This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Sermon on the Mount” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, January 22, 1989.

This morning we are reading from Romans chapter 8, and we are beginning with verse 14. We will read through verse 27. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but ye have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. And if children then heirs, heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ, if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.

For I reckoned that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waited for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope. Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit. Even we, ourselves, groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to which the redemption of our body.

For we are saved by hope. but hope that is seen is not hope. For what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope, for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it. Likewise, the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities, for we know not what we should pray for as we ought. but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth for hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.” After this manner, therefore, pray ye, our Father who art in heaven.”

Lord, we know people who preach the word in Korea, and we know those who preach it in Japan and Taiwan and Philippines and Suriname. We know those who preach it in Cyprus and Kenya. Those who preach it in France and Belgium and Uganda. We know many, Lord. who are proclaiming your word around the world, and we know others who proclaim it here in this nation.

We realize, too, Lord, that you have asked us to pray that you, the Lord of the harvest, would give labors for the harvest, and so we pray and commit ourselves to do so. Lord, to the end, that your word would have its full effect that your people receive its full value. May those that are sent remove from themselves every hindrance to the way of the word within themselves. We pray our God that they may be wholly dedicated unto you and it would please you to bless their preaching and teaching and that the word would have mighty success We pray this in Jesus’ name now. Amen. Everybody’s talking about it. Everybody ain’t going there. Everybody’s talking about it. Everybody ain’t going there. Heaven. Our Father, who art in heaven. What about heaven? What about heaven?

Jesus’ words here, at the outset of the Lord’s Prayer, are specifically topological. They have to do with spatial consideration. Heaven is a place. Heaven is a dimension. So that spatial consideration, that topological consideration, that being accented by Jesus as the prayer begins, He calling your attention to that. but this placement, this reference to dimension, this reference to spatiality.

His words here all inspire to accent as well the distance that exists, the distance that exists between heaven and earth. The Father is in heaven. In a unique way, in a special way, the Father is in heaven. He belongs to that place. He is of that dimension.

Accented, then, is that distance and the difference that exists between that place where God is specifically, especially. and the earth. Not that God isn’t everywhere, and not that we don’t preach from the presence of God. But heaven again set apart, and the distance accented. The distance between heaven and earth.

We’ve come to speak of heaven as up there. Heaven is up. We speak of it in that way, in a cosmological sense. We look up to the heavens. The heavens are above, but the heavens are also beyond. They are beyond in any near cosmological sense. They are beyond in the deepest theological sense, the deepest spiritual sense. The heavens are beyond.

That is why every time I read Rudolf Fulton, I laugh. Here is the greatest theological mind of the twentieth century, and he writes an essay entitled New Testament and Mythology, and in that essay he contends that the people of Bible times were quite primitive, and they embraced a mythological cosmology. Heaven was up there, then there was Earth, and beneath there was the region of demons and the devil. A three-storied universe, which these primitive people embraced.

And we being moderns can no longer accept that kind of description, that kind of cosmology. We have come of age. and therefore we must retranslate all of the categories of scripture into modern demythologized jargon. As I say, here is the greatest theological mind of the twentieth century, as if it escaped his notice that when Heaven is spoken of in Scripture, yes. I don’t mean to back down one bit from that spatial consideration that I gave you at the outset, but is it not apparent to you, is it not apparent to any simple reader of Scripture, someone from the hills of Germany, from which Biltmann himself came, that when you speak of heaven in the biblical sense, you are speaking about a spiritual realm. You cannot comprehend what scripture is speaking of under the categories of a mere cosmology. A pious German farmer, a godly man in his simplicity, knows more than the most brilliant theologian of our century.

