We Pray to a Father
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - Welcome back to the Ask Pastor John Podcast.
00:00:07.400 | This week we are joined by pastor and author Tim Keller,
00:00:10.640 | who is soon to release a new book titled
00:00:12.240 | Prayer, Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God.
00:00:15.680 | And Tim joins us again to talk about prayer.
00:00:17.520 | On to question number seven of 10 this week.
00:00:20.820 | We have passages like Luke 11 verses 11 to 13
00:00:24.420 | that seem to say a fruitful prayer life
00:00:26.560 | requires a foundational conviction
00:00:29.360 | that God is my father and he is totally for me
00:00:31.960 | without hesitation on his part.
00:00:33.760 | He is holy and completely for my good.
00:00:38.000 | Just how key is this conviction for a healthy prayer life?
00:00:41.720 | - Well, it has to be foundational
00:00:46.260 | or Jesus wouldn't have started the Lord's prayer
00:00:48.120 | with the words our father.
00:00:50.040 | Also, from what we can tell,
00:00:54.080 | I don't know that Jesus ever addressed God.
00:00:57.400 | Some Bible scholar may find me an exception
00:01:00.640 | to what I'm about to say here,
00:01:01.600 | but I don't think Jesus ever addressed God
00:01:03.400 | without calling him father.
00:01:04.760 | And so it must be foundational.
00:01:09.800 | And I would say it's foundational
00:01:11.320 | because in the word father, that you are my father,
00:01:15.740 | you essentially have the gospel in miniature
00:01:19.200 | because if God is my boss, if he's my employer,
00:01:23.480 | then even though he might be a very good boss
00:01:25.200 | or very good employer, nevertheless,
00:01:27.360 | in the end, he's not unconditionally committed to me.
00:01:31.640 | If I act up, eventually, he may give me a break or two,
00:01:36.500 | but eventually my boss will say,
00:01:37.880 | "I'm sorry, you're terminated."
00:01:39.820 | And so if I forget that God is my father,
00:01:42.160 | I may come to him in prayer, basically in a mercenary way,
00:01:45.480 | basically saying, "I'm gonna do this and this and this,
00:01:47.760 | "and now you owe me this and this and this."
00:01:49.720 | And that makes prayer into,
00:01:52.200 | first of all, that destroys the ability to adore God.
00:01:54.400 | You're basically in a petition.
00:01:56.420 | Secondly, it makes prayer a way of manipulating God.
00:02:00.120 | But if you say God is my father,
00:02:02.180 | I have three sons and I know growing up
00:02:05.720 | that they were always in different places,
00:02:08.800 | but if one of them was acting up,
00:02:10.760 | if one of them was actually being a little more disobedient,
00:02:13.040 | a little more rebellious or something like that,
00:02:16.040 | as a father, if anything, my heart went out to him more.
00:02:19.120 | It actually got more involved with him
00:02:21.600 | because I'm not his boss, I'm his father.
00:02:24.680 | And so when I know that, when I call God father,
00:02:27.860 | I know I'm coming in Jesus' name,
00:02:29.500 | I'm coming only because of God's grace,
00:02:31.960 | I know because of Jesus died for me,
00:02:33.540 | now God is committed to me.
00:02:36.060 | Now, by the way, to say that God is my father,
00:02:39.100 | therefore I can always know that he will hear me
00:02:42.580 | and I can rest and I can adore him,
00:02:45.140 | that doesn't mean, by the way, that I can sin away.
00:02:47.420 | And the reason is, of course,
00:02:49.500 | that if you break your boss's rules,
00:02:54.120 | that doesn't hurt your boss as much
00:02:55.940 | as if you break your father's rules
00:02:57.380 | because that's really trampling on your father's heart.
00:03:00.340 | So I would say calling God father means,
00:03:02.460 | on the one hand, I'm assured of grace,
00:03:03.860 | on the one hand, I'm sure he's always gonna hear me,
00:03:05.880 | so that makes my petition stronger,
00:03:07.800 | but on the other hand, it also means
00:03:09.340 | that I have to confess my sins
00:03:10.580 | because this wonderful God who's done all this for me
00:03:13.420 | and has brought me into his family
00:03:15.140 | at the infinite cost of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ,
00:03:19.300 | that I need to obey him because of his good grace.
