Teach Us to Pray | Father In Heaven | Matthew 6:9-13 | Coleton Segars

Today we're continuing our teaching series, Teach Us to Pray, and just walking through Jesus' teaching on prayer and how that should shape our lives and shape the way that we pray and hopefully lead us into a space where we enjoy prayer more.

So the teaching text for today is Matthew 6, verses 9 through 13.

Matthew 6:9–13

This is what Jesus says.

He says, This then is how you should pray.

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

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

This is the word of the Lord.

On Friday, uh Teddy and I went to this place called High Tea.

It was a recommendation by Abby Carlson to take him there.

And uh apparently it's a tea room, which we didn't really care anything about, um, but there's golf in the back.

And it's a simulated golf thing, so like you're hitting, you know, from turf into a screen.

And anyways, we got to play the uh Minecraft golf course, uh, which was kind of cool for him, and then I got to play Pebble Beach, which was also kind of fun.

Um, but I had a blast.

I loved it.

I thought it was so much fun, and it's it's close by the house, and so that was really cool.

Um but Teddy and I are going through an experiment of trying to find other things that he and I like to do together because our current uh connecting points are screen time, which we don't get a ton of because it's bad for his brain, or at least that's what they're that's the conspiracy.

Um and then the other one is uh escape rooms.

And if you've ever done an escape room in Memphis, they're like a hundred bucks every single time you do those, so we we can't do that all the time.

Uh so we were going trying to find different things that we can connect with.

And so I asked him, I was like, hey, did you enjoy it?

How did you like it?

You know, doing the thing.

And he was he was hitting it, but he would he'd miss the ball every now and then and he'd hit the ground and hit the ball.

It's mostly like most people play golf.

Um but I asked him, I was like, you know, out of 10, what'd you what'd you think about it?

And he was like, I don't know, it's like a four.

It was okay.

Uh I was like, well, it's$60, so it needs to be better than a four if we're gonna go back.

But um one of the things that he said that I thought was interesting, he goes, I he goes, I think I'd enjoy it more if I knew how to do it.

And I was like, yeah.

Like, yes, I think if you knew how to hit the ball every single time, you'd probably enjoy it more.

And the same way that like you would hate reading if it's like, I don't know how to read, and he's like, it's okay, read this book.

Like you'd hate reading.

I don't know how to read.

I need to I need to do this.

And so I I just thought it was like that's exactly like, yes, if you knew how to do this better, you'd enjoy this a lot more.

And I say that because the point of doing this series and teaching on prayer and going for 10 weeks or however long, we're just gonna continue the series going.

The point in trying to teach these things is I think many people don't enjoy prayer because they don't actually know how to do it.

And it's supposed to be in their minds, maybe something that's intuitive.

I became a Christian, therefore I should just know how to do this intuitively.

And yet the disciples ask Jesus, we want you to teach us how to do this, and there he and then he does.

And so the point of the series is really to get to a space where we go, I enjoy this more.

I get more out of this because I actually know how to press into it.

I actually know how to do it.

And so for these weeks, what we're doing is really trying to just teach you and give you some learning and some stuff that you can learn so that when you press into this six weeks from now or ten weeks from now or a year from now, you're like, I actually really enjoy that a lot more than I used to.

I enjoy prayer a lot more because I actually know how to do it.

And so when we move into this particular time in the text, we're gonna be looking at the Lord's Prayer.

A little background on the Lord's Prayer.

It was originally 31 words in its original language, and it originally rhymed.

And so it was easily remembered because it would rhyme back and forth.

It kind of felt like a nursery rhyme, something that you could kind of get locked in your memory, that you would be humming because it rhymed.

Um, Justin Welby, who was the former Archbishop of Canterbury, said this.

He says, The Lord's Prayer is simple enough to be memorized by small children, and yet profound enough to sustain a whole lifetime of prayer.

Like there's just something about it that like you can press into it as a little kid, but you can also dig into it.

It can be this thing that like you're getting stuff out of consistently throughout your life.

You never grow beyond this particular prayer.

And the prayer itself, the Lord's prayer, you can pray the words verbatim, you can pray them exactly like that, or you can use each line of text as a launching point, as like a this is the heading under which I'm gonna pray these things, and we'll we'll break through some of those things.

But um, Frederick Dale Brunner says this, says that Matthew records Jesus saying, pray like this, or pray in this manner, teaching us that this prayer is not a law, but a pattern.

Luke, on the other hand, records Jesus giving us almost the same prayer, but says directly, When you pray, say this, teaching us the equally important truth that it is not wrong to pray this prayer verbatim.

We can, therefore, either pray this prayer in Matthew obedience by using each phrase as a kind of handrail along which we proceed in forming our own words in prayer, or we can pray exactly this prayer in Lucan obedience by using these words very thoughtfully.

And so you can do either or.

And so what we're gonna do over the next couple of weeks is go line by line and try and draw out as much as we possibly can from each line of the text, um, each line of the petition and the prayer.

And so this particular week we're gonna be looking at some of verse nine that Jesus says, and what I want to look at is like, what is Jesus trying to communicate?

He's teaching us to pray this way.

What is he saying to pray?

What is he actually saying, and then how should that form our prayers?

