“This, then, is how you should pray: “Our Father in heaven...””
“What are fathers called to?” That’s a good question. What are fathers supposed to do? What are fathers supposed to be?
Doug Wilson asks and offers his answer to that question, “What are fathers called to? Fathers give. Fathers protect. Fathers bestow. Fathers yearn and long for the good of their children. Fathers delight. Fathers sacrifice. Fathers are jovial and open-handed. Fathers create abundance, and if lean times come they take the leanest portion themselves and create a sense of gratitude and abundance for the rest. Fathers love birthdays and Christmas because it provides them with yet another excuse to give some more to the kids. When fathers say no, as good fathers do from time to time, it is only because they are giving a more subtle gift, one that is a bit more complicated than a cookie. They must also include among their gifts things like self-control and discipline and a work ethic, but they are giving these things, not taking something else away just for the sake of taking. Fathers are not looking for excuses to say, ‘no.’”
That’s a good picture of fathers and good fathers aren’t near as good as our Father in heaven. When you pray, you speak with your Father in heaven. “Fathers protect. Fathers bestow. Fathers yearn and long for the good of their children. Fathers delight. Fathers sacrifice. Fathers are jovial and open-handed.”
Jesus is training us to pray to the Father. This Father is so protective, so generous, and so caring that the best earthly father pales in comparison. He is also so powerful, capable, and careful that He is able to do for us what no earthly father can do.
Jesus trains us to pray to our Father in heaven. That’s the claim of this sermon: Jesus trains us to pray to our Father in heaven.
We will study this in two points. First: our Father. Second: in heaven. First: our Father. Second: in heaven.
First: our Father. Jesus begins this morning’s training by telling us to call God ‘Father.’ “This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven…’”
We see God as father in the Old Testament. He formed this relationship with Israel. “How gladly would I treat you like my children,” He said through Jeremiah, “I thought you would call me ‘Father’ and not turn away from following me.” Isaiah pictured the faithful saying, “You, Lord, are our father, our Redeemer from of old is Your name.”
God’s words through Hosea are filled with fatherly pride. “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son… It was I who taught [them] to walk, taking them by the arms… I was like one who lifts a little child to the cheek, and I bent down to feed them.”
That’s reason enough to think of God as a father, but Jesus calls for more. He commands us to call God ‘Father.’ He doesn’t say, ‘it might help to think about God as a loving father.’ He said, “This is how you should pray: ‘Our Father.’”
The only-begotten Son of God tells us that he and we are part of the same family. We share one Father. Jesus said that before he ascended. He said, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father.”
Jesus thinks his Father is the greatest. “Fathers give. Fathers protect. Fathers bestow. Fathers yearn and long for the good of their children.” Jesus invites you to know God as Father. Hebrews tells us that Jesus isn’t ashamed to call us brothers and sisters. If you belong body and soul, in life and death to Jesus Christ, that’s a word for you and about you, ‘Jesus isn’t ashamed to call you his brother. Jesus isn’t ashamed to call you his sister.’ You share a Father.
Can you call God ‘Father’? Some people can. Are you one of them? Not everyone can. The Pharisees tried, and Jesus replied, no, “you belong to your father, the devil.”
Not everyone is a child of God and there is no middle ground. You might like more gray area, but the Son of God took on flesh and died for sinners because we by nature children of wrath. By nature, we belong to the devil. The Son of God became like us to ensure our adoption into the Father’s family. As Hebrews says, “Since the children have flesh and blood, [Jesus] too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.” Jesus died on the cross you deserve so that you might be adopted into God’s family.
It cost Jesus to train us disciples to pray, “Our Father.” It cost him his very life.
Now, the title ‘Father’ might be a difficult one for some of us. Some of us grew up or are growing up with fathers who act nothing like Jesus’ Father.
If that is you, you need to understand that trying to understand God the Father in terms of your dad is like looking at an eight-year-old’s drawing of daVinci’s Mona Lisa and trying to judge the original. Your dad, even the best dad, is a distorted picture of God the Father. Don’t dismiss Mona Lisa because of an eight-year-old’s copy. Don’t miss the joy of calling God ‘Father’ because of your dad.
I’m a father. I’m a distorted picture of God the Father. My sin, my selfishness, my foolish decisions make this incredibly clear, but so do my virtues. What is good in my parenting just shows how much better the Father must be. That’s what Jesus said, “if you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him!”
