Turning Point - David Jeremiah

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
The Lord's Prayer opens with two ordinary words, our Father,
but the power of those simple words is anything but ordinary.
Today on Turning Point, doctor David Jeremiah examines the deeply
personal nature of God's love for you as a father
loves his child. If you didn't think the creator of

(00:25):
the universe could love you individually, listen as David introduces
today's message, the Relationship of prayer.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
And thank you for joining us. You know, overlate, I
have been amazed at how many times the fatherhood of
God is brought up in the Bible. We've been teaching
on prophecy here recently and been reminded that one of
the great names for Heaven is the Father's House. And
here in this prayer, one of the key ingredients for
you and I to grab hold of is the realization

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that this is a conversation we have with our Father
in heaven against our Father who are in heaven. We're
going to talk about that today on this edition of
Turning Point, as we have called this the Relationship of Prayer.
During the month of August, we're making available a beautiful,
enhancing and encouraging book on prayer called Everything to God

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in Prayer, Guided prayers for your deepest needs and biggest dreams.
I wish it were possible for me to describe this
adequately because it is really one of the most beautiful
books we've ever produced, as a padded cover with beautiful,
beautiful lettering, but most importantly inside are many, many prayers
to help you understand how to pray for different things

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in your life. The index will be your helper, and
when you're going through something, maybe you feel like God
hasn't been answering your prayer, So you find why does
God take so longer? Why God hasn't answered my prayer?
And there'll be a section in there to help you
understand that prayer is an adventure, but for many people
it's also a mystery. And we want to encourage you
to get this book for your own library and to

(02:01):
share with others. It's yours for the asking. When you
send a gift to Turning Point during the month of August,
just say please send me the Prayer Book and we'll
do it right now. Here's part one of the relationship
of prayer from Matthew, chapter six and verse nine. The
prayer that our Lord taught his disciples begins with praise

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and it ends with praise, and in between are the priorities,
the provisions, and the protections. God wants us to remember
that prayer is first and foremost a communication with God.
And we're going to begin our study of the actual
text of this prayer by looking at one phrase together,

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which goes like this, our Father, who art in heaven,
and there is more there than we can ever get
our arms around in the few moments that we have.
God is our father. It is amazing to me that
in all the years of my walking with the Lord
in the church, and as a pastor and as a

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student of theology, that I have heard so very few
sermons on the fatherhood of God. We usually visit it
once a year during Father's Day, but we very seldom
talk about this truth, the truth that God is our father. Now,
men and women, it is no accident that God, in

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his wisdom, has given to us a metaphor with which
all of us can identify. Not long ago I was
reminded of the awesome responsibility that I have as a
human father to give my children an understanding of the
love and grace and security that is found in the

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Father in Heaven. I have counseled enough over the years
to know that on many occasions, people who have struggled
with their human father have also struggled with their heavenly father.
A person who grows up with a father who is
abusive will have a very difficult time making the transition

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into a loving relationship with his heavenly father without some
very good help. A person who may grow up with
a detached or absentee father is likely to have in
his own heart the feeling that God in heaven is
detached and uninterested in him. It's an awesome responsibility, is

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it not, as Christian fathers, that to some degree at least,
we are modeling for our children a picture of Father
God that will in some way touch the way they
worship and live. I remember reading some time ago some
words that were penned that help us come to grips

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with this truth. My little boy came to me one
day and placed his tiny hand in mine and said, Daddy,
what is God like? And I said, God is love
and sunshine and all the good things that you know.
And he smiled into my eyes and said, then, Daddy,
God must be just like you. I remembered that Jesus

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had said that God is like a father, and I
had to bow my head in shame that I, as
a father, was so unlike God. End of quote. One
of the greatest truths in all of the Word of
God is the truth of the fatherhood of God. And
yet it is misunderstood often by people who read the Scripture.

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As we talk about the person of our relationship, the
person is God, the Father. And it is interesting to
trace that word throughout the Bible and to discover that
in the Old Testament it was not as it is today.
In fact, the writers of the Old Testament had a
much different concept of their relationship with God than we

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have in our church age. I am told that when
the scribes who copied the Old Testament scriptures would come
to the word for God, which was put together in
a form without any vowels, it is the word Yahweh,
that having written that word, they would then throw away

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their pen, never to use it again for any other writing.
For once having written the word Yahweh, the pen was
disqualified to write anything else. The men and women who
worshiped God in the Old Testament had a great sense
of fear and reverence for Him. We would do well
to learn some of that in our day of easy relationships.

