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Ask Pastor John

We Pray to a Father

Ask Pastor John

Desiring God

Christianity, Pastor, John Piper, Theology, Ask, Religion & Spirituality/christianity, Desiring God, 163859, Religion & Spirituality, Questions

4.94.1K Ratings

🗓️ 30 October 2014

⏱️ 6 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When we pray to God as our Father, we remember he is more than a boss. He is the lover of our still sinful souls, working in us to seek after him.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Welcome back to the Aspastor John Podcast.

0:07.4

This week we are joined by Pastor and author Tim Keller, who is soon to release a new

0:11.5

book titled Prayer, Experiencing All and Inimacy with God.

0:15.7

And Tim joins us again to talk about prayer on to question number 7 of 10 this week.

0:20.8

We have passages like Luke 11 verses 11 to 13 that seem to say, a fruitful prayer life

0:26.4

requires a foundational conviction that God is my father and he is totally for me without

0:32.2

hesitation on his part.

0:33.7

He is holy and completely for my good.

0:38.2

Just how key is this conviction for a healthy prayer life?

0:42.0

Well, it has to be foundational or Jesus wouldn't have started the Lord's Prayer with the

0:48.7

words our father.

0:51.4

So from what we can tell, I don't know that Jesus ever addressed God, you know, some

0:58.0

Bible scholar may find me an exception to what I'm about to say here, but I don't think

1:02.1

Jesus ever addressed God without calling him father.

1:06.9

And so it must be foundational.

1:09.9

And I would say it's foundational because in the word father that you or my father,

1:15.7

you essentially have the gospel in miniature because if God is my boss, if he's my employer,

1:23.5

then even though he might be a very good boss or a very good employer, nevertheless in

1:27.4

the end he's not unconditionally committed to me.

1:33.0

If I act up eventually, you know, he may give me a break or two, but eventually if my

1:37.1

boss will say, I'm sorry, you're terminated.

1:40.2

And so if I forget the God's my father, I may come to him in prayer basically in a mercenary

...

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