For our scripture reading this afternoon, let us turn to the epistle to the Romans chapter eight. Romans chapter eight. And there we will read the first 18 verses. We read together in the word of God, Romans chapter eight, the verses one through 18. There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh, but they that are after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because a carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. If so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now, if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you. Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die. But if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but ye have received the spirit of adoption whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. And if children, then heirs, heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ, if so be that we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified together. for I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. Dear congregation, we have learned of how prayer is a chief part of thankfulness, so important that we may pray, that we must pray, that it's a means of grace through which God gives his grace. And it's a blessed way of having fellowship with God himself, which is at the heart of spiritual life. Prayer is what God teaches whenever he gives grace, teaches to pray. It's also why instruction concerning prayer is so important. Instruction from the one who knows how to teach. And that is the Lord Jesus himself. The disciples, they sensed that, didn't they? As they heard the Lord Jesus pray, it made them ask, Lord, teach us to pray. And then in response, the Lord Jesus gave the Lord's Prayer. But notice that the disciples did not say, Lord, teach us a prayer. Teach us the words of a prayer to say. But they said, Lord, teach us to pray. And that helps us understand what the Lord's Prayer is. It is a guide as to how to pray. It is certainly good to also pray the very words of the Lord's Prayer, but it's more than that. It's not just about saying a prayer, but receiving this as instruction in a guide for all our prayers. When we turn to this prayer, then the first thing that the catechism does is not go right into the first petition, hallowed be thy name. But it has a whole Lord's day on the address of this prayer, our Father which art in heaven. Because in those words, our Father which art in heaven, there is such a wealth of instruction. Let us listen then prayerfully to this as our theme. Praying to our Heavenly Father. Praying to our Heavenly Father. Three points. First, as a child. Second, with confidence. And third, with reverence. Praying to our Heavenly Father as a child, with confidence, with reverence. The most basic lesson here in this address is simply this, that there is an address to this prayer. That prayer is addressed to someone specific. So it's important that we have an address. Right children, maybe sometimes you send something in the mail. And when you want to send something in the mail, maybe to your grandparents or someone else, then you don't just get an envelope and put that envelope in the mail. No, you need to write down an address, a name, and where that person is so they know where to bring that letter or that coloring page, whatever it may be. And if you write a letter, what do you do? What are the first things you do? and then the name, so that they know this is for me, addressed to me. And so also prayer is not just saying some words with your eyes closed. Prayer is addressed to someone. It's speaking to someone. That's why the psalmist in Psalm 5 says, in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee. Just think of that. I believe that word for direct is a word that's used also for an archer who takes that arrow and his bow and he directs that arrow to a target. He doesn't just kind of let it fly, no, he directs it to a target. And so the psalmist says, I will direct my prayer to thee. That means it's focused on the one he's addressing. That's so important to realize, isn't it, when we pray, that it is to be words directed to God. That's why it's so good to read the Word of God before we pray that we would be reminded and that we would see something of who we are praying to. It's also why it is good that when we pray we don't just laughing and talking about everything and nothing and all of a sudden let's pray and let there be a pause. Let there be that moment to realize we are about to speak to God. Prayer is to be directed to an address. And in terms of who that one is, then we find in Scripture many ways of addressing Him, don't we? Maybe the most common in the Book of Prayers, or the Book of Psalms, which is a Book of Prayers, is, O Lord, O God, O God of salvation, Oh my strength, my rock, oh Lord God of hosts. There's many ways the Lord is addressed. You think of in the New Testament in Acts 4, the early church addresses him as Lord thou art God, which has made heaven and earth and the sea and all that in them is. Or you think of in the book of Revelation we have A window into heaven and we hear how God is addressed there in heaven by the redeemed. For example, O Lord God Almighty, which art and wast and are to come. O Lord, holy and true. There are many different ways that God is addressed in prayer in the Word of God. But when the disciples approach the Lord Jesus and say, Lord, teach us to pray, then this is the address that he gives them. When ye pray, say, our Father which art in heaven. He desires his disciples to address God especially as Father and approach him as Father. Throughout his ministry, the Lord Jesus had taught the disciples about the Father and showed them the Father. Think of Matthew 