Our Father in Heaven: You Don’t Have to Earn Your Way to God

Alright, we're gonna pray the Lord's Prayer out loud together.

It's very familiar to all of us, so I'll try to set the pace with it.

Uh, we're gonna start off with our Father in Heaven, hallowed be your name, and we're gonna continue on with that, okay?

All right, our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

Amen.

You guys can have a seat.

Now, when we just recited that prayer, some of you meant every word of that.

You were you were probably praying as you were reciting it.

And some of us, well, we just said it.

And look, I'm not throwing stones or anything like that.

I've done it a thousand times too.

The words come out of my mouth and my and my heart stays parked somewhere else, right?

I can say our Father in heaven and be thinking the whole time about what I'm gonna eat for lunch today.

And that's in part what I want to talk about this morning.

See, for those of you who are maybe new here or joining us after being on a nice holiday summer break, we are in a series going through the Lord's Prayer, and we've called it Kingdom-centered prayer.

We are walking slowly through this prayer that Jesus taught his disciples in order to understand prayer and develop a healthy culture of prayer as a church.

There was a man named J.I.

Packer.

He wrote a little book on this prayer.

He said something that was that was so spot on.

He said that the life of your prayer, okay, I want you to hear this carefully.

The life of your prayer depends on your vision of God.

The life of your prayer depends on your vision of God.

And then he says this line drab thoughts of God, make prayer dull.

Drab thoughts of God, make prayer dull.

You see, sometimes our prayer life goes flat because somewhere along the way, our view of God got small.

And when our view of God shrinks, our prayer usually shrinks with it.

So here's what Jesus does: He gives us a model of prayer, a shape to our prayer.

And really, it's it's a simple structure.

It opens with a name who we're talking to, and then it makes six requests, six petitions.

The first three are about God, his name, his kingdom, his will.

In other words, it's all about God's glory.

The last three are about us, our provision, our forgiveness, our protection, our good.

Right?

It's God first, then us, God's glory and our good.

And all of it is grounded on the first line: our Father in heaven.

So, let's look at that first word.

Father.

I want you to actually pause for a moment.

I want you to pause and actually think about, just feel how strange that actually is.

I mean, Jesus is teaching people how to talk to the God who made everything out of nothing, the God who created the galaxies, the God who designed and created the human body.

And the first word he gives them isn't master, it isn't Lord, it isn't Almighty God.

I mean, he could have done all those things.

Those all are valid and true.

He could have started there, he could have started anywhere.

But he starts with Father.

And look, that's not some small thing.

It wasn't a small thing back then.

The people listening to Jesus, they didn't go walking around calling God their Father.

They had big names for him, holy names, names they were they were scared to say out loud.

And then Jesus comes along and does this thing that nobody was doing.

He calls God Father, like he, like he knows him, like he belongs to him.

And then, then the shock of all, he he turns to a crowd of fishermen and tax collectors and regular working people, and he says, Hey, you do it too.

Call him father when you pray.

Now understand, this would have been shocking at that time.

Shocking.

You know, years ago, shortly after I got my driver's license, I got pulled over.

You know, the red and blue lights, you know, the whole thing.

And and and listen, church, when let me tell you, I'm gonna be honest with you, when when I saw this, when I saw those lights in my mirror, I became the most respectful man in the state.

You know, yes, sir, no, sir, absolutely, officer.

I found my registration in record time.

I was polite, I was cooperative, I was well, let's be real.

I was mostly scared.

16-year-old kid, cop shows up, I'm scared.

Cop grabs my license, grabs my registration, he walks back to his cop car, and then he walks back to my window, and he tells me, I'm gonna just let you off with a warning.

Oh man, I felt relief.

I felt grateful.

I mean, I was I was really grateful.

But I'll tell you what I didn't feel.

I didn't love that man.

I mean, in fact, I haven't really thought about that that officer one single time since that day, other than, you know, today.

I mean, yes, I'm glad he let me off with a warning, but that was it.

That was that was the whole relationship.

You know, theologian Michael Reeves said, if God is basically a cop and your problem is you broke the rules, then the best God can ever do for you is let you off.

And if he lets you off, yeah, you'll be grateful, but you won't love him.

You can't love a cop who lets you off.

