Life With God As "Our Father"

Some of you may know, or some of you may not know, before my family moved to Australia as South African migrants, we actually lived in New Zealand for a few years. Yeah, we have some Christchurch people here. We were on the North Island, which is the better island. That's debatable.

We lived there for a number of years, and as we sort of settled into where we were living, we met some lovely people. And among them was a family called the Steenkamps. And they had boys, they had a big family, but they had boys similar to our age, and we immediately clicked. They became like brothers to us.

One particular time, we decided to be especially adventurous, us boys, and made the decision to camp by ourselves in the forest near our house. That night, as we lay in our tent, we started telling each other scary stories, as you do. One of our friends, Albert, who was himself a bit of a character, at the height of his scary story, explained that as we were sleeping that night, some nasty aliens with evil motives would come to the tent and that one of us would be adopted by them. Much to Albert's chagrin, instead of causing the tent to turn into a quivering mess of fear, the tent burst out into laughter. Because Albert had obviously gotten confused between the word abducted and adopted.

And so the whole scary atmosphere had been ruined by the thought of one of us zooming through space as the son of an alien. To be abducted is scary. To be adopted is to be loved. To be adopted is to be cherished and accepted. And do you know that the one word that best describes our nature as Christians is people that were adopted.

For every person who has placed their trust in Jesus, the term adopted is applied to you. And the reason for this is that God has shown Himself to be a God who is a Father. This morning we continue this look at a series that's called Enjoying Life with God, Experiencing God in all His fullness, which is really a four part reflection on the nature of a triune God who we worship: God the Father, the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Now theologically, we are to understand that God the Father, that we are going to look at today, God the Father is the creator of all things. There is something in His fatherhood that means His creator-ness.

He is the one who willed our universe into existence. It was His desire as the Father to create. He is the one who has masterminded humanity's salvation as well, we're told in the Bible. God the Father is the author of all things, shaping and directing everything by the power of His will and His word, His decree. And according to the Bible, He is the Father also into whose family we have been incorporated by His decision to love us, by His mercy, saving us through the sending of His Son Jesus, who we will reflect on more next week.

This is what Galatians 4 tells us. This is Galatians 4:4-6: "But when the time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman, under the law, to redeem those under the law that we might receive adoption to sonship. Verse 6, because you are His sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts. The Spirit who calls out, 'Abba, Father.' So now you are no longer a slave, but God's child.

And since you are His child, God has also made you an heir. Now that is an amazing passage, Galatians 4, because in there you actually see the Trinity at work. You see the roles of God the Father, God the Son as the agent of our salvation, and then God the Spirit who works in us to enable us to receive this as truth in our lives. And so we see in Scripture that every Christian is someone who has been adopted into God's family. This is a huge theological concept that we must understand, but it is the greatest concept to understand.

As Christians, we believe that one day we will be completely transformed into the likeness of God's Son Jesus. Our nature in some way will reflect His nature. Our character, our righteousness will somehow reflect His. Now, you can say, well, that's in the future and God will establish that in the future, in His future and full kingdom. But being adopted even today means that we have that truth now.

The minute you become a Christian, you have intimacy with God. Verse 6 in Galatians that we read says that through repentance and faith in Christ, our spiritual being is filled with the Spirit of God. And the Holy Spirit joins us to God in a familial way. Meaning the Holy Spirit starts working in our lives to open our hearts to know God the Father personally. The Holy Spirit, Paul says, causes our hearts to cry out and say, "Abba, Father," and some of us will know that Abba was the Jewish word for Dad.

That intimate word we will use for God, or for our fathers rather. We are getting to know God the Father as intimately as that. In the opening paragraph of the Gospel of John, the Apostle John writes about the new reality for all those who have been saved by the work of Jesus. After explaining the divine nature of who Jesus is as God the Son, you know, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God," verse 1 says. Verse 12 in chapter 1 says this: "But all who receive Him, who is Jesus, all who receive Jesus who believed in His name, Jesus has given the right to become children of God.

That is the crux of the Gospel. This was the mission that Jesus came to accomplish. Not simply to reveal God.

Not simply to give great teachings about God. Not simply to be an abstract sacrifice for sin so that if we believe we are somehow washed clean and then we can go on with a good life. No. The work of Christ was to make us children of the living God. To make God the Father our Father.

The sacrifice of Jesus on the cross was needed to give us the right to be adopted into God's family. Now, at the same time, our adoption doesn't just have this one way effect of now us being able to be reconciled to God, knowing God, having access to God in the same way top down. Our adoption means that God loves us as His children. He loves us so much that we are considered in the same league as Jesus Christ the Son. Think about this: the heavenly, perfect Father who has perfectly loved the Son loves Christians to the same degree. That is an incredible thought.