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But the other side of the picture was that there
was very little personal intimacy or personal relationship with the
Almighty God. It was done through the instruments of the
Tabernacle and the Temple, but there was not that coming
into the presence of God God as we have in
this side of the cross experience. In fact, if you

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go through the Old Testament, you will discover that the
word Father as it relates to God is used fewer
than fourteen times, And in every situation that I have
been able to research, it is used of God being
the father of Israel, that Israel is the son God
is the Father. But it is not used in the

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personal way that we find it in the New Testament.
For instance, in the Book of Exodus, we read here,
oh Heavens, and give ear O Earth, I have nourished
and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.
And the children to whom he refers are the children
of Israel. He mentions it again in the sixty fourth
chapter of Isaiah and verse eight. But now, o Lord,

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thou art our father, We are the clay, and thou
art potter, and we all are the work of thy hand,
and it's again a relationship between God the Father and
the nation of Israel. Isaiah understood that the nation of
Israel had a son relationship to God, but it was national,
not personal. What a tremendous difference there is when you

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cross over the threshold into the New Testament. While I
understand the eschatological implications of the Gospels, you cannot get
past Matthew before you are introduced to a whole new
understanding of the fatherhood of God. For instance, in the
sixth chapter of Matthew, where the Lord's prayer is record.

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In chapter six, verse one, we read that there is
to be no reward of our Father if our arms
are done for the wrong reasons. In verse four, we
are told that the Father who seeth in secret, rewards openly.
In verse six, we are told that we are to
pray to the Father who is in secret, and the Father,
who is in secret will reward us openly. In verse eight,

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we are told that the Father knoweth what things we
have need of. In verse nine we are told to
pray our Father, which aret in heaven, and in verse
fifteen we are told that the Father will not forgive
us if we do not forgive those who have sinned
against us over and over again. In that section of scripture,
right across the threshold in the New Testament, we see
a whole new approach to the fatherhood of God. It

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is no longer national, it is now individual and personal.
In fact, the word Father occurs some seventeen times in
the Sermon on the Mount alone. If you widen the
context of the Sermon on the Mount to the four Gospels,
you will discover that Jesus Christ himself referred to the
Father more than seventy times. Now what made the difference?

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Why is it different now than it was then? Why
do we have not a national relationship with Father God
but a personal relationship. I'm glad you asked, because I
was going to answer it whether you asked or not.
And I want you to take your Bibles if you will,
And I want to show you a wonderful scripture that

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will help us understand that truth. Galatians chapter four is
the text. And I love this passage of scripture because
it glorifies the relationship that God has provided for those
who love Him. Galatians chapter four. And I want you
to notice in this passage of scripture what took place

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that put us into this new relationship. If you got
your bibles open all right, notice verse four and follow
along as I read. But when the fullness of time
had come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman,
born unto the law, to redeem those who were under

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the law, that we might receive. And now watch this
the adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God
has sent forth the spirit of his Son into your hearts,
crying out ab a father. Therefore you are no longer
a slave, but a son. And if a son, then

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an heir of God through Jesus Christ. Do you get
the picture. Until God sent forth his son born of
a woman, in the fullness of time, our relationship was different.
It wasn't like it is now. When that veil was torn,
when Christ died on the cross, a whole new way
of approach to God was opened up to us. And

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whereas before we are classified as slaves or servants, God
has now changed that whole status, and He's made as sons,
and He's put his Holy Spirit within our hearts, so
that now you and I can call God Father in
the most endearing term in all of the Word of God.
We are sons of the Father. In the Old Testament

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we were servants. In the New Testament, we are sons
in one John three to one. Behold what manner of
love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should
be called the sons of God? When I think about
looking up into the face of a loving, heavenly Father,

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who cares for me, and cares for me more than
the most intense love I know as a human, I
can say with John, what manner of love is that?
What an incredible thing? That is? The fatherhood of God
and our relationship to him has a bearing on a
number of doctrines in the Word of God. For instance,
the incarnation in Galatians four, that whole relationship took a

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change when God sent forth his son, born of a woman.
But then he mentions the Holy Spirit. Not only is
the incarnation involved, but the day of Pentecost is involved
as well. The outpouring of the Holy Spirit changed everything.
When the Church was born, the Holy Spirit came to
live within us, and because of that we are now
able to call God our Father is our father, and

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Jesus Christ, always referring to God as my Father, shows
us the way of the relationship between a son and
his father, our father, who are in heaven. Now, the
father part of that phrase is all about intimacy, that's
the person. But the place that is mentioned here kind

