WHAT KIND OF FATHER IS GOD?
JEFF SEAMAN
We’ve been looking at how God meets your deepest needs and we’ve noticed that God uses a descriptive name for Himself that matches every one of your ten deepest needs. Your understanding of God will affect every area of your life. If you have misconceptions about God, what He’s really like – you’re going to tend to worry about things you shouldn’t be worrying about. You’re going to tend to feel guilty over things God has no intention of you feeling guilty about. You’re going to carry unnecessary burdens and fears and doubts and depressions all through life that God never intended for you to have. Your understanding of God determines your happiness in life. When you get a false conception about God from the movies, from religion, from your parents, from the schoolyard or anybody, if you get a misconception of what God is really like, you will have unnecessary problems and misery in your life that you weren’t intended to have.
One of the things Jesus Christ came to earth to do is show us what God is really like. Jesus exploded all the stereotypes about God. He showed us that God is not some impersonal force, just an energy field in the universe. God is not some angry tyrant who sets up in heaven waiting to make things miserable for people. God is not some apathetic creator who winds up the world and sets it down and then sits back and benignly watches it happen with no involvement.
In fact, Jesus described God in two words. In Matthew 6:9 He said, “This is how you should pray [in other words, this is how you should talk to God, this is how you should address the creator of the universe] Our Father in heaven.” God wants you to think of Him as a Father.
This is no big deal to us today because we talk a lot about the Fatherhood of God, that God is our Father. When Jesus said those words 2000 years ago, it was radical stuff. The hearers must have been absolutely shocked when He said, “When you pray, God wants you to call Him Father.” In the entire Old Testament over thousands of years, God is only referred to as Father seven times. Jesus refers to God as Father seven times in this chapter alone. In His life and in the gospels, He talks about God being our Father over 150 times. He said this is how God wants to relate to you.
The good news is that since God is a Father, we know that He is a person, not a power. It is very difficult to relate to a power, a force, an energy. But when you say God is a Father, I can relate to a father. I can be intimate with a father. I can talk to a father. I can have a relationship with a father. That’s the good news.
The bad news is, when I use the word “father”, for some people that conjures up all kinds of painful memories. Rather than it being a happy term, it’s a sad term for some and even an angry term for others. When I say the word “father”, for some of you, it stirs up deep resentment. You had a father who was neglectful. You had a father who was abusive, either physically or verbally. You had a father who just wasn’t there, a nonentity in your life. Some of you when you think of the word “father” it brings up fear. You remember phrases growing up like, “Just wait until your father gets home!” and you think, “If God is like my father… no thanks, God! I don’t need a God like my father was.” Human fathers can make homes a hell on earth. Human fathers can be selfish. Human fathers can be demanding. Human fathers can be inconsistent. They can be self-centered, abusive. They can be all kinds of things that we would say, I don’t want that in my life.
So Jesus qualified the term. He said, “This is how you should pray: Our Father in heaven.” He said you pray to your Heavenly Father. He’s not just talking about where God is. God is everywhere. He’s talking about the quality of God. He’s a heavenly Father as opposed to an earthly father. God is very, very different than human fathers. In the first place, God’s perfect. And none of us who are human fathers are. We’re imperfect, we make mistakes, we blow it. God has never blown it. He is unlike us. He’s at a higher plain. We are to say “Our Father in heaven” or “Our Heavenly Father.”
I’ve noticed that there are four common misconceptions about God. I’ve talked to thousands of people about God personally over the years. The misconceptions that people have tend to fall in one of four categories. I have no doubt that many of you here today have been deluded about one of these myths about God.
For instance, some of you, when you think about God, you think that God is unreasonable. And the reason that you don’t want to get to know God is because He puts all these unreasonable demands on your life that you could never possibly live up to. All he wants to do is make my life tough, give me rules and regulations sand restrictions. He wants to remove all my fun, all my enjoyment, all my happiness. God is some kind of cosmic killjoy and He’s very unreasonable. So obviously, if you feel that way, it’s no wonder that you don’t get to know God. Who wants to get to know somebody who they feel in their heart of hearts is unreasonable and too demanding and some of you feel that way.
