Why Pray "Our Father Who Art in Heaven"

Introduction

"Our Father who art in heaven." Six words. Jesus places them at the start of the world's most famous prayer, and everything is right there. All the theology you need to start praying fits in this one line. This Form Sunday teaching asks the simplest and most intimidating question: why pray? It answers in two parts. Because God is our Father, we can pray with confidence. Because this Father is in heaven, we must pray with urgency. Here is the content of the session, reordered to serve you.

Message Outline

1. "Our Father" : why we can pray

• God the Father hears our prayers and loves giving us good things (Matthew 7:7-11).
• God the Son makes our prayers pleasing to the Father: they rise like the fragrance of golden bowls before the Lamb (Revelation 5:6-10; John 14:13-14).
• God the Holy Spirit helps us when we don't know how to pray; he intercedes for us with groanings (Romans 8:15-16; 8:26-27).
• To pray as a Christian is to speak to your Father, not to an indifferent deity, not to a doting pushover, but to an engaged Father who always answers.

2. "Who art in heaven" : why we must pray

• Because this Father is sovereign over everything (Psalm 115:3) and he has decided that our prayers would be genuinely effective (James 4:2).
• Because we are at war: the world, the flesh, and the devil oppose us (Ephesians 6:12; Acts 4:23-31).
• Because our weakness keeps us on our knees. God chains together reminders of our fragility to teach us to depend on him (2 Corinthians 1:8-11).
• Because without Jesus, we can do nothing, not come to faith, not persevere, not grow (John 15:5).

Key Takeaways

• The whole Trinity is at work when you pray: the Father listens to you, the Son makes your prayer pleasing, the Spirit intercedes from within your own heart.
• The basis of your confidence in prayer is not your spiritual performance; it's that God has truly become your Father through Jesus.
• "In Jesus' name" is not a magic express-delivery formula. It means praying within Jesus' own agenda: that the Father's glory be revealed in the Son.
• God's sovereignty doesn't cancel prayer, it makes it effective: God determines both the ends and the means, and he has chosen your prayer as a means.
• When you think you have nothing to pray about, it's probably because you've forgotten you're at war. The right posture: "Father, I am weak, protect me, send reinforcements."

Personal Application

1. Which block to prayer is strongest in you right now: doubt about God's goodness, doubt about his sovereignty, a sense of unworthiness, a lack of words, or the false impression that "everything is fine"?
2. When you pray, who are you really talking to in your mind: a judge you need to convince, a doting pushover you can order around, or the Father who loves you and adopted you through Jesus?
3. This week, choose one area where you're trying to hold on "by your own strength." Confess it to God as an area of weakness and ask him to keep you on your knees.
4. Go back through the Lord's Prayer slowly, word by word. Where does your way of praying no longer match these first six words?
5. Pray a prayer you're afraid to pray (something that comes from deep within you), while submitting it to the Father's will, as Jesus did in Gethsemane.

Verses Cited

• Psalm 34 (opening prayer)
• Matthew 7:7-11 · The Father gives good things
• Revelation 5:6-10 · The bowls of incense, the prayers of the saints
• John 14:13-14 · Whatever you ask in my name
• Romans 8:15-16 · The spirit of adoption that cries "Abba, Father"
• Romans 8:26-27 · The Spirit intercedes for us
• Psalm 115:3 · Our God does whatever he pleases
• James 4:2 · You do not have because you do not ask
• Acts 4:23-31 · Praying to a sovereign Father under threat
• Ephesians 6:12 · A spiritual battle
• 2 Corinthians 1:8-11 · Burdened beyond our strength
• John 15:5 · Without me you can do nothing
• Luke 18:1-8 · The widow and the unjust judge
• 1 Thessalonians 5:17 · Pray without ceasing

Further reading

• How to Prepare a Personal Bible Study
• Which Bible Translation Should You Choose?
• How to Read the Bible When You're Just Starting Out

Frequently Asked Questions

If God is sovereign and knows everything in advance, what's the point of praying?

Prayer does not assume that God is unaware of the situation; on the contrary, it assumes that he is in control of it. A God who controls nothing would be a God you couldn't pray to. And a sovereign God doesn't just set the goals, he also chooses the means. He has decided that your prayer would be one of those means. James says "you do not have because you do not ask" (James 4:2). You are neither a fatalist ("God has already decided everything, so what's the use?") nor the world's ultimate decision-maker. You are a child to whom the Father has given this immense privilege: to ask, and to see God act.

What does it mean to "pray in Jesus' name"?

It's not a password to authorize an order. When Jesus says "whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son" (John 14:13-14), he is talking about a prayer that enters into his own agenda, glorifying the Father. To pray in Jesus' name is to pray what he would pray, in keeping with who he is. It's not checking the express-delivery box for a house, a Ferrari, and early retirement. It's asking for what advances the Father's kingdom and, for the rest, saying as Jesus did in Gethsemane: "not my will, but yours."

I don't know what to say when I pray. Does my prayer still count?

Yes, for three reasons. The Father hears even the incomprehensible cries of his children, like a parent who comes running the moment he hears "daddy" without knowing what comes next (Romans 8:15). The Son intercedes for you and makes your prayers pleasing to the Father, even when they're clumsy (Revelation 5:8). And the Holy Spirit "helps us in our weakness; for we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words" (Romans 8:26). Your weakness is not an obstacle to prayer; it's the occasion for it.