About this sermon
The Apostles’ Creed confesses God the Father Almighty, and Jesus teaches his disciples to pray, ‘Our Father in heaven.’ Only those united to Christ may call God Father, for to all who receive the Son God gives the right to become his children. The Father is exalted in heaven and holy, and the first petition asks that his name be hallowed in our lives and throughout the earth. Believers can call the Almighty their Father because Christ has made them his own.
Sermon transcript
congregation, please remain standing for the reading of God’s Word. We continue this new series, this mini-series, based upon the Apostles’ Creed called The Foundations of Faith. And my sermon text today, as we use the Apostles’ Creed as a guide to our study and our consideration, our sermon text today is Matthew 6, verse 9. But in order to fill out the context a bit, I’m going to read Matthew 6, verses 5 through 15, but again our focus will be on verse 9 in particular, as we consider that God is the Father Almighty. Hear, my friends, the Word of God. The Lord Jesus, in the midst of His Sermon on the Mount, gives these instructions on prayer. Jesus says, And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners that they may be seen by others.
Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your father knows what you need before you ask him. Pray then like this, 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. For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” Dear friends, the grass withers and the flower fades, but the Word of our God endures forever. Let’s pray for God to bless the proclamation of His Word. Gracious Heavenly Father, how thankful we are that in Christ we can address you as our loving and gracious Father in heaven. We pray, O Lord, that you would grant us at this time of exploring this portion of your word your fatherly mercies. We pray that you would illuminate, enlighten, and open our minds and our hearts to behold wondrous things from your word. Help us, Lord, to be challenged, If necessary, rebuked, but help us also, Lord, to be encouraged and edified and built up in our most holy faith. And we ask that you would grant unto me, your unworthy servant, the grace to declare and speak forth your word with clarity and power for the salvation of the lost, the edification of your people, and the glory of the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior.
For it is in his name that we pray and all of God’s people said. Amen. Congregation, you may be seated. Well, dear friends, the title of my sermon today, as you see in your bulletin, is Foundations of Faith, the Father Almighty. One of the things that the church has historically confessed in the Apostles’ Creed is, I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. And you’ll see if you’re following along in your sermon outline, there’s a number of key words that the children can be listening for in my sermon to help them follow along. The words Father, Grace, Exalted, Holy, Adoption, Faith, and Prayer. Well, dear friends, in the Word of God, the Bible, God reveals himself and his character, his attributes, in many different ways. For example, the scriptures indicate to us that God reveals himself through his mighty works, such as his mighty works of creation.
We are told in scripture, for example, that the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows forth his handiwork. We are told in the scriptures that God reveals himself through his mighty works of providence as he sustains and governs all creatures and all the heavens and the earth. And especially God reveals himself through his mighty acts of salvation. But friends, not only does God reveal himself through his mighty acts, his mighty works, he also reveals himself in scripture through his divine names and titles. And that is why in the prayers that are recorded for us in Holy Scripture, we often find believers in their prayers addressing God in numerous different ways. And just to give you some examples, remember when the patriarch Abraham is pleading with the Lord for him to spare the city of Sodom.
As Abraham is interceding before the Lord for God to spare Sodom for the sake of even just a few righteous persons. What does Abraham say to God? How does he address God? He addresses God, according to Genesis 18, verse 25, as the judge of all the earth. And so Abraham pleads with the Lord, will not the judge of all the earth do what is just? Likewise, in Psalm 94, verse 1, our righteous and just and holy God is addressed as, O Yahweh, God of vengeance. particular psalm, he is addressed as the God of vengeance because God promises to avenge his people against their wicked and cruel enemies who oppress and afflict and crush them. But on a more tender note, in Psalm 91, verse 2, the psalmist addresses the Lord as my refuge and my fortress.
