We very often use this prayer in our own prayers, but often its meaning escapes us. We mumble the words without really knowing what we are saying. I should mention to you that the Lord's Prayer, it says here, look at these words, Matthew 6 verse 9. The Lord Jesus says this, "Pray then like this." Notice he did not say necessarily pray these words, but pray like this. In other words, this is a model for prayer. It does not follow we have to repeat it every time. Now there is nothing wrong in repeating it. There is nothing wrong in doing that. But it is not meant for mere repetition.
Unfortunately, many of our Catholic brothers and sisters have gone into serious error at this point. And their prayer is basically limited only to Our Fathers and Hail Marys. Beyond that, they seem to be totally incapable of prayer because they have not been taught how to pray. And you remember that I mentioned the other day that when I was in Germany, not too long ago, I met a Catholic priest with whom I had some fellowship, if you can call it that. And at the end of which, I asked him to conclude in prayer. And he did not know how to pray. Why did not he know how to pray? Because all his life, he simply mentioned, he simply repeated Our Fathers and Hail Marys.
Now those of us, myself included, who spent many years in Catholic schools, will know the tragedy of this. Because we were never taught to pray. We simply don't know how to pray. And when we have to pray, the only thing we know how to do is say, "Our Father, which art in heaven." And that's what I used to do when I was in Catholic school. Every night I knelt down beside my bed, and I said, "Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name." And so forth. And it seemed so short. And when it was finished, I said, hey, that wasn't long enough. So I repeated it once more. And from this comes the whole notion of the rosary. Many of you may have seen the rosary. It's beads on a string, or beads on a wire, at the end of which there's a cross hanging there. And every time you pray a prayer, you push one rosary bead along. And that's what the rosary is for, to help you to count how many Our Fathers you have prayed, so that you don't lose count at the end of the whole thing.
So here we notice then that the Lord's Prayer is not just for mere repetition. The Lord's Prayer is a model for prayer. Matthew 6 verse 9, the Lord Jesus says, "Pray then like this." That is to say, he gives us a pattern for how we should pray. It does not mean that you must pray these exact words, but you should pray according to this pattern. He gives us a model prayer so that we may know the content of our prayers, the order, and how we should pray. But many people simply recite the Lord's Prayer and often do not even understand what the words mean. Today we begin to study the Lord's Prayer step by step to see what it means, which will be of great help to our prayer life. Many Catholic brothers and sisters, when they pray, often just recite the Lord's Prayer and the Hail Mary. They do not know how to pray or how to offer their praise to the Lord. They simply recite the Lord's Prayer once and feel it is too short, so they recite it several more times, sometimes thirty or forty times, thinking the more the better. Yet they do not realize that the Lord Jesus said that when you pray, do not think that many words or a large quantity of words is what makes prayer good. The content is the most important part of prayer.
Now let us look then again at this prayer, and I think the words of it in Matthew are extremely familiar to us: "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 also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, deliver us from evil." That is where the prayer starts in the original. The latter part of that prayer was later on added on because it was felt that the prayer as it stands was incomplete. And that shows us again that the prayer was not meant to be repeated but that it was a model for prayer, and its importance and its preciousness we are going to see in the weeks to come.
The Lord's Prayer is very familiar to everyone. "Our Father who art in heaven" — this is where we begin our study today.
Now first, when we come to God in prayer, there are two things of exceeding great importance for us. First of all, when we pray, it is clear that the presence of God is essential to prayer. That is to say, we must be conscious of God's presence. There is no point trying to talk to somebody who is very obviously not in the room. I was talking to a sister the other day about taping things when nobody is in the room. I find this exceedingly difficult. I am not very used to talking to a tape recorder and trying to imagine that this tape recorder is my friend or some brother or sister in Christ. No matter how I stare at this tape recorder, it doesn't look like my brother and sister in Christ, and so I find myself utterly ridiculous trying to talk to this machine and still in my mind trying to imagine that eventually this brother and sister will be receiving this message.
Now maybe some people are much better at imagining than I am. Maybe my imagination is not terribly good, but I find it extremely difficult to talk into a tape recorder. I've from time to time sent a message off on tape because it's often a lot quicker than writing a letter, I find, and you can say a lot more. And maybe you have got used to these tape letters, but I find that when I'm talking to this tape, my voice becomes monotonous and sounds rather like a meditation because eventually it seems to me that I am really just talking to myself. Why is this? The problem is because you are not conscious of that person's presence in the room. And of course he is not present — that's the truth of the matter.
And that is the problem for many people when they pray. The problem of prayer then is the problem of God's presence, because we very often are simply not aware of God's presence. And so we find either that we have no desire to pray, because who has the desire to talk to the wall? Now who has the desire to talk to your bed if you kneel down by your bed, or talk to your chair if you kneel by a chair? That's not a very interesting experience. Now prayer, if it's to have anything meaningful at all, cannot be simply a mental exercise or a spiritual exercise. It is talking to God, or better, talking with God, so that it doesn't end up as a monologue by which we are doing all the talking to God, and we never listen or give him a chance to say anything to us.
Now this lack of the understanding of God's presence is the very thing that the Lord Jesus is dealing with right here. And you'll see the beauty of the arrangement of the Sermon on the Mount. Everything is arranged in the divine wisdom of God in perfect proportion and beauty. The reason why we are not aware of God's presence is due to our own lack of spiritual insight and understanding. There is a certain spiritual blindness that afflicts Christians.
Now wonderfully, our brother Wilson just now read to us — we read together rather — and he announced Psalm 139, in which I hope you will notice the fact that God is to be found everywhere in that Psalm. I think this is really wonderful, the arrangement, because no Psalm could have been more appropriate. And I guarantee you that I didn't ask him to read that Psalm. He chose it entirely himself, without knowing, perhaps, that I would be touching or making any use of that Psalm, because of course in that Psalm there is no reference to God as Father. So we find that here in the Psalm, the Psalmist is saying that there is nowhere that God's presence cannot be found. God is absolutely everywhere.
