3: God the Father

Bookmarks & Needs:

B: Matthew 6:9-13

N:

Welcome

Welcome those here and those not here.

Men’s breakfast was so great yesterday. 44 men showed up. I hope the other men in the congregation will plan to be here on 2/12 for our second one.

Announcements

Business meeting change to next Sunday night, 1/23 @ 5:30 pm

Pastor’s Bible study continues tonight, 5:30 pm MH

Bible Study Leader Training Friday night 6-9, Saturday morning, 9-12 in MH. Ken Braddy. Let Riley Wright know if you are coming.

LMCO ($39,574)

Opening

Opening info going through Statement of Faith.

Matthew 6:9–13 CSB

9 “Therefore, you should pray like this: Our Father in heaven, your name be honored as holy. 10 Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us today our daily bread. 12 And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And do not bring us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

PRAYER

I have to admit that I really had to wrestle through some things as I wrote my sermon this week. Thinking through and writing about the divine Persons of the Trinity is difficult, because we don’t ever want to break our one God into pieces OR say that there are not Three members of the Godhead, co-equal in majesty, power, and authority. But we also don’t want to limit the divinity of any one member of the Godhead by implying that they aren’t coequal.

The word I’m going to use for this is tension. We have to hold the oneness and the threeness of God in tension. It’s when we let go of the tension and let one direction—either the threeness or the oneness of God—have all of our focus that we go off track theologically.

With that being said, today we will focus specifically on God the Father. In my opinion, God the Father is the easiest perspective on God to understand, and perhaps the hardest to preach on without going into heresy. I’m going to challenge our brains with some terms this morning, and before you shut me out, just understand that these terms are helpful for us to be able to think about as we consider God as being three in one, and one yet three. If we can learn terminology in other things, we can learn terminology in theology, right? OK. Let’s do this, because this will be especially important for today’s consideration of God the Father.

First, as I said last week, we want to affirm and declare as being true that God the Father is God, God the Son is God, and God the Holy Spirit is God, and that there are not three gods, but one living and true God.

And since we say that this is true, then the three members of the Godhead are all co-equal, meaning that one isn’t better or bigger than the others in the Godhead. This goes back to God’s very nature as Trinity: and the big way of saying this is that there is no ontological subordination in the Trinity: The Father is neither less God nor more God than the Son, who is neither less God nor more God than the Spirit, who is neither less God nor more God than the Father. In short, this is who God is in Himself.

However, there is an apparent distinction in Scripture between the Persons of the Godhead as far as their roles in creation, redemption, and sanctification. Since the Father, Son, and Spirit are co-equal, these distinctions must be voluntary for the purposes of what God does, because those distinctions seem to make it look as though one member of the Trinity (particularly the Father) is more powerful or important than the other two. The fancy term for this is that there is a voluntary economic subordination in the Trinity: The Father sends the Son (John 17:8) who sends the Spirit (John 16:7). The Spirit will not speak on His own but will speak what He hears from the Son (John 16:13), and the Son speaks only what are the words of the Father (John 14:24).

However, we certainly do not want to fall into unitarianism. Unitarianism says that only God the Father is really God. The Son and the Holy Spirit are kinda God.

So we can say that each divine Person is involved in creation, redemption, and sanctification. Their particular works all go together and cannot be separated from the totality of the work of God, even if One member of the Godhead takes a primary role in a particular work.

Whew! I know that was a tough bit to chew on, and I hope you took notes so you can go back and give it some thought and prayer later. I had to set this up because without this idea, it’s really easy to get confused about the work of the Father as compared to the Son and the Spirit. Admittedly, there is some gray area here, because each member of the Trinity is fully God, so it would not be a stretch to extend our first and second points to each of the divine Persons.

So what are some of the attributes and actions that we ascribe to the Father?

1) God the Father reigns over everything.

