Our Father in Heaven

Introduction

Prayer is one of those things that as Christians we know we are supposed to do. Certainly it comes naturally when we are facing difficult or dangerous situations. We tend to be crisis prayer warriors.

However, prayer as a regular, ongoing, relational activity that we maintain with our God, if we are honest, is something that many of us struggle with.

Deep inside we wonder if we are doing it right and whether God is pleased with the way and the consistency with which we communicate with Him.

That is because there is a fundamental difference between knowing how to say prayers and understanding what prayer actually is. I believe this discrepancy prompted the disciples to ask Jesus for a prayer lesson.

In Luke's account one of the disciples comes to Jesus and says, "Lord, teach us to pray," which is an interesting request considering these were Jewish men. Prayer was already part of their lives.

These are not atheists. The idea of living as though there were no God would have been completely foreign to their Jewish worldview. They grew up around prayer. They heard prayer in the synagogue. They knew the Psalms.

Yet after watching Jesus pray, they realized that there was something fundamentally different between what Jesus was doing or perhaps why Jesus was doing it and what they had grown up around.

In Matthew 6 Jesus teaches his disciples how to pray by giving them what we commonly call the Lord's Prayer. We do need to realize from the beginning of this series that Jesus is not simply giving us a script to memorize and repeat.

There's nothing wrong with memorizing the Lord's Prayer but in Matthew 6:9 Jesus says, "Pray like this" or "in this manner." Meaning that he's not giving us words to merely repeat. Remember what he said earlier:

“…do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do…” (Matthew 6:7)

So He is giving us a pattern, a mold, a blueprint, an outline, which is designed to teach us how to approach God.

Over the next 7 weeks we are going to slow this prayer down and examine it piece by piece because every phrase teaches us something about God, about ourselves, and about what should matter when we come before Him.

Today we will examine just the opening: how we are to approach God and why. However, before we dig into that first line of the Lord’s Prayer there are 3 essential corrections we need to establish concerning our approach to prayer.

1. Prayer is not performance.

Matthew 6:5 LSB

5 “And when you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.

Jesus is not condemning public prayer. He had a problem with the person who supposedly had God as his audience, while the people around him were the audience he actually cared about.

These were people who would use public prayer as a means of enhancing their reputation for devoutness: prayer motivated by worldly aspirations for recognition and admiration.

They prayed to be noticed by people; people noticed them. They got exactly what they prayed for.

1. Prayer is not performance.

2. Prayer is not manipulation.

Matthew 6:7–8 LSB

7 “And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words. 8 “Therefore, do not be like them…

This is Jesus confronting the idea that prayer somehow pressures, impresses, persuades, or entices God to act or respond by the sheer tenacity and manipulative skill of the petitioner.

In the pagan world this could include incantations, magical formulas, and multiplied words intended to secure the attention or favor of the gods.

One commentator astutely notes that even Seneca, a Roman stoic philosopher ridiculed such efforts as merely “fatiguing the gods.” Jesus says, “don’t be like them”

1. Prayer is not performance.

2. Prayer is not manipulation.

3. Prayer rests on relationship.

Matthew 6:8 LSB

…your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.

Meaning that you are not informing Him of something He does not already know, so prayer is more about the relationship than about the exchange of information.

Of course the obvious question is: if God already knows what I need before I ask Him, why do I need to ask?

If the purpose of prayer were simply to give God information, Jesus just made prayer unnecessary. Your Father already knows so prayer must be about something more than informing God of what we need.

Pray then in this way: Our Father who is in heaven…

I. “Our” – Prayer Begins With Belonging

This little word seems simple enough but if there's one thing I have learned from Scripture, it is that everything has significance and this word "our" is not the exception.

Jesus does not teach his disciples to begin with "My Father who is in heaven" but with "Our Father." Certainly this does not mean that we cannot pray individually or personally. Jesus told his disciples:

Matthew 6:6 LSB

6 “But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father…

Clearly personal prayer is expected but even when I pray alone, Jesus teaches me to approach God with an awareness that I do not belong to Him alone. Christianity is personal but it is never merely private.

The God who saved us did not simply reconcile us to himself as isolated individuals. He brought us into a family. The Father to whom I pray is also the Father of every other believer who has been united to Christ.

Think of it this way: when one of my children addresses his sibling, he does not say, "My dad is looking for you." He says, “dad is looking for you.”

But when speaking to someone outside of the family, that same child would say, "My dad is looking for you."

When Jesus says "Our Father" he is signaling that the entire prayer has a corporate dimension. Even when I pray privately, Jesus teaches me to remember that I am part of a people:

Ephesians 2:19 LSB

19 So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household,

You see the language: God's household. Salvation has given us a new relationship vertically with God but it also created new relationships horizontally with God's people.

