Family: Our Father

The Prayer of Prayers: Exploring Jesus' Model, the Lord's Prayer PART I
Dr. Timothy Keller
28 September 2014

Galatians 3:26-29; 4:1-7
26So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, 27for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.  28There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.  29If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.

1What I am saying is that as long as an heir is underage, he is no different from a slave, although he owns the whole estate.  2The heir is subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by his father.  3So also, when we were underage, we were in slavery under the elemental spiritual forces of the world.  4But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship.  6Becuase you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, "Abba Father,"  7So you are no longer a slave, but God's child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.

Prayer is the key to everything you need to do or be

KNOWING WHO YOU ARE
--v5; gift of adoption as we are sons of Jesus through a gift.
--Heirs of the glory through his sonship.
--Adoption is a legal inheritance.
--An heir of God glorified and infused with his beauty and excellence.
--Access to God as father and his unconditional comittment to us.
--New freeing identity

KNOWING HIM PERSONALLY
--Our Father--what is a Father?
--v.4-5; Jesus always calls God a Father except when on the cross because that was the time of abandonment.
--Humble posture as He owes us nothing.
--Confident belief that God cares more about our good than we do.