Others of you, you don’t feel God is unreasonable, but you feel like He’s unreliable. The reason for that is because you’ve been hurt. It’s an interesting characteristic of human behavior when somebody hurts us we not only blame that person, we blame God. If you’ve been attacked or you’ve been put down or you’ve been abused you not only get mad at your attacker you get mad at God. You say, “God, why did You allow it?” Many of you here today have never got close to God because you’ve never dealt with resentment in your heart toward God blaming God for bad things that happened to you. “Why did that happen, God? If that’s the kind of God You are, no thanks, God!” So you resist it because you think, He’s not unreasonable, but He’s unreliable. “I can’t trust Him.” When you’ve been hurt a lot you say, “I’m not going to trust anybody and I’m certainly not going to trust God!” You’ve never thought about why God allowed that hurt.
God has given each of us the freedom to choose. That’s one of God’s greatest gifts to us. He could have made you a puppet where you didn’t have a choice between good and evil. You could only do good. God could have kept people from hurting you by taking away their freedom to choose. But He didn’t. And because He’s given us the freedom to choose, people make the wrong decisions and they hurt other people. You’ve been hurt by people who make bad decisions. God could have taken away their freedom to do that, but He also would have, to be fair, taken away your freedom and you wouldn’t have liked that. We always focus on how people have hurt us. Have you ever focused on the fact that you’ve hurt a lot of people? And God never stopped you. You’ve hurt many people through your own selfishness and self-centeredness. We blame God for our hurts, as if He caused it all. He didn’t cause those hurts – people did. He allowed it because He’s allowed freedom of choice in the world. He wants you to choose what’s good.
Others of you, you don’t think God is unreasonable or unreliable, you think God is unconcerned. “Yes, I believe there is a God. He’s just too busy to bother with me. How could God be possibly interested in me? God’s got big things to worry about, like universes to create. How could He be concerned about my job, my kids, my family, my career, my schooling, my education, my boyfriend?” Those things seem petty so you think God is unconcerned. If you think He’s unconcerned, you’re not going to try to get to know Him. Because you think He’s out there… aloof. Like the Better Midler song, “God is watching us from a distance.” Not up close but backed off… from a distance.
Then a fourth misconception about God (and some of you have this one) is that God is unpleasable. You think that no matter how hard you try it’s never good enough in His eyes. If you get C’s on your report card, God wants B’s. If you get B’s, God wants A’s. If you get A’s, God wants straight A’s and A+’s. Where in the world did you get an idea like that? I wonder!! What most of us tend to do is take the weaknesses of our parents and enforce them onto God. So if you grew up with unpleasable parents, you tend to think God is unpleasable. If you grew up with an aloof father, you tend to think God is an aloof Father. And so forth. Whatever your parent was like, you tend to push onto God.
Today, what I want you to do is kind of open up your mind and I want to take all of the concepts you’ve had about God to this date, and set them on the shelf for a minute. Instead, we’re going to look at what God says about Himself in the word, in the truth, in the Bible. The Bible says it is the truth that sets you free. And the Bible says that He is very, very different than the way He’s portrayed in most movies, in most religions and even by most families.
What does the Bible say God is really like? What kind of Father is God? Since it’s Father’s Day I thought that’s an appropriate subject. What kind of Father is God?
1. The Bible Says that GOD IS A CARING FATHER.
He is compassionate, loving, gracious and He cares about you. In fact He loves you more than you will ever know. He loves you more than you will be able to experience. You can’t even understand how much God loves you because your brain isn’t big enough to handle it. But compassion is God’s number one characteristic and attribute. The Bible tells us in Psalms 104 “As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who honor Him.” God is caring. God is compassionate.
There’s a story in the Bible where the disciples – the original twelve guys who followed Jesus – were out in a fishing boat one day on the lake and Jesus was in the boat asleep. They’re fishing and all of a sudden a sudden storm comes up, the waves start rising and the rain is pouring down. It’s thundering and lighting. The little boat begins to be rocked in the rocky sea. The water is coming in over the sides of the boat and it’s sinking. It’s starting to capsize. Jesus is asleep over at one end of the boat, obviously not concerned about this. The disciples, the story tell us, go over and wake Him up, shake Him, and say, “Lord! Don’t You care that we’re dying? Don’t You care that we’re perishing?”
That is one of the most profound questions in human existence. Does God care about my problems? Does God care about my hurts? The things I’m going through? The stresses I’m feeling? The worries I’m experiencing? Does God really care about what happens to me?