This is why biblical Christianity knows nothing of the idea, "I have Jesus. I don't need the church." God does not merely speak of individuals but of His collective possession:

Revelation 1:6 LSB

6 and He has made us to be a kingdom, priests to His God and Father—to Him be the glory and the might forever and ever. Amen.

You are part of a larger body. A fingernail, a toe, an ear. The apostle Paul says:

1 Corinthians 10:17 LSB

17 Since there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.

1 Corinthians 12:12 LSB

12 For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ.

So when I pray, "Our Father," I cannot think only about my needs, my problems, my family, my health, my finances, my future, and my desires. Jesus is teaching me to pray as someone who belongs to a family.

When my sister is struggling with sin, that belongs in my prayer. When my brother is suffering, that belongs in my prayer. When someone in the church needs provision, that belongs in my prayer.

When believers whom I have never met are being persecuted somewhere else in the world, they belong in my prayer.

Furthermore the “our” in the Lord's prayer destroys any notion of spiritual superiority. There are no first-class and second-class children in the family of God.

The person who has walked faithfully with Christ for over 50 years says, "Our Father," and the person who came to Christ 10 minutes ago says, "Our Father."

The pastor says, "Our Father." The congregation says, "Our Father." The wealthy believer says, "Our Father." The believer who has almost nothing says, "Our Father."

We all come to the same Father as children belonging to the same household. That does not erase the distinctions God has created among us but those distinctions do not establish different levels of access to God.

That prepares us for the next word because "our" tells us that we belong to the family but Father forces us to ask how we got into the family in the first place.

II. “Father” – Prayer is Grounded in Adoption

Jesus teaches his disciples to address God as Father. We are so accustomed to that terminology for God that it does not strike us with the force it should.

We routinely speak about God as our Father. We pray to our Father. We sing about our Father. We have done so for so long that we have lost sight of the fact that calling God Father is an extraordinary privilege.

John 1:12–13 LSB

12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

How did we get into this family? Because God created us? Tempting answer. Extremely simplistic though. Scripture distinguishes God’s relationship with humanity as Creator from the particular relationship believers have with God as Father through redemption and adoption.

There is a huge distinction between those who belong to God and those who do not. You do not belong to God by virtue of just being human.

When Jesus's opponents appealed to God as their Father, Jesus's response was:

John 8:42–44 LSB

42 Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and have come from God, for I have not even come of Myself, but He sent Me. 43 “Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear My word. 44 “You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father…”

Wow… that was not nice. I thought Jesus was nice. He needs to apologize. You know, and the modern scientist needs to apologize to me for saying that I came from an ape. He needs to apologize to himself. And to God for inferring that apes carry His image… anyway I digress…

We cannot assume that because someone exists, that person possesses the relationship Jesus has in mind when He teaches His disciples to pray: “Our Father”

You have to belong to His family before He is indeed your Father. And for you to belong something outside of yourself must happen and Paul tells us what that is:

Romans 8:14–15 LSB

14 For as many as are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. 15 For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry out, “Abba! Father!”

And there is the answer. Adoption. We were not naturally members of his household. God brought us into his family. Adoption is different from justification although the two belong together. God wears different hats.

In justification God is the judge and has declared the guilty sinner righteous because of the righteousness of Christ. Then in adoption that same God turns around and becomes Father by bringing the justified sinner into his household as his child.

God could have forgiven us and left us merely as pardoned criminals but He did more. He did not just have mercy, in which He did not give us what we deserved,

Grace also appeared, in which he gave us what we did not deserve and could never earn. He made us his children. But Paul continues.

Romans 8:16–17 LSB

16 The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, also heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ…

This means that when you pray "Father," you are confessing something about the gospel. You are saying, "I have been brought near." I was not always here but I am here now. Paul says:

Ephesians 2:12–13 LSB

12 remember that you were at that time without Christ, alienated from the citizenship of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

I can say "father" because I have been given access. I belong in this household. Not because I earned my way in, not because I have prayed well enough, not because I have been obedient enough, not because I have been a Christian long enough.

I can call him Father because I belong to his Son. Jesus is essential to our understanding of the Lord's Prayer because Jesus is the Son of God by nature. We are sons and daughters of God by adoption.

Jesus's sonship is eternal. Ours is received. And through our union with Christ His Father becomes our Father. Jesus himself testifies of this when he tells Mary Magdalene:

John 20:17 LSB

“…I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God.”

