Names | Abba - Romans 8:12-17 | March 29

You are listening to Teaching from Mountainside Church in Boone,

North Carolina, where we live as real people who are a part of a real family

serving a real God in the high country.

To learn more about our church, stay connected, or partner with us, visit mcboone.com.

So I'm not going to do that. But it might be Abba. It might just be a good guess,

though. This might be a good guess.

It's Abba. So last week, we talked about the most used name for God,

especially in the Old Testament.

I'm not sure. I think that statistic applies to the entire Bible.

But we talked about the name Yehovah or Yahweh, the name of God,

which eventually Jews became believed to be so holy that they wouldn't even spell it out or speak it.

But in the Bible, they used it. They greeted each other with the name.

They came and gathered together in the name.

God tells us to, every time we make mention of His name, we come before Him,

that we call upon His name, that name Yehovah, Yahweh, the God who is the source,

the sustainer, the one who is beyond us, holy, self-existent.

Who was, who is, and who evermore will be, Yahweh, Yehovah.

That was last week. This week, I realized on Thursday was Palm Sunday.

So Palm Sunday might have planned a little better, but Hosanna is not a name.

So, you know, we got off pretty scot-free on that one.

Hosanna means, it's actually a cry, an appeal, like God save us is how it was

traditionally used, Hosanna.

When Jesus entered in on the donkey and they cried, Hosanna,

blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, they turned this cry for help,

this plea for help into a shout of praise, almost as if they're saying,

here is the one who came to save us, Jesus.

So that's a really cool thing about Hosanna, but Hosanna is not a name.

So we have to decide on a name.

So this week we move from the most used name in the Bible, which is used 6,827

times or something like that.

We move from that to a name that only appears three times in the Bible.

It all appears in the New Testament.

Abba appears only in the New Testament. It only appears three times.

So what I want to do, give you a little preview. We don't have...

As long as we usually have. So I want to give us a little breakdown of the word

and then lead us in an exercise of prayer to our Abba at the end.

But first, I want us to ask this question to set us off right.

How do we picture God in our prayers, in our imagination?

How do we image God, because everything else is going to flow out of that.

If I cannot see myself as a son.

And if I have a bad picture of my father, then my prayer is going to be affected

by that. My praise is going to be affected by that.

The worship that I bring to him daily, not just here as we gather to honor and

praise Him, but in the quiet and the stillness by myself is going to be affected

by that picture and image of God that I have, that I image.

For some of us, the reality is that the word Father becomes complicated.

When we think about the picture of a Father, it doesn't land for us softly in our hearts.

Sometimes it's filled with hurt, it's filled with confusion,

it's filled with pain, which is why this word begins to matter so much for us.

Because the Bible is clear that God came to be the father to the fatherless.

In Psalm 68, it says, Sing to God, sing in praise of His name, extol Him.

His name is the Lord, Yehovah, Yahweh.

A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God and His holy dwelling.

God sets the lonely in families and He leads out the prisoners with singing.

But the rebellious live in a sunscorched land.

And so this word father, I guess it's not a name perhaps, but a title or like

I said, most of them are not names, they're descriptions or titles or professions even.

But this name father is not a reflection of what we have experienced from our

earthly fathers. It's not meant to be that.

It's meant to be a restoration of what it means to have a.

It means to fill full in all the ways that our earthly fathers fall short,

in all the ways that we as fathers fall short.

It's meant to fill that term full of meaning and purpose and love.

And like I said, it's only mentioned, Abba is only used three times in the Bible.

It's all in the Old Testament.

Jesus used it once in Mark 14 when he's praying just before the cross,

and he prays for God to take this cup away from him.

He says, Abba, Father, please take this cup away from me. Nevertheless, your will be done.

So that's the only time Jesus uses the word Abba, which might be surprising to you.

And then we have Paul use it. He uses it in Romans chapter eight and Galatians chapter four.

And in all three of these times, it's always used Abba hopater.

But Abba is a Aramaic term. It's not a Greek term. But he uses the word Abba.

And then he puts in the Greek as well. It's always Abba father.

It's never Abba by itself. And why is it so important, even though it's only used three times?

Why is there something so important about the word Abba that instead of translating

it, they put it in from the original language, from that Aramaic?

And it's not that it means daddy, like you maybe have heard.

It doesn't not mean daddy, but it means so much more than that.

Abba was a word that was used not just by babies and children,

but it was used by adults continuing to speak of their father.

They would use this term of endearment, this term of familiarity,

this term of affection and love and trust and devotion, because the reality

is you still have a father even when you grow up.