The reason I said earlier that God the Father is the easiest perspective on God to understand is that generally, when we think about the concept of “God,” God the Father is mostly who we think of. Because we are humans and limited, we tend to think of things in terms of ourselves. So we often have this cliche concept of God as sort of the “old man in the sky” sitting on His throne in heaven, reigning over and in complete control of everything. And this isn’t an inaccurate way of seeing God (except the “old man in the sky” part). The Father is, after all, God. When Jesus taught His disciples to pray as we see in our focal passage, the language that He gave to them (and thus to us) was language of awe and reverence for the sovereign over everything:

Matthew 6:9 CSB

9 “Therefore, you should pray like this: Our Father in heaven, your name be honored as holy.

We studied the Lord’s Prayer in Prayer Meeting last year, and we considered the beginning of this prayer, “Our Father in heaven...” When Jesus said, “in heaven,” in His model prayer, He was making two statements. First, He was speaking of a location—that God is “in heaven,” which is true. But He was also making a statement of power. We do this all the time. We might say that the President of the United States is “in the White House.” We aren’t just speaking of his being physically present at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC. This is because he is in the position of authority as President of the United States regardless of where he is physically present. He is “in the White House,” everywhere he goes. Likewise, God the Father is “in heaven.”

The psalmist said:

Psalm 115:3 CSB

3 Our God is in heaven and does whatever he pleases.

God is “in heaven” and so “does whatever He pleases.” He is in complete control. He doesn’t need anyone’s permission to do whatever He decides to do. He cannot be stopped. He cannot be coerced or manipulated. He cannot be tricked or deceived. He is God “in heaven.” And so, as our Statement of Faith affirms, He reigns:

EHBC’s Statement of Faith, Article 3: God the Father

God as Father reigns with providential care over His universe, His creatures, and the flow of the stream of human history according to the purposes of His grace… God is Father in truth to those who become children of God through faith in Jesus Christ.

We affirm that this is the role of God the Father: reigning over “His universe, His creatures.” In this way, we affirm that He is sovereign over everything, because everything is “His.” He knows everything about everything that goes on. Nothing escapes His sight, nothing is beyond His hand, nothing surprises Him or catches Him off guard.

One thing that I said last week about the Father is that He is holy, perfect, and completely “other than” us. We may try to think of God in human-sized terms, but He refuses to fit inside our little boxes. For example, in the book of Job, after hearing the debate between Job and his friends, and Job’s frustration with his life, God steps in and spends basically four chapters grilling Job on Job’s understanding of what it’s like to be in charge of everything.

Job 38:4–11 CSB

4 Where were you when I established the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. 5 Who fixed its dimensions? Certainly you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? 6 What supports its foundations? Or who laid its cornerstone 7 while the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy? 8 Who enclosed the sea behind doors when it burst from the womb, 9 when I made the clouds its garment and total darkness its blanket, 10 when I determined its boundaries and put its bars and doors in place, 11 when I declared, “You may come this far, but no farther; your proud waves stop here”?

Job 38:31–35 CSB

31 Can you fasten the chains of the Pleiades or loosen the belt of Orion? 32 Can you bring out the constellations in their season and lead the Bear and her cubs? 33 Do you know the laws of heaven? Can you impose its authority on earth? 34 Can you command the clouds so that a flood of water covers you? 35 Can you send out lightning bolts, and they go? Do they report to you, “Here we are”?

God goes through 70 verses like this, then pauses for 6, and continues for another 52 about His sovereignty over the earth, the stars, the sea, the weather, the solar system, life and death, light and darkness, and the animal kingdom.

God the Father is not to be messed or trifled with, because He is sovereign over everything in the universe. And to make that more specific, it also means that He rules over everyone.

2) God the Father rules over everyone.

So, not only is God the Father sovereign over every thing, He rules over every one as well. Just to make sure that we’re clear: the fact of God’s rule over everyone doesn’t depend on whether someone is a Christian or not: He rules over the believer and the unbeliever. He rules over all people, at all times, in all places. He rules over every tribe, nation, race, and tongue. He rules over the aged, the middle-aged, the youthful aged, the born and the pre-born. He rules over every man, woman, and child. The question isn’t whether He rules. That is a fact. The question is whether we are rebels against His rule by how we relate to God and by how we live.

There’s a clear affirmation of the Father’s rule in our focal passage:

Matthew 6:9–10 (CSB)

9 “... your name be honored as holy. 10 Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

In this example prayer, Jesus tells us to focus on our Father in heaven and honor His name as holy: set apart and different. Completely other than us. And then He suggest that when we pray, we ask that His kingdom come (not our own), and His will be done (again, not our own). This is how we should submit to the ruler of us all.

