991. Our Father Which Art In Heaven

Welcome to The Daily Platform from Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. Our study series for the next several days will be in Matthew Chapter 6, The Lord's Prayer. We'll hear from several BJU Seminary Professors in this series. Today, we'll be studying Our Father Which Art in Heaven with Seminary Professor Dr. Leighton Talbert. If you would turn to Matthew Chapter 6, my assigned sermon title specifically is Our Father Which Art in Heaven. My chosen sermon subtitle is No Latch Only Springs. I'll let you ponder that for a while. I have a favorite mental image of fatherhood. You may have heard me talk about this before.

It is shaped from a lot of personal experience. The image is you're driving home from a day-long outing in the mountains or out in the country somewhere with your kids. The sun is shining or not. You're contentedly fatigued. Your wife is in the seat beside you. All your kids are piled in the back. You feel very, very alone because you're the only one awake in the car. You are in the single soul awake in a van full of snoring, slobbering people. That includes your wife.

That's not my family. What I wouldn't give for a picture of my family asleep in my van. You could fit in my Ford Ranger cab. When you're the one driving, it's a little risky to try to get that.

You alone stand between your family and a crash through the guardrail and down the mountains, literally. Everything inside you wants to shut down and just take a little nap. Just close your eyes for a second.

All the regular breathing around you doesn't help at all. You do whatever you need to stay awake. You try some music, preferably something kind of punchy to keep you awake, keep you going. I like soundtracks. Once I was listening to Finding Nemo. One track ended, got real quiet in the car. And the next track started with shark bait, ooh-ha-ha! And I thought my wife would jump through the window. It was really gratifying.

But it didn't last long. So you try other things. You bounce vigorously up and down in your seat.

You make weird faces at passing cars for your own amusement. Whatever it takes because their welfare, their lives are in your hands. That's your job.

You're the dead. That's what dads do. And that's part of the nature of fatherhood in the image of God. One of the songs of a sense, those Psalms for Israelite families who travel to Jerusalem for the national holidays, describes the Lord this way. He who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. Now you're very aware, even without looking at Matthew 6 and the text that we're going to turn to or that you have already turned to, that when Jesus taught people to pray, out of all the possible names or titles for God that he could have chosen, he selected, he instructed us to address God by this title, our Father. And there are two really remarkable things about this passage and specifically about this text. And the first is this, did you know that this is the first time in the Bible that anyone ever teaches anyone else how to pray?

First time. Moses never taught anybody to pray. So he didn't pray, but he didn't give instruction on how, there's no instruction in the entire Pentateuch on how to pray. None of the kings of Israel ever gives instruction on how to pray. The psalmist, the prophets never say pray this way or here's what you should say or here's the way you should address God in prayer. Of course there are lots of great examples in the Old Testament of prayer and they are very instructive by example, but never before has anyone actually given specific instruction to God's people on how to pray, what to say, how to approach God in prayer. The son is the first one to specifically directly teach us what and how to pray.

I'm not saying that nobody else ever did. I mean later the disciples are going to say, Lord teach us to pray like John taught his disciples. So clearly John did teach his disciples to pray, but in terms of actual instruction in the Bible of someone teaching someone else how to pray, this is the first.

But the second remarkable thing about this context, excuse me, about this text is the context. And since this prayer is going to be our focal point for the semester, each of the messages is going to take its title like mine has been taken from successive sections, successive phrases of the prayer. And since we'll all be delivering sermons on what is in fact a part of Jesus' sermon, and since this is the first one in the series, it seems appropriate to spend a few minutes setting this part of Jesus' sermon in the larger context of his whole sermon.

How does this prayer pattern fit into the context that Jesus himself constructed for it? The overarching theme of this Sermon on the Mount, no surprise to you, is the kingdom of God. In fact, just to show you that briefly, turn back just for a moment a page or two to chapter four, verse 23. And you read the statement that Jesus went about all Galilee teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom. That's the theme of his preaching ministry, the gospel of the kingdom.

Well, what exactly did that sound like? Matthew five through seven is the first example of the content of that preaching of the gospel of the kingdom. And look how that sermon begins, chapter five and verse three, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. The end of the Beatitudes, verse 10, blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Now turn over to the end of the sermon, chapter seven, verse 21, and see how Jesus ends. Not everyone that says unto me, Lord, Lord, will enter into the kingdom of heaven. And in fact, one of the references to the kingdom is wedged right into this prayer in the form of the request thy kingdom come. So that being the case, what title or titles for deity would you tend to expect to see in this sermon by Jesus on the kingdom? King, I would expect to see king, one time shows up in this entire sermon. Lord, that's a pretty kingdom oriented title, Lord shows up five times.