You can only be relieved.

In other words, a cop can let you off, but but that's not the same as being brought into the family.

Jesus doesn't tell you to pray to an officer, he tells you to pray to your father.

And here's how you can tell the difference.

What happens in you when your prayer doesn't get answered?

What happens in you when your prayer doesn't get answered?

See, some of us we get angry.

You know, God, I I've been doing my part.

I show up, I serve, I read my Bible, I've been so good.

So why aren't you coming through for me?

You know, as if it's like it's like God owes you, like you're entitled to something, like you earned it.

So you get angry.

And some of us, well, we go the other way.

We get ashamed.

Well, of course He didn't answer.

I mean, look at me.

I haven't prayed in weeks.

I keep messing up.

No wonder he's not listening.

Listen, both of those are the same mistake.

Angry or ashamed, you're still back at the side of that road that I was on with the lights in your mirror, and you're still treating God like an officer.

The one who's either going to reward you for good behavior or write you up for bad.

One of you thinks that you've been good enough to earn the response, to earn the answer.

The other thinks you've been bad enough to lose it, as if you've been so bad that God's no longer listening to you.

But if we're in Christ, we're children of our God.

And a child doesn't do math like that in their own head.

A kid doesn't doesn't, you know, a kid isn't keeping score in their minds, wondering if if they've earned the right to come to their father.

They just they just come.

Church, a father is a whole different thing.

I mean, think about a little kid.

Wakes up at two or three in the morning from maybe it's a nightmare.

What do they do?

He doesn't lie in bed, you know, working up a speech.

You know, he's not he's not thinking, well, well, is is this a good time?

Am I gonna be able to walk over to my dad's room and open the door?

I mean, did I behave well enough this week to earn that?

No, what does a kid do?

He gets up, he walks down the hall in his little pajamas, he pushes the door open and he says one word, Dad.

And here's the thing: that kid, he can do that at three in the morning when nobody else can.

When nobody on the on the planet can.

I mean, you and I, we can't call up a senator at three in the morning for a glass of water.

We can't go wake up a judge because we had a nightmare.

But a kid can wake his own father up from a bad dream, drinking water for for really almost any reason at all.

And that father isn't gonna be mad about it because that's his kid.

Let me put it another way.

Somebody put it this way.

Think about a king.

The only person who can wake up a king at three in the morning for a glass of water is that king's own child.

That's the kind of access a child has.

And Jesus is saying that that's the access that you and I have to the God who runs the whole universe, any hour, any need.

You don't have to make an appointment with your father.

So pray like that kid at three in the morning.

Don't feel like you got to clean yourself up first.

Don't wait around till you till you had a good week.

And don't, don't put on that that churchy voice.

You know, Father God, I come before you.

We just come to you in your presence at this moment.

Father God, Father, I want to just pray.

Don't don't put on the voice, don't put, don't, don't do a performance prayer.

Pray.

Pray an honest prayer to your father.

I mean, if you guys were here last week, remember, God doesn't, he doesn't need our fancy words.

You don't have to earn time with him.

Pray honestly.

He's your father.

And look, I know, I know some of you, some of you, some of you don't pray because you figure God's just too busy for somebody like me.

Some of you won't pray until you feel like you've been good enough to deserve it.

And some of you you hide behind the big churchy words because just being honest with God feels a little too risky.

Church, to every one of you, Jesus says the same thing.

Come like a child, not careless, but free.

Come to God like the kid at three in the morning and just say father.

Father.

That's the first word.

It's personal, it's intimate.

He's your father.

But now Jesus doesn't stop there.

He doesn't just say father.

He says our father in heaven.

See, because the danger isn't that that father, the word father makes God small.

The danger is that we hear the word father and we forget who our father is.

We can become so familiar with that word that we lose our awe and wonder of God.

He becomes a buddy, you know, a nice guy upstairs who's who's basically on your side, you know, mostly and and mostly stays out of your way.

And and you can get, in other words, you can get really casual with a God like that.

And look, I do this too.

So you're not alone in this.

I do it too.

There are days my prayers sound like I'm going through a drive-thru.

You know, morning, God.

Uh yeah, I'll take a uh I'll take a good day, some traveling mercies.

