God is Father

God is • Sermon • Submitted 3 years ago

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Disclaimer

I’d like to start this sermon with a disclaimer. As we talk today about who God is, and that God is Father, I’d like you to know that I set out in preparing this sermon to trace the whole development of the term “father” throughout the Bible, from Torah to the writings to the prophets and straight through the New Testament.

THEN I checked my concordance and saw that some form of the word “father” appears 1,882 times in the English Standard Version of the Bible.

Suffice to say, I narrowed my scope just a bit.

I’d still like to trace the theme of “God is Father” throughout scripture today so I hope your page turning finger is ready. But the point of this disclaimer is to say that we serve a BIG God, and He IS Father, and I will not be able to explore every way that that’s a reality in the 25 to 30 minutes I have with you this morning so let me just state for the record that God is Father for the reasons including, but not limited to, the scriptures we will explore today.

Reading

John 1:1–13 ESV

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. 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.

Adoption

Ok, well, there it is. That’s the development of God as Father from the beginning to today, have a great week!

I’m mostly kidding, of course, but it does give a pretty excellent summary of our main point. There was a time when God was not our Father, and now He is! There was a time when we were created by God, but not adopted by Him.

A Father

So before we jump back and trace the idea of God as our Father, let’s define the term. What is a Father? Why does it matter that God is our Father?

A father is someone who experiences acute bouts of seemingly superhuman strength and focus when their child is in danger.

A father is someone who calibrates our relationship with the world. We grow up and view the world based on the way that we have observed our father interact with it.

A father is a provider, someone who works to ensure the needs of the family are met, even at the expense of his own needs.

A father is someone who teaches us what is right, trains us to live our life according to that standard. And they show us what to do when we fall short.

A father is a tangible demonstration of the love, grace, steadfastness of Christ.

I will never forget the ways in which my father has demonstrated Christ in my life. You don’t know the depth of a father’s grace and patience until you sit in a car with your father for 4 and a half hours so that you can turn yourself in at the sheriff’s department, and then you ride 4 and a half hours back home because he stayed with you the entire time.

Now let me be clear that the above list is not exclusive to fathers at the expense of mothers.

But God becomes our Father, when we are adopted as His.

From the Beginning

So what were we at the beginning? When we were created by God but not yet adopted?

Turn with me alllll the way back to Genesis.

Genesis 1:26–28 ESV

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

So before we were children of God, we bore the image of God, and that in and of itself comes with a great deal of value. This is, whether we acknowledges it or not, the source of that intrinsic value that we all know a human being possesses. That’s demonstrated later on in Genesis.

Genesis 9:6 ESV

“Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.

So to say there was a time that we were not children of God is not to say there is a time we were not loved by God, that we were not treasured by God, that we did not have intrinsic value rooted in our special relationship with God as human beings. But we were not always God’s children.

Israelite View

One of the most common ways that God is named in the Old Testament is “the God of your fathers”. That is to say that, for the Jews, YHWH is the God of their father, of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob, but not Himself their father. “Father Abraham” held the title of the Father of Israel, not YHWH.

When God introduces Himself to Moses, he invokes his relationship to Moses’ fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Let’s look at the beginning of Exodus 3:

Exodus 3:1–6 ESV

Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. And Moses said, “I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.” When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” Then he said, “Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” And he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.

So by the time of the Exodus God does not say “I am your God, your Father, instead he says ‘I am the God of your Father’”.

In Torah, which is to say, the first 5 books of the Bible, God is not understood or revealed as a Father to His people, especially as we understand it today.

However, there is a figurative sense of “father” that developed during the time of David that influenced the rest of the Old Testament.

David’s View

The first time God promises to “be a father” is in 2 Samuel 7, where God promises that:

2 Samuel 7:12–17 ESV

When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men, but my steadfast love will not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you. And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever.’ ” In accordance with all these words, and in accordance with all this vision, Nathan spoke to David.

God promises David that He will be a Father to David’s son, Solomon. However, this promise is also so much more than that. This promise, often referred to as the Covenant of David or the Davidic Covenant, is also the promise of the Messiah to come, the one whose throne “shall be established forever”.

It is in connection with this promise that the Lord tells David “I will be a Father to him, and he shall be to me a son”. It is the introduction of the promise of Jesus that precipitates this shifting relationship.

