God The Father

Introduction

Begin apologizing for being away for a few weeks and not being consistent with our preaching routine. For that reason, I will be preaching two sermons as a way to earn your forgiveness

Have you ever found yourself so focused on understanding an idea that you missed the opportunity to actually experience it? Perhaps learning about a new place, studying a complex skill, or diving into a subject... Have you ever felt that disconnect between knowing about something and truly experiencing it?

Give example

In the same way, as Christians, we can spend our whole lives reading the Guidebook—the Bible—studying the history of our faith, memorizing the doctrines, and collecting all the knowledge about God... and yet, we might find ourselves standing right in His presence, still checking the map, and still missing the life-changing experience of God the Father

Today, we're going to explore how that might be true in our relationship with God the Father.

PRAY - GOD THERE IS SOMETHING I A M GOING TO GET WRONG. SO I PLACE MY TRUST IN YOUR WORD THAT I WILL NOT RETURN VOID. AND I LEAN ON HOLY SPIRIT’S GUIDANCE THAT SPIRIT, YOU WILL SEE IT THROUGH WITH THE APPROAPRIATE TRUTH FOR EACH INDIVIDUAL LISTENING.

The Problem - 2D to 3D

Here’s the dilemna that I have found when explaining God.

We have a lmiited view of God and I have come to know that we end up leaving God in one of two camps:

He’s this all-powerful God who is wrathful. Untouchable being that created us, we messed up but He made a way for us so we better get our stuff together or else...

He’s a loving Father who just wants to be with us. He accepts us as we are and as long as you love Him, you are good.

Here’s why I say there’s a delimna

ASK SOMEONE TO COME DRAW A CIRCLE

Imagine the people in the 2D world only seeing flat shapes.

when we get stuck in this thinking, we see The Father from two expremes;

Creator - Wrath

Father - loving and passive. allows everything

INTRODUCE 3D SPHERE

A 3D being could reach into their world and they might only see a hand appearing as a series of changing circles. This helps us grasp that God's actions in our world might look limited from our perspective even though they are part of a much larger and more complex reality.

If a circle lived in that 2D world, it would never see a full sphere, right? It would only see the part of the sphere that touches their 2D plane. Similarly, we only experience the parts of God's actions that intersect with our 3D reality. Examples

Jacob wrestling with an Angel (Gen 32)

Human form; three visitors in Mamre visiting Abraham (Gen 18)

A burning bush but it wasn’t being consumed (Exodus 3)

Balaam’s donkey; a talking animal (Numbers 22)

Whirlwinds to Job (Jon 388 & 40)

Gentle sound to Elijah ( 1 Kings 19)

Pillar of Cloud by day. Pillar of fire by night

God, being transcendant, interacts with our world, we are only able to perscieve it from our limited perspective. It doesn't mean we see everything, but it's enough for us to understand His character and purposes.

Understanding The Father

Why “Father”? In today’s society, this title almost have a negative conotation due to the cultural representations of Father

In patriolocal society (Ancient Hebrew”) God was described to be Father because the one who gives identity to another person is known as a “Father”

So, Father gives us the best understanding of the role He plays not only toard us but toward the other persons in the Trinity as well.

The Father is Father because HE eternally begets and loves the Son

He is the source of all life

John 1:1–3 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being”

God is known to be the Creator of all things; From the Angels, to every living organism, down to us.

He was Father BEFORE creation

He’s Father to the Trinity

The Son can do nothing out of his (son) ambition. He (Son) only does what the Father do

John 5:19 “Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise.”

John 6:38 “for I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.”

He is Compassionate

Exodus 34:6 “The Lord passed before him, and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,”

Hebrew word for Compassion “ _______________________________________________________

He is Love

It was out of His love that He created us

One of the greatestest mysteries form this is why? God didn’t create us for the same reason he created Eve for Adam; adam lacked

God did create us out of lack. Out of necessity.

“He needed nothing, and the fullness of His trune nature - Father, Son, and Spirit- dwelled together in perfect love.” He wanted to create us out of His own divine expression of love

it is that same love that motivates us to live for others (I’ll get to that later)

This alone should give you purpose.

All things come from here and are sustained thorugh Him

Ephesians 1:3–6 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.”

How then do we respond to The Father?

Jesus as the Model

Jesus has always been the greatest expression of God’s love. Why do I say that? You and I were created in God’s image, we were perfect and whole but something gone wrong within us. The bible calls that the fall and turning away from God, something diminished in our being. Something diminished inside of us. We became less than what we ever intended to be. The Bible tells us that after the Fall in Genesis, a curse entered the world. This is not just a historical event; it’s the daily reality of our lives. Look at our world—at the division, the brokenness, the constant striving for control and meaning. Look inside yourself—at the moments of selfishness, the times you’ve fallen short of what you know is right. Something needed to happen to make things right. because of this curse, this sin, we could not be in right relationship with The Father. There was nothing we could do to restore that. Something or someone perfect had to come and take our place and the ultimate price; Jesus.

all those things we come to know about God; His compassion, love, mercy, these were on display when He sent His son to die so that WE would be made right; in other words we would be ok in God eyes. This wasn’t God the creator, this was God the Father. The Father longs to be in right relationship with you, His child.

Jesus spent time with the Father. He devoted time WITH the Father and his time with the Father was an overflow of what he did.

Similar to the ancient culture, what your father did determined what you did. Jesus spent time with The Father and that time gave Jesus clear understanding on what his pupose was

Make time to be with The Father.

Jesus delighted in God’s word. God’s word was his compass. Being with the Father - Jesus modeled what it meant to be with The Father in Jesus’ pursuit to know God’s word.

from Temptation

to every day living

Jesus knew that God’ word was the source to the true meaning of life. Ironically He was the life. (I’ll leave it to that so that I don’t began preaching my wife’s sermon)

Make time to be in the Word. Learn to love God’s word. From that you will see that God wants intmacy with you and that He delights in you. HOw do i know? Psalm 149:4 “For the Lord takes pleasure in his people; he adorns the humble with victory.”

How do we please The Father? By faith. how do we have faith? spending tim with Him and being in His word. Then sitting in His word and living according to it out of obedience and faith.

Being about the Father - knowing the Fahter is to know the heart behind all creation and redemption

Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32)- really its about the Father

Jesus with the Women caught in adultery - full of mercy

taking the same truths about The Father and embrassing a relationship with The Father

“Even though He’s the Creator of every single human, He’s only the Father to those who yield their lives to Jesus”