Uh oh, also, could you bless my kids?

Could you bless the food?

Could you could you bless my finances?

And and God, could you could you make this quick because I got somewhere to be?

Amen.

And off I go.

Drive-through prayer.

So I can do that too.

But that is not praying to the God of heaven.

When I pray like that, I have forgotten who I am talking to.

I've treated the God of heaven as though he were simply there to take my order.

But in heaven won't let you do that.

In heaven means he is high above.

He is over all of it.

He runs the whole thing.

And church, you want to see who we're actually talking to?

Yes, he is our father, but he's also our father in heaven.

You want to know who we're talking to?

Turn to the very last book of the Bible, Revelation chapter one.

I think we've got verses for the screen here.

Revelation is written by the Apostle John, the same guy who wrote the Gospel of John.

This is one of the 12 disciples.

In fact, this was one of Jesus' closest friends on earth.

This is the guy who leaned back on Jesus at the dinner table.

He stood at the cross when almost everybody else ran.

Nobody walked closer to Jesus than John did.

And now, John's an old man.

He's been exiled.

He's stuck on a prison island.

And Jesus appears to him in a vision.

But now, John gets a different glimpse of Jesus.

He gets a glimpse of his glory.

And I want you to pay attention.

I want you to listen to what he writes.

In Revelation 1, verse 14.

Revelation 1:14

The hair on his head was white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire.

His feet were like blonde glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters.

In his right hand he held seven stars, and coming out of his mouth was a sharp, double-edged sword.

His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.

And now I want you to watch this.

Because again, this is the friend of Jesus.

This is one who leaned on his chest.

And look what he says at verse 17.

He says, When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead.

Face down, the man who is who is closest to Jesus on earth got one look at who Jesus really is.

A glimpse of his glory.

And it put him on the floor like a dead man.

And in fact, later we see John sees Jesus again as the conquering king.

Heaven opened up behind him, bearing the name King of King and Lord of Lords.

Church, this is the glory of the Son who teaches you to pray our Father in heaven.

And the Father He brings to you is no less holy, no less, no less majestic, no less glorious than that description we just heard.

Our God is the God of heaven.

He's not a vending machine, he's not a buddy upstairs.

He is holy.

He is mighty.

And one day, he is going to make all things new.

This is the God you pray to.

Almost too good to believe.

Because you would think a God that who a God that that is that high above would be a God who's far from us.

You'd think if he's that holy, that massive, that far above me, then he's got to be distanced, that he's got no time for somebody like me.

But again, listen to what this same God says about himself in Isaiah 57.

He says, I live in a high and holy place.

Yes, he does.

But also with the one who is low and broken in spirit.

Church, you guys hear that?

The God who lives in the high and holy place also lives with the low and broken.

He is the highest one there is.

And he bends all the way down to the lowest one in the room.

God carries both majesty and mercy.

Church, he is he is high above.

He is he is he is high enough to actually do something about your life.

High enough to run the universe, high enough to split a sea.

He was high enough to drop John to the floor.

Not this John, talking about the God the Apostle John.

And he's also near.

Near enough to bend down to a low and broken spirit.

Near enough to hear a kid at three in the morning.

Church, our God is high enough to help you, and he is near enough to hold you.

That is our father.

That is your father.

High enough to help you and near enough to hold you.

And church, this is this is actually how you pray.

You hold both together.

You come in close, father, like that kid at 3 a.m.

And then you look up in heaven, and you remember who you're actually talking to with reverence.

And and and you basically you're going back and forth, father in heaven, close then high, in his arms, then flat on your face.

It's to and fro, to and fro.

Father in heaven.

And this is important because some of us only ever pray one way.

Some of you are all reverence.

You're all almighty God, holy God, and it's true and it's good.

But you never once climb up into his loving arms.

You never come close.

And then some of you are the opposite.

You're all buddy buddy, all casual, and you have forgotten the God you're talking to who runs the universe.

So listen to me when I say this.

Real prayer, the model, the shape of prayer that Jesus has given us, real prayer breathes in and out between the two.

Father in heaven, near and high, to and fro.

So wherever you are this morning, I want you to hear this.

Our God, He is high enough to help you, and He's near enough to hold you.

Both at the same time for you.

