Our Father In Heaven
Download MP3Just before the 8 o'clock service, I was standing out front, greeting alongside Jimmy. And this man came up to me with full sincerity and he said, I want you to know how much I have enjoyed these last 2 weeks looking at the Lord's prayer. And Jeff, your sermon especially hit me right in the heart. I don't know how to tell you, Jeff, how much it really meant to me. In case we haven't met, my name is Matt.
Matt Francisco:Jeff is another one of the pastors here at this church, but I understand his confusion. It used to happen to us a lot more than it does now. But Jeff and I, we are both red headed, bearded pastors, roughly about 40 years old, who work here at Redeemer, who loved to play guitar, who studied philosophy in college, enjoy a good Coen Brothers movie, who married girls from Kentucky, who have one older sister, who studied English in college, and so on and so on and so on. Why do I share that with you? Because that man could have known all of those things that would have been true of both me and Jeff.
Matt Francisco:But when he approached me, it was a case of mistaken identity. Right? Jeff, 2 weeks ago, talked to us about three reasons why we need to learn to pray and why we should be excited to. Last week, Caleb Chancy did an excellent job of exposing 2 wrong ways to pray. The hypocrites come not to be seen by God, but hoping to be seen by others.
Matt Francisco:The Gentiles think that they will be heard by God by their many words, but both of their attitudes towards God in prayer reveal that they do not actually know the God that they are praying to. That's what I want you to wrestle with this morning. Who is the God that you are praying to? How do you really know that you know that you know God? Jesus offers up the 8 words that will be the subject of our focus this morning.
Matt Francisco:In Matthew 6 verse 9, he says, pray then like this, our Father in heaven. Now, as we've done these first two weeks, together, we are going to pray the Lord's Prayer together. It's here in your worship, God. And just for your peace of mind, we are praying, Trespasses, not debts. Let's pray together.
Matt Francisco:Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever and ever.
Matt Francisco:Amen. Yes, father. And we pray as we come before you as your children that you would have mercy upon us this morning. I pray that the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart would be pleasing in your sight. And I confess my acknowledgement that the people gathered here in this room, they don't need to hear words from me, a mere man.
Matt Francisco:But we are here to hear from you because your name and your renown, those are the desires of our hearts. So take your words and speak to your children by the power of your spirit, that we might deepen our understanding of who you are and what you've done and what that means. We pray all these things in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. So what does it mean not to just know many things about God, but to actually know God.
Matt Francisco:What is a Christian? The theologian, J. I. Packer in his magnificent book Knowing God put it this way. He said, This question can be answered in many ways, but the richest answer that I know is that a Christian is one who has God as Father.
Matt Francisco:If you want to understand how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God's child and having God as his father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all. Adoption is the highest privilege the gospel offers. Now, it is one thing to be forgiven of our sins and a tremendous gift. But it is another category altogether to know that the holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty, the one who was and is and is to come, has looked at you and looked at me and said, You are welcomed into my family.
Matt Francisco:I'm going to try to draw out that difference for you just in a minute. Now, you may have heard this analogy before, but I'm going to try to add a little bit of color to it. Now, imagine that you are in a courtroom. All of the evidence has come in and there is no question, not only that you committed the crime, but that the case has been made. You know that you are going to be found guilty.
Matt Francisco:You know the sentence is going to be severe. The gavel comes down and sure enough, exactly what you thought would happen, but that you secretly wished wouldn't happen, happens. You are found guilty and now the sentence will be carried out. But then something unthinkable happens and the judge comes down from his podium and he says, I need you to know something. It's going to sound strange to you, but my son and I, we love you very much.
Matt Francisco:We know that you don't really know who we are, and we know that none of this is going to make any sense to you, certainly not now, maybe not for a long time. But before all of this happened, we hatched a plan and he's actually gone in the other room. He's put on your clothes and he is receiving your sentence. He is being put to death. And you walk into that other room and you're going to put on his clothes and you're going to walk out of this room a free man.
