worst living possible. And when he’s finally broke and all alone, he decides he’s going to go back home, and gravel before his father, asking him to just be a servant in his house, because that’s better than his life now. He has nothing.

Read Luke 15 this week for the full story. It’s beautiful.

But the story really comes to it’s peak when this son who has wasted his inheritance, wasted his life, thinks he is now worthless and his father surely has disowned him, comes walking home, head sunk in shame. And Luke 15:20 says, / / “And while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him.”

Now, this is a beautiful story of redemption, of someone being close to the father, then turning away, and coming close again. This gives us a lot of basis to call home the prodigals, to call home those who were once close to God but have gone astray. Maybe you raised your children to follow Jesus, but right now they’re not. Pray in the fashion of this story. Pray that God meets your children in their absence and they hear the love and compassion of the Father calling them home!

This story gives a lot of reason AND hope to believe God draws people back and is waiting with open arms to accept them when they come back.

But I also want to note this. This story is Jesus’ response to hanging out with people who the Pharisees and religious leaders think he should not hang out with. The worst of the worst, the sinners, those who do not belong. Those who are still “far off”. And his answer to their questions is to tell a story of the Father’s love, compassion and acceptance.

And he’s not just waiting for THEM to wake up and come home, he’s gone to them and is sitting with them. Which is what has the Pharisees bent out of shape in the first place!

So, the Second thing we need to understand about God as Father is that the Father accepts us - not with our sin. Don’t hear that. Jesus didn’t give a pass on sin. Jesus called everyone to follow him, leaving their past behind, leaving their sin behind. So, regardless of our past, our sin, our downfalls, Jesus calls us to follow him to the Father. Whatever we have done, however we have walked away, He is waiting for us to recognize Him as Father again.

I think that’s a key point in the story. The son wasn’t even sure if the father would see him as a son. He had resolved within himself that he would not be the Father’s son, he simply wanted to be the father’s servant. He didn’t see himself as a son, and in that sense, he didn’t really see his Father as a father. He didn’t understand the goodness of his father.

And in the same way, humanity, those far from God, who don’t understand the goodness of God, who don’t understand his love and compassion, that that doesn’t change the truth of who God is and how He sees us. Pray for that revelation to be revealed to those you are believing to be saved!

/ / The Father Loves You

In the story of the prodigal son it is the love and compassion of the Father that shines through. And the love of God for his children is evident all over the place. John 3:16, which we already read, for / / God so loved the world…

The story of the prodigal son, explaining the heart of God for people, Jesus says, / / “Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him.”

There’s also a moment in the life of Jesus that defines his place as a son to the Father. You would think Jesus wouldn’t need that, right? Does Jesus need affirmation? Does Jesus need to be told he’s a son, he’s loved by the Father?

It would appear so. Isaiah 53:3, which is a prophecy about the coming Messiah, Jesus, says that he is / / a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief.

Hebrews 4:15 says, / / This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin.

And in the Garden of Gethsemane, before he is arrested and murdered, Matthew 26:38-39 says that Jesus tells his disciples, / / “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death…” and he goes into prayer, “My Father! If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.”

It’s clear Jesus shares in our human emotions, our human questions, our human desires. Yet, and I believe because of his closeness to the Father and the leading and power of the Holy Spirit, he is empowered to fulfill God’s purpose.

And I think this all goes back to one moment, the moment of his baptism.

In Matthew 3:13-17 Jesus comes to John the Baptist, this is before Jesus has done any miracles, he hasn’t preached a single sermon, he hasn’t called a single disciple to follow him. And he comes to John to be baptized. And Matthew 3:16-17 says, / / After his baptism, as Jesus came up out of the water, the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and settling on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my dearly loved Son, who brings me great joy.”

The ESV says, / / “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

The Father takes joy, has pleasure, is well pleased with Jesus that did not come from him doing anything for the Father. This is a love and acceptance that precedes any action.

One of the great struggles of humanity is feeling like we need to earn love, earn acceptance, earn affection. People who become athletes in hopes their dads will be proud, or education, business, whatever it is, in hopes someone will just be proud of us, someone will show us acceptance and affection for our achievements. We all know that feeling, when someone compliments us, it feels good.

God the Father, through this simple act in the baptism of Jesus is saying, “You don’t need to DO to be loved and accepted. You simply need to BE. Let me love you because I love you. Not because you have earned it, or deserve it, or did something to obtain it. Let that fall away. Let the need to prove your worthiness of love fall away and let me simply love you, for you, because I do.”