6, where it speaks so often about your Father, which is in heaven. And it says that when you pray, enter into your closet, and when you have shut the door, then pray to thy Father, which is in heaven. In the epistles, we often find this Trinitarian pattern, that God is addressed, the Father is addressed, in prayer, who is approached through the Son as the mediator, as the one who's opened up the way of access to the Father, and by the Holy Spirit, who enables to pray unto the Father. There's that Trinitarian language. For example, in Ephesians 2, for through Christ, we both have access by one spirit unto the Father. And that already is so great. When you think of who God the Father is, as the one who has a heart full of love. as the one who has a mind full of wisdom, as the one who has an arm full of strength, as the one who has a mouth to speak. But this prayer is even richer, and that he's not only called the Father of Jesus Christ, but our Father. Our is a language of possession, isn't it? father. It's a language of tenderness there is this close relationship between that great God and myself. He's not simply a master but he is a father, our father. Who would dare say such words when you think of who that glorious God is We can understand why the early church would often add these words, grant that we may dare to pray thus, our Father which art in heaven. They had that sense of God is so great and that we may pray our Father which art in heaven. And yet this is what the Lord Jesus teaches, doesn't it? Doesn't he? The father desires to be addressed as a father. By who? On what basis? So one could say on the basis of the fact that we are all his creatures. And Paul quotes that heathen poet of we being his offspring. And Paul says that's true. We are the offspring of God. In that sense, he is our father as creator. And that is very true. And yet this expression is richer than that. Some may say it's richer because this is a covenant term. He is the father of all the covenant children. He calls them my children. And if he calls them my children, then they may say our father. And again, there is a sense of that. But in our passage, when he teaches his disciples to pray our Father, it is richer yet. Because it is about adopting grace, of being adopted into the family of God, to have God as your Father through that saving grace of adoption. That's what we find in Romans 8. There in Romans 8, which we read, we have that contrast, don't we, of those who live in the flesh and those who live in the Spirit, those who mind the things of the flesh and those who mind the things of the Spirit, and those who walk according to the flesh and those who walk according to the Holy Spirit. We find this great contrast and division at the beginning of Romans 8. those who have the Spirit of Christ and those who do not have the Spirit of Christ. And then after all those contrasts that there are, then it concludes in verse 14, as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. Those who have the Holy Spirit are adopted children of God. Why? In verse 15 it continues, doesn't it? For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but have received the spirit of adoption whereby we cry, Abba, Father. He speaks of how in the time past they had this spirit of bondage. By nature we slumber in the slumber of death, dreaming we are free. But when the Holy Spirit awakens us, then we sense the bondage that we are in, the bondage to sin and the bondage to Satan and the bondage to our own corruption, and that we are in that prison delivered up under the sentence of death, in bondage in that prison house of condemnation, in bondage under the wrath of God. Does that not lead to a fear? Does it not lead to a trembling, a terror, an anguish of heart to realize the misery that you are in? Isn't this what Robert Murray McChain sang when he sang or wrote in a poem, when free grace awoke me by light from on high, then legal fear shook me, I trembled to die. No refuge, no safety in self could I see. Or John Newton when he said, "'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear.'" That bondage that makes you realize, I am in bondage and I cannot deliver myself. That's something our flesh resists. It's something we don't want to learn. It's something we don't want to acknowledge. And yet the Holy Spirit is the one who convinces of that reality of that bondage that we're in by nature. but his purpose is to drive out to Christ alone where there is true freedom. The freedom of verse two, the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. It's a spirit who comes and who delivers from that bondage and brings into that freedom by bringing to Christ so that you learn Romans 1 8 verse 1, there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. Freedom from the curse of the law, freedom from the sentence of the law, freedom also from the bondage to sin, freedom by Christ in the spirits. And what's the fruit of that? Fruit of that union with Christ is adoption. That's why the Spirit of Christ is called here the Spirit of Adoption. By uniting to Christ who reconciles to the Father, he makes it right between you and God the Father, and the Father adopts you into his family. to be His and His completely. What is the evidence of being a child of God? How may you know that you're a child of God this afternoon? As many as are led by the Spirit, they are the sons of God, it says in verse 14. That's the evidence, this grace of the Spirit. leading you to Christ, to the Father. It can seem too good to be true. How can that really be? And yet, verse 15 says, ye have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. Abba is the Aramaic, that's what the Jews commonly spoke. And