Our Father in Heaven

I say, thanks to Jewel and stand for singing and Jennifer playing. Those are bold words. Christian. I'm a Child of God. Yes. I am. Are you cheeky enough to say that Christian? Can you really say that? Can you really pray? What the Lord's Prayer? The beginning of the Lord's Prayer. Jesus said, pray, then like this, Our Father in Heaven. That's a bold statement, isn't it? I mean to say I'm a Child of God. Yes. I remember the first time I heard that song. I remember thinking. Can I say that? I mean it's kind of like the kids, you know, putting on dad's clothes in Stratton around like, hey, man, I'm not putting on a little kids love to put on their big daddy shoes and walk around in their trip and fall on their face, you know, man. I'm just like to unlock my daddy. It's bold to say our father in Heaven. Our Father in Heaven is the foundation of Prayer. It's the only reason we can pray it all is because he is our father. It's the foundation of your relationship with God. It's the foundation of Jesus, who Jesus is, who Jesus relationship with God, is our father in Heaven, is a very trinitarian phrase. We learn who God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In these words, Our Father in Heaven is a gospel oriented phrase, because you cannot say our father in Heaven, unless the sun has set you free and set. You free indeed. Right now. I think that people they kind of poo poo the idea of God as father because well, let's face it bothers our kind of a imperfect Bunch, right? Our culture give Dad the bad rap, you know, Dad's are known for, you know, maybe Ties on Father's Day and bad jokes, and that's really about it in our culture. They get a bad rap in the ancient world. It was very different. We'll talk about, then. You know, these first words of the Lord's Prayer, our, Our Father in heaven. And I think those words are very much worth our attention. You know, this isn't just about God's name. It's about God's relationship to you. It's about end. This with the word pair is all about how you approach this being we call God is very much affected by what you think about God, right? We talked last week about how Jesus warned, not to pray like the Hypocrites, like the Gentiles do because they don't really have this relationship with God. They're not connected to God. They don't want God. They just want God stuff. And those two types of people at Jesus warned us, not the prey, like, they really correspond the two to the two types of suns and Jesus. Parable of the prodigal, son. You remember the story, you know, the younger son said to the father. I want my hair done. Said he goes out and he spends it in Wild living and he ends up, you know, eating pig food, right? And then he kind of comes to his senses at the end of his rope. Hey, sis. I'm going to go back to my father, but I'm not worthy to call him my father anymore. I'll just be a slave cuz I know that my father treats his slaves pretty good. I'll just go back and work for him. You know the story proud of the word prodigal. It means to be extravagant and recklessly lavishness why we call him The Prodigal Son. But that story friends is not really about the prodigal son. It's really about the prodigal father. The father was extravagant and recklessly lavish in his love for his son. And when he comes back, the father runs to the Sun and instead of kill the fatted calf, put my robe on. Here's my rain because my son has come home. The, the sun was going to say I'll just be a slave. The father says, you are a love the sun. You can call god father. You can pray, Our Father in heaven. Now, there's several reasons. We can probably talk about lots of reasons. But let's just talk about if you this morning, why you can call god father will. First of all, you can call god father because that's his relationship to humanity, right? He brought you into the world and he can take you out. You put it that way, right? He's your father. He created you. He brought you into this world with purpose and intention. You are not an accident. I'll say that again, you are not an accident, God brought you into this world. He's your father in the since the creation. Some people think that the idea of God as father is a new testament idea. That's not really true at all. Even in the prophet Isaiah tells us that God is the father to all people because of his creative power, besides Isaiah 64 verse 8, but now oh Lord, you are our father. We are the clay. You are our Potter. We are all All the work of your hand human beings are created in the image of God, like father, like son. That's the idea of the image of God. We are to represent God to one another and in this sense. Yes, all people should call god father. Well, that's true. But I'll people don't do that. In fact, a lot of people don't call Godfather. I would say most people don't want anything at all to do with their heavenly father because of humans are kind of Brats to our father. Our way. We're spoiled brat. We we rejected Our Father, we chose another to lead and guide us humans should call God our father, but we kind of lost the right. We we chose Another, We're blinded by our sin. Our sinful nature to think that we don't need any. Stinking Godfather us. I can do it all myself. End the world war war attributed, our existence to anything and everything. Except for God, random chance Evolution. Even Little Green Men from Mars, anything else possible except for the fatherhood of God. Because sending enslaves us to a different father who blames us and enslaves us to a slave driver, who hates and wants to kill his children. That's what the devil does. Now. This is not going to be something comfy, cozy to hear for you on Sunday, morning, on Sunday morning here, if you hate God. And if you don't have faith in Jesus, and you live, like the Devil's Child, then you are the Devil's Child, right? 1st. John 3 says, this by this. It is evident who are the children of God and who are the children of the devil? Whoever does not practice righteousness, is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. You don't like being called the devil child. How about this little nugget from Jesus Sea called, the whole crowd of Jewish people. He's talking to in John chapter 8. He called them straight up children of the devil. This is John 8 verse 42. Jesus said to them, if God were your father out. If God were your father you would love me for I came from God and I'm here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. Why do you not understand what I said? Here's the reason is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father, the devil and your will is to do your father's desires. We talked about making a crowd mad. Jesus wasn't winning friends and influencing people there. He was making them hopping mad and they were ready to kill him. Right there for saying these things. I kind of got some people mad at me for teaching this idea. I was teaching the church youth group and this is years ago. About these verses in 1st, John 3. What Jesus said is that if you hate God, and if you don't have faith in Jesus and you live like the world, then you are, according to the New Testament. According To Jesus. You are a child of the devil. And there were some parents. I got really mad at me for saying that their Little Darlings. Living like little hellions. We're Children of the devil. I know it's kind of crazy. Isn't it? You do your twist, send us to us. I think about this. We like to think we're reasonable reasonable people, right? Here's what's in does to you. It changes your thinking and messes you up. So that you think like this if it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, then it must be an elephant. Or or a banana or a hyper-intelligent shade of the color blue. It must be anything else. But. I like that's what sin does to your thinking. It makes you stupid and blind to reality. Yes. People should call God their father. Every person on planet Earth should call God their father, but we don't The problem is not her father's goodness and graciousness. He's good. Race is your loving father. That's not the problem. The problem is, we are enslaved as the devil's children. Moses put it this way to the Israelites in Deuteronomy 32 Moses, in his most Mosaic law, giving way. He really just lays it out there. He's talking about how perfect God is God. The rock, his work is perfect, and all his ways are just as a god of faithfulness. And without a Nick Woody, Justin upright. Is he? Oh, that sounds like my father, right? That's who I want to be. Oh, no. No Moses says, people were a little different than that. He says, they have dealt directly with him. They are no longer his children because they are blemish. They are all crooked and twisted generation. Spirit. Moses says, do you dust repay the Lord? You foolish and selfless. People is he not your father who can Did you and made you and established you? Oh man, that's harsh, man. That's lost. That's, that's like bringing down. The Perfection of God's just in in stark contrast with our imperfection, bringing down who we really are. That's the hard law of the Bible. God's Perfection versus the ours. We, we turned away from our father. We were ejected. We chose another.

