Lord, Teach Us to Pray: Our Father in Heaven

Matthew 6:9-13; Luke 15:11-32

St. John’s United Church of Christ
Greeley, Colorado
January 7, 2024
Rev. Juvenal Cervantes

A lesson we learned in 2023 as we look at the war of Israel and Hamas, is that we don’t know what coming, but we know the one who does! This is not just a cliché: God is the one who knows. It starts with him and everything in life begins with him. And here it is, my friends: everything starts with prayer.

I want to challenge us to that this will be a year in His presence, a year in prayer.

Yuri Gagarin, was the first cosmonaut to orbit the plant in 1961. During that time, Khrushchev was the first secretary of the communist party in the Soviet Union, a staunchly atheistic regime. When Gagarin and the crew got back, it is noted that Khrushchev said, “Gagarin went high into the sky to discover that there is no God.” Then an orthodox priest responded, “Sir, you will never find God in heaven until you find him here on earth.”

This speaks to the purpose of prayer and the problem of prayer. The purpose, sure enough is that in prayer heaven and earth interconnect. In fact, Jesus prayed that the Kingdom of God would come, on earth as it is in heaven. All of this begins with our relationship with Him in prayer.

Martin Luther, the great reformer said: “Prayer is central, the key to the Christian life. To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing.”

It is much of our lives. He also emphasized: “Pray, let God worry.”

Yes, all of us struggle in prayer. Monk Merger said, “We don’t want to be beginners in prayer, but let us be convinced, we will never be more than beginners all of our lives. A humbling, settling thing. We will always be learning, in prayer.

Martin Lou Jones said, “Faith is the refusal to panic.” And faith is expressed first, through prayer.  When we start to panic, when we sense some anxiety and worry, what do we do? Do we pray first or is it our last resort?

Here’s the problem: we think we don’t how to pray, so we don’t pray. Many of us do not pray as we can and the number one reason for unanswered prayer is prayerlessness.

Jesus turns things upside down in Matthew Chapter six.

Early in my Christian life I felt that my responsibility was to ask God for things and he is the one who acts. I ask and he responds. There is a problem there. The paradigm shift is that I need to aligns my life with what God is about; what God is doing in the world. That is a major shift in prayer.

And that is what we see in the Lord’s Prayer.

One day a disciple came to Jesus. They had watched him pray. Then they say, “Lord, teach us pray.” Teach us how to do that. That is what leads to Jesus’ teaching on the Lord’s Prayer in Luke 11. In Matthew 6, verse 9-13, you have the longer version.

Jesus does not respond with a method, a class, the ten points of prayer on how you pray, instead this prayer captures the essence of the Christian faith.

This is a summary of all that it means to be a disciple of Jesus. In fact, this prayer became a treasure to the early church. Believers in Christ, before they were baptized they memorized this prayer and prayed this three times a day: morning, noon and night. I want to challenge us to begin doing this, will you join me in 2024?

Many people see prayer like a spiritual, Christian incantation, like a rote, cold kind of thing that people say. However, once we understand what the Lord’s Prayer is all about, it is life changing.

My friend, if you are serious about following Jesus, you will have a desire to pray, you are going to learn how to pray, you want to grow constantly in prayer.

As we study the Lord’s prayer we going to debunk the myth that the Christian life is this little individualistic relationship between me and Jesus, it goes so far beyond that.
Tertullian, a second century pastor in a Christian community in Africa, referred to the prayer as an abridgement of the entire gospel, a brief of the entire gospel.

Eighteen centuries later, Rowan Williams, bishop of Canterbury, was asked if he could summarize the Christian faith, invariably, he would write the down the Lord’s Prayer and handed to those who asked.

Albert Haase, a priest said, “It is a trustworthy guide for spiritual formation and a compact handbook for holiness. It is a prayer to be prayed by kingdom people, it shows the way of Jesus and the way of disciple. Every line offers an identity and then a principle and an action.

Now, we are going to memorize the Lord’s Prayer. We are going to read it in the ESV, very close to the King James. You’ll notice that the doxology on the back end is not, “for thine is the kingdom and the glory forever and ever, amen.” Is not a part of the Lord’s prayer, not a part of the modern translations because it was not in the early manuscripts? I don’t know if this throws you off a bit. Bible scholars agree, however, “Surely, it would end with something like that.”

Let’s read 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 this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

This morning I want us to see three things in the phrase “Our Father in heaven.” This phrase reveals 1) Our truest identity, 2) Our deepest relationship and 3) our Highest calling.

First, our truest identity. Our English translation “Father” falls short, kind of stumbled awkwardly the real meaning and true depth and emotional strength of this word. The word that Jesus would have used in Aramaic is the word that you could also still in the middle east today. Folks who have been to the Holy Land could be around a family or walk the streets could hear this word. You’ll likely know it, you could hear it in Aramaic, Arabic, Hebrew, you could hear it. Anybody know what this word is? It is Abba.

This word “Abba” is the word that Jesus uses here. Listen, Jesus called God by the same name that he would have called Joseph, growing up, and even in his later years, because that name is a wonderful word of endearment, it is a word of respect. Some have said the word means “Dada or daddy,” no, it’s more nuanced than that, it is a sign of respect as you would say to older people, “Father.”

“Abba” is a word of closeness. For Jesus to call God Abba was a showstopper, it was startling, it was scandalous. It was the sort of thing that did not belong anywhere in the temple and it certainly did not belong on the lips of a rabbi. This was earthshaking, we need to grasp that.

You see, Israel already knew the name of God. Anybody? “Yahweh” was his name, the word that they could not even say out loud. The tetragrammaton four letters are “Yahweh” and they each went to the length of saying, “Well, let’s not say it, it is such a holy word.” So it became “Adonai,” or it became “Lord,” you’ll see this in all caps, it became “Jehovah.”

I was speaking at the Holocaust Memorial some time ago at our Beth-Israel Synagogue in town and I used the word “Yahweh,” and an elderly member said he was offended because you don’t say that out loud.

Two things: have we lost that kind of reverence for God? Secondly, the reason we think that’s a little strange is because of Jesus. Jesus is the one who said to call him “Father.” You see we did not need Jesus to tell us that God is big; every Hebrew knew that. We did not need Jesus to tell us that God is great, every Muslim on the planet knows that. Only Jesus has taught us that God is near. Yes, he transcended to holy, yes but he is imminent, he has come to us. This is what it means when we say, “Our Father,” that he is with us, listen, there is a familial depth and a weight to this. That the undivided divine attention of God is focused on you, like a new parent, contemplating the first born. The gaze of God of Israel was fixed, riveted on his son Jesus and if you’re in Him, if you have received his grace, we too are brought into that, adopted in the family, all the rights and privileges of his son! This is mind-blowing. Friends, it should awe us that we can call him “Father.”

I think of my own children when they were born. Lanetta was our firstborn, I held her and said, “Oh my God.” I would hold them and say, “You have done nothing. I would die for you right now.” Then Sylvia was born and another equally wonderful and indescribably blessing. It is a different kind of love; every parent knows this. What I’m trying to say is that it ought to awe us that we have that kind of attention, that kind of focus from our Father. Our Abba is looking at us in the same way. Listen friends, we are crazy to call God “Father,” this is nuts, and it means that our identity is fixed. Our truest identity is not achieved, but received.

It is like Jesus in his baptism. “God said, he is my son,” he has not done anything, no public miracles, and he continues, “I am pleased with him.” This is the Father in his gaze toward you. This is how we can approach God in prayer and many of us have this wrong. Do you know him today? Have you said “yes” to him, to his sacrifice for you. He is so near, he comes and he dies on the cross and he gives his life for us, takes away our sin and this division between him and a holy God has been broken down. Our father in heaven reveals our truest identity.

Secondly, Our Father reveals our deepest relationship.

It all starts in adoption, relationship with him, that where it all starts out. It is also, notice, it is “Our father.” This is not, go hide out and have your devotional time and try to follow Jesus. This is life in the body, we are brothers and sisters that connect us with each other. It connects us with our selves, it makes it right, it connects us with others. “Our Father” in heaven. Now this is not a description of where God is, this is a description of who he is.

To say that He is in heaven, we’re not assigning him to some faraway place. To a lot of people, and many religions, that’s where he is, he is off in heaven somewhere. But in fact, we’re expressing the fact that He cannot be contained. He’s incomprehensible, but we’re not assigning him to a particular place, he is beyond any place. Which means he is right here, right now, in this place, in relationship with you all the time, if you know him. He is with you. In your worst day, in your darkest season, he is with you now. And He is with your brothers and sisters and this the beautiful thing: you are my sister, you are my brother, we’re eternally connected. That’s the beauty of the church. We’re to show the world than as his children, what it looks like to love each other. What love looks like in mob form, what love looks like in the family. There are people in our lives that we hold near and dear and even if we don’t speak for a week or month or longer, you pick up the conversation from the last moment you saw them or talk with them. Hold on to relationships, they take time to build. And this is the beauty of the body, there is nothing like friendships in Christ because of Our Father.

