Awakened to Grace

Chad Roberts: Welcome to Awakened to Grace. I'm Chad Roberts, and I'm so glad you're joining us today. I believe God has connected us for a great purpose. Today, you're going to hear a powerful sermon.

But before we get to the sermon, I want to encourage you to check out my new book. It's called Blind Faith, Seeing God Through Darkness. It's published by our partners at Lifeway. And the reason I wrote this book is because I am 100% blind. And as I've walked this path of blindness, this path of suffering, well, I want to teach you how Christians can suffer well.

I say that today my job as a blind pastor is to help people trust a God they cannot see. You can order the book right now anywhere that books are sold in any format. Even if you're not much of a book reader, you can even get it in audio, where you can listen to it. Well, I hope you'll go right now to the official website, which is blindfaith.life.

Again, that's blindfaith.life. And I hope you'll not only get a copy for you, I hope you'll pick one up for someone who needs encouragement in their faith today.

Let's go to Matthew chapter six. Today I begin a brand new series called Kingdom Come. It is a study of the Lord's Prayer. I'm very excited to share with you all that I'm learning concerning the Lord's Prayer. It is such a deep and a rich and a meaningful study.

As you turn there, I don't want to forget. Let me say this and then I'll be done and we'll jump right into the text. Those of you who participated in above and beyond, I announced it last Sunday, but just for those who were unable to be here last Sunday.

You know that on April, we announced on the first week of March that we will do a giving campaign on April 11 for above and beyond that's all of the renovations that's going on next door. We anticipate. We pray that all of these renovations will be done mid to late May. That's what we're anticipating right now.

They came in and primered all the stuff this weekend and next they'll paint and then they'll put in carpet and then baseboards and then doors and then we open. So that's where we are in the process.

Our goal on April 11th was to raise $25,000. What a mountain of a goal! In the years of our church, we have never done a capital campaign. We've done projects, we've done missions, we've done special things, but never a capital campaign like this. So I didn't know how it would go.

And as I said last Sunday, you have to understand when we started the church, we couldn't even afford offering plates as a church plant. I worked the first eight years of our church with no salary. So you have to understand when God, when he blessed above and beyond, you just don't know what it meant to my heart.

So on April 11, we asked the Lord to help us and we God put in our heart $25,000. We've never been a fundraising church in that sense. I don't want to have a thermometer up here for the next five years, raising money.

So we just asked the Lord. You know, Hudson Taylor, that great missionary, once said of the 1800s. He said, you don't have to ask men for money. He said, if you can move God, God will move men. We've operated our church by that principle.

Hudson Taylor also said, God's work done God's way never lacks God's supply. I've believed that. I've lived that. And God's been very faithful to our church and God's been very good to our church. But on April 11th, God was above and beyond. We asked the Lord for 25,000.

And on April the 11th, total with above and beyond, $44,400 came in. Amen. To God's glory.

Now what God put in my heart that I approached the finance team with. I believe in tithing through and through. And God put in my heart that we're to give 10%, a tithe of everything that came in. We are to give to the ministry of Oasis. A tithe.

I believe in tithing so deeply and God put that in my heart. Oasis is a ministry that serves poor women and mothers. They're just a couple of doors down here on Sullivan Street. And they're getting ready to move to another facility and they're going to have renovation needs.

And the Lord put in my heart that we are to give a 10% tithe. No matter what it was. See, you have to understand, church, I put, I determined in my heart, I was going to rejoice and tithe no matter what came in. If 25,000 came in, or if $2,500 came in, I was going to rejoice in the Lord.

And I can say that with a pure heart, because I've learned to rejoice in the Lord with eyesight. And I've learned how to rejoice in the Lord blind as a bat. Money has nothing to do with it. And so I determined in my heart, no matter what, we were going to rejoice. We're going to celebrate and we're going to tithe.

So we were staggered that 44,000 came in and we're going to tithe off of that. Now, we're not going to take it out of the designated money. We're going to take it out of our general budget. But we're going to give a 10% gift to the ministry of Oasis as a gift for what the Lord has done for us. Amen.

All right. So I just wanted to share that with you, knowing many couldn't be here last Sunday and I wanted you to know where we stand. Okay. Let's go to Matthew chapter six. I want to introduce today part one of our study called Kingdom Come on the Lord's Prayer.