But there's good news and bad news. There's good news. The good news. Is that our father provide away? And you Christian, you can call god, father, not just because you've been created by God, but there's even more he owns You by. Right of his creation. He is your father but by right of adoption even more. He's your father and you can pray Our God, our Father to God, our Father, God adopts, if he buys us back from being Children of the devil. And I love talking about the fatherhood of God because there's so much gospel in it, right? Yes. God is the father of humanity. But all the Bratz have rejected, the father, and chosen another. And so God, and nabal dust to be adopted into his family by faith in Jesus. We are adopted participants in this father-son relationship. It's even within the godhead. So amazing. Adoption is what God has done is God's work. Now. Sometime. I talked about as I'm teaching through the New Testament, this this word that it's a tricky word. It's in the Bible called justification. This is the the legal word are the legal declaration that you because of your faith in what Jesus has done for you. You're innocent as charged. That's God's leak. That's the legal standing you have with God. And this were just in case in is important and we need to teach it and we need to use it. However, it's it's a really hard word to understand. I mean, I have been teaching the Bible since I was 18, I still struggle with this legal idea of justification. This idea that, that that my sin is covered by the righteousness of God. It is just a standing to me, that in God's view when he looks at me. He sees Jesus sacrifice paid out for me to sacrifice for my sins. Justification is a hard word. But there's there's an even better, maybe a better word to understand this and that's adoption. Justification. In adoption are the same idea. It's God's work, but it's more about the relationship that God wants you to have with him. The father adopted us through the son because of his love for his wayward children. Here is first John 3:1 see what kind of love the father has given to us that we should be called children of God. And so, we are the seasons 1 in love. God, predestined us for adoption to himself as Sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will to the praise of his glorious Grace with, which he has blessed us in the Beloved. Jesus is the beloved Son, and in the Beloved son, we have adoption. You can call God your father in prayer because of his great love for you, but he didn't just say he loved you, right? He he showed you his love in Jesus sacrifice. We are adopted into his family by faith. In this adoption. We see the work of the three persons of the Trinity. The Father loves the son works, that the spirit teaches Romans 8:14 talks about. This is the Trinity of God.

