There are many titles about God in the Bible. He’s called many things.
Let me ask you a question when you feel lonely and weary and tired, which one of those titles seems to be the most meaningful to you when you feel hurt and feel pain, which is the most reassuring to you when you feel fearful and maybe a little desperate or maybe shall we say just inadequate to face whatever you’re facing?
Which one of those is the most comforting to you?
Well, when you think about all those titles in the Bible, about God, I believe the one that meets all of those needs is the title of Father.
When you think about the fact that you and I have the privilege of calling God our heavenly Father, the privilege of calling God, my Father.
What an awesome privilege that is.
And that’s what I want to talk about in this passage of scripture in this message.
And that is the privilege of calling the privilege of having the primary, the privilege of knowing God as our father.
And I want you to turn if you will to a very familiar passage in the sermon on the mount, and you’ll recall that Jesus is teaching his disciples how to pray here.
And so he says, in verse eight of Matthew chapter six, therefore, do not be like them talking about the unbelievers for your father knows what you need before you ask him.
And then he says, pray. Then that is when you pray, this is the what you can, this is how you can pray.
Our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we have also forgiven our debtors and do not lead us into temptation but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
It’s interesting how he said we had to pray.
And this very idea was a revolutionary idea to the people of his day because you see the truth is Jesus Christ came primarily to down the cross for our sins in order that you and I may be able to have a relationship with God, the Father.
And what I’d like for you to think about for a few moments is how his fatherhood is expressed toward us.
How does God the father expressed?
This fatherhood taught us it is the same way that every father should express his fatherhood toward his sons and taught his daughters.
So I want you to listen carefully in two ways.
Number one, knowing that we’re talking about our relationship to the father and how he’s expressing his fatherhood toward us.
And secondly, how you ought to express your fatherhood towards your sons and your daughters. It’s the same.
And so I want to encourage you to get a pencil and paper and jot these down because if you want to be a good father to your Children, here’s the pattern.
Where does this pattern come from? It comes from Almighty God.
And if you’ll think about the God that you and I know as given to us in the person of Jesus Christ in comparison to all the other religions in the world and their God and their profits and their messiahs and so forth.
There is no comparison whatsoever. Listen to how this awesome God of ours desires to express his fatherhood toward us.
Well, first of all, he desires to have an intimate relationship with us.
This is why he says we have to address him as our father, not just as God, not just as sovereign of the universe, not just as holy one, not, not, not just his judge, but he says we have to address him as father.
And I want to go back to this uh prayer again when he says our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name instantaneously.
He moves from this gentle fatherhood to holiness.
But you see what he’s saying is this, you and I can have such a relationship to him.
Now watch this. We can have such a relationship to him that even though God is absolutely holy, sinless and perfect without guile that you and I can still have a personal relationship with him through his son, Jesus Christ.
Are we perfect? Well, not perfect. Will we live to be? Well?
Will we ever get to the place we can live sinless? Li I doubt it. Not anyone I’ve ever known.
No saint I’ve ever known has ever claim to be sinless. It isn’t a matter of being sinless.
It’s a matter of walking righteously before God.
When we stumble, when we fall, when we falter, we have a loving heavenly Father.
And you see if you’ll notice that prayer, how much transparency is in there, because here’s what he’s saying.
He says we’re coming to him and we have the right to pray this prayer.
Not only do I recognize that he’s holy, but I can say father, I have a need.
Give me today my daily bread, I’ve blown it, forgive me for my sins. I’m weak.
Don’t let me, don’t let me fall into temptation. What am I doing? I’ve opened my heart.
So what does God do. He says, I understand your weakness. I’m gonna forgive your, your unforgiving.
I’m gonna forgive you the way you treated this person. I’m gonna be to you what you need.
The wonderful privilege of knowing Him as my father is to be able to know Him intimately.
A second thing that I want you to remember is that we have the privilege of knowing Him as our father listen, a father who desires to communicate with us.
Listen to what he said. He says, now you want to talk to the father.
You want to get in a conversation with him. Here’s what you do.
You say my father who art in heaven holy is your name.
And then you begin to express your needs and your feelings or whatever there may be.
I want you to notice another couple of passages here that are very important because he was talking to them about uh about fasting and about praying and so forth and then about in this particular passage on prayer.
Look, if you will, what he says in the sixth chapter of Matthew down verse six, he says before, don’t be like, don’t be like the Pharisees and hypocrites standing in the synagogues to be seen.
But he says in verse six of chapter six, but when you pray, go into your inner room, when you have shut your door, pray to your father who is in secret and your father who sees in secret will repay you.
