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"LORD TEACH US TO PRAY" OUR FATHER IN HEAVENEphesians 1:3—6INTRODUCTION When I was preparing to come to Janesville to plant this church in 1997 I was required by the leadership of church planting for the EFCA in Wisconsin to attend what is called a “Church Planter’s Boot Camp.” It was a weeklong training session to talk about the “nuts and bolts” of starting a church. It was helpful to get away and to talk with others who were planting churches and who had planted churches. However, the only thing I still remember from that week of training was something that Bob Bakke said. Bob was the national director of prayer for the EFCA and one of the main leaders of the National Day of Prayer for many years. Actually, I haven’t simply remembered this statement. It has haunted me ever since I heard it. This is the sentence I remember: “A prayerless pastor is a godless pastor and none of Christ’s sheep can hear his voice through that pastor.” Why has that sentence haunted me for the past 7 years? It has haunted me because it is my goal, my passion to be the voice of Jesus Christ to you. That is what the Scriptures tell us is the function of pastors. The title pastor means shepherd. Jesus calls himself the shepherd of his sheep. He is our chief pastor. However, I am called in 1 Peter 5:4, an “under shepherd.” It is the goal of every faithful under shepherd to so live and so speak that those who see and listen, see and hear the Lord Jesus Christ. Bob Bakke’s statement haunts me because while I am not a prayerless pastor, I certainly am not a prayerful pastor. So I often wonder if the reason we are not as white hot for Jesus as we ought to be is due to my failure to pray. I wonder if the struggles my children have in loving God has something to do with my lack of depending upon God in prayer. However, as Dr. Paul Tripp made so clear this past weekend, I am not the only here who is to be the voice of Jesus among us. All who belong to Christ are ministers of Christ. As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5, we are all Christ’s ambassadors. Every Christian wants to faithfully be Jesus to others. So let me repeat what Mr. Bakke said with your title in it, so you can be haunted as I have been. “Every prayerless parent is a godless parent and none of Christ’s sheep can hear his voice through that parent.” “Every prayerless friend is a godless friend and none of Christ’s sheep can hear his voice through that friend.” “Every prayerless husband/wife is a godless husband/wife and none of Christ’s sheep can hear his voice through that husband/wife.” I know two things about us when it comes to prayer. First, we don’t pray as much as we know we ought to pray and most of us probably feel guilty about it. Second, we want to pray more and better, but we aren’t really sure how to go about it. The little survey we did last Sunday points this out. We asked everyone here who could read to circle two of ten words that they felt best described their prayer life. The two words picked most often by the 101 respondents to describe their prayer life were “Irregular” and “Unstructured” (You can see a copy of the results on the info table.). We don’t pray on a regular basis and when we do pray we are pretty haphazard about it. Only nine people picked “Effective” as one of the words that best describes their prayer life. I don’t want that sentence from Bob Bakke to keep haunting me or you. I want to pray better and more. I want to help you pray better and more often. I want us to be godly and therefore effective pastors, parents, children, friends, Christians. That is why I am doing this seven-week series on prayer. To do this we are going to take each of the petitions of what is commonly called the Lord’s prayer as it is recorded in Matthew 6:9-13. Read it. This morning we are going to begin by considering to whom our prayers are directed, “our Father in heaven.” Before we do that let me make a general observation about the prayer. You will notice that he begins by saying, “This then is how you should pray.” However, what he says next is not about how to pray but about what to pray. He doesn’t talk about method or technique but about the content of our prayers. Why is that? This really is an astonishing prayer. Jesus is telling us what God wants to give us. It is as if God is saying, “I have much I want to give to you. Therefore, ask me to give these things to you so I can give them to you.” John Calvin was right when he said, “God has promised us nothing that he has not also commanded us to ask of him in prayer.” The basic point here is this: You will pray more and you will pray better when you want what God wants to give you. The greatest hindrance to prayer is that we already have what we want, without prayer. We don’t want what God wants to give. Most people view prayer as if they have to convince a reluctant deity to give them what they want. Therefore, prayer becomes for most a form of bribery or manipulation or barter. We are trying to talk God into giving us what we want. We are seeking to use God to give us what we love rather than asking our loving Father to give us what he loves to give to his children. What God loves to give his children is the content of this prayer. Jesus, by telling us what to pray is showing that we are not in control and that prayer is not about gaining control over God or our lives. Rather, prayer is entering into what God is doing in the world. It is asking our Father to do what he wants to do which, as every good child knows, is the best thing for us. This morning we want to begin by thinking about the God to whom we are praying. Jesus tells us that we are praying to “our Father in heaven.” Who we pray to makes all the difference in the world. It matters, not only because if we don’t pray to this “Father in heaven”, then we are praying to a false God; but also, it is only as we know the one to whom we pray that we will want what he wants to give us. What I want to say this morning is organized around three questions. First, what does it mean to pray to God, who is a Father? Second, what does it mean to pray to a Father who is “our” Father? Third what does it mean to pray to a Father who is “in heaven”? What does it mean to pray to God, who is a Father? I want you to turn with me to Ephesians 1:3-6 to consider what it means to call God, Father. There are three things I want to draw your attention to in these verses. God is our Father because he is first the Father of our Lord Jesus The idea that God is the Father of his people is not very prevalent in the OT. God is said to be the Father of Israel only about six times in the entire OT. He is never called the Father of every human being. All of these references to his being the Father of Israel go back to Exodus 4:22. In this verse God is instructing Moses what to say to Pharaoh. He is to tell Pharaoh, “ Israel is my firstborn son, and I told you, ‘Let my son go, that he may worship me.’ But you refused to let him go; so I will kill your firstborn son.” God identifies himself as the Father of Israel, his son. Hundreds of years later, God through the prophet Hosea describes His delivering Israel out of their slavery in Egypt with this Father/son metaphor in Hosea 11:1. “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.” Then in the NT, in Matthew 2, God warns Joseph in a dream that Herod is seeking the baby Jesus in order to kill him. He tells Joseph to take Mary and Jesus to Egypt in order to escape Herod’s murderous plot. In v. 15 we are told that Joseph, Mary and Jesus stayed in Egypt until the time of Herod’s death. Then Matthew says, “And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: ‘Out of Egypt I called my son.’” In other words, the NT says Jesus now takes the place of Israel. Jesus is God’s only son, because he alone lived as God’s son. Unlike the nation Israel who never obeyed the Father, Jesus “always does what is pleasing to the Father.” As he himself said, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.” Jesus is the perfectly obedient and unique son of God. I am not talking here about his deity as the eternal Son of God who is himself God. Rather, Jesus is the perfect son of God that Adam and Israel and every human being were supposed to be. Jesus obeyed God’s perfect law, perfectly. He obeyed God so completely that he freely and willingly offered himself to God as the final sacrifice for sins. He is the only human being to ever obey God and therefore the only human who deserves or has earned the right to be called the son of God. Notice in these verses in Ephesians that all the wealth of Jesus’ Father is made available to all those who are in Christ. Do you see that in vv. 3, 4, 5 and 6? It is only because God is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ that he is our Father. He is the Father only of those who are in Christ, because Christ obeyed the Father, even to the point of death in the place of all those who are in him. Therefore, if you are not in Christ, who is the only true son of God, then you are not a son or daughter of God. This means that when we pray to our Father we are praying to him in and through Christ. We don’t come to him as if he is our Father because of who we are or what we’ve done but because of who Christ is for us. He is our Father because he is the Father of Jesus who is our Lord. God is our Father because he decided to adopt us It’s impossible to miss this emphasis in these verses in Ephesians. “He chose us...before the creation of the world.” “He predestined us to be adopted as his sons…according to his pleasure and will.” The reason that anyone is a son or daughter of God is because God decided to adopt you. You do not become God’s child because you decided to adopt God as your father. He chooses us first and then we respond in choosing him. The language of adoption is very accurate at this point. The adoption of a child happens because of the initiative of the parents who want to adopt. Orphaned children don’t get to choose their parents, the parents choose the child. Before the world began, God looked over all of humanity that he was going to bring into existence and decided which ones he was going to adopt as his children. The mention of creation at this point is showing us that God’s ultimate purpose in creation is the saving of those whom he decided to adopt as his children. All that he has done to create and sustain this universe has been done so that he can adopt all of his children and bring them home to live with him. The reason the sun rises and the rain falls is so that God can finalize the adoption all of his children. Again, the process of adoption gives us a bit of an analogy at this point. My brother and his wife adopted a child. When they made the decision to adopt a child their whole life revolved around this one thing. They managed their finances differently. They changed their lifestyle. They spent their time researching agencies and filling out forms and talking to social workers. They spent two years of their lives doing this one thing. All that they did or didn’t do during those two years related to the adoption of Brekken. This is the point of telling us that God chose us before the creation of the world. He has been doing all that he has been doing to make you his child throughout all of history. God’s decision to adopt us has resulted in a complete reversal of our condition. Whereas, by nature we are like unwanted, abandoned, orphaned children; now we have become the recipients of every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms. We have received and will receive all that belongs to God. We have been taken from a state of absolute poverty and powerlessness and placed in the family of the greatest king. The change that has happened to us is infinitely greater than the change that takes place when an American couple adopts a child from one of the orphanages in Eastern Europe. The amazing thing is that the God to whom we pray is a Father who planned on giving us this new status before a single star was created. The Father to whom we pray has known us since before he created the world. He has been exercising all of his mighty power in creation and in redemption in order to adopt us as his children. God is our Father because he loves us Why is it that couples adopt children? I know there are a variety of reasons. However, it seems to me that many, if not most adoptions in America are due to the desire of childless couples to have children. They want the experience of loving and raising a child. Their lives somehow seem incomplete without a child. In other words, many if not most, do not adopt a child primarily to