We fathers fall terribly short of God the Father in terms of what we do wrong and even in terms of what we do right. Fathers, both of these are opportunities to tell your children about God. When you sin against your children, apologize. Say, “I’m sorry. That was offensive to God and to you. Please forgive me,” and then tell them that their Father in heaven will never disappoint them. When you shine even a glimmer of God the Father’s goodness, and they thank you, that’s an opportunity to tell them that God the Father is so much better. ‘You’re welcome for the vacation to the Black Hills. Thanks for thanking me. I’m happy to give that to you because God has given so much to us.’
Jesus trains us to pray God as ‘Father.’ He trains us as a church to pray to God as ‘our Father.’ The possessive is plural. He isn’t just my Father. He isn’t just your Father. He is our Father. He is only the Father of any of us because of the death of His Son. None of us Christians has a unique claim on God as Father. The Father isn’t partial to me over you and He isn’t partial to you over me. The black sheep of God’s family isn’t any less in the family. The dutiful son isn’t any more in the family. That’s the parable of the prodigal son.
God is the Father and that makes us brothers and sisters. That’s why the letters to the churches are filled with sibling language. We are constantly referred to as brothers and sisters. Jesus was adamant about that. One day Jesus’ family tried to take him back to Nazareth. They were worried about what would happen to him if he kept teaching like he did. When they found him, they waited outside the building and sent in a message for him to come out. The messenger told Jesus, “Your mother and your brothers and your sisters are outside, seeking you.” Jesus’ response tells you how you should understand the people in the pew behind you and in front of you. He said, “‘Who are my mother and my brothers and sisters?’ And looking about at those who sat around him, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers and my sisters! For whoever does the will of God, that one is my brother and sister and mother.”
From what I can tell we take family pretty seriously here in Inwood. That is good. Jesus takes it that seriously when it comes to God’s family. We are brothers and sisters and so he tells us to pray that way. “This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father…’”
When you have strife with a Christian brother do your best to picture him on his knees before God praying, “our Father…” He is your brother’s Father. He is your Father.
Praying “our Father” as a church connects us with each other. It connects us with the Father. We remember who we are. We are children. We remember who He is. He is a faithful, big-hearted Father.
Jesus trains us to pray this way. Are you praying to your Father? Last week, I urged you to inspect your praying or your prayerlessness. Did you find a sense of affectionate intimacy in your prayers? Jesus says that is part of true prayer. You are praying to your Father. Pray for that sense. Pray to your Father.
Jesus also trains us to remember our Father’s power. That’s our second point: in heaven.
The term ‘heaven’ has multiple meanings in Scripture. It is often used to describe the sky above us. Psalm 36:5, “Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds.” The word is also used to describe what we think of as outer space—the sky above the sky. Moses used the word speaking of, “the stars in heaven.” This idea of heaven says that heaven is, ‘up there.’
Some people understand Jesus’ words about “our Father in heaven” to refer to whatever is ‘up there’. The Soviet government did. After the Soviets sent a man into space, the leader of the Soviet Union berated Christians saying, “Why are you clinging to God? [We sent a man] into space and [he] didn’t see God.”
Jesus wouldn’t expect those cosmonauts to see His Father in heaven. He told us, as do all the Scriptures, that his Father is Spirit. He has no body. He can’t be seen. God is beyond location in the same way He is beyond time. He can enter it, but He isn’t constrained by it.
Praying, “our Father is in heaven,” isn’t like writing a letter to God and putting the word ‘heaven’ on the address line. Rather Jesus used the word ‘heaven’ as a statement of God’s power in the same way Psalm 115 did, “Our God is in heaven; He does whatever He pleases.”
Saying that our Father in heaven is a way of saying He is all powerful. He does whatever He pleases. As Dutch pastor Wilhelm à Brakel explains, “[this phrase ‘in heaven’] causes us to view God as the infinite One; as most majestic, glorious, omnipotent, and invisible; and as the One who dwells in unapproachable light, who covers Himself with light as with a garment.”
This Father who is far more big-hearted than the best dad you’ve ever met is also unstoppably powerful. He can do whatever He wants. He created light with a word. He is in complete control of world history. “He removes kings and sets up kings,” as Daniel said. He is in complete control of all the circumstances of our lives. “I know that You can do all things and that no plan of Yours can be thwarted,” as Job said. God has never depended on anyone and needs nothing from anyone. “Who has given a gift to Him that he might be repaid?” asked Paul. “For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things.” He is all powerful. He is in heaven.
