Sermon Transcript:

In our journey together through Matthew’s Gospel we have come to what is called the Lord’s prayer. I think it would be more accurate to call it the disciples prayer because this is Jesus teaching the disciples how to pray. You can go to John 17 to hear what the Lord prayed. Many people repeat this prayer word for word, but it was really given as a model prayer to show us what a faithful God-honoring prayer is like. It’s not wrong to recite it word for word, as long as you mean what you say. 

It can be helpful to pray written prayers but what Jesus is teaching is that God is not impressed with us saying certain words. He is interested in the heart. I like the way puritan Richard Sibbes said it.

God looks not at the elegance of your prayers, to see how neat they are; nor at the geometry of your prayers, to see how long they are; nor at the arithmetic of your prayers, to see how many they are; nor at the music of your prayers, nor at the sweetness of your voice, nor at the logic of your prayers; but at the sincerity of your prayers, how hearty [genuine & honest] they are.

In contrast to the long, showy prayers of the Pharisees, Jesus gives us a short and simple prayer. It is direct. It is God-centered. It reflects the priorities of someone who knows the Lord and trusts His Word. Though the prayer is brief, every phrase is packed with truth. So, Lord willing, we are going to unpack each line one line at a time over the next several weeks. Today we begin with the words, “Our Father.”

We will just look at those two words, “Our Father”. We did not plan this to happen on Father’s day, but I’m glad it worked out this way because what could be more appropriate for today than to meditate on the Fatherhood of God. The main idea I want us to understand is that 

Believers approach God in prayer as adopted children and heirs of His Kingdom

If someone asked you to teach them how to pray, what would you begin with? Maybe the kinds of things we should ask for or perhaps our attitude in approaching God? Those are important, but Jesus didn't begin with any of those things, He began with a relationship. Those two words, “Our Father” represent a radical and profound claim about a relationship.

The words are so familiar they barely register. We hear them so often it is difficult for us to appreciate how revolutionary they are. They are a claim about who we are and who God is. To pray these words in faith is to insist that God exists, He is personal, He is involved in this world and even more, that we are His children. That is a profound thing to claim. 

We need to think about what it even means to say that God is our Father since He is Spirit. He has no body and is neither male nor female. When Jesus teaches us to call God Father, He is not making a statement about biology, but about relationships. Although God’s love is sometimes described in Scripture with maternal imagery, the Bible consistently reveals God as Father.

Some today are troubled by this, seeing it as the residue of an oppressive patriarchy but the Bible’s use of “Father” intended to entrench sinful oppression, but to point us to the goodness, authority, protection, and provision of a perfect Father who loves His children and gives them an eternal inheritance.

In the ancient world, the father was responsible for providing for and protecting the family. He represented the family’s name and reputation and the guardian of its inheritance. To call God Father is to say, “I come from Him, I belong to Him. I depend on Him. His power is at work for me and His name rests on me.” 

In New Testament times, a father didn’t just raise children—he trained his sons to carry on his work. So when Jesus teaches us to pray “Our Father,” He’s not just giving us words to say, He’s declaring who we are. That’s what makes this prayer so revolutionary. In the Old Testament, God is described as the Father of the nation, but nowhere do individuals address Him directly as “Father.” Nor am I aware of any examples of this in Jewish literature before the Christian era. But Jesus teaches us that, through Him, we are invited to speak to God not merely as subjects, but as sons and daughters.

God deserves our reverence, but He is not distant. He is near. He is strong, but not oppressive. He is holy, but not unapproachable. He loves us, and saves us. It isn’t patriarchy that is the problem, it is sinful patriarchs. When the Father is perfect, fatherhood is not a curse. It is a gift. It is not a danger. It is a delight. And that is what we have in God. A perfect Father. One who knows our needs. One who gives us His name. One who invites us to share His work. One who secures our inheritance forever. 

Even in our culture, despite the sustained attack on fathers, generally speaking it is still the image of father that is the best illustration of one who is strong, demands respect, and yet loves, protects, and provides for those he loves. While no earthly father perfectly fulfills all those ideals, God does. It is an immeasurable privilege to have God as our Father.

But Jesus doesn’t teach us to pray “My Father.” He teaches us to pray “Our Father.” That one word, “our”, challenges how many think about our relationship to God. We’re used to thinking of salvation in individual terms: my relationship with God, my walk with Jesus, my quiet time. And yes, God saves individuals, but He saves us into a people. Into a family.