He is up in the heavens, but if you go down to Hades, the realm of the dead, you don't escape him there either. Many people think that they can escape by committing suicide. Suicide solves no problems at all. You have not escaped from God's presence by suicide or by any other means. There is no way by which anyone can escape the presence of God. God is to be found everywhere. Now that seems to be something we are familiar with. But you know, there are many truths we are familiar with without having deeply appreciated the meaning of that truth. We say, oh yes, God is everywhere. But think for a moment what that means, that God is everywhere. That at all times, he knows exactly what there is to know about you. That there is no way you can escape from his presence. It's not a question of finding his presence. It's a question of not being able to escape from his presence.
Now think about that next time you pray. You know, Adam and Eve, when they sinned, they hid themselves in the bushes. That's not very clever, is it? Can you imagine trying to hide from God in the bushes? There is no way you can hide from God, not even if you dug a great hole and found your way down to the center of the earth. There is no way to hide from God, to find a cave in a remote desert. Everywhere God is. And it is we who hide ourselves from God. That is, we shut out his presence, at least we try to. But it's all in vain. Remember then the first point is that God's presence cannot be escaped. You don't have to look for it. He cannot be escaped. That is the scriptural teaching.
So when we come to this question, God's presence is not something we need to look for. This Psalm tells us that God is omnipresent — we simply cannot escape his presence. When we understand this, but often we do not understand God's presence because of our sin, just as Adam and Eve sinned and then hid among the trees, thinking that when God came he would not see them. This shows how spiritually blind people become after sin. They think they can hide from God's presence. But wherever you go — to the mountains, to the sea, into the forest, anywhere — God is there. You simply cannot escape God's presence. So the question of whether God is present when we pray is not even a question. In biblical terms, it is not a question at all. It only reveals our own foolishness and the darkness of our spiritual eyesight.
The second point is this: when we become Christians, should not God's presence be even more real to us? And indeed it should be, because God dwells within us. Now think about that. How easy to commune with God when you realize this truth. When you deeply ponder upon the reality that God dwells inside this humble body of ours. We have this treasure, Paul says, in earthen vessels. God dwells inside of me. That is something wonderful. And I must say that that is a thought and a reality that has been for me a tower of strength to go out day by day, to realize God lives in me. In this earthen vessel. In this house of clay. God dwells in me.
Ponder that sometimes. Don't take great spiritual truths and just say yes, yes. But ponder it. This is where there are deep Christians and shallow Christians. The shallow Christians are the ones who say yes to everything. The deep Christians ponder it deeper and deeper, considering what this means, working out its implications. That God dwells in me.
So the second point is that God dwells in us. If we are Christians, then God lives in our lives. Our body becomes his body, his temple. Every Christian says, yes, I already know that. Many Christians are aware of many things, but what is the meaning of what they know? They don't understand. You know the Lord's temple is within you — but what does that mean? That is another question entirely.
This second point then is described — we might say — the scriptural teaching of God's presence in us. But the third point deals with the special presence of God that we find in the scripture, which for example, in a meeting like this, there is God's special presence. Did you know that? The Lord Jesus said, "Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am in the midst." Now, he dwells in all of us. That is true. But he dwells in us particularly, in the midst of his congregation. That is the special presence of God.
God is everywhere, yes, but he is specially present in us, and he is then also specially present in his church. Just as we saw in Israel, God is everywhere, also in Israel. But he has his special presence in the temple. That is where the Israelites went to seek God's face. There is no point saying, well, God is everywhere, so why should I bother to go to the temple? The point of bothering to go to the temple is because God's special presence is in the temple. You may say, God is everywhere, so why should I go to church to pray? God's presence is everywhere, so he is also in my home. Yes, he is. But his special presence is to be found in the church. And you miss the blessing of that presence unless you meet together, even if it's only two or three.
If two or three gather in my name — not just gather, but gather in my name, gather for his sake, under his authority — his presence is there, in a very special way. That is why oftentimes, you will find that it's so good to have a prayer partner. Praying by yourself is good. But having a prayer partner makes the prayer so much more effective, because of God's special blessing, special presence. Where two or three of you agree on any one thing, the Lord Jesus says, it shall be done for you. And we shall in due time see the richness of the meaning of that saying too.
But we see then that there is a special presence. You will find that where God's people gather together, it's so much easier to pray sometimes when two or three are present. Not just in any sense that you're conscious of their presence, but you find that the prayer there has a power that raises you somehow closer to God. Have you found that? When you pray with those who really love the Lord, there is a special presence. And is it not surprising that many times, it is in a gathering of the Lord's people, that there is an unusual outpouring of the Spirit. Such as I shared with you, the experience that we had, a unique experience for me at any rate, where at that Easter conference, the Holy Spirit just poured down upon us, and came down upon us with astonishing power. And this kind of experience is something that is found again and again where God's people meet together, seeking his presence, seeking his face.
This is not just about visiting one another socially. This means that God's special grace and special presence can be experienced when we gather with joyful hearts and reverence for God, gathering in his name. That is why, when we look at church history, we see times when the Holy Spirit was poured out richly upon us, and these experiences can be found in such gatherings. So we cannot say, well, God is everywhere, so we don't need to gather together. If we think that way, we do not understand the biblical teaching about God's special presence.
Also we see that in prayer we must know that God's presence is with us. And when we realize these three things, we know that God's presence is with us even when we are alone — on those first two points, that God is everywhere and that God dwells in us, that is sufficient. When you pray, you know that God is there and you can talk with him. And above all, if you find difficulty in prayer, then look for some brother and sister who really loves the Lord and say, can I pray with you? Can we have a time of fellowship and prayer together? And you will find that that is a time of tremendous blessing and help.
But there is still a second problem in prayer, and this is our conception of God. You see, it is the question of understanding not only that God is there, but how does God relate to me. You see, it is very hard even when a stranger is there to talk to a stranger. It is very hard to open your heart to a stranger. Is the stranger there? He is there, but he is a stranger. There are lots of things you would not say to a stranger. You would say to your brother and sister, but you do not say those things to a stranger. With a stranger you have to behave in a very special manner. You put on your best behavior, you put on your nicest smile, and so you talk to a stranger in a very certain way. But when you get home, you relax, and then you forget about all the outward behavior, you forget about the way to put on the nice smile, because after all that is your brother and sister. You live with them, you see them every day, you can be yourself.