Matt Francisco:Now, that is unbelievable, and that is the heart of justification and forgiveness. But that is not all that the Bible holds out for you and for me. Now, imagine that that same judge, he says, Now, as we leave this place, I want you to come home with me. Your former name, your former family, all of those things are gone. I'm going to give you my name.
Matt Francisco:You're going to be a member of my house. My name and reputation are going with you. And everything that I have, it now also belongs to you. And when you get to my house, there's going to be a feast laid out for you. And I'm gonna serve you.
Matt Francisco:You've got a host of brothers and sisters who cannot wait for you to join them. And there's a room there for you. And no matter what happens, no matter what you do, you will always be mine. That is the heart of adoption. That is what is offered to every single one of us who have recognized our sins and what we deserve and placed our faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ.
Matt Francisco:That if we believe in what Jesus has done, we are not only forgiven and free, we are adopted as children of the most high God. If you hear nothing else this morning, this is what I want you to catch. Your adoption in Christ means that you have unimaginable access and unimaginable assurance before our Father in heaven. So when Jesus prays or says in Matthew 6:9, pray then like this, 'Our Father in heaven.' He's not actually being prescriptive. He's not saying every time you open your mouth to God, make sure that you say these words, our Father in Heaven.
Matt Francisco:That's the trap that the Gentiles fell into. Praying to God is not a formula. What he is reminding his disciples and each and every one of us is as you pray, remember that the king of kings and Lord of lords invites you to come to him like a child coming before his or her father, with that kind of access and that kind of assurance, Remember who you are and who you belong to. Now, the Jewish leaders of Jesus's time, they considered God's name too holy to be spoken out loud or even written. They understood to some degree how high and holy, how unlike us our God really is.
Matt Francisco:But then comes along this poor carpenter, and he has the absolute audacity to talk about the one who lives an unapproachable life, who is wholly beyond comparison, and call him Abba Father. A term of such intimacy, it was usually reserved for a baby crying out in the night for its parents. John 5 18 tells us that this is why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him because he was not only breaking the Sabbath, he was even calling God his own father. In other words, the religious leaders of Jesus's day want to put Jesus to death because they believe him to be blaspheming. That is saying untrue things about God.
Matt Francisco:But the problem was is that although the religious leaders and Jesus said many of the same things about God, they weren't really talking about or talking to the same God, were they? The religious leaders understood in part God's holiness, but they misunderstood the depths of God's mercy and his love as father. As Caleb reminded us last week, God sees you, God knows you, and God hears you. Our God is not like the gods of the ancients, nor is he like so many of our earthly fathers. He is not overly harsh.
Matt Francisco:He's not overly critical. He is not manipulative and he is not capricious. You do not have to earn access into his presence or earn his listening ear because they are given to you freely by virtue of your relationship with him. If you are in Christ, you have access and you have blessed assurance. And maybe you had an earthly dad who wasn't around.
Matt Francisco:Maybe like he treated you like you were in the way. Like you were always the hindrance between him and what he really wanted to be doing. I want you to hear me. Your heavenly father could not be any less like that. Jesus said about his father in John 11, You always hear me.
Matt Francisco:David says in Psalm 65, Oh God, you who hear prayer. But it's not merely that God does hear you in prayer, but that he delights when his children come before him in prayer. Psalm 147, the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him and those who hope in his steadfast love. And maybe you're in this room and you're not really struggling with believing any of the things that I've said up to this point. But maybe if you're honest with yourself, it's just hard for you to ever want to pray.
Matt Francisco:Or when you start to pray, you don't really feel like you know what you're doing and you don't know where your prayers are going. And it can be easy to want to do anything else but pray. But God, he has never struggled to want to spend time with you. It is his absolute joy and pleasure. And he will never shame you because you haven't called him in a while.