But you've received the spirit of adoption as Sons by whom we cry Abba, Father, the spirit himself Bears, witness with our spirit that we are children of God. And if children then are not here this, if we're children of God, then we're errors Heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ provided we suffer with him. In order that we may also be glorified with him. This is God's decision because his love for you. He decided he would adopt us as his children through the god-man, Jesus Christ. Allied option is a very powerful Concept in the New Testament and it's a bit different than what we think of as adoption. Now similar adoption is were, you know, this kid go instead of that family to that to the other family, right? And there's a legal process for all that. But in the ancient Roman world, the family structure was much different. Then, the Roman world. The family was based on a concept called The Father's power. Now, that wouldn't fly very well in twenty-first-century America down because everybody would freak out if those men those evil men. Well, that's the way it was back in the Roman World. Write. The father's power was everything about the family and you were as a child completely 100% under your father's power. In fact, Roman law at the time and history shows that sometimes it's was done a father. I could put his child to death and they were within their legal right to do that. A child could not possess anything. It was all the fathers and any gift given to. The father was that are given to the sun, was actually owned by the father's, kind of like Halloween candy, right? You know, so did the kid gets hit while Dad, you know, just doesn't do it. Well, it's a little bit heavier than that do adoption was a very serious matter because it wasn't just this kid going from this family to that family. It was going from under that father's power. To being under this father's power. The very serious matter and in fact, the son who was adopted into this, new father's power, had all the rights of illegitimate son in the new family and completely lost all of his rights of the old family. He became literally in the eyes of the law. A new person with a new name, any debts, or obligations, or anything like that. That he had with the old family. We're completely canceled and abolish as if they never even existed. And he was a completely new person completely transferred over from the power of the father. That was an under the power. That is now this is a powerful picture. Of what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. This adoption. We were absolutely in the power of sin and the world and the end death and the devil, right? And through Jesus Christ, got a DOCSIS out of that power into his power and that adoption cancels and wipes out the past the old person and makes us into a new person. We have passed from the family of Satan to be from being a child of the devil, to being a child of God. And soap, all praise in Ephesians chapter 3. This beautiful prayer for this reason. I bow my knees before, the father from whom every family in heaven and on Earth is named literally what he says, here is from from whom the entire fatherhood of all the universe is named. Anything that has to do with fathering is God's, the fatherhood of God is the fatherhood of the entire world, and you Christian are chosen and adopted. By God, the Father to be in his family. Now remember the Jesus in the Hypocrites at Jesus said the Hypocrites and the Gentiles they do, pray. It isn't that they don't pray. They do pray. They're just not getting anything from the father and the reason why is because they don't know him. They're not his children. They're not praying to the father of the praying to someone else or some other. God, the prophet Isaiah called the Jews back to the fatherhood of God by reminding them. It's a great thing for us Gentile to remember. By reminding that it doesn't matter who your family is, doesn't matter where you live in the world. Doesn't matter who you are. Doesn't matter if your father was Abraham, or Isaac. Jacob, one of these paychecks in the face. Your father is God. He says that is Isaiah 64. Again for you are our father though. Abraham does not know us and Israel does not acknowledge us you. Oh Lord our Our Father Our Redeemer from old is your name on a beautiful person, Isaiah. Nellis carry this idea of adoption, even further. Now, it's now. This is pure gospel. This is awesome, but it gets even better. You can call God your father because Jesus is your brother. Because Jesus is your brother. Now. We are adopted by the father because of Jesus, the son, our participation in that relationship, Father and Son. Father God, the son, God that participation that relationship is extended to you. Because Jesus became a human being. He became our brother. We don't just believe that Jesus is the son of God. We do. But we also believe that Jesus called himself that he is the son of man. Jesus was a human being who walked on this Earth and lived and died. He's but he's not just another man. He is the last Adam The first Adam, we read the New Testament, destroyed your relationship with the Father. The last Adam Jesus secured your relationship with the father. In other words, there is no calling God your father without Jesus. Everything that you are Christian. Everything that is about the Christian Life Is All Because of Jesus, our brother. I read from Romans chapter 8 or earlier, as God's children. We are Heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ. That means he's in, he's we're in the same family as him. We get the same inheritance as Jesus being the father's child is because brother, Jesus, the man who is God paid the price of sin. You remember, in, in Romans 8. It says there that by him we can try a bomb father and that where to buy is Aramaic. It's kind of a term of endearment for her father, may be a rough equivalent in English would be dad or daddy and more of a relational type of thing there people that say, yeah. I have a father, but a lot of times people don't talk about their dad in the same way. They would use those words. Similar little bit little bit there. So by the spirit we can cry. Abba, Father, will, the reason why we can say that is because Jesus in The Garden of Gethsemane. The human being the man Jesus Christ, as he's praying drops of blood. He's praying a baba, father. All things are possible for you remove this cup from me. This this thing is about to happen. This death, is this crucifixion, these nails driven in the wrist? This these nails in the feet is death on a cross. Whit. If it remove this cup from me yet. Not what I will. What you will? Have you ever thought about just this first phrase of the Lord's Prayer?