Because if we just have this thing, like, I'm supposed to say our Father in heaven, but I actually don't know why I'm supposed to be saying it that way, we'll miss out on like the riches that are actually there.

And so, why is he telling us to say this, and then how should that shape our prayers?

So the first, the first thing that he says in this, when he's teaching us to pray, the first thing that he is telling us to do is remember who you're talking to.

This is the first thing.

You need to remember who you're talking to, or if you're proper English, remember to whom you're talking.

But you need to remember who you're talking to.

Verse 9.

This then is how you should pray.

Our Father in heaven, the first thing that Jesus says in order to pray the way that he wants you to pray, when he's like, I want you to pray a specific way, the first thing that he says is like, you need to remember that you are talking to a God who wants to be known to you and known by you as a father, as a loving, heavenly father.

If you had a good father on this earth or you had a bad father on this earth, he is setting him apart and saying he's not just wanting to be a father like your current fathers, he wants to be a perfect father.

He is in the heavens.

He is not a God that's so distant from you because he actually wants to be father, but he is separated from that.

And so the imperfect ways that we experience, Father, you will not experience those things from him.

And so the first thing that he says, he's like, you need to really understand when you press into prayer, you were, he wants to be known by you and to you.

If you're wondering what he's like, he wants to be known by you as a father who loves you.

And he is specifically, Jesus is specifically using this prayer to make that point.

Um Tyler Staten in his book, um, Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools, he says this.

He says, The Lord's prayer, this prayer was not entirely original to Jesus.

Jesus was adapting the opening lines of the Kaddish, one of the three esteemed, familiar prayers recited regularly in the ancient Jewish temple.

It reads, the Kaddish reads, and I think we have it here, magnified and sanctified may his great name be in the world he created by his will.

May he establish his kingdom in your lifetime and in your days.

And so Jesus adapts that and says, Hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

It's almost the exact same in terms of your will, your hallowing the name and magnifying the name, his kingdom coming.

But the difference is, and you'll see it, that's how the Kaddish starts, but Jesus starts his very differently.

He doesn't start with hallowing the name.

He doesn't start with, look how great he is, magnify the name with me.

He doesn't do that.

Jesus says, you need to first remember who you're talking to.

You need to call him Father.

It is a setting point.

It is the stable first thing that you have to lay in there first.

Otherwise, you will get prayer and understand prayer incorrectly.

You have to call him Father.

Statement continues and he says, Jesus is adapting a common, disciplined Hebrew prayer from the temple, and he's making it much, much, much more personal.

The disciples say, Teach us to pray, and Jesus responds essentially with, pray to God more intimately than you think you're allowed.

Talk to him in a way that it feels almost too close, almost too comfortable.

Talk to him that way.

That's how he wants to be known by you.

Call him father.

The word is Abba, which some people think means daddy, and then they're like, Daddy, God, don't do that.

It's not daddy because old men call their uh Jewish fathers Abba as well.

Um, but it is more intimate than dad or parent.

Um so to me, it's similar to uh Teddy.

Uh obviously I'm Teddy's dad, but he calls me pop pop.

He's like, hey, pop pop.

Or every now and then he's like, hey, big fella.

And I'm like, okay.

Big fella's a little close.

Um but like to everybody else, I'm Teddy's dad.

I'm Teddy's dad.

But to him, I'm pop pop or big fella.

Like to him, he has this more intimate, more close, more insider language that he uses with me.

And Jesus is getting at that idea.

He's like, the first thing that you need to know as you enter into prayer is that you are coming before someone that wants to be so tight with you and so close with you and loves you so much.

You are coming before a father who loves you more than anybody else in your life has ever loved you.

He loves you that much.

And the reason Jesus says we need to start from here is because he knows and we know.

Depending on who you're talking to really dictates what you say to that person.

It dictates how long you want to spend time in that person's presence.

It dictates the feel that you have of like, is this do I feel safe or do I feel less safe around this person?

Who you're talking to makes a difference.

And so if you're entering into a meeting with someone who you know they're mad at me, I'm going into a meeting with someone who's mad at me.

You're probably gonna go in there a little more careful with your words, if you're a wise person at least, you're gonna go in there a little more careful, a little, maybe some anxiousness of going, like, man, I hope this goes well, I hope this doesn't, and then maybe you're probably going into that meeting, just waiting for it to end and like checking your clock, like how long is this gonna take?

And so if you're going before God and you think that he's always mad at you, that's gonna shape the way that you enter into prayer.

You might do it, but you're not doing it out of love and enjoyment.

You're doing it out of fear.

I have to, therefore, I have to have this meeting, therefore I'll go into it, but I'm not gonna enjoy it.

If you're going before a judge or your or HR and you they're accusing you of something, you're gonna go before that meeting very, very differently.

You're gonna go into with some defensive posture and like making sure that you have your words exactly the way that they're supposed to be.

Because if you don't have your words exactly the way they're supposed to be, someone's gonna use your words against you.

And if you think that about God, then it's gonna be this space where it's you're not gonna feel free, you're not gonna feel safe.

What if I say the wrong thing?

What if I pray the wrong thing?

What if he gets mad at me while I'm trying to do this holy thing of prayer?

