Fatherhood 101
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
God is eternally Father, Son, and Spirit. His Fatherhood is innate - it is defined not by something outside Himself but by His own identity and action.
English Standard Version (Ephesians 3:14–15)
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named,
Notice the footnote there over your word “family.” It is, literally “fatherhood.” You can hear it in the Greek, even if you know nothing of the language. The words are “patera” and “patria.”
He defines fatherhood for every father. It is not the other way around. We do not figure out fatherhood by asking ourselves if we liked our own father’s actions - or whether we liked some other man who acted as a father.
It is not for us to choose what fatherhood is or what makes a good father. It is entirely, totally, utterly dependant on our knowledge of the Holy God, Maker of Heaven and Earth, who is the perfect Father of eternity.
Do not be mistaken, I am not saying that everything that can or should be said about God is bound up in His fatherhood - but that you have not begun to know God unless you know Him as father and you have not begun to know fatherhood unless you know His fatherhood.
Long before we get into the minutia of when to spank, how to talk about sex, or what family devotions look like - we must get to know our God as He is. We must know Him intimately as “abba, Father.”
What, then, is a good summary of the Fatherhood of God. Who is He and what does He do as Father? The summary statement that God is love will guide us. If God is love and God is Father - then God’s Fatherhood is love. And His love is manifested in two distinct categories as our Father.
If we consider God in all His attributes then we could see His wrath and judgment - but in His fatherhood there is neither wrath nor judgment. This does not mean He is a soft Father, though. It simply means that we are free from the horror of His wrath because He has made us His sons in mercy.
And that is the first piece of God’s great love as Father - gift-giving. And it starts with the great gift of mercy to make us His children, but it does not end there. He gives us many, many gifts and has reserved for His children many, many more.
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
So that is the first half of God’s Fatherhood of love - gifts.
The second expression of God’s love as Father is discipline.
In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.” It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
There is no Father without the discipline of the Son - that is Christ, the Son. It may strike us as odd, but God’s Fatherhood would be meaningless without the discipline that belongs to it. Because that discipline is what makes us co-heirs with Christ. It is by that discipline that we receive sonship and without it we would have nothing but the wrath of an angry God.
There are some differences, though, between God’s discipline of THE Son and His discipline of us as sons - because sin has made it necessary. But, when we are finally made perfect with God in eternity, we too, will know the perfect discipline of God the Father without corrective discipline. Until then, we will be perfected by the Father’s use of both instructive and corrective discipline.
So, we have the two broad halves of God’s love as Father: gift-giver and discipliner.
The gift-giving Father
The gift-giving Father
There are some gifts that God gives to all men indiscriminately.
so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.
The provision of basic needs is something God gives to all men in order that they might call upon Him. It is His universal call to all men that He is there - and He is good.
But there are many other gifts that God reserves for His beloved children. First among them is
But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
Children of the Father are able to approach Him and ask of Him anything.
“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!
The children of the world, children of wrath, have no such promise and no such hope. They may, indeed, call out for any number of things but their prayers fall on deaf ears because
We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him.
God’s is a good Father who delights to hear and ANSWER His children. This doesn’t mean He answers every single request - this session is not on prayer - but He does eagerly answer every request that abides within His good will for us and for our good. He knows what is best for us, tells us what is best for us, and when we ask in line with these things, He gives us what is best for us.
And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.
We have access to the Lord of Heaven and Earth - literally all that ever has been made - and it is ours to enjoy. One of the mistakes of the elder brother was not enjoying the goodness of His Father. We ought to enjoy it - He has given it to us for our joy. We ought to ask Him for use of it - it is ours to enjoy.
Types of Gift-giving
Types of Gift-giving
Good fathers take stock of what they have, what their children need, and encourage them to ask for it. They have an interest in their children’s well-being and do not withhold from them the benefit of sonship.
This doesn’t mean we give them every request - or that we answer them in exactly the manner they ask. They often do not know exactly what they need or, perhaps, they desire exactness that they do not need.
I had a daughter who requested an American Girl doll for Christmas. Now, some of you are well aware of the cost of these dolls - but I was a bit naive about it. I thought they were perhaps two times as expensive as a similar doll from Walmart. And, well, they are not. They are 5 or 6 times as expensive for the cheapest American Girl doll.
Now, this is not an exercise in whether you should buy your girls American Girl dolls. But it is a lesson in how to think about the requests of your children.