This is what it means to be part of the family of God. The incredibly good news of the Gospel is that our circumstances cannot and will not change this promise. In fact, your worst days, think about it this way, your worst days will only help you more fully understand the beauty of adoption. The more you live out who you are, the more you live out your life as a Christian, the more you are going to be transformed to live like Christ. The more you start looking and acting like Christ, the more you start knowing, the more you start seeing that you're part of God's family.

And Paul is promising every Christian a life of nobility as princes and princesses of the King of Heaven. So every Christian is someone who has been adopted into God's family. Now, what does it mean for us to know God as the Father? Well, the first thing is He is the Father of every good gift.

James 1:17 says, "Every good and perfect gift in your life is from above, coming down from the Father." Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down to us from the Father. Luke 12:22 says this. Jesus is giving a teaching on how God as the Father relates to us as His children. And Jesus says, verse 22 in Luke 12: "Jesus said to His disciples, 'Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on.

For life is more than food and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens, they neither sow nor reap, they neither have storehouses nor barn and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest?

Consider the lilies, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will He clothe you, O you of little faith? Do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. For all the nations of the world seek after these things, but your Father knows that you need them.'

Do you see what Jesus is teaching? He was saying that God the Father doesn't dabble in the occasional miracle in our lives. He doesn't sprinkle these things stingily into our lives. Every little thing is an act of God. Every bit of clothing, every bit of food, every scrap of food, yes, the Cadbury chocolate, but also the apple.

Every massive meal, every snack is a gift from God. Sometimes God acts directly. Sometimes He acts interventionally, deals directly with us and we call these miracles. But many more times, God acts indirectly through intermediate causes, what we may call natural causes. But our heavenly Father, Jesus is saying, is involved in everything, and He is everywhere.

In a thousand ways, God the Father is showing us His grace every day. We might look at the birds and we can see them jumping through the trees. We can see them playing with one another. We can hear how they're chirping and singing. What's the explanation for all of this?

Even as our hearts sort of stop to reflect and enjoy them, what is the explanation for all of that? Well, there might be all sorts of natural explanations. We can say that these are primal drives in them, that there are natural instincts for them to do these things, ecological impulses.

But Jesus invites us to see the intimate involvement of God in all those things. God cares for these birds. God created these birds and He is looking after these birds. In fact, God enjoys them. But then not only that, but think about this: we have been given the eyes and the ears to see them, to notice them, to appreciate them.

Jesus says, "But how much more value are you to God? The God who relates to you as the Father." Jesus says, "Consider the flowers. How beautiful. And yet they are here today and gone tomorrow.

But they are glorious. What's the explanation for these flowers? Well, we can say they are pretty and bright because they need to attract birds. They have a beautiful scent because they need to attract bees. They distribute and sort of grow because birds and bees get seed and they distribute them accidentally.

But what is the explanation? Jesus says they can invite us to see the intimate involvement of God in our lives. A flower may bloom, for example, in the most remote jungle, in the tallest canopy of the Amazon Rainforest. It is completely untouched, completely unnoticed, but nothing has detracted from its beauty. It expresses a thousand lyrics of praise to God without uttering a single word. 'Consider the lilies how they grow.'

They are more beautiful than King Solomon, the greatest, wealthiest king of all time, could ever have commissioned a robe to be made. How much more important are you to your Father than even these amazing flowers? What Jesus teaches us about God the Father is that there is nothing normal about even the most normal things. Every gift, no matter how small or great, is a gift from God the Father because He is the origin and creator of all that is good in our lives. And that can be applied, and I think if we start thinking about that, we can really be moved incredibly.

It means that the wonderful toys we have in our lives, the jet skis that we have, the gadgets in our pockets, they are gifts. They are also given to us. It doesn't necessarily mean it can just be the flowers or the birds. But every good gift, everything that we are thankful for, everything that is pleasant in our lives is a gift given to us by God, and that changes the way that we view things. In order for us to enjoy our life with God more then, we need to recognise how God is involved in even the smallest details, even the smallest pleasures of our lives, and then in turn, we have to give thanks.

Gratitude lifts our eyes from the gift to the giver. John Calvin, the great reformer and theologian, said that all things we enjoy in life are ladders by which we ascend closer to God. We can enjoy life with God more richly by recognising Him as the giver of every good gift. That's the first point. Yet did you notice that even in his teaching here in Luke 12, Jesus tells us that our heavenly Father knows our needs, but Jesus never says knows our wants.

