Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Basis of Prayer: “Our Father”

Episode Date: February 19, 2025

Jesus doesn’t just point the way to God—rather, he is the way to God because he’s risen. And that means that for Christians, prayer is a unique, radically different process than it is for other religions and philosophies.  Prayer is a rather universal thing, and there are many ways to pray. But Jesus says there are really two different bases on which you can approach God. He’s not talking about whether to ask; he’s talking about how to ask, about why you think you’re being heard. And he says there are two utterly different bases on which you can go to God. Looking at Matthew 6, let’s try to 1) understand the true basis of prayer, and 2) employ the true basis. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on April 23, 1995. Series: The Lord’s Prayer 1995. Scripture: Matthew 6:6-15. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

This is Gospel in Life. Prayer is one of the primary ways we can truly know God, but it can also help us understand ourselves. Through prayer we can reflect on the deepest and most private aspects of our lives in the presence of a Holy God. And it's in that space that the Holy Spirit works on our heart, bringing us to repentance and making us more aware of Christ's amazing love. Join us today as Tim Keller teaches on the transformative power of prayer. After you listen, we invite you to go online to GospelInLife.com and sign up for our email updates.

When you sign up, you'll receive our quarterly journal with stories of Gospel-Changed Lives as well as other valuable Gospel-centered resources. Subscribe today at GospelInLife.com. Matthew 6 verses 6 to 6, 15. This is Jesus speaking. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father who is unseen. Then your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. This then is how you should pray. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. And if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. And this is God's Word. Now it's the week after Easter and because Jesus is a risen Savior, not just a teacher, we can say that Jesus, in a sense, does not point the way to God. He

is the way to God. He doesn't just point the way to God as if he was just a teacher, but he is the way to God because he's risen. And in this passage, he shows us that if that's true, if he doesn't just point the way to God, he is the way to God, that means for Christians, prayer is a unique, radically different process than it is for other religions and other philosophies and so on. You see, prayer is a rather universal thing. In fact, you know, whenever they give surveys how many people pray, it's astonishing the number of people, the percentage of people. It's virtually everyone who says that sometimes I have or I do pray. Now, there's many ways to pray.

Jesus here shows us that there is a way to pray that he calls the pagan way. And then there's a way to pray, which is the Christian way. Now, the word pagan, he says, when you pray to pray, which is the Christian way. Now the word pagan, he says, when you pray, don't be like the pagans. Now when we think of pagans, we immediately think of irreligious people. The word pagan today tends to mean a violent person or a lascivious person or an extremely skeptical or irreligious person and I admit that sometimes I'll use the word that way too. But Jesus is not saying that here. He's talking about people who pray, who pray all the time. They babble. They pray maybe more than you and I. They have many

words. And he's showing us here that the real difference, the real dividing line that goes down the middle of humanity, that divides people, in Jesus' mind, is not so much the religious from the irreligious, but the religious from the Christian. The people who pray as the pagans and the people who pray our Father. You see, he says, don't pray like the pagans. They think they are to be heard because of their many words, but, he says in verse 8, your Father knows what you need. Now, many people look at this, verse 7 and 8, and they say, well, what Jesus is talking about is whether to ask God for things. Some people look at verse 8 and they say, ah, your heavenly Father knows what you need. Well, that's Jesus saying you don't need to pray or you don't need to

ask for things. And obviously that's not the case because just a few verses later Jesus says, say, give us this day our daily bread. No, look at what Jesus is saying. Jesus says that there are two different bases on which you can approach God. He says the pagans, now these are religious people because they're praying a lot, the pagans think they will be heard because of one thing. Don't be like them. Go as if God is your father. He's not talking about whether to ask, he's talking about how to ask. He is talking about two different bases on which you can go to God. Two utterly different ones. In other words, you can pray and plenty of people who think they're Christians who are part of the church and who recite our Father don't

pray our Father. They don't go to God our Father. They do pagan prayer. In fact, they in a sense of a pagan relationship to God. Jesus says the key is, what is the cause for which you will be heard? That affects everything. We have to look at ourselves. Going to church, you see, being religious, being busy, praying up a storm. Those things do not tell you whether you really are a Christian. They don't tell you. You have to say, why do you think you're being heard? That's the question, Jesus says. Pagans think they're being heard for this reason and Christians think they're being heard for a different reason. Now what are those two different reasons? I want to look at them with you. There's two different ways. Pagan prayer and there is Christian prayer. There's lots and lots of people who can pray, but it's very different than those who come