God is busy taking history to His desired destination, and there’s nothing we can do to stop it. Our Statement of Faith reflects this in the phrase, “…and the flow of the stream of human history...” But when we reflect on the greatness of our God and His rule over us, it should drive us to this position of deep submission and surrender, rather than rebellion.

This is because there is no one greater than our God. The Baptist Faith & Message 2000, which our Statement of Faith is based on, has the following additions in it which fill out this point a little more:

BF&M 2000, Article II.A.: God the Father

Same first sentence as ours.

(at ellipsis) “He is all powerful, all knowing, all loving, and all wise.”

Then after “Jesus Christ”: “He is fatherly in His attitude toward all men.”

Let’s take these two additional sentences one at a time. The first one refers to the some of the Father’s ability: His perfections in power, knowledge, love, and wisdom.

God is all-powerful.

God is able to do anything and everything that He wants to do, or in a word, He is omnipotent. We often think that this means that God can do anything. This is not true. God’s power is consistent with all of His other perfect attributes, including His holiness and reason. Therefore, God cannot lie. He cannot sin. He cannot deny Himself. He cannot cease to exist. He would not do something nonsensical or foolish, like making a square circle. But anything that He determines to do, He can do.

God is all-knowing.

God knows all things past, present, and future. God knows all of the possibilities, not just the facts. There is no fact that God doesn’t know, and no concept that He does not completely understand. He knows what we think before we think it, what we do before we do it, and what we say before we say it.

Isaiah 46:10 CSB

10 I declare the end from the beginning, and from long ago what is not yet done, saying: my plan will take place, and I will do all my will.

He sees the big picture of the fabric of reality, all at the same time.

God is all-loving.

God always wants the best for His creation. He is in the business of giving Himself for others. In fact, John 3:16 tells us that:

John 3:16 CSB

16 For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

His giving of His Son was the ultimate declaration of the love that God has for humanity. He deserves our submission because He has declared His love so clearly.

God is all-wise.

Not only does God know everything about everything, but He knows what is right and wrong, because His character determines what is right and wrong. He knows when things are to be done and how to do them. He doesn’t need help, never has a question He cannot answer, and He knows exactly how everything in the universe works and goes together.

In short, there is nothing and no one who can compete with our God. He is the only One who can truly rule the way we need to be ruled.

And now the second sentence, which says, “He is fatherly in His attitude toward all men.”

Jesus used God the Father as the prime example of fatherhood and in fact how we should relate to each other, using His providential giving of the general blessings of life to both those who belong to Him by faith and those who do not.

Matthew 5:43–48 CSB

43 “You have heard that it was said, Love your neighbor and hate your enemy. 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be children of your Father in heaven. For he causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward will you have? Don’t even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what are you doing out of the ordinary? Don’t even the Gentiles do the same? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Furthermore, the Scriptures tell us that God wants all men to repent and be saved because He loves us. He’s patiently waiting to wrap up the universe until He has done all He is going to do to bring us to salvation:

2 Peter 3:8–9 CSB

8 Dear friends, don’t overlook this one fact: With the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. 9 The Lord does not delay his promise, as some understand delay, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance.

He is at work calling humanity to salvation through faith in His Son by the regeneration of His Holy Spirit. He willingly gave His Son to die to satisfy the debt that humanity owes because of our sinfulness, the rebellion that I mentioned earlier. God the Father loves His creation, us, that much. So Jesus died for our pardon, and we are made right with God when we surrender our rebellion, repent of our sinfulness, and trust Him and Him alone for salvation. And what the Scripture tells us about one thing that only the Father does is the result of that surrender.

We become the children of God by adoption.

3) God the Father adopts His children.

We have this tendency to say that everyone is God’s child. And while I suppose you could argue that this is the case from the concept of His creation, it’s not biblically accurate. The Bible specifically says that God is truly the Father of those who belong to Him. This is why in our Statement of Faith, it says: “God is Father in truth to those who become children of God through faith in Jesus Christ.” The Bible says that apart from Christ, we aren’t children of God—we are children of wrath, dead in our sin:

Ephesians 2:1–3 CSB

1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins 2 in which you previously walked according to the ways of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit now working in the disobedient. 3 We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts, and we were by nature children under wrath as the others were also.

