Father pt 4

Reverence

Reverence

so the first requirement in being able to see is to seek, to seek Him, like a child

but the second requirement is also crucially important

yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. 27 All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

there are many who seek greater knowledge and understanding

and many in that pursuit find the truth of God, and yet there are many who have become “futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools”

as Paul says in Romans 1

any time we try to confuse our own understanding as being paramount we open ourselves up to deception

the place we can often miss it is when we when we think we can approach God and His wisdom on our own terms…

As if God giving Himself fully to humanity and giving His life for us wasn’t enough

Now we need Him to reduce Himself down to a form that makes sense to us

the church at times has tried to make God a bite size easy to digest formula

And it’s because we are taught in culture to think so highly of ourselves and our own intellect we think this is a right approach… “make God make sense…to me, to my thinking, then I will believe”

even John the baptist early in this chapter Matthew 11:2-6

Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” And Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”

Jesus is very rarely going to make sense to us

but right now it seems like universities are filled with young men and women who know better than all of us including Him

Tik-tok stories as filled with content created to show much they know and how inward you must go in order to find happiness

Why? Because they have been taught a perspective that doesn’t see God as Father but sees Him at times as an impediment to they becoming their “true selves”

Their God is their intellect, their emotion, their sexual expression, and this isn’t new…this is thousands of years old predating Noah

and it isn’t only our young people

because sometimes we as adults have it all figured out as well,

there are plenty of quotes that tell us that experience is the best teacher…

and the concept is sound

but only as much as we have submitted that experience to God

and only as much as we have allowed Him to reveal His purpose in what we have walked through

we all know plenty of people with a lot of “experience” who keep doing the same things over and over again with no improvement in the result

why?

because they have never brought the lessons learned to the Father

it is my responsibility as a Father to celebrate my kids successes as well as allowing them to fail from time to time while trying something new and challenging

but when those failures come, after the tears subside, and often after the objection to learn why, its my joy to teach them what they need to look at next time

We must be those who allow our Father to teach us through the pains and challenges of this life

because when we don’t, we come up with our own understanding about life

about who He is and by extension who we are

and the result of this, is that the things of God become hidden

he said “you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children”

we must always have in mind, as we looked at in our living sacrifice series

understanding only comes from the connection to the source of ultimate truth

the only logical truth is the truth that leads us back to Jesus

and Jesus in verse 27 very clearly states that it is the Father who gives ALL THINGS

and the only way to the Father is through the Son

Fear of God

now the reason this is crucial is because this is not just in the matter of our salvation

The Father has given Him ALL things

so if that is the case, how many things can be earned outside of Jesus?

“none things”

God your Father is rich in love and mercy

He invites every one of us into deeper intimacy and relationship with Him

and yet, it is never on our own terms

we don’t get to decide what God tolerates and what He doesn’t

we don’t get to excuse what He calls sin

or create our own truth outside of Him

and yet there have been times where in Christianity we have confused His love and Grace with the thought that we can simply incorporate Him into our own lifestyle

now we know this…

but sometimes we only apply it to the big things that are obviously out of alignment with scripture

sexual immorality, sex before marriage, lying, cheating, stealing, murder…

we know that God will not and cannot lower himself to the understanding of sinful desire

In the same way that God could not allow Adam Eve to eat from both the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and then the tree of life

because if God were to bless the perversion of this world it would not only be a violation of His nature, it would be a violation of who He made us to be

Which would be the cruelest thing a good father could ever do

To resource the very thing killing the children

as parents we cannot actively enable them to the the very things that bring greater separation from who God made them to be

but its not just in the “bigger sins”, the things that are so clear

it is in every area of our lives

especially the ones that we conveniently don’t bring to Him, because we don’t actually want to know the answer

but the example Jesus gave us was a life fully subject to the Father

John 14:9-11 ESV Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.

This is why Jesus lived His life fully aware of the goodness of the Father and equally fully in subjection to Him

This is why we are told in

Psalm 111:10 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding.

Reverent awe and respect of The Father is the gateway to receiving the revelation of His goodness