You won’t find the phrase “personal Savior” in the Bible. You won’t find “private faith.” Those phrases come from modern Western culture, not from Scripture. The Bible doesn't downplay our personal need for Christ but it presents our individual salvation as inseparably connected with God saving a people for Himself. That’s where Jesus starts with the very first words. Our Father. He’s not just your Father. He’s our Father. That means if you’re in Christ, you’re not an only child. You’re part of a family. You belong to a people. And that’s not a side note, that’s the shape of biblical Christianity.

Our modern western culture thinks of the relationship between the individual and the community vastly different from how the Bible, and nearly every other culture in history, has understood it. This is a fairly recent development and some of us, especially those from native or recently immigrated families, are only a couple generations removed from a far more group rather than individual oriented way of thinking about families.

We are so programmed by our culture that without realizing it, we often misunderstand the point of family references in the Bible because we are interpreting them based on the families we experience, which have very different values than those of biblical families. In his book When the Church was a Family, Joseph Hellerman shares a great example of how going to see the movie Titanic highlighted this for him. 

Titanic is a romantic love story. Jack is a free-spirited drifter. Rose is the privileged daughter of a crumbling upper-class family. She’s engaged to a rich but obnoxious man, not because of love, but out of a sense of duty. Her father squandered their fortune, and her mother arranged the marriage as their only chance to protect the status and wealth of the family. 

But then Rose meets Jack on the ship and suddenly, she’s torn. Should she remain loyal to her family’s expectations, or follow her heart? Hellerman said as he watched the movie he “could almost hear the thoughts of the other viewers: “Forget your family’s fortune, Rose! Ignore your mother’s wishes! Dump the rich jerk and follow your heart! Go after Jack!” Nobody was worried about Rose’s mother or family.

Of course, Rose runs after Jack to the cheers of the viewers. If she hadn’t the movie wouldn’t have worked for an American audience. But if Titanic were shown in 1st-century Palestine, the audience wouldn’t have cheered, they would’ve been stunned. They would have been appalled that Rose would throw away the interests of her family for a fleeting romance. They would not have seen her as brave and courageous, but as incredibly selfish and foolish. In the culture of the New Testament, and in most cultures throughout human history, the commitment to group came ahead of the individual. 

In the New Testament world, individual identity and priorities were defined by the group—and the most important group was the family. Today, we tend to separate those concerns: What’s best for me? versus What’s best for my family? But in that world, those were the same question. And that difference reshapes everything, including how we think about our relationship with God and our church.

Hellerman says if we were to chart how many of us think about the hierarchies of our relational commitments, it would probably look something like this:

1. God
2. Family
3. Church
4. Everything else

But Jesus connects our relationship to God with our relationship to our brothers and sisters. The New Testament gives us something that looks more like this:

1. God’s family (and thus God)
2. My family
3. Everything Else

By beginning with the words “Our Father” Jesus is emphasizing that we come to God as part of a family and the model of family He is drawing from is a group rather than individualistic identity. Over 100 times the New Testament refers to Christians as brothers and sisters. It is the most common way of addressing them, far more than calling us believers, saints, Christians, or disciples.

The church is designed as a family united by the Fatherhood of God and who consider the impact of their decisions on the family and whose identity, reputation, and prosperity is bound up with that family. The modern way of separating our relationship with God from our relationships with each other would make no sense to the early believers. The Bible is constantly reinforcing this connection. 1 John 3:14 says,

14 We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. …

Speaking to brothers and sisters John 13:35 says,

35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

We could list many more examples but it is clear that our love for God is inseparably connected to our love for other believers. Even our prayers are a form of participation in a community of faith, a family. We have a shared inheritance and God has given each of us gifts for the strengthening of the faith and witness of the whole. In the Kingdom, we are our brothers, and sisters, keepers. 1 John 3:16–18 says,

16 By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. 17 But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? 18 Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.

Jesus teaches us to pray “Our Father”, but how did we get the privilege of calling the glorious, holy, creator and sovereign of the universe our father? 

It doesn’t come from anything in us. Jesus is the only Son of God by nature. Jesus is eternal God yet was born a human being with a human mother. When his mother Mary is told this is going to happen, she asks how and Luke 1:35 says,

35 …the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.