Psalms?

Prophet’s View

After the covenant with David, the Old Testament mostly returns to referring to God as “the God of your fathers”, until a prophet called Isaiah, who prophesied in Judah, the southern kingdom, as the northern kingdom of Israel fell to Assyrian invaders.

I don’t think the timing of Isaiah’s invocation of God as “Father” is coincidental. In fact, I think you’d be hard pressed to find a more important time in Israel’s history to remind the people that there was a promise made to David all those years ago.

Because after Solomon became king and Israel experienced wealth and peace and dominance unmatched by any other time in Israel’s history, when God’s promise to “be a Father to Him” and to “establish his throne forever”… Solomon’s sin tore Israel in two.

And after him Israel was torn in two, and there would never be a Davidic king who ruled the united and independent Israel again. Suddenly, this promise seemed less likely.

And then we have two kingdoms, Israel and Judah, and Israel was consistently ruled by sinful idolatrous king after sinful idolatrous king.

Judah… had a winner every now and again, but they too struggled to raise up a godly king.

And whatever hope the people in Judah, in Jerusalem, might have that God would raise up another son of David to unite Israel and Judah once again...

Is dashed when Assyria conquers the north, and suddenly Israel and Judah become just… Judah.

It is to this people, this people living in the consequences of Solomon’s unfaithfulness and the unfaithfulness of almost all the kings who followed him, who saw what little hope they had for redemption trampled under the Assyrian army that Isaiah says:

Isaiah 9:6–7 ESV

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

And the people of Judah had to be thinking… yeah right.

We heard this story so long ago! Haven’t you been paying attention Isaiah??

But Isaiah is steadfast, that this judgement on Judah will be complete, and that the Lod will preserve a remnant of His people, and that one day...

Isaiah 40:3–5 ESV

A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

Close of the Old Testament

As the Old Testament closes, let’s check back in on where the idea of “God as Father” stands. In Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament canon, in the first chapter:

Malachi 1:6 ESV

“A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If then I am a father, where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is my fear? says the Lord of hosts to you, O priests, who despise my name. But you say, ‘How have we despised your name?’

Israel still falls short of inheriting the full promise of God as Father.

“If I am your father, where is my honor?”

This is in a section that shows God’s disdain for the begrudging offerings from the priests.

Clearly the idea of honoring God as a father, as a master, as Lord, is at least developing in this time, but it hasn’t yet come to its fullness.

In the fullness of time, the catalyst that brings the people of God from this relationship that falls short, to adoption, comes in the man of Jesus Christ.

Christian View

Adoption - so what? What is special about being adopted children of God above being image bearers?

But when Jesus arrives, He consistently refers to God as “our Father in heaven”, from the Sermon on the mount, to the Lord’s prayer. While this isn’t a complete revelation to the Jewish people, as we’ve seen the theme of “God as Father” has certainly started to develop already, there is certainly something different about the way Jesus refers to God as Father.

Particularly in the Gospel according to Matthew, where God is called Father over 25 times! Look in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:43:

Matthew 5:43–45 ESV

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 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.

Matthew 12:50 ESV

For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”

Matthew 23:9 ESV

And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven.

In fact, reading many of these words by Jesus, specifically while we trace the theme of “God as Father” through the Bible, can feel like he’s dropping this bomb that God is now a Father to all of these people with just NO context or transition or preparation.

It’s like we all live here in Ohio, in the United States, and have been a separate nation from the United Kingdom for almost 250 years.

Imagine if someone walked through our church door this morning and said “Hello! Come, listen, all of you, I have a message from your Queen in England, Elizabeth II, who has a message for all of her loyal subjects here in Columbus, Ohio.

We’d be like… does she know? Ooooo someone’s gotta tell her. She ain’t the queen here, friend, no no no no no we don’t have a queen here you’re looking for Can-a-da, just head down back to the main street out of our parking lot, go ahead and turn left, and just drive until you smell maple syrup.

