What's the Father Like?
Wha's the Father Like? • Sermon • Submitted
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· 4 viewsAs we celebrate Father's day, we do so wit different emotions and memories of our fathers. Today we want to celelbrate a Happy Father's Day becasue we have a Father who loves us and cares for us more than any earthly father ever can do.
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Our Father In Heaven
Our Father In Heaven
his day, like Mother’s Day, is celebrated in many different ways. One might sit and ponder on his or her relationship with their father, while another might not have the happiest or fondest memories of their father. And another yet, might celebrate with their son or son-in-law who are fathering their grandchildren. Some of us are male and can celebrate with our families.
Happy Father’s Day! These words wake up different emotions in all of us because we all have different memories of our own fathers. I am glad that we celebrate our mothers in May and our fathers in June. The Bible tells us to honour our father and mother that it may go well with us and have a long and full life. (Ex. 20:12, Eph.6:1-3 )
I just realize that probably non of us has a living father to celebrate this day with. My father passed away in 1985. That’s a log time ago.
But one thing we have in common, no matter what kind of father we had or still have in our lives. We have a Father is heaven.
The Bible tells us that God is a “father to the fatherless” (), and David wrote:
David said in Psalm 68:5
For my father and my mother have forsaken me,
but the Lord will take me in.
Father of the fatherless and protector of widows
is God in his holy habitation.
Both of Davids statements here tell us what our heavenly Father is like…
He is compassionate and caring...
The Lord’s Prayer
The Lord’s Prayer
Our Heavenly Father longs for us to spend time for Him and communicate with Him in prayer...
We might not be able to talk to our earthly fathers anymore and spend time with them but our Heavenly Father longs for us to do exactly that… spend time for Him and communicate with Him in prayer...
The greatest prayer that was ever prayed is the Lord’s Prayer, where Jesus taught his disciples and us to pray:
Pray then like this:
“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
Matth 6:
This prayer begins with an address to God as “Our Father in heaven”… and this address is followed by giving all honor to Him… ( Jesus is fulfilling the OT law of honouring the father (Ex 20))
To address God as “Father” was a revolutionary, even unheard of thought in the Jewish mind. The Hebrews feared God and attached such sacredness to His name, they would not even utter it…
Let me explain this:
The name of God most often used in the Hebrew Bible is YHWH… written in most of the english translations as “the LORD”… owing to the Jewish tradition of the sacredness… it is still replaced by the Hebrew word “Adonai” (my Lords)… and is in the Greek translation of the Old Testament ( Septuagint) translated as κυριος (Lord)…
When Jesus referred to God as his father, he was accused of blasphemy.
One of the reasons Jesus was crucified was because of this relationship he claimed to have with his father…
We know that Jesus claim was not just a claim… Jesus spoke the truth when he sai that God is His heavenly Father…
And now, because of His death and resurrection, we can have that relationship, too…
After he was risen from the dead, Jesus said to Mary Magdalene…
Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ ”
Jesus used the name “heavenly Father” often when he taught the disciples about the kingdom…
Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
Matth 6
For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”
By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.
If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.
Jesus tells us that the heavenly Father is not to be compared with our earthly fathers...
John 15:
Our earthly fathers are human and have a human personality, which causes them to make mistakes… (the same can be said about mothers)… we are human… God is not…
If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!
In fact, Jesus tells us that God provides more than earthly fathers ever could…
“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!
Not only does the Bible tell us to address God as Father, but we are to do so in an intimate and personal way…
As children of God, we are adopted as sons and daughters in Christ Jesus…
We did not grow up, saying, “I love you” to our parents, nor have they ever said it us…
It’s not that they didn’t love us, but culture and traditions in that time and place did not allow for sentiments like that between parents and children...
But we addressed them with Papa and Mama… expressing love and honor towards our parents…
As children of God, we are adopted as sons and daughters inChrist Jesus…
The apostle Paul puts it this way:
For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”
Romans 8:5
The word “Abba” speaks of intimacy, like calling our fathers ‘Daddy” or “Papa”…
The idea is of an affectionate relationship…
My grandchildren call us “Opi” and “Omi”… Those are words of affection and love...
Now, someone migth say, “you taught them to address you this way.” … And that is tru
We have taught them in the beginning to call us Opi and Omi but they have learned that these names are connected with a very intimate and loving relationship between grandparents and grandchildren …
We might have taught them in the beginning to call us Opi and Omi but they have learned that these names are connected with a very intimate and loving relationship between grandparents and grandchildren …
It is the same with God and us as His children...
And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.
We have a relatonship with God, that is based and founded on an intimate love that origianted in the Father…
We love because he first loved us.
Gal 4:6
God sent he Spirit of the Son - the Holy Spirit into our hearts, which cries out from the depth of our soul… “Abba! Father!”…
Paul also said that we are sons and heirs through God…
What is the Father Like?
What is the Father Like?
If you want an accurate portrait of God the heavenly Father, just look at the story Jesus told about the prodigal son in …
The story isn’t all about the son, as we often think and interpret this parable… It is also about the loving father…
And who would be more qualified to talk about a loving father than Jesus
And who would be more qualified to talk about a loving father than Jesus
In this story, Jesus presents God as an engaged, loving and affectionate father who loves both of his sons...
The Father has two sons… the younger demanded his portion of the estate before the father has died or at least retired… This son went off into a distant land and lived like a fool - blowing his money, consorting with prostitutes, literally ending up in a pig pen… He finally came to his senses and returned home…
He finally came to his senses and returned home…
Back at home we see a father who longed for his son’s return… He ran and threw his arms around him… kissing him over and over again…
The son started his carefully prepared speech of apology : Father, I have sinned against God and before you; I don’t deserve to be called your son again…
But the father didn’t listen…
But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate.
Luke 15:
He was calling to the servants, ‘Quick. Bring a clean set of clothes and dress him. Put the family ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Then get a grain-fed heifer and roast it. We’re going to feast! We’re going to have a wonderful time! My son is here—given up for dead and now alive! Given up for lost and now found!’ And they began to have a wonderful time.( Message)
He was calling to the servants, ‘Quick. Bring a clean set of clothes and dress him. Put the family ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Then get a grain-fed heifer and roast it. We’re going to feast! We’re going to have a wonderful time! My son is here—given up for dead and now alive! Given up for lost and now found!’ And they began to have a wonderful time.
Eugene H. Peterson, The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2005), .
When the older brother came home, the father also went out to meet him… and to plead with him to celebrate the return of his lost and found brother… but he rejected both, his father’s invitation and his long lost brother
… we don’t know the end of the story, becasue Jesus did not tell us…
He loved both of his sons and wanted to rejoice together with them
This story is the perfect portrait of our heavenly Father… Although he is our God, there is intimacy, there is relationship, there is love and affection…
There are many gods in this world… but there is no god like our God? … We have a compassionate, loving, affectionate God… A God who waits for us to come to him, like the father in the parable… A. God who is also going out, looking for us when we g astray, like a shepherd who leaves the 99 behind to find the one that is lost…
If you want to know what kind of Father we have in heaven, just look at Jesus.
Jesus himself said:
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’?
Whoever has seen me, has seen the Father. ()
They said to him therefore, “Where is your Father?” Jesus answered, “You know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also.”
John
If you knew me, you would know my Father also. ()
Just look at Jesus with the little children in his arms, blessing them… Just look at Jesus with tears streaming down his face at the grave of his friend Lazarus… Just look at Jesus, washing the feet of his disciples in the Upper Room…
That is what your Father in heaven is like… the Father we celebrate today…
Amen
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