So it was this term that stretches beyond the simple meaning of daddy,

but it also pours into all of that heartache meaning.

Whenever I think about this word, I don't know if you guys have seen the movie Patriot.

There you go. A lot of adults probably have. Probably not watch it with the kids for a while.

But there's this scene that you're familiar with because you've seen it.

Where the little girl, right, doesn't talk the entire time.

And then Mel Gibson's character goes away for a long time. He comes back when

they're all escaped and away. And she's been talking the whole time while he's gone.

And he just wants her to say a word.

And she doesn't say anything until he starts to ride away, right?

And then she just bursts into tears and runs after her. Papa,

Papa, I'll say anything you want, Papa, Papa.

This word always reminds me of that scene, that we get to cry to God,

our Abba, in that same way.

But it doesn't, like the word daddy gets weird when you grow up.

But that word, Papa, that word, Abba, it doesn't lose any of that passion or

love or familiarity that we get to cry out to our Father, Papa, Papa, Abba, Abba.

So that's the picture that comes to mind for me always.

And it is such a powerful term that we see.

So this is the only three times that Abba is used.

But obviously the word Father is used a whole lot more.

And what we're going to be able to see in just a second is that a lot of the

primary way we relate to God begins to be this term father, even though the word Abba is not used.

And it becomes so powerful, so much so that in John chapter five.

Jesus doesn't use the word Abba, but he calls on his heavenly father.

He's healing on the Sabbath.

He calls on his heavenly father. And the Jews are in the upper word of the fact

that he's healing on the Sabbath. But then they use this statement afterwards,

this accusation against him.

They say that not only is he breaking the Sabbath, but he is even calling God

his own father and making himself equal with God.

This is how powerful, how weighty, how full of meaning this name is.

To call God father like this is to step in and in this shared closeness with

him. And somehow we are invited into that same relationship that Jesus has with the Heavenly Father.

And it's not so much about our intimacy with God, it is, but it's about His

desire for intimacy with us, if that makes sense.

It's not so much that when we say Abba, we are starting something,

we're initiating something, we're giving God a new identity.

What we're doing is responding to what God has already initiated,

what He's already been doing.

When we become children of God, He places His Spirit on us that we might experience

what it means to be his children and therefore call upon his name.

And somewhere from deep within us, this cry comes.

I want to read Romans chapter 8, which is one of the verses that mentions Abba.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

It just says, So then, brothers, we are debtors not to the flesh to live according

to the flesh, for if you live according to the flesh, you will die.

But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.

For you do not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear,

but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, Abba, Father.

His spirit, the spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.

And if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ,

provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

So real quick, this is what Paul's doing. He's saying that the spirit of God

living in the believer enables us to cry out from a voice that's deep within us,

Things that are true, a voice of recognition, a voice of affection,

a voice of joy that sees, that connects in a way beyond our understanding to the God of the universe.

Something that cries out from within us that I have God as my Father,

that He has paid for me, that He has adopted me, that He cares for me,

that He wants me, He loves me, He protects me, He provides for me,

He has made me an heir of all that He owns.

The recognition God as my Father does all of these things. It holds all of this weight.

This is the experience that Jesus had with the Father.

And this is the experience that God places in our heart that we might share

it as well. God alive in us.

So we are being drawn into, through the power of the Spirit,

the very relationship that Jesus held with God while he was on this earth.

And so, like I said, this is only mentioned three times in the Bible.

One of the probably least mentioned names, although Father's mentioned a whole lot more.

But it becomes, it begins to become one of the primary ways that we relate to God.

One of the primary identities that God has towards us as our Father,

and one of our primary identities that we hold as His child as we cry, Abba, Father.

I didn't bring it with me. I want to make mention of it. If you haven't read

the book Abba's Child by Brennan Manning, this is probably the only recommendation

for a book I've ever given that I've actually read.

I encourage you to read it. It is really good.

But with this, we talked about at the beginning, how do you image God?

How do you think about God in your time in your quiet reflection at home by yourself?

How do you imagine God as you pray? because every misunderstanding we have about

prayer or worship is ultimately a misunderstanding of God.

If He is distant in our eyes, then prayer becomes...

Almost nonsensical to us. It disappears.

If he's harsh, prayer becomes performance to get him on our good side.

But if he's Abba, then we can pray like Jesus invited us into with this childlike humility and intimacy.

Jesus invites us over and over again to come as children and that for such as

these is the kingdom of God for children, for his children.

