That Is What We Are!

That is what we are!
By Pastor Mark White

“This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,…’
Matthew 6:9

Jesus introduced a new way of addressing God in prayer when His disciples asked to teach them how to pray.  Jesus was speaking in a Jewish culture where they would sometimes refer to God as the Father, but usually not while praying. They would address God as a “Sovereign Lord” or “King of the universe” or pray “Blessed are you, Lord our God, king of the universe, who causes bread to come forth from the Earth.”

And then there was Jesus saying, “When you pray, ‘Pray: “Our Father in heaven…’”  This was highly unusual,  The Almighty God being called Father!

We read “Our Father” after two thousand years of teaching that God is our Father and we say “Well, that's obvious He’s our Father,” but it wasn’t to them at that time.  They knew the writings of Moses that had established God as the Creator of Heaven and Earth…He who speaks and creates something out of nothing.  

They would have embraced the words of the Torah that declared that He wanted a people for Himself and how He chose to do this through Abram.  They felt the weight of the words in Genesis 17:1, that God spoke to Abram saying, “I am God Almighty” when this promise seemed impossible.  

They worshiped God as the eternal everlasting God…the Almighty God who turns the hearts of kings and directs nations to do His will.  A God who in Isaiah 40, “Has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens?”  When the seraphims worshiped in Isaiah 6, they cried out to one another “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord Almighty” and the doorpost and thresholds shook, and the temple filled with His glory. 

Yes,  they were used to referring to God as Almighty but … Father?

This couldn’t be true, could it? This God who split the Red Sea to deliver His people from Egypt’s grip desires a deep connection with me?  This God, who, when speaking to Moses on Mt Sinai and the Mountain was wrapped in smoke and greatly trembled in the presence of the Lord - desires for me to be his? Yes, The Lord God Almighty invites us into a Father-Son relationship and we can exclaim with 1 John 3:1 “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!”