Yes, heaven is up. Christ does ascend. But heaven is also beyond. It is a dimension. spiritual. All of this then adds up in order to place before us the reality of that place of which we’ve been speaking. A place which we have come to think of as one in which there is no distress, there is no pain or frustration, and sin does not intrude at all. It is the place, yes, that is above, it is beyond, it is the place that is spoken of, too, with respect to the future we shall in fact enter. by God’s grace. But all that I’ve said so far is to place before you the truth that heaven as we are speaking of it here is a transcendent consideration. Up, above, beyond, yet to be realized for us in the day in which we enter into it by God’s grace. A transcendent reality, yes. But Jesus’ words about the Father who is in heaven are also meant to convince us of the present accessibility of heaven.

Does it register for you? You are speaking to that One who is beyond. You are speaking to that One who dwells specifically in that world, that place that is above. You are addressing Him, and you are invited to do so. Heaven and the One who is in Heaven, our Father, is accessible to you now. Yes, the transcendence of that realm, but no less its accessibility for us today. you may talk to the one who is above and beyond. You may speak to him. Now, today. Heaven then in this form of address while maintaining all of these real features up beyond the transcendent is viewed as being accessible to us and close by. Close by.

Now it has been close by for God’s people, has it not, from the very beginning. They, having access to their God, their petitions appropriate, their petitions heard, they addressing their God and expecting to be heard by Him. But what we are now told as Jesus places these words before us, a beginning to prayer, is that yes, though those things have been true, now they have been made true in a completely new and different way. Have I not been telling you that when Jesus comes, a whole new day of prayer begins, unparalleled, unprecedented in the history of the world. A whole new form of instruction is appropriate, for now it is clearer than ever before what God’s purpose and intention is.

And how is it, I might ask, that we are enabled to address this one whom we are to address as the Father? Is that something that is ours by right? Is it our birthright? ours because we happen to be born into this world? Is it something that we share in common with all others who are on the face of the earth?

No, you see, the address that is now articulated by Christ at the outset of this prayer is made possible because it assumes the fullness of His work as the Son. As the Son has opened it all up, now the Father has been manifested in all that He is, in all that He is meant to be for His people, as if for the first time His people can address Him truly. predicated upon, based upon that foundation of the Son’s work. It is the Son, after all, who teaches us to pray this life. The One who came and died. The One who was raised again. The One who, by His death and resurrection, gives you access to heaven. brings near heaven and its realities.

All of that is true because of the work of the Son. You cannot pray the prayer unless you know the Son. And only those who know the Son can pray the prayer. For only if you know the Son are you sons. You are made sons. Not natively born, but adopted into the family of God, enabled now to cry out, you finish it. Abba Father. Well… Heaven. Everybody’s talking about it. Everybody ain’t going there.

Heaven, that transcendent realm, that which is beyond, that which transcends, but yet that which is accessible and brought near to us through the work of Christ. Now we can say the same pattern of things. this transcended quality, this accessibility that we’ve mentioned already, we can see this pattern of things if we look also at those things with which heaven is associated specifically, and since we’re in the Gospel of Matthew, we will deal with that and how appropriate it is, because, you know, that in the gospel of Matthew, the favorite phrase by Christ for the kingdom is the kingdom of heaven. Heaven in Matthew’s gospel is specifically related to the kingdom. It is called the kingdom of heaven by him in that form. It is placed before us for our consideration, and that providentially at the outset of the New Testament canon, the New Testament Scripture, so that you’ll never lose your way.

That is why I become so angry. That is why I become so upset. Having this providentially set before us, before the Church, we go on our way, and it isn’t long before we’re confused and muddled in our consideration, because to talk to some about the Kingdom, it’s as if heaven didn’t matter one bit. It was completely inconsequential to the consideration of the matter at all. Well, I’m sorry, I don’t want to be a Jew. I want to be a Christian after the order of Matthew. and the tone that he sets for the entirety of the New Testament canon.

The kingdom of heaven, heaven in its relationship to the kingdom as it was with heaven and so it is now with the kingdom. Yes, it is transcendent. It is a transcendent realm. The kingdom is specifically of heaven. It relates to heaven, that is its character. Understand heaven, you understand the kingdom. Understand the kingdom, all right, and you have to understand heaven. It is a transcendent realm. As with heaven, so with the kingdom. It is a supernatural realm. It is a realm beyond.

