Walking with the Father

Bible Reading - Romans 8:14-17

Romans 8:14-17 - For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. 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.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

Opening/Introduction

Order! Order! This sermon is now in session.

Whoops! Sorry, I’ve got to take off my Court Officer hat and put on my preaching one now.

Can we give it up again for the Young Adults for what I think was a very entertaining skit.

Mark, you must have been pleased with the outcome that the judge handed out - that could have been the end of your long career in giving out dad jokes.

Set The Scene (Theological Framework and Context)

Well, moving on, I just want to wish all the fathers again a Happy Father’s Day. We celebrate and honour you guys today, and we thank God for every one of you. A special Happy Father’s Day to Johnson, who is a first time father, so gets to celebrate this day for the first time.

And as it is Father’s Day, I guess it’s not too much of a surprise that I want to talk about the Father, who is our Father in Heaven, and so the title of my message is “Walking with the Father”. We’ve spent this year going through the series Walking Like Jesus, and ultimately, Jesus is the way, and the only way to the Father, and He models what a perfect relationship with Father God looks like. And so, today, I want to specifically speak on what it means to walk with the Father.

Of course, we talk about the Father every week - our whole purpose for gathering as a church is to help cultivate a greater understanding and a greater awareness of who God is.

As Christians, we believe that our relationship with God is the most important relationship we can ever cultivate.

And so, to that point, today, I want to talk about what it means for us, as people that profess to follow Jesus, to grow relationally with God.

Because if we truly believe that our relationship with God is the most important relationship we have, then we should know what that looks like to relate with God.

The passage in Romans that Mark just read makes it very clear as to how we are to relate to God, and it is not to live as slaves to God, but rather as children of God.

For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. 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.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.

You see, the moment we receive Jesus Christ into our lives by professing and believing that He is Lord and King over our lives, we not only receive forgiveness of our sins and salvation from an eternity spent away from God, but we also receive the Spirit of God, His Holy Spirit, that resides in us and He gives us identity in Christ, and testifies to us that we have been grafted into the family of God as children of God.

And what an incredible position that is for all of us. Before we go any further, I just really want to set the scene here for us.

Because the incredible truth of Christianity is that the God who is infinitely above us has chosen to come near to us.

The prophet Isaiah writes about how he saw the Lord “high and exalted, seated on a throne”. (Isaiah 6:1)

This is the God the apostle Paul says does not need anything from human hands because He gives life and breath to everything.

And yet, Paul also goes on to say, “He is not far from any one of us. In Him we live and moveand have our being”.

You see, the God that is transcendent, the one that is greater and above all of creation and all the universe, has invited us to know Him intimately—as our Father.

God doesn't merely invite us to know and relate to Him as Creator, but as Father.

“Abba, Father.”

So, this morning, I think that it’s very appropriate that we take the time to actually ask this question:

“What does it actually mean to know that God is our Father?”

1. We take after the Father

Bourne Identity → human search for identity → Romans 8 → children of God → childhood photos → Father's likeness.

Firstly, knowing that God is our Father is to know that we take after Him, like a child would their earthly fathers.

As it’s Father’s Day, I’m just going to play a very short clip from a popular action movie which I’m sure most of the dads here would have watched before - it’s called The Bourne Identity, starring Matt Damon.

Just as a bit of context before I play it, in this film, Matt Damon’s character, Jason Bourne is a former CIA agent who gets mysteriously shot by someone, and as a result is now suffering from psychogenic amnesia, which means that he’s forgotten most of his personal memories.

[Play clip from The Bourne Identity]

I love that line: “How can I know all that and not know who I am?”

Jason Bourne’s very candid confession rings a chord because I believe it reflects a lot of people’s own feelings.

Even though this question that Jason Bourne asks was because he had amnesia, it is a question that many people ask themselves, whether knowingly or unknowingly.

On the surface we may appear to have it all together. But in the deep recesses of our innermost self, each of us wonders, “Who am I?” And may I propose that if we’re left to ourselves to figure it out, outside of a relationship with our Heavenly Father, we cannot find a satisfying answer to this query. You see, as much as we are flesh and bones, we are also spiritual beings, that has a living Spirit in each of us.

