Scripture: Matthew 6:9-15
When I say “Abba,” A-B-B-A, what do you think of? You think of “Waterloo/ Napoleon surrendered at Waterloo…” Or maybe “Dancing Queen”… Or “Take a Chance on Me”… You think of some of the brightest, happiest melodies in popular music in that glorious musical decade of the Seventies. You think of those two very talented married-and-later-divorced couples from Sweden who make up the band “ABBA.”
I don’t know where they got their name, but in this sermon we’re going to spend a lot of time thinking deeply about Abba, or perhaps I should say Ah-ba. Because this name is at the heart of Jesus’ model prayer known to us as “The Lord’s Prayer.”
I hope that as we look at the Lord’s Prayer in today’s sermon… our second sermon in this series from Matthew chapter 8, we will be reassured and encouraged by our Father’s immeasurable love for us. Today’s sermon will have three points. Number One: “Our Father.” Number Two: Fear. And Number Three: Forgiveness.
But first Number One… Our Father…
I’ve said before many times that the Old Testament is all about Jesus and his gospel. I’ve practically made it my mission to convince you of that truth, and last year, when I preached 30-something sermons in the Old Testament, I hope I accomplished that task.
But you know what we never see in the Old Testament? An example of one of God’s people in the Old Testament addressing God as Father, my Father, or “our Father”—as Jesus teaches us to do in the Lord’s Prayer. Never, ever! By all means the Old Testament has verses like Psalm 103:13, “As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.” Or Deuteronomy 32:6: “Is not [God] your father, who created you, who made you and established you?”
But no faithful Old Testament saint would be bold enough, presumptuous enough, to address God as his or her own “father” in prayer! Jesus was the first. In fact, in John chapter 5, religious leaders want to execute Jesus because, John says, he “was calling God his own Father.”1 How dare Jesus use such an intimate term for his relationship with God! Unheard of!
Today, by contrast, we have grown so accustomed to calling God “our Father”—as Jesus teaches in this model prayer in verse 9—that we take it for granted. We fail to see just how startling… how bold…how wonderful… it is to have God as “our Father.”
So what has changed? What’s different about us in our relationship with God—compared to the relationship with God that Abraham, Moses, Deborah, Ruth, Hannah, David, Elijah, Esther, and all the other faithful saints in the Old Testament enjoyed?
What’s different?
Jesus himself gives us a clue on Easter Sunday, when he appears to Mary Magdalene in John chapter 20. Once Mary realizes that this man she mistook to be the gardener is really Jesus, he says to her, “[G]o to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”2
It’s as if Jesus were saying something like this: “Because of what I just accomplished two days ago on the cross, through my atoning death—taking all of your sins upon myself and suffering the penalty for them—you now have the exact same relationship with the Father that I have. God the Father loves you exactly as much as he loves me. Like me, you are now a ‘highly favored’ son… or daughter… of God.”
In other words… We only get to call God “our Father” because of what Christ accomplished on the cross…
And—getting back to the word “Abba”—since Jesus was a native Aramaic speaker, we know for sure he would have used the Aramaic word Abba, which means “father.” When Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, for instance, Mark tells us that Jesus used the word “Abba”—see Mark 14:36.
Listen: if you’ve been to church a lot over the past fifty years, you’ve undoubtedly have heard some preacher say something like this: The word Abba is one of the first words an Aramaic-speaking child would have learned. Ah-ba. It even sounds like baby talk: Like Papa, Da-da, Ma-ma. And I’m sure that’s how the Aramaic word for “father” originated. And you’ve also heard these same preachers say that Jesus wasn’t saying “Father,” which may sound too formal, too stuffy, too impersonal to many of us today. “Papa,” or “Daddy,” or even “Dad”—these words mean something a little different from father, right?
