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SERIES A - BASIC TEACHING
FOUR
A4. GOD THE FATHER
A4.1 THE LORD’S PRAYER BEGINS “OUR FATHER”
Jesus spoke in Aramaic, a language which scholars have recently worked on and when the Lord’s Prayer is translated back into that language so that we have the original words, they rhyme.
The Lord’s Prayer was a poem, what is more, a popular style poem. Highbrow poetry in those days did not rhyme, but the Lord’s Prayer comes over in short clipped lines with a lilting metre, as easy to learn as a nursery rhyme or limerick. Jesus wanted people to be able to remember it easily.
No other poem ever written has been spoken aloud so often in so many different languages or is known by heart by so many people.
It was given as a sample or pattern of prayer. It is short. It is simple. It is clear and it covers everything.
Our Father in Heaven.
Prayer starts with a relationship with God. Through Christ we know God as Father. We can hold conversations with our Father in the same way that Jesus did, naturally, any time, anywhere, about anything. He is always there, always listening and often waiting for us to listen so that He can speak.
He is also in Heaven. That does not mean He is not alongside us and in us and all around us, but it does mean that He sees the whole picture from the heavenly point of view. Every time we converse with Him we are not only with a Father close at hand but also with the God of Heaven to from whom no secrets are hidden and who has perfect understanding of all we are praying about.
Your name be hallowed.
“Hallowed” is stronger than “honoured.” It means honoured as holy, sacred, unique, supreme.
This prayer is asking that whatever happens, God’s honour will be put first, in our lives, our behaviour, our relationships, our words. It asks that He will be honoured by others, it declares that we honour Him ourselves. It sets the purpose of our lives, lining it up with the purpose of all life, and therefore the purpose of the rest of our prayer. If we start with “Your name be hallowed” we have ruled out any later prayer for anything that would dishonour Him.
Your kingdom come.
Human kingdoms are what people fight and die for. People give their loyalty to an earthly state because they want it to rule - either they want it to conquer another state and rule it or they want to prevent it from being conquered and losing its right to rule itself.
“Your kingdom come” is a declaration of loyalty and a prayer that God’s effective authority will be extended, in our own lives and in the lives of others.
Your will, be done on earth as it is in Heaven.
Heaven is the model for earth and the best thing we can do for earth is to make it more like our home country. We are Heaven’s colonists, ambassadors and recruiting officers. Our role on Earth is to demonstrate to people what Heaven is like so that they will be attracted to it. We demonstrate that most in our relationships but also in our character and lifestyle.
This prayer is not one of acceptance but action. It means we want to be involved in getting God’s will actually done instead of not done. It implies that God’s will is not normally done on Earth. We are praying and living to change that.
Give us this day our daily bread.
If we are to honour God’s name, extend His kingdom and do His will, we have to eat. We have to feed our families. We can pray for our needs and the needs of others. All basic needs are included here, but not riches.
Forgive us - - - - as we forgive.
Forgiveness is the starting point of any relationship with God, and the restoring point of human relationships time and time again. Sometimes it is the starting point even of human relationships.
Christians are at an advantage when it comes to forgiving others. We know that the same Lord who died for our own sins died for that sin we have to forgive. Only at the Cross can we find forgiveness for ourselves. Only there can we forgive others.
Accepting that Christ died for us is accepting that He died for others.
Lead us not into temptation.
The word for temptation is the same as for testing. There is some doubt about whether this should really read “Do not leave us when we are tested.” That would rhyme better in Aramaic and would seem to make better sense. Otherwise it must mean keep us from excessive temptation. To ask to be spared any at all is asking an impossibility, but the general sense of asking help with the pressures and/or temptations that test us is clear enough.
Deliver us from Evil.
Whether the evil comes from the Devil or from human sources or from within ourselves, we need God’s power to deliver us from it.
Yours is the Kingdom the Power and the Glory
All our prayers are conditioned by our being part of His Kingdom, living by His Power and existing for His Glory.
A4.2.1. A FATHER TO THE FATHERLESS - THE NEED FOR IDENTITY.
The Father from whom comes all family identity in Heaven and Earth. (Ephesians 3:14-15)
A Father to the Fatherless. (Psalm 68:5)
As many as received Him, to them gave He the right to become children of God. (John 1:12)
In today’s world there is an epidemic of fatherlessness. While death has deprived thousands of children of their fathers, divorce and family breakdown has deprived tens of thousands, and others would be better without the fathers they have - victims of abuse and neglect.
Fatherlessness is a crisis of identity, more rife than ever before in the society we now live in.
A4.2.2 KNOWING GOD FILLS THE GAP.
This is not a study of psychology or counselling or understanding human personality. (Deep emotional hurts have to be worked through and this, like all God’s dealings with people, takes time. Time is an essential ingredient in His healing, building and teaching programmes.)
One fact, however, can be demonstrated again and again. Knowing God fills the gap. The fatherless person with an identity crisis can find God the Father and an identity as His son or daughter - beyond anything that even the best human father can give.