and say, our Father. Now let's take a look at this. First of all, let's try to understand the true basis of prayer that Jesus talks about, and then we'll try to employ the true basis of prayer that Jesus talks about and then we'll try to employ the true basis. Let's talk about how to understand the true basis of prayer and how to employ the true basis of prayer. And since the resurrected Christ gives us a resurrection model for praying as opposed to a pagan model for praying, this is the Lord's Prayer. This passage we're going to look at all the way from now till Memorial Day. We're going to look for the next five or six weeks, whatever it is, and we're going to see what Jesus says is this great access we now have because He's risen. He's not just a dead teacher, He's a living Lord, and we have this tremendous access to God. What is

it? Let's understand the proper basis for prayer and then we'll look and see how to employ or use that basis for prayer. First, understanding. Jesus is talking about, in verse seven and eight, two different ways to go to God. Now when you approach anyone, whether you know it or not, and most of the time we don't know it, you make implicit assumptions about the basis on which you're approaching that person. When you approach anyone for an exchange, anyone for an interaction, anyone for a give and take, you have to have some basis on which you're approaching that person and intuitively the basis determines the level of the exchange. So for example, on the streets of New York you can approach people who are absolute strangers

for a couple of things. I approach people and they approach me. And the subway, one of the normal things you can approach somebody for, it's allowed, is directions. Does this train stop at 34th Street? Am I on the right train? Which way are we going? Now when you approach another stranger in the subway in New York, that's allowed.

Why? What's the basis there? Well, I guess you could say common humanity and you remember what it's like to first get on a subway unless you're raised here, you know how confusing a subway is. So you have a sense of a common humanity there, you know what it's like to be lost and when someone asks you for directions, you kind of identify with them and they have the right to ask you for directions or time or something like that, what time is it. But everybody knows that that's a pretty slim basis and you can't go much beyond directions and time, not in New York City, in fact not most places. You can't say, could I have your briefcase for example, mine has a hole in it.

You just know you can't do that. Why not? You don't have the proper basis. That's too much exchange. If you want to have a deeper interaction, you have to have a deeper basis. Okay? Now Jesus Christ is showing us here that fundamentally there are only two basic ways you go to God. Now when we think about this is the same two basic ways we deal with each other and even

though and I'm sure afterwards when we have a question and answer time some of you're going to come down and talk to me about gradations and I admit that there are gradations there's a spectrum between these two points but Jesus is talking I think about these two basic points and I think in personal relationships you have these two basic things as well. What are these two things? You can have a business relationship with somebody or let's call it a family relationship with somebody. In a business relationship, the basis is I have something for you. That's the basis, what I have for you. In a family relationship the basis is what I am to you.

In a business relationship the basis is performance. You perform for me, I perform for you. In a family relationship the basis is a commitment, a kind of permanent committed relationship. Let me look at it, let me show you these two paradigms for a second. Imagine there's two different ways you can live in somebody's house. You can live in somebody's house as a border or, I mean, these are the normal ways. Don't freak somebody is going to say, but I can think of exceptions, okay, I can think of spectrums, all right, I'll show you some of them as a matter of fact. But for right now let's look at the two basic categories.

Generally you either live in somebody's house as a border or as family. For example, you may live in a house as a border and the person who owns the house is your landlord. Now you can have a pretty good relationship with that person as long as you pay the rent and you respect the property. There's rules for the tenant. And the landlord also has certain rules that landlord has to do maintenance and so forth. And you can have a pretty good relationship. So there's a basis for approach. But the interchange is a mechanical one of goods and services. It's a business relationship. It's mechanical, we'll get into that, of goods and services largely. In fact, I remember talking to a lady once who was in Virginia. She had a large

house and she used to rent out parts of it. And she says, you know, one of the big problems with when you live in the same house and you see the borders every day is the relationship continually tries to move off of a business relationship. You start to not just give goods and services, money and maintenance and all, you start to listen to their problems. You start to get into friendship and she says, wow, that's dangerous. I remember she told me one day, I said, what do you mean it's dangerous? She says, well, what happens when you have to put the screws to somebody because they're not paying the rent or because they're not being, they're not caring for the property and they've become your friend. And what she's

saying is a business relationship is a conditional one. A family relationship is moving toward being unconditional. The business relationship is based on what you have, performance, and a family relationship is moving toward what I am. One is conditional, one is unconditional. One has to do with your doing, one has to do with your being. And she says, you got to watch out. You can't become friends with a tenant. This is also a problem you can sometimes see at work. Can you not when you supervise somebody who ends up becoming your friend, then what happens when they're not toeing the line? What happens if they're not coming through on their job description? What happens?

