In our last meeting, we discussed just the first two words of The Lord’s Prayer – Our Father. And we talked about the significance of Jesus using that as the beginning of a prayer. It was re-establishing the relationship God intended with mankind before the serpent and sin entered the Garden of Eden.
By starting a prayer with ‘Our Father,’ we are put in a mindset of Who God is to us and who we are to God. It reunites us with God as our Father, and us as His children. Jesus taught us to pray in a way that confirms our relationship to not only God but also to one another. The term “our” indicates the inclusion of others and “Father” puts a family spin to it. Jesus’ demonstration of prayer brings us into a closer, more intimate union with God and with other believers.
The second phrase in that first line is “in heaven”.
That description ‘Our Father in heaven” is familiar to us. It’s nothing to cause us to ponder or put a lot of thought into it. However, consider the Jews hearing this from Jesus.
As we discussed last time, the Jews prayed. They were trained and educated on the prayers learned by rote. But their prayer life was rigid in comparison to ours. Prayer was more of a ritual than a conversation. It was deeply reverent, respectful, and often filled with fear. Prayers were often accompanied with sacrifices or ceremonial acts and the people didn’t pray just anywhere. They would build an altar or, if it were reasonable, they would go to the temple.
People from the Old Testament generally prayed for their needs to be met and to repent. And often you’ll see that priests and prophets were mediators between God and the Jews. “Prophets bring the word of God from God to the people. Priests represent the people in coming before God’s presence.”[i]
When Jesus gave directions to the Jews on how to pray, He changed how we approach God, and the nature of our prayer, and broadened what we pray for.
Prayers went from mediators to direct access. Prayers went from being rigid and formal to personal and intimate. The petitions in prayer grew from needs and repentance to now include the furtherance of His kingdom and the nurturing of a relationship with God.
Jesus introduced the Jews to a different side of God and developed a balance for us to have a deeper understanding of the relationship God wants with us.
“In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus mentions the Father seventeen times, and ten of those references include the modifier heaven and heavenly. When Jesus says ‘your Father in heaven’ or ‘your heavenly Father,’ he is emphasizing the high privilege as well as the great responsibility we have as the children of God. Just as our children and grandchildren can bring praise or shame to the family name, so God’s children can glorify the Father (Matt. 5:16) or dishonor him and his family.”[ii]
“The phrase our Father suggests that God is near to us;” [Emmanuel means “God with us”] “the next words, which art in heaven, suggest that He is far away. Both concepts are true simultaneously. The theological term for this quality of God is omnipresence.”[iii]
David best illustrates this in Psalm 139.
Psalm 139:7 GNT “Where could I go to escape from you?
Where could I get away from your presence?
8 If I went up to heaven, you would be there;
if I lay down in the world of the dead, you would be there.
9 If I flew away beyond the east
or lived in the farthest place in the west,
10 you would be there to lead me,
you would be there to help me.”
In this first line of the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus emphasizes the immanence of God/ He is near us (Our Father indicates a closeness); the transcendence of God/ He is beyond us (in heaven indicates distance) and yet also the omnipresence of God/ He is everywhere (balances the two).
Arthur Pink, a pastor and theologian– “These two things should ever occupy our minds & engage our hearts. For the first phrase, ‘Our Father’ without the second phrase ‘in heaven’ tends towards unholy familiarity. But the second phrase without the first phrase produces coldness and dread. But by combining them together we are preserved from both evils.”
By Jesus referring to God as ‘Our Father in heaven’, He uncovers layers of God that were not known to most Jews at that time.
First of all, it wasn’t a common belief that it was possible to have a personal and intimate relationship with God that was one-on-one. Much of their worship was done corporately and not individually. Jesus introduces the Jews to the idea that God desires a personal and intimate relationship with each of His children. Jesus did this in a way so that the holiness of God wasn’t compromised, but the access to God was broadened.
But secondly, to reference God in heaven acknowledged that God has all of the resources of heaven.
If you’ve seen the movie or the play Annie, think about the time when Annie is taken from the orphanage where she’s living in poverty and scrubbing floors and washing windows to earn her basic necessities to the home of a billionaire , Oliver Warbucks. Annie enters the extravagant home and she’s thinking she’ll need to scrub floors and wash windows in order to earn food and a bed to sleep in. She’s blown away by all that Mr. Warbucks can provide to her and after a bit of time, Mr. Warbucks finds himself wanting to do more for Annie, including adopting her. Annie is amazed at all that is offered and provided for her. Far beyond her wildest imagination.
We’re a lot like Orphan Annie when it comes to God. We have this mentality that God is infinite and powerful and without limits except when it comes to us. We tend to reduce God’s abilities to our limited perceptions.
Would you agree that we limit God in our prayers? Luke 1:37 “For nothing will be impossible with God.”
“A small Oklahoma town had two churches and one distillery. Members of both churches complained that the distillery was giving the community a bad image. And to make matters worse the owner of the distillery was an out spoken atheist. He didn’t believe in God one bit. The church people had tried unsuccessfully for years to shut down the distillery. So finally they decided to hold a joint Saturday night prayer meeting. They were going to ask God to intervene and settle the matter.