Matt Francisco:But the joy that fills his heart whenever you do, He is ever ready to pick up the phone. And when you show up, he is like that father at his office. He sees you and he says, Hold all of my calls. He looks you in the eye and he says, You have my full attention. With the brightest smile on his face, ready to receive whatever it is that you want to talk to him about.
Matt Francisco:It is his delight. Hear these words from Hebrews chapter 10. Since we have confidence to enter the most holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way open for us, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and full assurance of faith. I've got 3 kids. One of them in particular draws near to me with full assurance and confidence of faith.
Matt Francisco:Ezra. Ezra's basic predisposition in life is, a little bit like his father's, which is basically to say, the worst anyone could possibly tell me is no. And so I'm going to ask over and over and over again. And as a parent who still has sin in my heart, that disposition sometimes makes me wrestle with the sin that is still in my heart. But what a beautiful predisposition for a child to have towards his or her parent.
Matt Francisco:Right? If Ezra didn't believe that Aaron and I loved him and were for him, he would have stopped asking a long, long time ago. He would have thought, I've got to find my own way. I've got to find my own meaning and purpose and happiness for myself. And Ezra doesn't feel the need to make an eloquent speech, or to fact check all of his sources before he blurts out his requests.
Matt Francisco:He just comes, and he shares whenever they come to his mind because he's confident that we'll listen and we love him. But our father loves us more, infinitely more than I could ever love my kids, and his patience and power are infinitely greater than mine. And not only does he delight in giving access to his children through prayer, but do you know what our father in heaven says to his children? He says, ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find.
Matt Francisco:Knock and it will be open to you. Now, if I'm being honest, when I read a statement like that in scripture, I start to hedge my bets. On the one hand, I want to point out all of the ways that that has been distorted theologically and say, now, you all know that doesn't mean this. Or I want to hedge my bets against all of my own disappointments when it feels like God hasn't listened to or answered my prayers. But the main thing that I've been wrestling with this week and that I want you to wrestle with do you believe that God has held that out to you?
Matt Francisco:That God is predisposed to say yes to your prayers. That all of God's promises are yes and amen in Christ. That he says it is his good pleasure to give you the kingdom, that the only reason that our Father in heaven would say no to your prayers is because he loves you more than you love yourself, and because he has infinite wisdom, and he alone knows what is perfectly best for us. And our father only gives good gifts to his children to the degree that if we knew what God knows, if we had the power that God has, and if we loved as God loves, we would give us what God is giving to us. That is unimaginable love, access, and assurance.
Matt Francisco:Now, we used to live in Crestwood. And when Sarah, our oldest, when we were in that house, her bedroom was directly across the hall from Aaron's and mine. Now, I know that there are various different parenting philosophies present in this room, and that people tend to have very strong, judgy opinions about parenting. So, that's my caveat before I dive into this story. For many parents, perhaps, hopefully, maybe like Aaron and myself, there comes this strange, difficult moment around the 6 month mark where you have to decide whether or not you are going to let your child cry it out.
Matt Francisco:That is, learn to self soothe and put themselves back to sleep instead of being soothed by a parent. Now, when we were trying to sleep train Sarah, Sarah would cry and Aaron's immediate response would be to pull the baby monitor, put the volume up at full blast, and just stare. Right? And for the first several times, she would kind of nudge me awake and be like, what do we do? What do we do?
Matt Francisco:It's been too long. Maybe she's hungry. Maybe she really needs us. Maybe she needs a diaper change. Oh no, she knocked a pacifier on the floor.
Matt Francisco:Should we go get it? And I would generally say, she's probably fine, and roll back over. Now, if we didn't come, Sarah may have felt abandoned, but was it true? No. It could not have been any less true.
Matt Francisco:She had never been abandoned even for a second. Even if she cried and cried and cried and never seemed to get an answer. It is only because we were doing our best to do the best thing for our daughter. But sometimes, admittedly, we don't know what is best. But hear me.
