Preached by Gregory W. Lee
7 August 2005
I. Introduction
-- turn in Bibles to Matthew 6:9-13 [read vs. 9-13]
-- several years ago, a nun who worked in a prison was asked by a prisoner to help her buy him a Mother's Day card for his mother -- she did, and the word traveled like a wildfire around the prison -- she was overwhelmed with requests for Mother's Day cards by all the prisoners -- so, she called Hallmark Cards, who sent huge boxes of Mother's Day cards as a donation to the prison -- the warden arranged for each inmate to draw a number, and they lined up through the cell blocks to get their cards
-- weeks later, the nun was looking ahead on her calendar and decided to call Hallmark again and ask for a donation of the same number of Father's Day cards -- she wanted to avoid another rush like with Mother's Day -- Hallmark sent the cars and as Father's Day approached, the warden anounced that free cards were again available at the chapel -- to the nun's surprise, not a single prisoner ever asked her for a Father's Day card
-- what is it about fathers that caused all of those prisoners to resent them and not to want to contact them on Father's Day? -- what is it about fathers that cause a lot of children to not respect them? -- have you ever wondered why football players never say "Hi Dad" on the field when the tv camera pans over them?
-- it all goes back to the concepts put forth in this prayer -- this morning, we're going to be looking at the invocation to the Lord's Prayer and the concept of God as our Father
II. Our Father
A. Real Meaning
-- we need to keep in mind that this prayer that Jesus gave us was a radical shift in relating to God -- good spiritual Jews recognized God as their Father and their Creator and their King, but they didn't think of Him as approachable in the same sense that we do -- they could only approach God through the intercession of the priests, who ministered on their behalf in the temple -- sure, they could pray to Him, but they approached Him more as a loyal subject speaking to a King rather than a child speaking to his father
-- this was simply not done by Jews -- they considered God's name sacred and certainly would not refer to Him in a term such as "Father" -- in their eyes, this bordered on heresy -- in fact, they wouldn't even speak or write God's name -- if you remember, in the Old Testament, when Moses asked God what His name was, God replied, "I am" -- the word for this in Hebrew is Yahweh -- Y, A, H, W, E, H -- when they wrote God's name down, they left out the vowels and just wrote down Y-H-W-H so that no one might pronounce it, even in their head as they read it
-- so, you can see how this prayer was a radical shift in thinking about and relating to God, especially to the Jews -- it was a relationship-driven prayer -- Jesus presented God in this prayer and in His ministry not as an unapproachable king but also as a father who could be approached by His children -- one of the main complaints the Jews had with Jesus was that He called God " My Father" and spoke of Him in personal terms
-- the word "Father" used in this prayer is actually the Aramaic word "abba" -- it is best translated, not as the formal word "Father," but the more affectionate word "Daddy"
-- there's a big difference between the terms "Father" and "Daddy" -- a father is someone on your family tree -- a daddy is someone you love -- a father is someone who is far away and distant emotionally -- a daddy is someone who is always there for you -- a father is someone who produced you -- a daddy is someone who raised you to be special and to know right from wrong -- a daddy is someone who changed our dirty diapers -- who sat and comforted us when we were sick or feeling down -- who provided not only the necessities of life but also their love, caring and nurture
-- Jesus is telling us here that we should see God as our Daddy -- yes, He is our King and our Creator and our God -- but He's also our loving Daddy -- and Jesus tells us here that when we pray -- when we come into His presence and say "Daddy" -- He's going to stop everything that He's doing and listen to us
-- a great illustration of this can be found in the movie "Anna and the King" that starred Jodie Foster -- there is a scene in the movie where a disturbance breaks out in the class for the king's children that Jodie Foster is teaching -- the king's youngest daughter -- about four years old -- takes off on a run for the king's court -- she enters the court that is filled with servants all bowing down to the king and with important men petitioning the king to hear their problems
-- she ran right through the middle of them and crawled up into the king's lap and whispered in his ear -- immediately, he dismissed the court and went with her to the place where Jodie Foster was teaching
-- why did this little girl get such an immediate response from the king? -- because he wasn't only her king -- he was her daddy -- and when one of his children crawled in his lap and asked for his help, he dropped everything in the world to run to her aid
-- that is the picture of God that Jesus gives us in this prayer and that's why He told His disciples -- and us -- to come to God and say "Daddy"
-- God is more than creator or abstract power or distant king -- He is our Daddy who is in Heaven -- and this whole prayer is based on this relationship that we should have with God the Father
B. Rejection of "Father"
-- but, there's a lot of people who object to this prayer because of the use of the term "Father"
-- some don't like to use the term "Our Father" because of gender equality issues -- they think that calling God "Father" puts too much of an importance on men and that it raises men above women in authority -- that is one reason why there is a current push now to make new translations of the Bible "gender neutral"
-- but, this is an invalid criticism -- I would hope that we all understand that God is not either male or female -- while the Bible does generally refer to God in a masculine tense, it does include several feminine images of God -- for instance, in Deut 32:11, we see God compared to a mother eagle who protects her young in the nest and in Matthew 23:37, Jesus looks out over Jerusalem and says that He had the desire to gather them to Himself like a hen gathered up her chicks -- so, the image of God in the Bible includes both masculine and feminine images
-- however, Jesus chose to use the image of God as a Father several times in the Scriptures as a means of illustrating one way in which God related to us -- for instance, in the story of the prodigal son we see God portrayed as the loving father who is searching and longing for the return of His wayward son
