God the Father - 2

Luke 15, John 5, Hebrews 12

 

 

          Question: Where in the Bible do we learn about “God the Father?”  Where does the concept occur most often?  Maybe in Genesis or Exodus?  No.  The term, “father,” actually appears 167 times in Genesis, but almost always it is literal, referring to someone’s actual father.  Maybe in the Psalms or Proverbs?  No.  Father appears only 4 times in the Psalms and only three of them refer to God the Father.  Maybe in the prophets like Isaiah or Jeremiah as they call the people back to their Father?  No. It appears 13 times in Isaiah (only 4 of those refer to God the Father) and 14 times in Jeremiah (but only 3 of those refer to God the Father).

          We are introduced to God our Father only when Jesus His Son comes to earth.  All of a sudden In the gospels, we meet the Father.  In the gospel of Mark, He is mentioned as Father five times.  In the gospel of Luke, God as Father appears 14 times.  In Matthew, 42 times, and in the gospel of John, 108 times.  Jesus speaks of the Father, and My Father, and your Father, as well as our Father who art in heaven.  All of a sudden we see this huge emphasis on the FATHER.  John 1:18 says, “No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.”  “He has explained Him.”  And that is what we see in the Gospels – the Son introducing us to the Father.

          What do we learn about God the Father from the presence of Jesus His Son on the earth?  How did Christ “explain” the Father?  Let me give you three ideas:

 

I.  The Father has a Family

          “Father” is a family name.  Everyone of us has only ONE Father.  Usually there is only one person on earth that you feel free to call your “father.”  When you say “Father,” there is no question who you are referring to – it’s that one person.  And the term, “father,” speaks of a special relationship with that one person.   

          That one person has had a great impact on your life.  Have you ever wondered what your Heavenly Father thinks of you?  The answer is connected with what you have learned from your earthly father.  What do you think of when you hear the word “father?”  Do you think in warm terms of that one person?  Do you automatically think of protection, provision, care, and tenderness?  Your understanding of God can be damaged by the example set by your earthly father.  If you were slapped awake at 2 am as a 5 year old by a drunken and angry man you called “father,” if you were beaten by an insensitive, ignorant man you called, “daddy,” if your father abused you, and finally left your life for good, or bad, when you were 11, then you have good reason for misunderstanding God.

          But God is the perfect Father.  He is the One who is so excited about His family.  He experiences the joy of victory and the agony of defeat with each of His children.  In Luke 15, Jesus tells the parable of the shepherd with 100 sheep who loses one.  He leaves the 99 to mount an intense search for the one.  When he finds it, Jesus says, "And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!' 7 "I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance.”  Have you ever thought about heaven throwing a celebration (I wouldn’t want to use the term, “party!”) over a success in the family?  All of heaven is excited over the return of one lost sheep.  Do you want to make your Father happy?  REPENT.  Come back, quit running, turn around, humble yourself and come to Him. 

          Jesus then mentions a woman who loses one of her 10 coins.  She lights a lamp, sweeps the house, gets down on her knees and searches for the coin, and in verse 9, "And when she has found it, she calls her friends and neighbors together, saying, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found the piece which I lost!' 10 "Likewise, I say to you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."  What this says is that God the Father is personally involved in each member of His family.  He gets excited over their successes; He becomes disturbed over their failures.

          Some of us have been taught that God sits up in heaven sort of motionless.  He knows all things, He understands the end from the beginning, and He sort of, without any passion, watches the world go by on the Interstate of life below, pulling strings, or pushing events as He needs to.  But Luke 15 says the opposite.  John Dawson, in a message entitled, The Father Heart of God, said, “we often forget that God’s very attributes of omniscience and omnipresence must necessarily intimately involve Him with every detail of our lives . . . God is deeply moved, affected, and touched by the pressures, problems and personal heartbreak people go through” (quoted from The Nature and Characterof God, by W. A. Pratney, 344).  Hosea says in 11:4, “I led them with the cords of human kindness, with ties of love.”

          But suppose you have not had the privilege of enjoying a good father.  George MacDonald says, “you must interpret the word [father] by all that you have missed in life.  All that human tenderness can give or desire in the nearness and readiness of love, all and infinitely more must be true of the perfect Father – of the maker of fatherhood, the Father of all the fathers of the earth . . .” (quoted from The Nature and Characterof God, by W. A. Pratney, 344-345). 

