We Pray to the Father

I'd ask us please to turn to Romans 8, which is going to be our reading this morning as we begin. We are looking at the third sermon in our five sermon series on prayer. The sermon title is "We Pray to the Father" and we're going to use Romans 8, verses 12 to 17 as a springboard into the message. Romans 8, verse 12: So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.

For if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the spirit of God are sons of God. 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". The spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.

And if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. This is the word of the Lord. Last week, you might remember, we looked at the second sermon in the series, which focused on the covenant of grace as being the grounding in which Christians come to God with any request. The covenant of grace is the great promise that God made to his people, to the elect, to the chosen, that he will be our God and we will be his people. And through this pledge of God to us, we can ask for things like healing and security and for him to save our family members, for him to bring our friends to know him, for him to work in our world.

All of those things are tied up with a great promise that he is our God and that we are his people. Over the next three weeks, we will be looking at the God behind this covenant. And we know him most beautifully and profoundly in the Trinity, the three persons within God. The doctrine of the Trinity reminds us of a father and how he functions as the ground and the source of both creation itself and of salvation. The first person of the Trinity, God the Father, is the one to whom we normally, as Christians, direct our prayer.

Now, you may not have thought about that, but that is who we normally pray to: God the Father. We will pray to God the Son. We will pray to God the Spirit, but normally, we bring our prayers to God the Father as the one who is the source and sustainer of all things. Revelation 4, verse 11 gives us a wonderful summary of the angelic host who praise God and say, "Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honour and power. For you created all things and by your will, they existed and were created."

This is a song. This is praise directed to God the Father, and it is explained to us here that God is the good and wise supplier of all that we need. But like we alluded to last week, God can be father as our origin, but he is more than that for those who have come to know him personally. He becomes closer to a dad to us through something that we read this morning in Romans 8: adoption. He has adopted us as sons and daughters.

So let's have a look at that. Firstly, this great truth that every Christian is someone who has been adopted into God's family. As Christians, we believe that one day we are going to be transformed completely into the likeness of Jesus Christ the Son. But that's in the future when God's kingdom is fully established. Being adopted, however, is a hope we now have.

The minute you become a Christian is the moment you receive intimacy with God. Verse 6 in Galatians 4 says that through repentance and faith in Christ, our spiritual being has been filled, will be filled with the spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, who will join us to God in a familial way, a family way. The Holy Spirit, in other words, starts working in our lives, opening up our hearts to know God the Father personally. Paul says that the Holy Spirit causes our hearts to cry out, "Abba, Father." He motivates our desires in such a way that we want God to be our father.

"Abba," as we said last week, was the Jewish word for dad. We've come to know God the Father as intimately as that. It still can make you feel uncomfortable, that idea that you can know God like dad. God has chosen us to be his adopted children through Jesus Christ, Ephesians 1, verse 6 says. The Holy Spirit testifies to our spirit.

We read in Romans 8 that we are, quote, children of God. And we who possess the first fruits of the spirit, further in verse 23, are told that we groan inwardly awaiting for the adoption as children to be made complete and definitive. Think back to the opening verses, the opening paragraph of John's gospel. He writes about the new reality for all of those who have received and gladly accepted this news he's about to tell us about Jesus. After he explains the divine nature and power of Jesus, that he was the Word of God who created all things, after explaining that he was the light that came to the world to expel darkness, after explaining all of that, John says in John 1, verse 12, "But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God."

Now think about all of that. Jesus, the divine Logos. Jesus, the light of the world to expel the darkness of the world. His mission, what he came to accomplish, according to John 1, is not simply to reveal God, not only to give good teaching for our life, not to be some abstract sacrifice even for sin, to pay our debt and then leave us alone. The mission of Christ was to make us children of God.

That is the purpose of the gospel. Now at the same time, our adoption means that we become not only objectively connected with God, we are being transformed to become like the Son. Not only are we loved as children, we are being changed to be children. Because of Jesus' sacrifice, we have been granted access into the family, and now the Father is wanting to conform us into the image and the likeness of his Son. So every Christian, if you believe in Jesus Christ, is someone who has been adopted into God's family, and each of us carries within ourselves the nobility of being sons and daughters of the living God.

So that is, first and foremost, the great truth of Christianity: every Christian is someone who has been adopted into God's family. We need to ask, however, who is this father that we have been connected with? This father who has adopted us. Well, firstly, he is the father of every good gift, the Bible says.