Matt Francisco:Your father in heaven has never wondered what is best for you, and he has never lacked the power or resources to give it to you. He loves you and he is perfectly wise and perfectly powerful. When we say our father in heaven, we're not so much talking about where he lives so much as we are talking about the fact that the wind moves at his good pleasure, that every star he calls out by name, and he leverages everything that he has for the good of his children, every second of every hour of every day for all eternity because you are his delighted in child. Even if it feels like your prayers are bouncing off the wall or if your father doesn't hear, because he may not be simply ignore his child or disregard their feelings, and neither does your God. The bible tells us that you are graven on the palms of his hand.
Matt Francisco:You are never out of his mind. There is never a moment where his eye is off of you. If he takes care of the flowers of the field and if his eye is on the sparrow, it surely is on you. There's never been a moment where his attention has been distracted from you and therefore, there's never been a moment where his care for you could possibly fail. But it's not like it always feels that way.
Matt Francisco:Right? There is sometimes pain and hurt and unimaginable confusion that comes into our lives because we do not understand why would God allow these things to happen to us or to people we love. And I would need you to know that your heavenly father, he wants you to come to him with all of yourself. And he's not surprised or offended by your anger or your confusion or your hurt, if you cry out to him why, He doesn't scream back at you and say, because I said so. If you are overwhelmed with emotion, he doesn't look at you and say, Once you've calmed down, then maybe we can talk.
Matt Francisco:He is not an absentee father who is not there when you need him. He's not a passive father. He is not a tyrant. He is ever present. He is ever compassionate, and he is ever working for your very best good.
Matt Francisco:And this means that the real business of prayer isn't trying to wrestle from God something that he doesn't want to give to us, nor is it trying to convince him of something that we know to be true that he doesn't. Instead, our primary business in prayer is to bring our whole selves before God and be reminded that not only do we have access, we have assurance that he loves us, that no one can stay his hand or say to him, what have you done? That he leverages all of his resources to protect us and provide for us. And therefore, we can come before him free to cast all of our anxieties on him knowing that he cares for us with the assurance that he will always care for us because we are his own sons and daughters and heirs. Hear how the apostle Paul puts it in Galatians 4, And because you are sons, God has sent the spirit of his son into our hearts crying, Abba, father.
Matt Francisco:So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God. I don't know if you noticed that, but that word is here again, Abba, an Aramaic term of endearment. Now, why would the apostle Paul, writing to Greek speaking Galatians, take a word from Aramaic? Because he wanted them to catch like I hope and pray you catch, that that is what Jesus called his father. The same access that Jesus had to God, you now in Jesus have to God.
Matt Francisco:He always hears you because he cannot see you as anything other than fully in Christ. Listen to this. What is the difference between a slave and a son that Paul highlights here? It's this idea of access and assurance. A slave's relationship to their master is based on present performance.
Matt Francisco:What have you done for me lately? And so it is always insecure and it's always tinged with some degree of either entitlement or resentment, pride or fear. A slave cannot rest because the love of the master is never secure. But what about a son? A son doesn't obey in order to be loved.
Matt Francisco:A son is loved and therefore obeys. A son's secure in the love of his father because he knows that if he has a good father, there's nothing that he can do to make his father love him anymore, and there's nothing that he can do to make his father love him any less. That's what it means to have that kind of relationship between a father and a son. Now, a relationship may depend upon birth and be unchangeable, but intimacy is tied to behavior. Psalm 6618 says, If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.
Matt Francisco:There are times where you and I, we act like the prodigal, right? You say, I don't want you. I just want your things. And we run off and we go our own way. No matter how many times we act the prodigal, God, our Father in heaven, will never cease to act the prodigal's father.
Matt Francisco:Remember that story? It tells us that the prodigal son comes to himself and he starts walking back. But what happens? While he was still a long way off, his father saw him and had compassion. And he ran towards him and embraced him.