He alone is of the same essence and being as the Father. John 1:14 says,

14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Jesus is the beloved Son who came into the world to save sinners. He was perfect, never rebelling, never sinning, completely faithful in all things. Then He offered Himself on the cross as a sacrifice in our place to pay for the sins of all those who would put their faith in Him as their Lord and Savior. Through Christ’s blood, God removed the sin of those who believe so He could bring us to Himself without compromising His holiness. 

We were spiritual orphans, covered in the filth of sin, but God has washed us clean, given us robes of righteousness. He has brought His home, given us His name, and seated us at His table. Jesus is a son by nature, we who believe are adopted and made sons and daughters by grace. 

It is only by being united to Jesus by faith that we have the right to call God Father. He took our sin and we received His privileges. Our salvation and all its benefits flow from our being joined to Christ. To be saved is to be in Him and for Him to be in us. Every blessing comes in Christ, with Christ, through Christ, and by Christ. Jesus is the eternal Son who took on flesh so we could be raised with Him in glory. To be united with Christ means to be joined with Him in such a way that what He has accomplished becomes ours. His death counts as our death to sin, and His resurrection becomes our new life. He became like us so that we could become like Him. Hebrews 2:11 says,

11 For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers

Whatever your sins are they are not deeper than the forgiveness of God. Jesus is raised from the dead and seated at the right hand of the Father. If you come to Him in faith, confessing your sins and repenting, He is not ashamed to call you brother or sister, and you can pray with Him “Our Father.”

When He was being tortured on the cross because our sins were put on Him, He cries out “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” It is only here, as He stands in our place, that Jesus cries out to God using an impersonal address. Everywhere else He calls Him Father. It is only when He is nailed to the cross carrying our sins that His perfect fellowship is cut off. He cries “God, why have you forsaken me”, so that we can cry “Abba Father” 

Jesus has established a new community, a colony from heaven on earth. The Gospel is not merely a radical theological message, it is a radical social message. This is one of the reasons Jesus and early Christians were hated. Coming to Christ involves a new identity and new allegiances, which is incredibly offensive to those in a collectivist culture. We tend to skip over these concerns, but they would have been among the most important considerations in the early church and still are in many places.

Last year, pastor Jason, who is witnessing on the reservations in Oklahoma, told me one of the difficult challenges new believers deal with are accusations that they have dishonored their ancestors. Joel Diffenderfer has shared similar things about his work there. When we read in 1 Peter 1:18 that believers are ransomed from the futile ways inherited from their forefathers it is hard for us to understand how jarring and offensive that statement is in most cultures. But those who are offended have a much better understanding of the radical new identity and radical new priorities the gospel calls us to.

Think about the social and family implications of Mark 3:31–35,

31 And his mother and his brothers came, and standing outside they sent to him and called him. 32 And a crowd was sitting around him, and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers are outside, seeking you.” 33 And he answered them, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” 34 And looking about at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! 35 For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.”

For the eldest Son to speak this way was scandalous and dishonoring in that cultural context. But Jesus was willing to offend cultural expectations to make it clear: it is not the inheritance of the flesh that matters most but the inheritance of the Spirit. It is not the name we carry from our earthly family, but the name of our Heavenly Father that we must seek to honor above all else. Following Jesus isn’t a halfway decision. It’s all or nothing. In Luke 14:26 He says,

26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.

The word translated “hate” doesn’t mean hate the way we use it. It is a word that means to abandon or leave behind. Jesus is saying the same thing here as in the previous verse. To follow Him we must be willing to leave behind all the other identities that define us. We must die and be born again. That is a high cost, but it will be worth it. At one point the apostle Peter tells Jesus that they have left everything for Him and in Mark 10:29–30,

29 Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, 30 who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.

Look carefully at what Jesus says. Whatever we are called to sacrifice for the kingdom of God will be minor compared to what we gain in the kingdom. There is nothing that can compare to eternal life in paradise and even now, we gain many brothers and sisters, fathers, mothers, and houses. As a quick aside, notice that Jesus doesn’t address husbands and wives. In that culture, marriages were arranged between families. Although most husbands and wives grew to love each other, a person did not usually look primarily to their husband or wife for emotional and relational support. The closest lifelong relationships were between siblings. It was typically your brothers and sisters that were your encouragement and support.

When Jesus says His followers have gained hundreds of siblings in the Kingdom this would have been a great blessing. Jesus is talking about the committed fellowship of the church. We are called to live in fellowship, using the spiritual and physical gifts God has blessed us with to care for our brothers and sisters.