And this kind of prayer, this prayer that is simple, it's childlike,

it has easy familiarity and deep reverence.

This kind of prayer that makes a disciple, this childlike candor,

this childlike prayer is the type of prayer that we're invited into.

It's the type of relationship that we're invited into.

So if we have a misunderstanding of God as our Father, if we bring in the baggage

and the weight of our earthly fathers, then it's going to affect our worship

and our prayer. So here's the question.

When you are alone, what does your worship look like? Because that moment will

reveal what you think about God.

If there is anything in there, it will affect the way that you pray,

the way that you worship.

But if you embrace God as your Abba, and I get this picture of adoption.

For those of you who have adopted kids, you might have experienced at something

like this, even more so if you've adopted a child from a different country.

There is this period of time where the child is yours, but they're not home yet.

And I imagine God as our Father who has adopted us in this in-between space

sometimes, waiting for the child that is already His to come home.

This is the heart of God towards us, not deciding whether He's going to love

us or not, but waiting and longing for the child He already loves,

for the child who is already His beloved.

So when we say, Abba, Father, we are stepping into this reality.

We're stepping into something powerful.

We should envision a father who knows your greatest strengths,

your greatest weaknesses, your beginning, your end.

And instead of forcing himself, his will on you, he allows you to meet him right

where you are with intimacy that can only exist between the creator and his

created, with Abba and his beloved child.

So we're going to invite you into an exercise to finish off our time.

To pray to our Abba, to listen to him as he tells you how much he loves you,

how pleased he is to hear your voice when you come to him.

Because this is the center. This becomes a primary idea that you are Abba's

child, beloved child, and he wants you near him. So I want us to practice together.

If you feel comfortable closing your eyes, I know with the kids,

you might have to peek one eye open, but as much as you can, close your eyes.

So this is an exercise that also comes from Brendan Manning.

He was a priest for a long time, and through a lot of tragic circumstances,

many of which were his own, he...

Fell away from that, but he was restored in Christ and has such a powerful testimony.

So I don't want to share all of that. But when he was a priest,

he had a nun come to her and confess all of the ways that her earthly father

had shaped her upbringing, how he had abused her even from a young age.

And so when she would pray and when she would relate to God and try to relate

to him in that way, there was nothing but deep pain from that relationship, as you might imagine.

And what he asked of her was to, every day for a month or however long,

spend time praying, this is

what's called a breath prayer, as you breathe in and as you breathe out.

As she breathed in, he invited her to pray, Abba. And as she breathes out, to pray, I belong to you.

And so he invited her into this practice and he saw her later on, years later.

And she was telling him of the way that this had transformed her understanding

of God, how it had released her from the pain that she felt towards her earthly father.

And now she said at this later time that she no longer goes by her name.

All she signs, all of her letters and everything, she goes by daddy's child.

And I understand that we all have some hurt, some greater than others.

So first, I just want to invite you to release that hurt and pain.

If it's attached to a person or a relationship, imagine that person.

Imagine the clothes that they're wearing.

Imagine yourself walking up to them with Jesus holding your hand.

Imagine Jesus letting go of your hand and going and taking that person's hand.

And if there's more than one person, do this sequentially.

Imagine Jesus forgiving that person. And then imagine him grabbing your hand.

Imagine him inviting you to forgive that person as well.

To forgive them of the pain that they've caused and the hurt that they've caused.

He reminds us that we have been forgiven much, so we should forgive much.

He invites us to forgive. And if it's that person who's your father,

I invite you to forgive them if you're able at this time.

Start with forgiveness.

And then just begin to breathe. Breathe slowly. Breathe in.

And breathe out. In and out again. Be aware of your breath.

And as you breathe, when you breathe in, let your heart cry, Abba.

When you breathe out Cry out I belong to you,

Abba I belong to you Don't try to feel anything Just pray those words Abba I belong to you,

Don't try to make something happen Or force it Just give your agreement and

your consent over those words,

If your mind wanders Gently return it If you become distracted Refocus on those

words Abba, I belong to you Thanks,

that spirit within you, a voice deeper than your thoughts, the Holy Spirit,

a voice of recognition, a voice of affection, a voice of joy.

It's not something you have to create. You're just agreeing with that voice crying out within you.

Focus on those words and the truth. I have God as my Father. He has adopted me.

He wants me. He loves me. He is pleased to clear my voice.

Listen to your breath as you cry this out inside your heart.

Feel your heart match with your breath.

You don't graduate from this.

This is why it's so important that Abba is not just a word that children would

use, but that adults would use.