Our 'Father'

1. Introduction

Today is Father’s Day. Since we spoke about the women in the Bible on Mother’s Day I thought it only fair to speak about the women behind the men on Father’s Day.

Not so.

When you think about your father what comes to mind? If he is still living are there certain characteristics or behaviors that spill to the forefront? If he is dead, what memories do you have? My father died in January 2001. Sad to say, I didn’t really know much about him because he and I were much alike. We never said anything if nothing needed to be said. Small talk in our world was so small it didn’t exist. I respected my father, even loved him. I miss him terribly at times but I just never felt the need to talk to him anymore than he felt the need to speak to me.

Many of us have fond and loving relationships and memories. Far too many of us have bitter and painful relationships and memories. But, in any case, we have relationships and memories of fallen and incomplete men. Those memories and relationships are built on what we know, what we can see, what we believe about them, and what we learn from our Earthly fathers.

The Bible speaks of God as a Father, although more in the New Testament than in the Old. As we consider God as Father we have a relationship built the same way as with our fathers. It is build on what we know, what we can see, what we believe about Him, and what we learn from Him in his Word.

What we will consider today are the attributes of God that underlie how Jesus taught the disciples to approach God in prayer.

In Matthew 6 Jesus was asked by his disciples to “teach us to pray.” Jesus gave them the “Lord’s Prayer” as it is traditionally known. In context it might be better called the “Model Prayer” or the “Disciple’s Prayer” since this was not Jesus prayer. Whatever the title, Jesus gave his disciples, and us, a template to use when we pray.

Matthew 6:9–13 ESV

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.

The final phrase, “For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen.” is theologically sound but it is not found in the earliest manuscripts.

What is it about God that allows us to pray to him in the manner Jesus taught?

2. God

What underlies or is the foundation of the Model Prayer is the character of God. When theologians talk about the character of God they spend much time trying to find ways of categorizing the individual attributes of God’s character in order to make sense of them. This can be helpful but it is also doomed to failure for we can never totally know God. Even in eternity we will still be the creation and he will still be Creator.

However, there is a consensus that allows us to better understand God’s character.

“This article will make a distinction between incommunicable and communicable attributes without considering the classification itself as significant. No classification of God’s attributes is fully satisfactory. The incommunicable attributes emphasize the absolute distinctness of God, his transcendent greatness and exalted nature. Such attributes have little or no analogy in God’s creatures. The communicable attributes find some reflection or analogy in human beings created in God’s image. They indicate the immanence of God in relation to creatures. Yet all the attributes are God’s attributes; the distinction between God and man, between Creator and creature, is always basic.

The Attributes of God

Incommunicable

Eternity - Outside of Time

Immensity - Omnipresent

Immutability - Unchanging

Independence - Totally Other

Spirituality - Without Material Form

Unity - Fully One with no needs

Communicable

Intellectual

Knowledge

Veracity - Truthfulness, faithfulness

Wisdom - Omniscience

Moral

Holiness

Love

Volitional

Omnipotence

Sovereignty

Walter A. Elwell and Barry J. Beitzel, “God, Being and Attributes Of,” Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1988), 877.

As we look at different phrases within the prayer, we shall do so by referring back to one or more of the attributes of God’s character.

1. Our Father

Notice that Jesus tells us to refer to God as “our” Father. He doesn’t say “my” Father (this was a model prayer for the disciples) although many other times in Scripture he refers to “My” Father. John 17.

He also doesn’t say “their” Father or “your” Father. He tells the disciples to pray to “our” Father. God did not intend for his beloved children to be independent, stand-alone children. He wants them to mirror the relationship preset in the Trinity - pure and holy love between all three persons - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We are gathered in community to worship and serve God Almighty. We have been adopted into his family through his mercy and goodness.

John 1:12-13 “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”

Romans 8:14-17 “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have 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 heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.”

