Bow Before the Father: Embracing the Fatherhood of God
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Preliminaries:
Preliminaries:
Invite to Eph 3.
Every third Sunday in June we celebrate fathers. Traditionally symbolized by neckties and backyard cookouts.
I found a few Father's Day Fun Facts I want to share with you:
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the necktie is the most popular of all Father's Day gifts.
The origin of the word dad may simply be baby talk - "The forms dada meaning 'Father'...originating in infantile or childish speech", says the Oxford English Dictionary.
There are 1.5 billion fathers worldwide. 66.3 million of those father's are in the United States.
Father's Day is the fifth-largest card-sending occasion in America with almost 100 million Father's Day cards sent each year.
Only 50% of all Father's Day cards are purchased for dads. Nearly 15% of Father's Day cards are purchased for husbands. Other categories include grandfathers, sons, brothers, and uncles.
The Father's Day card business will ring up about $780 million this year.
According to National Geographic, Father's Day costs less than Mother's Day - with individual consumers spending $94.54 and $138.36 respectively.
Famously Mark Twain said the following about his father: "When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years".
The idea of Father's Day was conceived by Sonora Smart-Dodd who wanted a special day to honor her father, William Smart, a widowed Civil War veteran, left to raise six children on his own.
It wasn't until 1972 that Father's Day was officially made a U.S. holiday, when President Richard Nixon helped set aside the third Sunday in June for dads.
We all called her Granny Lorton. She was a sweet and wonderful grandmotherly lady, in fact she was my pastor’s grandmother.
She would occasionally attend our midweek services at the church I attended as a child.
On several occasions they would tell the story of when she was just 8 years old, her mother passed away. Hayden Briscoe, her father was left with three grief stricken girls.
All of the community, as well as aunts and uncles were all wondering and trying to decide what to do with those girls, because, “Hayden was poor, and needed to work and couldn’t take care of those children.”
One day Mr. Briscoe sat all of the girls down, and looked them over.
They were all wondering which ones were going to be sent away. And he looked at all of them real close and said, “I’m not going to give a one of you up, we’re staying together” and that’s exactly what happened. He raised all three girls by himself.
The world needs father’s like that. Father’s that are loving, providers, protectors, caring, and self-giving.
Maybe you weren’t blessed with a father like that...
Perhaps some of you do not have the best memories of your dad’s or even traumatic memories - and I in no way wish to inflict further pain or trauma -
but we see in scripture a picture of what father’s were intended to be - not by an example of a perfect earthly father - but by what I want to talk to you about this morning -
it isn’t really a father’s day sermon - in fact I want us to think beyond those words, traditions, and memories to a teaching, or doctrine of the Christian church is that of the Fatherhood of God.
In Eph. 3:14-15 Paul who is in prison gives us a fascinating start to our journey of discovery of what the Fatherhood of God means.
Let’s read it:
14 For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
15 Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named,
I love what D. L. Moody said;
It makes all the difference in the world how we look upon God. Some people fear God, but when they understand that He is their Father, that fear is gone.
DWIGHT L. MOODY - 300 Quotations for Preachers from the Modern Church
Dr. Daniel Steel - that great Methodist Theologian of the past wrote in his book, HALF-HOURS WITH ST. JOHN'S EPISTLES
He’s dealing with that series of verses in 1 John 2:12-14
12 I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name’s sake.
13 I write unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I write unto you, young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one. I write unto you, little children, because ye have known the Father.
14 I have written unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one.
Steele says...
At the close of verse 13, John seems to have laid down his pen for a season. On resuming it again he reads the last verse written in the present tense and proceeds to repeat his address in the use of the past tense, as if explaining his former advice to the same three classes.
"Because ye know Him?" This knowledge implies the new birth, establishing a direct spiritual connection through the agency of both the Son of God and the Holy Spirit. For "no man knoweth the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him." The fatherhood of God is a spiritual relation made known only by a supernatural revelation, through the Holy Spirit, by whom the new birth is accomplished and by whom, as the Spirit of adoption, crying in our hearts, "Abba, Father," it is revealed. St. John says much about the knowledge of God as the privilege of the believer. The phrase "ye have known" occurs three times in these two verses; "ye know" occurs eight times and "we know" is found seventeen times in this Epistle. He teaches a knowable salvation more emphatically than John Wesley. There is involved in the knowledge of the Father, sympathy, love and submission. It dwells not so much in the sphere of the intellect as in that of the heart.
It is a surprising fact to find in scripture that God desires to be intimate, cultivate and maintain a relationship with us. This is so important that it is called by Jesus called it eternal life
3 And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.
Dr. Dennis Kinlaw points out:
There is much in the Gospels about the kingdom.