Listen, it’s bad news if God only loves us for what we can do for him, because if that’s the case then there are plenty of us that aren’t going to get loved, and there is no hope for the world. It is precisely the fact that that God DOES love us when we are worthless sinners that shows how great his love and acceptance actually are. Romans 5:8, / / But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.

/ / The Father Gives You the Holy Spirit

Not only does God love us, but he shows it by giving us gifts. First the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ, second the gift of the Holy Spirit. So, a few verses from the gospel of John.

John 14:16, 26, 15:26, 16:7, says:

/ / And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you…

/ / But when the Father sends the Advocate as my representative, that is, the Holy Spirit - he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you…

/ / But I will send you the Advocate - the Spirit of truth. He will come to you from the Father and will testify all about me…

/ / But in fact, it is best for you that I go away, because if I don’t the Advocate won’t come. If I do go away, then I will send him to you.

The gift of the Holy Spirit is the gift of the comforter, advocate, counselor, spirit of truth, guidance, leading, the one who reminds us of what Jesus has said and done, who will testify to us about Jesus.

Recently I heard Bill Johnson preach this, and I had never thought of it this way.

The disciples had Jesus… in the flesh! The Son of God. The Messiah. The Christ. There with them, working miracles and healings, doing signs and wonders, preaching and teaching truth and revelation. And what does he say? / / …it is BEST for you that I go away. The ESV says, / / …it is to your ADVANTAGE that I go away.

What’s Jesus saying? It is more profitable for you that I leave and the Holy Spirit come.

Imagine that. You have Jesus, the Messiah, with you and he’s saying that it’s the absolute best case scenario that he goes away so that someone else can come. Who’s more than Jesus? And this isn’t to say that one person of the Trinity is more valuable than another, it is the fulness of the trinity that we rely on - God in three persons completely. But the indwelling, filling, Spirit of God who is a gift of the Father comes to us to bear witness of Jesus Christ in and through our lives, to remind us of our salvation and of our future!

Ephesians 1:12-14 says, / / God’s purpose was that we Jews who were the first to trust in Christ would bring praise and glory to God. And now you Gentiles have also heard the truth, the Good News that God saves you. And when you believed in Christ, he identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit, whom he promised long ago. The Spirit is God’s guarantee that he will give us the inheritance he promised and that he has purchased us to be his own people. He did this so we would praise and glorify him.

/ / …when you believed in Christ, he identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit…

You have been sealed, consecrated, identified as Gods by the Holy Spirit, who is a gift. James 1:17 says, / / Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow.

So, this is God the Father.

/ / God is Father of all // He accepts you //He loves you as much and in the same way as he loves Jesus, and he has given you the Holy Spirit when you believed in Christ.

And this is what Jesus is establishing in the first line of his teaching on prayer. / / “Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be thy name.”

That’s where it starts, understanding, recognizing WHO God the Father is. Who God the Father wants to be for us. As I said earlier, not everyone has had the best father. Not everyone knows how to identify with a good father. Some don’t trust the word father.

And I encourage you today, begin to pray for a revelation of God as Father. And we will do so at the end of this service today, but begin, in your own time, everyday, asking God, “Would you reveal yourself to me as Father.”

He is a trustworthy, loving, accepting, gift giving Father. He is good. He is kind. He is safe. And whether we understand that or not. Let the truth of those words begin to sink in. The truth will set you free. Free to believe and free to accept the love of the Father. Free to experience Him as Father God. It’s hard to experience what we do not trust, and God does not love by forcing himself on us. Allow yourself to begin to trust, even through fear.

/ / 2. He Is In Heaven

The Second part of this opening prayer line is where God the Father is. / / Our Father in heaven, hallowed by thy name.

I wouldn’t say this is as simple as saying, “God lives in heaven”, but I would like to suggest that this is a recognition of the seat of authority that God holds.

Isaiah 66:1-2 says, / / This is what the Lord says: “Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool. Could you build me a temple as good as that? Could you build me such a resting place? My hands have made both heaven and earth; they and everything in them are mine.”

This is an invitation to lift our eyes up and correctly direct our focus on God.

He’ll say this later, right, “Don’t store up treasures on earth, but store them in heaven.” It is the same in prayer.