Now this is a very interesting thing to observe when many Christians they come to God, they are no longer themselves. They put on the best behavior, and so they put on the nice smile that is reserved for God, the tone of voice that is reserved for God, like those Anglican bishops, "Oh Lord, I believe," and this goes up from there somehow. God's ear is used to a higher pitch of voice, and so you have to present this higher pitch of voice for God to hear. That just shows to you just how utterly ridiculous this situation is when we lack a true concept of God. And it really makes you very tired to listen to this, this one or two notes higher when they speak, and this special kind of behavior and movements and so forth.
When we pray to God, who are we talking to? Now if you are treating God as some kind of an archbishop or pope or whatever it is, then presumably you have to behave in this sort of way. Or if you think of him as some kind of a dictator or tyrant or king or whatever he is, or president — well then you have to behave in this sort of way. And so we come to the heart of the message that the Lord Jesus gives us here in the Lord's Prayer. What he is teaching us here in these words "Our Father" is a totally new concept of God. He is saying this: when you become a disciple, when you become a child of God, you have a totally new concept of God. We saw that the whole Sermon on the Mount deals with a new person, and here he is saying, when you become a disciple, your whole concept of God becomes new. We saw that becoming a new creature is to have a new way of thinking, and here he is telling us what is our new way of thinking about God.
The old ways of thinking about God must go. If you thought about God as some kind of a fierce school teacher, a nasty grandfather, whatever it is you thought of him — I am terrified. As I shared with you, sometimes in Catholic school we used to be issued with pictures, and God is pictured up there in the clouds as an old man with a very, very long beard that disappeared right down below the clouds. And you kept wondering how much further does it go down. Now if you picture God like this, and after all we children in Catholic school were issued with pictures of God like this, clearly you think of God in the sky with a long white beard. And you say, now is he kind, is he severe, is he patient? And generally the feeling we got was that he was rather severe, and you couldn't come too close to him. You had to go around the corners, you have to get to Mary because Mary is so kind and gentle. If you look at her statue, you see that she's very kind and gentle. Her hands are always like this. Her face is that of a young girl of around 25 or maybe 24. I don't know how old that picture looks, but no statue of Mary ever shows her above the age of 30 that I have seen anyway. So she is young and tender-hearted and patient and kind.
So this fierce-looking character — think of me at the age of 6 or 7 looking at this fierce person with outstretched hands with a long beard, terrifying picture — so you go to Mary and say, "Would you like to talk to Grandpa?" After all, that's what he looks like to me. Maybe he looked even more than Grandpa. My Grandpa didn't even have a beard like that. Much more impressive than Grandpa. But Jesus is saying, when you become a Christian, when you become a disciple, your whole concept of God must radically change. It must change utterly. This kind of notion of God in which you dare not approach him, you have to look for Mary to come around the back and whisper some words in his ears — well, why else would you pray to Mary? You see, this is the teaching. The only reason you pray to Mary is because you dare not approach God. God is too fearful to approach. And if Mary is unapproachable, she may be too busy, so you get hold of the saints. I mean, it's better to have the saints than nothing after all. So they might have more time for you because so many people are praying to Mary, so you got to get around to the saints. What kind of a notion is this? What kind of — have these dear people never seen the teaching of Jesus? What kind of travesty of the teaching of the word of God is this?
Now we don't want to be severe with them, because the Bible, we must remember, was a closed book for the Catholics, the Catholic brothers and sisters, for a very long time. And they are trying very hard to catch up now. So we must not be severe with them. But we must remember too that this concept of God is not only peculiar to the Catholics. I'm sure that if you examine many Protestants, you will find that that is also the way they think of God, even if they wouldn't have put it exactly in those words.
So we see that we need a new concept, a new understanding of God. The second problem in our prayer life is our concept of God. Often our concept of God is unclear. Some people think of God as some great emperor sitting on a throne. We dare not approach him because when we see him we are very afraid. Or he is some kind of tyrant or dictator. This kind of concept of God makes us afraid to draw near, so even when God is present we are already afraid. Or like the Israelites in the time of Moses who said, "God, please don't come too close to us. Keep your distance. If you come too near, I will be afraid." When we have this wrong concept of God, it immediately becomes a great hindrance to our prayer life.
But there is another kind of person who thinks of God as a grandfather. Grandfathers are always very good and very gentle, because parents can be strict with their children, but with their grandchildren they are very patient. I see this with my own mother. When I was small, she was very strict with me. Everything had to be perfectly clean — not a speck of dust was allowed. If I put my hand on the glass table and left a fingerprint, I would get scolded. But now when my children go to her place and leave fingerprints here and there and everywhere, she says, "It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter." I think, when I was small, how different it was! So grandparents have great patience. And so we think of God as this kind of grandparent. Whatever we want — candy, ice cream, anything — we can have. This concept leads us to come before God just asking for blessings: "Bless me, give me this, help me pass my exams, help me buy a car, help me out. My brother is not feeling well, please bless him too." All day long it is just asking for this and that, like a child.
So there are two extremes in our concept of God: one is fearing God, and the other is not reverencing God at all. Both extremes are wrong, and both are unhelpful for prayer. So the Lord Jesus says that after we become Christians, we need a new concept of God, to completely change our concept of God. To become a new person with new thoughts, and to have a new concept of God.
Our thinking must become new. Not on the one hand to regard God as a dictator to be feared, but on the other hand as a grandfather to be taken advantage of. As I was saying, when I was small, when we think of grandfathers and grandmothers as being very patient and loving people, they seem to have no end of patience with their grandsons and granddaughters, whereas they seem to have taken a very different line with us. Just like my mother, you see, she is one who is always spotlessly clean. Oh, the house is spotless. The floor shines, the table shines, everything must be spotless. And if I ever dared to put my handprint on the glass table somewhere, dear me, I had really got — I ran into trouble. But when my daughter goes there and puts her fingerprints everywhere and knocks over this and throws over that, my mother has no end of patience. "It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter." And so we conceive of God, since he has such a long beard, he must be kinder even than a grandfather. After all, he's been around longer than the grandfather. And since grandfathers are so kind and grandmothers are so kind, then God must be like one of these sugar daddies that we can ask for sweets and ask for popcorn and ice cream and whatever it is.