We're only going to be in one verse this morning, verse number nine. Jesus said, and when you pray, pray like this. And this is what he taught us. This is what's called the model prayer. And this is how Jesus taught us to pray. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

We're going to stop there for today because there is a world of truth in this one line. In this one verse. Let's understand some things. First, what Jesus does before he teaches the model prayer is he first teaches us how not to pray in the verses above.

And what I find very interesting is when it comes to the disciples, the men that spent three years living and traveling and serving with Jesus. When it comes to the disciples, you know, the Bible never records where the disciples came to Jesus and said, Jesus, teach us how to perform miracles.

The disciples never said, how do we multiply fish and bread? They never said, Jesus, how do we calm the winds and the waves? The disciples never came and said, teach us how to craft and how to teach parables the way that you teach.

But what did the disciples ask Jesus to teach them? They came to him and said, teach us how to pray. My question this morning that I want to ask you is, are we teachable when it comes to our prayer life?

Are we sensitive to the Holy Spirit? Even for those who have walked with God for years and years, perhaps you've been a Christian for decades, or perhaps you're brand new to Christianity, or you're somewhere in between. My question is this, are you teachable?

And what God wants to teach us, this house, this body, through the Lord's Prayer over the next six weeks, I want it in the forefront of our mind, are we willing to come to the Lord and say, Lord, teach me.

Teach me how I ought to pray. Because that's the purpose of every line and every word and every verse of the Lord's Prayer. It is so deep, it is so rich, it's so packed full of truth. There are going to be multiple things that we learn together through the course of this study.

But I want you to know first, Jesus teaches us how not to pray. If you read the verses above, you can see where the Lord gives a few examples. And I think about my own prayer time and I think how often I am, if I'm not careful, I'll get a little off track in my praying. I will sometimes try to inform the Lord what he needs to know.

I will sometimes try to instruct the Lord in what he ought to do. Anyone ever have that problem? God, if you'll just do this. God, if you'll just open that door, if you'll just provide that need. God, here's what I need. Aren't we so prone to do that?

But rather than instructing God, rather than informing God, rather than trying to impress God or worse, impress others by how we pray. No, you know what the Lord's Prayer really is? It is an invitation.

It's an invitation to come to our Father and to present our needs before him. It's an invitation to worship God the way God desires to be worshipped. So let's understand this a little better.

After Jesus teaches us how not to pray, the wrong way to pray. He's now going to model for us. He's now going to teach us the right way to pray. Notice what he says first. We're going to break this little verse, only verse nine. We're going to break it into three sections.

Number one, Our Father. What a world of truth is in that. Number two, in heaven, which is amazing truth there. And then lastly, hallowed be your name. What's, what does that mean? We're going to try to explore and understand that today.

Number one, Our Father. I love this small, as a matter of fact, let's just focus for a moment on the word Our. I love that word Our. Because, you know what I think Jesus is reminding us? I think he's reminding us that you and I belong to the family of God. He is Our Father. What an incredible thing.

I want you to think about this, those precious ones that got baptized today. How exciting is that? And let me tell you something, when it comes to God being our Father, when it comes to the way that God loves us, when it comes to the fatherhood of God. Let me tell you, he doesn't love some more than he loves others.

And you may be someone that you've been saved for decades, you may be someone that you've only been saved a matter of days. And guess what? The love of the Father is equal to everyone. God doesn't love some because they're more talented, or because they have more to offer. God doesn't love some less because of their past or because of their history or because of their sins or failures.

God loves us all the same, all equally. We are all part that are born again. We are part of the family of God. Ephesians chapter three teaches we are the family of God. And what a special thing. No one has God cornered. No one has a better position on God to where they're more loved by him.

No, he is our Father. And I think what Jesus is saying is no matter what color skin we are, no matter what language we speak, no matter what culture we've grown up in, no matter what age or generation we may be from. Whether it's someone in the first or the 15th century, or it's someone today, or someone a thousand years from now, the people of God. He is Our Father.

As a matter of fact, in Revelation 7:9, what the Bible teaches there is that in reality, you and I are one out of an untold number. When that great throng is before the throne of God, all the people of God of all the centuries and all the ages. When we are all around the very throne of God, Revelation 7:9, we are one of the many. Amen. He is Our Father.