that word father is a Greek word for father. Abba, father. To be adopted into his family is to have God as a father of love, of care, of grace. That's what makes this so rich, so full of mercy. Does that echo in your heart this afternoon? This father is for the sake of Christ his son become my father. His spirit testifies with my spirit at the next verse that we are the children of God. Because his spirit has led me as a guilty sinner to Christ to receive cleansing by his blood. to receive a righteousness to cover my unrighteousness, to receive life in the midst of my deadness, to be my reconciliation with God, and so to have God as my Father, who loves me, cares for me. What a rich grace, this grace of adoption. that he says to you this afternoon, you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but that spirit of adoption. Come to me in prayer as a father. That's how he desires to be known and approached and lived before by all his children? Or do you hesitate? Do you find your condition so confusing? On the one hand, you may hesitate to deny that God has worked in you and at the same time hesitate to say that I am his child and approach him as a reconciled father. Why the confusion? Why the hesitation? Could it be that you are so focused on yourself and thinking, but I'm not a good enough to be his child? And that when I look at myself and how I live, and where is that fear of God, and where is that confidence of God, and where is that childlike submission to God, and it can be so discouraging, and you think, how can I speak to Him as my Father when I am so not like a child? And yet, you can't do without Him. Notice what the Catechism says. God has become our Father in Christ. In Christ. If you try to go to God the Father directly, you'll never have freedom to approach unto him. If you try to be a good enough child to pray to him as a father, he is so holy, so pure, you will never be satisfied. That's why this catechism and the Word of God directs you to Christ again. It's as you have clarity concerning the work of Christ as the one who reconciles to the Father, that that gives that child-like confidence to go to Him as a Father. Ephesians 2, again, through Him, we have access unto the Father. Christ did not place this address on the lips of only those who were deeply led and experienced children of God, but on the lips of these disciples who still had so much to learn. They had been with the Lord Jesus. They had been taught by the Lord Jesus. They knew he was the Christ. And they said, to whom else shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. And yet they still had so much to learn. And yet the Lord Jesus didn't say, well, this is only for those who, no. Because they were born again. They were born into the family of God. And he says, you may approach unto God as your father. If you're born again, you're born into the family of God. And he loves to be approached as a father, not as simply a judge, not as simply the distant creator of all, but as a father, just as we as fathers. like our children to come to us not as some stranger, but as a father. But if you're not his child, in the saving sense, do you not sense how this very address, our father, accuses you? You know he is Your father in the sense of the one who created you, brought you into being, and that covenant God who has given you that promise of adoption into his family. But you've then rejected him. You then don't live as a child because you're a rebel still. And if you're a rebel still, then you're lost still. Then you're a child of wrath still. And if you're a child of wrath this afternoon, then you must be reconciled to God. Then today that call comes, be ye reconciled to God. How can that be? That same chapter, 2 Corinthians 5, says God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation, Where is the reconciliation? It is in Christ Jesus. And therefore, if you are still a child of wrath, then that's that call to cry out unto this Christ who takes sinners with all their guilt and with all their sin and washes and cleanses them and presents them unto the Father as clean and acceptable in the sight of God for his sake of Jesus Christ. Don't try to be good enough to be adopted into his family. You'll never be good enough. God is pleased with only one son and that is his own son, his beloved son, his only son who performed all that work, who fulfilled all righteousness. Then it's a call to flee to him and that he may take you to the father to be right with the father. Do you remember the prodigal son? He said, I'm not worthy to be called thy son. Is there someone here who says that? I'm not worthy to be ever called the son of God, the daughter of God. Do you remember the father in that parable? How he stretched out his arms to embrace him, to take those rags off to clothe him and to rejoice as my son was lost and he's found. That shows how great a delight the father has to receive children back again, into his family again, to know him, to trust him, to love him as a father. And what a father he is. What a rich privilege to have Him as a Father, and what a confidence that may give in prayer, as our second point is praying to our Heavenly Father with confidence. Catechism asks, why has Christ commanded us to address God, thus our Father? And the answer is that immediately in the very beginning of our prayer, He might excite in us a childlike reverence for and confidence in God, which are the foundation of our prayer. Namely that God has become our Father in Christ. It will much less deny us what we ask of him in true faith than our parents will refuse us earthly things. The Father is so full of mercy. How often the epistles speak of the fullness of the blessing and the mercy that flows from the Father. We discussed that in Bible study last Wednesday, didn't we? When we came to those words in 1 Peter, grace and peace be multiplied unto you from God the Father. See, God the Father is that source of all that grace, of all that peace. It flows out of him through Christ. You heard those words this morning. You heard those words this afternoon. Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God the Father. Isn't that such an encouragement to lay all your need before Him with that confidence, with that expectation? This is who He says He is. This is what He delights to give. And so you need not be afraid that you will bring too much need to Him and that you will be able to overwhelm the greatness of His grace and of His power. No, He's full. He's the one 2nd Corinthians 1, God even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comforts. It says he desires to stir up that childlike confidence that I am speaking to a God who is more ready to give than I am even to ask. A Father of all Comforts, all comforts. And as this child you can think, but I'm in such a situation and all comforts. You cannot be in a situation that's beyond the reach of the God of all comfort and the Father of all mercy. expectation in him. What a father he is. We sing it, don't we? I think it was played earlier today, or in this service, the tender love a father has for all his children, dear. Such love the Lord bestows on them who worship him in fear. The tender love of a father, earthly father, like any one of us is nothing compared to the tender love of this father. It was love that moved him to give his own son and not spare him, but deliver him up to all his wrath and all his curse. And do you then question his mercy when it moved him to give up his son? to be able to give mercy to children who only deserve death. There's no mercy, there's no love, like the love of this Father. And it's a continuing love. A child of God said to me the other day that sometimes, or more often, At the end of a day, I say, Lord, art thou not weary with me, weary of me, tired of me? Because you can be so tired of yourself. But his love continues. His love, thy life sustains, we sing in the psalm. To pray to a father who loves you, You such an unlovable creature, but God loves the unlovable because his love is not human love, it is divine love that flows through Christ. Expectation, confidence, Then I don't need to hide any of my sin, and I don't need to hide any of my need, and I don't need to fix it up by myself, and I don't need to manage myself, but to bring everything to Him. Everything. Pray, our Father which art in heaven, to excite this childlike confidence in God. He is grieved when we pray to him thinking we have a right to anything and demanded of God as if he were our servant. But he's also grieved when we pray to him questioning whether he is willing to do what he says he delights to do and doubting his mercy. God delights to see that trust in him. confidence that God will much less deny us what we ask of him in true faith, then our parents will refuse us earthly things. A loving parent may deny a child many things. There's many things our children ask us to give them and we say no. But if it's well, we say no because we know it's not good for them. They shouldn't eat candy all day. And they don't need to get all the toys that they think they should have. And no, they can't stay up because they need their sleep because that's better for them. Yes, as parents, we say no. We deny certain things of our children, and that is if it's well because we love them and don't want to see them harmed by getting what they think they want. And so God as a father may also deny certain things that we may so ask for. Paul said, Lord, remove this thorn. Father said no, not because he was harsh, not because he was cruel, not because he did not love Paul as his child, but he wanted to teach Paul something with that thorn. My grace is sufficient for thee, which was richer yet than if the thorn had been removed and Paul had gone on his way. No, the Lord, as a father, doesn't give everything his children ask for. But it does say in the Word of God, no good thing will he withhold. Nothing his children truly need will he deny. He may delay, but he does not turn away empty his children who plead his promised mercies. because he delights in mercy. This is who the Father is. You may not see it. You may lose sight of it. Your feelings may tell you all kinds of things about God, but this is what he says he is in his word, and his word is more true than all your thoughts and all your feelings. He says, I will be a father to you. of love, of mercy, of power, and of wisdom. And I know what is best. Child of God, you can never have two higher thoughts of Him. Our children can have two higher thoughts of us. So at a certain age, they think we are the best. And as they grow up, they realize we're not. But with this Heavenly Father, your greatest sense of His greatness is but a glimpse of how great He truly is as a Father. He's in heaven. That's why it mentions, why does it add, He is in heaven, that we may expect from His almighty power all things necessary for soul and body. He's in heaven. That means he's limitless in his power and in his ability to provide for all his children. And therefore, as I said already, there's not a need that you can have which can overwhelm him who sits upon the throne in heaven and sees your needs. Expectation. by seeing who he is, by his grace. And that very same view of who he is will also give, it's our last point, reverence, confidence and reverence. Reverence, realizing who God the Father is in heaven. It's one of the first things