And so we must avoid these two extremes of erroneous thinking about God. Now, Jesus taught of God as Father. Notice, not Grandfather. Father. And I know mentioned just now, fathers can be severe. Let's remember that before we start beginning to get over-familiar. Fathers and mothers can be severe. My father was very severe with me. I got beaten almost every single day. I thank God that he's not quite like that. I got beaten every day because, you see, I was an only son. And my father wanted to make sure that his only son was not going to get spoiled. And he wanted to make it so sure that he went somewhat to the other extreme. I got beaten for every small thing that I did wrong. At least that was until the age of five or six. And I must say that I began to get a very bad impression of fathers, who seemed to me to have the only function in the family was to beat up the sons. But I am grateful that after the war, when my father came back from the war, his whole attitude changed. He went again to the other extreme. He never once beat me again. And he became to me a friend of friends, and extremely kind and loving and patient.
And so human beings are in this way. But again, grandfathers are again different. They were severe with their sons, but very kind with their grandsons. Just as Helen's father used to be such a person who never ever talked with her, never played with her. And Helen was amazed when our daughter came to see her father sitting on the floor, playing with Evelyn. Helen had never seen anything like this. She just blinked her eyes in astonishment. So remember, the Lord Jesus says "Father," not "Grandfather." There's a big difference here.
But first, let us notice that there is no teaching in the Lord's teaching about some kind of vague notion of the universal fatherhood of God. Let's wipe that up straight away. There is no teaching in the scriptures about a universal fatherhood of God, in which God is father to everybody. There is no such teaching at all. And there are some aspects, for example, the Unitarians, which is a sort of offshoot of Christianity, that has this false teaching, this erroneous teaching of God as universal father of everybody. God is no such father to everybody. But Jesus taught plainly that God is not universal father, but that he can become our Father. Now that is exactly what the gospel is about — the good news that you and I, ordinary people that we are, can actually become God's children. Now that is something really wonderful that we need to think about.
In the Lord Jesus' teaching, there is no such thing as the universal fatherhood of God. This teaching can sometimes be heard among some Christians, but it is a wrong teaching. The Lord Jesus never said that God is everyone's Father. That teaching is incorrect. The Lord Jesus' teaching is that we can become God's children. This is the gospel. The gospel is that through God's grace, through the experience of new birth, we can become God's children. This is very precious.
In God's creation, there are many different ranks. They are spiritual beings: there are angels, there are archangels, there are these four mysterious creatures who don't even have a name — there's nothing by which they can be described — that we read about in Revelation and in Ezekiel. These mysterious creatures who seem to be higher even than some of the angels, than even the archangels, because they are nearest to God. But the amazing thing about the Gospel is this, that God lifts us up from the lowest section of creation to the highest, and puts us above the whole hierarchy of God's creation, and makes us to be his children.
Now you have often heard that we are children of God, but did you know what it means? That we are lifted up right next to God. As Paul says, we are seated in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, right at God's right hand. The children are right next to God. That's where he wants them to be, close to himself. Oh, the privilege. The beauty of that. Just try and meditate. Don't take spiritual truth, as I said earlier, in a superficial way, but meditate deeply into it, until your heart overflows with thanksgiving that God lifts us up to such a place. It is truly wonderful that we may be able to be seated in the heavenly places, not because of anything that we are. No Christian ever thinks that he is better than anybody else in the world. Most of us are much worse, much lower than most of the other people in the world. But God has chosen the weak things of this world to confound the strong, the low things, and lifted them up high so that it might be seen that it is of his grace.
I have mentioned before that my father was an official of some rank in China. And as a result, I sat in the high places beside the ministers of government, the generals, beside prime ministers. Who was I? Nobody. Just a boy that nobody would have looked at twice, perhaps, in the streets of Shanghai or Nanking or anywhere else. But because of who my father was, I could enjoy these things. Sit at the right hand of the prime minister. I remember sitting at the right hand of Wang Yunwu, who was at that time vice prime minister. His wife was on my left side and his wife was on my right side, and I was squeezed between the two of them. And between them, they did a good job of destroying me, by which I mean that they kept piling the food into my bowl. One chopstick here and the other chopstick there, and I was struggling to finish what is in my bowl.
As they were talking, Wang Yunwu was taking his — maybe — I don't know if you've heard of Wang Yunwu, he compiled the "Da Si Si Dian," the dictionary, which was a great — which is still the four-cornered system of dictionary. He was a man of very humble origin himself, but through hard work and great intelligence, he reached very high. And even now, I understand he might still be alive and in high position in Taiwan. But in any case, he was there, and as he was talking, he was piling this food into my bowl, not noticing that his wife on the other side was doing the same. And I was fighting a losing battle with this food in the bowl. But there it was that at this table, which there were not very many people, maybe 15 or 16 people at this round table, there was this nobody who was me. What right did I have to be at this table of all these dignitaries? No right whatsoever, except that my father was who he was. And that made all the difference.
# The Lord's Prayer (1): Our Father (cont.) — Matthew 6:9
No right whatsoever, except that my father was who he was. And so in the kingdom of God too, we are nobody. But we are what we are due to the mercy of God our Father. That he raises us up to sit where? In the heavenly places with Abraham and Isaac, with Archangel Michael and Gabriel, with these four mysterious beings, whoever they are, that we read about in the Revelation. These mighty beings of the heavenly places. You just think about it. A little you and a little me, seated with these people, these spiritual beings who would make all these dignitaries of the earth look like so many peanuts. Just think of it sometimes. The privilege that God has given us to be called the sons of God, in comparison to which the glories of this earth are simply utterly insignificant. He has raised us up like this.
Do you know what it means to be called a son when you walk into the kingdom of God? Son of God. Ah, let all those angels and heavenly beings look. "Wow, that's the son of God. That's him." What mercy, as Paul says. He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. God did not withhold anything from us. What kind of gratitude we must have to live a life in this world that pleases him. You know, brothers and sisters, it sometimes sickens me and makes my heart feel weak when somebody says, "Oh, I can't do that for the Lord. I'm too busy." When I think, what did God not do for you? What did God not do for you? Did he withhold any mercy from you, and you are too busy for God? When God is too busy for you, brother and sister, then you really have had it. Then you'll be in trouble. He withheld nothing, and we want to withhold this. We feel we're giving God too much. Maybe our attitude only proves that we are not yet children of God. Or if we are children, we don't know what it means. We don't even know what kind of blessing he has blessed us with.