What does that mean? It implies and it says, he heard you, you can communicate with your father.
He heard you and you know what? He’s gonna answer your prayer. Going to the seventh chapter.
If you will, beginning in the 7th 1st is a wonderful passage of scripture.
Listen, this 7th 1st ask and it shall be given you.
Jesus is saying, asking, it should be given you seek and you shall find knock and it shall be opened unto you.
Everyone who asked, he says receives, he who seeks finds to him that knocks, it will be open.
What man is there among you?
When his son shall ask him for a low for a piece of bread, will you give him a stone or rock?
If he should ask for a fish, a piece of fish, will you give him a snake?
If you then being evil, know how to give good gifts to your Children.
How much more shall your father who is in heaven?
Give what is good to those who ask him listen to that?
He says, if we being sinners know how to give good gifts to our, to our Children, how much more he says, look, how much more will your heavenly father give you good things in your life?
What is he saying? We have a father who desires to communicate with us.
We have a father who desires to listen to us because you see if he were not listening.
How could he say, ask? And it shall be given you because God does listen and he wants us to talk with him and he wants us to listen to Him.
He wants us to carry on conversations. We call it what? Praying, it’s communicating with Him.
And so one of the, one of the wondrous things about knowing Him as my father is that he’s the kind of father I can talk to.
I can have a relationship with, I can, I can talk to him.
He listens to me and he may not like everything I say and he may not give me everything I want.
Thank God. He doesn’t. And so what is he gonna do?
He says, if you and I know how to give good gifts to you and how much more will the heavenly father?
He delights in giving good things to those who ask of him.
Think about this, One of the most comforting things about knowing him as my father is that I can have this intimate relationship with him that I can communicate with him.
And thirdly that he loves me unconditionally, I want you to turn the 17th chapter of John.
This is, this is his prayer gonna be crucified the next day and listen to what Jesus said.
This whole chapter is a prayer verse 23.
Let’s start with verse 22 the glory of which you have given me I have given to them.
That they may be one just as we are one.
I in them, thou in me, that they may be perfected in unity, that the world may know that thou did send me and it’s loved them even as thou didst love me.
What’s that? Wait a minute. He says, Jesus is saying, God, Father, you love these my followers, my disciples just like you love me.
Let me ask you a question. Does God listen?
Did and does God love Jesus Christ conditionally well, does he or does he not?
Absolutely not. How could God the father love his son conditionally when he says, he says, I’m the father of one absolute perfect unity, perfect harmony.
You love them just like you love me, you and I had the wonderful privilege of knowing intimately and can communicate with a father who loves us in that way, didn’t I John say in that in that third chapter, behold, what manner of awesome love the Father has for us that we are called the Children of God.
Not only that, but it’s wonderful to know that we have a loving father who not only loves us unconditionally but meets all of our needs.
He’s promised to meet every one of our needs.
Now, let’s go back to this prayer for a moment in the sixth chapter of Matthew and look at that for a moment right before he gives us this prayer.
Here’s what he says in verse eight Chapter six of Matthew Verse eight.
Therefore, do not be like them.
That is like the unbelievers for your father knows what you need before you ask him. Praise God.
That is, listen, when you and I come to him, we’re not giving him information that he doesn’t know. Amen.
In other words, we were not giving him any information. He doesn’t know.
He says, he listen, he says, he knows our needs before we ask him and I’ll tell you, we can go a step further.
He knows our needs before we know our needs.
What, what a wonderful father we have have an intimate relationship with him. We can communicate with him.
He loves his unconditional. He meets all of our needs.
So let me ask you, dad have an intimate relationship with your Children.
Can you communicate with them?
Do you love them unconditionally? Oh, yes.
Let me ask you a question more important than that.
Do they know and feel and really believe that you love them unconditionally.
It’s not just whether we do or not is how they perceive our love.
Do you try your best to meet their needs?
You say, well, what’s the greatest need? You know what the greatest need?
The greatest need is not a car, our clothes or education.
The greatest need is for a godly father to pattern and to share with them the principles of scripture by which they can live firmly planted in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Firmly planted in the principles that make for success in their life, firmly planted in the assurances and their promises of God’s word that no matter what happens in their life, their loving heavenly father will be there to assist them and aid them.
You see, this is the one aspect of this relationship that you and I cannot promise our Children that will always be there, we can meet their needs, but we can’t always be there.
But one of them, one listen, one of the most awesome promises in the scripture is that, listen, we have a loving father who will always be there.
He says, I will never leave you nor forsake you.
