Knowing Our Father

How much do you trust God really?

We know intuitively we need to trust God

He is all knowing and all powerful which makes his goodness better that we can imagine

Think about this: how hard do you find it to trust God when everything around you is chaotic and dark?

Like when you are in a season of the valley?

People including some Christians find it very difficult to trust God.

1 John 1:7–10 NIV

7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. 8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.

This is the word of God…

Are you ready for the message God has for us today?

Can you imagine living your life terrified of dying?

Perhaps you think you have some sin you forgot to ask for forgiveness?

Or you had an evil or lustful thought?

And then in the next instant you died?

Verse 7, verse 9

What did Jesus reveal about His Father?

Think about what Jesus revealed about God with the word “abba”

Chip Ingram in an airport in Tel Aviv — Abba abba

James Bryan Smith, “In the Garden of Gethsemane during his final hours before the crucifixion, Jesus addressed God using a unique title: “Abba.”

Mark 14:35–36 NIV

35 Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. 36 “Abba, Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”

The word abba is an intimate word of trust and reverence from the relationship we have God.

Our God is a good and loving father who we can trust completely

Romans 8:15 NIV

15 The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.”

Why some struggle

There are people who struggle viewing God as a father because of their earthly fathers — abuse, abandonment, neglect

Karl Barth wrote, “It is…not that there is first of all human fatherhood and then so-called divine fatherhood, but just the reverse, true and proper fatherhood resides in God and from this fatherhood what we know as fatherhood among men is derived.”

You see men don’t set the standard God does — Develop

James Bryan Smith, “The solution is not to abandon the term father, but to let Jesus define it.”

1 John 3:1–3 NIV

1 See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. 3 All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.

God as Father

Look at what Jesus teaches us about the father in the Lord’s Prayer

Matthew 6:9–13 NIV

9 “This, then, is how you should pray: “ ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, 10 your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us today our daily bread. 12 And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’

God is present — Father in heaven

God is holy — hallowed: holy, to honor as holy

God is powerful — He is a king with a kingdom

God is caring — gives us our daily bread, he provides for us

God is forgiving — Richard Foster wrote, “At the heart of God is the desire to forgive and to give.”

God rescues — He wants to protect us. There is nothing that happens in life that God cannot redeem.

Do you see how Jesus reveals the standard set by God?

God is the reflection of what perfect fatherhood is intended to be.

When we see God as a father who loves, protects, and provides, our natural response is to love and trust Him completely.

Conclusion

How would you respond if someone came to you and said that they struggle with seeing God as a Father? — Because of the father who raised them

Take them to the Prayer, show them, introduce them to the kind of father God is — present, holy, powerful, caring, forgiving, rescuer…

One who gave all he had to be in a relationship with them

John 3:16–17 NIV

16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

God is the father we trust!