Three Reasons We Pray to “Our Father”
“To know you are a beloved child of God protects you from thinking of prayer as a ladder to God or an exercise by which you work your way into his favor. Prayer doesn't make you more accepted. Instead, prayer is growing in the appreciation of what you have been given.”
— Michael Reeves
Praying to our Father is powerful. We touched on this in Sunday's sermon. When we begin to pray as Jesus taught us, we're telling a story. The 20th-century author and pastor Jerry Bridges calls this preaching the gospel to yourself. In this way, prayer isn't just where we make our requests known to God, but it’s how we remember that we are already known by him.
When we pray to our Father, we're remembering at least three things ...
We remember who he is. Before God is anything else, God is Father. Scholar Michael Reeves says, "The most fundamental thing about God is not some abstract quality, but that he is Father." That means everything else he does and is can be understood through his fatherly nature. He creates, like a Father. He rules, like a Father. He provides, like a Father. He loves, like a Father. The psalmist prayed this way: "As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him" (Psalm 103:13). When we pray to our Father, we're preaching to ourselves the good news that he’s not the God who must be impressed by us to listen to us; he is the Father who listens to us because he loves us.
We remember who we are. In turn, when we speak to God as Father, we remember that we are his children. This completely changes our posture in prayer. This is especially true when we sin. As some have put it, religion says, "I sinned, don't tell dad." But the gospel says, "I sinned, let's go tell dad." One is the posture of a spiritual performer who must impress their deity to keep wrath away. The other is that of a beloved son or daughter who knows wrath is no more.
We remember why we exist. Knowing God as Father, and ourselves as dearly loved, gives us insight into our purpose in life and death. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, "Love your enemies ... so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven" (Matthew 5:44-45). When we've been loved with such generosity and tenderness, our hearts are stirred to treat others in kind. In other words, remembering we are children of the Father reminds us to love others as we've been loved.
Beginning every prayer with "our Father" isn't necessary. But that’s a good reason to call him Father: out of his great affection, the eternal Son has already done everything necessary for us to call him Father.
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Written by Jason C. Helveston
"As Jesus taught us" - i.e., the Lord's Prayer: "Our Father in heaven" (Matthew 6:9-13; cf. Luke 11:2-4). Addressing God as Father is not one invocation among many; it is the opening move of the prayer Jesus gave his disciples.
Jerry Bridges, The Discipline of Grace: God's Role and Our Role in Pursuing Holiness (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1994), chapter 4, "Preach the Gospel to Yourself." Bridges defines the practice this way: "To preach the gospel to yourself, then, means that you continually face up to your own sinfulness and then flee to Jesus through faith in His shed blood and righteous life."
Michael Reeves, Delighting in the Trinity: An Introduction to the Christian Faith (Downers Grove: IVP Books, 2012), 23. Reeves goes on: "All his ways are beautifully fatherly" (24) - he creates, rules, provides, and loves as a Father because before all things he was eternally a Father, loving his Son.
Psalm 103:13. In this psalm of praise, David grounds the LORD's compassion in his covenant love for "those who fear him" - fatherhood as the lens for all of God's dealings with his people.
Matthew 5:44-45. The quotation spans two verses in most translations: "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven" (ESV). Love of enemies is presented not as the price of sonship but as its family resemblance.
For further reading: Michael Reeves, Rejoice and Tremble: The Fear of the Lord (Lexham, 2021); J. I. Packer, Knowing God (IVP, 1973), chapter 19, "Sons of God."