And so Jesus is doing this on purpose and making sure, like you need to stop and remember as you're entering in, you need to remember you are talking to a father who loves you.

It will set the tone for the way that you're supposed to pray.

This is why it's important to start with that.

Remember who he is, remember what he's like.

Pete Gregg, in his book on prayer, he says, After more than 25 years in pastoral ministry, 20 of them teaching on prayer, I have come to the conclusion that most people's biggest problem with prayer is God Himself.

They envisage him scowling, perpetually disapproving, invariably disappointed, and needing to be placated and persuaded in prayer.

If that's how we picture God, who could blame us for trying to avoid him?

Who would want to spend time with that person?

Like no one would want to enter into that room.

Even if we have to, we wouldn't want to stay there for very long.

And this is why Jesus is like, you have to call him Abba, call him Father.

You need to know, it doesn't just need to be a term of endearment, it needs to be a feel that you have.

What's he like?

He wants to be a father, the God who runs the universe, who holds everything by the power of his word, wants to be known to you and by you as Father.

He actually wants to be that close with you.

Jesus doesn't say, call him righteous judge, hallowed be your name, magnificent and holy God who cannot look upon sin, hallowed be your name.

He is those things.

But he just because he is those things doesn't mean he wants to be known to you in that way.

In prayer, he wants to be known to you as a God who loves you, a God who is the safest person that you can be around.

A father who will protect you, a father who is there for you, a father who would give his life for you.

And I think in Jesus' mind, if you don't start here, you will pray incorrectly.

You will feel about prayer incorrectly.

If you're entering into prayer and you don't feel like this is the safest space ever to be in, then you're still missing it a little bit in Jesus' mind.

It's supposed to be a refuge that you get to run into, not a space where you go because you have to, but you don't want I wonder how long I gotta stay here.

And it's like, I love being in this place because I get to spend time with my father.

And so we have to remember who we're talking to.

That's the first thing.

So the text is our Father in heaven.

He's like, remember who you're talking to.

Now, from that, here are two ways that that idea that he wants to be father, there are two ways that this should shape our prayers.

Two things that this should do when we pray, in the freedom of how to pray, two ways that this should shape how we pray.

Because he is our father, it should help us understand how we can talk to him.

Because he wants to be known to us as Father, it should help us understand how we can actually talk to him.

One of the things in my experience with people that stand in the way of people praying is commonly, I don't know what to say.

I don't know what to say, I don't know if I'm saying it right, I don't know, is there something I don't know.

I don't know what I'm saying, and I don't know how to say it right.

When Teddy was, um, some of y'all know this, but when Teddy was born, uh, up until he was three, he was speech delayed, and so we couldn't talk.

And we went through a bunch of tests and a bunch of neurological things, just checking to see, and uh they just basically told us, start learning sign language, who knows?

We we think it'll come back or uh come at all, but we don't know.

And so we did.

We started learning sign language, and uh and I just remember like during that season of time, like it was sweet, and we learned sign language, and that was cool.

Um, but I just remember like I just wanted to hear him call me dad.

Like I wanted to hear that voice.

I wanted to hear his voice call me dad.

I wanted to hear his voice say, I love you too, dad.

Like I just wanted to hear those things.

And uh for three years, like just nothing.

And uh at some point he started going to school, like uh preschool.

And I was so nervous about him going to preschool because I was like, man, what if somebody's mean to him?

What if a kid bully bullies him, bless you?

What if um what if a teacher?

Like, I don't trust anybody.

What if a teacher's mean to him?

And she's like, he's really great, and like he can't communicate to me that he hates it here.

He can't say the words that like that lady is mean to me.

He can't say the words that that kid is biting me.

I mean, we can see the bite marks, I guess, but like he can't communicate those things, and it it just messed with me.

It it did not make me feel safe because like he could not actually say those things to me.

And I remember praying one night and I was like, God, I just want to hear his voice.

Like, I just want to hear anything come out of his mouth in the form of words because he had nothing.

Like he could dog cuss me for all I care.

I just I just need something coming out of his mouth.

I need just give me a word.

And um, I remember just one night when I was praying that, and I felt like I sensed the Lord saying, like, you now know exactly how I feel about your voice.

Like you know, now you are learning how I feel about every single one of my kids.

I don't care what they say, I just want to hear their voice.

That longing that you feel to hear your kids' voice, he goes, I feel that longing too.

I just long to hear your voice in prayer.

I created your voice.

I like to hear it.

And it was a space for me to just open up a joy in prayer to go, what do I say?

And he's like, say whatever.

Wouldn't you be okay if Teddy just said whatever right now?

I'm like, yes.

He goes, me too.

I just want to hear your voice.

I just want to hear what you have to say.

And that's the image that Jesus is trying to put in our minds.

He is a father who is delighted just to spend time with you and delighted just to hear the words that are coming out of your mouth.

He just enjoys you talking to him.

We're supposed to experience a kind of freedom that we're talking to someone that just enjoys hearing our voice, hearing the words in our minds, hearing about our days.

We're talking to someone that just enjoys being around us.

And I think we struggle to believe this.

And I know, again, in my experience, people struggle to believe that he just wants to hear.

