Talking To Your Father

Yesterday I was able to continue our new sermon series on the model prayer housed in Matthew 6:9-15 with a look at the B clause of verse 9, Our Father in heaven. I was extremely excited and anxious for some reason to preach @ First Mount Zion yesterday. Maybe it was because I was away the previous Sunday, more likely it was my excitement in preaching this series on prayer. I totally prescribe to the notion that our church will grow both spiritually and numerically as long as the leaders and members of our church become committed completely to an active prayer-life designed to seek the power of God to change the climate of our church and add to the church daily.

In this discourse by Jesus known as the Sermon on the Mount, the Master sets out to show us how we gain citizenship to the Kingdom of God through a lifestyle of righteousness. The way we begin to gain this righteousness is to connect to the ruler of the Kingdom in which we are trying to attain access. We do this by communicating to God by calling him Our Father. Here is the sermon outline:

Text: Matthew 6:9

Thesis: real, sincere prayers will always acknowledge the fact of the divine paternity of God in our lives

I. Father's Relationship is Exclusive

-verse 9...Our Father
-we can call God Father because of the sacrifice that Jesus made on Calvary that mended the separation between God and man

II. Father's Range is Expansive

-verse 9...Our Father
-by calling God Our Father, we are recognizing that he is not only our Father, but he is the Father of all that believe in Him

III. Father's Reach is Explosive

-verse 9...Our Father in Heaven
-because Our Father lives in heaven, he is able to supply all of our needs