It is a realm that is essentially otherworldly. I know that there is an ungodly piety that is abroad in the Church that is concerned with world flight, getting out of the world, forgetting it and ignoring it. But there is an appropriate otherworldliness to the gospel, and we dare not forget that, as our keynote, the keynote that comes to us out of scripture. This one that arises to us, rises for us from the very first book in the New Testament, the kingdom of heaven, that kingdom related to heaven and the transcendental character of each.

There is a realm, you see, where God’s reign and glory is unparalleled. That is not true of the earth. That does not mean that God is insovereign in the affairs of man, that men here conspire against him and oppose him willfully. There is a realm where God’s reign and glory are unopposed. There is a realm where God’s justice and righteousness are absolute. and in effect, present.

That’s heaven. That’s the kingdom of heaven. And as that kingdom of heaven is transcendent, it is beyond, it is truly a kingdom into which we one day will enter. through many tribulations, we must enter into the kingdom of God. Acts 14. But what have we said about heaven? Did we not say, yes, it was transcendent, but yet at the same time accessible and close at hand? The same then will be said about the pain of these It is transcended, but simultaneously and mysteriously, wonderfully.

It is something that is accessible to us. It is asserting itself presently in this world. It is making its presence felt. So says Jesus. From John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven is asserting itself, and determined men are taking hold of it by force. The kingdom of heaven is a reality upon the plane of the earth, mysteriously, wonderfully, so that a man, in understanding its value, goes out and sells all that he has, because he has to have the kingdom. And it can be, he said then, extending the symbol, extending the metaphor, something presently possessed, the treasure in the field, he said, for which the man sells all that he has. can be presently possessed.

The pearl of great price can be presently possessed. You can have the kingdom of heaven in your grasp. Now. Now. And as it was with heaven, that present accessibility made possible by the work of the sun, so also the kingdom of heaven through the work of the sun. But the best comes last.

The intro to the prayer says, our father who art in heaven. The kingdom has been related to heaven and now the father is related to heaven in this marvelous way. You see heaven is seen by Jesus as the abode of the father. The abode of the father. And it is a transcendent abode, it is up, it is beyond. But as we have said with regard to everything else this morning, so here as well, the abode of the Father is accessible, it is brought nigh, it is a present reality for those who have known the Son. in respect to all of these things.

It’s as if we were moving towards heaven, as if we were moving towards the kingdom, towards the Father. But the marvel of marvels is this, that as we have been moving this direction and continue to do so, The grace of God has made plain to us through the gospel that heaven and the kingdom and the Father have been moving this way simultaneously, and they have become presently accessible to us. Here is the circumstance then of your life. keeping in focus the transcendent reality of heaven our father is in heaven but also the wonderful blessed access which you have to him now with boldness will he not draw near to the throne of grace that you might find grace itself in the time of need Do you not know that you have a Father above who will not turn you away?

Do you not understand that you have a Father above who transcends all fathers here in this creation, who is perfect and utterly faithful, who will never fail you? Never fail you. Whose comfort is perfect. Whose gentleness is without measure. who is powerful to maintain the very things he has promised to give you so that you will come to possess them in full completely in blessedness in heaven there to dwell with him forever That’s the gospel I preach. And I am convinced that that’s the gospel that you must have.

O Lord, we ask you that though you are exalted, dwell in all of your perfections above in glory, and though you reign in heaven wonderfully, where there is no opposition to your justice and righteousness, yet here in the earth We have been blessed by you so that even now we have access to that kingdom and to that glory which belongs to you in heaven above. Our Father who is in heaven and we encouraged all the more by Christ to pray in that fashion, remembering where you are, but yet how we have been brought near to you, as you have made yourself accessible to us. All of this possible because of the wonderful, incomparable work of Christ your Son, by which we have been made sons of God. Amen.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.