Jesus told his disciples, “As you go, preach this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven is near’” (Matt. 10:7).
That God is Lord over his creation is clear.
But a prior figure used in Scripture demonstrates the character of God’s kingship.
Before God was King, he was Father, and his fatherhood is more ultimate than his kingship.
Kingship speaks of his relationship to his creation. He reigns and will reign over it all.
But fatherhood speaks of a relationship within the very nature of God that was there before he spoke anything into existence.
In the bosom of eternity, before there was time or space or humanity, the second person of the triune Godhead called the first person of the Trinity not Lord, but Father.
So the family is a more ultimate social reality than the kingdom. The origin of the family is not in time but in God.
The earliest Biblical references to the Fatherhood of God in the Old Testament are more indirect. They speak of the Father as one who has children
22 And thou shalt say unto Pharaoh, Thus saith the Lord, Israel is my son, even my firstborn:
23 And I say unto thee, Let my son go, that he may serve me: and if thou refuse to let him go, behold, I will slay thy son, even thy firstborn.
Other places in the Old Testament the people of God are described as sons or children. (Allan Coppedge. Portraits of God: A Biblical Theology of Holiness )
Isaiah quotes the Lord as saying, "Sons have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me.... They have forsaken the LORD, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are utterly estranged" (Is 1:2, 4).
The first explicit reference to God as Father comes in the Song of Moses. Moses sets out to "proclaim the name of the LORD," and the Lord reminds him at the close that his name is holy (Dent 32:3, 51). Moses declares this God to be "a God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and right is he. They have dealt corruptly with him, they are no longer his children." To these foolish and senseless people he asks, "Is he not your father who created you, who made you and established you?" (32:4-6).
He reminds Israel that they are the heritage of the Lord (32:8-9),
and he rebukes them that they have forgotten "the God who gave you birth." "His sons and daughters" provoke the Lord to hide his face from them "for they are a perverse generation, children in whom there is no faithfulness" (32:18-20).
This picture of a holy Father is expressed again by the psalmist. "Father of the fatherless and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation" (Ps 68:5).
Again, the Holy One of Israel says of David, "He shall cry to me, `Thou art my Father, My God, and the Rock of my salvation.' And I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth" (89:26-27). While blessing God's holy name, David exclaims, "As a father pities his children, so the LORD pities those who fear him" (103:1, 13).
The prophets also speak of God as a loving Father.
Isaiah recounts God's love to sons who deal falsely with him. In the same passage that describes God as having a Holy Spirit, Isaiah records the cry of God's people. "For thou art our Father, though Abraham does not know us and Israel does not acknowledge us; thou, 0 LORD, art our Father" (Is 63:7-11, 16).
Isaiah also likens God's role as Father to that of the potter. "Yet, 0 LORD, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou art our potter; we are all the work of thy hand" (64:8).
Jeremiah describes God's evaluation of Judah: "I thought how I would set you among my sons, and give you a pleasant land, a heritage most beauteous of all nations. And I thought you would call me, My Father, and would not turn from following me. ... Return, 0 faithless sons, I will heal your faithlessness" (Jer 3:19, 22).
But while Israel has been faithless in responding properly to God as a Father, God continues to fulfill this role in the restoration of his people. "With weeping they shall come, and with consolations I will lead them back, I will make them walk by brooks of water, in a straight path in which they shall not stumble; for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my first-born" (31:9, 20, 23).
This family figure of speech is not only picked up by the prophets but also in the wisdom literature. In Proverbs we read, Proverbs 3:12 “12 For whom the Lord loveth he correcteth; Even as a father the son in whom he delighteth.”
Our survey of the figure of God as Father in the Old Testament indicates a number of direct references to God as Father. Many of these refer to his role as the Father of Israel (Dent 32:6, 18; Jer 3:14, 19; 31:9; Is 63:16; 64:8; Mal 1:6,- 2:10; 1 Chron 29:10).
But it is also evident that God may be understood as the Father of certain individuals within the nation of Israel (Ps 68:5; 89:26-27; 103:13; 2 Sam 7:14).
In particular, the king is sometimes explicitly referred to as God's son, representing the nation as a whole,
but so are other individuals within the nation who must directly relate to God (2 Sam 7:14; Ps 89:26-27).
Both the direct and indirect references to God as Father in the Old Testament are tied to God's covenant relationship with Israel.
He is the Father of those whom he has elected to be his own, and nowhere does the Old Testament speaks of a universal fatherhood of God.