So, in the end, without God in the equation, we won’t have a clue who we really are. As a result, we spend out lives vainly searching for an identity, without really ever finding it. We find and discover parts about ourselves, but never fully.

If you were here for our Mother’s Day service, you might remember the activity we did during the service, of trying to identify the various mothers in our church based on their childhood photos - which actually turned out to be a more difficult exercise than I had anticipated - I’m pretty sure more than half my guesses were off.

But anyways, in similar fashion, I’m going to share a few photos with you guys - no need to guess because I’ll tell you now that that is indeed me, and that is my dad.

[Share picture/s of childhood with dad]

Now, growing up, I would get comments all the time from everyone that knew my dad and saw me that I looked exactly like my dad.

And over time, those comments got stronger as I started to resemble him more and more, not just in appearance, but also in my mannerisms, my interests, and so on.

[List down a few examples]

One of those things was my interest with numbers and the application of logic - I think those were traits that I inherited from my dad.

Something a little more subtle and less obvious is that my dad has a pretty soft heart, even though he doesn’t often show it outwardly, he gets emotional when he sees something very moving, and I think I’m very similar in that regard.

Now, the thing is, and it sounds obvious me saying this, but I knew I resembled my dad and that I took after him and all these areas because I knew him and I saw him constantly. People saw me, and people saw him, and they also could made the connection.

Now if I grew up not knowing who my dad was, if for whatever reason he was absent and I never had a personal relationship with him, then I would still carry a resemblance to him, I might still have a love for numbers and so on, but I would not know where it came from, and it would not have evolved and developed in the way that it has.

I think this is similar to the confusion that Jason Bourne had in that clip we just watched, where his instincts, in the deepest recesses of his heart, were telling him things about himself, his capabilities, his ability to identify threats, to ensure some pretty remarkable physical challenges etc., yet despite him being aware of all that, he still didn’t know who he actually was.

And so, the point I’m trying to make here is that if we don’t know who our heavenly Father is, or if we don’t have a personal relationship with Him, then we may carry a likeness to Him (because we’ve all been made in the imgae of God) and we may kinda share some of His attributes (because we are all spiritual beings), but it will not be expressed to its fullness because we don’t know what that truly looks like.

We might know part of who we are - like Jason Bourne knew parts about himself - but we won’t be able know ourselves fully, or even be able to answer the question that Jason Bourne asks, “how I can know all that and not know who I am?” if we don’t know who our Father is and have a personal relationship with Him.

Foe example, outside of a relationship with God, we might be able to love others, but it’s not the fullness of love that God demonstrates through His son Jesus on the cross.

We might have some level of patience and can demonstrate some goodwill towards others when they hurt or offend us, but it won’t be to the extent where we can forgive our neighbours seventy times seven times, as Jeremy preached on last week.

You see, there’s a measure of these qualities that we read and know about from the Bible that we carry, because we have been made in the likeness of God and we are all spiritual beings, but if we don’t actually know Him personally, if we haven’t seen Him in action, then we won’t be able to express the fullness of these attributes and qualities in our lives.

King Solomon writes in Ecclesiastes, that God “has also set eternity in the human heart”. (Ecclesiastes 3:11)

We are spiritual beings, our spirits are eternal, yet if we don’t recognise where that has come from, it will just stay as a mysterious longing for something unknown - and that’s where people turn to all kinds of sources to fill that void and longing.

Conversely, if we know who our Father is, and not just knowing from afar, but knowing Him personally and as a Father, than we start to recognise who we are as well, because we were made in His image, and we have carry His traits.

Knowing the Father reveals who we are. [PPT]

We take on our Fathers’ traits (charateristics, attributes, behaviours etc.)

His compassion becomes our compassion.

His generosity becomes our generosity.

His holiness shapes our holiness.

His patience becomes our patience.

His love becomes our love.