God shows up six times. The title by which Jesus identifies and preaches and teaches and applies the truth about God and his kingdom more than any other title is this one. 17 times, just in this sermon, he refers to God as Father, our Father, your Father. And in fact, Father is Jesus' characteristic designation for God all through Matthew 44 times. And that is distinctive of Matthew among the synoptics. In Mark, he's referred to his father five times. In Luke, the longest of the gospel, he still only has just as many references to God as Father as are in just the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew.

So Jesus, we should be aware, we should become aware if we're not, is not introducing something novel here, something new. In the Old Testament, not only is God said to be like a father, like a father pities his children, a father of the fatherless is God in his holy habitation. But he is also called, addressed as, prayed to as Father.

Deuteronomy 32, is he not your father, your creator who formed you? Psalm 89, he shall cry to me, referring to the Davidic heir, the Davidic king. He shall cry to me, you are my Father, my God, the rock of my salvation, Isaiah 63. Doubtless, you are our Father, you, our Lord, are our Father. Isaiah 64, now, oh Lord, you are our Father. This is a person speaking to God, which is the typical definition for prayer. Calling God Father.

So describing God as Father, as our Father, thinking of God as our Father, and even directly addressing God as Father is not new. It has never been so accentuated as it is by Jesus, particularly in Matthew. But the question I want to raise is how does Jesus get to this prayer instruction that is the focus of our attention this whole semester?

How does he get to it in the course of his sermon? So I want to look a little bit more closely at the context and specifically the progression of Jesus, kind of an outline of Jesus' sermon. Jesus has more of an outline than I do this morning. I'm just kind of rambling and meandering, okay?

No official outline, sorry, I'm breaking all the rules. But Jesus has a pretty clear outline. Chapter five, he deals with public righteousness.

Anger, adultery, integrity, personal retaliation, compassion, how we behave in our relationships with other people. That's the focus of the first part of his sermon. But then he moves into the area of private religion. I should say private religion, emphasize both of those terms. He particularly preaches about the perversion of private religion into public performance. So for instance, he talks about public versus private deeds of charity. And public versus private prayer. And pagan versus pious prayer. And I mean pious in the proper sense, the legitimate sense, the positive sense of that term. Proper fasting, he talks about.

Personal priorities, I'm sorry they all start with P, it works that way. And then he ends in chapter seven with an extended note of personal response to his message. So at the heart of his sermon is Jesus' instruction on prayer.

Because what we pray and how we pray is most revelatory of what we believe about God and what we think about ourselves. So if we zoom into this section on prayer, we discover that Jesus just kind of keeps sharpening the focus. So I wanna look particularly beginning at chapter six verse five. At his successive teaching on prayer and how he keeps sharpening his focus on issues related to that.

So he starts with where. Where not to pray, where to pray, and why. Verses five and six. When you pray, don't be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray, standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets that they may be seen by men.

Assuredly I say to you, they have their reward. But you, when you pray, go into your room, your closet, when you have shut the door, pray to your father who is in secret. And your father who sees in secret will reward you. And there's some debate about whether or not it's reward you openly, but frankly that's consistent with what we have, teaching we have elsewhere in the New Testament. The problem that Jesus is addressing here is not merely praying in public. Jesus is not condemning Dr. Bell for having opened us up publicly in prayer. But the desire to be seen to pray, they love to pray, standing in the synagogues, standing on the street corners, that they may be seen by men. The desire to be seen to pray is motivated by a self-promotion that is a symptom of hypocrisy, which is why Jesus states it that way. Don't pray, don't be like the hypocrites when you pray. Secret prayer is witnessed by the only one that matters, and he's referred to in the passage as your father. So from there Jesus moves on to how to pray, and how not to, in verses seven to eight. Pray thoughtfully, not mindlessly. Verse seven, when you pray, don't use vain repetitions as the heathen do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words, their much speaking. Therefore don't be like them, for your father knows the things that you have need of before you ask. He doesn't say don't use repetitions, Jesus did.

Paul did. But not vain repetitions, and they may be vain for different reasons. They may be vain because the words themselves are just thoughtless phrases that we use by force of habit.