At first glance, Malachi 2:10 seems to imply such a universal fatherhood. "Have we not all one father? Has not one God created us?" But the context of Malachi's prophecy is clearly "the oracle of the word of the LORD to Israel by Malachi" (Mal 1:1). He is talking to the people who are in a covenant relationship with God, and the God who has elected them is referred to both as Father and Creator. When he says "One God created us," he is clearly referring to the nation of Israel.14 So he is not referring to God as the Father of all creation but to him as the Father of those who enter into a special covenant relationship with himself.
When you get over to the New Testament you notice that while there are far more references to God as Father in the Old Testament - there is a much fuller picture of God as Father in the New Testament.
This is to be expected as the New Testament begins with the coming of God’s Son Jesus.
The most interesting and important term in the Gospels reflecting how Jesus thought about God is the simple word “Father.”
The term occurs four times in Mark,
thirty-six times in Matthew,
and one hundred times in John.
The most important of these are the expressions “my Father” (seventeen times)
and “your Father” (nineteen times).
Jesus teaches His disciples to pray “our Father,”
[It is interesting] ...Jesus never uses “Our Father” to designate God at the same time and in the same way as the Father of Himself and of His disciples.
When we get to Paul and his thoughts on it he is so moved, so overcome with the reality of the God of creation that he wrote:
14 For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
15 Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named,
The family and the home, as God would have us understand them, has its focus on love and centers around an atmosphere of acceptance and close relationships. It is based on the assumption that God is looking for an intimate fellowship with people that is best described in terms of love. Allan Coppedge. Portraits of God: A Biblical Theology of Holiness (Kindle Locations 4043-4045). Kindle Edition.
There are several different aspects of the Fatherhood of God seen in scripture
The Father of Creation
1 Corinthians 8:6 “6 But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.”
The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ -
Seen in five ways;
Begotten by the Father
Acknowledged by the Father
Acknowledged by Jesus Himself
Acknowledged by other Men
Acknowledged by Demons
The Father of Israel
The Father of Believers
The Father of All Men
I like what Oswald Chambers says about this last one.
The Quotable Oswald Chambers Fatherhood of God
When we talk about the Fatherhood of God, let us remember that the Lord Jesus is the exclusive way to the Father. That is not an idea to be inferred, but to be received: “No man cometh unto the Father, but by Me” (John 14:6). We can get to God as Creator apart from Jesus Christ (see Romans 1:20), but never to God as our Father saving through Him.
Christian Disciplines, Volume 2, The Discipline of Prayer, 309 R
The Fatherhood of God is seen through at least three unique ways:
Provision - A father is often thought of in terms of “provider” perhaps that has become an old fashion idea as i know the growing number of stay at home dads is on the rise - but that has been the traditional thought - and God is portrayed as a provider
Deuteronomy 2:7 (KJV) “….These forty years the LORD your God has been with you; you have not lacked a thing.”
Philippians 4:19 (KJV) “But my God shall supply all your needs according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.”
Matthew 6:31, 33 (KJV) “Therefore take no thought, saying, ‘What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? … But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”
Acts 14:17 (KJV) “…and yet He did not leave Himself without witness, in that He did good and gave you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.”
Psalms 146:7-9 (NLT) “…He gives justice to the oppressed and food to the hungry. The Lord frees the prisoners. The Lord opens the eyes of the blind. The Lord lifts up those who are weighed down…”
We have a Father - who provides for His children. an earthly father provides food, shelter, protection from the evil and harm in the world as much as possible
So does our Heavenly Father - I remember hearing the Clouse’s sing the first time I ever heard the chorus
He's my Lord
There is no other One
Who can calm the storms of life like my Lord
He'll give rest ot the weary
Bring new life to the hopeless
There's no doubt about it
He's my Lord
Protections:
He protects from the storms, from the enemy
We are promised - “When the enemy comes in like a flood the Lord will lift a standard against him”
Over and over you find the Psalmist refer to God as a rock, a defense, a strong tower, hedge
Affection
While God is Holy and we find this repeated over and over in the Bible - We also read that God is Love
One described it this way - "The supreme manifestation of holiness is in love."'
Love from a holy Father. The picture of God as a loving Father is one of the most pervasive figures of speech used in the Scripture.
The reference to God as Father is so strongly emphasized by Jesus that it has become in effect the normative title for God and it may be the most widely used figure of speech among Christians.
If we begin looking in Scripture for the kind of things a loving Father does for his children,
then the first pictures of God in this category would come with the opening chapters of Genesis, which depict God caring for Adam and Eve, providing for their protection and meeting their needs for love and fellowship.