Very difficult, very dissonant. That just goes to show my point that there are two basic kinds of relationships and there's a tension between them. You can also live in the home of your parents. In that case you're not a border, you're a child. Now we're moving all the way to the other side of the spectrum. In a situation like that, you know that the paradigm is different. The way the business paradigm is supposed to work is if you perform, okay, you'll be accepted. The way the family paradigm is supposed to work is, since you're accepted, you should perform. Two completely different paradigms,

two completely different ways of doing things. Now Jesus says, you can either approach God You can either approach God on a business basis or on a family basis. He says, now here's how you can tell whether you're approaching God on a business basis or a family basis. There's many ways to do it, but he's using prayer as an example. So he's looking at people,

many of whom are not Christians, I mean pagans are not Christians, and many people in the church or many people who think they're Christians are not Christians, Jesus is giving you a test to see on what basis you go to God. He says, you will babble, your words will be you will babble, and your words will be many. Now these are kind of interesting, these two. You know, in the Old King James Bible, it says, they heap up empty phrases and they think they will be heard for their vain repetitions. And it's ‑‑ if you do a little bit of digging into the ‑‑ obviously those words

have various nuances. In the new international version it says when you pray don't keep babbling, they think they'll be heard because of their many words. Babbling is a Greek word that means empty words, and the word many at the end of the sentence is a word that means anxious. Now look, here's how you know whether or not you're a pagan or a Christian. What happens when your prayers aren't answered. When your prayers aren't answered, you will find you will either be cold or anxious. You'll be cold because you say, I've been paying

the rent and I deserve from you. Or you'll be anxious because you'll say, I have not been paying the rent and therefore I'm probably guilty. Now think about this. If when you're not, if you find your life isn't going right, you pray and things just aren't going right, they're not going well, what's your response? If you get angry or if you get guilty, if you get angry you feel like God is not coming through and I deserve because I've been a good person, I've been paying the rent. Or if you get guilty you feel like I guess I've been

letting down, I haven't been paying the rent. But in either case you prove that you're a border, not a child. In either case you see, you believe at a fundamental level that your relationship with God is a business one. It's based on your performance and his. You've got your duties. He's got his duties. Don't you see the difference? A religious person says, God come into my life, be my landlord.

I'll do my part, you do yours. A Christian is someone who says, God come into my life, be my father. I am not worthy of your favor, but Jesus Christ has lived the life I should have lived and died the death I should have died. And as a result of, on the basis of what he has done, be my father. Those are two different paradigms. And the way you can tell, look at your prayer life babbling is a word that means empty cold impersonal mechanical there's no love there's no grace there's no sweetness there's no fullness and you're praying this is a listen I know this is a frightening thing this is a very frightening thing

and I know a lot of you will never pray out loud in my hearing ever again I know that's but that's not the point. Don't think about that. Don't think about what I think about. We're not talking about eloquence here. We're not talking about articulateness. Are your prayers cold? Impersonal? You do them just because you're supposed to do them? Are they kind of irritated because God's not coming through? Or are they many? Are they anxious? Are they always guilty? Are they always feeling like I just, I really don't deserve anyway? I don't know what I'm praying for. God never comes through to me. I guess I haven't been a very

good Christian. I must be an awful, terrible person. Is that your prayer life? Anxious, cold, impersonal, mechanical? Or warm, confident, loving, personal? Is your relationship with God that of a border or that of a child? When you pray to God, is it more like a chat or are you really connecting with Him in a deep and meaningful way? We'd like to help you establish a stronger, deeper, and more personal prayer life. Tim Keller's book Prayer Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God, offers biblical guidance as well as specific ways to pray in certain situations, such as dealing with

grief, loss, love, and forgiveness. In the book, Dr. Keller helps you learn how to make your prayers more personal and powerful through a regular practice of prayer. Prayer, Exper awe and intimacy with God is our thanks for your gift to help us reach more people with the life-changing power of the gospel. Request your copy today at gospelandlife.com. That's gospelandlife.com. Now here's Tim Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. You see why this is so absolutely critical? Jesus does not start the Lord's Prayer our King, though he is. And he doesn't start the Lord's Prayer our Creator, though he is. In