[Share real life stories/experiences of people who have demonstrated incredible acts of love, kindness, forgiveness etc. because they knew the Father]

Even though there are a lot of things that as Christians we can get wrong and do get wrong because we are still human, we can deny the impact that we as Christ followers that have a personal relationship with our Heavenly Father can have on this world.

Throughout history, Christians that have known the heart of the Father have been involved in the care for the poor and marginalized. Some of the early Christian communities were the first ones to establish some of history's first organized systems of charity, including hospitals and orphanages.

The abolition of slavery was driven by the Christian conviction that were grounded in the belief that all humans were made in God’s image.

Christians have also been prominent in ministries such as prison reform, anti-poverty campaigns, disability rights, and various humanitarian organisations (e.g., founders of the Red Cross and many NGOs cited Christian motivation).

People that know who their Father in Heaven is exhibited attributes that reflected Him through the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives.

Ultimately, we know who we am because we know whose we are.

2. We continually look to the Father

Genie/vending-machine Christianity → unanswered prayer → Lazarus → “If You had been here…” → Jesus wept → God's presence in suffering.

And that leads me to this next point - that if who know who the Father is, and that we take after Him and discover more of ourselves as we discover more of who He is, then we need to keep looking to Him as a child looks to their father.

We need to keep gleaning from Him, to keep drawing from Him, so that we can continue to see the plans of the Father for our lives unfold according to His purposes.

And ultimately, we need to do so by remembering this one central truth that I want to drill home to us this morning, and it is about the goodness of God. {and I will sing… of the goodness of God}

I love that song so much, because it’s the song I sing to myself even when I sometimes can’t “feel” the goodness of God, or when my circumstances and my mood don’t match the words of what I’m singing.

You see, It’s not just nice lyrics to a worship song, but it is one of the central truths of our faith, which is precipitated on the fact that the God of the universe, the maker of the heavens and the earth, is also our Father in Heaven. He is great, He is almighty, and He is also good, He is our Father.

And just to expand on that more, I feel that it is important for us to understand that when we talk about God’s goodness, the main product of His goodness isn’t that we get what we want, but rather that we get God Himself - His presence, His love, and the assurance that He will never abandon us, even when we don’t understand His ways.

The goodness of God is evident in the fact that we get more of God.

It is very easy for us as Christians, when we talk about the goodness of God, to get into the mindset of assuming that if God is good, He will answer all of my prayers, life will be easy, I’ll never have to lift a finger in my life again, I will get everything that I have dreamt and asked for.

How often do we treat God as a genie in a bottle:

God, if you would just take all my difficulties away

God, if you would just answer my prayers

Then, when things don’t go the way as hoped or prayed, to:

God, why didn’t you answer this prayer? Why didn’t you give me what I’ve been so faithfully praying for?

And in the midst of this, we miss out on the things that Father God does offer and give us throughout all of this - we miss out on God offering Himself to us through all we are going through.

[Use the story of Lazarus to illustrate]

In the interest of time, I’m not going to read out the whole text from John 11, but a quick synopsis of the passage is that:

Lazarus becomes seriously ill in Bethany. His sisters, Mary and Martha, send word to Jesus: “Lord, the one you love is sick.”

Jesus loves this family deeply but rather than immediately going to them, He deliberately remains where He is for another two days.

Lazarus dies before Jesus arrives. By the time Jesus reaches Bethany, Lazarus has already been in the tomb for four days.

Martha goes out to meet Jesus and expresses both disappointment and faith: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

Jesus redirects Martha's attention from simply what she wants Him to do toward who He is:

“I am the resurrection and the life.”

Mary later comes to Jesus and says the same thing: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

Jesus sees Mary weeping and the people grieving with her. He is deeply moved, and then comes one of Scripture's shortest yet most powerful statements:

“Jesus wept.”

Jesus then eventually goes to Lazarus' tomb and tells them to remove the stone. Martha initially objects because Lazarus has been dead for four days.

Jesus prays to the Father and then calls:

“Lazarus, come out!”

Lazarus comes out of the tomb alive still wrapped in his grave clothes, and Jesus tells those around him to remove them and let him go.

