We're in a series on the Lord's Prayer. We began it last week. We kind of when we were going through the gospel of Luke, we kind of skipped over Luke 111 through 13 That's where Jesus gives a version of the the Lord's Prayer to his disciples in response to their request Lord Teach us to pray and we decided what we would do the reason we passed over it was we wanted to Give more time to this topic of prayer this fall and look at the Lord's Prayer in The fuller context of how Jesus gave it in the sermon on the mount It's recorded in Matthew 6 and to spend a little bit of time showing Jesus is teaching in Matthew 6 about prayer We did that last week and now we'll use Matthew's gospel pretty much for the Lord's Prayer in that he gives a fuller rendition of it. I don't know how it is for you, but you know how it is you're telling someone the same story and you change things up a little bit That's kind of what was going on I think why Luke's is a little bit shorter to than Matthew's but it's essentially the same prayer We'll take the longer more extended version of it to make it an ethics series or something I don't know but We'll look at look at the teaching that Jesus gave at the end of the Lord's Prayer and Luke as well When we finish going through the Lord's Prayer That is why we change the way we pray in the service of worship I know it can be a little bit unsettling you get used to Standing at a certain time or sitting at a certain time or giving your offerings at a certain time and I'd say what's up with the the change here That's that's what it is We just thought that Jesus's model of prayer would be good to follow and you know He gives us the address, which is what we'll be looking at today our father who we know it best as who art in heaven And then he gives three petitions that have to do with God's glory, right? How do it be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done? And that was the first prayer that was offered around that theme of God's glory our first priority the first thing Jesus called us to pray about pray about and then The second part that we titled for our good prayers for our good and that's where we pray give us this day our daily bread For give us our debts as we forgive our debtors and lead us not into Temptation but deliver us from evil that's that's kind of the pattern. We're seeking to follow while we're in this series I won't mention this every week, but maybe another week won't hurt if you're interested in a daily devotional guide This is designed to help you think about What we're looking at Sunday by Sunday. It's broken into seven days a week It there's a text that will help you think about a particular petition of the Lord's prayer or whatever the Topic is on a particular week and then leads you kind of into prayers that that follow as a result of that You can get that by you know contacting the office and saying I'd like a printed copy or simply download it from the church's web page It's on the home page and that addresses on the back of the bulletin if you're so inclined our text this morning from The Lord's Prayer is from Matthew chapter 6 and verse 9. It's a very easy read Jesus thought Pray then in this way our father who art in heaven and that's the text we're going to look at today There's actually quite a bit just in this Address to God when we say our father who are in heaven and we want to look at it We'll look at it in terms of our father and what's the safe significance behind these words and then Who are who who is in heaven? I still struggle you know you say the Lord's prayer all your life and it's which art in heaven and I don't know which it is But anyway, that's that's the struggle whichever one I say no. I mean our father who is in heaven, okay? That's what we're talking about. Well look at why Who is in heaven? Why did Jesus give us that in fact? I really want to start there this morning and talk about that and then look at the the other aspect of The prayer our father and so in order to think about why did Jesus teach us to pray our father who is in heaven? I thought it'd be helpful for us to read a text of scripture that gives us a peek into heaven the Apostle John had a revelation given to him by Jesus Christ which he wrote down We commonly call it the book of the revelation and it starts in chapter 4 with a Vision of what heaven was like let me read to you what God's word says in this part After this I looked and there before me was a door standing open in heaven and The voice I had heard first heard speaking to me like a trumpet by the way That's our Lord Jesus Christ it tells us that in chapter 1 this voice speaking like a trumpet said come up here And I will show you what must take place after this At once I was in the spirit and There before me was a throne in heaven with one someone sitting on it and The one who sat there had the appearance of Jasper and Carnillion a Rainbow resembling an emerald encircled the throne Surrounding the throne were 24 other thrones and seated on them were 24 elders They were dressed in white and had crowns of gold on their heads From the throne came flashes of lightning rumblings and peels of thunder Before the throne the seven lamps were blazing. These are the seven spirits of God Also before the throne there was what looked like a sea of glass clear as crystal In the center around the throne were four living creatures and they were covered with eyes in front And in back Let's pray and ask God to bless this time to us father You are very great