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of puts a different twist to it and brings to
the passage the tension we always find in the scripture.
Have you noticed that that God, by his Holy Spirit
has built tension into the Word of God in a
magnificent way, so that we never go off in one
direction too far, But the truth is held together in
a kind of insoluble relationship, so that we are held

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at the right place. For instance, if I am only
taught that God is my father, then I have a
tendency to move over into that realm of flippancy, that
kind of extra familiarity, the slanguage that is often developed
up around religion and personal relationship with the Father, such

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as the big dodger in the sky or the man
upstairs or whatever. I don't like those terms because I
don't think they reflect the true majesty and greatness of
who God is. But when we get over here on
this side my Father, we get into the intimate part
of our relationship, we might have a tendency to do
that if it were not coupled together with the rest

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of this truth. Our Father, who are in heaven. He's
in heaven, and that reminds us that the earth is
his footstool, and that he is a God of majesty
and might, who is worthy of our praise and of
our worship. He is the glorious King. He is surrounded

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by the angelic host in whatever way you wish to
imagine it. He sits on the throne of Majesty, and
at his right hand is his son Jesus Christ. He
is ministered to by all the creatures of glory. Think
of all the regality that you know in this world,
the domain of the kingdom of this world, and multiply
it by one hundred times one hundred, and you haven't

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touched anything of the glory and majesty of the Father
who is in heaven. He's in heaven. I don't know
about you, but that strips my gears. How do you
do that? I mean, you just get on. Tell me
he's your father. Now you tell me he's up in heaven.
One time you say I think he's approachable. The next time,
I wonder how I'm going to get through. How many
of you remember years ago when John F. Kennedy was

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the president and Life magazine published a whole series of
photos of his children. Do you remember those pictures of
John and Caroline playing with their toys on the floor
of the Oval Office. Do you remember that those captured
the hearts of the American people like nothing ever that
has come out of a president's family before or after.

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Why Because I think in some ways it bridged the
gap between these two thoughts. Here was the President of
the United States with two little kids playing with toys
on the floor of the Oval Office. Now, I don't
think your kids would have been allowed to do that,
nor mine, But his kids were why. He was their father.

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He was the president of the United States. He was
their father. He's in heaven, He's my father. That's the
way it is with the Father in heaven, isn't it
When you became a son, when you were adopted into
the family of God. Is the son of God. He

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opened up for you through his son's death on the cross,
a way of fellowship and relationship that makes it possible
for you to bypass going to the temple with an
animal set sacrifice and talking to God through a priest.
You can go right into the presence of God Almighty,

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and he will hear you, though I don't understand how
he does it. If it all happens on Wednesday, he
will hear you. He will hear you because you're his son,
you're his daughter, and he's your father. There is a
verse of scripture that puts that all together, and I'd
ask you to look it up, but I don't want

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to lose you, so you let me read it to you,
all right. I want you to hear this Isaiah fifty
seven and verse fifteen. Listen to this verse. For thus
saith the high and lofty one who inhabiteth eternity, whose
name is holy, I dwell in the high and holy place.

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And with him also that is of a contrite and
a humble spirit. Wow do you give that? He says?
Thus says the high and lofty one who inhabits eternity,
whose name is holy, who dwells in the high and
holy place. Oh, and by the way, also with those

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who are of a humble in contrite spirit, with you
and me, incredible, He is our father who is in heaven,
and your relationship to him should be built like that.
I should just pause for a moment to say that

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there is enough in this little phrase to destroy atheism.
For it says our Father, who art, and in that
phrase alone, atheism is finished. I can't imagine an atheist
ever praying the Lord's Prayer. You know, one of the
sad things about being an atheist is who do you
think when something goes good? I mean, what do you do?

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This prayer does away with atheism and it brings into
a relationship God's children. Did you know that one of
the names that is used for this prayer, I think
it's a Latin word. It's the word potternoster p A
t e r n ostr potternoster. You know what that is?
That is the first two words of the prayer, our Father.
It's almost as if the name of the prayer has

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been taken in that little word to describe our relationship
with God. Let me ask you a question, class, do
you relate to God like that? Are you in fellowship
with him? You know, my fathering has changed a lot.
How many of you know that just when you figure
out what it's supposed to be like, they're all gone.

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I finally figured out fathering, and now my kids are
all gone, and I learned a lot about being a father,
and my fathering is moved into a whole new realm.
I'm fathering long distance. Now if I'm like that as
a earthly father with limited resources, how do you feel
about the father in heaven who owns the Catalan a thousand.