Until you settle that issue, you’re not going to get to know God. If you think He doesn’t care, why get to know Him? Does God care about the details in your life?
The answer is yes. He says it many, many times in the Bible. One place is in 1 Peter 5:7: “Cast some (?) of your anxiety on Him… Cast all the spiritual sounding problems (?) on Him. No, it doesn’t say that. It says, “Cast all [circle that] your anxiety on Him, [that means every kind of anxiety you have – financial, physical, social, spiritual, mental, relational] because He cares for you.” Does God care about your house payments? Yes. Does God care about the fact that your kids need braces on their teeth? Yes. Does God care about the grades you get at school? Yes. Does God care about whether you have a boyfriend or not? Yes. Does God care about your moods? Yes. Does God care about your financial investments? Yes. Does God care about your dreams and hopes and ambitions? Yes. Does He care about whether you’re a success or failure in life? Absolutely. He is a caring Father. You have a heavenly Father that cares about all the details of your life. In fact, He knows every detail of your life. The Bible says He knows every hair on your head. He knows how many you have. They’re numbered. For some of you that isn’t too hard. But I guarantee you, there’s not a person in here today that knows how many hairs you have. God knows every hair on your head and He knows their original color! You may have all of us fooled but your hairdresser and God know for sure. God knows the moles on your body that nobody else has ever seen. He knows every intimate detail of your life.
Because of that, the Bible says this, “So don’t worry saying, ‘What shall we eat? Or what will we wear. Your heavenly Father knows you need these things.” He says, what are you worrying about? God knows the details of your life. He’s going to take care of your needs. Fathers, do you want your kids to worry about where their next meal is going to be? No. Do you want your kids worrying about whether they’ll have clothes to wear to school? No. If my kids came to me and said, “Dad, I’m worried. I’m worried that we’re not going to have enough to eat.” I’d consider that a personal failure, an affront to me. Because it’s my job as a dad to take care of my kids’ needs. I love them, I care about them, I’m committed to meeting their needs. If their needs are not being met, I blame myself.
God doesn’t want you worrying about your needs either, because He’s your heavenly Father. He says, “I don’t want you worrying about if you’re going to have food to eat or clothes to wear. I’m going to take care of your needs. Because I’m a caring Father. Don’t worry.” Whenever you start to worry about anything in life it’s a warning sign that you have started to doubt the love of God. That’s what worry is. Doubting that God is in control and that God cares. “I’d better worry about this because God can’t handle this one or God’s not caring enough about this one. He doesn’t care about this, I’m going to have to work this out because God doesn’t care.” You’re wrong. Every time you are worrying, you’re doubting that God really cares about the details of your life.
One time a guy came to me all stressed out, going through panic attacks. He felt nervous and pressured and fatigued. He was telling me about all the things he was worrying about. Finally he said, “I guess what my problem is, Pastor Rick, is I just don’t love God enough. I guess that’s my problem.” I said, “You miss the point entirely. Your problem is not that you don’t love God enough. Your problem is that you don’t realize how much He loves you. That’s why you worry. That’s why you get stressed. That’s why you get tense and nervous. You don’t realize how much He loves you and how much He cares for you and how much He’s committed to take care of your needs if you will trust Him. And because you don’t realize how much He loves you, that’s why you’re all stressed out. You need to understand that God is a caring Father.”
Tom:
2. The second thing the Bible tells us about God is GOD IS A CONSISTENT FATHER.
You can count on Him, every time. He never lets you down. He’s always dependable, entirely consistent in who He is. God is worthy of our trust. James 1:17 “Every good and perfect gift is from the Father who does not change like shifting shadows.” The truth is, earthy fathers are unpredictable. Some of them are incredibly unpredictable and fickle. I know some teenagers who feel like, “I never know what to expect from my dad. It changes so much from one day to the other depending entirely on the mood he’s in. One day he’s silent and the next day he’s violent. One day he’s a good guy and the next day he’s a tough guy. I don’t know what to expect.” Inconsistent fathers produce insecure kids.
Where do you find security in an inconsistent world?