So we can see that becoming a child of God is the highest privilege. And the Lord Jesus is saying, when you have become my disciple, you become a child. You know what that means? And when you pray, therefore say, "Father, our Father, which art in heaven." Consider then what kind of access we have as a child, as a son. What access, what right did I have to walk past all the guards, all the soldiers, all the people indoors? I walked straight into my father's office. Other people can't come. "No, no, no. Nobody can come." Only by special appointment they can come. But me, the nobody — nobody will challenge, nobody will question. I can walk into the office twenty times a day, any time I like. Why? Because I'm a son. That's why. I'm no dignitary. At that time I had no education. I was only a boy. Never been to university. No qualifications to produce. But I can walk into that office any number of times. And nobody, no matter how many guards there are, no matter how many commanders and officers there are, nobody can stop me.
In the same way, we have access. This is the point. That is why I said the beauty of the arrangement of the Lord's Prayer. When you pray, how do you pray? You pray as a child. You have access. Not all the spirit beings in the world can stop you and say, "You can't go into God's presence." Who said so? I am a son. By the grace of God, I didn't earn it. Whoever earned the being a son? What's there to boast about? But by the mercy of God, I am a son. Nobody can stop me. I am coming into his presence.
What's your problem in prayer? Prayer is the problem. You can come into the innermost presence. As the Hebrews says, we have access into the holiest, the innermost place. We have access to the very presence of God.
In prayer we must understand this: that God is our Father. It is because he is our Father that we can come before him. No one can stop us. No one has the authority to stop us. How is it that when we pray, we do not understand this? Is it that we are unwilling to come? If we are willing to come, we should know that there is no person, no thing, no authority, no power in this world, no force that can block us from coming into God's presence, because we are his children. Just as when I was young, even though I was just a child, a teenager with no university degree, no diploma, no qualifications, nothing at all — but when I wanted to see my father, the guards in front could not stop me, the officers in front could not stop me, the high government officials could not stop me. When I went to his office, I could walk in at any time. Others could not go in. But I could. If someone else wanted to go in, they had to make an appointment first and might have to wait several weeks before they could go in and sit for five minutes. But I could go in whenever I wanted. If I wanted to sit for an hour, I sat for an hour. If five minutes, then five minutes. If I wanted to stand up, I stood up. If I wanted to sit down, I sat down. It was not like that for others. When someone else sat down, they were told to sit, and when they were told to leave, they had to leave. But I could just walk in and sit down. I didn't need to wait for my father to say, "Please sit." I would just sit. If I wanted to pick something up to look at, that was fine. I was a child. I was his child. So the Lord's teaching tells us that when you pray, what should your attitude be? You should know that when you pray, you should not stand far off, unwilling to come. You come to your Father, because you come as a child.
How we see then, the only way we become a child, as we saw earlier, is to be born anew. How do we become a child? By being born. That's how. And we become born means that the Holy Spirit does the work of making us a child. It is not something that we can earn.
And here is another thing we must notice about a child. The scriptural teaching is this: a child must prove worthy in his life and conduct. Our conduct is the evidence of our childhood. How do other people know that we are God's children? In fact, how does anybody know that we are God's children? The Lord Jesus and God himself, in the wisdom of the scriptures, has given us one factor by which we can know that we are his children. We haven't got a birth certificate that we can produce. We haven't got something that we have in fact no other evidence that we are God's children, in the wisdom of God's teaching, except our conduct, that we look like God's children.
You see, when I go to see my father, the people knew that this is the son. But how did they know? There must be some means to know. I can't just say, "Well, I am the son." I can't go to Mr. Trudeau's office and say, "I want to see Mr. Trudeau because I am his son." They say, "What? You don't look like his son." What am I going to do? So there must be some way to establish this. Either that my father confirms that I am his son, but also that there must be a certain evidence. In this life, the only evidence that we have that is given to us is the evidence of our life and conduct, the likeness with God.
We saw this earlier on in our teaching when we saw in the Lord's teaching in Matthew chapter 5, verse 45, it says this, verse 44: "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may become the sons of your Father." Now the Lord Jesus did not mean by that that we can, through doing this, earn our sonship, but only that by this we have the evidence of sonship, which is very different from earning it. We don't earn sonship. We don't earn eternal life. But what we must have is the evidence of that sonship in our life. That is absolutely essential.
And when there is the evidence of that sonship, you will find that there is nowhere you cannot go. Now test it and see. You try committing sin and you try pray, if you don't believe what I have said. And you will find that you can go and claim all day long that you are God's son and see if your prayer gets through. See if God answers your prayer. See if that prayer goes unhindered. It doesn't work.
Now that, you see, is the point which is not true in our analogy. Even if I have offended against my father, other people will still see me as his son. I still have access. But you will find that when you sin, it is not only that your sin comes — you will find that there is somehow an obstacle. Many people who have sinned have said that heaven becomes brass and earth is steel. Strange. What does that mean? Is it God doesn't want to see you? He says, if you repent of your sins, you come to me at any time. He didn't say he doesn't want to see you. But somehow suddenly powers can intervene. Enemy powers could intervene. We have given them something to intervene with. It is the evidence of the sonship we must carry with us if we are going to have access.
This doesn't mean that if you sin you cannot repent. Certainly we can repent of our sins. We can still come back to God. We can still ask the Lord to take away the hindrances. But the hindrances will certainly come. And that hindrance is not merely psychological. You will find that it is a very actual hindrance. I have shared with some of you before how, when a brother had sinned, he found himself unable to pray through, though he dearly wanted to get through. The door was closed. He couldn't get through. There was no way. It wasn't that he didn't desire to pray. It wasn't that he didn't desire to call on God. But the way was closed. Somehow forces outside of his control had shut the door. We have given Satan an opportunity. In other words, it isn't God who shuts the door. It isn't angels who shut the door. But it is Satan who now comes in and shuts the door, and he suddenly found that he's got the authority to do it. Strangely enough, you give him a chance.