          We have in America today an epidemic of missing fathers.  Compounding the problem is that fathers at home are sometimes poor fathers.  They smear the definition of “father” by their poor performance.  We have an amazing number of children that grow up in America as “hidden orphans.”  They may have a parent or two, but they are not connected in any helpful way.  And their parental-love needs remain unmet.  That unmet need may lead them to mourning, or anger, or despair, or detachment.

          What happens to a generation that loses its definition of fatherhood?  Elizabeth Moberly, a research psychologist in Cambridge, specializing in psychoanalytic development, points out a very important consequence of this loss; society becomes a hothouse for homosexuality.  She notes that sodomy and lesbianism are the eroticization of unmet and genuine needs; the needs of a son to be loved by his father and a daughter to be loved by her mother.  She writes, “A homosexual orientation does not depend on a genetic predisposition, hormonal imbalance, or abnormal learning processes, but on difficulties in the parent-child relationship, especially in the earlier years of life . . . The homosexual, whether man or woman – has suffered from some deficit in the relationship with the parent of the same sex; and that there is a corresponding drive to make good this deficit – through the medium of same-sex or ‘homosexual’ relationships” (quoted from The Nature and Characterof God, by W. A. Pratney, 341).

          What does God want us to do to remedy the pain of a poor Father and a poor Father image?  Answer?  SUBSTITUTE PARENTAL CARE.  Orphans need care.  That’s why the Bible places such an emphasis on taking care of orphans and fatherless.  “You shall not afflict any widow, or fatherless child” (Ex. 22:22).  “Cursed be he that perverteth the judgment of the stranger, fatherless, and widow” (Deut 27:19).  “Oppress not the widow, nor the fatherless” (Zech 7:10).  And of course the essential link here is with the character of God the Father.  He is the One who protects and helps orphans (Deut. 10:18; Psalm 10:18; 146:9) because He is the “father of the fatherless” (Psalm 68:5); and in Hosea 14:3, “In Thee the fatherless find mercy” (from The Nature and Character of God, by W. A. Pratney, 341-343)

          We introduce orphans to God the Father by giving them parental love, parental care.  This is why we are going to Guatemala – to change the lives and hopes of a few orphans.  And the hope is that we will change the lives of others, because God the Father has a FAMILY!

 

          Think of that amazing situation in Kabul, Afganistan, where Abdul Rahman is on trial for his life because he “converted” to Christianity.  Friday, Abdul Raoulf, a senior Muslim cleric said in a sermon at the Herati Mosque, Mr. Rahman has “committed the greatest sin” and deserved to be killed.  “Cut off his head,” he said (WT 3/24/06, A20).  These Muslim religious leaders have warned the judges that if they cave in to pressure from the West and release Abdul, the religious leaders would incite Muslims to tear him apart into pieces and kill him.  The fact that he converted to Christianity 16 years ago means nothing.  The fact that he has spent many years of his life working as a medical aid worker helping Muslims, especially Afghan refugees in Pakistan means nothing.

          Think about what that kind of response says about God the Father to a Muslim.  What is a father like?  He cuts heads off children who deviate.  You either stay a Muslim, or die.

          Contrast that attitude with the story of Bilquis Sheikh, a Muslim girl who wrote about how the fatherhood of God invaded and changed her life: “Suddenly a breakthrough of hope flooded me.  Suppose, just suppose God were like a father.  If my earthly father would put aside everything to listen to me, wouldn’t my heavenly Father? . . . Shaking with excitement, I got out of bed, sank to my knees on the rug, looked up to heaven and in a rich new understanding called God ‘My Father.’  I was not prepared for what happened.

          Suddenly the room wasn’t empty any more.  He was there!  I could sense His presence.  I could feel His hand laid gently on my head.  It was as if I could see His eyes, filled with love and compassion.  He was so close that I found myself laying my head on His knees like a little girl sitting at her father’s feet.  For a long time I knelt there sobbing quietly floating in His love.  I found myself talking with Him, apologizing for not having known Him before.  And again came His loving compassion like a warm blanket settling around me . . . I reached over to the bedside table where I kept the Bible and the Koran side by side.  I picked up both books and lifted them, one in each hand.  ‘Which, Father?’ I said.  ‘Which is your book?’

          “Then a remarkable thing happened.  Nothing like it had ever occurred in my life in quite this way.  For I heard a voice inside my being, a voice that spoke to me as clearly as if I were repeating words in my inner mind.  They were fresh, full of kindness, yet at the same time full of authority.  It asked, ‘In which book do you meet Me as your Father?’ (From The Nature and Character of God, by W. A. Pratney, 350, which is taken from her book, I dared call Him Father, published by Chosen Books in 1979).