00:03:22.900 | So to call God father enhances everything you do in prayer
00:03:27.040 | and if you don't know that God is your father,
00:03:28.920 | it basically flattens and reduces and thins out
00:03:31.360 | every other kind of prayer.
00:03:33.020 | - So true.
00:03:33.860 | All right, moving on to question number eight
00:03:35.880 | and this is perhaps the thing that I was least expecting
00:03:37.880 | to learn from your book
00:03:39.000 | and the most surprising thing to see in it,
00:03:41.680 | but it makes total sense to me now.
00:03:43.460 | You say that prayer gives us
00:03:45.080 | an accurate knowledge of ourselves.
00:03:47.440 | Explain this.
00:03:48.280 | How does prayer lead to self-knowledge?
00:03:52.200 | - C.S. Lewis gives an image that says
00:03:54.320 | that if you're a proud person,
00:03:55.660 | you'll never be able to see God
00:03:58.260 | because a proud person is always looking down on everyone,
00:04:02.260 | cannot see something that's above him, bigger than him
00:04:05.700 | and from that illustration, that image,
00:04:08.260 | I get that it's in God's presence that I learn humility.
00:04:12.200 | I learn, I really do not know how sinful I am
00:04:16.580 | unless I'm in the presence of a holy God.
00:04:17.900 | That's what happened to Isaiah.
00:04:19.340 | You know, the first thing that happens when Isaiah
00:04:20.980 | is in the presence of holy, holy, holy God in Isaiah six,
00:04:24.940 | what's the first thing he says?
00:04:26.100 | He does not say, oh, you're so holy.
00:04:27.860 | He says, you know, I'm a man of unclean lips.
00:04:31.980 | See, right away, he senses his sin.
00:04:35.040 | Just like the brighter a light is,
00:04:37.660 | the more you can see the dirt on your hands.
00:04:40.260 | The more beautiful, you know, a person is,
00:04:46.020 | the more us unbeautiful people see
00:04:48.620 | that we're not very good looking.
00:04:50.380 | I mean, in other words, when you get close
00:04:51.940 | to superlativeness, then you see your flaws.
00:04:55.660 | And so there's absolutely no way
00:04:57.220 | that you will really existentially know
00:04:58.940 | that you're a sinner and what's wrong with you
00:05:00.500 | unless you draw near to a holy God in prayer.
00:05:03.680 | - So is this why we don't pray
00:05:06.180 | and we just don't wanna see the dirt on us?
00:05:09.340 | - Yes, I actually do, prayer is very humbling.
00:05:12.300 | I mean, I find it very hard, for example,
00:05:15.080 | if I'm really upset, it's hard for me to stay upset
00:05:17.740 | when I get in God's presence because I say,
00:05:19.660 | look, Lord, you know, you're wise
00:05:21.540 | and I really don't need to be this upset.
00:05:23.020 | You know what you're doing.
00:05:24.200 | Or if I'm, in other words, it's very hard to stay
00:05:27.300 | in a kind of high horse, self-righteous spot
00:05:31.880 | and then turn around and pray.
00:05:33.140 | It just knocks you off your horse right away.
00:05:35.540 | That's right.
00:05:36.940 | - So true.
00:05:37.940 | This was an unexpected lesson,
00:05:39.380 | but a valuable one from your book.
00:05:40.980 | Thank you, Dr. Keller.
00:05:42.020 | And tomorrow's Friday, we finish out this little series
00:05:44.620 | of episodes on prayer.
00:05:46.080 | So what types of prayers don't work?
00:05:48.820 | I'll ask Dr. Keller that tomorrow.
00:05:50.380 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:05:51.260 | Thanks for listening to the Aspester John Podcast.
00:05:53.760 | (upbeat music)
00:05:56.340 | (upbeat music)
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