Our Father (Matthew 6:9)

“Lord, teach us to pray.” That was the request of Jesus’s friends in Luke 11, and it’s the question we’re asking together in this new series on the Lord’s Prayer.

In this opening message, we begin at the entrance to the prayer: “Our Father in heaven.” Many of us have been warned against two dangers in prayer, the hypocrisy that prays to be seen and the empty repetition that piles up words without heart. In Matthew 6, Jesus addresses both, and the Lord’s Prayer is His answer to each.

We trace the story of God as Father through Scripture, from creation to Israel, whose rebellion left the family broken at the close of the Old Testament, and then to the promised Son. Jesus is not a created or adopted son but the eternal Son by nature. By His life and death, He opens the way for us to be brought home as children. When we pray “Our Father,” we pray with Jesus, to a Father who is near.

Listen in, and join us in praying the Lord’s Prayer morning and evening this week.