When you pray, remember to whom You are speaking. You are speaking with the one of whom the Psalmist said, “He lifts his voice, the earth melts.” You are speaking to the one who broke the arms of Pharaoh. Egyptian artistry is filled with images of Pharaoh physically beating his enemies. Pharaoh’s arm is outstretched, and he is raining down blows on his victims. Looking back at the Exodus, Scripture laughs at Pharaoh saying, ‘Why would you worry about Pharaoh’s outstretched arm? Have you seen the or God? Did you get a load of His outstretched arm? “The Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great terror and with signs and wonders.”’ God bullies the bully.
The Old Testament, like the New, is filled with the awe-inspiring fear of the Lord. “Our God is in heaven, He does whatever He pleases.” God laughs and scoffs at anyone who dares to oppose Him. “The One enthroned in heaven laughs,” says Psalm 2, “the Lord scoffs at them. He rebukes them in his angerand terrifies them in His wrath.”
Jesus tells us to have a healthy fear of his Father because he is all powerful. He is in heaven. The wicked can be terrifying but they’ve got nothing on God. “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after your body has been killed, has authority to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear Him.”
Now can you imagine the happy condition of anyone with the good providence to call this all-powerful, unstoppable God ‘Father?’ ‘That’s my Father. He can do whatever He wants.’ That’s what Paul has in mind in Romans 8 when he says, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” That’s what you are supposed to think when you pray to your Father in heaven.
You have a kind, big-hearted Father. He is all powerful and unstoppable. Keep both of those in mind when you pray. That’s what the Heidelberg Catechism teaches, “I trust [my heavenly Father] so much that I do not doubt He will provide whatever I need for body and soul, and He will turn to my good whatever adversity He sends me in this sad world. He is able to do this because He is almighty God. He desires to do this because He is a faithful Father.”
If you are prayerless, I wonder, is it because you don’t believe one of these two truths? Do you refuse to see God as Father? “Fathers give. Fathers protect. Fathers bestow. Fathers yearn and long for the good of their children.” Do you think the Father is stingy? Do you think the Father is uninvolved? Jesus tells you that if you are to pray to Him, you need to see Him as your Father.
You need to remember how he became your Father. He adopted you by the blood of his Son. If you doubt that God loves you, and from time to time some of us do wonder, you need to return to the facts. You need to return to empirical evidence of God’s love. “This is how God loves the world: He sent His one and only Son that whoever believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.” The cross of Christ is proof of the Father’s love for you. Look how much it cost him to adopt you.
Or perhaps you are relatively prayerless because, when push comes to shove, you think your Father in heaven is less than capable. ‘Maybe He was powerful in what people call ‘Bible times’ but not today. Not in my life.’
Harold Kushner fell into this ditch in his book When Bad Things Happen to Good People. Pondering the death of his son, he decided that God is a loving father who wants to do good in all circumstance but isn’t always able to do what He wants. That’s not what Jesus said. He said to pray to your Father in heaven, your all-powerful Father. Jesus teaches us to affirm both God’s love and God’s power.
My guess is that you’ve asked Kushner’s question. ‘If God is all powerful and He loves me, then why—why this cancer? Why this bankruptcy? Why this mess?’
Scripture gives many helpful answers, but this morning I want to think about that question using Jesus’ words. Jesus tells you to pray to your all-powerful Father. If your Father isn’t Almighty, why pray? He probably can’t do anything anyway. If God isn’t your Father, why should He care? ‘He is both, ‘says Jesus. ‘He is almighty God. That’s why you should pray. He is your generous Father who knows what is ultimately best. That’s why you should pray to Him.’
Jesus knows God is in charge of everything and Jesus has suffered more than I ever will. The clearest picture I will ever have of God comes not from my doubts or how I interpret my experience. The clearest picture I will ever have of God comes from Jesus. “No one has ever seen God,” John said, “but the only-begotten Son, who is at the Father’s side, he has made Him known.”
Do you trust Jesus enough to trust what he tells you about his Father? If you do, you will pray to your Father in heaven. If you do, you will pray to this Father in good times. You will pray because He is your Father. If you do, you will have mastered this lesson in prayer. “This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven…’” Amen.