A “papa,” or a “daddy,” or a “dad,” is someone you can wake up in the middle of the night, someone who will happily comfort you when you’ve had a nightmare… or get you a glass of water if you’re thirsty… or give you medicine when you’re sick… “Papa,” “Daddy,” or “Dad” sounds much warmer, friendlier, more intimate, more trusting, than “Father.”
Well, I hate to say it, but this interpretation of Abba has fallen out of fashion recently: while it’s true Abba may be one of the first words a baby learns, it remained the only Aramaic word that even an adult child used to address his father. A baby would call his father “Abba,” but so would an adult child. So it’s fashionable today to say that there’s not really any difference between “Father” and “Abba.”
But you know what? I don’t believe it. In part because of something the apostle Paul says in Romans 8:15: “For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’”
In Romans, Paul is mostly writing to Gentiles who don’t even know Aramaic. Yet before using the Greek word for Father, Pater, he uses the word that Jesus would have used when he prayed to his Father. He doesn’t do that anywhere else in his letters. Elsewhere, he sticks to Pater, Father.
But here he wants these Greek- and Latin-speaking Gentiles to know that they—even they—now enjoy the exact same intimate relationship with God the Father that Jesus himself enjoyed! What’s true of Jesus’ relationship with the Father, therefore, is now true of them… because they are now in Christ.
I confess that’s hard to believe for many of us. How is it possible? Given what I know about myself, with my sins and failures—I am far from being as loving and faithful and obedient to my Father as Jesus… it’s hard to believe that the Father could love and accept me the way he does his Son Jesus… that the Father could be as pleased with me as he is with his Son Jesus… that he could show me his favor to the same extent that he does his Son Jesus… that he’s working his plan out for my life just as he worked out his plan for Jesus’ life. It just seems impossible… But no… Paul is giving us a clue right here. And that’s Point Number One… the meaning of “Our Father.”
Point Number Two… Fear…
Let’s look at verse 11: “Give us this day our daily bread.” Daily bread, of course, symbolizes whatever it is we need—physical, spiritual, emotional. Whether for ourselves or others. We are supposed to ask for God to give them to us.
Yet we often feel afraid in our lives—this is just a general truth for everyone in the world, not just for us Christians—we often feel afraid not because we have failed to receive bread for today, but because we don’t yet have tomorrow’s bread today. We’d prefer, in other words, for our Father to give us a warehouse full of all the bread we’ll need for months or years! We feel anxious not for our “daily bread,” but for our monthly or even our yearly bread!
Isn’t that fair to say?
I do this a lot myself. For instance, there was a time early in my ministry—I don’t do this anymore—but there was a time when I worried that I wouldn’t have a sermon on Sunday. Like, I’d look at next Sunday’s scripture on Tuesday or Wednesday and think, “I’ve got nothing! What am I possibly going to say about this passage of scripture for 25 minutes that I haven’t already said or that anyone will be interested in listening to?”
And I would feel afraid.
But what I was really doing, you see, was asking for next Sunday’s bread today—on Tuesday or Wednesday. Listen: I’ve preached over a thousand unique sermons over the past 20 years of preaching. Yet I have never gone into the pulpit without having something to say. Not even close! God is always so faithful to give me a sermon each week… A sermon that I’ve never failed to be excited about preaching. So why would I worry?
If it’s Tuesday or Wednesday, and I’m worried about something happening on Sunday, it’s only because I want Sunday’s bread today—even though I’m not entitled to Sunday’s bread for three or four more days!
Do you see what I mean?
It’s like manna from heaven. Remember the Israelites in the wilderness were supposed to gather enough manna in the morning for that day alone. Tomorrow there would be bread for tomorrow’s needs. But rest assured that today’s needs will be taken care of by today’s bread. And early on in Exodus, the Israelites tried to gather more manna than they needed for that particular day, and what happened? The next day the manna was spoiled. Exodus 16:20: “Some left part of it till the morning, and it bred words and stank.” 3Gross.