The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Volume 8: Matthew, Mark, Luke c) Model Prayer (6:9–13)

This opening designation establishes the kind of God to whom prayer is offered: He is personal (no mere “ground of being”) and caring (a Father, not a tyrant or an ogre, but the one who establishes the real nature of fatherhood, cf. Eph 3:14–15). That he is “our Father” establishes the relationship that exists between Jesus’ disciples and God. In this sense he is not the Father of all men indiscriminately (see on 5:43–47). The early church was right to forbid non-Christians from reciting this prayer as vigorously as they forbade them from joining with believers at the Lord’s Table. But that he is “our Father in heaven” (the designation occurs twenty times in Matthew, once in Mark [Mk 11:25], never in Luke, and in some instances may be a Matthean formulation) reminds us of his transcendence and sovereignty, while preparing us for Mt 6:10b. The entire formula is less concerned with the proper protocol in approaching Deity than with the truth of who he is, to establish within the believer the right frame of mind (Stott, p. 146).

In, “Our Father,” we will be unified as the Trinity is unified.

2. In Heaven, hallowed

“Hallowed be thy name.” In the Bible, names are more than just identifiers. They have meaning and power concerning the person to whom they are attached. Moses recognized this at the burning bush when he asked God, “Who will I say sent me?”

Throughout the Bible there are many names for God that usually reveal and focus on one part of his character. The name revealed to Moses, “I am who I am,” or “I will be who I will be,” tells us the one of the fundamental attributes of God - He is eternal. In that eternality all the other attributes of His character are fully realized.

Hallowed is not a word we use much anymore. The dictionary definition says it can mean “holy, consecrated, sacred, or revered.” This phrase of the prayer is not focused on us telling God his name should be “holy, consecrated, sacred, or revered.” It, rather, forces us to recognize what is already true. God, himself, has declared his name to be “holy, consecrated, sacred, or revered.” We are to treat him as holy and not despise or misuse the name of the one who created us and saved us.

3. Your Kingdom come

God’s kingdom over the Earth has been intended from the start. The reason Adam and Eve were placed in the Garden and told to multiply and to have dominion was for God’s kingdom to cover the Earth. However, there was a disastrous kink thrown into those plans.

Yet in God’s knowledge, wisdom, love, and sovereignty he provided the way for the kingdom to be established. By sending Jesus, the Son, to die for our sins and to be resurrected God has opened the way for fallen creatures to enter once again into the Kingdom of God. Jesus tells us in Mark 1:15 “and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.””

Luke 17:20-21 “Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them, “The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed, nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.””

Revelation 21:1-8 “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I w…”

God’s Kingdom has begun. God’s Kingdom will continue. God’s Kingdom will be fully realized at the end of time. All because of the character of Our Father.

4. Your will be done

In asking that God’s will be done it is implied that we understand His will is perfect as he is perfect in knowledge and wisdom. It is with the understanding that in his eternal love and faithfulness His will is what is best for His children.

There are three facets of God’s will to be done that are asked for:

The first request is that God’s will be done now on earth as it is now accomplished in heaven.So for that will to be “done” includes both moral obedience and the bringing to pass of certain events, such as the Cross. This prayer corresponds to asking for the present extension of the messianic kingdom.

The second request is that God’s will may ultimately be as fully accomplished on earth as it is now accomplished in heaven. This prayer corresponds to asking for the consummation of the messianic kingdom.

The third request is that God’s will may ultimately be done on the earth in the same way as it is now accomplished in heaven: freely, openly, spontaneously, and without the need to set it over against evil

D. A. Carson, “Matthew,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Matthew, Mark, Luke, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein, vol. 8 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1984), 170.

5. Give us this day

As Our Father is the God we praise, glorify, and worship in the first part of this prayer we know we can go to him with our requests. We have been promised that God will fill our needs on an as needed basis if we believe and trust in him. In a passage that follows after Jesus giving the disciples the Model Prayer we read:

Matthew 6:25-34 ““Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need ththat you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.””

Our Father is prepared to meet our physical needs but he also meets our spiritual needs. When Satan tested Jesus after his 40 days in the wilderness, he tempted him with the physical need of hunger. Jesus response, from Deuteronomy, was Matthew 4:4 “But he answered, “It is written, “ ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ””

God can, and will, meet all our physical and spiritual needs because of his character. His promises are sure since he is truthful, faithful, and loving.