We start our prayers the same way every time. And there's nothing wrong with that, but you ought to mean what you're saying every time you say it, even if you're saying the same thing. Hamlet's unrepentant father, very famous quotation, my words fly up, my thoughts remain below, words without thoughts never to heaven go. They may be vain because we assume that the more we say, the more likely we are to get God's attention and get God's response. And that actually seems to be the direction that the Lord takes this thought.

He says don't battle a ghetto, is the Greek word here, don't battle a ghetto like the heathen. And versions have fun with this, don't heap up empty phrases, don't use meaningless repetition, don't babble repetitiously, don't keep on babbling. Just filling the space with talk because it's awkward if you leave a space when you're talking to God, why? It's not awkward when you leave empty space when you're talking to someone else. Why are we compelled to fill up empty space with words, don't do that.

For, he says, they suppose that they will be heard on account of their palulagia, their piling up of words. Why should we not pray this way? Because these ideas, the idea that the repetition of words is required to get God's attention, or that prayer is a form of manipulation, manipulative magic, or that long prayers merit a favorable answer from God, or that prayer needs to fully inform God about something that he does not know, all of those are characteristic of paganism's totally wrong ideas about God.

Don't be like that, don't think about him like that. So don't pray like the heathen. In contrast, look at verse nine, you see the therefore in verse nine? Continuation, therefore, Jesus gives a positive pattern of what to pray, verses nine to 13. Don't be like the hypocrites, don't pray for men's eyes, but for your father's eyes only.

Don't be like the heathen, don't pray like the heathen, don't pile up empty words thinking that you have to inform, or cajole God for an answer, your father already knows. Instead, pray like this, after this manner, in this way, the phrase means. Now last time I checked, our library had over 50 books, not on the Sermon on the Mount, just on this prayer, verses nine to 13. Over 50 books, books just on this prayer. Another over dozen volumes of sermons just on this prayer. In Calvin's Institute of the Christian Religion, there is a 70 page section on prayer, 30% of that, I counted the pages, 30% of it is just on this prayer.

David Crump has an excellent book, Knocking on Heaven's Door, a New Testament theology of petitionary prayer, and he deals with petitionary prayer all through the New Testament, 300 pages, 60 pages of that, three chapters of that is just on this prayer, 20% of the book is just on this prayer. So my point is way yonder lots has been said about this prayer. But it begins not with a title of stiff grandiosity, and according to Microsoft Word, that's a word.

It didn't underline it with squiggly red, it thinks that's a word, so I'm gonna stick with it. Doesn't start with a big grandiose title for deity, but with a familial simplicity and an elegant familiarity, Our Father in Heaven. It is a title of address that mingles transcendence in heaven, all powerful, above everything, ruling over all, that's where our Father is, that's his realm. It's like Revelation chapter four. John is taken up into heaven and the first thing he sees up in heaven is a throne. Someone is in charge of everything down below. But it mingles that transcendence of in heaven with stunning condescension, Our Father.

Familiar, tender, caring, compassionate, aware, attentive. Think about these titles, God, Lord, Master, King, Savior, Redeemer, and a hundred others, over against, and I'm not pitting them, but for the sake of contrast, versus Father, Father. What does that title, that appellation, that name and role convey that the others don't?

And why does Jesus choose this term as the shaping context, the conditioning context, for all of our interactions with him in this whole sermon and specifically in this instruction on how to pray? All these titles, all these titles that I mentioned and others are entirely appropriate ways to address God in prayer. They all have their proper place. They all have their proper emphasis regarding our relationship to deity. But there's something very fundamental and foundational about this one.

This one is unique, its implications of tenderness and care and provision and protection and closeness and familial warmth. Islam, you may know, has 99 names and descriptive titles for God. Look them up, Father is not one of them. Muslims don't have a father, but Jesus taught repeatedly and emphatically, you do. Remember how many times Jesus refers to God as Father in the Sermon on the Mount?

17, okay. Of those 17 in the Sermon on the Mount, 10 times out of those, Jesus specifically describes him as your father in heaven or your heavenly father. So it seems that whatever else Jesus teaches us about our heavenly father in this sermon ought to condition our conception of him when we address him that way in prayer. What from Jesus' teaching should inform our thinking as we address him that way? Not just what images do we carry from our conception of fatherhood. But what else does Jesus teach about father, particularly as our heavenly father, in the sermon that should condition how we think of him when we come to him?

Let me just briefly draw your attention to these. Look at chapter 5 and verse 16. He's been talking about being salt and light, being the light of the world. Let your light so shine, verse 16, before men that they may see your good works and glorify your father who is in heaven. Your father in heaven is to be glorified by your life.

