Our Perfect Father (Father’s Day 2021)
Introduction:
Today is a day we honor fathers. Some in here may have wonderful memories of their dad, while others remember a cold or distant dad. No matter how good our fathers were or are, none of us have had perfect dads. Even the best dad has his flaws. This afternoon I want to take a look at the Perfect Father, our Heavenly Father. I hope that dads would want to be more like Him and that all of us would put our hopes in Him. I want to focus on 5 things that our perfect Father does:
1. Our perfect Father loves us. Some people think that God in the New Testament is more loving than in the Old Testament. But that is not true. Our God does not change as humans do. James says, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows“ (1:17). He is always a loving God like what these four verses in the OT and NT show: - Psalm 103:13 - As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him. - Psalm 86:15 – But you, Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness. - John 3:16 - For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. - 1 John 3:1 - See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Knowing that we have a loving Father is very important, especially for those whose need for love is much. Nothing and no one can love us as our heavenly Father does. As fathers, God wants us to love our children too. Lack of love from parents has caused so many emotional problems in children. But parents who love their children bring many positive impacts to their lives. Some time ago, “Men Care and JOHNSON & JOHNSON” analyzed hundreds of global studies on fatherhood that show why and how fathers matter. Here is what they reported:
9 Important Ways Dads Impact The Lives of Their Children:
1. Their kids play well with others. 2. Their partners and babies are healthier. 3. Their children are more prepared for school... 4. and go on to be more successful academically. 5. Their children start speaking earlier and are more verbally expressive. 6. Their children grow up less prone to depression. 7. Their sons are less likely to be in trouble. 8. Their daughters are more ambitious in their careers ... 9. and have a more positive self-image.
Fathers play an important role in the development of their children, from their roles in prenatal care to how they play, communicate, and act as role models for their kids. Loving, engaged dads have been shown to have a tremendous impact on how a child grows up. They are truly irreplaceable.
2. Our perfect Father teaches us. The Bible shows that God taught His people since the creation of Adam and Eve about Himself, the truth, and His wills. Look what God said in Genesis 2:16-17, "And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” Humans need His guidance and instructions. God also wants fathers to teach their children. Look at Deuteronomy 6:4-9 - “ Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.” Prov. 22:6 tells parents to: "Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it." We should teach our children about God, morals, responsibility, manners, kindness, and what is right and wrong, that there is a standard of right and wrong that transcends human ideas and opinions. If we do not teach them, the world, Hollywood, and their friends will teach them. Instilling biblical values requires a commitment to teaching our children consistently, repeatedly, and at every opportunity. The task to teach children was given to parents, not priests or prophets, or in our context today not to the pastor, minister, or Sunday School teacher!
3. Our perfect Father disciplines us. He is our Disciplinarian. We tend not to like the word disciplinarian. Perhaps you cringe because your dad was abusive and punished you in ways that strike fear in you today. Or maybe we do not like a discipline at all anyways and would rather not talk about it. The perfect Father disciplines! A great passage on God disciplining His children is found in Hebrews 12. In this passage the writer is encouraging the readers to not give up under the persecution they are experiencing, but to realize that God is disciplining them. That may seem strange to us, but God uses various things to not only punish wrongdoing but to prevent wrongdoing and to educate His children in the way they should walk. He is in the process of training us. Sometimes He uses methods we wish He would bypass. We will go through some suffering. Jesus told us that. But we need to realize that when God disciplines us, He allows things to come against us for us to grow spiritually. John MacArthur, Jr. explains the meaning of the word discipline: “The word is a broad term, signifying whatever parents and teachers do to train, correct, cultivate, and educate children to help them develop and mature as they ought.” He also states, “God uses hardship and affliction as a means of discipline, a means of training His children, of helping them mature in their spiritual lives.” The writer of Hebrews lets us know: - that discipline is a sign of sonship (v.7) - If we do not undergo discipline, we aren’t true sons (v.8) - If we respected our human fathers for disciplining us, then shouldn’t we submit that much more to God who is doing this for our good (v.9-10)? - God’s discipline, if we let it, will result in our spiritual growth (v.10-11). As we should be glad that our dads kept us in line and taught us right from wrong, even when it was painful, we should rejoice that our heavenly Father, who is perfect in his administering of discipline, would treat us as sons and daughters disciplining us so that we might grow in Him. Understand, discipline does not just refer to punishment for sins. There are three purposes of discipline: punishment, prevention, and education. God punished Jonah by allowing him to be swallowed by a big fish because he disobeyed Him. God did not grant Paul's request to pull out a thorn in his flesh to prevent him from becoming arrogant. God allowed Job to undergo suffering so that He would come to know God in a whole new light. God can use even the most painful of situations to teach us things we might never have listened to Him about when we were all comfortable. The fact is that the Bible tells us we will have trials and God always uses everything for our good and His glory. God’s ultimate goal is that we would become more like Him in our character. Therefore, the Bible says to children: “My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline, and do not resent his rebuke, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in” (Proverbs 3:11-12).