These first three petitions focus our eyes on the God who is Eternal, Omnipresent, Unchanging, Totally Other, Without material form, Fully One and, at the same time, tells us about much that we can understand a little - Knowledge, Truthfulness, Faithfulness, Wisdom, Holiness, Love, Omnipotence, Sovereignty.

3. His Children

1. Forgive us, As we forgive

Something you will notice among those who do not believe in God is their insistence on bending Scripture to their own end. Many people tell us, “God is love,” and “Aren’t we all created in the image of God? So, that makes us his children.” They magnify one attribute of God, that they don’t understand, at the expense of the entirety of God’s character. Yes, God is love but He also exercises justice and judgement. He does not allow us the leniency to ignore the parts of his character we don’t like.

Therefore, we must surely know that we are not His children and He is not Our Father until we believe the truth of the Gospel. Once we have done that we are in the family and we are no longer in fear of eternal judgement. We still are disobedient as we are not yet perfect so we still need to rely on God’s mercy and love and confess our sins to Him. 1 John 1:5-10 “This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”

At the same time, we must forgive others. We cannot claim to be adopted children of Our Father if we do not act as He commands.

Matthew 6:14-15 “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”

Mark 11:25 “And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.””

Realize that God does not forgive us on the basis of our forgiving others. We do not merit forgiveness because of our own forgiving spirit. God forgives freely, therefore we forgive freely. It is because of God’s character that we are forgiven and that we have the desire to forgive, the means to forgive, and the will to forgive.

2. Lead us not

The English in this petition can be confusing. Many people look at this and wonder, “If we are asking God to not lead us into temptation, does that mean he CAN lead us into temptation?” Given what we know of the character of Our Father we can agree with James when he says, James 1:13-14 “Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.”

The Greek word, peirosmon, translated “temptation” can also be translated as “trial” or “testing.” Its meaning depends on the context. If the context is God’s purposes then the meaning is putting someone to the test. If the context is Satan’s purposes then the meaning is tempting someone to fall.

So can we truthfully pray for God to keep us from trials? Especially when we know we will face trials and testing?

James 1:2 “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,”

1 Corinthians 10:13 “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.”

I believe the response is yes. Knowing the character of Our Father we can ask for trials and testing to pass us by but, like Jesus in Gethsemane, we also know that Our Father will be with us in any trial or test we face.

Mark 14:36 “And he said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.””

3. Deliver us

Ultimately, we look to Our Father to keep us from harm. We know the Devil roams around like a roaring lion seeking those to destroy. We know he can appear as an angel of light in order to deceive. We know his agents at the end of time will attempt to deceive even the elect. The Devil is real and he wants to destroy and devour God’s children.

On our own, we are powerless to stand against the Devil. Those without God must rely on themselves and all of us know how well that works. In God’s family we have all the resources of Our Father to protect us from the Devils wiles. He dispenses those resources willingly and with an open hand - holding nothing back. That is his character.

4. Conclusion

The Attributes of God

Incommunicable

Eternity - Outside of Time

Immensity - Omnipresent

Immutability - Unchanging

Independence - Totally Other

Spirituality - Without Material Form

Unity - Fully One with no needs

Communicable

Intellectual

Knowledge

Veracity - Truthfulness, faithfulness

Wisdom - Omniscience

Moral

Holiness

Love

Volitional

Omnipotence

Sovereignty

Our Father is only Our Father if we have become his children. The attributes of His character that undergird the petitions of the Model Prayer are only available to His children. Those without God will face the same attributes of His character but in a spirit of fear and dread. He knows all about us, He knows our hearts better than we do, and He has done everything in His power to bring us back to Him. If we hear the Gospel - that we are sinners deserving eternal punishment; that God provided the means of our salvation through the perfect life, the death, and the resurrection of His son Jesus, that we respond in faith and belief and acceptance of Jesus work on our behalf then we can be made right with God and we can use the Model Prayer to form our own prayers and pray with confidence to Our Father. If we hear the Gospel and turn away then we have no hope in this life or the next.

As we go about our day and remember our fathers or celebrate with our fathers, I pray we do all in the spirit and character of our True Father.