Now, I do feel the need, I need to kind of slow down a bit.

Because I know that I'm not talking to everybody the same way when I use this word father.

For some of you, that word has never been a warm, loving, inviting word.

When I say father, you don't feel safe.

For some of you, your father was absent.

He wasn't there.

A man you you barely knew.

Uh uh, maybe a phone that that one day just stopped ringing.

Maybe he abandoned you.

For some of you, he was there, but he was apathetic.

He was in the house, but checked out.

And he never never came to one of your games.

Never asked how you were doing.

He was there, but never really there.

And for some of you, it wasn't absence.

Your father was abusive.

So when you hear the word father, it doesn't bring up a warm memory, it brings up a raised hand, a slam door, a reason you learned to keep quiet and maybe stay small.

See, for some of you, father is the word attached to the deepest wound you're carrying.

And look, if that's you, I'm not gonna stand up here and and tell you your dad was secretly great.

I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna baptize what he did and call it a picture of God.

The wound you went through was real.

What happened to you was real.

But here's what I want you to see.

And

And and in fact, this is exactly why this word in heaven matters so much for you specifically.

Fatherhood was God's idea before it was ever your dad's.

A father was meant to be a picture, a small picture of a much bigger father.

That's the design.

But for some of you, a man who was supposed to show you that picture cracked it.

For some of you, it got shattered.

And church, a broken picture, hear this, doesn't change the real thing.

It just means you've been staring at the crack thinking that it's God.

It's not.

Look, your father may have left, but this father is in heaven and he doesn't leave.

Your father may have run out of patience.

The father who is in heaven, he doesn't run out.

Your father may have let you down over and over and over again, but the father in heaven, he is above every failure your father has ever handed you, and he will not leave or abandon you.

He will not get tired of you.

He will not die on you.

He is not, he is not a bigger version of the man who hurt you.

He is the perfect father who always was, always is, and always will be.

Your earthly father does not define God.

God defines what fatherhood was actually always meant to be.

And this father in heaven is the perfect father.

And listen, there are some of you.

You've got that ache.

You've got this ache that you've carried in you your whole life.

That that that longing for a father who would just show up, who would just stay, just be safe.

That ache, God put that longing in you.

You were built and designed for a good, perfect father.

Nothing.

In other words, if you want to know what the father is like, you look at the son.

His authority is never abusive.

His holiness is never cruel.

His love never fails.

That's who Jesus is.

When you look at Jesus, you see the Father.

So here's what I want you to do this week.

You see, most of us when we pray, we start with a list.

You know, God, I need this.

God, would you fix that?

God, hear my requests, and we wonder why our prayer life feels flat.

It feels flat because we skipped Him.

We ran right past the Father to get to the stuff.

So this week, before you ask for a single thing, stop on the first two words.

Our Father in Heaven.

Don't rush past them.

Sit there.

Say Father and remember you're his.

Say in heaven and remember who he is.

Let him get big again in your heart and mind.

Let the vision of God get big for you before you ask for anything.

Because when you do that, here's what happens.

When you see the Father clearly, the asking takes care of itself.

You don't need a technique.

You don't need a formula.

You just need him.

So start there.

Pray like you've got a father in heaven.

Because you do.

Okay.

So we've got father, nearness, personal, intimate.

We've got in heaven, high above, majestic, mighty, holy.

But there's one more word.

And it's probably one of the easiest words in the whole prayer for us to miss.

And it's the word our.

It's the word hour.

It's not my father.

It's our father.

It's a family word.

You and everybody else he's brought in as part of his family.

That's what he's communicating.

Look around the room.

Actually, look around the room.

Look, look to your left, look to your right, look to each other.

Rich or poor, old or young, it doesn't matter in here.

The guy who just got out and is starting his life over, the woman who cleans offices downtown at night, the the family in the condo, you know, right overlooking the water, you know, in Christ, they're not strangers.

Everybody in here who belongs to Jesus, guess what?

You all came in the exact same way, same grace, same cross, same father.

In other words, you all are brothers and sisters in Christ.

You are family.

So when you pray, yes, there's a place, of course, there's a place for the individual prayer between me and God and God and me.

Yes, I get that.

There's a personal aspect, there's an individual aspect, but that's not what this is talking about.