Grant us to have something of this glimpse of your glory in heaven To know what it means to call you our father Give to us your spirit a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in our knowledge of you Help me to speak clearly as I ought to speak Give to us listening ears and may we grow in our ability to draw near to you in prayer Because of the time we spend drawing near to you and listening to you now We ask this in Jesus name Amen So we talk with our father in heaven. That's the first fill in the blank there We talked to our father in heaven. Why does Jesus teach us to say in heaven? What's he getting at does not God fill both heaven and earth? Is he not what we say omnipresent in all places all the time? We'll look at that in just the the giving of his name Jehovah I am that I am that indeed he does fill the universe and that's why Solomon would pray Heaven and the highest heavens can't contain you. So why does Jesus use this term and teach us to pray our father in heaven It's not unusual to us We if we read the Bible we find it quite often in fact in Matthew's gospel it happens 72 times that it says heaven heavenly heavens something like that a lot because it talks about the kingdom of heaven or kingdom of God But it is a term that that is familiar to us and Jesus certainly used it and is teaching why? Well, I think he wants to draw us to consider A great is our God. What is he like in heaven and under that there's there's three things I want us to think about We talked to our father in heaven and there's three things about him that we want to look at this morning the first one is God's presence is majestic glorious and beautiful I stopped at three I thought about going on with other words But I figured I could just say I'm out loud and that would be good enough God's presence is majestic glorious and beautiful. I think it's throughout the whole
Speaking of what heaven is like and it by the Apostle John But here's just a couple verses when he said at once I was in the spirit and there before me was a throne in heaven With someone sitting on it and the one who sat there had the appearance of Jasper and Carnillion a rainbow resembling an emerald and circled the throne He's talking about a great king right that king sits on the throne and and there it is There's a throne and and John is saying when we think about God in heaven We see him as he really is as the great king the king of kings the the sovereign over all that he is made And he's different than everything else His his kingliness is greater and grander than anything we know when Isaiah gave a Rendition of his vision of seeing Jesus. He said or seeing God seated on his throne in Isaiah six He said he saw the Lord seated on his throne and the train of his robe Fill the temple and the temple was filled with glory and what what the both writers are getting across There's God is absolutely majestic. He's he's He's wonderful. He's he's big. He's splendid. He's Magnificent. He's he's majestic. He's important. He's glorious. He's important He's the one that we look to He's all inspiring and I think he's trying to get something of his beauty across as well as he talks about Prussia's gyms and precious stones that he looks something like this as the parents is like that God is glorious That's one of the things he wants us to see when we offer our prayers to God It should be in our mind that that while we talk to him as our father and we'll talk about that in a moment and how Intimate and personal that is He's also the God who fills heaven with his glory Who's majestic? Who's splendor is greater than our words really to describe? Not really moves us to the second point I want you to consider this morning that God is transcendent I had different words in there. I wasn't sure transcendent God is holy other God is bigger than anything we can imagine These are the kind of words transcendent was just a nice one to land on. He is holy different than the rest of us His glory transcends the glory of earthly kings his Majesty as he sits on his throne and his worship by the elders and the 20 and the four creatures in the host of heaven His majesty and his glory and his his beauty are just greater. They transcend anything we know Our media people the folks who make movies for our entertainment they do a great job and special effects seem to get better and better and better We've come a long way since the Wizard of Oz and you know the glory of Oz and so on and so forth But in the words of the a lot a lot of you ain't see nothing yet. He's transcendent He's beautiful He's glorious. He's majestic. He's bigger. He's greater
Number three, or the third bullet God is central. He's right in the middle All the creatures surround him Surrounding the throne were 24 other thrones and seated on them were 24 elders in the center around the throne Were the four living creatures and they were covered with eyes and front and in back The picture that is given is is that there's this throne in heaven and it's beautiful with the sea of glass and you know The rainbow like an emerald and the one sitting on there who's transcendence by the way transcendence when it talks about him It says he has the appearance right talks about a throne that says there's a throne or 24 thrones for the 24 elders But when it talks about him it's he has the appearance of that's because our words fail us He's he's transcendent, but but he's in the center. He's in the middle everyone looks to him The the you have the throne and then you have these four creatures with eyes and front and in fact They see everything as I would suppose the imagery right of such creatures But they're fixed on him. They're at the center. They're looking at God most hot The 24 elders. I don't know probably representing the 12 tribes and the 12 apostles I think that's there's the symbolism going on there But they're focused on God as well God's in the center of what they're doing and as chapter 4 unfolds and and these creatures are singing holy holy holy Is the Lord God Almighty the the 24 elders Bow down and they cast their golden crowns around the glassy sea we sing in holy holy holy They worship him because he's in the center and they see his glory and and it just keeps building and building so that That we're told in chapter 5 that thousands and 10,000 of 10,000 of the hosts of heaven the angels all the creatures that God has made in the heavenly host They worship him and God is in the center of it Hard to get our minds around when we pray especially when we say our father who art in heaven how that be thy name and we're moving on to the next thing It's like whoa wait a second Let me encourage you in your prayers especially if you use the Lord's prayer to slow down And to think about what it is you're saying And why Jesus chooses the words he does why does he say our father in heaven
