"Jesus Shared His Father With Us"

Once upon a time, there was a boy who was an orphan. He lived in an orphanage, and while he had friends at school, he always knew he was different. At the end of the school day, the other kids went home to their families to argue about eating vegetables or who got the TV remote. He went back to the orphanage. One day, his best friend invited him over after school, then again the next day, and then to stay over for the weekend. Before long, he was practically a permanent fixture at their house. He ate meals with the family, went places with them—all kinds of slightly chaotic little family adventures. He knew where the good snacks were hidden, which step on the staircase squeeked, and which chair was dad’s chair. He wasn’t family, but he was around so much that the dog stopped barking at him, which is the international symbol of semi-adoption.

One day, they were playing in the backyard when the orphan had an idea. "You think we could build a treehouse?" His friend was like, "That would be awesome! Let's go ask our father!" The orphan was stopped in his tracks, his eyes got big, “Our father?” He had never had a father, and  no one had ever offered to share theirs with him before. But his friend was just... assuming with the beautiful, uncomplicated logic of a child, that if his father loved him, then he would obviously love his friend too.

This little story gets at something profoundly beautiful about what Jesus does for us. 

When the disciples asked Jesus how they should pray, He could have taught them to begin with "Almighty God," which would be completely accurate even if a little intimidating. He could have said, "Pray to the Creator of heaven and earth," which is also true, but not particularly warm. Instead, Jesus said to begin with two surprising words: "Our Father."

Matthew 6:9 says this,

“Pray then like this: “Our Father who art in heaven.”

Notice he didn't say "My Father." He said "Our Father." Jesus is doing the exact same thing as the boy with his orphan friend. He’s sharing His Father with us.

Today is Father's Day, and I know this holiday brings up a lot of emotions. The Father's Day card aisle is a bit of a minefield because it assumes every dad is either a master fisherman, a grilling savant, or a perfect superhero. But real life is messier than that. Some of us had great dads. Some of us had fathers who tried their best but didn't really know how to show affection. And some of us had fathers who were completely absent, or their words and actions wounded us deeply. Some of us miss our dads who have passed away, and some of us carry painful memories we’d rather forget. So, for a lot of us, the idea that God wants us to think of Him as our Father is complicated. But still, Jesus absolutely insists on it. He wants us to know His Father the same way He knows Him.

I have a unique perspective on this. I never knew my biological father, don’t even know who he is. I had a piece of crap stepdad until I was seven who didn’t like me and didn’t want to have anything to do with me. Then my mom remarried. Bob Hart is actually my second stepdad. He looked at our messy, ready-made package deal and said, "Sign me up!" My mom called me home for lunch one day and said, “Frankie, meet your new dad.” Like it was the most natural thing in the world. Instead of being Frank Larson, I became Frank Hart. He basically adopted me. Gave me his name. Gave me a glimpse of the kind of love I would later find in our heavenly Father. He showed me what fatherly love looks like. Rescued us from poverty and violence… gave us hope for the future. None of that was lost on me when I came to faith at 14… one of the first songs I ever wrote was called, “Thank You Father.” It said, “Thank you for letting me be your son though I know I don’t deserve to bear your name.” No one understands that better than an orphan or a bastard.

It’s interesting how life turns out. Bob Hart lives with Kim and I now and turns 89 next month. For Father's Day this year, I got him a coffee mug that says, "I'm Bob doing Bob things." I’ll give it to him at lunch, so… I guess he’s not going to be too surprised now. Ha. He does our coffee ministry so it makes perfect sense. Also, If you know Bob Hart, it’s an accurate theological statement about his sanctification. "Bob things" are incredibly kind things. Helpful things. Fixing things, building things, cleaning things, and constantly looking for ways to serve people things. Even at 89 years old, with all the joint and back pain you can imagine, there’s still hardly anything he won't try to repair or improve, even if it doesn't actually need repairing. Ha.

He made the cross over there in the corner of our sanctuary. Our home is full of tables, shelves, doors, and all sorts of projects he’s built for us over the years—some of them held together by sheer willpower and Bob-magic. When I think about my dad, I think about how he has consistently given himself: his time, his care, his attention, and his faithful presence. I will forever be thankful for him.

But as thankful as I am for Bob, he’s not the point of this sermon. The point is that good fathers—even beautifully flawed stepdads like Bob—give us a small glimpse of something infinitely greater. They point us to the perfect Father. Bob chose to adopt me, to give me his time, and his name. Which is exactly how the Bible describes what God has done for every one of us.