help a needy child but in order to meet a need in their own lives. For many the adoption soothes the pain of childlessness. I’m not criticizing parents who adopt for this reason. I’m simply pointing out that for human parents adoption is often as much about their need as it is about the needs of the child they adopt. On the other hand, some couples adopt children not because of a need in their lives but because they want to love a child who would otherwise be unloved. I think this is especially true of those couples who adopt special needs children or hard to place children due to age, race or family history. Why does God adopt us as his children? There are three words that give us his motive in regards to us and then a clause that points to the ultimate motive. He adopts us “in love”, “according to his pleasure” and by giving us his grace in Christ. God does not adopt us as his children due to some need in him. He is not like a childless couple that yearns for the joy of having children and cannot be happy until they have a child. He is not needy in any way. Neither does he choose us because we have met a list of requirements that he made before the world began, like many parents do. He adopts us because he chooses to love us. He adopts us because it makes him happy to be so kind to miserable sinners like us. It gives him pleasure to adopt us. He adopts us, not because of anything we have done, but because he is gracious. He loves to make members of his family, those who deserve to live in an orphanage forever. Notice in v. 6 that he does this so that his amazing grace, his infinite love would be praised. His love for us does not depend upon us. He is our Father because he loves to treat us as his children to show forth the infinite glory of grace. He aims to make us eternally and infinitely happy in the delight of being his children. You know how young children come running to the door when one of their parents comes home after being gone? They run screaming to their mommy or daddy and jump in his or her arms and hug them tight. The parent responds with absolute delight in the child and will tell them how much they love them and how happy they are to be with them. The parent and child may play together then or read a book. There is simply a delight in being with each other. There are moments in the relationship of human parents with their children when being with each other is all that matters. God’s goal in adopting us out of the orphanage caused by our own sin is that he would shower us with his delight in being our father forever and we would respond with joy in him forever. This is the God to whom we pray. He has arranged all of creation to adopt us as his children and he is arranging all of eternity to shower his kindness upon us so that we will rejoice in being his beloved adopted children. The Father to whom we pray does not need to be talked into loving us. If you are in Christ, then God always loves you and is always aiming to do you good, to the praise of his glorious grace. Prayer then is never about trying to talk God into being kind or trying to meet some set of conditions so that he will answer us. He is our Father who delights to do good to us, always. What does it mean to pray to a Father who is “our” Father? You’ll notice here in Ephesians that all the pronouns are first person plurals (us), just like “our” is. The Father to whom we pray is not just my Father. He is the Father of a very large and diverse family. While God adopts each individual believer through a very personal and intimate process, yet he adopts all of us as members of his family. We have lots of brothers and sisters. We all share many things in common. We are all sinners who deserve to go to hell. We all were living separated from God, without hope. God chose each of us, contrary to what we deserve to become members of his family. God has given each of us all of his spiritual blessings in the heavenly realms in Christ. God through Jesus Christ has adopted all of us. Jesus is the Lord of each of us. We all share the same destiny, an eternity of enjoying God as our Father. When we pray we are always to pray with this mindset, we belong to the family of God. Our interests are the interests of the family, not merely our own private personal interests. We are part of a praying community. We are always praying for and with other Christians. Paul says in Ephesians 6:18, “…with this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.” He urges the Christians in Rome to “join me in my struggle by praying to God for me…” In 2 Corinthians he says, “On him (Christ) we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many.” In every letter he writes he informs the Christians he writes to that he is praying for them. Prayer is not simply a personal, private activity between God and me. Rather I am part of a family and I am concerned for my family. When I go to my Father I do not just talk with him about my concerns but I talk with him about the concerns of our entire family. I rejoice with those who rejoice and I mourn with those who mourn. I am permanently connected to the family of God and am permanently concerned for the welfare of God’s entire family. Christianity is not a private religion. When you become a Christian you join a very large and lively and outgoing family. Our pains are not private pains and our joys are not private joys. We are vitally connected to each other and to each other’s well being. We are like Paul who says, “Besides everything else I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches. Who is weak, and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin and I do not inwardly burn?” We carry a burden for the welfare of all God’s children and we regularly express that concern in our prayers to “our” Father in heaven. For the last couple of months we have been printing the names of three families or individuals from our congregation on the tear off portion of the program. This is a very appropriate way for you and I to express the “our Father” of the Lord’s Prayer. You can pray for every member of the church, even if you do not know them by using the prayers of Paul in his letters. In addition we need to be in regular contact with one another and to be sharing our burdens and cares so that we can pray for one another with greater awareness of specific needs. We