The church folks gathered on Saturday night and there was a horrible thunderstorm raging outside and to the delight of the church members lightning hit that old brewery and it burned to the ground.
The next morning the sermons that were preached in both churches were on the power of prayer.
But the insurance adjusters promptly notified the distillery owner that they were not going to pay for the damages because the fire was an act of God and that was an exclusion in the policy.
The distillery owner was furious and he sued both churches claiming that they had conspired with God to destroy his business. But the churches denied that they had anything to do with the cause of the fire.
The presiding judge opened the trial with these words: I find one thing in this case most perplexing-we have a situation here where the plaintiff, an atheist is professing his belief in the power of prayer, and the defendants all faithful church members are denying the very same power * (Clint Palmer – Sermon notes)”[iv]
When we pray to our Father in heaven we can experience intimacy with God as well as His sovereignty. But we must pray as Jesus taught us. We should embrace God as our loving Father as well as the Creator of all things.
We recently finished Experiencing God and the 7 realities of such an experience. Can you see how those realities tie into having a deeper prayer life with God?
Having a prayer life that recognizes God as our Father, individually as well as Father to all believers and acknowledging his omnipresence (He is everywhere) equips us to see where God is working all around us. By seeing God as our Father, we can embrace a more real and personal relationship with Him that He desires. Focusing our prayers more on God and not on ourselves (Remember – it’s not about us!) provides us an opportunity to recognize His invitation to join Him in the work that He’s already doing.
“He is everywhere present! He makes Himself apparent to us in a dozen different dimensions of daily contacts. The trouble is that most of us are too busy, too preoccupied with our own pursuits, too distracted by the gross materialism of our man-made world to pause and feel His hand upon us in the everyday environment of our lives.”
“When was the last time you went out alone to walk in the rain, your face uplifted, to let its freshness fall upon your cheeks? And, as you walked, did it dawn on your dull heart that this was a gentle reminder that all good gifts come from your Father? Of when was the last time that in breathless wonder you paused to humbly thank your Father for sharing some of His splendor with you in a glorious sunrise or glowing sunset?”
“It has been well said that the true measure of any man’s spirituality is the degree to which he can detect God in the most simple events around him.”[v]
Recently, I was down visiting my 2-year-old great niece. She’s at the age where she lets others know verbally what she wants. She came up to me, took my hand, pointed to the door, and said, “owside” meaning she wanted to go outside.
I let her mom and dad know we were going for a walk and the two of us made our way to the dismal and cold weather outside. It was misting, not enough to get wet, but enough to feel it. No sun was visible; just a heavy overcast. She’s two, so there was no deep conversation; just simply being together. She held my hand, even when she bent down to pick up a stick. She pointed at a cat running through a yard to make sure I noticed. She would look up at me from time to time and just smile.
One word kept coming to mind: joy.
We walked around the cul-de-sac for a while until her daddy came outside. He saw us and waved. Little Clara raised her tiny hand and waved right back. Caleb, her daddy, yelled out, “Aunt Diane, where’s Clara? I thought she was with you.” Sensing the mischievous tone in his voice, I responded, “I don’t know where she went. I thought she was right here with me.”
Clara looked up at me in confusion while the playful conversation continued.
“Where could she be?”
“I don’t know. I just saw her a little while ago.”
“Clara! Clara! Where are you?”
Clara, in her toddler mindset, squeezed my hand as if to remind me that she was right there. When I ignored the squeeze, she said loudly for me and her daddy to hear, “I here! I here!”
As we played along, ignoring Clara’s presence, the more Clara became frustrated. She stepped in front of me, she pulled on my pants leg, she patted her little hands against my leg, all the while yelling, “I here! I here!”
Eventually, I made eye contact with her and yelled to her daddy, “I found her! She was here all the time!” as I picked her up and hugged her. As she hugged me back, she pulled back her little face, looked me in the eyes and said, “I didn’t go bye-bye.”
While that sounds just like a cute little story, I was thinking about it on my drive home that day.
When you and I pray to God our Father in heaven, we are privileged to pray to One who not only loves us beyond our comprehension, but to One who chooses to hold our hand and walk with us and with whom all things are possible.
How frustrating it must be to God to be walking along side of us, holding our hand, and to hear us yell out, “God, where are You? I saw You just a little while ago” not recognizing He’s still there.
“There is no lack of the presence of God. It is only our awareness that is lacking.” Unknown
[i] How Mediators in the OT Point to Christ
[ii] Warren W. Wiersbe, On Earth As It Is In Heaven
[iii] Why should our prayers be addressed to “our Father which art in heaven” (Matthew 6:9)? | GotQuestions.org
[iv] Prayer – The Doorway To Blessing
[v] W. Phillip Keller, A Layman Looks at the Lord’s Prayer
Beacons of Light 