Well, God obviously knows our wants. But the emphasis here is that the Father knows what we need, which leads us to the next aspect of His fatherhood. He is the Father of every good hardship. You might think that's an oxymoron to say, but let's have a look. In Hebrews 12:5-8, we read this.

The author says, "And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says, 'My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline and do not lose heart when He rebukes you because the Lord disciplines the one He loves and He chastens everyone He accepts as His son. Endure hardship as discipline. God is treating you as His children. For what children are not disciplined by their father?

If you are not disciplined and everyone undergoes discipline, then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all.'" Now it might be easy to accept that God is the Father of goodness, giving us good things. But then we also hear in the Bible that God is the good Father who gives us hard things. Why? Also because He is good.

But this is revolutionary. And if you can grasp this, and this is perhaps the hardest teaching of this morning, if you can grasp this truth and hold it close to your heart consistently, your life and your experience of life will be turned upside down. Because this teaching has the potential to change your attitude about suffering. According to Hebrews 12, hardship is not a sign that God dislikes us or that He's disowned us. It is in fact the opposite.

It is the opposite. Hardship is a sign that He loves us, and He treats us as His children. Mums and dads here will know that disciplining your kids is hard work. The teachers in our church may also know this. Why is it hard work?

Well it's easier sometimes to ignore that toddler or the teenager rather than going head to head with them on whatever issue there's conflict on. It's easier to ignore them rather than dealing with the tantrum in Aisle 3 of Woolies at 5 o'clock in the afternoon. It takes hard work to discipline our kids when it would be far easier, far more comfortable for us just letting it slide this time. But we know that in essence that is a selfish attitude. We really, if we think about it, realise that we are sacrificing long term development of our kids for short term convenience.

The point that the book of Hebrews is making is that in the long run, the discipline that God gives is an act of love. Our heavenly Father loves us and because He loves us, He disciplines us. And this is the revolutionary thought that I want you to believe this morning. If love leads to discipline, then discipline can be a sign of God's love. That's what Hebrews 12:6 says, "The Lord disciplines the ones He loves."

And so while we enjoy and can enjoy the pleasant things in life as God's good gifts, hardship doesn't need to be seen as not good. Because that hardship has work to do in our lives. Think of it as a mum or a dad who takes their child to the doctor to get vaccinated. The whole time mum knows what the purpose is. It's to be inoculated against a terrible disease. But that toddler has no idea what's about to take place.

I remember vividly seeing a mum take a little baby boy, a toddler, to go and get a shot. Mum was holding him very tightly. She walked up straight to the doctor or the nurse holding that needle, and she allowed that horrible doctor to use a horrible needle to give a horrible jab in the arm, and the look of incredulous betrayal as mum had allowed this to happen to him. "How dare you, mum? I trusted you."

But mum knows, doesn't she? Mum knows. She knows that it's good. She knows that it's important. She knows that vaccine, even if it hurts, is necessary and healthy.

Sometimes our Father holds us that tightly that it hurts. But it's a sign of His love. With great patience and persistence, He is ridding the disease of sin in our lives. And for the Christian believer, hardship is not punishment for our sins. God has done that at the cross.

That has been dealt with. Our sin has been dealt with in Jesus. Hardship now is God's love to transform us, to see us become the family of God, to become like His Son Jesus. The discipline God brings upon His people is to be seen as loving corrections and training of a merciful tender-hearted Father.

So how can we enjoy life with God the Father more deeply even in hardship? Well, Hebrews 12 gives us two really great things to consider. Firstly, it says, "Do not make light of the Lord's discipline." We treat God's discipline lightly, however, when we fail to see His hand in our hardship. Too often we see hardship as a problem to be solved, as a thing just to white knuckle through and just get through it.

But Hebrews 12 says we endure hardship as discipline. In other words, receive those hard things even as a gift from God and take it seriously as an opportunity to grow. But then at the same time, the second point is we do not lose heart when that happens. When the Father rebukes us, chastises us, disciplines us, when things are tough, it's easy to think God's abandoned us, that He doesn't care about us, that He doesn't love us.

But listen to these statements in Hebrews 12: "The Lord disciplines the ones He loves." Another statement is "God is treating you as children." God's disciplining of you is a sign that you are true sons and daughters. And so when we start seeing God as our Father who can give us hardship even as a sign of His goodness, then each time we experience something that goes wrong we can say, "Father, thank you for this. Because I know that it is accomplishing a purpose in me.

Help me to become the person You are wanting me to become." So the Father gives every hardship. But then thirdly and lastly, we need to understand that God the Father, as the giver of all things both good and hard, in turn makes us understand that God the Father is the one to whom we direct our prayers. We thank God for the good things, we pray to Him for the hard things. And so the third point is that the Father welcomes every prayer.