God continues to do fatherlike things for others throughout the early chapters of the Bible.
Think in terms of Holiness and love: Hesed.
God's love is related to his holiness in the first passage that speaks about the holiness of God. The KJV reads Ex 15:11,Exodus 15:13 “13 Thou in thy mercy hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed: Thou hast guided them in thy strength unto thy holy habitation.”
I like how one version puts it. Who is like thee, 0 LORD, among the gods? Who is like thee, majestic in holiness? ... Thou halt led in thy steadfast love the people whom thou halt redeemed, thou halt guided them by thy strength to thy holy abode" (Ex 15:11, 13).
In the midst of Israel's experience of deliverance from Egypt, God is identified as "majestic in holiness," and at the same time described as the one who leads his people in "steadfast love."
The word translated the KJV translates as “mercy” and "steadfast love" in the RSV is the Hebrew word hesed (M7), and is one of the two major Hebrew words that describe the love of God.
It is a covenant word whose meaning is one of the richest in Scripture. It refers to not only his love but also his grace, mercy, faithfulness and goodness, ...it is a word that does not exclusively relate to love but has love at its center, and therefore, it is one of the terms that appropriately describes a loving Father
The steadfast love of God as an expression of his fatherhood is seen in texts like God's promise to David.
2 Samuel 7:14–15 “14 I will be his father, and he shall be my son. If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men: 15 But my mercy shall not depart away from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away before thee.”
Jeremiah looks forward to the New Covenant and quotes God as describing himself as a Father saying
Jeremiah 31:9 “9 They shall come with weeping, And with supplications will I lead them: I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters In a straight way, wherein they shall not stumble: For I am a father to Israel, And Ephraim is my firstborn.”
Jeremiah 31:3 “3 The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: Therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.”
The second Hebrew word that describes the love of God is the more common word for love, ahab [A hob] . This word is not used to describe God's love until the book of Deuteronomy when God has Moses look back over the history of Israel from Mount Sinai up to the end of their wilderness wandering.
This book comes not only as a second account of Israel's history but also as a reflective and interpretive evaluation of the way in which God has worked and the implications of this for Israel in the future. It is at this point that ahab is first used to describe God's love for Israel
Deuteronomy 4:37 “37 And because he loved thy fathers, therefore he chose their seed after them, and brought thee out in his sight with his mighty power out of Egypt;”
Deuteronomy 7:6 “6 For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God: the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth.”
Immediately, we are reminded of God's declaration to Israel at Mount Sinai regarding the reason that he wants a holy people. Because God is holy, he desires a holy people (Lev 11:44-45).
Then God begins to explain his motivation for choosing Israel as his own people. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set his love upon you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples; but it is because the LORD loves you, and is keeping the oath which he swore to your fathers, that the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you. (Deut 7:7-8)
It is evident from this passage that God's love is a clear expression of his holy character as he seeks a holy people. Therefore, love becomes a manifestation of God's holiness, particularly at the point of the election of Israel.
A third type of love. Agape is a supernatural love that has the special good and concern of the love object as its focus. It has an unconditionalness and an other-centeredness about it that is distinct from the other words used for love in Greek. It is particularly used in the New Testament to describe the love of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and the kind of love God implants in the hearts of those who become his spiritual children."
The picture of agape as an expression of God's holy character is seen most clearly in John 17. Here Jesus addresses God as "holy Father." The intimacy of the love relationship between the Father and the Son is seen when Jesus talks about how the Father has loved him On 17:23-24, 26).
. So through his prayer Jesus reveals that the heart of the holy nature of God is his love for the Son and his love for those who are becoming his disciples (17:22, 26).
How Deep the Father's Love for Us
How deep the Father's love for us,
How vast beyond all measure!
That He should give His only Son,
To make a wretch His treasure.
How great the pain of searing loss!
The Father turns His face away;
As wounds which marred the Chosen One
Bring many sons to glory.
Behold the man upon a cross:
My sin upon His shoulders;
Ashamed I hear my mocking voice
Call out among the scoffers.
It was my sin that held Him there
Until it was accomplished;
His dying breath has brought me life:
I know that it is finished.
I will not boast in anything:
No gifts, no power, no wisdom;
But I will boast in Jesus Christ:
His death and resurrection.
Why should I gain from His reward?
I cannot give an answer;
But this I know with all my heart:
His wounds have paid my ransom.
Songwriters: Stuart Townend
How Deep the Father's Love for Us lyrics © Thank You Music Ltd.
Paul never heard the lyrics to this song - but its message burned deep within his heart we see them bleeding through the page as he prays
14 For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
15 Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named,