Why did God’s people try to gather more manna than they needed for themselves and their families on that particular day? Because they were worried that manna wouldn’t be available tomorrow, despite what God promised them! So they better get it now!
My dog Ringo spends a lot of time sleeping on the top of the couch—not on top of the seat cushion the way his sister Neko used to do, but on top of the backrest of the couch. And he lays around a lot. To say the least, Ringo doesn’t have a hard life. Yet occasionally, he’ll let out a big sigh… [sigh]… One time my daughter Elisa posted a picture of Ringo on social media with the caption, “My dog Ringo, sighing after a long day of worrying about absolutely nothing at all.”
Like… what does Ringo possibly have to sigh about?
Ringo, unlike us, doesn’t sigh because he’s worried about anything. Maybe when the UPS guy or the mail carrier comes into the yard. But dogs mostly never worry… Certainly not about where their “daily bread” is coming from… the way we do! They just trust that when they’re hungry, the food is going to show up. It never crosses their minds that it won’t. Ringo knows that we’re always going to feed him.
We humans are not like that. But this petition, “Give us this day our daily bread,” teaches us that we should be much more like that!
We have an example of someone who’s like that in the gospels: the widow in Luke 21, who puts in the offering plate at the temple literally all the money she has. Luke 21:3 and 4: “And he [Jesus] said, ‘Truly, I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all that she had to live on.’” Put in all that she had to live on.
Please notice: Jesus watched her do this! He didn’t even try to stop her. He didn’t rush up to her and say, “Ma’am, our Father wants you to be generous with your offering, absolutely… but you’ve got to be practical. You can’t put in all that you have to live on! How will you eat? Where will your ‘daily bread’ come from?”
But Jesus doesn’t say that! Instead he commends her… as a way of telling us disciples, “Be like her! Don’t be like these far wealthier people who give only out of their abundance, so much so that they’ll hardly miss whatever amount of money they give!” People who give offerings like that aren’t being faithful, they’re being fearful.
What do Jesus and this widow know that far wealthier people like us often don’t know?
That if God wants us to put in “all that we have to live on” today… We don’t have to be afraid… Because tomorrow… somehow… tomorrow we will still have the bread that we need for tomorrow’s needs. Our Father will provide it.
The vast majority of us can’t say from experience it’s not true because we haven’t come close to putting it to the test!
“Give us this day our daily bread” means we trust our Father to provide for us everything we need for this particular day. Not tomorrow, but today. Therefore we don’t have to worry.
I want to share something I read in today’s quiet time… It might prove helpful to us. It comes from Mark chapter 9, beginning with verse 17…
[Focus on the father’s words in verse 22, “If you can do anything…” If you can? There is no if… There’s no if for Jesus. There’s no if for God. But when it comes to being afraid, the question is often not “if our Father can”… it’s more like, “Does our Father want to?… Because God is our Father, we need never doubt that God can and will do whatever he needs to do for the sake of the children he loves!See Mark 10:14 and 15. A little child never doubts that his father can do anything! Unlimited resources. Money is no object. A little child never doubts that his father is strong enough to accomplish anything. Omnipotent power. And of course a young child never doubts that his father always takes care of him or her. “Be like that,” Jesus says. “Believe like that,” Jesus says… “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” Matthew 7:11.]
And that’s Point Number Two… fear.
Point Number Three… forgiveness.
Here I am, talking about how we don’t need to be afraid, yet Jesus says some potentially scary-sounding words about forgiveness in verse 12: “and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” Notice the past tense: “have forgiven.” Past participle. In other words, this forgiveness of others is a completed action in the past. Verse 12 assures us, in other words, that the Father will forgive us in the same way we’ve forgiven others their debts. But maybe that doesn’t reassure us? One commentator points out that it’s almost as if we’re calling a curse down upon ourselves… if we don’t forgive.