Certainly the way you talk to him Will change Let's move on and think about this other aspect of the Lord's prayer though we talk with our father In heaven that's number two we talk with our father in heaven and this is really there's a lot of amazing things in this section Forgive me for kind of breaking into some of the technical historical stuff But it it is interesting and it's good to know in terms of our own prayer life When Jesus was teaching The disciples how to pray and when he was giving the sermon on the mount to multitudes who were sitting there We're pretty sure he was talking in arabic that was the natural language of the people of the day So when he went to pray The question is did he switch the Hebrew to the Old Testament language Because if you look at a lot of the synagogue worship the prayers are in Hebrew And to this day the orthodox Jews when they pray they pray in the ancient Old Testament Hebrew Much like the Muslims when they pray they pray in arabic you you learn the arabic that's the that's the language That's the prayer language. It's it's specific But when Jesus taught us to pray what language did he pray? Almost either way it doesn't matter because of the way the the history of the church is unfolded But even the way we have it in the New Testament In the grit we're given Greek For our father And the question is is that a translation because Jesus probably was not teaching in Greek
Very imminent scholar of Middle Eastern and ancient Middle Eastern studies Kenneth Bailey Would say that when Jesus was teaching one of the unique things he did was he taught in In arabic in the the heart language Have you do you know people who speak other languages? Have you ever been to another country or working with someone who's moved to this country and English is just not their first or native language But it is yours For those of you were that's true If they're Christians and you go to pray This happens to me when I go to the Czech Republic and I'm in their nation and they want to include me in their first I'll still say mark. I'm going to pray and check. Okay. That's like yeah And the reason they want to do that is because It's the language of intimacy for them. It's their heart language. It's how they talk to God And the fact that Jesus would teach his people to pray in their heart language It in it in and of itself teaches us something About prayer Some of the evidence that it was Abba The arabic Is that when Jesus was praying um in the garden of gassimony according to marks gospel chapter 14 and verse 36 when he was praying he used this term Abba and it's translated for us with that word that arabic word translated into the Greek Abba and then the Greek word pater So it comes across in our translation Abba father And it's not like saying holy father or something like that. It's like saying Abba or translated for everyone else to understand father When the apostle Paul wanted to talk about the significance of our life in Christ and how the spirit Regenerates us and gives us life and we follow the spirit. He says in in Romans 8 and verse 15 where you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again But you've received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out Abba Father That word was so significant in the the prayer language of the early church that they didn't want to get rid of it They wanted to keep that word Abba. I mean, I mean, this is just something that's kind of cool too that word is still used in some of the Middle Eastern countries Dr. Bailey writes in at least four countries in the Middle East today Abba is still the first word that a young child learned Several years ago, I was privileged to teach the Lord's Prayer in Arabic to a group of village women in the Lebanese mountain In class, I was describing Abba as the first century Arabic word and as I spoke I noted a certain embarrassed restlessness in the class Finally stopped and asked the women if they had any comments One woman at the back shyly put up her hand and very very gently told this poor foreigner Dr. Bailey Abba is the first word we teach our children On investigating I found this to be true across Lebanon Syria Palestine and Jordan These countries were all once eramaic speaking and this precious word has survived Even though the language of the people is now Arabic Abba The first word of baby learns that's significant the next fill in the blank by the way is we pray Jesus teaches us to relate to God personally think about it Abba if it's the first word what what Jesus is getting across is This is a word that is used of an infant who just wants dad You know as kids grow up they learn how to talk sweet talk Daddy right daddy. I love you. Oh look an ice cream shop
But an infant just learning to talk says daddy daddy daddy and all he wants is to hang on the neck Then care about the ice cream doesn't care about cowboy boots that'll come But all he wants is or she wants his daddy
That's the kind of personality a personal relationship that Jesus is calling us to have With our heavenly father now if that's true If he used this this word Abba Even even with father But especially Abba the first word that was taught to the children it's not just daddy. It's almost like Dada or whatever that first aspect of Language is And it talks almost about the birthing process doesn't it And it takes us back to what Jesus said to Nicodemus Remember the story in John chapter 3. There's this there's this Pharisee religious leader He comes to he's a religious leader, but he's a layperson Pharisees were layman But he comes to Jesus by night and he says Jesus we know that you're from God because no one can do the things You do unless God's with him and Jesus yet you'd expect well if I shouldn't confess my sins. I do that way too much, but if it were me it would be I'm so glad you could tell You know, I work really hard so that you see Christ in me and I would go on this way, right? You know Jesus says Truly I say to you unless you're born again, you cannot see the kingdom of heaven What he says what do you mean be born again? What do you get in my mother's womb and be born again? And Jesus is like no, no, you don't understand he just keeps it the same he says truly. I say to you unless you are Born again born of the spirit. You cannot enter The kingdom of God