The miracle reveals the glory of God and the identity of Jesus, and many who witnessed it put their faith in Him.

This story illuminates how sometimes things don’t go as planned, even after we’ve been praying and seeking so hard for a change in outcome. We often see prayer as a means to an end: that God is this cosmic vending machine (share about experience in Japan with all the drink vending machines: now that I’ve been to Japan, I can testify that one of the greatest features in Japan is the abundance of drink vending machines.. especially during the peak of summer they are an incredible lifesaver); insert prayer and expect results to drop into your hand - this instant outcome - otherwise we kick the machine in anger when they don’t, we lash out at God with our fists clenched (I know I’ve done that).

But the story of Lazarus really puts things into perspective. Jesus, God, is not a means to an end, He’s not the mechanism through which Martha can change her circumstances. Rather, He is the end. Martha’s circumstances lead her to Him.

And it’s not that her suffering or our suffering doesn’t matter; far from it! It mattered so much that it brought Jesus to tears - the shortest verse in the Bible (John 11:35) shows the Son of God being brought to tears! Jesus was not indifferent to their suffering or to their pain, but He was right there with them at their lowest point.

And when the time was right, Jesus does raise Lazarus from the dead, the miracle does take place in God’s perfect timing, and it is ultimately for the drawing of all people into relationship with Him.

You see, I believe the Father is always looking for entry points to relationship with Him, sometimes its through the miraculous, through signs and wonders, but that relationship is also formed through suffering as much as through joy. So if the goal of our existence is relationship with Him, with the Father, then finding Him in our suffering is the point. And oftentimes, it’s those things that has been tested through fire, that has gone through the crucible, that leads to the strongest and sturdiest of people.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m by no means saying that our prayers are futile and pointless - Scripture repeatedly tells us to pray without ceasing, to ask God when we’re going through difficult situations to come into our circumstances and to do the impossible, and He does do so time and time again.

But the problem isn't asking our Father to change our circumstances. The problem is when our relationship with our Father depends upon whether He changes them.

Is God still a good Father when I don't understand what He's doing?

Matthew 7 gives us that answer:

Matthew 7:9-11 - Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11 If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! [PPT]

Do we trust that God is still good, that He is still in control, that He is still our Father, even when we don’t see the immediate answer to what we’re hoping and praying for?

A good Father isn't only a Father who gives us what we want. He is a Father who refuses to abandon us in what we're walking through. The Father is my refuge in what I am going through. He is very much a Father that is present in our suffering and in trials and tribulations. [PPT]

I believe that Father God goes through every high and every low with us - He listens to every moment of heartache or heartbreak, every struggle, every concern, and He weeps with us in moments of grief and sadness. And I believe that He offers Himself in all of these moments so that we can find Him in all of these moments.

So, rather than God’s goodness functioning as a vending machine for our preferences, it serves as a way for us to grow a deeper knowledge of God through a stronger and more personal relationship with Him.

So regardless of what we are going through, even the unanswered prayers and desires we might currently have in our lives, I implore us to keep looking to the Father, to keep coming before Him as a child would to their father, and for us to take comfort in the goodness of God.

3. We remain with the Father

Pastoring confession → I don't always know what I'm doing → children don't need all the answers → John 5:19 → Jesus watched His Father → practical conversational relationship with God.

And so, finally, I just want to encourage us, in our relationship with our Father in Heaven, that we need to know Him, we need to look to Him, and we also need to remain in Him.

This is not a one time thing, or something that we grow out of, at least not in this lifetime. We will always be children in need of the guiding hand of the Heavenly Father, and you know, I really believe that that is the best and most assured place we could ever be in.

You see, remaining with the Father gives us confidence for where we are going, because wherever it is, we will always be at the centre of where God wants us to be, and that is the best place we could ever be in.

Throughout the years that I’ve been involved in ministry, whether it was in student campus ministry at Students for Christ Melbourne University, or leading a youth group here at New Life, to even right now in pastoring this church, there have been many, many times where I have no idea what I’m doing.

Some of the leaders that have journeyed with me over the years would probably know what I’m talking about. I’ll probably say or do something really silly and make them shake their head.