          Have you ever thought about how important it is to come to your FATHER?  Have you ever called Him, “My Father?”  Have you ever prayed to Him as your own Father, saying, “Father in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name?”  Arthur Custance says that if there is one single question a person may ask who is uncertain as to whether or not she is a Christian – who can’t recall a specific spiritual experience by which to mark a point of regeneration, it is this – “Do I think of God and address Him as my Father?” (The Nature and Character of God, W. A. Pratney, 335).   

 

II.  The Father is in charge. 

          I’m sure you have seen the poster that lists “10 rules for the home” which used to float around.  It went something like this:  Rule # 1 – The woman is in charge.  Rule # 2 – Remember rule # 1.  Rule # 3 – If there are any questions about Rule # 1, the woman will explain.  And so on.

          One of the amazing things we learn from the life of God-on-earth, Jesus, is that He was not in charge!  John 5 tells the interesting story of Jesus healing a man at the pool of Bethesda.  The man had been lame for 38 years when Jesus said to him, “get up, pick up your bed, and walk.”  He instantly got up and walked.  But there was a problem.  There were Jewish leaders who saw him carrying his bed, and called him down, saying, “you can’t carry your bed on the Sabbath; it’s illegal!”  The man said, “I’m sorry, but there was a man who healed me today and commanded me to pick up my bed and walk.”  “Who was this that commanded you to disobey the Sabbath?” they asked.  He didn’t know who it was, and after awhile Jesus met him again so that he could identify to the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus.

          I want to read the passage that follows, and I want you to notice how Jesus introduces the Jewish leaders and us to His Father:  16 For this reason the Jews persecuted Jesus, and sought to kill Him, because He had done these things on the Sabbath. 17 But Jesus answered them, "My Father has been working until now, and I have been working." 18 Therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God. 19 Then Jesus answered and said to them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner. 20 "For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself does; and He will show Him greater works than these, that you may marvel. 21 "For as the Father raises the dead and gives life to them, even so the Son gives life to whom He will. 22 "For the Father judges no one, but has committed all judgment to the Son, 23 "that all should honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him. 24 " Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life. 25 "Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live. 26 "For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself, 27 "and has given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of Man. 28 "Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice 29 "and come forth -- those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation. 30 "I can of Myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is righteous, because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me.

          For the Jewish leaders in verses 16 and 18, plotting murder on the Sabbath was legal, but carrying one’s bed was a mortal sin.  The leaders wanted to kill Jesus because “He had done these things on the Sabbath” (16).  At the same time Jesus’ explanation of why He healed the man (and commanded him to carry off his bed) was, “I’m working because My Father is working.”  “I’m not just doing this alone; it is My Father who is directing Me.” 

          That only made the leaders more furious and they wanted to kill Him even more because He was claiming equality with His Father.

          Jesus’ answer in verses 19-30 is amazing.  He says in vs 19, “what I am doing is not My doing, I am simply taking orders.  The Father is showing me what to do,” and in verse 20, “He will show me even greater miracles to do.”  In verse 21 the Father raises the dead, in verse 22, the Father has committed into my hands all judgment.  Verse 23, “I am the Father’s representative; He wants to be honored; and people will honor and hallow the Father’s name on earth as they honor the Son.

          Verse 24, “that’s why I am important; the Father has made Me His representative.  The one who listens to My word and turns to the Father to trust in Him has eternal life and will not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.”

          Verse 30, “I do nothing of Myself.  But what I do is right because THE FATHER IS IN CHARGE and I am doing what He wants Me to do.”  Here is God the Son, Jesus Christ, saying, “THE FATHER IS IN CHARGE; in fact THE FATHER IS IN CHARGE OF ME AND ALL I DO.”  Isn’t that an amazing passage?  God is submitting to God!  The Son of God is taking directions from the Father!

          If Jesus Christ took His directions from God the Father, don’t you think that you could do the same thing?  Do you notice how much trouble with have with that concept?  Is the Father really in charge of our lives?  Oh, we acknowledge it in our hymns and we mouth the words, but when it comes down to saying what Christ said, “I don’t do anything of Myself,” we say to Him, “speak for yourself; I have a better idea.”  We often act like the children who don’t like the way the Father is running the house, the teenagers who think their Father doesn’t even know what He is doing.