And Jesus worked diligently the night before he died on the cross to save his disciples.
I’m going away, but I promise you, I’m not gonna leave you. I’m not gonna leave you comfortable.
I’m not gonna leave you as orphans. He says, my father’s gonna send the Holy Spirit.
He’ll be in you with you and upon you and the holy.
He’s, I’m gonna send you another one just like me. He says, when he comes, he’s gonna be like me.
He’s gonna do the same thing in your life that I’ve been doing.
What a wonderful, wonderful assurance that you and I have a loving heavenly father with whom we can communicate.
We can have.
Our intimate relationship, loves us, unconditionally, meets our needs and will never leave us, never leave us nor forsake us under any condition, no matter what.
There’s not a parent in the world, you can promise that child that.
But let me say this now watch this. That is you can’t always be with them physically.
But let me tell you how you can always be with them.
I can tell you how my mom is still with me and she’s in heaven because since I was a little boy, she got down by the bed every night and she prayed for me and called my name.
I can still hear the way she pronounced my name.
I can still remember some things that she would pray for me.
I can still feel and sense the compassion and the genuine love and concern she felt for me.
I can still remember something she would tell me to do and I can remember some things she would tell me not to do.
And so you know what your child may get away from home, get away from the house.
But dad, what you wanna do is you wanna pattern before them number one.
And secondly, listen, you want to share what you know about the loving father in such a way that child will never be able to get away from you.
Never, never, never dad. I cannot tell you how important it is.
You can’t stay with them, but you can so live they’ll never be able to get away from you never well to know him as my heavenly father.
One of the most wonderful things about it is to know also that, listen, that, that he’s the father who disciplines me.
I want you to turn to Hebrews chapter 12 for a moment.
Hebrews chapter 12 and look at this, you see one of, one of the wonderful things about God is to know Him as a disciplinarian.
You, so there’s nothing good about that.
Oh, yes, there is because you see you as a father, you discipline your Children. Why?
I certainly hope it is not in anger. Discipline is an expression of love.
Listen, discipline is an expression of loving correction for the good of the person being disciplined.
Not because you want to invent something that you’re angry about. Now, God disciplines his Children.
Look how important this is 12th chapter of Hebrews beginning in verse verse five.
He says, and you have forgotten the exhortation, which is addressed to you as sons.
My son do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord nor faint when you’re approved by him, for those whom the Lord loves, he disciplines and he scourges.
I mean, he puts, he puts it to us, everyone, every son whom he receives it is for discipline that you endure.
God deals with you as with sons for what son is there, whom his father does not discipline.
But if you’re without discipline of which all have become protectors, then your illegitimate Children, not sons, you know what he says the fact that God disciplines you and me is one of the evidence is that we are the Children of God.
That’s what you expect from a father.
Listen, when your Children disobey you, it is your responsibility because of your accountability to God to discipline them, correct them in love, to protect them from further disobedience.
What does God do? Does the same thing? Look at this, furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us.
We respected them, shall we not much more? He says, be subject to the father of spirits and live.
That is to God what he said.
He says our fathers discipline does and we did what we did, what we respected them.
Is it any wonder that that young people act the way they act when father does not take, listen, when fathers do not discipline their Children, you can expect what you’re getting when you don’t know what they’re doing.
When you don’t know where they are, when you leave the impression that you don’t care and you leave the impression that you’re too busy.
And after all, I’m giving you what you need out here in life. Don’t bother me. What can you expect?
But exactly what we’re getting. He says, he says, our fathers discipline us and we respected them.
Now look at this for, they disciplined us for a short time.
It seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good that we may share his holiness.
He says, listen, we have a loving father who disciplines us and sometimes it stings and sometimes we don’t like it and sometimes we want to run away and sometimes we won’t escape.
He says it’s always for our good.
Now, would you not agree that it’s wise to be able to call him your heavenly father and you call him your heavenly father by confessing your sins to him, accepting his son, Jesus Christ as your personal savior.
And simply saying to him, I’m asking you father to forgive me of my sins.
I do believe that Jesus Christ died in my behalf, trusting him for that forgiveness and asking you to save me and make me one of your Children.
He will answer that prayer instantaneously.
The moment you ask him and all of us who believe us, we have the awesome privilege of living with this kind of a loving father.
Father, how grateful we are, how grateful we are that you’re that kind of God.
I pray the Holy Spirit will build these truths, sink these truths, established these truths route, these truths so deep within us that they will continually bear fruit.
That every time we look to you, we can be able to say with confidence.
My father know that you’re listening and know that we’ll hear from you.