The Lord's Prayer: Our Father

Today we continue our series on the Lord’s Prayer, as over the next few weeks we break down this most famous of prayers line and line and examine what each phrase in the prayer says about our relationship with God and with the world he’s created.

Earlier we heard the version of the prayer found in Matthew’s gospel.

It’s interesting—Matthew gives us some detail about Jesus’ teaching that Luke’s gospel leaves out.

Here in Matthew’s gospel Jesus not only gives the prayer to his disciples…he tells them a good practice for prayer in general.

“Don’t be like the hypocrites and the pagans,” he says, “who love to pray long, flowery prayers in public just to be seen. When you pray…go to a private place and simply spend time with God.”

And then Jesus makes this interesting observation about prayer:

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“Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.”—Matthew 6:8 (NIV)

Which is then followed immediately by the first line of the prayer:

“Our Father in heaven…”

It’s clear that Jesus wants to emphasize right from the start this idea that God is our Father.

That’s not always a popular topic in the modern church.

The idea of God as Father is not always welcome in today’s world.

In today’s culture, it seems in some circles using any male language for God is seen as misguided at best, misogynistic at worst.

And I can certainly understand the struggles that some have with the image of God as Father.

Many people today have suffered in their relationship with their earthly Father, and as one person put it: “If God is anything like my dad, then I don’t want anything to do with God.”

But I believe that if we allow these concerns to lead us away from looking at the fatherly love of God…we miss out on a primary Biblical dimension of how we relate to the one who created us and loves us most.

I believe we can come to understand God as Father while accepting completely that God is not male.

And I also believe that coming to an understanding of this Father love of God can in fact help and heal the void we sometimes feel from a broken relationship with our human fathers.

It’s not an easy journey for some…and I don’t say this lightly.

But I think there is a beauty to this image that we can recapture and celebrate, one which will enhance our picture of who God is and how much he loves us.

Because the Fatherhood of God is all about…love.

That’s clear all throughout Scripture.

So as we dive into the Lord’s Prayer, with it’s first statement, “Our Father in heaven…” let’s ask ourselves:

What does the Bible tell us about the fatherhood of God? What does it mean for us?

How does it impact our understanding of him…and ourselves?

This morning I’d like to focus on three specific things I think we discover in the pages of Scripture that help us understand God’s love as our Heavenly Father.

Actually, there’s a lot more in here than just three things…but free parking does end at 1pm so I want to be sensitive to that.

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First of all, the Bible teaches us that

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The Father’s love is a love that CHOOSES.

The story of God’s relationship with his people is all about choosing…in fact, that’s what we call the Jewish nation isn’t it? God’s chosen people.

There’s a beautiful picture of this in the book of Hosea:

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“When Israel was a child, I loved him, and I called my son out of Egypt.

I myself taught Israel how to walk, leading him along by the hand.

But he doesn’t know or even care that it was I who took care of him.

I led Israel along with my ropes of kindness and love.

I lifted the yoke from his neck, and I myself stooped to feed him.”—Hosea 11:1, 3-4 (NLT)

“When Israel was a child,” God we hears God say through Hosea, “I loved him as a son, and I called my son out of Egypt.”

The image here is not a parent calling their child to dinner,

When God says, “I called my son…” he is referring to something far more than a summons.

The people of Israel were God’s chosen people…they were called into a special and unique relationship with the Creator of the universe.

God’s call created a nation from the descendants of Abraham,

God’s call brought them out of bondage into the Promised Land,

God’s call established a covenant relationship with Israel,

God’s call continued to echo through the years despite the people’s stubborn and disobedient ways.

There were probably better candidates for a chosen people than the descendants of Abraham, but God chose to reveal himself to and through them.

He took “the least of all people” and nurtured them with a Father’s love.

“It was I who taught Israel how to walk, leading him along by the hand.”

And now through Jesus Christ you and I are the recipients of that same grace of being called and chosen.

John Ortberg, who told us the story of the father with the misbehaving son, says this:

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“To be loved means to be chosen. The sense of being chosen is one of the very best gifts love bestows on the beloved.”

He goes on to tell a story that comes from a book entitled, “The Whisper Test.”

“I grew up knowing I was different,” the author begins, “and I hated it. I was born with a cleft palate, and when I started school, my classmates made it clear to me how I looked to others: a little girl with a misshapen lip, crooked nose, lopsided teeth, and garbled speech.

When schoolmates asked, “What happened to your lip?” I’d tell them I’d fallen and cut it on a piece of glass. Somehow it seemed more acceptable to have suffered an accident than to have been born different. I was convinced that no one outside my family could love me.

There was, however, a teacher in the second grade whom we all adored—Mrs. Leonard by name. She was short, round, happy—a sparkling lady.

Annually we had a hearing test…Mrs. Leonard gave the test to everyone in the class, and finally it was my turn. I knew from past years that as we stood against the door and covered one ear, the teacher sitting at her desk would whisper something, and we would have to repeat it back—things like “The sky is blue” or “Do you have new shoes?” I waited there for those words that God must have put into her mouth, those seven words that changed my life. Mrs. Leonard said, in her whisper, “I wish you were my little girl.”

Ortberg reminds us that love whispers, “I choose you.”

When my nephew Max first began to realize that he was adopted, he struggled with understanding what that meant.

But one of the things it means is that he was chosen…he became part of our family by my sister and brother in law’s choice.

What a powerful image.

And to think that God…who is Almighty, omnipotent, needing nothing or no one to be complete…this God who flings galaxies into space has chosen us.

He has chosen you.

Jesus came, as Paul reminds us, “so that God could adopt us as his very own children.”