          Whether my children liked the way I ran the house, whether my teenagers though I was doing it right or wrongly, I was in charge of my house, especially when something goes wrong.  The toilet is running out on the floor, the garbage disposal quit and the water from the dishwasher is running over the counter-top.  The red light is on in the car and has been on for the past 15 miles.  Alright; I’ll take care of it.  The way it worked in our house most of the time was that the child was responsible to make the announcement of what was wrong – and then listen for directions – from the father.

          Tuesday, Melinda called from Baltimore.  “Dad, I checked the oil in my car this morning (a surprising statement), and there is nothing on the dipstick.” 

          “Well, was the car level?”

          “Yes, just a slight inclination down to the front.”

          “Can you get any oil to put in it?”

          “Yes, I can walk up to the 7-11; should I get two quarts?”

          “OK, buy one quart of 5-30 and put it in.”

          “Should I buy two?”

          I couldn’t remember that the car had gone so long that it would need two quarts of oil, even though no oil was appearing on the dipstick.  “No just one quart of 5-30,” I said. 

          Fifteen minutes later another phone call, “dad, did you mean 5-30 or 10-30?”  “There isn’t any 5-30 so I bought two quarts of 10-30.” 

          “OK pour one quart of 10-30 in it and bring the car home after work.”

          Tuesday evening I changed the oil and it was FULL.  There were a full four quarts of oil in it.  I said to Melinda, “what kind of incline was the car on when you read the dipstick?”  “Well,” she said, “it was parked in front of Steve’s house.”  We were at Steve’s house on Saturday for the first time.  The incline in front must be at least 20 degrees!  That was the problem!

          What’s happening in this situation?  I AM IN CHARGE!  In spite of my frailty and inability, I am in charge of my house, especially when things go wrong.  I am replacing the toilets in our house because we have worn out the plunger.  I am negotiating with a couple of heating and air conditioning companies because we need to upgrade our system.  I am the FATHER!

          When I think of my position, I see it as a very tiny suggestion of what it means to be God the Father.  He is in charge of this entire universe in a totally competent way.  That is an exciting truth!  That is an amazing thought, that my Father is in charge!  What a relief; what a privilege to relax and let Him give the directions.

          And yet we sometimes have trouble with that – the idea that the Father is in charge.  One of the things we commonly do as children of God is to take responsibilities that are not ours.  If God is Father and is in charge, I do not have to worry about the increase in crime.  The fact that things may be getting worse does not have to keep me up at night; my Father can take care of that.  “Do not fret because of evildoers” He commanded in Psalm 37:1.

          Neither do I have to worry about the price of electricity going up by 72% and the housing market falling.  The median price of new homes has dropped $13,500 since last October.  Sometimes we are tempted to wonder where all this is going.  But our heavenly Father commands us not to worry about these things.  There is something more important to worry about – your relationship with the Father.  Have you spent time with Him in prayer?  (Matt 6).  Have you closed the door and prayed to your Father in secret?  That is far more important than worrying about crime and electricity costs.  Why?  Because the Father is in charge, not you.  And these are the things He has clearly declared that He is taking care of.  Matthew 6:32b: “your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.  But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (by your heavenly Father).

          You take God’s responsibilities on yourself, and what happens?  Your life becomes confused and full of turmoil, because you are wasting your time, energy, worrying power, on that which gains you nothing.  Leave it up to Him and spend your time with Him.  See, the Father wants to show you what to do.  He wants to give you ideas as to how to find the best in life, how to do things that will be profitable and lasting.  Our joy in life depends on understanding who is in charge.  How much simpler, how much more purposeful and powerful our lives would become if we asked Him for directions, if we would spend a day with Him, or set aside a special time to be with Him.  Because He has the answers.

 

 

III.  The Father has wise plans for His children.

          The story is told of Joseph Kennedy, father of President John F. Kennedy, who once remarked of his granddaughter Caroline, Jack’s daughter: “Caroline’s very bright, smarter than you were, Jack, at that age.”  “Yes she is,” agreed Jack.  “But look who she has for a father” (from God: Knowing our Creator, by Max Anders, 73). 

          I am convinced that God is as “proud” of His children as we are of ours.  I am convinced that God wants His children to succeed as much as we do ours.  How do I know?  Because of the way He organizes our lives.  He makes sure we get disciplined, because that is the only way to grow up.