I. These words express a deep longing of the human heart. With all its folly, and frivolity, and sin, the heart of man has been made to feel after these words: "Our Father our Father which art in heaven." When we look at the length and breadth of man's history, it tells us that this cry constantly returns, sometimes exceeding great and bitter, sometimes sinking to a low moan or a suppressed whisper. "O that I knew where I might find Him."
II. And yet it is often difficult to speak these words with full assurance. The struggle to reach them is evident in the men who use them here, and is felt in the very word "doubtless" with which they begin their claim. The mind, the heart, the conscience, all find difficulties.
III. But, with all these difficulties, it is a feeling which can be, and has been, reached. We could never believe that such a deep longing had been implanted in man, to be for ever unanswered a cry pressed from his heart to be mocked with endless disappointment. In view of all the difficulties of mind, and heart, and conscience, there have been men who could look up and say, "Doubtless Thou art our Father."
IV. But this full sense of God's Fatherhood is not generally gained at once. There are three chambers by which we advance to the assurance of Fatherhood in God. The first is the upper chamber of Jerusalem, which comes to us ever and again in the Lord's table, with its offer of pardon and peace. The second is the chamber of the heart, to which we give him admission in love and obedience. The third is the home, where the Holy Spirit teaches us to cry, "Abba, Father."
V. To use these words truly is a matter of infinite moment to us all.
J. Ker, Sermons,2nd series, p. 176.
Reference: Isaiah 63:16. Old Testament Outlines,p. 240.