It's like I still struggle with what to say.

It's like you can say anything.

It can be as imperfect and as selfish and as broken as it possibly can.

He just loves to hear your voice.

But we struggle with this, and so people, well-meaning people, come up with acronyms on how to pray, which I think is fine.

You know, there's tons of acronyms.

We've got a couple slides here.

Tons of acronyms on how to pray.

You got the ACTS.

Here's how you talk to God.

You got to start with adoration, then confession, then thanksgiving, then supplication.

Part, praise, admit, request, thanksgiving, pray, praise, repent, ask, yield.

And so the idea is like just to make sure that we're saying the right things and just to make sure that we're praying correctly.

And again, I get them as handrails, as like things that you're doing in order to help you move through the stages of prayer or things like that.

But when I see these things, my biggest issue is like, you know who I never talk to like this?

Anyone that I love or I'm close to.

Like, I don't ever use an acronym to talk to anyone other than people I'm just now meeting.

Like, I never expect my son to roll up to me and be like, I'm gonna use the Ford method of communication and small talk with you.

And so, let's, how's your family?

How's your occupation, Dad?

Is it going okay?

It's good?

What about recreation?

You get enough golf in?

A little softball?

What you doing?

Dad, how's your dreams?

Where do you want to be in five years?

Like, if he he doesn't talk to me that way, we talk about dinosaurs and then airplanes and then ants and then something at school.

Like, I mean, we don't, he's not walking through these things to have this communication with me.

We're just, we talk about nothing.

He complains, he argues, he we just we have an interaction as father and son.

And I think for you too, like there's not a single close relationship, a relationship that you love, like I just love this person.

There's not a single relationship in our lives where we have to walk through an acronym in order to talk to them.

And Jesus is trying to present us with this idea of like acronyms are fine, but there's no right way of communicating with your father.

You just communicate with him.

He loves you and he loves hearing your voice.

And you're supposed to experience that kind of freedom.

That's how Jesus is trying to present God to us.

And to me, I just think we can make it sometimes.

Unfortunately, we just make prayer more complicated than it has to be.

I hear, again, I hear people ask questions.

I hear people talk on prayer or teach on prayer, and then they ask the question like, if God answered all of the prayers that you prayed, uh, would would life get better for everyone or just for you?

And then the question is like, so how selfish are your prayers?

And I just want to throw the pulpit at that person.

Um because I think they're forgetting, like he wants to be known as a father.

If my kid came and talked to me as his dad, I wouldn't listen to his words and go, hey, hey, hey, before we continue, is this good for everyone or just for you?

Oh, just for you?

Shut up then.

I don't want to hear any of that.

Like, I'd never, if he was asking for help, like something's hard at school, I'm dealing with something, I need some help, it's like, hey, hey, is this gonna help everybody?

Or is this just gonna help you?

Like I would never, like, no father, no loving father would do that to their kid.

And so when we place those expectations on other people, like, hey, make sure your prayers are unselfish, it's like, good luck, man.

Most of what Jesus teaches on prayer is ask for stuff.

Like, it's constantly asking for something from him.

He is a God who loved to give good gifts to his kids.

So ask.

And so this idea that like we it's supposed to be something more than just talking to him.

I get that there's space for adoration and all these things, and we'll get to that.

But the very first thing that Jesus says is you need to be in relationship with him that's so close that you feel that it's so safe to move into time with him, that you can say anything and everything that you want to say to him because he is a father who loves you.

This is how we're supposed to communicate with him.

And so, because he is our father in heaven, because he wants to be known that way, we should feel like he just loves to hear what we have to say constantly.

And so we have the freedom to just say whatever we want to say, to pray freely, to speak freely to the God who loves us more than anybody else loves us.

And so that should shape the way that we enter in.

That should shape the things that we say.

What can I say?

You can say words.

He loves your voice.

He made it.

He made it so that you could communicate to him.

Just say the words.

That's the imagery that Jesus is getting at.

The second.

Thing that this should do because he wants to be a father to us, because he wants to be seen that way.

It should help us understand what we can expect from him in prayer.

If he is our father, it should come with some expectations.

He wants us to pray.

What should I expect from my father in heaven?

What should prayer actually be like?

And so there are really two things.

There's probably more, but I came up with two.

Two things that you can definitely expect from him.

First, we don't need water.

So if anybody's like, I should get a water, I don't need that, I'm good.

If none of y'all were thinking that, come on, what's wrong with you?

Be nice.

First thing we should expect, one is more.

You should expect more from him.

Expect more.

Teddy, I picked Teddy up the other day.

I'm gonna talk about him a lot because this is a father-son conversation sermon, and I have a son.

And so I picked him up from school the other day, and uh I was picking him up and two of his friends, and he's got this, he's got this friend that's like a giant.

He's chimongous.

And uh that kid rolls up to the front door, opens the front door, looks back at Teddy and says, shotgun.

And I put my hand up in this kid's face.

I was like, Not here, son.

This seat is reserved for my actual son.

Kid in the back.

And he was like, Oh man, this is unfair.

And I was like, he has a privilege that you don't share because he's my actual kid.

When you're with your parents, you can sit in the front or you can play shotgun.