are to pray with other believers. I’d like you to consider joining Ed Fruin and I on Wed. mornings at 6:15am to pray at the church. Come to first Friday prayer. Plan to join in the week of prayer in January when we will be having nightly prayer meetings. What does it mean to pray to a Father who is “in heaven”? I want to say three things about what it means to pray to a Father who is “in heaven.” First, the Father to whom we pray is infinitely different than us. To say that God is in heaven is to acknowledge that he is high above us in every way. We are made in his image. He is not made in our image. There is to be a reverence and a fear in our approach to God because he is utterly different than us. He is our Father and all the intimate and personal attributes we associate with fatherhood are true of our relationship with God. However, to call God our Father is not to say everything that is true about him. This is the problem of language about God. There is no single metaphor or word that can contain all that is true of God. All language is an accommodation to our finiteness. The infinite God is seeking to communicate true things about his infinite, incomprehensible greatness to finite humans. To say that our Father is in heaven is to acknowledge that God is not a part of this creation. He is the Creator who is infinite in power. He is absolutely holy and just. He is a consuming fire of righteousness. All who come before him tremble at the revelation of his holiness. I think of how Moses approached God on Mt. Sinai (Exodus 32-34 & Numbers 14). There is a boldness and confidence in his prayers but there is a great sense of humility and fear as well. He knows that God is the Father of Israel and he knows that he is awesome in power and holiness. Have you ever personally met a famous person? I’ve never met a really famous person. However, on a couple of occasions I have gone up to Christian leaders who are well known and who have been speaking at a conference that I’ve attended. There is a nervousness to meet them. A fear that you are going to make a fool of yourself, that you might expose your inadequacy in the presence of their “greatness”. There is a formality in approaching them that is not the same as how I approach my friends and family. My sister has a Phd. and is the principal of a middle school in the Milwaukee school district. The students in her school for the most part approach her with deference and some fear. However, I don’t approach her that way because she is my sister. I think we have a hard time putting these two things together, the familiarity and boldness of a child with her loving father and the trembling that should affect us when we approach one who is infinitely greater than ourselves. We should approach God as our loving Father but we must do so in a spirit of humility and fear because he is our father “in heaven.” The second thing that acknowledging that our Father is in heaven tells us is that he has infinite power to help us. The prophet Jeremiah says it so well, “Ah Sovereign Lord, you made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you.” Or as Paul tells us, we have received every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms in Christ. All the resources of God’s infinite power are available to us. We are not praying to a God who only has power over some small slice of reality, like praying to a Greek god or goddess. We are praying to the Lord of heaven and earth. He is able to do whatever he pleases in the heavens and on the earth, in the seas and all their depths. “When he acts, who can reverse it?” “If God is for us, who can be against us?” “The Lord foils the plans of the nations; he thwarts the purposes of the peoples. But the plans of the Lord stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people he chose as his inheritance.” The Father to whom we pray is the sovereign king of the whole universe and so we can pray with absolute confidence that he is able to do all that needs to be done to preserve and provide for us. Finally, to pray to our Father in heaven is to remember that we are not home yet. Children are to live with their adoptive parents. We have been adopted. We currently are God’s sons and daughters. We already are his children. However, our adoption is not complete in that we are not yet living with our Father in heaven, in resurrected bodies. Paul says exactly this in Romans 8. In vv. 14-17 he describes our adoption and the fact that we are children of God. But then a few verses later he says, “…we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” Our condition is similar to the child living in that orphanage in Romania who has been adopted by an American couple. All of the legal requirements have been met. The papers are signed. But the couple cannot make it to pick up the child for a month. They’ve sent a package to the child with pictures of his new home and letters describing their love and plans for his future. They’ve sent new clothes and toys for him to use while he waits. They have told the staff at the orphanage that whatever he needs they are to give to him and they will pay for it. They have given the child a phone card with unlimited minutes so he can call to talk his parents in America and to ask for whatever he needs. However, he is still waiting to experience the fullness of the fact of his adoption. Can’t you just imagine this child reading books about America? He is trying to learn English. His attachment to the orphanage and to the country of his birth is lessening by the day. He thinks much of his new parents and his new home and little of his current situation. We are just like him. We have been adopted but our adoption is not fully realized. We are still living in the orphanage but our Father who is at home in heaven and is coming to get us has told us that we are to ask him for whatever we need as we wait and he will provide for us so that we make it safely to heaven. His provision is not for the purpose of making us feel at home in the orphanage but in order to keep us safe until he brings us home. That’s what the content of the Lord’s prayer is all about. What are the things we need to ask God for and that he longs to give us so that we can join him in heaven? That is what we will be thinking about together for the next six Sundays. © Copyright
2004 John Swanson. |