Does not say "I ascend to our Father and our God" because his sonship and ours are not identical. He distinguishes them: "My Father and your Father." He is the eternal Son.

We are adopted children through the Son, which makes Christian prayer fundamentally trinitarian even before we start using theological terminology for it.

We come to the Father

Through the Son

By the Spirit

When you pray you don't need to try to convince God of anything because your relationship with Him is all based on Him so you approach Him with confidence.

So when you have failed, you pray, Father. When you are ashamed, Father. When you don't know what to say, Father.

When you sin and need forgiveness, Father. When you're frightened, confused, grieving, overwhelmed, whatever, Father. He is not some reluctant deity that you need to fight to get him to pay attention to you.

You are approaching the God who, through Christ, has made you His child. He made that decision not you. So he doesn't require convincing. How about you?

III. “In Heaven” – Prayer Approaches a Father Who Reigns

Jesus does not simply teach us to pray, "Our Father." He says, "Our Father who is in heaven." Those words keep us from misunderstanding everything we have just said about God being our Father.

Because familiarity can sometimes produce casualness. We have access to God. We have been adopted into His family. We are His children.

We can cry out, "Abba, Father," but none of that diminishes who He is. "He is our Father who is in heaven." That language speaks of our Father's Godness, his transcendence, his authority, his sovereignty, his rule:

Psalm 115:3 LSB

3 But our God is in the heavens; He does whatever He pleases.

So don't get it twisted. Yeah He's Daddy but Daddy is God. He does whatever he pleases. Nobody gives him permission. Nobody gives him directions. Nobody overrules his decisions. Nobody frustrates his purposes.

When God decides to act, whether we like it or not, there is no higher court to which someone can appeal. When I have conversations with people and I detect a hint of "that's not fair"

My next question is: Who are you going to appeal the fairness of this to if this is what God has decreed, God has ordained, God has decided?

Nadab and Abihu, sons of Aaron, offered strange fire before Yahweh and fire came out of the presence of Yahweh and consumed them. They died.

Presumably Aaron must have gone to Moses and gone like, "Okay what in the world?" Look at the answer that came back to him.

Leviticus 10:3 LSB

3 Then Moses said to Aaron, “It is what Yahweh spoke, saying, ‘By those who come near Me I will be treated as holy, And before all the people I will be glorified.’” So Aaron kept silent.

You see what happened there? Aaron kept silent. Well what else is he going to do? Who else? God spoke. That's it. God says,

Isaiah 66:1 LSB

1 Thus says Yahweh, “Heaven is My throne, and the earth is the footstool of My feet. Where then is a house you could build for Me? And where is a place that I may rest?

The earth, the place that seems enormous to us, is described as God's footstool so Jesus teaches us to approach God with two realities simultaneously in our mind.

And they do not cancel each other out. These two seemingly contradictory realities must be treated as real and true at all times.

He is Father so I can come near. I have privileges.

He is in heaven so I come with reverence.

One keeps me from being afraid to approach him. The other keeps me from approaching him casually. He's not your buddy and we need both.

If I only understand God's transcendence, I will think of him as this distant, powerful, sovereign, majestic but far-removed being.

If I only understand him as Father, I may become so familiar with God that I begin treating him like my neighbor. Jesus allows neither. He is “Our Father who is in heaven”

He is near enough to hear the cries of his children and sovereign enough to do something about it. This matters because what good would it do to have a father who loves but does not have the power to help?

Human fathers know this limitation well. There have been times when my children have come to me with something they needed. I wanted to fix it but I couldn't. I didn't lack love. I lacked power.

Your father does not only have infinite love for you but he also has unlimited power. There is never a moment when God looks at one of His children and has to say, "I love you but the situation is beyond me."

He never says, "I wish I could help but there's nothing I can do." “I just didn't see this coming. This has gotten out of my control.” As a father those have been my words often, but from God, never.

So when you pray remember that you're not talking to somebody who merely sympathizes with your circumstances. You're talking to the One who reigns over them.

Now that does not mean that God will always do what you ask. In fact the prayer Jesus is teaching us will eventually say, "Your will be done."

God's sovereignty does not mean that prayer gives me control over God. It means I can pray confidently because God is already in control. What have we learned from just this first line?

Our – I belong to His family.

Father – I have been brought into that family through adoption

In heaven – the Father to whom I have been given access reigns over everything.

Christian prayer begins neither with fear nor presumption. We don't approach as strangers trying to get in, but neither as a customer trying to negotiate a transaction.

I approach him with confidence because he is the Father who loves me and also with reverence as the Sovereign who reigns. Now say it with me:

OUR FATHER WHO IS IN HEAVEN