James 1, verse 17 says, "Every good and perfect gift in your life is from above, coming down from the Father." In Luke 12, Jesus gave a teaching on how not to be worried about the things in this life. And he said, verse 29, "Do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. For all the nations of the world seek after these things, but your Father knows that you need him." What Jesus is teaching is that God the Father doesn't dabble in the occasional miracle in our lives.

Every little thing is an act of God. Every bit of clothing is a gift of God. Every meal is a gift of God the Father, a good gift. And sometimes God acts very actively, very directly, what we might call miracles, and sometimes God acts indirectly through intermediate causes that we might even call natural causes.

But the Bible says that the Father is at work everywhere and in everything. So what Jesus teaches us about God the Father is that there's nothing normal about the most normal things. Every gift, no matter how small, is a gift from God the Father because he is the origin and the sustainer of everything good in our lives. In order for you to enjoy your life with God, you must recognise how God is involved in every small detail of it. That, in turn, when you start seeing everything in your life is coming from him, that, in turn, causes you to not be able to resist giving him thanks.

You will be the most thankful person on this planet if you truly believe that every single thing you have is from him. Gratitude lifts our eyes from the gift to the giver. And so spend a moment today to think of some of the great things you enjoy about your life. For Brendan, it's a ride on a mountain bike track. For Rick, it'll be a good book.

For Steve, it'll be a nice car. And these things are all wonderful channels, ladders by which we can ascend nearer to God. Thank you, Lord, for these things. You have given them to me because you know me and you love me and you give good gifts. We can enjoy life with God more richly by recognising him as the Father, the author of every good gift.

Yet did you notice that in this teaching that Jesus gives, he tells us that our heavenly Father knows our needs. Jesus doesn't say God the Father knows our wants, he knows our needs. Although he does know our wants too, the emphasis here is that God may know things that we need before we know we need them. Which leads us to the next point, that the Father that we have gives every good hardship as well. In the book of Hebrews, chapter 12, verses 5 to 8, we read this.

"Have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says, 'My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline and do not lose heart when he rebukes you because the Lord disciplines the one he loves and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.' Endure hardship as discipline. God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father?

If you are not disciplined and everyone undergoes discipline, then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all." It's a lot easier to accept God as Father when he gives us good things. It's a bit harder when we see the Bible telling us that he gives hard things. But we are to understand that even the hard things come to us because he is good and he is Father. I want you to also, along with all the good things that you can thank God for and use as a ladder to ascend to our praise to him, I want you to think about your heart things this morning as well.

And if you can grasp and hold onto this truth, if you can have this view in your heart, the way you experience your life, especially the hard things, will be flipped upside down. According to Hebrews 12, hardship is not a sign that God has disowned you, that God hates you, that you haven't been good enough for him. It's quite the opposite. Hardship is a sign that he loves you. Will you believe that?

Hardship is a sign that God loves you. Any teacher here or any parent will know that disciplining a child is hard work. Why? Because it's actually easier to ignore the screaming toddler and to leave the tantrum-throwing teenager aside. It's more difficult to go head to head with a child in their terrible twos, who's having a meltdown in the middle of aisle 3 at Woolies.

It takes hard work to discipline our kids when it would be far more comfortable just letting it slide, buying him that chocolate that he wants. Deep down, we know that not disciplining them is actually a selfish thing because we realise there's a sacrifice for long-term development over the short-term peace that we could have. And the point that the book of Hebrews is making is that in the long run, discipline is an act of good fatherly love. And so God the Father loves us and the Bible makes that abundantly clear in many ways and many places. But here in Hebrews and in a few other places, we are told that because he loves us, he strengthens us through discipline.

In fact, the Lord disciplines the one he loves, verse 6 says. Hardship has work to do in our lives. Think about that mum or dad who takes their little boy to the dentist. And that boy has a very rotten tooth.

And the dentist has to put in a needle to numb that gum to take out the tooth. Now that little boy has no idea what's about to take place, but he is going to need a needle. We've all seen those videos of little boys' faces when their parent, holding them very tightly, walks straight up to a doctor for a needle. And once that needle goes in, there's a look of absolute betrayal on that face. How could you do this to me, mum?

But mum knows, doesn't she? She knows what's good. She knows that that needle is necessary to numb the pain. Mum knows that needle is necessary for future health. And sometimes God grips us so tightly that it hurts.

But it's a sign of his love. And with great patience and persistence, he is at work ridding us of our disease. It's also important to stress that for the Christian believer, hardship is never punishment for sin. Hardship in a Christian's life is never punishment for sin. God has done that fully in Jesus Christ on the cross.