And funnily enough, I've become more comfortable to admit all of this.

Because I've come to the realisation that I don't have to know everything if I know the One I'm walking with.

Key line:

I don't have to know everything about where I'm going and how I’m going to get there when I know the Father I'm walking with. [PPT]

And I can tell you that it is an incredibly freeing place to be in, because the weight is lifted off.

We go from relying on our own strength and our own wisdom and ability, to drawing on the strength, wisdom and ability of the one who reigns supreme over the universe.

Even when we look to the example of Jesus, we see the Son of God living in perfect unison with the Father.

John 5:19 - Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.

Jesus, in His humanness, constantly made it a point to retreat to quiet places to pray and be with the Father. That is what it looked like to remain with the Father.

So, as we look to Jesus as the perfect model and representation of the Father, we see what it means to live in constant communion with Him, to remain in Him and to be at the centre of His will for our lives.

Sometimes our prayer life is:

“Father, here's what I've decided. Please make it work.”

But walking with the Father asks:

“Father, what are You doing?”

“Father, what are You saying?”

“Father, where are You leading?”

“Father, how do You see this person?”

“Father, what do You want me to do today?”

Conclusion - Hope in the Father

So, what does it actually mean to know that God is our Father?

It is to know that we take after the Father

It is to continually look to the Father

It is to remain with the Father

When I know whose I am → I have hope.

When I know He is with me in everything → I have hope.

When I know I don't walk into tomorrow alone → I have hope.

For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. 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.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.

Closing

I just want to close off by saying:

Maybe your experience of an earthly father has been wonderful.

Maybe it's been complicated.

Maybe Dad was present.

Maybe Dad wasn't.

Maybe Father's Day brings gratitude.

Maybe Father's Day brings grief.

But today I just want to encourage us to engage with, and to be relational with our Father in Heaven. Because there is an eternal hope found in Him.

And to every father here today:

Perhaps one of the strongest messages you can give your children isn't the impression that Dad always knows what he's doing.

It's showing them what it looks like when Dad knows who he takes after, how he responds in the midst of trying or testing times, and what it looks to continually trust and remain in Father God.

[Pray for the congregation]

Notes

Knowing the Triune God lies at the heart of our Christian experience. Affirming the doctrine of the Trinity - the one God is Father, Son and Spirit united in love - forms the heart of the Christian understanding of God. God is the community of the Father, Son and Spirit, who enjoy perfect and eternal fellowship with each other.

We must take this central Christian doctrine a step further, however. The God who is relational within the eternal divine being enters into relationship with creation.

God is both transcendent and immanent.

Firstly, God is transcendent over the world. Transcendence means:

God is self-sufficient in relationship to the world. God does not needs the world to be who He is.

God is “above” or “beyond” the universe.

God enters into relationship with the world freely.

The Scriptures declare God’s transcendence.

Isaiah writes about how he saw the Lord “high and exalted, seated on a throne”. (Isaiah 6:1)

But God is also immanent in the world. This means:

God is fully present to creation

God is active within the universe. God is involved with the natural processes. Above all, God works in human history.

The Old Testament writers repeatedly sound the theme that God is the sustainer of creation through His divine Spirit (Job 27:3; 33:4; 34:14-15; Psalm 104:29-30). Jesus credited the natural processes such as sunshine and rain, the feeding of the birds, and the beauty of the flowers to the agency of His Father. And in his well-known speech to the people of Athens, Paul declared that God “is not far from any one of us, “for in Him we live and move and have our being”. (Acts 17:27-28)

Acts 17:24–28 “The God who made the world and everything in it—he is Lord of heaven and earth—does not live in shrines made by hands. Neither is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives everyone life and breath and all things. From one man he has made every nationality to live over the whole earth and has determined their appointed times and the boundaries of where they live. He did this so that they might seek God, and perhaps they might reach out and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. For in him we live and move and have our being, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also his offspring.’”

God is both transcendent and immanent. These two aspects of God’s relationship to the world carry far-reaching significance for the way we think about God.