When you pray, You are praying to your Father, yes, he is kind, and compassionate and loving, but he’s also God Almighty, in Heaven, creator of the cosmos! Don’t forget that! Don’t forget how great this God you are praying to is!

There’s something about putting these two things together. There are scriptures where Jesus calls God, Abba, and Paul says to us the same, in Romans 8:15, / / 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.”

Abba was the close, personal, daddy kind of word for Jewish children. Abba, dad, daddy, rather than the more formal, or paternal “father”.

Father is the greek word pater, which is the word that Jesus uses in Matthew 6:9, / / our Father in heaven.

Now, I don’t think this is wrong, or bad, some people get very personal in their prayer to God, They’ll talk to him with that kind if language, “Daddy God…” and I won’t say that’s bad. But I think there’s a uniqueness in the way that Paul says this in Romans. The ESV says that / / it is by the Spirit of God, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”

To me that says when we come to God we can recognize that close, personal, caring, loving, compassionate and genuine dad’ness while also holding him in reverence as the Father of all creation, Father God, who created the universe, Father God who’s throne is heaven and earth his footstool.

I want Kaylee to always come to me as her daddy. I never want her to lose that. I never want her to get so formal that she forgets I’m her dad, her abba, and just treats me like her pater, the biological being that gave her life. But also, on the other side, we all know, and I don’t say this because I demand it, but because it is something we must teach our children, that there is a respect and honor of the father that is both healthy and necessary. I have been given the awesome and terrifying responsibility to father this young girl in life. To teach her, train her, and lead her to be a woman after God’s own heart. And I do that BOTH by being abba, and being father.

Does that make sense?

Jesus says, when you pray, pray like this. Father, pater, the creator of the universe who is himself in heaven, Almighty God…

Which leads us to our last point for this morning.

/ / 3. His Name is Holy

So, remember I said in the beginning that of the 32 translations that biblehub.com gives you first, 20 of them use the word hallowed. / / Hallowed be your name.

Where some translations say, “Your name be kept holy” or “Your name is Holy” or “Holy is your name”, the word hallowed, as old fashioned as it might sound, expressed the thought well, it means / / “to make holy, to render or acknowledge, to separate from profane things and dedicate to God…”

When we talk about the third commandment, from Exodus 20:7, / / “You must not misuse the name of the Lord your God.” or as other translations put it, “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.” we talk about the fact that the word ‘name’ there talks of God’s character.

When we talk about the name of God, we are talking about His character, what God represents, how he holds himself and acts. This is someone’s name. We use that as a saying, “Do they have a good name?” What’s that mean? It means, does their character bring up good feelings or bad feelings? It talks of integrity. We use it for people, we also use it for products. Someone says, “I bought a _____” put in a name brand you don’t like, and what do you say, “Oh ya, that’s not a very good name.”

I think Jesus is saying two things here.

First, / / recognize God’s name is what it is…Holy.

Second, / / revere God’s name AS Holy.

This invokes both recognition and worship.

So, Jesus starts with this. When you pray, pray like this… Our Father, Creator of Heaven and Earth, Master of the Universe, Almighty God, who sits in the heavens, and puts his feet on the earth as his footstool, We honor who you are, God, Creator, Savior, We magnify your holy name, celebrate and honor your character, your goodness, your faithfulness. Jehovah, Deliverer, provider, conquering God of angel armies… and we worship you. You are Holy. You are set apart. You alone are God.

When you pray….start with this posture.

/ / Recognize WHO you are praying to. The POSITION that He has. And REVERE Him for who He is.

I’m not coming to you graveling and begging and trying to win your favor like the gentiles do, repeating over and over again to appease the gods. I’m not crying aloud in the streets to be recognized as righteous and holy myself, like I’m some sort of spiritual goodie-too-shoes like the hypocrites do. I am coming to you as my Father who is loving and kind, yet powerful and mighty, God of the universe, maker of heaven and earth, creator of all things, who is holy, who is set apart, who is the one true God.

And in that, like I said, some of it only comes through revelation. And I am praying and believing that each of us comes into a deep and personal revelation of God as Father that can only be revealed by the power of the Holy Spirit, so that in that, in the true greatness of who He is as Father, we also see his greatness as God of heaven and earth, of all creation, so that we honor and worship His name, we thank him for his good character and faithfulness.

Let’s pray this morning.