Our Father

Sermon Style Sheet

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Sermon Text

Sermon Text: Scripture

Call to Worship

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Nehemiah 9:6 CSB

6 You, Lord, are the only God. You created the heavens, the highest heavens with all their stars, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to all of them, and all the stars of heaven worship you.

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Passage:

Formation Journal Page Number: 10:49-11:23 3:14-3:56 4:30-5:09

Matthew 6:9–13 CSB

9 “Therefore, you should pray like this: Our Father in heaven, your name be honored as holy. 10 Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us today our daily bread. 12 And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And do not bring us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

Psalm 103:11–14 CSB

11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his faithful love toward those who fear him. 12 As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. 13 As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him. 14 For he knows what we are made of, remembering that we are dust.

Opening Illustration:

Test Master Chief Brazil

There is a story about an orphanage that’s really sad - it’s a story about - They stop crying because they know no one will come

But there is a flip side to that, there was a cooking show and the woman couldn’t open a jar - so in every dad’s dream, she finds her dad and he opens the jar for her. Greatest dad moment ever.

As Christians, one of the biggest questions we have is this: [Will my HEAVENLY FATHER answer when I call?]

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Getting into the Sermon

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Last week we talked about how the prayers of ordinary faithful christians make a huge impact.

Today, I want to start a look at the Lord’s prayer.

And he starts it off with this

Matthew 6:9 CSB

9 “Therefore, you should pray like this: Our Father in heaven, your name be honored as holy.

The very first line of the prayer is calling God our father. In fact, in some catholic circles this is actually referred to as the Our Father. That’s it’s title.

Do we even see him as a heavenly father:

I used to pray Lord - nothing wrong, I make effort,

[Prayer starts with the CONFIDENCE of a child going to their father]

But it can also cause some problems almost immediately because not everyone had a great father. Sometimes it’s a source of great pain.

I saw this statistic, that people spend, on average, $80 less on father’s day then on mother’s day.

The enemy attacks fathers to distort our view of God

That’s not to be down on Fathers, I know there are a lot of great fathers in this room.

If you are a father, let me just say this, that God has a plan for your life - he want’s you to be a father in such a way that your kids see God through you.

God has a plan and the enemy has a plan, and his plan is that you would be the type of father that causes people difficulty in understanding God.

But for all of you, I am confident that the enemy is going to come up empty handed!

Some people feel weird about the idea that how we were raised would affect us as adults. certainly sometimes that’s been over done. but think about it this way, if you were drafted into war and had to be just behind the front lines, were there were bombs and you had to be there for 10 years, it would affect you. Nobody denies that.

Even if you aren’t under constant danger you are under constant fear, pressure, worry.

And the way that you would know it is affecting you is because you will remember who you were before. There’s a before and an after.

maybe not every day but any moment

As we grow, we spend 18-20 years in our childhood homes, so of course it shapes us. But what makes it tricky is that you don’t have a before to compare it to.

So if you struggle with that, rather than throw out the idea of God as Father, I hope that today you can hear about God’s fatherly love for you and that would help create a new baseline truth. This is what a father is.

So I think a great way to see that, to see who he is, is through

Psalm 103:11–14

Psalm 103:11 CSB

11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his faithful love toward those who fear him.

The first thing we see is God’s love for you. How much does he love you?

I love you to the moon and back

As far as the heavens are from the earth. He is telling people to look up at the stars, not just the clouds, not where the birds are flying, all the way, that is how far.

Think about it, we have satellites that orbit the earth between here and the moon, we have a space station that orbits the earth, and that’s pretty far. That’s huge. That’s a big deal.

That’s his love for us.

Think about this, as you go to him in prayer, you are praying to someone whose love for you is bigger than you can imagine.

He loves us so much that we can get embaressed by his love - it’s hard to beleive

But, you say, how can God love me? Don’t you know what I’ve done? Don’t you know all my sin? There’s no way God could love me!

Well, look at what it says in verse 12

Psalm 103:12 CSB

12 As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

How did he do that? Through jesus

Gospel -

{ABC of Repentance }

Then the section closes this way:

Psalm 103:13–14 CSB

13 As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him. 14 For he knows what we are made of, remembering that we are dust.

Here’s is where things really get wild.

He loves us, he died for us, but he is compassionate towards us.

We don’t think he would be compassionate towards us because we have a unreasonably high view of ourselves.

He remembers that we are dust but we don’t

God forgives me but I can’t forgive myself- he’s actually dealt with it.

We think more highly about ourselves than we should.

But life has a way of humbling us!

Abigail coming home.

Here’s what he says about us - we are dust. Our life span is like a vapor.

[You don’t have the strength to carry your BURDENS by yourself.]

But our life decisions have huge impacts. Three of my grandparents were born in different countries. Their decisions had lasting impact on our whole family.

The decisions that their parents made still impact me. and their parents.

Hundreds of years ago, some guy with the last name elswick, came to america and so now my family is here. But how could he possibly know all the impact of his decisions?

Our lives build on the others people’s lives and our decisions impact our children and their children. But this is an impossible weight for us to carry. How can you possibly shoulder the weight of the generations that come after you?