That's really up to them.

But in my house, in my truck, this seat is reserved for my son.

He gets more than everybody else.

Now, look, I'm gonna take care of that kid, I'm gonna let him wear a seatbelt and you know, give him food and stuff, and he's gonna have a blast.

But there's something more available for my son.

Um, and Jesus says that's also true of us as well in prayer.

We have a unique, privileged position with him.

If God wants to be our father, that makes us his sons and daughters.

And we have a unique, privileged position with him before him to expect more.

He says these exact words.

He says, which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone, or if he asks for a fish, we'll give him a snake.

If you then, though you're a sinful, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more, how much more will your father in heaven, same words, father in heaven, give good gifts to those who ask him?

How much more?

We should expect more.

It's supposed to be something that when we enter into prayer with him, what should we expect?

Not less.

Not like, do I am I am I gonna struggle to get his ear?

Is he hearing me at all?

If you are a son and a daughter and he wants to be your father, you can expect more from him.

You have a privileged position that you get to take up in prayer before him, to come before him like a son or a child before their parent and going, I need something.

And in a sea of voices, when the kid cries out in the sea of voices, he hears the kid's cry more than he hears anybody else's cry.

We have unique special privileges, and so we should expect more.

I think one of the traps that we can fall into when we're praying, and I've heard this uh pretty consistently, is like our request feels selfish.

I I don't know that I can ask for that because it feels selfish to ask for that.

Or like I'm hurting, but I know that everybody else in the world is actually dealing with I'm suffering, but they're suffering more, and so I I don't I feel like it's wrong for me to ask because other people have it worse than I do.

And again, I get the idea that they're trying to present, but I would just ask, like, if you are a father or a mother, would you say that to your kid?

Would you say that to them?

Like, oh, you need that?

Well, you know, other people have it harder than you, too bad.

Oh, you're being bullied?

Well, people have been bullied for years.

Get over it.

Like, if you do say that to your kid, talk to me afterwards.

I'd love to just give you some pointers and just um.

But like, no loving parent, when their kid is asking for something, oh, you're hungry, well, there's kids starving and dead.

And I know that we kind of use that kind of funny and that kind of stuff.

But we don't talk to our kids that way.

And if we, though we are sinful, wouldn't talk to our children that way and say, you need any kind of help at all, other people need more help than you, I'm not helping you.

If we, though we are sinful, wouldn't talk to our kids that way, how much more the holy, righteous, perfect father in heaven who is like, I'm also not gonna do it.

I'm not worse than you, I'm better than you.

I don't love them less than you, I love them more than you.

And so we're supposed to see him as a space of like, I'm asking for something, but other people need other things too.

He's like, I'm not gonna run out.

I can help them and you.

I can help the small thing and the gigantic thing.

I can help the selfish thing and the unselfish thing.

If I only gave Teddy the unselfish request that he asked for, he wouldn't have a lot.

He's a child who asks for selfish things.

If you are a son and daughter and you're coming before God, we're supposed to come with this freedom.

Like, what can we expect?

We can expect more.

There's things that he wants to give us.

We should expect more from him, not less from him.

And to me, if we have requests and we're going before him, we have things that we want from him, but we're not asking him, that would break my heart as a dad.

If Teddy needed something from me and he's like, I don't feel like I can ask him, and then he goes without.

And part of that, sometimes he needs to go without to like be disciplined and learn.

But if he need if he's like struggling and walking through something, but he doesn't feel that he can walk up to me and ask, and I find out later that he is is, I actually had this dream about him that he was being uh stung by bees.

It was a this is my nightmares now.

He's being stung by bees, um, but I didn't know where he was, and he wouldn't shout out.

He would not tell me where he was.

He was just taking the bees, stinging him on the back, and he got stung by these hundreds of bees.

And in my dream, I'm shrieking out, where are you?

Where are I know you're close, I just don't know where you are.

And I I woke up the next morning and I was like, hey man, if you're ever going through something hard, please come and tell me.

Like I'm dying here.

I'm I'm crying in my dream because you I can't like, you're not telling me what you're dealing with.

And I think the father is like, if my kids don't come to me for the help that they need, it doesn't make him glad.

Oh, good for them.

They got grit.

I think it breaks his heart.

I think he's like, I want to help.

I'm a father who wants to help.

I like I broke heaven and earth in order to help.

Like I long to help you.

I want to press in.

There was this, there was this time when I was um, when I was a kid, I was like 13 and going through teenage years with my parents.

And um we were rock climbing, and my dad walked up to the, he walked up the path to the top of the like mountain face, whatever.

It's only like 20 feet, and I was gonna climb up, but whatever.

And I got like almost to the top.

I was almost there, and I got stuck because I got tired, and the more I tried, the more tired I got, and I just got stuck.

And so my dad, just being nice, reached his hand over the ledge for me to grab his hand and then pull it up.

As a 13-year-old kid, I'm like, I don't need that.

I don't need your hand, old man.

I'd probably pull you down and that would be bad.

And so instead of reaching for his hand, I eventually got to grab this like little tree and pulled myself up using that while his hand is there the entire time.

And when I got to the top, and I did get to the top by myself without taking his help, he was not beaming with pride.