And many other examples of biblical titles and descriptions could also be mentioned. I’m sure we’re all familiar with how the Lord is addressed in Psalm 23, verse one. The Lord is what? The Lord is my shepherd. Or consider Psalm 27, verse one, where God is addressed as my light and my salvation. Or Psalm 46, verse one, where God is addressed as our refuge and strength. In Psalm 57, verse 2, He is addressed as God Most High. In Psalm 62, verse 2, He is addressed as my rock and my salvation, my fortress. In Psalm 81, verse 1, He is addressed as God, our strength. In Psalm 88, verse 1, O Lord, God of my salvation. In Psalm 90, verse 1, the prayer of Moses, the man of God. Moses addresses God as our dwelling place. in all generations.
Psalm 109 verse 1, O God of my praise. In Psalm 136, verses one and two, God is referred to as the God of gods and the Lord of lords because he is the one true and living God, the only Lord of heaven and earth. In Psalm 144, verse one, the psalmist addresses God as my rock and then he goes on in verse two to address God as my steadfast love and my fortress, my stronghold and my deliverer, my shield and he in whom I take refuge. Don’t you just love the Psalms and how personal and intimate the Psalmists are in their prayers and praises to God? The final example I will mention is Psalm 145, verse 1, which is a praise of King David. And in that praise, David, the king of Israel, addresses God as my God and king, thereby recognizing that though he is the God-ordained king of Israel, there is a king who is higher than him.
And of course, many other examples could be offered. But friends, while these are all legitimate and valid ways of addressing our God in prayer and in praise, and while we can certainly take instruction from these various ascriptions and titles of God, we can take instruction for our own prayer lives from those biblical prayers. Nevertheless, for the believer in Christ, probably the most meaningful, the most intimate, the most personal way to address God is as father. As our Lord Jesus Christ has taught his church to pray in this model prayer, which is known today as the Lord’s Prayer, we as Christ’s disciples address God as our Father in heaven, or to use the more archaic language, our Father who art in heaven. Now as it’s always important to understand texts of scripture within their broader context, let’s do that for a few moments right now.
Here we find our Lord Jesus giving this instruction in prayer, and here Matthew’s record of our Lord’s instructions to his disciples on prayer is found within the broader context of our Lord’s so-called Sermon on the Mount. This is called the Sermon on the Mount because we are told at the beginning of Matthew chapter five that Jesus delivered this particular sermon from a mountain. Just as Moses went up on Mount Sinai to receive the law of God and God spoke to the people from Mount Sinai, so now the Lord Jesus Christ, God incarnate, ascends a mountain to address his people. to address his disciples. This so-called Sermon on the Mount here is a major block of Jesus’ teaching which is recorded in chapters 5 through 7 here in Matthew’s Gospel. This so-called Sermon on the Mount is the first of five major discourses or blocks of Jesus’ teaching materials which are recorded in Matthew’s Gospel account.
Of course, Jesus’ teaching is found throughout Matthew’s gospel account, but there are five particular teaching blocks or blocks of teaching material that are found in Matthew’s gospel. For example, chapters five through seven, the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapter 10, Matthew chapter 13, Matthew chapter 18, and finally, Matthew 24 and 25, the Olivet Discourse as recorded by Matthew. Now Matthew’s record of our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount is very likely a summary version of what Jesus actually taught on this particular occasion. In other words, friends, what we have here in the Sermon on the Mount, as recorded by Matthew, is probably a condensed version of what Jesus actually said. And Matthew’s giving us a summary account. So Jesus probably preached a lot longer than what we find here in Matthew 5-7. And also, I should mention as an aside, we should keep in mind that like other itinerant Jewish rabbis of the time, our Lord Jesus very likely gave this teaching on multiple different occasions and with slight variations in wording or form or content depending upon the different audiences that he was addressing.