God is a consistent Father. God is not moody. God never has a bad day. That’s good news for us. What if God woke up and said, “I feel a little grouchy today. Who can I zap today?” What kind of world would that be? The good news is God is always consistent. And the great news is His consistency and dependability does not depend on my consistency and dependability. 2 Timothy “Even if we are faithless, He remains faithful for He cannot disown Himself.” I’m so glad that even on the days that I’m down, God is still up. Even on the days when I’m struggling, God is still victorious. He’s always consistent.
The fact is, the world round us is changing at an incredible rate and we all have to deal with that in a daily way. Because of that, we all need what Alvin Toffler calls “islands of stability” in this world of change. While everything around us might be changing, there is one thing that you can absolutely count on. God always acts the same way towards you. He always acts in love. He always acts with forgiveness. He always acts with grace. He always offers you His power. He doesn’t change. He is always caring and He’s always consistent. That’s what God is like. That’s what the real God is like. In all the man-made religions of the world, when we try to make up our idea of God, it’s different. In man-made religions God is always temperamental. Whether it’s Greek gods or whatever. They’re always fickle. You always have to appease the gods. The true God is different. In Malachi 3:6 in the Bible God is speaking and says, “I the Lord do not change.” We can count on that.
One of the greatest causes of resentment and rebellion in kids is broken promises. Some of you still have thoughts of times when your parents broke a promise and you still have thoughts of times when you broke a promise to your kids because we are all imperfect. That feeling of “…. But you promised!” The good news is God always keeps His promises. That’s the kind of Father that He is. Romans 11:29 “God will never go back on His promises.” And from Psalms 49:10, in the Old Testament, “My God is changeless in His love for me.”
Those of you who have been around Saddleback for a while know my story of my dad who suffered from schizophrenia. These past few years with my dad have been particularly hard. Months back, phone calls began to come in unlike any I’d ever received. Abusive words like, “You’re not my son… You’ve never been my son … I never want to see you again.” Those kinds of words. When you hear those kinds of things from a parent, you know exactly what I’m talking about. There’s one side of you that logically understands the illness. You can figure that out. But the other side of you feels it very deeply. And it hurts.
My dad was in a downward spiral emotionally, physically, intellectually – all the parts of his life. Finally he was admitted into a mental hospital where he could get some help – with great effort he was admitted. After a week there, he escaped from the mental hospital. He climbed over a wall (this is a 70 year old man). And he disappeared for six months. I didn’t hear from him. I honestly thought he was dead. We had police departments all over northern California looking for him. Finally a few weeks ago they called my wife while I was away and told her that they had found him in Sacramento where he had been out on the streets for six months. When I got back from the trip I called in and the nurse that I talked to said, “I hate to tell you this but we’ve lost him again. He escaped again.” A week later, they found him again.
Who needs the thrill of a roller coaster when you have relationships, right? Ups and downs of relationships! How do you handle the ups and downs of relationships with an inconsistent father? Or mother or children or anyone else?
You handle the ups and downs of a relationship with an inconsistent father by knowing that you have a heavenly father who is entirely consistent. You can count on Him every single time. You need a perfect father to give you strength.
A word to those of you who grew up with a father who was far less than perfect. Some of you may have grown up with a father who may have been absent or abusive and there’s some real hurt there. I have learned a truth over the years in my own life and as I’ve talked with many people who are struggling to develop a relationship with God or even find a relationship with God in the first place, a truth that you have to struggle with. The truth is the more imperfect your father on earth is or the more imperfect you realize he is, the more difficult it’s going to be to see the kind of relationship that God the Father wants to have with you. It’s going to be a little harder for you to see the kind of love He wants to show to you. It’s going to be a little harder for you to see the kind of confidence that you need to have in His grace and His mercy for your life. There’s something in you that wants to say, “I just can’t quite believe it.”
Some of you had a father that loved you the best that he could. He wasn’t perfect but you know that he loved you the best that he could. Because of his love for you he built into your life a foundation that has grown into a wonderful relationship with God. This Father’s Day weekend, take just a minute, right now in your mind to thank God for the gift that your dad gave you. It’s an incredible gift.
But many others of you didn’t have a good relationship with your dad and you’ve struggled over the years. It was not only imperfect, it was hurtful and painful. That is not fair. Every child deserves great relationships with their mom and dad. But we live in a world that’s not fair sometimes. So how do you live with that? How do you deal with that? I’ve got some good news and bad news for those of you who face that.