Factor that in. Think about that when you come to him in prayer and address him that way. There's a particular claim on you.

Just as you're laying claim to him as your father, there's a claim on you in connection with your relationship to him in this regard. Look at chapter 5, verse 45. Talking about blessing those who hate you and praying for those who despitefully use you. That you may be sons of your father who is in heaven, for he makes his son to rise on the evil and on the good. He sends the rain on the just and the unjust. Be therefore, verse 48, perfect just like your father who is in heaven is perfect. And he's talking about that in the context of this characteristic of God, our father in heaven, as gracious and magnanimous to everybody.

Even unbelievers, thankfully, because that's when it started for you, when you were still an unbeliever. And you're supposed to be like him in that regard. Be like him.

This is the way he is. Be like him in that regard. Factor that in to how you pray for people when you call on him as father. How you think about people when you pray for them as you call on him as father. Chapter 6, you've got several that we've already actually read.

Chapter 6 and verse 1, verse 4, verse 6. And the point is made that your father in heaven sees and rewards secret charity and secret praying. And already knows what you need before you ever come to him. So when you come to him and say, our father, relish that. He sees you.

He's with you. He hears you. He will reward you. He already knows everything you need.

You don't have to inform him about anything. Relish and rest in that when you pray to your father in secret. Verses 14 and 15, chapter 6. And this is a follow up of Jesus' instruction from something that he mentions in the prayer. For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your father forgive you.

That's a sobering one. I'm going to leave that for the person that has that section of the prayer to preach on. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. But remember that our father, I'll say this much about making a connection here. Our father means that he is just as much your brother's and sister's father as he is yours. And your treatment of them. Whether or not you are holding grudges or being unforgiving towards someone else in the family particularly. Affects your relationship to your father. Just as it would in your normal family. And then 6 26 and 32.

6 26. Behold the fowls of the air for they sow not and neither do they reap nor they gather in barns. And yet your heavenly father feeds them.

Are you not much better than they? Verse 32. After all these things the Gentiles seek.

All the stuff of life. For your heavenly father knows that you have need of these things. But seek first the kingdom. Your heavenly father will never ever abandon you or cease caring for you. So don't be like the Gentiles.

Like the nations. Like the unbelievers in your surrounding culture who fret and obsess and worry about the stuff of life. They don't have a father.

They're orphans. You have a father. Act like it. Think like it.

Now I want to end with an illustration that will help explain my enigmatical subtitle. Most of you are familiar with Charles Hodge. Not personally but he was one of the educational and theological giants of Princeton's early days.

Brilliant intellect. Very prolific author. Thought about bringing his three volume systematic and just plopping it right up here. But that's just one. I mean he wrote hundreds and maybe thousands I'm not sure. But hundreds and hundreds of articles. Very erudite articles on a wide variety of topics.

Brilliant guy. In his biography of Hodge Andrew Hoffacker mentions the revered seminary professor's intense interest and attention to his children. And here's one way that he showed it. He had a study built as an addition onto his house. And there was an exterior door on that study that opened to the outside so that seminary students could access him without having to come through the house and disturb the family.

That's being pretty accessible. But being an exterior door it naturally had a latch and a lock. So that there were times when seminary students may or may not have been able to access him for any number of reasons. But there was an interior door that connected the study to the rest of the house. The interior door was different. Not only did it not have a lock on it but Hoffacker writes it had no latch.

Only springs. So that when it was closed not only was there no clunk of a lock there was not even a click of a latch. No doorknob that a little child would have trouble turning. Just a door that the child could push open.

And he did that for a reason. So that he writes even the smallest of his children always had easy access to their father. It doesn't take a lot of words and persuasive pleadings to unlock the door to God in prayer. If you're coming from the inside of the house if he's your father there's no lock.

Not even a latch. It doesn't take great faith or even great faithfulness to push your way into his presence. If you're coming from the inside of the house all it takes is enough faith to push open a screen door and say father. Now I don't expect you to remember most of what I've said today. But if you take nothing else away from this I hope you'll try to fix in your mind and carry away a mental image of that door into Hodges study. From the inside of the house. A door with no latch.

Only springs. That's what it's like to pray to our father in heaven. You've been listening to seminary professor Dr. Leighton Talbert which is part of the series on the Lord's Prayer. We hope you'll join us next time as we study God's Word together on The Daily Platform.