Sermon: Does God have time for our Prayers? (What kind of Father is he?—prayer part 3)

Sermon: Does God Have Time for Our Prayers? (What Kind of Father is He?) prayer part III
August 15th, 2010
Texts: Luke 11:2; Leviticus 10:1-4; Acts 5:1-5; Romans 5:1-3
by Matt Kennedy

This morning we’ll look more closely at the first part of the shorter version of the Lord’s prayer that Jesus gives us in Luke 11 and we’ll deal with two questions: 1. Does God really have time for our prayers? The answer seems obvious intellectually but on an emotional level I don’t think it is. I’ve heard so many believing people say, “I haven’t prayed because I don’t want to bother God with my problem.” 2. What priorities does the Lord’s prayer reveal for us? If God could set our hearts and minds on accomplishing something…if his agenda for the world and for our lives became our agenda what would that look like?

The first word of the Lord’s prayer is “Father”. If you were raised in church you’re used to calling God Father. That’s not the case for people of other faiths. Muslims never call Allah father. They might say he is “father” of the human race in the sense that he Created everyone, but the term Father is an intimate one that Muslims do not use in prayer because it attaches what they consider a human attribute to God. When they hear Christians use the term they think its blasphemous.

Every once in a while you’ll find a Jewish prayer that addresses God as father, but they’re rare because its rare in the Old Testament. It’s not that they don’t believe God to be their father in the sense that he made them and called them to be his people—they believe that—but they understand, and rightly so, that to approach God is a fearful thing. Its not something to be done lightly. It’s dangerous. He’s just. We are sinners. He’s holy. We are not. The temple was given by God to reveal this truth. No one but a priest could enter into the holy place where God’s Spirit dwelt and only after sacrifices had been made to atone for his sin. And no one but the high priest and only once a year could enter the Holy of Holies the inner sanctum where the Ark of the covenant was set and, again, only after the required sacrifices. When Nadab and Abihu, the two sons of Aaron, priests, get it into their heads to approach God in a new way, ignoring the rites revealed by God in the law, what happens? God destroys them (Leviticus 10:1-4). Why? Moses tells their grieving father, “[3] ‘Among those who are near me I will be sanctified, and before all the people I will be glorified.’” And Aaron held his peace.”

Sometimes Christians read the OT and think “wow God sure was scary back then. Thank goodness he’s grown since then.” I mean he doesn’t live in a temple made of stone anymore, the Holy Spirit lives in our hearts and in he’s indwelt the church and it’s just a lot safer to be around him now. Be careful. Acts 5:1-5. Annanias and Saphira sell some property and voluntarily commit to give all the proceeds to the church, but they lie to the disciples about how much they made and keep some back. In their minds they might have been thinking “Hey, its just the church…it’s not like we’re lying to God or anything. just to the church.” God strikes them both dead. Why? Peter says, “You have not lied to men but to God.” (4)  The Spirit of God indwells hearts of believers and the church, true, but that doesn’t mean he’s safe. “‘Among those who are near me I will be sanctified, and before all the people I will be glorified.’ and so prayer isn’t a lighthearted thing. We approach the living, holy and almighty God.

And yet, Jesus gives his followers a prayer to pray regularly, repeatedly, as a normal part of our lives, that addresses the thrice holy God, the God before whom none can stand and whom none can see, as Father. In English “father” is a more formal term. Dad or daddy is familiar and intimate. In Aramaic and it comes through here in the Greek, there’s no distinction, Father is also daddy.

The question on the minds of his disciples must have been, “How can we?”

But before Annanias and Saphira and Nadab and Abihu, there was a time when there was no separation between God and humanity, the holy and unholy because everything was holy. There was a time when humans walked with God and enjoyed his full embrace, a time before sin, a time before death, and hatred and alienation. Adam and Even turned their back on that and we, each and every one of us have also made that choice. And so our sins have erected a wall between us and God.

Jesus was sent by the Father to tear down the wall, to turn our hearts back to the Father. He took our sins down to the grave with him. And he covers anyone who repents and trusts in him with the cloak of his holiness and purity and perfection, and with that cloak covering our sins, you and I are free to enter the most holy place, free to reenter the garden. Jesus walks always with his Father and in him, and only in him, so do we.