It kinda feels like that’s what Jesus is doing here! I mean He’s coming into this situation, to these Jewish people who had heard of their ancestors returning from exile after being carried off into Babylon, and they came back under the Persians and then were conquered by the Greek Macedonians and then they become the Ptolomey’s, and then Israel is taken from Ptolomey by the Seleucids and then FINALLY they overthrow the Seleucids and have the faintest glimpse of freedom, of self-rule, of the ability to worship YHWH freely and abundantly once again but their rulers fight amongst themselves and literally end up sending an embossed invitation to a Roman general to invade. So he does.

And from that perspective it can feel like the people of Israel would be well within their rights to hear this man Jesus talk about “Your Father in heaven” and cry out “WELL WHERE HAS HE BEEN?!”

But… we know the whole story.

We know the words of Isaiah, the words that the people of Israel had clung to in their exile, on their return, and under Roman rule to that very day.

Isaiah 9:6–7 ESV

You see, they had been promised that this day would come, and it had, their father has come.

Sonship

So, what does that mean?

I mean, so far we have proven that “God as Father” was a theme that was building up in the Old Testament and set to come to fruition in Jesus, awesome! But what does that mean?

Let’s look back at the last part of our scripture reading:

John 1:10–14 ESV

He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. 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. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

The world did not know Him, even though it was made through Him.

Before we were children of God, we were made through Christ.

Then, it continues in verse 11, He came to His own, and His people did not receive Him.

Can you imagine?

I mean, really, imagine, especially parents out there.

You give life to this child. And it doesn’t recognize you.

A lot of mothers have felt this pain, I know. I mean you are there all day nursing and changing and talking to and loving on this child...

“Can you say… mom - ma?”

“MOM” “MA”?

“Say mom - ma?”

.......silence.

And then some man comes home from work, picks up your child and throws them up in the air like a basketball two or three times and its “Da-da!!! Da-da!!!”

It’s funny bu, it hurts, to not be known by those you made.

It hurts, to not be received by your own.

And our Heavenly Father understands and empathizes with that pain because He felt it before we knew Him.

So to those who do receive Him, verses 12 and 13 say

John 1:12–13 ESV

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.

We receive the right, to become children of God. Not by inheritance, by blood.

Not by will of the flesh, by our own desire to follow Him is just so strong that we finally get it right and earn our adoption!

Nor of the will of man.

Only by the will of God, do we become children, because of His will to provide grace to us through the sacrifice of Jesus.

Heirs

And what we receive from our Father is blessing beyond what we can currently imagine. Romans 8 says

Romans 8:14–17 ESV

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.

Children, and heirs.

Those who are led by the Spirit of God, who have received the Holy Spirit by “suffering with him”, which is to say participating in Christ’s death and raised to new life through Him in baptism, are heirs alongside Jesus Christ.

Now, can we agree here this morning that Jesus’ inheritance is great?

That we get to share as heirs of the redeemed creation, restored through the Spirit by the power of Jesus and according to the will of the Father, is great.

And we should look forward to that inheritance with joyous anticipation.

Access

But we can also see in scripture that having a Father/child relationship with the Father fundamentally changes our life right now. In Ephesians, we see that separation from God, and how through Christ we have been brought back into full relationship right now:

Ephesians 2:12–18 ESV

remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.

Those who are baptized into Jesus Christ.

Who have received forgiveness of our sins.

Who have received the blessing of the Holy Spirit.

Who have become sons and daughters of God.

We now have access, in the Spirit, to the Father.

That is why we can pray together, as the body of Christ, to OUR FATHER, who is in heaven.

God has looked on us, His creation, who has been far off from Him, and says “I choose this one, to adopt as my own, to share in my son’s inheritance, to have access to me as their father, to hear their prayers, and to draw near to them.”

Praise God that through Jesus, by the Spirit, the Father, becomes our Father.

Invitation

If you have not been adopted by the God of the Universe, the creator of heaven and earth, there is plenty of room in our Father’s house, there is a spot for you, if you choose to accept it.

If you would like to submit to Christ in baptism this morning, for the forgiveness of your sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit, to be adopted as a son or daughter of the king of kings, we’d love to help you with that this morning.

If you are our brother or sister in Christ, a child of God, who has fallen short as we wait for our final inheritance, and you need the prayers of this church, we’d love to pray with you this morning.

Whatever your need, I pray you’ll make it known by coming forward, while together we stand, and sing.

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