And by the way, I mention that because… If you’ve ever had a conversation with Bible skeptics or critics of the Bible, they’ll often point out variations in wording between the Gospels. They’ll look at the Sermon on the Mount, for example, and the wording of Jesus’ teachings in this Sermon on the Mount, and they’ll compare it to Luke’s account of Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain, which contains similar teachings here, but in slightly varied form. And they’ll say, see, there’s contradictions. Jesus doesn’t say things in exactly the same way. Well, duh. The reason for that, I mean, any good teacher or preacher or anyone who is an educator and seeks to educate in certain materials will adjust their materials depending upon their audience. Jesus didn’t just teach this stuff on one occasion. He taught these things over and over again to different audiences on different occasions.
And so there are no contradictions here in the Scriptures, my friends, because Jesus, again, would have given this kind of teaching on multiple different occasions. But in any case, getting back to our passage for today and the Sermon on the Mount, How are we to view this Sermon on the Mount and our Lord’s teaching on prayer here within this Sermon on the Mount? Well, I think that the Bible commentator, R.E. Nixon, has some helpful words when he introduces the Sermon on the Mount. He says, it is natural to see Jesus as the new Moses delivering the new Torah or law with a new authority. But it is not a new legalism, despite the emphasis on the importance of law and the dangers of antinomianism. As Jesus said in Matthew 5, verses 17 to 20, I have not come to do away with the law and the prophets.
I’m not here to reject or do away with the Old Testament, but rather I came to fulfill. the law and the prophets. Nixon goes on to say, the real criticism is not directed against the Old Testament law, but against the rabbinic interpretation of it. And then he goes on to say that the kingdom ethic of Jesus that is revealed in the Sermon on the Mount, quote, can be attempted only by the man who has responded to the challenge of the kingdom presented by Jesus and who seeks to obey on the basis of grace. The perfection demanded, remember Jesus in Matthew 5, 48 says, be ye perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect. And we look at that and say, who can do that? Well, as Nixon points out, the perfection demanded does not mean that there is a double standard, but that the new life of sonship in Christ is the only basis on which the principles set out are in any way attainable.
In other words, it is only in union with Christ that we can even begin to live out the kingdom ethic that is revealed by our Lord Jesus Christ in the Sermon on the Mount. And what does that have to do with his instructions on prayer? Well, friends, this new life of sonship in Christ, which is necessary for living out the kingdom ethic that our Lord here reveals in his Sermon on the Mount, is underscored by our Lord’s instructions on how his disciples should pray and address God as their Father in heaven. And that leads me to my first main point, if you’re following along in your outline. As Jesus gives these instructions in prayer, Jesus then reveals this model prayer, which is called the Lord’s Prayer. And he says this in verse nine, pray then like this, our Father in heaven, that’s the preface, to the Lord’s Prayer, our Father in heaven, and then the first petition, hallowed be your name.
Now we can learn many things from this statement, but I first of all want to start off with something that might be a little bit controversial, might step on a few toes, I hope not, but it needs to be said. And that is, first of all, friends, this is the first point in your outline. Followers of Jesus can address God as Father only because they are children of God who have been adopted by grace. Followers of Jesus can address God as Father only because they are children of God who have been adopted by grace. Well, what’s controversial about that, Pastor Jeff? Well, think about the opposite of that. You see, friends, we must reject as a false teaching the modernist, the theologically progressive notion of the so-called universal fatherhood of God and universal brotherhood of man.
This was a very common teaching back in the late 1800s, early 1900s with theological liberalism, but it’s also a very common teaching today. The idea that everybody without exception, whether you’re a Christian or not, whether you’re saved or unsaved, whether you are repentant or unrepentant, the idea that everybody without exception is a child of God and therefore that God is everybody’s Heavenly Father is of course a very commonly held belief today, and in many contexts today, many social contexts, if you dare to question the idea that everybody’s a child of God and everybody has God as their father and can address God as their father, to question that in many contexts would really get you labeled as, well, that guy’s a jerk. I mean, he doesn’t believe that everyone is a child of God. What kind of nonsense does he believe?