The bad news is it will be a little bit more difficult for you to trust that there is a God that loves you, that can heal you from this. And it will always be that way. It’s always going to take an extra measure of trust. But the good news is, because of the extra measure of trust, you’re going to build a relationship of faith with God, a relationship that’s not built on feelings but that’s based on genuine trust. And you have the potential to have an incredible relationship with God who is your Father.
I was telling this story of my relationship with my dad to a church back in Chicago. A girl in the crowd came up and talked to one of the members of our team. She told the story of also growing up with a dad who suffered from mental illness, but her story had the most tragic of endings. She told the story of a father who, in his confusion and anger one day, murdered her mother. How do you live with something like that? How do you make it after something like that happens? I will never forget her exact words. She said, “My earthly father took from me something that no one deserves to have taken when he murdered my mother. But one day I discovered that I have a heavenly Father who gave to me what no one deserves to have given when He gave His Son Jesus Christ on the cross for me. He gave me forgiveness and He gave me significance and He gave me peace and He gave me life.”
This Father’s Day I encourage you: Trust God. Trust God as the Father you never had. Trust God to be the Father that your father never was. Give yourself a Father’s Day present this Father’s Day. Right now in your mind pray this prayer, “Father, help me to see You as the Father I never had.” You might pray something like this depending on your situation. “I was disappointed by my father on earth. Help me to see You as a God who will never disappoint me. … I never knew my earthly father. Help me to see You as a God who wants to know me and whom I can know… I was hurt (maybe deeply hurt) by my father on earth. Help me to see that I can be protected by You…. I was ignored by my earthly father. Help me to see that I can have Your full and constant attention. … I was never able to meet the expectations of my father on earth. Help me to find in Your grace a freedom from expectations.” God is a different kind of father. He is a Father who cares and He is a Father who is consistent.
Rick:
Not only that but…
3. Your heavenly Father is a GOD WHO IS CLOSE.
That means He’s available all the time. He’s there when you need Him. He’s not distant. He’s not far off. He’s available. The Bible tells us in Acts 17:27 “God did this so that people would reach out for Him and find Him since He is not far from each of us.” God wants you to find him. God wants you to know Him. God wants you to have a relationship with Him, so He is not far off. He is a close Father.
Many of you grew up with absentee fathers. Your father was never around. He was never home. Maybe he was always off on some important trip. Maybe he was always off on a business deal. Maybe he was just hanging out with the guys. But he was never around when you were growing up and when he was at home he was distant and aloof, hiding behind a newspaper. For some of you your father was a non-entity. He just did not make that big of an impact.
This week, I read a new study in the latest Time magazine about the impact of absentee parents and the effect it’s having on children today. The President’s Counsel of Economic Advisors recently did a study and they quantified what plenty of folks have observed antidotally. It’s that the rise in two-earner income families as well as the rise of single parent families has resulted in the fact that parents now spend an average of 22 fewer hours with their children each week than they did in 1969. That’s almost a full day per week in lost parental attention.
And we wonder why kids are shooting each other on the campuses of our nation. We have decided that money is more important than our kids. We have decided that a certain standard of living is more important than time with our kids. You say, “We’ve got to make ends meet.” Lower the ends! Don’t make the kids pay for a lifestyle you can’t afford. Kids growing up with absentee parents have a hard time getting to know God, for one thing. God, our heavenly Father, is a close Father. He is not detached. He is not aloof. And that’s why you can get to know Him.
Three good news truths about God:
1. God is never too busy for me. Your parents may be too busy for you. You may be too busy for your kids. But God is never too busy for you. When you pray, God does not say, “Not now. I’ll see you later.” No, God is never too busy for you. He never turns away. He’s with you every single day.
It’s interesting the article I read this week in Newsweek about Nathan Myervolt, the chief technology officer for Microsoft. He’s worth well over 250 million dollars and, if he’d stayed with the organization, he’d be worth more than that. He is “Bill Gates’ favorite geek.” However, last week Myervolt shocked the entire industry when, at 39 years old, he announced he was taking a year long sabbatical to make time for his family. He said, “I’ve just been too busy for my family.” So he’s walking away as the chief technology officer of Microsoft to go spend time with his twins who are ten-year-old boys. That is unheard of in our society today. Where are the people that have those kind of values, who say, “I want to be close to my kids rather than make another dollar.”? You’re only going to have your kids for a certain season of time, likely an 18-yea r window. Then they’re gone. Then you’ve got the rest of your life. So what are you going to do? You need to make time for them. Why? God is a model. He is not too busy for you. He’s never too busy. You can come to Him any time.