This is a good time for us to pause and ask, what kind of Father is God, perhaps the most important question in all of prayer. What kind of father is he, who are we talking to, and this is where some of us need to spend a lot of time, in particular because we have had a hard time transferring our earthly father to the heavenly father? Jesus tells us a story. In Luke 15 we find the story of the prodigal. In verse 11 and 12, a man has two sons, he is answering a question and challenging the Pharisees, this story is structured really to focus on the older brother, by the way. So the youngest son comes and says, “Hey, I want my inheritance now.” In essence he is saying, “I want from you what you can give me, I don’t want you.”

A lot us of approach prayer that way. Are you coming into his presence or is it the law or reciprocity? The son comes and says, “I wish you were dead, because I want my inheritance.”

And this is the crazy thing. The father says, okay, have at it. We need to know that he is a steady, secured father. He doesn’t need anything outside of him, he doesn’t need you, he doesn’t need my love. We call it in theology “the aseity” from God, it is a Latin term that means “from self. God exist out of himself, he does not depend on me or you. Within himself is his own reason for existence.

He is the great “I am” and he always will be. Now we want him to need us. We say, “Now if I do this, you owe me this…” We want a point of leverage with him and there is no leverage with him, he is holy, he does not need you. So he tested his son and said, “Have at it.”

What is he doing? Watch this, he is a patient father. Verses 13-19 tells you what the son does as he goes on and he’s a train wreck. He lets his son go because he wants the impact, natural consequences of his sin of rebellion to take the full effect. He says, “You want life without me, let’s see how it goes.” He’s a patient father. He waits. And watch this, in verse 20 and 21, the climax of the story, He’s a running father. This is the only time in scripture we see God running.

This is totally undignified in that time and culture. No man would be running. Totally inappropriate. And he is running to a repented sinner who he has been waiting on.

I’m saying this so that we can have this on our mind this week as we’re praying: He’s already running at you. You are not begging, pleading, “God where are you?” He says, “I’m here, I’ve been waiting for you to come to me.”

Verses 22-24, he is a forgiving father. The son has a prepared speech and the father doesn’t let him finish, he says, “Whatever, let’s party. You’re here, you’re back!” He runs to him and he embraces him. What a beautiful story of what a father is. He is an inclusive God. What Tim Keller calls, “The extravagant god, lavish, over the top.” And that’s his love for us. He’s inclusive, because he not only calls his rebellious son but he calls his dutiful, righteous son and say, “Come on, join the party!” The older son gives no sign of repentance and he will not come.” Then Jesus flips the story and point to people like me and you and the Pharisees and says, “You’re the older brother.” He says, “Come join the party, he welcomes all of us. All this because he is Our father. It reveals our trust identity, and reveals our deepest relationships.

Thirdly, it reveals our highest calling. Our father connects us to every person on this planet. Herse’s why: not everyone is a part of the family and he’s calling us to live as children of God in the world. We are his representatives. HE is with us all the time and we are his ambassadors. God has determined our truest identity and our deepest relationship and our highest calling as we bring heaven to earth. God is present with us, as children of God, we go into this world and he’s with us all the time. So much suffering in our world and in our lives originates that we lack an attention to the present, in whoever God has placed in front of us. I say it this way, right now, where the action is, as a disciple of Jesus, there is nowhere else, but right here, right now. It is true in five minutes, it is true tomorrow morning when you get up, it is true tomorrow at noon, every day.

One of the most important aspects of spiritual formation is to understand that the great commandment, “Love my God with all my heart, soul and strength,” and the great commission to go forth and make disciples, comes together with love of neighbor. That’s where it happens and that is the center, action point of this prayer. You and I are sons and daughter of the most high king, our father Abba.

Romans 8:15 says, “For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons (and daughters) by whom we cry out Abba Father.” You’ll notice throughout the new testament, the word “Abba,” you know the word that means “Father.” That’s how it goes because they could not quite match it, in the weight with it, even in the Greek, with “pateras”, you couldn’t even match it because there is so much weight there.

As an application, this week I want you to memorize the Lord’s Prayer. I want you to prayer it three times a day. Review the response guide in your bulletin insert.

Let’s bring heaven to earth as we live for him.