SERMON: THE LORD'S PRAYER: "OUR FATHER"

 Naylor Community Christian Church

I. Introduction

-- turn in Bibles to Matthew 6:9-13

 

6:9 “This, then, is how you should pray:

 

“‘Our Father in heaven,

hallowed be your name,

10 your kingdom come,

your will be done,

    on earth as it is in heaven.

11 Give us today our daily bread.

12 And forgive us our debts,

    as we also have forgiven our debtors.

13 And lead us not into temptation,

    but deliver us from the evil one.’

 

-- 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 cards and as Father's Day approached, the warden announced 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 fact that many men in our society today have failed to live up to their calling to be Godly men and fathers and, as a result, this unfortunate circumstance has corrupted our view of God as our Father

-- this morning, we're going to be continuing in our sermon series on The Lord’s Prayer by looking at the invocation to this prayer and God as our spiritual and heavenly Father

 

II.  Our Father

A.  Real Meaning

-- so, when we pray, “Our Father who art in heaven,” what are we saying? -- what does this phrase tell us about God and our relationship to Him -- what did it mean to the Jews who first heard Jesus’ teaching on prayer?

-- in order to understand that, we need to keep in mind that this prayer that Jesus gave us here was a radical shift for the Jews in how to relate to God -- good spiritual Jews recognized God as their God and Creator and King, but they didn't think of Him as approachable in the same sense that we do -- they didn’t have an understanding of God as a personal God who they could speak to on their own in this way

-- generally, the Jewish people looked to God as unapproachable for the average believer -- they would rely on the priests to serve as their intercessors, who would pray and minister to God on their behalf at the Temple -- and while prayer was certainly a part of their lives, their prayers tended to be to God as subjects speaking to their King

-- as we talked about last week, they tended to pray memorized prayers from the Scriptures that were written or taught to them as children -- they would pray these prayers word-for-word -- never deviating from them -- and didn’t offer up personal prayers from the heart

-- this made God seem distant and impersonal -- rather than the New Testament view that we can approach God as His sons and daughters speaking to Him as our Father, the Jews looked at God as someone they prayed to and followed, but not someone they could have a relationship with

-- the idea of anyone relating to God in a personal way -- especially as a child approaching their Father -- was not something the Jewish people understood or even accepted -- it would have been considered blasphemous to do so -- and we see the people reacting to Jesus and accusing Him of blasphemy for daring to call God Father in the gospels

 

-- we have to remember that the primary relationship between God and the Jews was through the Law and through the priests as their intermediaries -- because they feared violating the Law above all and because they feared potentially taking God’s name in vain in violation of the commandments, they would not speak or write God’s name at all, even during prayer -- they would use a substitute name for God rather than His personal name -- and would certainly never think of calling God Father for fear of violating the Law

 

-- what do we mean by God’s name? -- in the Bible, we see many names for God given to us -- El Shadddai -- the Lord God Almighty -- Lord Sabaoth -- the Lord of Hosts -- Adonai -- the Lord -- Jehovah Rapha -- The Lord our Healer -- Jehovah Shalom -- the Lord is Peace -- and in the New Testament, we see other names given for God, including Jesus and the Holy Spirit -- the Alpha and Omega -- the Beginning and the End -- our Comforter -- our Counselor -- our Savior -- our Redeemer -- so, what do we mean when we speak of God’s true name?

-- it all goes back to the Book of Exodus when God appeared to Moses at the burning bush and commanded Moses to go back to Egypt and lead the Israelites out and bring them into the Promised Land -- after Moses had finally accepted this call, he asked God what His name was -- God told Moses that His name was “I Am” -- “I Am who I Am” -- the Hebrew word for that is Yahweh -- Y - A - H - W -E - H -- Yahweh is the name of God that God Himself gave us

-- every Jew knew this story and this name by heart -- but because the Jews feared saying or speaking the name of God, when they wrote the name of God in Scripture or in any Rabbinical teachings, they would remove the vowels from His name, which would prevent anyone from accidentally saying the name of God when they read from the Scriptures -- so, we see the name of God written in the Hebrew text is what we call the tetragrammaton -- it is represented only by the four consonants -- YHWH

-- when the scribes copied the Scriptures and ran across this tetragrammaton, they would write the name Adonai -- which means “Lord” -- above it -- and this is what would be said out loud when the scriptures were read instead of Yahweh

 

-- just as an aside, this is where we get the name Jehovah from -- the early translators of the Bible blended the tetragrammaton YHWH with Adonai by taking the vowels from Adonai and inserting these into YHWH -- it resulted in the word YAHOWAH -- and because Ws are pronounced as Vs and Ys as Js in Latin, we get the transliterated name of God as Jehovah

-- William Tyndale, the English translator, was the first person to use the name Jehovah as the name of God in a translation of the Old Testament -- and this was continued in the King James Version and some of the other earlier translations