But friends, this belief in the universal fatherhood of God is a deeply unbiblical belief, and as we will see in a few minutes, Jesus Christ himself rejected the notion of the universal fatherhood of God. Now, let me make a clarification. In a general sense, a generic sense, we might say that everyone is a child of God by creation if we mean by that that every person has been created in the image of God and therefore every person has worth and value. Certainly the Bible teaches that. Everybody bears the image of God, though in our fallen condition, it is a distorted and fallen and besmirched image, but nevertheless, everyone still bears at some level and in some sense, the image of God, and therefore, everyone, we are to love our neighbor and seek to do good to all, whether they be Christian or not.
But nevertheless, the Bible makes it clear that not everyone is a child of God in the deepest spiritual saving sense of that term. Indeed, the Word of God teaches that only true believers in the Lord Jesus Christ are children of God who have the right to address God as Father. Even though God created us in his image, he created us good in his image, in Adam’s fall, we fell with him, in solidarity with him. He was our original covenant head and representative. And when he fell, we fell in him. And so in Adam’s fall, the image of God in man has been distorted and all but destroyed. There are but some faint glimmers of it. And in our fallen condition, We are said in scripture to be Satan’s slaves, to be polluted and guilty sinners.
Indeed, we are called traitors against our creator. We are guilty of cosmic treason against our infinitely holy creator. We also need to remember, as I already pointed out, but again, I would emphasize it again, we need to remember that in the Sermon on the Mount, our Lord is addressing his disciples, his professed followers in this Sermon on the Mount, which is why some have suggested, correctly in my view, that the so-called Lord’s Prayer is more accurately described as the disciples’ prayer. This is a prayer that Jesus taught his disciples, his followers, those who repent and believe in him and seek to live out the implications of that repentance and faith in their lives. This is the disciple’s prayer. So non-Christians and heretics and the unrepentant have no right to pray this prayer, for God is not a heavenly father to those who are apart from a saving union with the Lord Jesus Christ.
Instead, Jesus taught that it is in fact Satan who is the spiritual father of those who are apart from a saving relationship with Christ. It was providential that this morning in our morning instruction, Elder Gidley, read this passage that I’m gonna read again, part of it at least, where Jesus makes that very clear. Let’s turn to John chapter eight and look at verses 41 to 44. John chapter eight, verses 41 to 44. The Lord Jesus is having a conversation, or more like a dispute, a debate, with some of the Jewish leaders who were his enemies. And we read the following in verses 41 through 44. Jesus says to his enemies, he says, you are doing the works your father did. They said to him, we have not been, we were not born of sexual immorality.
That was the common accusation against the Lord Jesus, obviously because of the virgin birth. He had no human father. We were not born of sexual immorality. We have one father, even God. Jesus said to them, if God were your father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. And then notice especially verse 44, Jesus addressing these sworn enemies of his, Jesus says, you are of your father, the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him,” and so forth. And so Jesus makes it very clear that those who are his enemies, those who have rejected him, are not his children.
Dear listener, If you, through God’s sovereign, omnipotent grace, have become a citizen of God’s kingdom by putting your faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as your very own Savior and Lord, then praise be to God, you are an adopted, blood-bought child of God, and you have been granted by grace the right to address God as your Father in heaven. But dear listener, if you reject Jesus Christ as the Son of God, the Messiah, as your Savior, that until such time as you repent and believe in Christ, you have no right to address God as your father in heaven. For at this point in time, he is not your gracious father, but he is rather an angry, offended holy judge, your sin is offensive and odious to your creator. Now God is good, he is kind, he is patient, he’s long-suffering, he showers his goodness and blessings upon believers and unbelievers alike.
He gives believers and unbelievers the sunshine and the rain and every good and perfect gift because he is a good God, he’s a kind God. And in the gospel of Jesus Christ, he offers to you full and free forgiveness and salvation. if you would but through sovereign grace believe and repent in him. But until that time, God is not your father, the devil is. And you must repent and believe if you would be able to call God your father in heaven. And I just wanna have us turn to a few other scripture passages that underscore this truth, that it is only believers who have God as their Heavenly Father. Let’s look, for example, at 1 John 3 1. 1 John 3 1. The Apostle John, again, he’s writing to Christians, he’s writing to believers, and he says, see what kind of love the Father has given to us, us meaning us believers, not us meaning everyone without exception.