And we're going to look into this more fully when we see the prayer, "Lead us not into temptation." You've got to be sure that there is no sin in your life if you want to pray, if you want to come to God as a son. This shows the point that sonship, in the Lord's teaching, is not something that can be abused, and it cannot be taken for granted. That is the other point we must clearly understand. If you abuse it or take it for granted, it is not a question of dogma or argument. It's a matter of experience. You're going to find that you cannot get to God's presence, and then you can only cry out from the distance and ask the Lord to take away your sin.
In the world, because you are a son, you think you can do anything you like and nobody can question you and can deal with you. This, unfortunately, was the kind of experience that we had in China. Being the son of a high official meant that you could do virtually anything you liked, and nobody, but nobody, could challenge you. There were sons of high officials who did anything they liked, and they did every manner of evil, and nobody could do anything about it. They could go into a shop and eat a meal and walk off without paying. Nobody dared to do anything about it because they feared the families of these people.
And those families of these higher grades were often issued with a special badge which very few people had. And you need only put that badge behind your lapel, and you turn that lapel, and absolutely no one dared to stop you anywhere. You could eat, you could go into a restaurant, you could go and sit on an aeroplane, ride on a train, sit in the tram, and you never paid anything because nobody would dare to ask you for a penny. All you do is turn your lapel over and show the badge, of which there were only a very few of those special badges that were issued. So you can see that in the world, you are still a son and you can misuse your privileges as a son. You can commit sin and nobody dares to stop you.
But that is where the analogy ends, because in the kingdom of God, your sonship is immediately tied up with the evidence of your conduct. The moment your conduct does not match up to your sonship, it does not follow you may not be a son, but you lose the privilege of a son. You may still be a son in fact, or only a son in name, either way, but all the privileges of the son are taken away. Until you have repented, you don't strut about as a son. You cannot go about thinking, "Well, I can sin and do what I like." You simply cannot do that.
This point I really want to emphasize because so many Christians don't see the relationship of conduct and prayer. Prayer and conduct are vitally related. I beg of you clearly to understand it, that if you live in sin, there is no way you can pray through, and you can say "Our Father" as long as you like and nothing but absolutely nothing will happen until you have repented of sin. So please notice carefully this vital aspect of the Lord's teaching.
Now when we come to realize these things, we will see that it is only through being born again, as we said earlier, and that's by the Spirit of God, that we can call God "Father." It does not mean that you can call "Father" just because you happen to want to call God "Father," or just because you think, well, Jesus said say "Our Father" so I say "Our Father." Jesus was talking to his disciples. I addressed God as Father simply because I was taught the Lord's Prayer in a Catholic school when I didn't really have the right to say "Our Father" at all. I wasn't his son.
We can only rightly call God "Our Father" when the Spirit of God comes into our lives. That means we become God's children only when we open our lives completely and totally to the Holy Spirit. Have you opened your life totally to the Holy Spirit? And I mean totally. God does nothing by part. He either has the whole of your life, or he doesn't have your life at all. And this is a truth that I have been trying to make clear to people wherever I have been going. God does nothing by part. He does not accept a partial offering. There is no partial offering that he ever accepts. If you want to become a child of God and experience the benefits and privileges and responsibilities of a child, you've got to open your life totally to God.
The reason why many Christians find it difficult to say "Our Father" in prayer and really understand that it comes right up from the heart is because they have never totally opened their life to God. They are simply Christians who are 50%, 80%, and they never know the joy of sonship. If you want to know the joy of sonship, make sure that you ask yourself right now, am I totally open? Lord, am I honestly totally open? Otherwise you can say "Our Father" — there's nobody to stop you. Everybody can say to Mr. Trudeau, "Hi, Father." Nobody has stopped him and said you can't do that. The only trouble is he'll look at you and say, "I've never seen you before. Who are you?" So the point here is this: you've got to open yourself totally.
And that's what Paul says in Romans chapter 8, verse 15: it is the Spirit crying out from our hearts, "Abba, Father." There is a difference between saying "Father" with your mouth and saying it with your heart. That is the point. And the Lord Jesus is saying in the Lord's Prayer, when you pray, say "Our Father." He didn't mean to say, just say with your mouth. The question is, can you say it with your heart? Think of it right now. Can you say, as you sit there listening to the Lord's word, can you say from the depth of your heart, "Father"? And mean it right straight from the depth of your heart? If you can say it from your heart, it's because the Holy Spirit is working in your heart, enabling you to say so.
Paul says this on two occasions, to make sure that we haven't missed the point, that is in Romans chapter 8, verse 15, which we'll see when we come to Romans 8, and Galatians chapter 4, verse 6. The Holy Spirit witnesses with our spirit that we are the children of God. That is where true assurance comes from. True assurance, biblical assurance, as we will see when we get to Romans 8, is the assurance of God's witnessing in us. The Holy Spirit is witnessing with us, saying, "Yes, you are a child of God." I have the certainty that I'm a child of God. I'm not guessing. I have the certainty that I'm a child of God because I have the inner witness of the Holy Spirit. It is not based on alleged external promises, because the question is whether you are entitled to claim those promises. How do you know whether you are entitled to claim those promises? You only know it when the Spirit witnesses with your spirit that you are a child of God and you may claim those promises.
So I remember some years ago, when I was in Hong Kong, there was Andrew G. preaching at a meeting, in which he illustrated this very truth in his words, when he said that somebody came to him saying that she was not sure that she was a child of God, though she had committed her life a few days earlier to the Lord. So Andrew G. said, "Well, what did you pray when you came to the Lord?" She said, "Well, I prayed like this: I said, Father..." He said, "Stop. That's enough. I don't want to hear the rest of the prayer." She said, "Why did you ask me what I prayed?" He said, "I just wanted to hear the first word. When you said 'Father,' did you say it from your heart?" She said, "Yes, I said it from my heart." He said, "Praise the Lord, you are a child of God." Why did he say this? He had grasped this truth that we have seen right here in Romans 8, Galatians 4:6, that it is the Spirit of God who enables you to say from your heart, "Father." That means you have really become a child of God. You have opened your life totally to him. That is the secret of prayer.