How can you have the wisdom to know what you should do in any particular situation, to the degree that you could guess or anticipate all the impacts.

You can’t. You are out gunned in life. You are out matched. You aren’t close to understanding God you are dust.

And that can be bad for our ego but it is good for our souls. Because God didn’t leave us as orphans and he understands our weaknesses. He knows we are dust.

How can any one bear under the weight of that. So the question is who do you go to for help?

Or will your heavenly father answer when you call.

That depends greatly on how you see him.

Many people see him as angry and critical.

Stop coming forward for the altar call

Some people see God as annoyed and busy, sometimes because that’s the way your father reacted to you.

The compassion of the father is so important to know because we hide from people who are critical and angry. We crouch down in fear.

In the garden of eden they hid.

The enemy wants you to be afraid, doubt the fatherliness of God so that you hide.

[People in HIDING don’t pray.] They don’t have confidence.

So I want you to break free from that.

So what are the things you need to stop hiding and start taking to the father?

Are you imperfect? That’s not surprising - I’ll go one further - you are dust

So if you could imagine that going to God in prayer was like this, imagine an old timey tv show where there is a dad who has his study his office, and maybe he’s wearing sports coat reading the paper. And a child walks in to interrupt him. And says, excuse father. Hey Dad, the father puts down the newspaper and looks at the child what’s his face look like? If he’s like our heavnily father, ihe smiles. He knows your small. He knows your weak, but he is filled with love and compassion and is glad you came.

IN the Revelation that our prayers are like sweet smelling incense to God.

You aren’t inerrupting him when you pray, he wants to talk to you. Your prayers bless him. He’s your father, its a joy to talk to your children. Even when theya re in need and have messed up.

I am convinced, that if you could see God’s heart, if you could understand just a fraction of his love for you, that you wouldn’t shrink back in prayer but you would rush up to him. You would be so amazed by God’s love that you wouldn’t be jealous of anyone else, instead you would be convinced that you were his favorite.

So if we know that he is compassionte and that he loves us - let’s pray that way.

Look one of the big fears is fear of asking wrongly. Do you know how many times the bible critizes people for praying wrongly - something like 5 or 6. Do you know how often it tells people to pray, hundreds. God is far more concerned that you got to him then he is that you ask for the perfect things.

Why? He can correct your desires s you pray, he can’t correct your desires if you don’t pray. Your hiding/ You are far from him.

Having you been keeping anything back from God?

Hannah pouring out her heart with her anguish and resentments

One of the things I want you to be praying, as you pray about Mercy Hill Church is this: if we think of God as critical and demanding we won’t go to him to be used.

So what should our response be?

There’s a guy on youtube named Mr. Beast, and he famously gives out a lot of money and teslas. If he gave you a Tesla or a 10,000 what woud you do? You would say great things about him. IF someone criticized him online, you would say, “No way, he’s great!”

If your car breaks down and you find a mechanic who is honest and cheap and good. What do you do? You promote him! Anytime someone has a problem with a car you say, “Hey you should go to my Guy!”

[We repay generosity with PROMOTION.]

That’s what we do with Christ. If we understand his love, his care, his compassion than we naturally want to promote him. We want his kingdom to grow. We want other people to get the same benefits that we do and that God receives the glory He should.

So why don’t we? I think we don’t do it because we fear that if we fail he will be angry.

When someone is impossibly critical of us, we usually don’t try hard to please them. Sometimes, there’s even a weird paradox. If we are supposed to do something for a critical person and we think we will fail, we just don’t try. We don’t do it.

Why? I think it’s because we think the person is going to be mad anyway and if we fail, then we know we feel the shame of our own failure. IF we don’t try, we can at least hold out the allusion that we could have been successful if only we had tried.

But Your father is compassionate and loving. And he promises to be with us. He doesn’t leave us alone. My mechanic never comes with me to promote himself. He doesn’t help me. But my heavenly father does.

We don’t have to be afraid. We don’t have to feel the shame that we aren’t good enough either - because we aren’t. We just accept that. It has to be God’s work so that he get’s the glory. What we get to do, in gratitude for his love, is we get to promote Christ with the power of Christ, we get to punch well above our weight because we already have the love and power of Christ.

Last week, I asked you to do me the favor of praying for Mercy HIll this summer. We are all church planters, if you are a part of this church, you are a church planter too.

I want you to go to him as a father, who invites our prayers, who smiles down at us and who loves your prayers like we love sweet smelling incense.

And I want you to ask something bold. I want you to ask that God would use you, little ole you, you who are but dust, with all your failings and hangups, I want you to ask your father to empower you so that you can punch above your weight, so that you could have an impact for his kingdom.

Church isn’t about what the pastor does. It’s about what the spirit of God does through each and everyone of us. Your heavinlgy father dotes on you, loves you, welcomes your prayers and want’s to empower you to make a difference, so let’s pray that he uses us each as individuals, together.

Lord’s Supper:

On the night when he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

25 In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 

Benediction:

The LORD bless you and keep you;

the LORD makes his face shine upon you and be gracious to you:

The LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.