-- if you have one of those translations, you’ll often see Jehovah as the name of God in the Old Testament -- if you have a newer translation, you’ll usually see the name of God written as LORD, all in uppercase, to show that it refers to the tetragrammaton and the original name of God as Yahweh

-- so, despite what you might hear from the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the true name of God that He gave Moses was Yahweh, not Jehovah -- the name Jehovah did not even appear until about 1520 -- but it’s okay for us to use this name for God since we understand what it means and Who it refers to -- when we say Jehovah, we are saying “Yahweh is our Lord” -- “God is our Lord”

 

-- let’s get back to our discussion of God as our Father -- so, knowing what you now know -- knowing how the Jews regarded their relationship with God and the name of God, you can see how this opening to this prayer that Jesus gave us was earth-shattering -- it introduced a radical shift in thinking about and relating to God, especially to the Jews

-- rather than being a normal prayer offered up by Jews in the temple to God as their Creator and King, this prayer was relationship driven -- Jesus presented God in this prayer and in His ministry not as an unapproachable king but as a Father who longed to be approached by His children -- who wanted a personal relationship with them as Father to child -- one of the main complaints the Jews had with Jesus was that He called God " My Father" and spoke of Him in such 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

-- daddy implies an intimate and personal relationship

 

-- Jesus is telling us here that this is how we should see and know God -- as our Father -- but more than that -- as our “Abba” -- our Daddy

-- yes, He is our King and our Creator and our God -- yes, He is the Lord God Almighty -- 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" -- because of that relationship -- because we know Him in that way -- 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

-- the king’s daughter ran right through the middle of the crowd 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 said, “Daddy,” and asked for his help, he dropped everything 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 begin our prayers by saying, “Daddy”

-- what we learn from Jesus here is that 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 Him

 

B.  Rejection of "Father"

-- but just as my opening illustration about the Father’s Day cards in prison pointed out, there's a lot of people who object to this prayer and praying like this because they don’t like to think of God as "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 and a misunderstanding of the nature of God -- I would hope that we all understand that God is neither male or female -- He is transcendent -- He is above gender

-- and while the Bible does generally refer to God in a masculine tense, it also includes several feminine images of God -- for instance, in Deuteronomy 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 gathers 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 how God relates 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 here 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 -- as a Father hearing the call of His child

-- so, while some people object to the term Father because of feminism or gender equality issues, the important thing that Jesus is trying to get us to see here is the relationship between God and us -- Jesus chose to use the relationship of a Father to a child for a reason, and we should not try to change the Bible to fit changing cultural norms, whether that makes us uncomfortable or not -- 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"

 

-- 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 distant -- while others grew up without 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 and criticisms about the term "Our Father" in this prayer are not happenstance -- 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 our families and our understanding of fathers and their role in a family

-- think about the state of fatherhood in our country -- 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? -- do you think it’s a coincidence that so many people are struggling with the concept of gender right now?

-- remember what we talked about a few weeks ago -- 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 is to warp our relationship with our earthly fathers and to destroy the biblical concept of marriage and families so that we cannot relate to God as our Father in the way Jesus intended with this prayer

-- anything that destroys the family destroys our concept of God and our relationship with God -- it changes our thinking about God -- and things like 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" 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 who our Father is -- it tells us that our Father is the Lord God Almighty -- El Shaddai -- Yahweh -- the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob

-- keep in mind that the Jewish people were surrounded by pagan societies and cultures that were polytheistic -- they had many gods who lived in various places -- by identifying Heaven as the abode of God in this prayer, 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" literally means "holy by Your Name" -- this 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

            -- in this invocation to the prayer, Jesus reminds us 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

            -- so, why is all this important? -- it all comes down to God’s desire to be in relationship with us -- God’s desire for us to come into His presence through His Son Christ Jesus

-- after Moses had brought the nation of Israel out of Egypt, God appeared to all the people on Mount Sinai -- He called out to them through Moses and invited to come into His presence -- to enter into a personal relationship with Him -- but the Israelites were scared -- they refused to draw near to God out of fear -- and so God began speaking and relating to them through intermediaries -- first, Moses and Aaron -- and then later the priests and the prophets

-- their 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

 

            -- but through Jesus, God is once again offering a close and personal relationship with Him -- through Jesus, God calls out to us and invites us to draw near to Him -- to be with Him in a personal relationship as a Father to His children -- as a Daddy to His beloved sons and daughters

-- this prayer reflects this call and longing of God to be in relationship with us in this way -- this prayer is an invitation to us to come -- to draw near to God as a child to our Father in Heaven -- to view 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 -- all it takes is a cry from your heart, “Daddy” and a desire to be with Him -- and if you call out to Him like that, I guarantee He will hear

-- let us pray