Sermon Tone Analysis

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.

(PAUSE)

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:

(SLIDE)

“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:

(SLIDE)

“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:

(SLIDE)

“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:

(SLIDE)

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: