The Lord’s Prayer: Our Father

Jesus has taught us that we can address God as ‘Our Father’. And that is really good. But, it’s a sad fact of our days that far too many people really don’t understand what it means to have a father. To be sure there was a man who had a role in producing them and who may have also provided food, shelter and clothing. But that doesn’t mean that they have experienced the joy, the encouragement, the wisdom of having a father.

This lack causes lots of problems, problems that we are seeing in the deterioration of our society. And that makes a difference when some of these people become Christians. They are told that one of the great blessings of the Gospel is that God has become their father. And it is a great blessing. But that doesn’t mean that they understand what they are being told, that they understand what this part of the Gospel is about. There are aspects of being a Christian, of having God as a father, that they have a hard time experiencing, a hard time enjoying. And that includes praying to their Father. That word, ‘Father’, labels a realm of life that they really don’t get. And that is really sad.

We’re going to spend some time this morning taking a look at our heavenly Father. And here’s my goal: for you to grow in your understanding of what it means that God is your father. I want you all to be able to discuss life with Him in the way that a loved child freely talks about all sorts of things with his or her dad.

Let’s start with this. Jesus wasn’t trying to make His disciples feel good when He taught them - and you - to address God as Father. He was explaining reality. God actually is your father. He is that by adoption.

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!” Romans 8.15

Addressing God as Father isn’t about mere sentiment. It is living according to the facts. He is your Father. And so, when you speak to Him you can have expectations of Him, fatherly expectations. Praying to your dad feels very different from praying to some deity.

So, what does it mean to be a father, a real father? I’m sure that we all could generate quite a list of characteristics of a someone who is fulfilling the role of a father. Some of you will include on that list characteristics that your fathers have had. Others of you might include characteristics that you wish your fathers had. But let’s go at it in this way. What do the Scriptures say about the characteristics of God as Father?

I’ll start with what is at the top of my personal list. He cares. That, for me, is huge. And once again I’ll quote that verse from Peter’s first letter.

…cast all your anxieties on him, because he cares about you. 1 Peter 5.7

We live in a world filled with people who don’t care about us. Now, when it comes to most of those people, we have no reason to think that they should care about us. They don’t know us and we don’t know them. However, there are others who really should care. Some of you may know what it’s like to have someone in the family who doesn’t care about the others in the family, not really. But how hard it is when that person is the father of the family. There are too many fathers who are too focused on the job or certain goals that absolutely have to achieve or their favorite sports team, or whatever. And because of this, they don’t care about their families, not really. Oh, they still pay the bills and all of that. But that’s not what caring is about.

But your heavenly Father isn’t like this. He isn’t too busy running creation to neglect even one of His children. He cares. He cares deeply about each and every one in His family. He cares about you.

Now, when a child knows that his father really does care about him, that makes a huge difference in that relationship. He will feel free to bring issues and concerns to his dad. He will bring big issues, and he will bring small issues. And this child will do this because he knows that his father cares. He knows it.

This is how your heavenly Father thinks of you. And as you believe this part of the Gospel more and more you will find that your days will be increasingly peppered with short prayers.

Each day has its own problems, its own questions, its own concerns. Some of these may be rather large, but most will be quite small. Knowing that your Father cares will be a great comfort to you because you know that you can bring them all, big and small, to Him. So, each day you will bring all sorts of things to Him. And you’ll do that because you know that He will listen to everything you have to say.

Believing this gives your life a certain tone. You are not alone as you deal with life. Your Father is right there to walk through life with you, ready and eager to help you deal with whatever comes your way. This will not be just some truth that you know. It will be something that you feel.

Now, why does He care? That will get us to the next characteristic of our heavenly Father. However, the label that we commonly use here has, sadly, become a church word. It has lost its punch and has become drab, a word without its real meaning. And that word is ‘love’. God cares about you because He loves you. But we need another word here. So, let me offer an alternative: affection. I like this word because it is emotional, in the way that love actually is emotional. It includes a sense of fond attachment. That’s what a father’s love is to be, fond attachment because of a heart-felt affection. That’s what your heavenly Father’s love really is.

The love of God is certainly about the actions that He has taken for your rescue and more. But it is more than that. It is also about His affections for you, affections that lie behind and motivate those actions.

It is this affection that explains His care for His children. He doesn’t care for them because of some sense of a duty that needs to be fulfilled. He doesn’t care for them because He’s supposed to. He cares for them because He is fond of each one of them. It is because of this affection for each of His children, each of you, that He behaves in the way that He does.

This affectionate caring will show in different ways. Listen to how David describes his experience of God’s affection for him.

