Sermon Tone Analysis

Jesus Is…Everlasting Father

Introduction

If I were to ask you, "What is the biggest social issue facing our culture?",

what would you say?

Abortion?

Women’s rights/sexual abuse?

Healthcare?

Refugee/Immigrant crisis?

In the most recent study done on the issue, 72.2% of Americans identified fatherlessness as the leading social concern in America.

How could that be?

Other social issues are surely more important, more relevant and more devastating.

Fatherlessness cannot be a worse issue than these other ones.

Right?

In How Now Shall We Live, Chuck Colson notes the disturbing realities that plague children who grow up without a father:

Children in single-parent families are five times more likely to be poor, and half the single mothers in the United States live below the poverty line.

Children of divorce suffer intense grief, which often lasts for many years.

Even as young adults, they are nearly twice as likely to require psychological help.

Children from disrupted families have more academic and behavioral problems at school and are nearly twice as likely to drop out of high school.

Girls in single-parent homes are at a much greater risk for precocious sexuality and are two and a half times more likely to have a child out of wedlock.

Crime and substance abuse are strongly linked to fatherless households.

Statistics show that 60 percent of rapists grew up in fatherless homes, as did 72 percent of adolescent murderers, and 70 percent of all long-term prison inmates.

In fact, most of the social pathologies disrupting American life today can be traced to fatherlessness.

We live in an era suffering from fatherlessness.

Since 1960, children growing up without their biological father has quadrupled from 8% to over 33%, representing 24.7 million children (fathers.com).

And our culture feels the shock of this devastating plight.

--The vast majority of the pastoral counseling I do with young adults stems back to issues with their dads.

--Young sexually-involved women who are looking for the love and acceptance their father never gave them.

--Young sexually-charged men who are looking to make their dads proud by essentially becoming sexual predators to prove their manhood to their father.

--Men and women who are driven in unhealthy ways in their careers to hopefully earn daddy's approval.

--So many young couples who are clueless about marriage and parenting, because there simply was not a good, godly example modeled for them in their homes growing up.

Some of you know the pain of fatherlessness all too well.

--You had a father who contributed some DNA but was never around.

--You had a father but could not count on him.

He was too busy with other things.

--You had a father who was there, but might as well have been gone.

-Emotionally distant.

-Plagued your home with alcoholism.

-Was steeped in workaholism and you took a back seat to a paycheck.

-Crushed you with criticism.

No matter what you did it was not good enough.

Really, when it comes to this issue of fatherlessness, the best-case scenario anyone can have is this: you had a great, godly father...who is gone now, or will eventually be gone.

If you live long enough, you will eventually know the pain of fatherlessness.

TS – as we are leading up to Christmas, we are looking at , this great prophecy from the OT about the identity of Jesus.

Though this promise is normally associated with Christmas, it is not limited to being true only during one season of the year.

It carries some good news for us today.

- 6 For a child is born to us, a son is given to us.

The government will rest on his shoulders.

And he will be called: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Jesus will be called Everlasting Father.

God is our Forever Father.

Our dad who is always there.

Back to the pastoral counseling that I do.

A large number of spiritual issues that people struggle with are caused by viewing God through the lens of their earthly father.

Their earthly father was not great, and they hear that God is their Heavenly Father.

Since their earthly father is their only frame of reference for what a father is like, they project that onto God.

-There are those who believe God is a harsh critic.

The Cosmic Killjoy who is just waiting for me to mess up so that he can punish me.

No matter what I do, I'm just not good enough for God.

He will never accept me.

How could he love someone like me?

-Could it be that God is not like that at all?

But that model of fatherhood was modeled in your home growing up?

-There are also those who dismiss God as absent.

He doesn't care.

If he did, he would show up and do something about the mess I'm in.

God is an absentee landlord...out doing who knows what, who knows where.

All I know is that he is not here, right now, with me.

-Again, is it possible that you're not forming your view of God from Scripture, but from what you saw growing up?

-Perhaps your view of God is that he is someone to be pleased.

So you work and work and work.

Serving him to exhaustion.

Another bible study.

Another ministry opportunity.

Go, go, go.

Never resting.

No grace, just work.

-Maybe you grew up in a graceless environment and now think the only way you can be good with God is to work for him.

Louie Giglio – “God is not the reflection of your earthly father; He is the perfection of your earthly father.”

TS - Since God is unlike our earthly fathers, what is he like?

Even if you were blessed to have a great and godly dad, your Heavenly Father is so much more.

In , in the famous Sermon on the Mount, Jesus focuses largely on the fatherhood of God and presents us with a character description of God, our Everlasting Father.

1.GOD IS PRESENT

- 6 “Watch out!

Don’t do your good deeds publicly, to be admired by others, for you will lose the reward from your Father in heaven. 2 When you give to someone in need, don’t do as the hypocrites do—blowing trumpets in the synagogues and streets to call attention to their acts of charity!

I tell you the truth, they have received all the reward they will ever get. 3 But when you give to someone in need, don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.

4 Give your gifts in private, and your Father, who sees everything, will reward you.

"Your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you."

That same refrain is repeated in v. 6 regarding prayer and v. 18 regarding fasting.

He sees it all.

He knows it all.

He is always there.

There is nothing hidden from him.

One of the greatest passages in all the Bible speaks to the ever-presence of God our Father.

Listen to these words and feel your Father's presence in your life.

- 1 O Lord, you have examined my heart and know everything about me. 2 You know when I sit down or stand up.

You know my thoughts even when I’m far away.

3 You see me when I travel and when I rest at home.

You know everything I do. 4 You know what I am going to say even before I say it, Lord. 5 You go before me and follow me.

You place your hand of blessing on my head.

6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too great for me to understand! 7 I can never escape from your Spirit!