Matt Francisco:And so does the lord god do for you and your sin. You turn and he is ever waiting for you with open arms. Ready to embrace you, to kill the fattened calf for you, to put a robe on you, and a ring on your finger, and welcome you back into the home where you belong. And if God is this kind of father, and he is. And if he knows the absolute worst about you and me, and he does.
Matt Francisco:Then it means that we no longer have to hide or pretend anymore. Because he loves us like any good father. Because he loves us, because he loves us, because he loves us. Because we are his. Because from before eternity passed, he decided to set his affection upon us because he thought that he would enjoy and we would enjoy being family together, because he is impossibly committed to your good and for his glory.
Matt Francisco:You see, because of what Jesus did, as 2 Corinthians 521 tells us, Jesus became sin so that we might become the righteousness of God. This means that our adoption in Christ not only gives us access and assurance before our father in heaven, But don't miss this because I'm going to say something that doesn't sound like it could possibly be true. Our father in heaven looks at you as though you had perfectly obeyed just like Jesus did. Our father in heaven loves you to the same degree that he loves Jesus himself. Now, do you see why the religious leaders accuse Jesus of blasphemy?
Matt Francisco:They understand. This doesn't make any sense. There can't be a God that operates like this, and this is what is held out for you in the gospel. Hear these words that Jesus prays in John 17 23. I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly in 1, perfectly 1, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.
Matt Francisco:And if our standing before our heavenly father is not dependent upon our performance, but is grounded in what Jesus has already done, that means that there is nothing you could possibly do to change or alter or diminish your standing before your father in heaven ever. It is as sure as God's character. That's why I think Paul in Ephesians 3, which Lauren reminded us of earlier, he says he bows his knees before the father and he prays that we would have strength together to comprehend what is the breadth and the length and the height and the depth of the love of Christ. Because it is so utterly overwhelming. It is impossible and too good to be true.
Matt Francisco:It's too much. It's why the apostle John leaps out in 1st John 3 and he says, see what kind of love the father has lavished upon us, that we should be called the sons and daughters of God. And so we are. My friends, if you don't know Christ in this room, I hope you have heard the love that our father in heaven has for each and every one of his children and run to him for his arms are open wide. And if you do, I hope you are reminded of the good heart of your father.
Matt Francisco:And I hope that tomorrow you open your bibles and you come before him in prayer. And even if the enemy reminds you of your sin, or even if he whispers how little you may want to do this, that you will remember that he stands waiting with perfect love and perfect compassion, eager to hear from you because you are his, that you have unimaginable access and assurance before your father in heaven. And when we really begin to believe these things, our priorities in prayer begin to change. It's not that we don't also pray for our requests. It's just that God begins to change our heart to look more and more like his heart.
Matt Francisco:But the first things that come out of our mouths in prayer tend to be thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And as we ask God for our daily bread, as we ask him to forgive us, we rest assured that he already has and that he has promised to provide for and to protect his children. And we don't merely pray these things for ourselves, but we remember that he is not just my father or your father, that he is our father, that we are family, and we long for our father to take care of our brothers and sisters like he is taking care of us, including those who are still left as slaves, who are still dead in their trespasses and sins. I am asking us, I am pleading with you more than anything to remember and rejoice. There is no one like our God.
Matt Francisco:Amen? Let us go before him in prayer. Our Father in Heaven, I pray for myself and for everybody in this room that we would have strength together to comprehend with all of the saints what is the height and the depth and the length and the breadth of the love of Christ because it truly surpasses knowledge. I pray that that any of us, even myself, might actually believe it as we walk out of this place. That you hear us, that you see us, that you know us, and that you are unimaginably for us.
Matt Francisco:And so may we come before you. May we pray without ceasing, not because we have to, but because you have brought us into such a relationship with you that we feel like we need prayer and long to pray like we long to eat or breathe. We love you, Lord. We love you because you have first loved us. We pray these things.
Matt Francisco:In the the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit. Amen.