Human fatherhood at its best is a reflection of God’s nature. He was Father before the human race was created, and human fatherhood was designed as part of the image of God in mankind.
Just as a new baby is listening for Daddy’s voice to assure him that he is real; so each and every one needs the Heavenly Father’s voice to assure us of identity on Earth and in Heaven. What our earthly fathers failed to give us, He will give. What our earthly fathers gave us, He will magnify. What no earthly father can possibly give us, He gives - an Eternal identity.
A4.3 JESUS INTRODUCES US TO THE FATHER.
Jesus said, “No one comes to THE FATHER but by Me.” (John 14:6 - This is sometimes misquoted “No one comes to God but by Me,” but Jesus did not say that. People had already been coming to God but not knowing Him as Father.) It is through Christ that the Father/child relationship with God is formed. He is God’s only Son but we are accepted in Him; so He is “Firstborn among many brethren,” (Romans 8:29 KJV) and we can call God Our Father.
Reading through the Gospels we see how this worked out in practice - Jesus was constantly talking to His Father, naturally as a son to a father. He usually called Him “Father” but on occasions said “Daddy” (Abba). His disciples heard Him talking to His Father and He told them to do the same. It is through Christ that we can know the Father and there is no better way of letting Him introduce us than by reading through the Gospels.
He intends us to have the same relationship with our Heavenly Father and His way of talking with His Father is the model for us.
A4.4. WHAT JESUS SAID ABOUT HIMSELF AND HIS FATHER.
I tell you truly, the Son can do nothing on His own initiative, only what He sees the Father do. The Son makes the Father’s actions His own. The Father loves the Son and shows Him all that He does - and there are greater works than these you have seen. You will be astonished.
Just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life; so the Son gives live to whomever He chooses. The Father judges no one but has delegated all judgment to the Son, so that all may honour the Son as they honour the Father. Anyone who dishonours the Son, dishonours the Father who sent Him. (John 5:19-23)
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Don’t let your hearts be troubled. You trust God, trust me too. There are plenty of homes in my Father’s household - no shortage of space there - I would tell you if there were. I am going on ahead to make the place ready for you, afterwards I shall come back to collect you so that we may be there together. As for where it is, you know the way.
Thomas said, Lord we don’t know where it is; so how how can we know the way?
Jesus replied, I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No-one comes to the Father except through me. Knowing me is knowing the Father; so you do know Him. You have seen Him.
Philip said, Lord let us see the Father, that’s all we ask.
Jesus replied, All this time together and you still don’t know me Philip? Seeing me is seeing the Father, you don’t need to ask me to show you the Father.
Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me. The words I speak to you come, not from me but from Him. The Father is at home in me and my works are His.
Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me - if you find that difficult, look at the works I do. (John 14:1-11)
The kind of spirit-to-spirit relationship that exists between Jesus and the Father is something we can just begin to understand from experience as we go on living in a spirit-to-spirit relationship with God.
You will understand, then, my relationship with the Father because you will be included in it; I in the Father and the Father in me - and you in me and I in you. (John 14:20)
A4.5 SINCE BEFORE THE WORLD BEGAN.
God was Father and Jesus was His Son before the world began. Human fatherhood and human sonship are copies of that relationship - humanity was created in God’s image. Jesus did not become God’s Son when He was born, He brought with Him into His human body - before that into a single cell in Mary’s body - His whole character and personality as He had always been.
Jesus looked up towards Heaven and said, Father, this is it! Now show your Son’s glory so that your Son may show yours. You put Him in charge of all human life in order that He may give eternal life to the ones you have given Him.
Eternal life is knowing you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
I have done what you sent me to do, fully completed it, shown your glory on earth; so now show in me the glory that you and I had together before the world began.
I showed your name to the people you gave me out of the world. They were yours and you gave them to me and they have kept your word.
They realise now that everything you gave me comes from you. I passed your words on to them and they received them. They truly know that I came from you and you sent me. (John 17:1-8)
A4.6 FATHER, SON AND HOLY SPIRIT.
The Bible uses plain speech with only a few technical terms and then only if absolutely necessary. The Bible never uses the term “trinity.” Nor does it give us a theoretical explanation of God.
In the Old Testament it speaks of God, of God’s Spirit and of the coming Messiah. In the New Testament we are introduced to the Lord Jesus Christ and through Him to the Father and to the Holy Spirit. We relate to God as Father in Heaven. We relate to Christ as Saviour and Lord. We relate to the Holy Spirit in us. And most of us relate very happily to unexplained mysteries.
God is not fussy. People sometimes worry, for example, about questions such as to whom they should address their prayers. In fact most Old Testament prayers are simply addressed to God, and in the New Testament to The Father, but nowhere are we given any firm instructions and even if there were any rules, God could sort it out if we got them wrong. Reverence is in the heart, not in getting the words right.