[5:1] since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. [2] Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” (Romans 5:1-2)

In Christ we call God Father

Well, what kind of Father is he? Some, because of their own personal history, hear the word “father” and think “tyrant” or “distant judge” or “silent presence” or “uninvolved older guy who sits on the couch”. Some of you’ve grown up with a neglectful, self-centered, even abusive father and so calling God father is difficult. If that’s you, Let me suggest that your negative feeling toward the word father is there because you know, you have an inborn, God-given, inherent understanding of what a father should be and you didn’t have that. God has given you a natural expectation, a natural desire for a father who is strong, kind, tender, protective, providing and interested and involved in you and in your life. He gave us all that longing, a longing that will never be met by any human parent, in order to point us to the truth that the father we all long for and who we naturally expect our fathers be like is God.

Verses 9-13,  flesh out what Jesus means by the term father. The Father longs for you to knock and to seek and to ask. He wants his children to come to him in the middle of the night. He wants to give you the best gifts. He doesn’t just provide for your needs, he wants to give his children good things. Come, seek, knock, ask.

You’re not taking up his time. The man who’s been woken up in the middle of the night in the parable Jesus tells is an example of someone who’s not like the Father…the illustration is: even human friends, being evil, will, if pressured, get up and help you even at inconvenient times, how much more your own father who never sleeps, who’s never inconvenienced, who has no limits to his time and no limits to his power, presence and knowledge. I’m a father, I’m evil, but when my kids cry in the night, I get up to help them, how much more will your father who is good and who loves you

You can’t bother God. God is not too busy holding up the universe to talk to you. He’s omnipotent and infinite. He has no limits. Spending time with you doesn’t take time away from anything or anyone else. He’s always your father, he always wants you to come to him. He’s delighted with you. You’re the apple of his eye and that holds true even when you come to him to confess or when you are caught up in some fall or some sin. I mean I am evil but even when my kids do something terrible I love them, I want them to come to me with it…how much more so with God who is good.

Jesus first lesson in prayer is that when you as a believer come to the Holy, Almighty God, you also climb up on the lap of your loving father who wants you to come.

(note to self: stop here if time is short)

His second lesson teaches us what to want. We can come to our Father with anything we desire, but as we grow up, our desires will change. He aligns our wants with his will. The first two petitions lift our desires out of the morass of self. When we first come to Christ its really all about me. What can Jesus do for me today. How can church serve me, give me what I think I need. Some people stay stuck there in the baby phase. But as the Holy Spirit makes us more like Jesus, we see that we’re caught up in something and someone much bigger and better that his purpose and plan is really good for us and for the world and you begin to want what he wants. This prayer is one way God moves us to that place. It’s like your dad’s shirt. You put it on when you’re three and its way too big for you. But you grow into it. As you pray, “hallowed be your name.” you’ll really long for his name to be hallowed.

Notice the place this request occupies. It’s first. That all people see the holiness of God and turn from their idols and false religions and worship Father Son and Holy Spirit is to be our first request and our deepest desire.

What would your life be like? What would Good Shepherd be like if that were our first desire?

Someone who doesn’t believe in God comes to visit on Sunday morning, enjoys the service, the peace freaks them out in a good way, these people really seem to love each other. They seem to actually believe all this God stuff. Afterwards he goes downstairs overhears a conversation: “Well so and so has been in the church pantry 5 times this week.” The visitor says to himself, “Oh okay, just as I thought. It’s all a show.”

If people know you’re a Christian, they’re watching. You yell at your wife. You complain to your friends about your husband. You disobey your parents. People are watching. “Some God…I don’t worship him and I treat the people I love a lot better than that guy. “You then who teach others, do you not teach yourself? While you preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law. “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.” (Romans 2:21-23).

But as we pray this prayer with sincerity, meaning it even if we don’t feel it, God works. His will becomes, by grace, our desire. You life changes and you pray with more and more passion and what you pray comes, truly, to characterize how you live.

Application/Prayer

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