Father's Day
OUR FATHER
MATT 6:9-10
The most radical teaching of Jesus in the Bible was the concept that God was our heavenly Father. As Christians we pray to a God who is personal. God is just as personal as we are, in fact more so because He is loving, compassionate, patient, kind and caring. He is not only good but great. The words ‘in the heavens’ denote not the place of his abode so much as the authority and power at his command as the creator and ruler of all things. Thus he combines fatherly love with heavenly power, and what his love directs his power is able to perform. He is Holy, True and Just, yet loving, considerate and merciful.
He is not some grandfatherly figure who overlooks our faults, but a Heavenly Father who leads us to soberly and honestly face our sins and deal with them according to His mercy and grace so that we become more in character like Him.
When we address God as “Our Father” we must remember that we are a part of God’s worldwide family of believers. We are family. God is our Father. God loves His family and He wants His family to be in harmony and unity. When we do this our Father is glorified.
When Jesus says “Our Father” He says:
I. We Are a Part of the Father’s Family
A. By Faith.
Gal. 3:26, “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.”
B. By Adoption
Rom 8:15–17 “For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.”
C. By Acceptance – Simple as a child’s faith
Kids’ Letters to God
• Dear GOD, Instead of letting people die and having to make new ones, why don’t You just keep the ones You have?—Jane
• Dear GOD, Maybe Cain and Abel would not kill each other so much if they had their own rooms. It works with my brother.—Larry
• Dear GOD, If You watch me in church on Sunday, I’ll show You my new shoes.—Mickey
• Dear GOD, In school they told us what You do. Who does it when You are on vacation?—Jane
• Dear GOD, I read the Bible. What does “begat” mean? Nobody will tell me. Love, Alison
• Dear GOD, Are You really invisible or is it just a trick?—Lucy
• Dear GOD, Is it true my father won’t get in Heaven if he uses his bowling words in the house?—Anita
• Dear GOD, Did You mean for the giraffe to look like that or was it an accident?—Norma
• Dear GOD, Who draws the lines around the countries?—Nan
• Dear GOD, I went to this wedding and they kissed right in church. Is that okay?—Neil
• Dear GOD, Thank you for the baby brother, but what I prayed for was a puppy.—Joyce
• Dear GOD, Please send me a pony. I never asked for anything before. You can look it up.—Bruce
• Dear GOD, I want to be just like my Daddy when I get big but not with so much hair all over.—Sam
• Dear GOD, You don’t have to worry about me. I always look both ways.—Dean
• Dear GOD, I think the stapler is one of your greatest inventions.—Ruth M.
• Dear GOD, I think about You sometimes even when I’m not praying.—Elliott
• Dear GOD, Of all the people who work for You I like Noah and David the best.—Rob
• Dear GOD, My brother told me about being born but it doesn’t sound right. They’re just kidding, aren’t they?—Marsha
• Dear GOD, I would like to live nine hundred years like the guy in the Bible.—Love, Chris
• Dear GOD, We read Thomas Edison made light. But in Sunday school they said You did it. So I bet he stole your idea.—Sincerely, Donna
• Dear GOD, I didn’t think orange went with purple until I saw the sunset You made on Tuesday. That was cool.—Eugene
When Jesus says “Our Father” He says:
II. That the Father is always Listening.
A. The Lord desires that we call Him.
Ps 145:18-19, “The Lord is near to all who call upon Him, To all who call upon Him in truth. He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him; He will also hear their cry and will save them.”
B. He invites us to Call
Jer 33:2-3, "Thus says the Lord who made the earth, the Lord who formed it to establish it, the Lord is His name, 'Call to Me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know.”
C. He Listens but may not answer because of sin.
Isa 59:1-2, “Behold, the Lord's hand is not so short That it cannot save; Nor is His ear so dull
That it cannot hear. But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God,
And your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear.”
When Jesus says “Our Father” He says:
III. That the Father is always Available
A. City of Everywhere
In Hugh Price Hughes’ story, the “City of Everywhere,” a man arrived in a city one cold morning. As he got off the train, the station was like any other station with the crowds and redcaps, except that everybody was barefooted. They wore no shoes. He noticed the cab driver was barefooted. “Pardon me,” he asked the driver, “I was just wondering why you don’t wear shoes. Don’t you believe in shoes?”
“Sure we do,” said the driver.
“Why don’t you wear them?”
“Ah, that’s the question,” came the reply. “Why don’t we wear shoes? Why don’t we?”
At the hotel it was the same. The clerk, bell boys, everybody was barefooted. In the coffee shop he noticed a nice-looking fellow at a table opposite him who was also barefooted. He said, “I notice you aren’t wearing any shoes. I wonder why? Don’t you know about shoes?”
The man replied, “Of course I know about shoes.”
“Then why don’t you wear them?”
“Ah, that’s the question. Why don’t we? Why don’t we?”
After breakfast he walked out on the street in the snow but every person he saw was barefooted. He asked another man about it, and pointed out how shoes protect the feet from cold. The man said, “We know about shoes. See that building yonder? That is a shoe factory. We are proud of that plant and every week we gather there to hear the man in charge tell about shoes and how wonderful they are.”
“Then why don’t you wear shoes?”
“Ah, that’s the question.”
Don’t we believe in prayer? Don’t we know what it could mean in our lives? Then why don’t we pray? Ah, that’s the question … Why don’t we?
B. If we only understood
Heb 4:14-16, Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
When Jesus says “Our Father” He says:
IV. That the Father knows His Children and knows their needs
A. God loves His children and He is not afraid to discipline His children.
Heb 12:4-11, You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin; 5 and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, "my son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by Him; for those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives." It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.