Our Father in heaven, have you just sat and thought about it? In every way, it's absolutely stunning. Not just because of the words but because of who is saying it. This isn't Moses saying, this is how you should pray Our Father in heaven. Didn't the Apostle Paul saying this is how you should pray Our Father in heaven. Or David or someone like that. Is Jesus. Jesus, who is God? For Jesus, to say our father in Heaven acknowledges, the suffering. The Jesus. The God man bore for us. The father is in heaven. Our Father in heaven. Where's Jesus?

He's here, mucking around with you and II Center. So, nasty bratty kids. It don't deserve to be called children. Jesus should absolutely and 100% should say my father, but he extends that eases our father.

Here's what Jesus did Philippians chapter 2, though. He was in the form of God, did not account equality with God. Nothing to be grasped, but he made himself nothing. What? He made himself nothing. Taking the very form of a servant being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form. He humbled himself. Here is God who humbles himself by becoming obedient to the point of death even death on a cross?

Jesus says Our Father in Heaven. He's acknowledging. The separation between Earth and Heaven. Between Humanity. And divinity.

And brother. Jesus bridge. The gap. Brother, Jesus made the trip for us because we couldn't do it. He became flash so that you and I could be adopted out of the power of our chosen. Father, Satan. We can pray to Our Father in Heaven because the sun came to Earth, we can call God our father because Jesus is our brother.

Have you ever notice that? Jesus says, Our Father in heaven? He doesn't say your father in Heaven is say Moses. Father in Heaven. Abraham's Father in Heaven. He says, Our Father in Heaven. He doesn't even say my Father in Heaven. Although he certainly had every right to say that. Jesus, our brother. Says, Our Father in heaven. Hebrews to puts it this way.

It was fitting that he Jesus through him and by him, all things exist in bringing many sons. The glory should make the founder. Their salvation perfect through suffering. For He Who sanctifies. That's Jesus and those who are Sanctified, that's us. Christian. Believers are all have one source. Was that mean? Jesus and you are all of one. Yeah, we're all the same family. We all have the same father. Jesus. And the Christian are children of the father. Jesus teaches us to pray, our father and Heaven is, so this is just an amazing phrase. It's right here. That is why Jesus is not ashamed to call you Brothers. Jesus is not ashamed to call you brothers, because the father is not ashamed to call you as children. God, our Father. God, our Father in Heaven, he is Jesus father, and your father. He's our brother. And this is what Jesus says, is verse 23, Hebrews 212. This is what Jesus is saying. I will tell if your name speaking to the father to my brothers. Jesus is going to teach you who the father is. I'm going to tell if your name to my brothers, in the midst of the congregation. I will sing your name and sing your praise. And, again, I will put my trust in God. And again, Jesus says to the father, behold, I and the children that's you. Christian behold. I am the children. God has given me, Jesus says, Since the children that's us sharing flesh-and-blood himself, likewise / took of the same things that through death. He might destroy the one who has the power of death. That is the devil and deliver. All those who through fear of death or subject, a lifelong slavery. Therefore, he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, but he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. That's the blood. Sacrifice propitiation. For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. Did you know you have a big brother? Who's go? Can help you. I win your fight.

Do you know you have a big brother who teaches you who to go to when you're in trouble? It teaches you how to pray. How to pray Our Father in heaven.

I think we should pray this prayer now, right? What else? What else? Can we do at the end of this? Last week? We need to pray to God these words and let the fatherhood of God. Be a part of your prayer. As we pray together. Let's pray. Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come thy will be done on Earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day, our daily bread and forgive us our debts. As we forgive our debtors and lead us not into temptation, but Deliver Us from Evil for dinosaur Kingdom and the power, and the glory forever. Amen.

I'm studying this this week. I'm just overwhelmed with the fatherhood of God. And just how powerful it is. And I hope that you, you feel that as well. and as you for taking the Lord's, Supper you realize that what he is giving you right now. Is this is family food, right? This is food for the family. We don't invite people off the street. I don't know. Anything about Jesus to come in and share the Lord's, Supper not appropriate for them. This is for the family. The father feeds two brothers and sisters. And brother, Jesus Is Right, Here, leading leading the, the prayer that amazing? He gives us the blessing. He teaches us our father in Heaven. Scripture says, for I received from the Lord, what also delivered to you that the Lord Jesus on the night, when he's betrayed took bread. And when you given thanks, he broke it. And said, this is my body, which is, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.

In the same way. Also, he took the cup after supper saying, this cup is the New Covenant in my blood do this, as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.

Four is often as you eat this bread and drink this cup. You proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.