But because of what Christ has done in dying in our place, we are offered something too marvelous for us to truly take in. When we stop going our own way in rebellion against God, trusting in Jesus, He provides the means for us to be made into children of God by His sovereign choice, through adoption.

John 1:12–13 CSB

12 But to all who did receive him, he gave them the right to be children of God, to those who believe in his name, 13 who were born, not of natural descent, or of the will of the flesh, or of the will of man, but of God.

Because He is Father, only the Father adopts children. The adoption of His children at their salvation is something that only He can do. The Son doesn’t adopt us, He provides the means of redemption so that we might be adopted. We see in Galatians that it is by His Spirit we respond to that adoption:

Galatians 4:1–5 CSB

1 Now I say that as long as the heir is a child, he differs in no way from a slave, though he is the owner of everything. 2 Instead, he is under guardians and trustees until the time set by his father. 3 In the same way we also, when we were children, were in slavery under the elements of the world. 4 When the time came to completion, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.

And the Spirit doesn’t adopt us, but again the Spirit is at work in our adoption in our adoption, truly making us into the children of God through our adoption that has been provided through Christ:

Galatians 4:6 CSB

6 And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba, Father!”

Romans 8:15 CSB

15 For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear. Instead, you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father!”

One of the beautiful things about this declaration, “Abba, Father!” is that “Father” was Jesus’ favorite way of referring to God during His earthly ministry. In the book of John alone, Jesus called God “Father” 110 times. And we catch the addition of the term “Abba” when we look at Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane in Mark 14:

Mark 14:36 CSB

36 And he said, “Abba, Father! All things are possible for you. Take this cup away from me. Nevertheless, not what I will, but what you will.”

“Abba” is an Aramaic term that is familial and intimate, like “Daddy” or “Papa.” It’s a term that even adult children used (and still do use) to address their fathers. And now, by the will of God the Father, through the work of God the Son, by the power of the Holy Spirit at work within us, we are brought to a place where we like Jesus can cry out to God in that same intimate fashion. In Christ, God the Father takes us out of our rebellion and our slavery to sin and redefines not just our now, but our eternity. When we surrender to God through faith in Jesus, He declares us to no longer be slaves, but heirs of everything that the Son is an heir of:

Galatians 4:7 CSB

7 So you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then God has made you an heir.

Romans 8:16–17 CSB

16 The Spirit himself testifies together with our spirit that we are God’s children, 17 and if children, also heirs—heirs of God and coheirs with Christ—if indeed we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.

What a thing to celebrate! The Father has proven His love for us by giving His only begotten Son so that we, the rebels who stand against Him in our sin, could be brought not just into the citizenry of His glorious Kingdom, but made into princes and princesses of the King through adoption! We are offered by the Father a relationship of love that we don’t and could never deserve because of what He has done, not because of what we have done! Do we even begin to understand the meaning of this incredible gift on this side of heaven?

1 John 3:1 (CSB)

1 See what great love the Father has given us that we should be called God’s children—and we are!

Closing

And so now, as children who have received the blessing of adoption, we are called to live as His children. We should live in a way that brings Him glory and praise, honoring Him in our actions and our inactions, that we would be identified as His children by those who are not, inviting them to experience the love of of the Father through trusting in the work of the Son and the indwelling and sealing of the Holy Spirit. We no longer belong to ourselves: we belong to our Father.

And we in this place who have been adopted into the family of God implore you who have never surrendered: be reconciled to God!

Invitation

PRAYER

Closing Remarks

Bible reading: 2 Samuel 18 today

Instructions for guests

Benediction

Ephesians 3:14–21 CSB

14 For this reason I kneel before the Father 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named. 16 I pray that he may grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power in your inner being through his Spirit, 17 and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. I pray that you, being rooted and firmly established in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth of God’s love, 19 and to know Christ’s love that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. 20 Now to him who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us—21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.