When Jesus was on earth doing His ministry, He once gave a sermon on prayer. His disciples came up to Him and said, "Lord, teach us how to pray. How are we supposed to pray?" And Jesus gave them the teaching which has become the basis for our Lord's Prayer. How does that prayer begin?

Matthew 6:9: "Our Father who is in heaven." Here we find the most beautiful example of what it means for us to be Christian. Not only do we have access to God now in a reconciled relationship with Him because of Jesus, not simply are we allowed to speak to God, but we can address Him as Father. And so some of the most basic things that the work of Christ did is to change prayer from mere petition to fellowship with God. To have been adopted into the family of God is the greatest thing that has ever happened to you.

If you believe in Jesus, this is true for you. You have reason to pray, "Our Father, my Father." And this is revolutionary and this is massive because our hearts are inclined to see every relationship as transactional, some sort of business deal.

But as a Christian, the reality for us is that we can go to God who is family. And because He is family, His love and His relationship to us is unconditional. My dad is my dad whether I am a good boy or a bad boy. And this is why Jesus says that we are to come to our Father in this warm acceptance of His embrace.

And it would be pretty empty if God becomes a Father, even a very good Father, just as a father here on earth. True, a father's love goes pretty far in healing broken hearts. An earthly father is a very precious thing. But if God is only a physical human father, then what is the point? Because we may as well then go to our earthly fathers.

Jesus says He is our Father in heaven. And that means that He is higher than anything here on earth. He is the King who created the universe. He sits above the earth and everything that is created. He is the King who sits on a throne and because He is a king, He has power.

He has power to change my life. He has the power to give me good things. He has the power to give me endurance in my hardships. He has the power to change me. My heavenly Father is a King.

And so when we pray our Father in heaven, we acknowledge that God is both good to us and that He relates to us as family, but also that He is powerful, that He is capable. Tim Chester in his book Enjoying God writes, "Imagine if you had a father who was wealthy, incredibly wealthy, but cared very little for you. You wouldn't bother asking him for anything because you assumed he's unwilling to respond. Now imagine the other situation. Imagine you have a father who is very generous but absolutely poor.

You wouldn't go to him for things because you know that he's unable to respond. But when you bring your request to God the Father, you are affirming that He's willing and able. We glorify Him by praying to Him because we acknowledge that He is both loving as Father and powerful as the God of Heaven. And when we pray, we are treating Him as the kind and capable Father that He is." I've used this analogy before as well. It's a good one from Tim Keller who says, "Who dares go to the king to wake him up at 3 o'clock in the morning when they are needy, when they are troubled, even when they are anxious?

Who dares to wake the king at 3 a.m.? Would the king's servants do that? Would the king's soldiers dare? Would a tenant of one of the fields of the king do that? No.

But the king's daughter? The king's son? Would the king refuse that soft, scared little tap on the door of his room? There's no way. Not a good king.

Not a good father. This is who God the Father is to every Christian. The Father who gives good things. The Father who gives refining love through hardship. But most wonderfully, the Father who welcomes us to speak to Him about all those things.

This is the God we get to enjoy. So let's enjoy Him. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we come this morning as Your little children. And there is something so grand and so revolutionary about knowing God, the Creator, the one who holds all power, all dominion, all rights.

The God who is justice personified. And yet we are invited. We have been brought near to know our God as Father. We thank You for the incredible truth that we are adopted sons and daughters, legally bound to a Father who once saw us as children orphaned in the darkness, saw those kids and said, "They will be mine." We thank You that even in eternity past, You had a plan for our lives and You set Your heart on us.

Not even the vengeance and the fury, the bitterness, the jealousy of Satan could stop that plan. Not even our rebellion and our brokenness, our selfishness, our blindness would stop that plan. You have gone to the ends of the earth, the ends of the universe, to redeem us and to bring us home. And we thank You, Lord, for this incredible truth. We thank You that we may see You as a Father who welcomes us into His presence.

We thank You that we may ask You whatever is on our hearts. We thank You that we may thank You for every good thing that we see in our lives, our kids, our health. Yes, Lord, even the birds playing in the tree. We thank You that You are the giver of all good things. And so our hearts are moved and humbled by that.

Lord, help us to enjoy You as our Father, to draw nearer to You because of that revelation to us. And we pray, Lord, that we will not out of laziness, out of busyness, out of complacency, not appreciate You as our God who is our Abba. We magnify You and we glorify You. Please bring us, mould us more into the image of Your children. We pray through the enabling power of the Holy Spirit made possible for us through the love and mercy of Jesus Christ our Saviour. Amen.