This is community, this is family.

So when you pray, you're never just praying for yourself.

You pray as part of the larger family of God, our Father.

In other words, you are keeping in mind your fellow family members, your brothers and sisters in Christ.

And let me let me be even clearer.

Not just the brothers and sisters in Christ here in the local church.

We're talking about our family members around our city, around our country, around our world.

That's who this is this hour is talking about.

It is talking about all of God's people because we are all one big, massive family.

Our father.

It actually raises a massive question.

Who says?

Who says you get to call God that?

Who says people like us get to walk into the presence of the God we just saw in Revelation, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, and say our Father?

Because let's be honest, apart from Jesus, we were not God's children.

Contrary to cultural belief, not all of human beings are God's children.

We were on the outside, we were strangers at the door, we were children of wrath.

So how do we get in?

Well, look at the cross.

All through his life, Jesus prayed to God as Father.

Gosh, even while they were crucifying him, Father, forgive them.

At the very end, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.

Father, father, father.

But in the darkness of the cross, in the darkness of the cross, there's one cry that broke the pattern.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Jesus entered the darkness that our sin deserved.

He bore our judgment.

He carried our curse.

He experienced the horror of being forsaken so that sinners like you and me, who are far from God, who are on the outside, could be brought in.

Could be brought in as part of God's family.

The true Son took what belonged to us so that through him we could receive what belongs to sons and daughters of God.

And I don't want you to I don't want you to miss this.

God does something even greater than that.

He brings you home.

He says you're mine.

He says you belong at my table.

He says you are my son.

You are my daughter.

Church, that is adoption.

That is what Jesus purchased for you.

It's not just forgiveness.

It's a father.

It's a family.

It's a home.

That's why we get to say our.

So, church, I want you to hear this.

I know I've said it multiple times today, but I'm going to say it again.

The God who runs the universe has brought you into his family through Jesus Christ.

He is high enough to help you with whatever you're going through.

And he's near enough to hold you.

So run to him.

Run to our Father in heaven.

Now I could just leave you with that.

Have you guys leave the room and wish you the best with it?

But I'd be a pretty bad pastor, shepherd, if I did that.

So here's what we're gonna do.

We're gonna do something a little different today.

We're gonna actually practice this out as a church.

We're gonna do it together right now.

We're gonna pray together because that's what a family does.

So I'm gonna ask you all to stand for a moment.

And we're gonna begin the way Jesus taught us to begin.

I'm gonna say the words Jesus gave us, and then we're going to answer together.

We'll do a practice round.

I'm gonna say our Father.

And then together as a church, we're going to say, in Jesus Christ, we come as children, not strangers.

And then after that, go to the next slide, please.

We're gonna, I'm gonna say in heaven, and then as a church, we're gonna repeat: you are holy, you are mighty, you are over all.

Okay, all right.

Our Father in Jesus Christ, we come as children, not strangers.

In heaven, you are holy, you are mighty, you are over all.

You see, simple.

To and fro, back and forth.

Father in heaven, near enough to hold us, high enough to help us.

All right, we're about to bring our service to a close, but I just want to remind you as you walk out of here today, he's our father in heaven.

Bring him whatever you've carried in this morning, whatever is weighing on your hearts, whatever you've been holding on to.

You don't need fancy words, you don't need the right words, you don't need perfect words.

Just tell your father, the one who created all things, who is all powerful, who has created a way to have an intimate personal relationship.

Tell your father.

He is listening.

Your father is bigger than you ever dared hope.

And he is closer than you ever dared dream.

And Jesus gave himself up to bring you home.

Amen.

Amen.

Our Father, you are seated on a throne of glory in the highest heaven, and we bow before your awful presence with humble reverence.

Awful in those terms meant amazing, let's put it that way.

Bow before your amazing presence with humble reverence.

Even so, we approach you with the confidence that we are your children, and you are our bountiful and compassionate parents.

We join our prayers to you with hearts full of brotherly and sisterly love and ask for each other the blessings we seek for ourselves, for each other.

Above all else, we desire your glory.

May your name be set apart and holy.

May the whole world of living creatures join us to give you the honor you deserve and require.

May your kingdom come and your will be done among us.

Amen.