Adoption is not a cheap or easy process. It involves risk, sacrifice, and commitment through a very trying process.

And so it is in our relationship with God.

His desire to have us experience this fatherly love was so strong, he was willing to pay the ultimate price.

The life of his only begotten Son.

Jesus died so that you and I could be children of God.

As it says in the book of 1 John:

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“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!”—1 John 3:1 (NIV)

So here’s a question for you this morning:

What would your life look like if you truly understood yourself as a child of God, if you lived fully in the knowledge that God’s love has chosen…you?

How would your life be different?

The fact that we don’t always live in the knowledge of God’s choosing love brings us to a second characteristic of God’s fatherhood:

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The Father’s love is a love that ENDURES.

If you look at the history of God’s people in the Bible, there are many times I wonder why God doesn’t just give up on these people.

Idolatry, corruption, and apostasy often seem to be the favorite pastimes of God’s chosen people…despite all of his goodness to them.

We see this in the words we heard from Hosea:

“When Israel was a child, I love him as a son, and I called my son out of Egypt…I led Israel along with my ropes of kindness and love. I lifted the yoke from his neck and I myself stooped to feed him.”

God’s saying, “You are my child…I’ve cared for you from the beginning. You were in bondage…you were slaves…I rescued you from that…I gave you food in the desert…I brought you into a land of promise…”

And how did Israel respond?

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“But the more I called to him, the farther he moved from me,

offering sacrifices to the images of Baal and burning incense to idols.”—Hosea 11:2 (NLT)

Many of us, in the face of just a fraction of that kind of rejection, would say, “That’s it! I give up! I’ve had it with you.”

But God’s love endures.

Even though Israel’s rebellion has very real and lasting consequences, God’s love refuses to die.

We heard that in our reading from Psalm 103:

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“The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.

He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever;

he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.

For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west,so far has he removed our transgressions from us.”—Psalm 103:8-12 (NIV)

When I was 13 we went to a family wedding in Georgia, and I remember very distinctly a conversation my parents had with a man in the parking lot of our hotel.

He had quit his job. He was living out of his car…town to town, city to city…and had been doing so for quite some time.

Seaching for a daughter who had rejected her family and run away from home.

She was his child. His love transcended anything she could do, and it followed anywhere she would go.

A father’s love endures.

And yet…how many times do we think we have somehow stepped outside the boundaries of God’s love?

When we fall into that familiar sin yet again…

When we break a promise to do better and in fact do worse…

When we recognize the ugliness inside that surprises and scares us…

And we think, “That’s it. I can’t imagine how God could still care about someone like me.”

God’s words to the people of Israel are words he longs for you to hear as well:

“How can I give you up? How can I let you go?”

Friends, cling tightly to this truth today: God never gives us on us. The fatherly love of God is stubborn and persistent…it ENDURES.

But more than that…

The Father’s love chooses

The Father’s love endures

and finally this morning…

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The Father’s love is love that DELIGHTS.

This might be the hardest one for us to grasp.

In so many circles a picture is painted of a God who, yeah, loves us, but essentially just puts up with us.

A God who’s more concerned with pointing out what we do wrong than anything else.

That’s a harmful image of God.

It leaves us paranoid about how we can make God happy.

One of my favorite Christian speaks spoke at a concert once about how he would feel if his son woke up every morning wondering, “What can I do today to earn my dad’s love?”

“It would break my heart,” he said.

But that’s how we often treat God.

God’s love for us isn’t dependent on our actions.

Yes, God takes sin very seriously, but the Bible does not describe a God who’s hiding behind every cloud, just waiting to jump out and let us know when we mess up.

But that’s not the God I see in Scripture and most supremely reflected in the person of Jesus.

In the pages of Scripture I see a God of joy and celebration…a God who delights in his people.

One of my favorite examples of this comes from the prophet Zephaniah:

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“Sing, O daughter of Zion; shout aloud, O Israel!

Be glad and rejoice with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem!

For the Lord will remove his hand of judgment and will disperse the armies of your enemy.

And the Lord himself, the King of Israel, will live among you!

At last your troubles will be over, and you will never again fear disaster.

On that day the announcement to Jerusalem will be, ‘Cheer up, Zion! Don’t be afraid!

For the Lord your God is living among you.

He is a mighty savior.

He will take delight in you with gladness.

With his love, he will calm all your fears.

He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.’”—Zephaniah 3:14-17 (NLT)

Remember the story we heard earlier about the child being disobedient in a store?

Richard Foster tells a similar story about a father walking through a mall with his two-year old son. The child was cranky, he kept whining and wriggling and complaining. Through it all, the father struggled to remain patient.

Then he had an idea. He scooped up his little two-year old grumbler, held him tight to his chest, and began to sing an impromptu love song. None of the words rhymed. He sang it off-key, but as best he can, he shared his heart for his child in song, “I love you. I’m so glad you’re my boy. You make me laugh.”

From store to store the father kept going, words not rhyming, notes off-key. His son relaxed, captivated by this strange and wonderful song.

Finally, when they had finished, the dad went to the car, buckled his son in the car seat, and his son raised his arms and lifted up his head,

“Sing it to me again, Daddy. Sing it to me again.”

Has it ever occurred to you that that’s how God views you?

He longs to scoop you up in his arms and sing a love song to you, “I love you. I’m so glad you’re my child. You make me laugh. You give me joy.”

How would your life change if you could hear him say that to you?

Would you like to?

Will you open yourself to the Father’s love for you this morning?

A love that chooses…that endures…that delights in you.

I love that, as Zephaniah writes, “rejoices over you with joyful songs.”

(TRANSITION TO MATT REDMAN SONG)