For the Christian, hardship is simply God bringing loving corrections, merciful training to become conformed to the image of a son or daughter. So firstly, God the Father is the giver of good things, but he's also the giver of every good hardship. But then, fourthly and lastly, we need to understand that because God the Father is a giver of good things, both good and hard, this in turn makes us able to understand that God the Father is the one to whom we direct most of our prayers. He is the Father who welcomes every prayer. Remember when the disciples asked Jesus, "How should we pray?"

And Jesus began by teaching them, "Say to God, what? Our Father." Here, we find the most beautiful example of what it means to be a Christian. Not only do we have access to God through that restored relationship with him through Christ, not simply are we allowed to speak to God, we are invited to address him as Father. And so the most basic thing that the work of Christ has done is to change prayer from a mere petition to a judge or a deity into communion and fellowship.

To have been adopted into the family of God is to find the greatest thing that will ever happen to you. It is the only reason you can pray, "Our Father." And that is what we read in Romans 8 this morning. "For all who are led by the spirit are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, you have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, 'Abba, Father'.

The spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God." Unlike the transactional or conditional relationships our hearts are inclined to understand, we work in the business world, we work in university, it's a transaction. "I'll care for you as much as you'll care for me." The reality for a Christian is that you go to God as family.

And because he is family, his love and his relationship to you is unconditional. He hears and he responds to your prayer because of his warm affection to you, regardless of your affection even to him. And so it would be utterly an empty thing to say that this Father who we pray to loves just like any other human father. A dad's love here and now can go pretty far. It is a precious thing.

But if God loved like an imperfect human father, then what is the point? Why go to a father that will be fickle and have a bad day one day, and you will regret going to him and asking him for something because he gives you a flick on the back of the head and sends you off? Or a father that can't do anything about your situation. But Jesus says, "Pray our Father who is in heaven." It means that our Father loves with a higher and a greater love than anyone on earth.

He has the power of kingship of the universe. And so because he is also King as well as Father, he has power to change my life. He has power to change my situation. He has the power, in fact, to change me. My heavenly Father is the King as well. And so when we say "Our Father in heaven", we acknowledge that God is both good to us and he relates to us as family, but he is also powerful and capable for all the things we desire and ask for.

In his book "Enjoying God", Tim Chester writes, "Imagine if you had a father who was wealthy, but cared very little for you. You wouldn't bother asking him for anything because you assume he's unwilling to respond. Wealthy, but he doesn't care. Now imagine you have a father who is generous but poor. You wouldn't bother asking him for things because you know that he's unable to respond.

But when you bring your request to God the Father, you are affirming that he is both willing and able. We glorify him," Chester writes, "by praying to him because we acknowledge that he is both loving and powerful. So when we pray, we are treating him as the kind and capable Father that he is." In closing, becoming a father to little baby Alida on, you could argue, a four-month-old dad. Well, it's been a great joy.

And there's one thing that I've already noticed only four months in, and that is when that little baby girl gives you a sweet and gummy smile, my heart melts. I'll give her anything. I'll give her my nice clean shirt to vomit on, my bad back and knees to pick her up from the ground, going down as an old man and groaning when I stand up, and I'll give her my dignity by jumping around and trying to be funny and trying to get a nice gummy smile again. The clothes on my back, my health and my dignity, I am willing to give my little daughter. Why?

Because at one point, that girl has wanted to reach out to me in one of the few ways she can. She can either cry or she can smile. I prefer the smile. And when I know that she is so happy to see me, to engage me with that smile, there is nothing in the world that I will not try and give to her. Our heavenly Father welcomes our approach to him in prayer in the same way.

He doesn't sit coldly and unassailable on his throne while we plead our case. He leans in. He desires to hear from us. It is the Father's pleasure to commune with his children. And so if we love our Father, Christians, we will love talking to him.

He welcomes every prayer, like a dad welcomes every gummy smile. And so we pray to the first person in the Trinity, God the Father, because he is the source and origin of all things. We pray to him as the Father of every good gift and even every good hardship. And then we love to pray for those things because we love our Abba Father, our Father who is in heaven. We're going to end this morning by saying together the Lord's Prayer.

Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.

Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours now and forever. Amen. Lord, we thank you that we may approach you, our God, as our Father. Thank you that we may know that you have loved us with an eternal love that cannot be shaken or moved.

And your love is so great that you would take orphaned street kids and bring them into the palace of the King. Lord, that moves us incredibly. And so Lord, it is to our loss, it is to our absolute loss if we don't pursue a life of prayer. Forgive us for rejecting that love through inattentiveness and complacency. And Lord, restore to us the joy of that salvation.

Create in our hearts desires and longing for fellowship and communion with our Father in heaven. We ask it in Jesus' name through the Spirit. Amen.