It's almost as though this word helps us to see that if we really want to connect with our father He must be our father by By virtue of spiritual birth. We must be born again We must have spiritual life in order for the Holy Spirit to give us that spirit of adoption by which we cry daddy And what to hang on the neck of God not for what he gives to us But because he's beautiful and glorious and majestic and transcends everything as the creator of the universe It's the spirit of God that leads to that By which we cry and there are people Who have earthly fathers and they begin to think of their earthly fathers and this is a stumbling block
Islam would go with you in fact. They don't like using Metaphors to talk about God father. It's all for them. It's demeaning. He's so transcendent There's nothing imminent or near about God And there is a danger that way If you've had a bad relationship with your father if if just hearing Talking to God and saying father is something that's repulsive and moves you away Let me encourage you that To redeem that word don't get rid of it Just redeem it let let God be the one who describes what a father is because our heavenly father is the perfect father who never Never acts in an inappropriate way never does anything inappropriate when he disciplines It's always right when he loves us. It's always with pure delight He's always right and good and caring and a great picture of what he is like is in the protocol the story of the Protocol son the father and that story a father who is is generous and kind and compassionate who loves his children Giving them more freedom maybe sometimes. It's even good for them and yet loving them and receiving them back and caring for them One who covers the sins one who redeems. That's the way our father is
And so maybe rather than juddising the word father Just learn to pray Draw so close to me that I see you I see your beauty. I see your majesty. I see your glory I see your transcendent Worthiness and that all your ways are good
So that I trust in you That's kind of what's behind this idea of a personal relationship Jesus teaches us to pray personally to God and to reverence him To treat him as the God of heaven So let's put these things together point three is this we talk with our father in heaven with reverence and confidence With reverence and confidence And it's easy to do just think about the mood in heaven the mood among the creatures in heaven is marked by reverence Holy holy holy is the Lord God The whole earth is full of his glory. They bow before him. They cast their crowns before him They're enthralled with his beauty There's reverence and intensity the more clearly we come to see God for who he is The greater our intensity of love and wanting to give him Our praise worship adoration Our selves That's the mood in heaven and praise God one of these days right for all of his redeemed children We'll see him as he is And we'll be there without any hindrances Offering him that kind of worship and just enjoy The hug around his neck But the mood of God's children should be marked also by confidence. I think of the baby And the small child baby comes into this world And is completely dependent on the parents And while often it starts off very traumatic being held upside down, slept on the little back side crying What's going on to me? It's not too long before the child is in the mother's arms Swallow Comforted at the mother's thrust
And for all those early years there that baby is Finding peace, finding rest, finding confidence trusting Completely in the parent there's no wonder Jesus would tell us unless you are converted and become like little children
That's the way we should come to our father There is also in this word I guess I skipped it before Jesus teaches us to pray together forgive me for missing that on point two We pray our father Because while we are born into this family we are born again into the to God we are born again into a family And we do have brothers and sisters And we do have to learn to pray forgive us our debts as we forgive those who are our debtors
And we long We long to see the father and we long for one another to see him We trust the father for ourselves and we trust God for others. We pray with all our hearts For those who are struggling with health issues With those who are struggling with the floods in Pennsylvania or the fires in the Austin area with those who are starving to death In East Africa we care about them. We pray for them We want their well-being One aspect about this fatherhood and I'll close with this with this confident aspect
The Bible teaches that when we are born again when we are born into the family of God when we In the fullest sense say our father right we we can say that by Fact of he's the creator of all things But when we're born into his family when we're born again when the spirit moves in us and we can cry Abba father Then we are also at that same time adopted into his family and our legal right have legal rights as adopted daughters and sons I was talking to a couple who have adopted recently and my wife and I did and my wife said so what kind of spiritual lessons have you learned One of the comments had to do with you know all the legal work had been done Childless ours completely Living in our home But the child had to learn to live as our child and not as an orphan Legally was there practically didn't know Made me think of another missionary Story I heard from preacher talk about a missionary who adopted a child and Just long to have this child accept them the child would come to the mom and and spend time with the mom But very slow to move toward the dad Wouldn't sit on his lap would say mother father because that was required of the child but it was hard on the dad because the child just hadn't learned to love their They're adopted father and then one day the child came and said dad My shoelaces broke can I have some shoelaces? And that was the thing it was like that's when the child depended on the father That's when the child demonstrated this confidence that their father would take care of them and love them And of course the father would do that
Jesus teaches us to draw near to God With all holy reverence and confidence as children to their father Who is able and ready to help That's right Father make us to be a people who see your glory and majesty and beauty Who trust in your goodness
Teach us to pray with both reverence and confidence and God move in us so that what we want most of all Is to hang on your neck We pray this For you God most high are worthy and as we do that we know it is for our utter good We ask in Jesus name