-- we also see it in this prayer, when Jesus tells us to pray to God as "Our Father who art in Heaven" to help us see how God hears our petitions and prayers -- some people claim that the term "Father" is paternalistic -- that God is actually genderless -- that is true, but as Ralph Wilson points, out, "we should not change the Scriptures in places where it is clear that it is meant to impart a level of importance by using specific masculine terms" -- such as here in this prayer
-- other people object to this prayer because of their concept of fatherhood -- not everyone grew up with loving, caring, and nurturing fathers -- some people grew up with bad fathers -- abusive fathers -- harsh fathers -- distant fathers, both emotionally and physically -- and absent fathers
-- because of their poor relationship with their earthly father, they look at God the Father in the same way as their earthly father -- they impart their own father's faults and failures onto God, leading to a poor perception of God that is not what Jesus intended when He told us to pray to "Our Father in Heaven"
-- these concerns about the term "Our Father" in this prayer are not happen-stance -- they are planned -- they are planned by our enemy, Satan -- he knew that God wanted to relate to us as a father to a child, and so Satan has done everything he can to destroy fatherhood and families -- and, failing that, he has done everything he can to destroy our understanding and appreciation of fatherhood
-- think about the state of fatherhood in our country -- Satan has spent a lot of time trying to tear families apart -- do you think it's a coincidence that the divorce rate is as high as it is? -- do you think it's a coincidence that a large percentage of children grow up in single parent homes? -- do you think it's a coincidence that abortion and pornography and adultery increased exponentially around the same time that the feminist movement took off?
-- Paul warned us in Ephesians 6 that our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of darkness and the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realm -- we can never forget that we are in the middle of a spiritual battle
-- Satan's goal was to warp our relationship with our earthly fathers so that we could not relate to God as Father as Jesus intended with this prayer
-- that is why there has been such an outcry against same-sex marriages in the past year -- anything that destroys the family destroys our concept of God and our relationship with God -- it changes our thinking about God -- all of these things -- abortion -- pornography -- adultery -- same-sex marriages -- all of these degrade the concept of fatherhood and the family and cause us to not give God the Father the honor and glory that He deserves
-- when we pray "Our Father" it should evoke something special in our minds -- according to Ralph Wilson, in Jesus' day, the term "Abba" included the concepts of care, love, responsibility, and discipline -- the term "Abba" in that day carried hopes and dreams for one's children and represented a figure of respect and authority
-- we have lost that in our country today and we should do everything we can to restore the true meaning of fatherhood to our children and our families so that we can relate to God as a child, crawling up onto the lap of our loving and caring heavenly Father, knowing that He is going to listen to our concerns and will take action on our behalf
III. Who Art in Heaven, Hallowed Be They Name
-- real quickly, let's look at the rest of the invocation in the Lord's Prayer -- Jesus tells us to pray to God in this manner, "Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name"
-- by telling us to pray to Our Father who is in Heaven, Jesus wants us to recognize the difference between our earthly fathers and our Heavenly Father -- God is not just any father, but the Father of us all -- He is our Creator and our Lord -- and by praying in this way we acknowledge God and all His holiness and His position of power and authority
-- the other thing this phrase, "who art in heaven," does is specifically identify our Father as the Lord God Almighty -- El Shaddai -- the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob -- keep in mind that the Jewish people were surrounded by pagans who were polytheistic -- they had many gods who lived in various places -- by identifying Heaven as the abode of God we are affirming that this is not just some nebulous 'god' like the Romans worshiped but the true living God of Israel
-- the phrase "hallowed by thy name" -- "holy by thy name" -- recognizes the sovereign claim of God over the world and anticipates a human response
-- as I pointed out a few minutes ago, without this phrase, our understanding of "Father" can be distorted -- God is not like our earthly fathers -- God does not have faults and never fails -- Jesus reminds us here that God is holy -- He is set apart from sin and cannot look at sin -- this phrase points us to the fact that God -- in all His holiness and goodness -- can only be reconciled to sinners through the atoning death of Jesus on the cross
-- when we pray, "hallowed by thy Name" -- we are actually saying, "Father, may you be treated with the respect and honor that your holiness demands" -- God may be our "Daddy in Heaven" -- but He is also the holy God of the universe (Dr. Ralph Wilson)
VI. Closing
-- in the book of Exodus, we read the story of God appearing to Moses in the burning bush -- when Moses approached the burning bush, God told him to take off his shoes and not to approach because the ground he was standing on was holy -- God did not invite Moses to come into His presence at that time
-- late, when Moses had brought the nation of Israel out of Egypt, God appeared to them on Mt. Sinai in awesome power and invited them into His presence -- but the Israelites refused to come out of fear -- this fear of relating to God in a close and personal way kept the Jewish people distant from God in their prayers and their worship for centuries
-- here in this prayer, Jesus offered yet another invitation to come into the presence of God -- to enter into a close and personal relationship with the Lord God Almighty
-- this prayer is an invitation to approach God in a relationship as a child to our Father in Heaven -- to veiw God, the all-wise, all-loving, and all-powerful creator of the universe -- holy and perfect in all His ways -- as our Daddy in Heaven, who is waiting for us to crawl up on His lap and tell Him about our day
-- will you join me? there's plenty of room in His lap for all -- let us pray
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