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He'll pay for it all, and he's waiting for you
to walk into his presence in prayer? Our father, who
are in heaven. If it is true that he is
our father and we are his sons, then there are

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four things that I want you to remember because of that.
If he is our father and we are his sons
and daughters, then Number one, we have a new relationship,
don't we. It's a whole new thing that happens when
we're saved. The Holy Spirit comes to live within us,
and we are born into the family of God. And
Romans eight thirty nine says that nothing can separate us

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from the love of God. We are his eternally, we
belong to him. We are born into his family, and
you can't be unborn. He is ours. Nothing can separate us.
Go and read Romans eight. Look at the whole list
that is presented there of the things that might putvinally
separates you from the love of God. Nothing can separate you.

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You have a relationship that is eternal with God the Father.
I have said to my children, each of them individually
and probably all of them together, on more than one occasion,
our love for you is unconditional. No matter what you do,
we will love you. You cannot do anything to destroy
our love. It is unconditional, and that is human love.

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But God's love goes beyond that as a whole new relationship.
Number two, it says in Galatians chapter four that we
are heirs of God. Romans eight says we are joint
heirs with Jesus Christ. Listen to me, friends, God put

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me in his will. He wrote me in his will.
He put me in as an inheritance, and when Jesus
Christ died, the will was executed. I'm just waiting for
my inheritance, and he'll never write me out one of
these days because I'm his son. I am going to
inherit everything that is mine by virtue of the fact

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that I belong in the family. I've got a whole
new reward to look forward to because I'm a son
and he's my father. And then Galatians four also brings
this truth that I have a new resource because the
Holy Spirit now lives in my heart. He lives within me.
I don't understand this completely, but review with me for

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a moment. The progression of truth as you remember it.
Christ came into the world, he died, he was buried,
he was resurrected, and a few days later he ascended.
And before he ascended, he said, before I ascend, I
want you to know that I'm going to send another
comforter who is not only going to be with you,
He's going to be in you. And he sent the
Holy Spirit to come to live within us. By virtue

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of my sonship, I have a resource. Now I have
the Holy Spirit living within me. You know what he does.
He helps me to be what a son should be.
He helps me to walk, talk, could live and talk
like a son of God. I couldn't do that if
the Holy Spirit weren't within me, because the criteria is
far beyond anything I could ever ever produce. But oh,

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one day, when Christ came to live within my heart,
he put his blessed Holy Spirit in here. And now
I've got this power to live in a way that's
beyond anything, so that when people see me if I'm
living in the power of the Holy Spirit, they say,
he must be one of his sons, she must be
one of his daughters. Do you see it? When the

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Holy Spirit came to live within you, when you accepted
Christ into your heart, you got the blessed Holy Spirit
to come and give you the inward strength and power
to live in light of who you really are as
the Son of God. Every single day. I've got this
resource because He's my father. That's power. I think. One

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of the things that happens often when we teach like
this is that some people who listen have not had
good fathers, and so it's very hard for them to
understand the beauty of the fatherhood of God. I had
a good father. I hope I've been a good father.
But I know fatherhood is very important, not only in life,
but in understanding the scripture because he's Father God, and

(24:18):
throughout the Bible we'll find many illustrations of how the
Father treated his children that help us understand how we
should deal with our children. It's a tremendous study, and
the Lord's Prayer is part of that study. And I
hope you'll stay with us as we continue our journey
through the sixth chapter, Matthew and Prayer the Great Adventure.
Don't forget to ask for your copy of this month's resource.

(24:41):
It is a beautiful book on prayer called Everything to
God in Prayer. It's yours for a gift of any
size during this month, and we'll see you right here
next time on this good station.

Speaker 1 (24:56):
For more information on Doctor Jeremiah series Prayer the Great Adventure,
please visit our website, where we also offer two free
ways to help you stay connected, our monthly Turning Points
magazine and our daily email devotional. Sign up today at
Davidjeremiah dot org slash radio. That's Davidjeremiah dot org slash Radio,
or call us at eight hundred ninety four seven nineteen

(25:18):
ninety three ask for your copy of David's new book,
Everything to God and Prayer, Guided prayers for your deepest
needs and biggest dreams. It's yours for a gift of
any amount. You can also purchase the Jeremiah Study Bible
in the English Standard, New International, and New King James versions,
complete with notes and articles from Doctor Jeremiah's decades of study.

(25:40):
Get all the details when you visit our website Davidjeremiah
dot org. Slash Radio, this is David Michael Jeremiah. Join
us tomorrow as we continue the series Prayer, the Great
Adventure on Turning Point with doctor David Jeremiah