He was really, really sad.

I hurt his feelings.

And his question was like, why didn't you just use my hand?

Like you needed help.

And I did need help.

Why didn't you, I wanted to help you.

Why didn't you, why didn't you, why didn't you let me help you?

And the answer was pride.

Like I just didn't want to, I didn't want to need somebody's help.

But I realized in that moment, I'm like, oh, not taking his help actually hurts.

And I think again, I think the father is the same way.

I think God is like, I I want to help you, please.

Give me your unselfish request, your selfish request, the question, the request that you have, no idea if they're selfish or unselfish, just give me what you've got.

I want to help you, and you can expect help from me.

C.

H.

Dodd says this in his commentary, he says, Jesus' family analogy intends to show us the incomparable generosity of the Heavenly Father and buck up our wavering, reluctant to praise spirits and to encourage us to start asking.

Jesus is trying to bring us by any means possible to the Father with hands out.

We are not supposed to have a mute relation with God in which God is so divine that he shouldn't be bothered.

Jesus wants us to ask.

And so one of our expectations that we should have is like because he wants to be known as Father, we should come with an expectation of like, then we should expect more from him.

Better treatment, not worse treatment.

We should expect something from him.

And the second thing is maybe discouraging, but another thing that we should expect from him is for him to say no to us a lot.

When you pray, one of the things that you should expect is for him to say no.

You can go to the next slide.

You should expect him to tell you no.

He is a if if we are imperfect parents and he is perfect, he will not raise spoiled children.

He's just not gonna do it.

And so we parents tell their kids no.

Now we get it wrong, you know, we try and protect them from things, but we tell them no for a reason, and even though we get it wrong, but he will tell us no for a reason, but it's because he actually knows what's right and what's wrong.

And so, as a good parent, as a parent who loves us, any loving parent would look at their kid at some point and tell them no.

Any parent that doesn't look at their kid at some point and tell them no, they will have a dysfunctional relationship with their child.

You have to tell them no.

And God seeks to love you by, yes, you can expect more, but I also seek to love you by telling you no.

And you're asking for something I'm just not gonna give you.

And so he will absolutely do that.

And so what this should do, or what this shouldn't do, it shouldn't lead us to go, prayer doesn't work.

He told me no, or I asked for something and I didn't get it, prayer doesn't work, or I asked for something and I didn't get it, God must not exist.

If Teddy didn't think I existed every time I told him no, like, no, he doesn't do that.

When I tell him no, he's like, my father exists, and honestly, he's the reason I'm mad.

Because he told me no.

And so God telling us no shouldn't be a uh a direct line to he does not exist.

It should be like he told me no, he and he's my he's a father who loves me, therefore he's probably trying to protect me from something I don't actually need.

It's supposed to lead us into a space of trust, even though it can be incredibly frustrating.

And we're asking for something and he just tells us no.

And so you should expect more.

But you also should expect him to be very honest with you and go, No, I'm a loving father who is only gonna give you the things that are actually beneficial and healthy and good for you, and I will withhold the things that aren't.

And hopefully you've experienced him telling you no at some point, and then on the other side of that, realizing you get something else later and you go, Thank God he told me no.

Thank you, God, for telling me no about this thing.

One of the nearest examples for me is I wanted to meet at this church up the street called Colonial Park Methodist.

They were gonna give us this space, and we were gonna have these classrooms and all this stuff, but we were still gonna be meeting in their gym.

And I was like, okay, that's fine, but it's less set up and all this different stuff.

And I was like, God, give us this space, give us this space, and uh go through the process, go through the process, and eventually that door slams in our face at the last second.

We're about to sign the contract, and it slams in our face at the last second, and I was so mad.

I was like, God, like, you know, we were meeting at the school at that time.

I was like, you know how difficult this is.

You know that we cannot sustain this.

You know, why would you shut this door?

And then this door opened.

And he was like, because I'm trying to be nice to you, dummy.

Like, I'm trying to give you something good.

And this place, we're actually, we don't have to do any setup.

It's uh much less expensive, much, much less expensive than that place was gonna be.

And there's still issues and challenges in this building as well, but it's so much better than that other space.

And it's like, thank you.

I appreciate you telling me no.

I appreciate you shutting that door in my face.

And he will do that to you because he loves you, not because he is mad at you, not because he hates you.

He never shuts a door in your face like an angry parent who had their feelings hurt and go, like, oh, you hurt me, I'm gonna hurt you.

He doesn't do that.

He doesn't have that pride in him that we do.

He will shut doors, but he does it always out of love.

And he will sometimes be silent, but he doesn't do it to give you the silent treatment because he's mad at you.

He does that to teach us something, he does that to walk through through something with us to discipline us and to train us.

He doesn't do it as a parent who would do it to get their, who got their feelings hurt, and that's trying to show us something and to get us back.

He doesn't do that.

But he does say no from time to time.

And so if you're in a season of him just telling you no, it's not because he hates you and is mad at you or is punishing you.

Jesus took the punishment that the no is a kindness, not something where he's trying to hurt you.

So he is your loving father.

That's what Jesus is trying to get us to.

When you pray, the image that you need to have in your mind, the feel of the room that you're entering into when you're praying.