fact, he doesn't even start the Lord's Prayer our friend. And you know why? Because even friendship is ‑‑ friendship, I think, is a kind of cross, it's a hybrid between business and family. Because when you get to a friend, even friendship is based to a great degree on your performance. And those of you who say, oh, you know, the trouble with you talking about the family, my family is a wreck, the human family is a mess, even the messiness and the brokenness and the dysfunctionality of the human family proves the strength of the paradigm. Why? Look at you, a lot of us in this room have dealing still with brothers and sisters and husbands and wives and children and sons and daughters and fathers and mothers. that we still have dealings with people

whose behavior and whose history has been such that if they were anything else but members of our family we would have nothing to do with them anymore. Why do you still have any dealings with them? Why is there still an interchange? Why is there still some exchange going on? Because they're family. She's still my sister. She's still my mother. See, he's still my son. What is that? Jesus does not say when you go to God, say our friend. He doesn't say when you go to God and say our king. Those are all true though. God is our friend. God is our king. God is our creator. He says though you have to start our, because those two little words will control everything else about your relationship with God. In fact, the reason

he uses the word pagan here, for very religious people, people who are continually praying, people who are praying many words, he's trying to get across the point that the fatherhood of God, your understanding that you are an adopted child of God, is the very essence of what it means to be a Christian. Listen. John chapter 1 verse 12 says, as many as received Jesus and who believed on his name, he gave authority to become children of God. What does it mean to be a Christian? It means you are adopted, you are given the rights. When you receive Christ, you are adopted into the family of God. That's what it means to be a Christian. And if you don't understand

that at some level, you don't understand what it means to be a Christian at all. Think for a minute. Look, adoption is not the result of the child's efforts, why the child in many cases doesn't even seek this, doesn't even know what's going on hardly. Adoption is an act of the Father. And adoption is not a change in nature or behavior, not at first, right? If you adopt an unruly child and you love and discipline that child properly, the child's behavior will change, but not at first. But the minute you adopt the child, the essential change is not one of behavior or nature. It's a status change. It's a legal change.

What does that mean? It means the father legally adopts the child and says, now you are no longer someone that I, if you misbehave I send you home. You're here whether you misbehave or not. When you adopt somebody, you know what you're doing? You're legally saying, I promise to regard you with all the commitment and all the love and the acceptance I would, my natural child. And Jesus says as much in John 17. He says, Father, I want you to love them even as you love me. And some of you know, if you've been around here for much time, I have never gotten over

those two little words. Never. And I hope you don't either, and that's why I keep bringing them up. Even as. I want you to love them even as you love me. How much does the Father love Jesus? When you're adopted, the Father says by fiat, see, legal action. You cross over from being a no person to being some person, to being not a child of God, to being a child of God. And he says, I love you and I accept you and I'm as committed to you as I'm committed to my own son because you are now my sons and daughters.

Do you understand that? You say that's just too easy? That shows you're a border and not a child. If you say, I can't believe that that happens just like that. You've got to work for it. It's not that simple. That shows that's... I can't believe that that happens just like that. You've got to work for it. It's not that simple. That's true. And that's the reason Jesus is even bringing this whole thing of prayer up. He wants to show you the big difference is not between, but a pagan and a Christian is not the irreligious and the religious, but the religious,

the person having a business relationship with God and the person having a family relationship with God. person having a business relationship with God and the person having a family relationship with God. A Christian is someone, in many cases, Christians are people who used to be irreligious and didn't pray at all, but in many cases, Christians are people who have moved from being religious to being Christian, who have moved from seeing Jesus Christ as an example for our emulation to being a representative for our substitution. And he says, he died the death I should have died, he lived the life I should have lived, upon his death and life I base everything. That's what a Christian is. Now, do you understand that? If you do, what Jesus Christ says is, here's how you pray. You start with the doctrine of adoption. You must saturate

yourself with the fact that you have been legally adopted by God's act, not by your act. That he is committed to you as he is to his own natural son. When Jesus starts the Lord's Prayer, our Father, he says you've got to get that out every time you have any dealing with God at all, anytime. You've got to saturate yourself in it. You've got to rejoice in it. And that's the fire that fuels access into the presence of God. That's the thing that changes the throne of the universe into a throne of grace. Hebrews 4, since we have a great high priest that passed through the heavens, Jesus Christ, therefore let us draw near to the throne of grace with confidence." Jesus says, get out our Father.