Romans 8:14-17 says,

"For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs." 

Notice what Paul is saying. We’re not just forgiven criminals who got off on a technicality and now better stay on our best behavior—or else! We’re not just barely tolerated guests sitting nervously at the divine dinner table. We are children. Fully adopted children. Beloved children. And Paul throws a massive legal reality at us… we’re not just adopted children, we’re heirs! We inherit the family fortune. In the ancient world, the heir got everything. Everything changes when we move from being a friend, a guest, to being a son or daughter. 

Paul hammers this again in Galatians 4:4-7 where he says,

"But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’ So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God." 

Jesus wasn't sent on a cosmic rescue mission just so we could get a certificate of forgiveness—a get out of hell free card. The ultimate goal wasn't just a clean slate—the goal was family. The goal was adoption with full legal rights. Full inheritance. The goal was bringing us all the way home to live in the Father’s house.

Let’s talk about that phrase, “Abba! Father!”

Abba is the Aramaic word for "Father." In the first century, it wasn't childish baby-talk. It was a respectful family title used by both children and adults. Even so, using it for God was shocking. It was considered too intimate. Jesus regularly addressed God as Abba in His prayers, and then did something even worse—He taught His disciples to do the same thing.

That's why the New Testament preserves the phrase, "Abba! Father!" The writers kept the original Aramaic word Jesus used and paired it with the Greek word “Pater,” which means "Father," so Greek-speaking Christians could understand what was being said. The Bible never pairs “Abba” with “Pappas,” which is the more childlike Greek equivalent of "Daddy."

So, by preserving the actual word Jesus used, the early church was proclaiming a profound theological truth: through the Holy Spirit, we have been fully adopted into God's family. We’ve been given the same relationship with the Father that Jesus has—My beloved child in whom I am well pleased. When we pray, we pray with Jesus and say, "Our Father."

But we need to understand why this matters so much. We need to understand that we were all born orphans. I mean, I'm a card-carrying, bona fide bastard… but spiritually, the same is true of all of us. Because none of us are naturally God's children. Sure, we were created in the image of God, but Scripture is brutally honest about the fact that there was a fall; we were all born in sin. We spend our life rebelling against God, ignoring Him—trusting our own foolishness instead of His wisdom. We chase after our own fragile, little kingdoms instead of His eternal one. Even as Christians who’ve been in the church for decades, we too often live our lives like spiritual orphans. Worry about our bank accounts, our health, and our future as though we don’t have a Father who’s going to take care of us. We walk around carrying our burdens of guilt and anxiety as if we’re completely alone in the universe. We’re always trying to earn God's approval through good behavior, religious checklists, and comparing ourselves to other people, like we can’t remember how to just be loved by Him. We chase our identity, try to find ourselves in success, possessions, politics, relationships, our careers. We live like nervous servants trying to prove our value to the boss, instead of sons and daughters who know they’re already deeply loved by their dad.

And dads, let me speak directly to you for a moment. Because some of you are sitting here today, and let’s call it what it is, you’ve been wishy-washy when it comes to leading your family to the Father. You come to church when it’s convenient, or when sports schedules clear up, or when the wife bugs you enough times. You’ve treated church attendance like an optional weekend hobby rather than the lifeline your family desperately needs. Listen, when we step back from spiritually leading our home, we aren't just being passive—we’re acting like spiritual orphans. We’re living like we don't have a heavenly Father we can trust—and then we pass that doubt and insecurity down to our kids. And here is the hard “Cat’s in the Cradle” truth… Our kids are going to copy our passivity long before they ever copy our convictions. If we teach them by our schedule that God’s just a Sunday morning maybe, an afterthought, we shouldn’t be surprised when they grow up and don’t have any real faith to hold onto. Our families don’t need an absent, unfaithful dad. They need a dad who shows them what it looks like to consistently show up and sit at the Father's table, week in and week out. They need to see that Our Father is the priority of our life, not just a casual afterthought.

I think we need to constantly be reminded that God wants us to be here.

Because there’s this nagging suspicion that maybe God doesn’t really want us in His house. Maybe He’s disappointed in us, standing there with His arms crossed, angry, just waiting for us to mess up again. All these thoughts show how little we actually trust the Father, sometimes.

But then, thanks be to God, comes the Gospel. John 20:17 is one of the most beautiful statements Jesus ever made.