we learn. Where is God? In heaven. Maybe we learn it before we can even say in heaven. Learn to point up. God is above us. And yet that's something you're never done learning. What that means, that God is in heaven. And by heaven it means not just the skies and not just the, but it means that place above where God most reveals his glory, where he dwells with the fullness of his glory, that place where all the holy angels are covering themselves and crying, holy, holy, holy. He dwells in that unapproachable light. No man can see him in his glory and live. He is in that realm of brightness and purity. We can never conceive how pure and how great and how glorious that heavenly place is because God fills it. In heaven, we read of him having his throne. We sing from Psalm 103, high in the heavens, his throne is fixed forever. calm, he sits enthroned above. Even in the midst of all the confusion and turmoil and upheaval and uncertainty of this world, his throne is fixed in heaven, and there he reigns, there he rules. And even when we say that he is enthroned in the heavens, we must realize that's human language to give us an impression of how great he is. because we are not to think of him as a great man in heaven. He is God, he is spirit, he is infinite, altogether different from man and all of creation. And that's why a catechism says it refers to him being in heaven, lest we should form any earthly conceptions of God's heavenly majesty. So often, as Psalm 50 says, we think God is like us. We bring God down. But what an insult to God it is when we bring God down to think that he is just like us, or just a little greater than us. He's not just a little greater. He's not just a lot greater. He is incomparably greater than us. But he shows something of who he is. You realize he is greater than your greatest thoughts of him and your greatest impressions of his holiness that makes you bow in the dust before him are but glimpses. Then you understand why Job says, behold, God is great and we know him not. Now Job knew him. And yet he had this sense of God is so great, even my knowledge, I can hardly call it knowledge of him, he is so great. And what am I? And who am I to pray to this God in the heavens? Need it be even said that we're to pray to him with reverence? To another person, to a friend, to a colleague, we may speak casually. But the God of the heavens calls for our deepest honor and respect. We are sinful specks of dust. Even if we are his dear children, we instill in ourselves our sinful specks of dust. Speaking to him, that God of glory, that's why there's a reason for reverence. We teach that to our children. Right, children, you've heard that, be reverent, sit respectfully. Why do we say that? Because we realize we are speaking to God in heaven. That's why we show that in how we sit. But it's a lesson that we as parents, we as adults, we all of us need to learn, isn't it, that God deserves reverence. not just with our posture, not just with the way we speak, but of our hearts. That reverence of the heart that 1 Peter 1 speaks of, if you call on the Father, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear. If you call on God the Father, live in reverence for that Father. What a terrible thing it is when there is no awe, when there is no reverence, when it's such an ordinary thing to pray. Casual thing. No view of the God of glory in heaven. When that fear fades away, that reverence, whatever nice words may be used, it's so empty. Because the reality is when God, by His Spirit, opens our eyes to see something of who He is, we do bow down. Bow down like Abraham did and confessed he was but dust and ashes before the God he was speaking to. fall down like Job did when he saw the greatness of God and said, I repent in dust and ashes. Or like Isaiah, when he saw that glory as you're reading about in the messenger, that series from Isaiah six, how he then, he cried out, woe is me. Or you can go to Daniel and John and Peter and all those others. The reality is when we see something of who God is, we can do nothing else but bow deep before him. And yet this is the amazing thing. God as a Father is so majestic and so merciful at the same time. And so His very mercy shows how great He is in such a way that makes you fall down in awe and reverence for Him, not in a terror that makes you flee from Him. childlike reverence and fear of God. That's different than simply a fear of this majesty that's against you. If you're not reconciled to God this afternoon, through Christ, then that majesty of God that we've been just describing is against you. You have nothing to stand between you and this God. Then that is the most frightening thing, the most fearful thing. You can even say, how dare I pray to such a God? And yet, where else will you go than in prayer to that God for his mercy? And if you know this Christ as that great mediator, then you may go to him in prayer with confidence and deep respect together for who he is in his glory and in his grace. Both these things flow from that knowledge of him a father. The access of a child to a father, the father in heaven. That's the grace that we find here in Romans 8 as the spirit of adoption leads to Christ, leads to the father to know him as such, to approach him as such, and that's the grace that is contained in this address. Our father Which art in heaven? The focus is Him and speaking to Him as a Father. The Father that we sing of also in that Psalms 103, His love. is like a father's to his children, tender and kind to all who fear his name. For well he knows our weakness and our frailty. He knows that we are dust. He knows our frame. Is that so? And isn't it reason to pray unto him as such a God? Amen.