In my distress I called upon the Lord; to my God I cried for help. From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears. Then the earth reeled and rocked; the foundations also of the mountains trembled and quaked, because he was angry. Smoke went up from his nostrils, and devouring fire from his mouth; glowing coals flamed forth from him. He bowed the heavens and came down; thick darkness was under his feet. He rode on a cherub and flew; he came swiftly on the wings of the wind. He made darkness his covering, his canopy around him, thick clouds dark with water. Out of the brightness before him hailstones and coals of fire broke through his clouds. … He sent from on high, he took me; he drew me out of many waters. He rescued me from my strong enemy and from those who hated me, for they were too mighty for me. They confronted me in the day of my calamity, but the Lord was my support. He brought me out into a broad place; he rescued me, because he delighted in me. Psalms 18.6-12,16-19

Someone was messing with one of God’s children. And this child called out to his father. And when his father heard that cry He came with great violence to rescue His child. And why? He was being a father, a father who had great affections for His child. What a difference it makes when a kid knows that his dad will respond like that to his cries for help. 

Then, there are other situations when this father’s affections will cause Him to act very gently.

Thus says the Lord GOD to Jerusalem: Your origin and your birth are of the land of the Canaanites; your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite. And as for your birth, on the day you were born your cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to cleanse you, nor rubbed with salt, nor wrapped in swaddling cloths. No eye pitied you, to do any of these things to you out of compassion for you, but you were cast out on the open field, for you were abhorred, on the day that you were born. And when I passed by you and saw you wallowing in your blood, I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’ I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’ I made you flourish like a plant of the field. And you grew up and became tall and arrived at full adornment. Ezekiel 16.3-7

There is a tenderness being expressed here. It is this tenderness that your heavenly Father extends to you in those times when that is what you need. He sees your need and responds with His tender affections to care for you.

This is your God. This is what it means that He is your father and you are His child. Those characteristics move Him to act, sometimes violently, sometimes tenderly. But whatever action is needed, He will do it. Because He is your father.

Now, there is another characteristic to this father, to every good father, a characteristic that we need to include on our list. This is a characteristic that will, at first, seem a little out of place. But it’s not. Every father, and that includes your heavenly Father, is someone whom his children are to fear.

We know that there are many Scriptures that call us to fear God. But still, we have a problem with this. And the reason is that we tend to think of fear only in one sense. We think of fear as cowering. We picture it as the fear of a slave who is cringing in a corner because his harsh master is about to beat him. There is that kind of fear. But that isn’t the fear that we children of God are called to.

When it comes to our heavenly Father, the fear we are to have is all about the authority that He has over us. This isn’t merely the authority that He has as Almighty God. It is also as our heavenly Father that He wields this authority.

Listen again to what I read last week for the Law of God.

And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile… 1 Peter 1.17

Peter tells us that we are to fear God as our Father. This is not the cowering of a terrified slave. It is something very different.

During my teen years there were those pundits who complained about what they called ‘the generation gap’. They were talking about the distance between parents and their children. And they were sure that that was just awful. So, they proposed ways to bridge this gap. Fathers were encouraged to become their children’s best friend and things like that. I remember a discussion at church where I said that there needs to be a generation gap between parents and children. And it’s called respect.

So, yes, your heavenly Father cares for you with great affection. As a result, He acts for your good. That is something to believe and to enjoy. But you still need to remember that He is not your best bud. To think that way ignores an important aspect of who He is. He is the one who has authority over you, the one who judges you by your deeds, both during life and after it’s all over. He is the one whom you are to have a profound respect for. And you are to do that because He is your Father.

I’ve talked to you about three characteristics of your heavenly Father. On the one hand, there is the emotional closeness. He cares about you, and He does that with great affection. That is something for you to relish. It makes life worth living. And it gives great hope when life gets hard. He is someone who is so very for you. And that makes sense. After all, He is your Father. And yet, there is also to be that appropriate distance between you and Him, a profound respect for Him. You are to fear Him. And that also makes sense. After all, He is your Father.

Growing in your understanding of these things is something to pray about. Ask your Father for guidance in this area. Ask that He, by His Spirit, would point out to you places where you don’t believe the things that I’ve just told you as well as you might. Pray about this so that you can enjoy what it means that He really is a father to you.

I think that it is significant that Jesus teaches us to address God as ‘Our Father’. He could teach us to begin with ‘Almighty God’ or something like that. But He didn’t. Now, that doesn’t mean that using those other ways of addressing God is wrong. Other Scriptures address Him in those and other similar ways. But by teaching us to address Him as our Father is telling. It will include the sense of awe and respect that starting with ‘Almighty God’ produces. But it will include other aspects of His fatherhood that you also need to believe. He cares with tender affection and fondness. He is your Father. So, bring the comfort and awe of His fatherhood with you when you go to Him in prayer. Believe this part of the Gospel, and enjoy it.