Now, the uniqueness of the Lord's teaching — and this we must really come to notice. Jesus is the only person who ever taught anyone to pray to God as Father. Did you know that? There is nowhere in no religion in the world, not even in the Old Testament, do you ever find God addressed in prayer as Father. Nowhere. Nobody has ever called God "Father." Did you know that? It's so easy, being brought up as some of us were in Christian schools and Catholic schools, to have missed the realization of this. The uniqueness of this teaching — the Lord's teaching was absolutely unique. The Jews had never heard such a thing in their life, that anybody can address God as Father. We have many prayers of the Jews today, in which he is addressed as the great king, and all title after title is piled up. But nowhere in the prayers of the Jews or in the Old Testament is God addressed as Father. Nobody ever knew of such an expression for God. Nobody had ever had the privilege of calling God "Father."
Now think about that. That is why when we become new persons, our whole concept of God is renewed in this unique way, that we are the only people on earth through all generations of human history who call God "Father" and have the right to do so, because we, in God's mercy, have become his children. It is only in Christ that we have this privilege to call God our Father. And what is more, to address him as "Abba, Father."
Now Abba is very interesting, this word "Abba." Abba is the Aramaic form of Father. And we find this word used in the Bible exactly in the places I have just quoted, in Romans 8 and Galatians 4:6. Paul says that by the Holy Spirit we say, "Abba, Father." What does that mean? Oh, the richness of this is really wonderful. It means first of all that by the grace of God we have come into a relationship with God that is on the level of — think about it — the Lord Jesus himself. Is that something enough to make one be stunned? On the level of the only Son himself. The Lord Jesus himself is the only one who addresses God as "Abba, Father." We see that in Mark chapter 14. In that prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane he says, "Abba, Father, if it is your will, if it is possible, take this cup away from me." Abba.
This word "Abba" is the kind of word that the Aramaic people used in relation to their own father. It was a familiar form of address, rather like you might say — the Germans would say "Papa," or the English would say "Daddy," or in Chinese we would say "Baba," which is very close to Abba. And the Shanghai dialect is even better. Maybe the Shanghai dialect belongs in the kingdom of God. Only Don, I think, speaks Shanghai dialect here. And in Shanghai dialect we say exactly "Abba." Abba. When we address our father in the familiar term, exactly the same as the Aramaic. Think of that. So every Shanghai person knows the word "Abba" very well. "Abba, Father." Even with the right intonation, exactly in the Aramaic: "Abba," with the emphasis on the second syllable. Perfect.
And think about it. Then God is not saying that we address our father simply as "Father" in a very official term, but we address him as "Daddy." Wow, the Jews are really perspiring by now. You address the great king as "Daddy"? Wow, how can you do a thing like this? But why not? We are his children. What else would you address him as? How would you address your father? I don't know how you address your father. I address my father as "Dad." I don't come to him and say, "Father sir, here I am." Now in old Chinese custom, some people did that. "Fu Jing!" — a literal translation, a term of respect. But that is to put a lot of distance. That was because in the old Chinese families there was often a lot of distance between father and son. The relationship was very formal and very cold. But that was not so with the Aramaic people, and certainly not so with the Jews, who have a very close relationship between father and son. Anyone who has been in a Jewish family will know that. The relationship of fathers and sons and of the whole family is very, very close. And so the father was addressed as "Abba," father.
And so we find that the Lord Jesus is saying, now you are children, you come into God's presence and you say, "Daddy, Father, I'm here." And you talk with him. Oh, what a privilege. And that was not used just with children. I mean, when we grow up, we still say that, don't we? I mean, when I was small I said that. When I am big I still say that. I didn't change to some other term. So the word "Dad" in no way connotes any kind of disrespect. I'd like you to notice this. It is expressing a certain intimacy — intimacy of father and child, love, of a certain affection, as well as respect. I respected my father every bit as much when I addressed him as "Dad." I didn't take any liberties with him. I always respected my father, and I'm sure you do too. So it doesn't matter that if you address him as "Dad," it doesn't mean that you don't respect him.
The reason why I'm emphasizing this point is I want to deal with a subsidiary question here. You know, in English, there is a custom to address God as "thou," from King James English, "thou." And many years ago, I found this odd, addressing God as "thou, thou." And I always address God as "you." That's the way I talk to my father, I talk to my mother, I talk to everybody as "you." I never address anybody as "thou." And somebody said to me, "You know, that's not respectful. You should address God as 'thou.'" I said, since when was the word "thou" a term of respect? This is simply a question of custom, and has absolutely nothing to do with respect. Can you imagine any English person coming to the Queen and saying, "How are thou today?" The Queen will say, "What are you talking about?" He'll say, "Well, I'm sorry, the word 'thou' is a term of respect." Well, the word "thou" was never a term of respect in English at no time in the history of the English language. So let nobody pull that one on me. It is simply a piece of archaic English, that's all.
Now, if anybody wants to say "thou," you carry on, don't let me stand in your way. If that's your habit of saying so, I'm not condemning the habit. What I'm saying is, let it never be argued that the word "thou" has anything to do with respect. It is nothing but pure tradition. And we must understand that it can make also speaking to God somewhat unnatural, but if it doesn't hinder you, fair enough. But don't say to other people, don't stop other people like these people trying to stop me from saying "you." And I said "you" years and years ago, and strangely enough today, even the Church of England says "you" in England. They have also put away the "thou," and they are now also addressing God as "you." Why? Because no child addresses their father in this strange fashion using unfamiliar words. You speak as you would speak to someone who is dear to you. This is the reason why people have begun to realize this and are changing this.
Take for example the fact that Luther, in translating the German Bible, did not use the polite form in addressing God, but used the familiar form. Now was Luther wrong? Certainly not. Because why did he use the familiar form? Because nobody addresses their father with a polite form in German. So in German, you know that there is the word "Sie" and there is the word "du." "Sie" is the polite form, "du" is the familiar form. But no child addresses their father as "Sie." You don't address your friend as "Sie." You address no one in the family as "Sie." You always say "du," the familiar form. And so if the logic about "thou" as a respectable form was right, then Luther was wrong, which he certainly was not.