See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God. And so we are. We believers are called children of God, not because we are better than unbelievers or more worthy, but because God has been kind and merciful to us in Christ. And he goes on to say, the reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Consider also the gospel of John, John 1 9-13. John 1 9-13. The opening prologue of John’s marvelous gospel, John writes this. of the Lord Jesus. He says, the true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. That refers to our Lord’s incarnation. He came as a witness, I’m sorry, I skipped back, verse 10. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him.
In the person of Christ, God has visited us, and yet the world did not know him, did not recognize him. He came to His own, that would be the Jewish people who ought to have recognized Him from their own scriptures. He came to His own and His own people did not receive Him. But hear this, to all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. Receive Jesus Christ today by faith, and you will have the right to call God your Heavenly Father, because you will be a child of God by His grace and grace alone. Or consider what the Apostle Paul writes in Galatians 4, verses four through seven, Galatians chapter four, verses four through seven.
Paul writes, but when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive what? Adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the spirit of his son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father. So you are no longer a slave, but a son. And if a son, then an heir. through God, praise be to God. And so beloved, the negative is that God is not the father of everyone in the spiritual saving sense of that term, though the gospel offers grace to all who would repent and believe. But the good news on the positive side is that God is indeed a loving father to us, his redeemed children. Did you notice how many times in the context of this passage that Jesus refers to God as father, as the father of his disciples?
I mean, look back at verse six. Jesus says, but when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to what? To whom? To your father who is in secret. And then he goes on to say, and your father who sees in secret will reward you. Or skip down to verse eight. Jesus says, do not be like them. Do not be like the Gentiles who think that they can get God’s attention by their babbling and keeping up many, many words. Do not be like them, for whom your father knows what you need before you ask him. Or skip down to verse nine. Our Father in heaven. Skip down to verse 14. If you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. Verse 15, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
Jesus hammers it home again and again and again. Dear disciple, dear follower of Jesus, dear child of God, God is your loving heavenly Father. So dear listener, let me ask you today, is God your heavenly Father? Are you a redeemed, adopted child of God? Have you received and rested upon Christ and Christ alone as your Savior and Lord? Jesus Christ died on the cross to pay the penalty for sin. And his sacrifice is fully sufficient for all of the sins of all those who by grace come in faith to him. And Jesus welcomes all who would come. Jesus says, come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. Believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. And the father physically and bodily raised Jesus from the dead on the third day, proving that he had accepted the Lord’s sacrifice.
Repent of your sin, believe in Christ, and you will be a child of God who has the privilege of addressing God as father. But in the two final points I want to make, they’ll be brief points, I assure you. Yes, God is the loving Heavenly Father of those who by grace come to believe in Him. But notice next that God is an exalted Father. How does Jesus instruct us, His disciples, to pray? He says, pray then like this. Our Father, does He stop there? Our Father in Heaven. Heaven being the place of God’s exaltation, not just the heavens up in the galaxies and the stars and outer space. He’s talking about the heavenly realm, our father in heaven. While our God is indeed a loving, gracious, merciful father to his redeemed, blood-bought, adopted children in Christ, he is nevertheless an exalted, holy, heavenly father.
In other words, friends, God is not the man upstairs, as He is sometimes irreverently referred to. I’ve even heard Christians professing, Bible-believing Christians at times refer to God like that. He’s not just, He’s not the man upstairs. He’s not the big daddy-o in the sky. Believer, He’s not your chum. He’s not your pal. He’s not your buddy. He’s your Father in heaven. infinitely exalted, glorious and majestic in his holiness, transcendent in his being and perfections. So while in his amazing, overwhelming grace, God in heaven has invited us as his beloved blood-bought children, his adopted children through Christ, he has invited us to enjoy deep and intimate and personal communion and fellowship and friendship with him in our prayers and in our praises. Let us also remember to approach him appropriately with an attitude of holy reverence and awe, not with a casual attitude of indifference and shallow impiety.