It's like the feel should be I am talking to someone who loves me deeply more than anybody's ever loved me, someone who will never do wrong to me.

He actually won't fail.

I am talking to someone who is the safest, but I can say anything and I can say nothing.

Because I can sit with people that I love in silence and not feel like I need to be saying something.

You can definitely do that with him as well.

And he's not judging your time spent with him.

And so we're supposed to come before him, knowing in Jesus' life, if you want to pray correctly, you first have to land this in your mind and sink this into your heart.

He is a father who loves you.

You can talk to him as free as you want, and you can expect more and expect no's from him in ways that he loves you.

So, the very last five minutes, what I want to do is uh very practically, if you want to use our father as a this is how I pray this.

Sometimes I just pray it directly, um, just verbatim, and sometimes I use it as a launching point to go, you are my father, you're our father.

And so from that space, use it as a launching point to pray for different things that are like bucketed under what do I pray for under our father?

It makes sense what I pray for under hallowed be your name, that's adoration, so I can worship you here.

But what do I pray for under our father?

And so, very practically, if you want to just use this as a launching point and pray more, hear a handful of things that you can practically pray.

The first is you can just tell him about your day.

One of the things that I want so much when I pick Teddy up from school or when he gets home from school is like, hey man, how's your day?

And he goes, It was good.

And I'm like, I hate that answer.

Like, I have to come up with new questions because I'm like, please tell me about your day.

I want to hear about what's going on in your life.

I know that it was good.

I know that it was fine.

I know those things.

That's what you're gonna say, but I want you to tell me more.

And so one of the things that if I want that and I'm sinful, one of the things that he wants from you, he wants to hear about your day.

Now, people will say, Well, he already knows about my day.

The reason you want to know it is because you don't know about Teddy's day.

He already knows God was there.

He knows about my day, therefore I don't need to tell him about things he already knows.

And it's like, no, no, no.

You can absolutely tell him things that he already knows.

I don't listen to my son because he's dropping profound knowledge about the ABCs or that there's 50 states in America.

I already know that.

But I but I still like hearing him talk about it.

When he's sitting there, like, do you know how photosynthesis works?

I'm like, yeah, kind of, but tell me more.

Like, I just want to hear what he's saying.

It's like, it's not because I don't know what he's saying.

I I love his voice.

And I love hearing about his perspective about his day, and I want to hear the things that he has.

And so you also have the freedom to talk to your father and just give him the highs and lows of your day.

You can just tell him, here's what's going on in my life, here's what's occupying my thoughts right now.

Here's what I, here's what, here's what I'm nervous about coming up in my day.

Here's what I'm scared about.

Here's a person that I'm just I don't really like right now.

Here's something that's going on in my life, and I just want to talk to you about that.

I want to talk to my dad about it.

I want to talk to you.

And so you have this space just to be like, what should I talk about in this space?

Like, just to start walking through your calendar.

Just start walking through your day in conversation.

And if you're like, I'm just reading my calendar out to him, it's like he loves to hear your voice.

But start there and then build on that.

Tell him about your day.

Second thing that you can do is you can complain, you can push back, and you can argue.

If you have kids, you know that they complain, they push back, and they argue.

You can do these things with him.

My son, respectfully, gets to push back and he gets to argue, and he gets to complain respectfully.

He has to do it respectfully.

Uh, but he has the freedom to do that.

I don't run a dictatorship.

But it's the same with God, he's the same way.

And actually, if you're like, I don't think this is right, I don't think I can complain to him.

I can't push back, I can't argue.

Go read the Psalms and watch how they complain, how they argue with him, and how they push back against him.

Where are you, God?

Why are you allowing this to happen?

Darkness is a better friend than you.

They're being pretty direct in the Psalms.

And then go read the book of Job, and Job is basically arguing with him the entire book until the very end.

And God's like, hey, just so you know, I'm right and you're wrong.

But God doesn't say you should never have been arguing with me.

He's like, you took your argument and you aimed them at me.

Everybody else is talking about God.

You're Job, or the only one talking to God.

Job is complaining to God, and those become prayers.

When we complain about God with other people, that becomes grumbling.

He doesn't like the grumbling as much.

He sends snakes in the Israelites in Egypt.

That didn't go very well for them.

But complaining to him are prayers.

And so we have this freedom with him, with a God who loves us, with someone who wants to be father, to go, I want to complain about my life right now.

If I do it to someone else, it's called gossip.

But if I do it to you, it's called prayer.

Can I just tell you what's hard right now?

Will you just, as a father, just listen to me?

Something's going on in my life right now that I just don't, I don't enjoy.

I don't like this.

And you, father, have the ability to change it.

Why aren't you changing it?

If you have the ability to change it, why have you not shifted it?

You have all the power and you love me so much.

Why is this suffering happening in my life?

Why are you allowing this?

We have the freedom to step into those things.

And again, I do think that we need to be respectful.

There's this reverent fear that we need to walk in with him to know that, like, in the midst of it, I do want your will above my own because I know you're better and know more than I do.

But I also know that I had the freedom to talk to him as a child talks to a father.

