Our Father

Notes: Our Father
Pastor Adam Eaton
March 2, 2017
Harvest OC
Mathew 6:9

Learning how to pray.

Being out in God's creation seems to point us towards his creation. We just feel small in awe of creation.

Most people feel that they don't pray enough.

The message tonight: The reason we don't pray enough is that we forget who we are praying too.

Matthew 6:5-8 ESV
[5] "And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. [6] But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. [7] "And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. [8] Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

Matthew 6:9-13 ESV
[9] Pray then like this: "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. [10] Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. [11] Give us this day our daily bread, [12] and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. [13] And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

God wants His people to remember what He has done for them.

Yet we tend to forget what God has done for us.

1. We don't pray because we forget God is God. (And we are not)

God is eternal.

Psalm 90:2 ESV
[2] Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

God is unchangeable.

James 1:17 ESV
[17] Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.

God is all knowing.

Psalm 139:1 ESV
[1] O LORD, you have searched me and known me!

God is ever present.

Jeremiah 32:27 ESV
[27] "Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh. Is anything too hard for me?

There is nothing too small or too large for God to handle.

We can know all kind of information about God without knowing God.

Ephesians 2:1-3 ESV
[1] And you were dead in the trespasses and sins [2] in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience- [3] among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

Ephesians 4:17-24 ESV
[17] Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. [18] They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. [19] They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. [20] But that is not the way you learned Christ!- [21] assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, [22] to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, [23] and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, [24] and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

That is what you once were. Now you are saved.

The longer you walk with the Lord the more you are susceptible to believing the enemy in thinking you got this all by yourself. The more you think you got this, the more you rely on yourself and try to be god.

God is God and He has saved you to this life.

Remember who God is.

When you stop preaching the Gospel to yourself you forget who God is.

2. We forget who we pray to when we don't relate to the fact that God is the Father.

Galatians 4:7 ESV
[7] So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.

God has brought us into His family.

Many relate God to their earthly father, and we were let down by that father.

We don't serve a Father that is abusive. 

God is the one who sets the standard.

God loves when His children talk to Him.

Ephesians 2:4-10 ESV
[4] But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, [5] even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ-by grace you have been saved- [6] and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, [7] so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. [8] For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, [9] not a result of works, so that no one may boast. [10] For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

God did it all. He saved you.