It was not uncommon in the early church for people who were baptized to be disowned by their family and in many cases they had to leave their jobs because a believer couldn’t work in situations where their job would cause them to participate in or facilitate sin. We can understand this better when we consider what the act of baptism symbolizes. It takes a lot of faith in a strong group culture to proclaim that you have died to your old life and have been born again to a new life. We can see why families would be offended and why professing faith in Christ came with such a cost.

There was no social security or programs for those who were cut off, they had to rely on their church family. That’s why Paul tells the church in Thessolonica “if anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.” He isn’t giving an opinion on economic theory. He is advising the church to be wise so they were not taken advantage of.

It takes different forms at different times and different places, but to follow Christ always involves taking up a cross. It always involves the willingness to be detested by the world in order to be faithful to God. That may involve suffering and rejection, but we are not left alone. Our Father has not only given us the fellowship of other believers, He has given us the Holy Spirit to strengthen us and draw us closer to Himself so that we persevere to the end. He never promises it will be easy, but He promises we need not fear because He is with us. Romans 8:14–17 says,

14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. 15 For you did 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!” 16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 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.

When Jesus teaches us to pray, He doesn’t begin with a formula or a request. He begins with a relationship. “Our Father.” Those two words are simple, but they are loaded with theological depth and radical implications. We are not merely creatures crying out to a Creator, we are children speaking to our Father. That means we belong to Him. Our identity, our security, our inheritance, even our reputation is bound up with His name. To pray this way is to claim adoption. It’s to confess dependence. And it’s to remember that we’re not alone. God is not just my Father, He is our Father. That means we’re part of a family, not just a collection of individuals. And this family isn’t built on bloodlines or last names, it’s built on union with Christ. Through the Son, we have access to the Father. Remember our main idea?

Believers approach God in prayer as adopted children and heirs of His Kingdom

Now none of this, however, is to diminish the role or responsibilities of our earthly fathers. It is merely to recognize that what is flesh is flesh and what is spirit is spirit. Our earthly fathers cannot save us, but our heavenly Father can. The Bible is clear that we are to honor our fathers and they play a very important role in our lives, but the most important role they should play is to point us to Christ. It should be the desire of every Christian father that their children all grow up to become their brothers and sisters.

A godly father cannot be satisfied with raising successful, moral, or well-behaved kids. It has been rightly said, 

If we teach our sons to throw a baseball but not to pray, we have failed them. If we teach our daughters to be confident, to succeed in school, to chase their dreams, but we don’t teach them to treasure Christ and to seek first the kingdom of God, we have let them down.

Fathers, our job is not just to prepare our children for college or careers or courtship, it’s to prepare them to stand before the throne of God. The world will encourage their talent and ambition, but who will encourage them in humility and holiness? That’s our calling. Our sons need to see what it means to be men who walk with God. Our daughters need to see what it means to be women whose identity is rooted in Christ. 

The goal is not just to raise good kids, because in the end, it doesn’t matter how far they throw or how high they climb, if they don’t know how to kneel. A faithful father reflects the heart of our Heavenly Father: he protects, provides, disciplines in love, and delights in his children. That’s a high calling. And it’s a gift of grace when earthly fathers rise to it.

I know that for some of you, the word father doesn’t bring comfort, it brings pain. You may have had a father who failed you. Or left you. Or harmed you. If that’s your story, let me tell you the good news: your Father in Heaven will never fail you, never leave you, never forsake you. He knows you better than anyone else, and He loves you more than anyone else ever could. Whatever your earthly story may be, if you belong to Jesus, you have been chosen by the perfect Father who gave His Son to purchase your eternal salvation. Don’t define yourself by the shortcomings of your earthly father, but by confidence in the love and care of your Heavenly Father.

If we pray as our Lord taught us then every prayer, regardless of the circumstances, is an opportunity for us to rejoice, because every prayer is a reminder that God loves us, He has made us His own, and we have fellowship with our brothers and sisters. When we pray we are not muttering into the empty vastness of an unfeeling universe. We are speaking to our Father. The One who knows our needs before we ask. The One who gave His Son to bring us near. The One who placed His Spirit within us and who will complete the good work He began in us. 

Even when the world is dark, and the burden is heavy, and the words are few, if you have Christ, you can say, “Our Father,” knowing He loves you and hears you. If you haven’t yet trusted in Jesus, He invites you to have that as well. Come to the Son, and through Him you’ll be brought to the Father. 

Let’s finish with a profound encouragement from the apostle Paul in Galatians 4:4–7.

4 …when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.