And you see that God left those Psalms and God left Job in the Bible so that we can watch how people do it and follow their lead and learn how to complain and learn how to argue and learn how to push back and learn how to express honest emotions.

Because if all we do in prayer is like, it's good, God, you're the best, you're awesome, but our hearts are like, I'm just hating my season right now.

I hate that you're doing this to me.

He he sees our heart.

He's not confused.

We're just lying to him with our words, but our hearts are actually telling on us this is what we actually feel.

And he's like, tell me what's actually in there.

Get that out.

Talk to me about it.

I am safe.

You can share those things with me.

And then the last thing is you can just spend time with him in silence or doing an activity.

Silence or an activity.

One of my favorite things that my son does for me is he comes and he'll read beside me and he'll read his book.

And he's like, I just want to sit beside you and I want to read.

And you can, I can keep working on my sermon or I can keep doing whatever.

He's like, I just want to snuggle close, get close next to you, and I want to read, or look at his Pokemon cards.

And most of the time he's silent.

He's reading.

He's actually a pretty loud reader.

If he reads something that's really good, he's like, oh my gosh, did you can you believe that?

As if what's going on in his head is out loud and everybody can hear it.

Um, but I love it.

He just wants to come and get close and just sit right there and read.

I'm not mad at him for not talking to me.

I'm not judging the fact that, oh, you're just gonna sit here next to me?

You don't, you don't think I'm worthy enough to put the book down?

Like, no, I just enjoy the time that I have with him.

And so you have that freedom with a father who loves you more than I love my son to go and read with him and just to intentionally say, I'd like to read this book with you, God.

I'd like to intentionally set this and take this walk.

I want to take this walk with you.

Adam and Eve used to walk with you.

Your disciples used to walk with you, Jesus.

I want to walk with you.

I'm not taking this walk with anybody else.

I'm just gonna take this walk with you.

And so you have the freedom to spend time with him in silence or doing an activity.

The other day, um, I was putting Teddy to bed and he was talking to me as he fell asleep, and I don't know what we're talking about, just random stuff and nothing.

And uh, he fell asleep while he was talking to me.

And I hear, you know, it was sweet, it was wonderful.

And I didn't, you know, when he fell asleep talking to me, I wasn't like, hey, wake up! You're gonna give me the last part of your day and you're not gonna even finish that sentence.

I didn't do that, I just let the boy sleep because I love him.

And I hear these people like, every time I go to pray at nighttime, I fall asleep talking to God, and I feel really bad.

I'm like, I don't think he feels bad.

I think he's thrilled.

I think he's like, the last thing that you wanted to do, the last thing they did before they fell asleep is they talked to me.

My son, my daughter, talk to me while they fell asleep.

Like we make it harder than it has to be.

It's not that difficult.

And Jesus is like, call him Father.

You have to have this space with him where you feel that freedom because he is sweeter than you know, he is closer than you understand, he loves you more than you can possibly ever actually take in.

He just wants to be close to you.

And so we can do those things.

My encouragement to you is to find ways to just practice this thing.

Again, you can pray the this prayer verbatim.

We're gonna do it here in a second.

You can just pray this thing, or you can use it as a launching point to go.

I would like to treat you as a father.

If you have a father who's passed away, there are probably moments in your life where you've wanted to call them up and say something to them.

It's like, what would you what would you want to say to them?

Certainly you'd want to just talk about your grandkids or talk about something that's going on, or talk about something in your day, your new promotion at work, or something.

You just want to share those things, and God is going.

I would also love to hear that stuff.

Yes, I already know about it, but I love you and I want to hear those things.

We have freedom with him to share those things with him.

And so Jesus is saying, don't just call him father, treat him as a father, treat him as one and talk to him that way.

A.W.

Tozer said, what comes into our minds, what comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.

We tend, by a secret law of the soul, to move toward our mental image of God.

And this is why Jesus says, then begin, make your mental image of him, father, not judge, not ruler, not king, not righteous one.

Make your mental image of him, father.

Because you will tend to move towards or away from the image that you have of him.

And if he's scowling at you, disappointed in you, wagging his finger at you, disappointed, all those different things, you will not move towards him, you move away from him.

But if you see him, father, arms open wide, like a prodigal coming home and just running after that kid and going, I I'm so glad you're here.

We'd more likely enter into that space.

And so Jesus wants us to call him Father, to treat him as Father.

So let's close by praying this together.

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

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

Amen.

We use this time at the end to respond.

I said this last week, but God likes to, he gives his attention to any space of intention.

And so he wants to spend time with you.

He's a father who wants to spend time with you.

And so we give this time as a space of intention.

He meets you in the space when you turn your attention to him.

And so this is that space.

We're going to sing, and you can talk to him by just using this song and praying this song to him.

You can pray in your chair, or we'll have a prayer team to the left and the right that would love to pray for you.

But my encouragement to you is talk to your father, who just loves to hear your voice.

If you haven't talked to him in a long time, don't think that he's mad at you.

If I haven't talked to my kid in a long time, I'm not mad when he finally calls me on the phone.

I'm thrilled that I get to talk to him.

He's thrilled that he gets to talk to you.

And so spend some time.

And let's sing and talk to him or just pray.

But let's stand together.