God the Father--Creator and Sustainer

This afternoon, we consider the first person of the Trinity, God the Father. Last time, we considered God as Trinity, one God in three persons. It amazes me that the being who created the vast, incredible, indescribable universe is a being who is known simply as Father.

Eternal Father

Even if you didn’t have a good experience with your father, even if you never knew your biological father, everyone understands the word father. Everyone understands the concept, and even poor examples serve to prove the rule. Fathers create and sustain families.

When Jesus taught his disciples to pray, he began his teaching by saying, “When you pray, say: Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be your name” (Luke 11:2). That the universe’s supreme being identifies himself as Father is truly incredible. He is not a mere force, he is a person. He is not some stern task master, he is a Father who gathers his children into his arms. This, then, is an aspect of Christianity that is completely lacking in any other religion or faith community. The concept of God as Father is unique, but perfect for people to know God. God, though so absolutely infinite, is also so absolutely relatable.

God our Father is also eternal. This is where God is so much more than the very best earthly father. Every human father fails. Even the best ones fail to do what they promise to do. They fail to show up at school events. They get caught up in work. They burn supper. They… die.

But God is our perfect Father. God is our eternal Father. He never forgets. He never fails to show up. He keeps his promises. His work never catches him up. He is eternal, he is perfectly present every moment of every day. His plans never fail. He never fails to deliver on anything. His food is perfect, good, and satisfying. He never dies. He never stops being there when you call upon him.

Creator and Sustainer

Our Eternal Father is the creator and sustainer of everything. Out of nothing, God created the universe. Before the universe was, God was. God didn’t start with anything, matter, energy, light. He started with nothing, everything comes from Him.

He created everything in the universe. Everything is sustained by him. The earth spins, and orbits the sun. The moon, wobbly or not, still causes the ebb and flow of tides. The perfect tilt of the earth’s axis, gives us the seasons, which will always follow one after the other, as long as God sustains them. And in his promise to Noah in Genesis 8:22 we read, “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease.”

All these things happen because God has determined them by his eternal counsel and providence. It never ceases to amaze me at the lengths people go to avoid acknowledging God. This, of course is the natural reality of sin. Sin seeks to destroy everything good that is done by God. Sin tears down. Sin seeks to rob God of his glory, his truth, his power, his honour. Sin seeks to kill God. So, sinners ignore the reality that God is, and they blaspheme by ascribing God’s creation and sustaining power to that which is not God, such as mother nature, mother earth, the universe. Some will even ascribe God’s good works to the devil—a sin that the Pharisees and religious leaders committed when they suggested Jesus cast out demons by the power of Beelzebub, by the power of another demon.

To all those who choose not to believe, God never stops providing them with witnesses to his goodness and grace. He graciously provides everything they need, whether they acknowledge him or not. This is what Paul refers to in the passage in Acts: While Paul was preaching, in the middle of his sermon he stopped and said to a crippled man, “Stand up on your feet!” And he did, only he wasn’t a cripple anymore, God had healed him!

When the crowd saw this, they failed to connect it to what Paul had been preaching, they applied the miracle to their old pagan worldview, explaining that Paul and Barnabas must be gods in human form.

But Paul stops them from trying to worship them, and makes it abundantly clear that they are mere me, appealing to them by saying, “We’re just men, like you. We’re bringing a message, that’s true, but it is from the real God, not the false, man made gods you worship. Those don’t actually exist; the God we serve does exist. So, give up on those useless mute, deaf, idols you worship and listen to what we’re saying. We’re telling you that there really is a God, one God, who made heaven and earth and sea and everything in them.

Thus the very existence of creation is testimony to God! The fact that there are crops, there is rain, there are the various seasons, the fact that people have stuff, they have food, and that they are able to experience joy, is testimony to God’s existence.

Provider

God is our provider. He provides everything we need, for body and soul. God gives us the ability to work, to live, to own property, to find joy and delight in our work, in our homes, in our neighbourhoods. God orchestrates everything in our lives for our good, even adversity isn’t wasted by God, he turns it for our benefit. C.S. Lewis described pain as God’s megaphone. God allows the different circumstances in our lives to happens to get our attention.

