The disciples asked, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” In Matthew 18:3-4, Jesus answered, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom.” 

Childlikeness is the way to kingdom greatness. It is also the way to kingdom citizenship. You must become like a child to enter the kingdom of heaven. To be accepted into the kingdom is to be adopted by the King. Citizens of the kingdom are children of the King. Jesus affirms this in the invocation of The Lord’s Prayer: “Our Father in heaven.”

The Lord’s Prayer is a part of the Sermon on the Mount, in which Jesus explains that kingdom citizenship requires true righteousness. The immediate context is Matthew 6:5-8, in which Jesus teaches how to pray. More specifically, Jesus teaches how not to pray. 

• Verses 5-6 instruct us not to pray like the hypocrites, whose motive for prayer is wrong. 
• Verses 7-8 instruct us not to pray like the Gentiles, whose manner of prayer is wrong. 

Verse 8 summarizes these prohibitions: “Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” How should we approach God in prayer? Jesus answers in verses 9-15. It is called The Lord’s Prayer. It is the Lord’s prayer because Jesus taught it, not that he prayed it.

In verse 9, Jesus says, “Pray then like this.” Then the opening words of this model prayer teach us how to address God in prayer: “Our Father in heaven.” Through the Lord Jesus Christ, you can approach God in prayer as our Father in heaven. 

God is our Father. 

Israel rarely addressed God by his name lest they take his name in vain. They addressed God by many other names, which reflected a holy distance between God and Israel. God is called “Father” seven times in the Old Testament, never in personal terms. In Matthew 6:1-18, Jesus calls God “Father” ten times. In the invocation of The Lord’s Prayer, Jesus teaches us to do the same: “Our Father in heaven.” “Our Father” is a statement of faith in Christ and fellowship with the church. 

Faith in Jesus Christ. In a real sense, every person is a child of God. Malachi 2:10 asks, “Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us?” Acts 17:28 says, “We are indeed his offspring.” God is the Father of all because he created us. James 1:18 calls God “the Father of lights” – the sun, moon, and stars. Revelation 21:23 says, “And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb.” Unbelieving sinners will make it to heaven the day God needs bulbs to light heaven. 

God is the Father of all because he made us and sustains us. But everyone does not have the right to address God as “our Father in heaven.” Sinners have another father. John 8:44 says, “You are of your father the devil.” Ephesians 5:5-6 says, “For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.” 1 John 3:10 says, “By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.”

There is not one spiritual family of man under the universal fatherhood of God. Only those who are born again are partakers of the divine nature. John 1:12-13 says, “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” In John 3:3, Jesus told Nicodemus, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” John 3:6-7 says, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’” To be a child of God, you must be born again. You must be adopted into God’s family through faith in Jesus Christ. 

• All human beings are God’s children through creation. 
• Christians are God’s children through regeneration and adoption.
• The Lord Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of God. 

Jesus calls God “Father” more than 150 times in the Gospels. He calls him “God” once, in Matthew 27:46: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” That was not the last word from the cross. John 19:30 says Jesus declared, “It is finished.” The Son of God became the Son of Man so that the sons of men may become sons of God. We are children of God through faith in the finished work of Christ. How are things between you and the Lord Jesus Christ?

Fellowship with the church. The Lord’s Prayer teaches us to use plural pronouns in prayer – “us, we, our” – not singular pronouns– “I, me, my.” This corporate dynamic is emphasized in the invocation: “Our Father,” not “my Father.” As you pray, remember you are not an only child. Matthew 6:6 says, “But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret.” Secret prayer keeps us from turning prayer into a performance. It is not a license to reject the church. Ultimately, all prayer is corporate prayer. You cannot come before God the Father without bringing your brothers and sisters in Christ. The Lord’s Prayer answers Cain’s answers. Yes, you are your brother’s keeper.

Some are offended that Jesus teaches us to pray to God as Father. The greater offense may be the pronoun “our.” Jesus teaches us to pray as the church, not as individuals. Christianity is inherently communal. 1 John 3:14 says, “We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death.” God’s children are identified by faith in Christ Jesus and love for all the saints.  How were you saved?

• Someone presented the gospel to you. 
• Someone lived out the gospel before you. 
• Someone prayed for you when you were far from God. 

Even if you were saved by reading the Bible, the Bible is the word of God to man through man. It is about God’s work in redemptive history through sinful people and a sinless Savior. We are saved by grace alone. God is the source of grace. Christ is the means of grace. The Holy Spirit is the agent of grace. We are channels of grace to another in Christ. It is called the communion of the saints.