You know, we live in an uber casual age, an age where we’re just so casual about everything. we must not be casual in our approach to God in worship. Yes, we can come with confidence before God because of what Christ has done for us, but we must also come with reverence before God. After all, friends, our gracious Heavenly Father is also a God of infinite white-hot holiness. He is a God who is a consuming fire, a consuming fire who intends to burn away all that which is unholy in us with the heat of his holiness. A consuming fire who will also burn up those who remain unrepentant in their wickedness. He will burn them up in his holy wrath on judgment day. As we are taught in our shorter catechism in question 100, the question is, what doth the preface of the Lord’s Prayer teach us?
The Bible-based answer to that question. The preface of the Lord’s Prayer, which is, our Father which art in heaven, teacheth us to draw near to God with all holy reverence and confidence as children to a Father, able and ready to help us, and that we should pray with and for others. I love the way that the Westminster Divines answer that question. They say, that the preface teaches us to draw near to God, not just with all holy reverence, not just with confidence, but with reverence and confidence. We can come with confidence and boldness before the throne of grace because Jesus, our great high priest, died for our sins and has clothed us in his perfect everlasting righteousness. But we must also come with reverence because he is our father in heaven. And that leads me to my final point.
God is not only our loving Father, whom we as His children have the privilege of addressing as our Father, He is not only an exalted Father, God is a holy Father, as reflected in the first petition of the Lord’s Prayer. Jesus says, pray then like this, our Father in heaven, gimme, gimme, gimme. Heavenly Father, I need this, I need that, here’s my laundry list. Now certainly there’s a place for praying for our daily needs and wants and desires, but the first thing Jesus says we are to pray for is, Lord, hallowed be your name. What does that mean? What do we mean when we pray for God to hallow his name? To hallow means to make holy, to treat as holy, as set apart, as glorious. God is holy and holiness is the opposite of that which is common.
One commentator puts it like this, that this petition means, quote, not just that God’s creatures may keep it holy, but that God may himself hallow it by being the holy judge and savior. Another commentator says that the concern of this first petition is that God’s name would be hallowed, that God would be treated with the highest honor and set apart as holy. Again, I think the words of our shorter catechism are very telling. In question 101, it asks, what do we pray for in the first petition? Again, the Bible-based answer to that question. In the first petition, which is, hallowed be thy name, we pray that God would enable us and others to glorify him in all that whereby he maketh himself known, and that he would dispose all things to his own glory. If we are children of God, the deepest desire of our heart ought to be to see God honored in our own lives and in the lives of our loved ones, our neighbors, our friends, our family, indeed, over all the earth.
Our heavenly Father, our exalted Father, is a holy Father, and as His children, we should desire to hallow His holy name. I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. That truth, that confession of faith in God, the Father Almighty, is a vital foundational belief of our holy Christian faith. Let us, brothers and sisters, praise God that in Christ our Savior, we can call him Father, for he is indeed our Father in heaven. Let us pray. Gracious Lord and Father in heaven, we thank you and praise you that you’ve loved us to such an extent that you gave your only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to suffer death upon the cross for our redemption and salvation. And we thank you that by your grace, you have drawn us through your spirit with the cords of love unto faith in Christ, enabling us to embrace him, to receive and rest upon him alone as our savior from sin.
We would pray, Heavenly Father, that you would take these truths and burn them into our souls this day. And may we, Heavenly Father, experience in our lives your fatherly goodness and kindness, grace and mercy. In Jesus’ name we pray and all of God’s people said, amen. As we close our time of worship today, let’s rise and we’ll sing hymn number 242, Father Long Before Creation, 242.
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