You see, if you go through all the rest of the Lord's Prayer, you see all the different kinds of prayer. You have praise. Hallowed be thy name. We'll get to that next week. You see? In fact, the whole first part of the prayer is all praise and adoration. And then you have petition. Give us this day

our daily bread. And not only that, you also have submission and confession. Forgive us our sins and thy will be done. What Jesus is saying, our Father is not another kind of prayer alongside of the other kinds of prayer, our Father is the way all the kinds of prayer must be done. And if you don't use, if you don't saturate yourself, if you don't rejoice, if you don't deal with yourself, with the world, with God, continually and completely and relentlessly on Father-child terms, you're like a lady, Jesus says. If you don't understand what prayer could be, you're like the lady who died, I read about this some years ago, she died in poverty in the attic. She had a picture. She thought it was worthless. It turned out to be priceless. She had no idea the worth and the wealth and the preciousness

and the value and the power was right in her hands and you don't either. Pagans can't pray like Christians but Christians can continually fall back into praying like pagans. And here, look, let me just show you quickly how our Father, you must employ the doctrine of adoption in all three, let me just show you three other kinds of prayer. I'm giving you a kind of foretaste of the future when we get back to this. But let me show you how using adoption utterly changes the whole way you pray, in fact the whole way you look at everything. First of all, family prayer is the only way that you can adore God the way it says to adore God. Listen, do you remember

some of you? Some of you might have heard this. A couple of weeks ago, I forget when, we were going through the book of 1 John in the evening service. And in 1 John chapter 3 verse 1 it says, how great is the love of the Father that he has lavished on us that we should be called children of God. Now that word how great, great, that word great is a fascinating little Greek word. It's the patapon which means from what country does the love of God come. It's a word that means a Christian is somebody who finds the love of God miraculous, off the scale, utterly utterly unfathomable. A Christian is somebody who looks at him or herself and

says, it's a miracle that I'm a Christian. There's a spirit of wonder, there's a spirit of praise about everything that a border does not have. Now look, look carefully. If you're a border and not a Christian, praise is unnatural. A border can go into God and sit down with a list of things you want and you can spend 30 minutes easily petitioning God for your desires and your needs. But you're gonna have a tremendous amount of problem sitting down for 30 minutes and praising and adoring him. You know why? See, this is a telltale sign. Unless you are a child and you know you're a child and you rejoice in that as opposed to a border, praise will mean nothing. Adoration will mean nothing. Well, look, let me put it to you this way. Christians understand

that the reason they are Christians and loved by God is it's a totally free gift. Borders believe they've been paying the rent. And so when they get an answer to prayer, Borders say, well sure, I'm a moral person, I'm a decent person, I work very hard. Of course I had my prayer answered. When a Christian has a prayer answered, the Christian says, incredible. Why would he do such a thing?

But he has, and he'll continue to do it. There's a spirit of praise. In fact, if you ask a boarder, are you a Christian, the boarder will say, sure, of praise. In fact, if you ask a border, are you a Christian? The border will say, sure, of course. But when you ask a Christian, are you a Christian? A Christian, there's no of course-ness about it. A Christian says, it's incredible, but it's true. It's a miracle, but it's true. See, that's why 1 John chapter 3 verse 1, behold, that he would call us the children of God. Now, you know what?

If you worked hard all week, and somebody gives you your paycheck at the end of that week, you don't say, behold, what a miracle, my paycheck. You say, of course, I worked hard for it. And if there is no behold about your life, if when God does something good for you, if some answer to prayer comes, if you're not continually in a source of wonder, if you're not continually in a source of prayer, in a spirit of praise, you know what that means? You're a border. You're not a Christian.

Here's why. The difference between a pagan and a Christian. Pagans and Christians both repent of their sins. Oh, pagans know that their sins are bad. They recognize their sins are bad. The difference between a pagan and a Christian is not that the pagans, that the Christians repent of their sins, because pagans repent of their sins too. Pagans do not though repent of their righteousness. Christians do. That's the difference. Christians know that even their best deeds fall short, whereas pagans think their best deeds are rent. They're paying their rent. They expect their life to go okay.

They get mad when their life doesn't go well and when their prayers aren't answered. They get angry and that shows that they're borders. There's no spirit of praise for a Christian. Everything's a gift. This is a Christian. Let us love and sing and wonder. Let us praise the Savior's name. He has hushed the law's loud thunder. See, he has quenched Mount Sinai's flame. This is the language of a Christian heart and can it be that I should gain an interest in the Savior's blood? Died he for me who caused his pain? For me? Who him to death pursued? Then what? Amazing love. There's wonder about it. Don't you get it? Without our Father, there is no how it would be thy name. How much do you like the praise?