I had to take stock of what I had - my income, resources, and everything else. I had to try to understand her heart behind the question. Was it just about the doll or about the prestige of the doll? These were done in concert with my wife. And then I had to consider that if she was asking for a doll that she didn’t want a poptart.
After all these things, many conversations with my wife, we chose to buy a Walmart version for her. We knew this might be dissapointing in some ways but is really what she needed and also, what she desired. Because she wanted more than just a doll - she wanted one that she could have outfits for - and we knew she could make clothes for the walmart doll as easily as she could for the expensive one.
God, our Father, does the same sorts of things only He does them perfectly. Consider His kindness of manna and quail and water in the desert. The Hebrews moaned about fish and beef and fruits and vegetables - and their murmuring desires weren’t all bad - they did need food and water to survive. But God knew that their desire for food was mingled with desires for evil and He gave them the non-exact, but perfect, answer to their prayers.
Other times, God hears the prayers of His people and comes over the top for His answer. He doesn’t give a perceived “less than” answer, like the manna and water, but instead lets His goodness overflow on His children.
There are many examples of God’s people asking for deliverance and He answers with overwhelming power. He struck 185,000 dead at Hezekiah’s prayer. He dismantled the Midianites for Gideon. He delivered the Hebrews by the destruction of the Egyptian army.
Now, again, we do not have time to get into what constitutes proper prayer and what our children ought to ask for - but I will issue this warning. God absolutely answers His children in abundance at times - far more than we could hope or ask. But, we must guard against making this our default answer to our children. It is the sin of the age to indulge our children (and one another) in far too much extravagance and ends up doing far more harm than good.
Be careful of yourself if you are always desiring to lavish your children with abundance. You must be wise in how and when and what you give in abundance. Restraint in our age must be regained by fathers who love their children. Remember, that God did not ALWAYS answer in extravagant ways. And His limited use of this type of answer should give us pause.
This means that when they ask for 20 gifts, we ought not seek to over-answer 20 requests. This will, often, give them an indulgent nature that is never satisfied.
Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things.
God does not indulge His children when He answers extravagantly. He restores faith in His own greatness and trustworthiness and goodness. You should reserve your extravagances with the same aim - not because you are perfect but because your children should see you as kind and good and trustworthy. Good fathers do not indulge their children’s appetites but choose when and where and what to answer.
This might look like treating your children to ice cream at Zax Creamery when they ask for desert one night. It might look like taking them to the park when they ask to play in the backyard. It can be a thousand things that when you hear them ask, you consider their desires, their appetites, their needs, and you over-answer their request.
We have God, our Father’s example of answer with in-exactness, with extravagance, and now a third way - in exactness.
And he said, “O Lord, God of my master Abraham, please grant me success today and show steadfast love to my master Abraham. Behold, I am standing by the spring of water, and the daughters of the men of the city are coming out to draw water. Let the young woman to whom I shall say, ‘Please let down your jar that I may drink,’ and who shall say, ‘Drink, and I will water your camels’—let her be the one whom you have appointed for your servant Isaac. By this I shall know that you have shown steadfast love to my master.” Before he had finished speaking, behold, Rebekah, who was born to Bethuel the son of Milcah, the wife of Nahor, Abraham’s brother, came out with her water jar on her shoulder. The young woman was very attractive in appearance, a maiden whom no man had known. She went down to the spring and filled her jar and came up. Then the servant ran to meet her and said, “Please give me a little water to drink from your jar.” She said, “Drink, my lord.” And she quickly let down her jar upon her hand and gave him a drink. When she had finished giving him a drink, she said, “I will draw water for your camels also, until they have finished drinking.” So she quickly emptied her jar into the trough and ran again to the well to draw water, and she drew for all his camels.
Perhaps the most surprising of God’s gift-giving answers to His children, are when He answers in the exact manner that they ask. It is truly a condescending kindness of God to do this. We are never perfect in our asking, our sin and our desires always mixed in with righteousness, but He often answers exactly as we ask. Here He did it with Abraham’s servant. And the stories of these sorts of answers are abounding.
One of Jesus main ministries was answering the direct requests of people. Healings, demon defeats, and death-raising were the regular way of Christ the Son.
We are commanded to ask in faith, believing,
See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.
For you know how, like a father with his children, we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory.
But you know Timothy’s proven worth, how as a son with a father he has served with me in the gospel.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love
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.
So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. 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!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.
For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”
so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.
We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him.
Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things.