And then you find also in French, when the Christians pray, do they address God as "vous" or as "tu"? I am sure that they don't address God as "vous" in the polite form, but as every child would address their father, as "tu." And by addressing their father with the familiar form, they are of course not disrespecting their father, but showing that this is my father, not a stranger, or somebody that I have to put on airs with or be polite with.
And so in the same way in Chinese, when we address God, we don't say "nin," in the polite form, we say "ni." I don't know if in Cantonese there is such a thing as "ning," but in Mandarin — is there "ning" in Cantonese? No? Oh, the Cantonese have no problem. But in Mandarin, we have the "ning" form, the polite form, and only people from very old families might have addressed their fathers as "ning." I don't know, that must be well beyond my generation. But we always address God as "ni," and that's to express an attitude of respect.
In some of the older Chinese families, people might address their father as "Father, sir," at least in writing, though probably not in speech. We would not use a formal term of address for our father, nor would we use the polite form "ning" when speaking to him, but rather "ni," because this is the relationship between father and child. Unless the relationship between father and child is very distant. As children, we should have respect for our father, but we should also have love. These two components — love and respect — must both be present. We cannot neglect either. Many people respect God without loving him, or love him without respecting him. Both are wrong. We must have both. And to call him "Abba, Father" is a very special teaching. The Lord Jesus' teaching is not found in any religion in the world. And even in the Old Testament or among the Jews, no Jew ever called God "Father," much less "Abba, Father." They never even called him "Father." So we can see how extraordinarily special the Lord Jesus' teaching is. We who have been Christians for a long time have become accustomed to hearing God addressed as "Father." But we must remember that this way of addressing God is very, very special. In all the history of the world, it has never existed before. The Lord Jesus gives us this teaching: when we are born again and truly become God's children, the Holy Spirit in our hearts helps us to utter this form of address, so that we may truly draw near to God, love him, and respect him.
Now we can see that all this is essential to prayer, and at this point we need to come to the close. And the point here is this: why it is essential to prayer is this — we said right at the beginning, in relation to the second point, that talking to a person, we must know who that person is in relation to us. To talk to a stranger makes us feel very closed, very inhibited. But when we speak to a person that we know, we feel very open. Now in praying to God, we don't know, of course, what he looks like. Maybe some of you, when you prayed, you have tried to imagine what does God look like. Maybe you try to see him as a great spot of light there shining in the distance, or you try to imagine him. And the trouble with our minds is we have to try to picture the person that we see.
It's like talking on the telephone. Have you ever picked up the telephone and you try to imagine what the voice looks like at the other end? You hear the voice and you are trying to picture: is this person fat or thin, or round, big or short, or blonde? And we have seen before that this kind of exercise in imagination is generally exceedingly futile. You hear a rich resonant voice and you picture a big man, tall, dark-haired, big forty-inch chest, talking down the telephone, and what is your surprise when you see him to be a small man with a very small chest but happens to have a very deep voice. So that you find that what you imagine generally tends to be wrong. Or you listen to a voice on the radio and you listen and you're trying to imagine what this person looks like, and you can be sure that every time you're wrong, because we try to imagine.
Now the point is, in prayer we try to imagine God, have we not? We have tried to see him. We say, "I can't talk to somebody I can't imagine." So we are trying to imagine him. But we seem to get on very well in everyday life. Those of you who work in an office, you pick up telephone calls and you speak to people you've never seen in your life, but you carry on very well. You get your business done without having to imagine what that person's face looks like. The point is, what the person looks like is the least important point of all as far as spiritual matters are concerned. But we have all been bothered by this question, have we not? We have been sitting there or kneeling there and wondering, what does God look like? If I could only imagine him, I could pray a lot better. If you want to think of the Lord Jesus, that's quite easy, I should think. He had a human body when he came into the world. He looks like a person. But I'm not sure whether it helps a lot to know if he was blonde or black-haired or blue eyes or dark eyes or whatever he was. But you see, our minds are engaged with the superficial things, and it becomes a great hindrance in prayer.
The Lord Jesus said, say "Our Father." That establishes not what he looks like — it doesn't matter anymore what he looks like — but who he is. That's what matters. And who he is in relation to me. That's what matters.
There was a sister that I knew, for example, in Liverpool, who had not seen her brother for seventeen years. He was a small tot when she left home, and seventeen years later, she didn't even know what he looked like. How tall was he, and what does his face look like? She didn't know. Never seen him in person at all. And yet one day the brother phoned — a long distance call — and she picked up the phone. As she was talking to her brother — well, what does it matter? She didn't know what her brother looks like, but what does it matter? She knows that that's her brother, and that's what matters. She knows who he is in relation to her.
Now we don't know — and there's no use pretending we know — what God looks like. One day we are going to see him, as we saw in the Sermon on the Mount: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." We are going to see God. But in the meantime, we live by faith, which means that we do not see him with our eyes, but we live on the security of the relationship that we have with him. We are his children. Just like this sister — that person was her brother, no more, no less. He was not less her brother because she didn't know what he looked like.
I didn't see my father for years during the war. In the Japanese war, my father left Shanghai, slipped through the enemy lines, and went to fight in Chungking, the wartime capital. And I didn't see my father for over five years. I didn't know what my father looked like. You know, it's very different when you see a person in a picture than when you see him in real life. Very, very different. Have you noticed that? Now I had pictures of my father from five years ago. The funny thing is, when he stood in front of me, I wasn't sure that he was my father. Now if I held up a picture beside him, I might have seen the resemblance, and yet when I saw him, it was a totally different impression, you see. But was he any less my father because I couldn't remember what he looked like? Because I didn't know what he looked like? He was still my father, and everything was exactly the same.
And so in the same way, we don't right now know what our Father looks like in terms of physical appearance. But we know who he is. He is our Father. And in prayer, we must grasp firmly this point, otherwise your prayer is going to go on the rocks with so many problems.
So today we have summed up, in the Lord's teaching, the important facts concerning prayer, that if we grasp hold of these facts, our prayer life is going to enter into a new phase, because our whole concept of God is changed. We love him and we respect him. We can draw near to him as we draw near to a dear father. We can talk to him because we know he is present.