How natural is praise? How natural is adoration? That shows you whether you're a boarder or a child. Let me give you one more. I only got time for one more. Petition. Give us this day our daily bread. Notice Jesus does not say, give us this day our monthly bread. Give us this day our weekly bread even. He says daily. What does that mean? Jesus Christ throughout, not only here but everywhere else says that it's the job of the Christian to bug God for your needs.

He says in Luke 11, you can read there's a parable there and he tells us, be persistent. And the word persistent is a Greek word that should be translated shameless, impertinent. Jesus tells us to go after God and pray for every little thing, every little thing. Go after him shamelessly, go after him impertently, go after him rudely. Jesus tells you to do that in Luke 15. And you can see, look at Abraham arguing with God about Sodom. God says, I'm going to destroy Sodom. And Abraham says, how about for 45 good people? You won't do that. How about 40? How about 30? Go down there. Look at Moses arguing with God. He reminds God of his promises. If you read how aggressively people pray in the Bible, you'll ask yourself, how could this be? How could Jesus Christ press people to pray shamelessly and constantly? I'll tell you

why. I remember talking to, I was in a dialogue with some Muslims once back in Philadelphia, and at one point we talked about this, and I said, well we as Christians call God Father, and the Muslim, my Muslim friend said, well, we as Christians call God Father. And my Muslim friend said, we don't do that, you mustn't do that, he's too great to talk to like that. And I began to realize, wait a minute, the Bible sees God as great. Look at God saying to Moses at the burning bush, take off your shoes, this is holy ground. Look at God saying, don't touch the mountain when I'm on it or you'll die. Oh no, the Bible has a great God, but here's the difference. We're his children. The only person that dares to wake a king up at 3 a.m. for a glass of water is a child.

What would be impertinent and what would be rude and what would be shameless and overly aggressive demandingness in anybody else is natural and normal and acceptable behavior for a little child toward his parent. No other religion would dare tell you be shameless, go to God for everything. You have not because you ask not. Give us as they are daily bread. Bother him. Give him no rest, it says in Isaiah 62, until he makes Jerusalem the praise of all the earth. No other religion would say go to him for every little need. Go to him convenient or inconvenient. Go after him. Pour your heart out to him. Every other

religion would say, oh no, he's a great God. Of course you couldn't treat him like that, but he's your father. Our father, if you don't understand that, there's no how it would be thy name. Our father, there's no give us this day our daily bread. Our father, there's no thy will be done. A border expects to understand a landlord. A child does not expect to understand a parent all the time. Children trust their parents. Oh, they get angry. But a child knows that a good father will either give you what you ask or else will give you what you should have asked if you knew everything he knows. Children understand that they're not going to understand everything fathers do, and so children can trust.

If you're a border, you won't ask aggressively, but if you're a border, you won't trust God when he says no either. You won't be able to say, thy will be done, unless you understand him as father. There won't be a spirit of praise, there won't be shameless and aggressive going after him, but there won't be a resting and a peace and a healing of the heart from worry when you go to him. Oh friends, brothers, sisters who are praying like pagans and pagan friends who think you're Christians, look at what Jesus says. Don't be like a pagan who thinks you'll be heard because of something in you, but say, our Father. Let's pray.

Father, give us the time to contemplate what this means. I pray for my friends here who may be pagans who think they're Christians that what your son has said will show them that they don't know what it really means to be your sons or daughters. And I pray for my brothers and sisters who are angry because of unanswered prayer or are guilty and feel they can't go to God with their needs, show them that they're praying like pagans. That guilt and self-deprecation and anger and self-centeredness, all of these things are inappropriate if God is our Father. Heal us now of all of our ills through the doctrine of adoption that when we receive Him, you've given us rights to be your children. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Thanks for listening to today's teaching. It's our prayer that you were encouraged by it and that it helps you trust God's Word and love Him more. You can find more resources from Tim Keller at GospelInLife.com. Just subscribe to the Gospel In Life newsletter to receive free articles, sermons, devotionals, and other resources. Again, it's all at GospelInLife.com. You can also stay connected with us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter. Today's sermon was recorded in 1995.

The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel in Life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017 while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.