The original sin is pride, which desires to be independent of everything and everyone. Prayer forces us to acknowledge we cannot make it on our own. Praying to the heavenly Father acknowledges only God can help us. Praying to our Father in heaven acknowledges we must seek help for one another, not just ourselves. You have brothers and sisters in Christ that have needs you should care about.

Farmers pray, “Hear not the prayer of a traveling man.” The traveling man wants fair weather for his journey. He does not care about the community he passes through that desperately needs rain. Pray like a family man, not a traveling man. Philippians 2:3-4 says, “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.”

God is in heaven. 

On April 26, 1862, author and editor Thomas Wentworth Higginson received a letter from an aspiring poet named Emily Dickinson. Referring to her parents and siblings, she wrote, “They are religious, except me, and address an eclipse, every morning, whom they call their Father.” 

This is how many people view prayer – addressing an eclipse, calling it Father. God is no eclipse. 1 John 1:5 says, “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” God does not obscure light. God is light. To see God as the Father in heaven, you must view him through the revelation of Jesus Christ. During the Last Supper, Philip said to Jesus, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” In John 14:9, Jesus said, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip?” Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?” To see Jesus is to see God. Jesus reveals God to be our heavenly Father who cares and is able. 

God cares. In On Earth As It Is In Heaven, Warren Wiersbe wrote of being confronted by a young man after teaching a Bible class for college students who said, “You claim that God is a father, right?” Wiersbe replied, “Yes, that’s what the Bible teaches.” He gave an angry look and said, “If God is like my father, I’m not interested,” and stormed off. 

This is the sentiment of many who never knew their father or who grew up without their father. Others had fathers who were silent, violent, abusive, negligent, or uncaring. As a result, they conclude if God is a Father, they want nothing to do with him. “Our Father in heaven” teaches us to reject the notion that God is impersonal, insensitive, or indifferent. God is not merely the first Cause, unmoved Mover, or Ground of all being.

God is personal, accessible, and compassionate. God is like a father, only better. He is our heavenly Father. He is a model Father. He is the perfect Father. You do not have to drag God into court to get him to acknowledge or take care of his children. Do not judge God by the failures of human fathers. Hold human fathers up to the standards of God’s paternal care.

• God cares when your body is sick. 
• God cares when your dreams are shattered. 
• God cares when your faith is attacked.
• God cares when your heart is broken. 
• God cares when your pockets are empty. 
• God cares when your relationships are failing. 
• God cares when your strength is low. 

Psalm 103:13 says, “As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.” Matthew 7:11 says, “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” Romans 8:15 says, “For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” 

In The Parable of the Prodigal Son, Jesus pictures God as a lovesick father. If you have gone astray, God loves you and is waiting on you to come home. That does not mean God never punishes sin. But Hebrews 12:6-8 says, “For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son he received.” It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.”

God is able. Prayer is our privilege in Christ. Hebrews 4:16 says, “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” Yet we must approach the throne of grace on God’s terms, not ours. We are not free to address God as we choose. God’s Son instructs us to address God as our Father in heaven. God is not our mother in heaven. This is not a statement against womanhood, motherhood, or femininity. 

Isaiah 49:15-16 says, “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palm of my hands; your walls are continually before me.” God has maternal compassion for his redeemed children. But scripture never instructs us to address God as mother. Jesus teaches us to pray, “Our Father in heaven.”

John 4:24 says, “God is spirit.” Yet God has revealed himself as our Father, not our mother. This attribution is not just about the divine relationship with us. It is about sovereign authority over us. God is our Father in heaven. Millard Erickson wrote, “The question of whereness does not apply to God. He is not a physical being; hence he does not have spatial dimensions of location and extension.” God is omnipresent. God is never late, tardy, or absent. God is fully present everywhere. Yet he is our Father in heaven. The Lord is transcendent. God is infinitely above and beyond us. In 1 Kings 8:27, Solomon says, “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built!”

• God is untouched, but he is not uncaring. 
• God sits high, and he looks low. 
• God is transcendent, yet he is imminent. 

It is one thing to have friends in high places. It is another to have a Father in high places!

A little boy missed his father, who was in the military. He was comforted by a picture of his dad in a frame on his nightstand. When frightened, he would stare at the picture and imagine his daddy was watching over him. It did not work one night. His mother, hearing his weeping, asked what was wrong. Through tears, he answered, “I want Daddy to come out of the frame.” In the Lord Jesus Christ, our Father has come out of the frame and drawn near.