4. Our perfect Father cares for us. In Matt 10:30 Jesus tells us: “And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered.” Psalm 139:13-16 gives a picture of our God who is involved in the formation of our lives and who knows all of our days before any come to pass. Jeremiah 1:5 gives light to the fact that God knows us and His plans for us before we are even conceived. God cares for us. When we pray, we call Him “Our Father” according to Jesus’ example of prayer to the disciples. He knows everything about our lives. And if we give Him the opportunity, He knows how to untangle our messes, fix our brokenness, and get us back in good working order. He is not a god who does not speak or give guidance, but rather He is a God who speaks and delights in guiding us. He provides for our needs. He is our Provider. In Matt 7:9-11, Jesus says: “Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” Earthly dads are sinners and far from perfect. But most of them would provide for their children’s needs. How much more so can our heavenly Father give us exactly what we are needing! In Matt 6:33 He promises to provide the things we need if we will seek first His kingdom. I know we can say like Abraham in Gen 22:14, “The Lord will provide.” Like a good Father, He may not supply every single want in our life, He may not supply every need in the way we think it should be provided, but He will take care of His children because He is a Perfect Father.
5. Our perfect Father protects us. As the Perfect Father, God is our Protector. Sixteen times the word ‘fortress’ is used to refer to God in the book of Psalms in the NIV. God is a haven to run to when you feel insecure and afraid. We should find security in the fact that nothing happens to us that does not the first pass through His hands. And what passes through His hands is meant by God for our good, not our destruction. Job could not have been afflicted without God giving the devil permission. And it is also good to note that God does at times pull us out of the trial as He did Peter in Acts 12. It is right to pray for protection. Even Paul asked for prayer for his rescue from unbelievers in Romans 15:31. God still offers physical protection and shielding in our lives. We would do well to ask for God’s protection from the enemy and evil-doers, and then trust Him when He allows us to go through the storm rather than pull us out. Something else we should take note of is that while on this earth our lives could be destroyed, God offers protection that no earthly Father offers. He offers protection of the soul. Even during a time of suffering for Paul, he was able to write Timothy and say, “I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day” (2 Tim 1:12). At the end of Jude’s letter he writes, “To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy”(Jude 24). These men were confident that God offered protection that would see believers through to the day they would be presented to God. God calls fathers to protect their children from any danger and harm. A father should protect his children from bad people, from dating or marrying a wrong man or woman. Have you ever heard a little boy say, ‘My dad can beat up your dad’? Kids like to think of their parents as the biggest and strongest. What is this all about? Security. The Father is the protector. Dads should see themselves as the protector.
Closing: God is our Perfect Father! He’s the Father you have always wanted. The great thing is that He is the Father who is available to you. He’ll gladly adopt you into His family. What you need to do is believe in Jesus. The Bible says, "Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God" (John 1:12). May God help us to love our children as God loves them, to teach them biblical worldviews so that they will be godly kids, to discipline them, to be personally involved in their lives, to care for, and protect our children to the best of our ability. It is a tough responsibility. Many times, we fail to fulfill it. But with God's help and if we ask Him to make us more like Him, we can be the imitators of our perfect Father and raise our children rightly.