After His resurrection, standing outside an empty tomb, Jesus says to Mary Magdalene,

“Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ ”  John 20:17

The Father that Jesus the Son had known perfectly, gloriously, eternally.. the Father He loves and the Father who loves Him completely is the exact same Father He’s sharing with us. Like the orphan boy who hears his friend say, "Let's go ask our father." That is exactly what Jesus is saying on Easter morning. It’s exactly what He’s teaching us in the Lord’s Prayer. It’s not just a nice liturgical poem to recite on Sunday mornings. He’s actively inviting us into His own personal, intimate relationship with the Father… daily.

In 1st John 3:1 it says,

"See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are." 

Notice it doesn't say "we might be children of God if we clean up our act," or "we could become children of God if we read our Bibles more, pray more, do better." No, it just says, "and so we are!" We’re children of God right now. That’s why Jesus says in Matthew 6 that our Father knows what we need before we even ask Him. This is why Jesus promises in Matthew 7 that the Father delights in giving good gifts to His children, far better than any earthly parent ever could.

This is why Jesus looks at a terrified group of disciples in Luke 12:32 and says,

"Don’t be afraid, little flock, for your Father is well pleased to give you the kingdom."

God isn’t reluctantly handing you spiritual table scraps while groaning at your inadequacy. It gives Him genuine, divine pleasure to give you everything good. Trust that your heavenly Father is taking you somewhere good. 

It’s a promise. 

In John 1:12 it says,

"To all who have received him—those who believe in his name—he has given the right to become God's children."

It’s that simple. Believe in Jesus as Lord and Savior and you will be counted as one of God’s children.

So, how does this change anything in our lives? Well, it means we can actually talk to God—any time, anywhere. We have unfiltered, unlimited 24/7 access to our Father. My kids have always known they can walk into my office no matter what I’m doing and have my full attention. Cats in the Cradle and the silver spoon made sure I always made time for my kids. God’s a lot better at it than me. So, we can trust Him, even when life is completely confusing, even when our prayers seem to hit the ceiling, bounce back and slap us in the face… even when we act like ungrateful little monsters. The Father who loved us so much that He gave His only begotten Son so that whoever would believe in Him would have eternal life hasn’t suddenly stopped loving His adopted children. You can rest in that. You don’t have to wear yourself out trying to earn your place in God's family. You don't have to audition. Jesus already secured your spot at the table, signed the adoption papers with His own blood. The cross permanently took care of it, the resurrection confirmed it. You belong. This is your home now.

And because Jesus says He is our Father, we’re not alone in this. We collectively share our Father with the rest of the world. "Our" means we’re not all by ourselves. It means we’re not a bunch of isolated, independent adopted orphans; we’re siblings. Brothers and sisters. We’re a family. Because we share the same Father, we get to go out into a lonely, orphaned world and show people little, everyday glimpses of what our Father is truly like. We get to invite them into our family—invite them over every weekend until they know they belong. Then they get to invite others.

Think about that orphan boy standing there in the backyard, hearing those words for the first time: "Let’s go ask our father." Everything changed for him in that moment. Not because he was hoping to get a brand-new treehouse, not because he got another home-cooked meal or another weekend outside the orphanage. Everything changed because he knew he wasn't alone anymore. He wasn’t an orphan anymore.

When my mom said, “Frankie, meet your new dad,” I had no idea how that would change my life… I was seven years old. When Jesus says to you, “My Father and your Father,” that’s even bigger. When He taught us to pray, He wasn't just giving us a bunch of pretty words. He gave us His Father. His Father is now your Father too. Which means, because of Jesus, you can lift your head and pray with Him, with absolute confidence, "Our Father who art in heaven… thank You for hearing me." Amen.

Prayer

Heavenly Father,

Thank You for sending Your Son so that we might become Your children. Thank You for adopting us into Your family, giving us Your name, Your love, and an inheritance that can never be taken away.

Forgive us for the times we live like orphans—when we doubt Your goodness, carry our burdens alone, or try to earn what You have already freely given.

Remind us that because of Jesus, You are not just His Father, but our Father. Teach us to come to You confidently in prayer, and to trust in Your love for us.

Bless the fathers among us. Strengthen them to reflect Your faithfulness, Your kindness, and Your presence. Bring comfort to those who grieve, healing to those who carry wounds, and hope to all who need to know they belong.

We ask all this in the name of Jesus. AMEN