The fatherhood of God. Now let me, let me speak a word here because I understand that with everyone in the room today, as well as many, many watching and listening online. I realize there are some of you that grew up with not so great of a father.

I realize that there are some of you, you had phantom fathers, they were hardly around. Some of you had dads that had just unrealistic expectations. You would never meet them because they're unrealistic. I understand that many grew up in neglectful homes or abusive situations.

And there are some precious believers who have a mental block and an emotional block that when you hear the word Father, when you hear about the fatherhood of God, you immediately shut down. You immediately shut down because of the way your natural father is. But friends, Jesus teaches us this.

He wants us to understand the fatherhood of God, that God is our heavenly Father. He's not like our earthly fathers. He's not like our earthly fathers. He's our heavenly Father. And as I teach this today, I want to say a special word to you that struggle because of the example that your father was to you.

I want you to ask the Holy Spirit today to help you to see beyond that, because what we're going to talk about today is the great contrast between our heavenly Father and our earthly fathers. The fatherhood of God. Now there's a dangerous doctrine going around today that is called the universal fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of mankind.

What's that mean? That means, well, because we are all God's creation, he is our Father. That means that because we are all God's creation, we are all brothers and sisters in the Lord. Friends, that's a false doctrine. That's a dangerous doctrine because it is contrary to what the Bible teaches.

Just because we are God's natural creation, doesn't mean he's spiritually our Father. Only a few can refer to God as Father. And you know who those people are? Those are the ones who have been born again. How do we know this? Because Jesus said in John chapter 8 verse 44, he says, you are of your father the devil.

The Bible teaches in the book of Ephesians that before Christ, without Christ, we are children of wrath, we are children of disobedience. Second Timothy teaches, we are ensnared by Satan to do his will. We are slaves to sin and to Satan.

But see what happens when you become born again. What happens when you trust in Jesus for salvation? You repent of your sins. You then you come into the family of God. And then the Bible says, Jesus said in John 1:12, to as many as received him, to them gave he the right to become the children of God.

The right, the power, the right, the legality to become sons and daughters of God. What a remarkable thing. Galatians 3:26 teaches that through Jesus, we are the sons of God through faith. What a remarkable thing. See, when Jesus on this day that Jesus taught this, his Jewish audience, let me tell you, would have been totally foreign to refer to God as Father.

Would have been completely foreign. They knew God as Yahweh, Jehovah. You know, the Jews in the Old Testament would not even write, they would not even hand write the name Yahweh in fear that they would spell it wrong or do it wrong.

The ancient gods of this time, those Roman gods, all that Greek mythology. You know, the gods were seen as distant and to be feared, but yet here's the true Son of God inviting us to come near and to call God Father.

You know, Jesus, you may find this interesting as I do. Jesus referred to God as Father 167 times in the Scriptures. 167 references to God as Father. And again, where gods, all these fake gods were distant. The true and living God is near.

Emmanuel, God with us. Isn't that remarkable? Had the opportunity Friday to preach yet again to the precious people of Pakistan. I do a crusade through Skype every month to villages in Pakistan. And I was able to tell those precious people that are in the throws of Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and all kinds of witchcraft and pagan gods.

And I was able to tell them, the thing that differentiates Christianity, what sets Christianity so far apart, is that in all religions of the world, it is man seeking after God, but in Christianity, it's God coming after man. What a difference. He is our Father to those who are born again.

The fatherhood of God, what a remarkable thing. Is he your Father today? Are you born again? Is he near to you? Are you near to him? Are you a son? Are you a daughter? Because you've put your faith in the work of Jesus.

Now, next what he says, notice what he says next, which art in heaven. Now, why does Jesus is it's just filling in space? Is this just telling us something we already know? No, I don't think so. I think Jesus is quite intentional with reminding us that he is a heavenly Father. What do we say, those of you have poor examples as Father, contrast, we're talking about a heavenly Father.

We're talking about God who is not a man. God doesn't lie. Why? Because God's not a man. You know, I was thinking the other day. I was sharing this with prayer meeting night. Monday night our West of 40s ladies got together at O'Charley's and gave me an invitation to come and eat dinner with those in the room and everybody's real loud.

And you know, one of the interesting things about being blind is you know how they say I hear with spidey senses. You would not believe how I can hear. I can hear everything, everything. I'll hear something and will say, how in the world did you hear that?

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