In many of the ways that we see God as Father, we ought to see the men in our lives as fathers.

The Biblical role for men is protector and provider, and this is most clearly seen in the home, and in fathers in particular. Biblical fathers, in seeking to reflect God the Father, protect and provide for their families, their wives, and their children.

Now before I continue, I would like to take a moment to talk about unmarried men and children who do not have a father in their life. Unmarried men provide and protect in less direct ways. Such men work hard for a living, contributing to society, providing gifts, offerings, and tithes in obedience to God and His church. They are often uncles, great uncles, and are extremely valued as elders and role models for children in the church and society, particularly boys. Single men are free to serve Christ and His body in ways that married men cannot. They are greatly valued.

Children who do not have a father in their life, suffer. They are missing out on a very important aspect of the family as God designed it. This is real and must be acknowledged. God, in his mercy, is our Heavenly Father. He is perfectly present, in all our lives, whether we have earthly fathers or not. God, in his grace, gives uncles, and men in churches to serve as male role models in children’s lives, for those with fathers, and for those without. That is why we are called God’s family—not only because we are all adopted as sons, but because we have roles to play men and women together, graciously, mercifully, making up for the real broken and sinful reality that exists in this world.

A Biblical father, in caring for his wife, cares for his children. A Biblical father does this by creating a place that is called home, providing the funds necessary for the household to flourish. He works, he deprives himself of many things, and he does it all joyfully and wholeheartedly, for it is important that his wife and his children live in a good home that protects them from the elements, protects them from intruders, and that is a place where they can flourish and grow.

A Biblical father, like his Heavenly Father, provides for the family through his work, through his interest in his wife and children, in their lives, in what keeps them happy and healthy. A Biblical father teaches his family through prayer, through the study of God’s Word. He encourages his wife and children to give their lives to Christ, to learn all they can about him, from both the Old and the New Testament, to turn from our natural, sinful way of living, and to seek, through the presence of the Holy Spirit, to become more and more like Jesus. The Biblical Father first finds his sustenance in God, then demonstrates his total trust in God, by trusting in God, in everything.

But in order for a man to be a Biblical father, in order for a woman to be a Biblical mother, in order for children to be Biblical children, in order for men to be Biblical uncles, in order for women to be Biblical aunts, in order for children to be Biblical nieces and nephews, all need to be children of our Heavenly Father.

Almighty God and Faithful Father

He is our Almighty God and Faithful Father. How is this possible? There is a line in this Lord’s Day that I haven’t mentioned yet. I saved it for last, because it is so important. The line is “because of Christ his Son.

Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity, willingly took on human flesh by being conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of a woman named Mary. He lived a perfect life and then offered that life as a perfect, atoning sacrifice for our sin.

All who put their faith, their trust in Jesus’ atoning sacrifice, are transformed. We go from homeless, abandoned, destined for eternal punishment for sin, into being adopted by God. God, because of Jesus Christ, becomes our Heavenly Father. We become children of God.

That is our identity. We belong to God. We turn to him in trust. We do not doubt he will provide. We do not doubt that he will give whatever we need (not want) for body and soul. For this life and the next. In life and in death, in want and in plenty. God himself will provide.

Why? He is able to do this because he is Almighty God. No one, nothing is more powerful, more mighty than God is. He is able to do anything he wants to do. And he wants to provide and protect and sustain us.

Furthermore, he desires to do this because he is a faithful father.

Just a few verses after teaching his disciples how to pray, Jesus teaches the following in Luke 11:11-13 “If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”

Our Heavenly Father has given us the greatest, most perfect gift. He has given us His Son, he has given us forgiveness, grace and mercy. He has done this because of who he is: Almighty God, and our Faithful Father.

We live in a broken world, with broken homes, broken families, broken hearts, broken minds, broken spirits, broken identities. Let us bring them all to our Faithful Father, our Heavenly Father, our Almighty God. He is able to heal, forgive, restore and renew. Amen.