As if we’re saying… “Father, I want you to forgive my sins in the same way I’ve forgiven these other people their sins.” And the Father says, “Okay, I’ll do that. I will forgive you in the exact same way that you’ve forgiven. Just as you have failedto forgive these other people, I also will fail to forgive you.”
To make matters worse, of all six petitions in the Lord’s Prayer, only this fifth petition receives any further commentary from Jesus. See verses 14 and 15. And he doesn’t make forgiveness sound any softer or easier: “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”
This sounds scary! “What if I’m holding a grudge against someone right now? That person genuinely hurt me, after all… and we never really talked it out. Have I truly forgiven that person? And if I haven’t, does that mean I’ve lost my salvation? I’m no longer forgiven by God?”
Do you see the potential problem? How are we not supposed to be afraid when we hear these words?
One reason: those two glorious words that we started with… Our Father…
We pray this prayer as people who are already saved… already in a right relationship with God… We call God “Father” because God has already accepted us as his own and adopted us into his family by grace through faith in his Son. It’s only because of Christ’s righteousness and not our own that we are made part of God’s family. God is already “our Father.” That means he’s not waiting around to decide to be our Father based on whether or not we can forgive this particular difficult people who’s harmed us—or that particular abusive people who’s injured us, emotionally, even physically… No, through faith in Christ, we are already part of his family!
We could not have received Christ in the first place unless we understood the enormity of our own sin… understood all that God did in Christ to forgive us our sins… understood that our debt before God was infinitely greater than anyone else’s debt to us. If we received Christ in the first place—which means we were born again through faith—it’s only because our Lord has already softened our hard hearts so that we are now able to forgive.
Remember that dinner party at Simon the Pharisee’s house in Luke chapter 7… Remember the former prostitute who disrupts the party to anoint Jesus’ feet with perfume and her own tears of joy? Simon is a self-righteous man who has a hard time forgiving others because he fails to appreciate just how great his own need for forgiveness is! And unless or until he realizes that, he can never be a loving and forgiving person. And unless or until he realizes that, he can never be a Christian at all. The first half of the gospel of Christ is recognizing the enormity of our sins and the need for forgiveness.
N.T. Wright, the great Anglican scholar, puts it like this: “The heart that will not open to forgive others will remain closed when God’s own forgiveness is offered.”
And if that’s still not clear, Jesus tells a parable later in Matthew’s gospel, in chapter 18, in which a powerful king forgives an enormous, unpayable debt that one of his servants owed. Yet this servant turned around and failed to forgive fellow servant a relatively small debt. He throttles the guy and throws him in jail. It’s shocking, in retrospect, how insensitive and unresponsive this first servant was to the compassion that the king showed him when the king forgave his debt.
In this parable, however, the king is not God… He’s not omniscient like God is… He’s a human king… When the king forgave this servant, he didn’t have the power to look into the man’s heart to see whether or not he was sincerely repentant when he received the king’s forgiveness in the first place. By the end of the parable, however, things have changed: the king knows for sure that the man’s heart wasn’t changed… that his repentance wasn’t sincere… that he didn’t understand the gift of forgiveness that the king was offering.
So of course this servant can’t be forgiven! He doesn’t understand the gospel!
But we do… if we’ve received this gift of forgiveness in Christ… we understand the gospel… and we have within us the power to forgive.
That doesn’t mean, of course, that forgiveness will always be easy… But lots of things that Jesus asks of his disciples to do are not easy… things like witnessing, or tithing, or being sexually faithful… loving our enemies… Turning the other cheek. You name it. These things are hard, too!
So… if you’re a child of God who’s finding it difficult to forgive someone who has wronged you, tell your Father about your struggle. Confess your failure to forgive as a sin. Because it is a sin. Ask for healing for the genuine harm this person did to you. And finally, ask for the grace to forgive that person.
And trust that “as far as the east is from the west, so far does God remove” this and every other sin. 4 Trust that “if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 5 Trust that “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” 6
And “fear not, therefore.”