2. God loves to meet my needs because He’s a close Father. Matthew 7:11 says this, “You 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. God says, “If you being an imperfect parent love to give good gifts to your kids what do you think a perfect parent like your heavenly Father wants to do?” I am selfish a lot of the times. I’m self-centered. I think of my needs. But I still, as a parent, love to give to my kids. I love to meet their needs. I really do. And if I with my own mixed motives love to do that, how much more does God want to meet your needs. He’s a perfect Father and He’s waiting to meet your needs.
For the past ten weeks we have seen how every one of your ten deepest needs can be met in God. And God has even given Himself a name that corresponds to those needs. We saw that verse in Philippians 4:19 that says “My God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory with Christ Jesus.”
3. God is sympathetic to my hurts. He is never too busy, He loves to meet my needs and He’s sympathetic to my hurts. When I come to God with my pain, God doesn’t say, “Oh, come on! Get over it! Put a smile on your face. That’s an easy little thing. Get a Band-Aid!” If you’ve had a tough week, God understands. “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” I have no doubt that in a crowd this size here today somebody’s got a broken heart. Somebody had their heart broken this week. Some of you feel crushed in spirit. What do you do? Turn to God. He is sympathetic to your hurt. He loves to meet your needs. He is never too busy for you. He wants to help you out! He’s your heavenly Father.
The word that Jesus used for “father” is Aramaic is the word “abba”. Abba is not a Swedish rock group. (If you laughed at that you just told me your age because no baby buster would ever laugh at that joke.) Abba is the first word that every Middle Eastern child learns. It means “daddy” – papa, mama, dada, abba. It’s the very first word a baby learns in the Middle East. If you’ve been to Israel or any Middle Eastern country, little Arab kids run around all the time – “Abba, Abba, Abba.” It means “daddy.” It is the ultimate term of endearment, of closeness, of family. There is no barrier between a little baby and a father. It’s just Abba.
My three kids are teenagers. My oldest, Amy is going to turn 20 this year. But even still today nothing is sweeter to my ears than when I open the door to my house and walk in and my three kids will say, “Daddy!” That still turns my crank!! I still get excited when my kids go, “It’s Daddy!” It’s a term of endearment.
If I were to walk in the door of my house and my kids were to come up to me and say, “O thou most holy procreator of the Warren family! Thou who so sovereignly bestows our allowance upon us. We beseech thee for a bountiful blessing of cash that we may goeth to the movies.” I’d be going, “Huh??? Hello??”
God doesn’t want you to talk to Him like that. I like my kids to come up and say, “Hi Dad.” – give me a kiss on the cheek – “Can I borrow the car? Love you! Gotta go|!” I’d rather have that than this ritualistic talk.
God says when you come and talk to Him, you’re to say, “Daddy, papa, abba.” My guess is that most of you in this room do not have that kind of intimate relationship with God. You would be very uncomfortable calling God Papa, Dada. But that’s the way God wants you to have a relationship with Him. He wants you to have such an intimate close relationship that you just cuddle up in His arms and say, “Dad, here’s my problem… Dad, here’s my hurt … Here’s my need…. Here’s what happened this week…. You know what I’m thinking, Father.” You just share with Him on a heart to heart basis with no fluff, no ritual, no thee’s and thou’s, just daughter to daddy, and son to daddy. God is a close Father.
And not only that. He’s caring, He’s consistent, He’s close and…
4. GOD IS A COMPETENT FATHER
He can handle any problem you give Him. Nothing is beyond His ability. Nothing is beyond His resources. Today this is in direct opposite to human fathers. We have an epidemic of incompetent fathers today who are good at a lot of other thing but pretty lousy as fathers. Especially on TV, all the fathers are duffuses. Al Bundy, the butt of a joke or Homer Simpson or two dozen other incompetent dads. I heard two school kids bragging on the schoolyard. One said, “My daddy can beat your daddy.” And the other kid goes, “Big deal! So can my Mom.”
But nobody can beat up your heavenly Father. Nobody! The Bible says in Luke 1:37 “For nothing is impossible with God.” Nothing is impossible. He can handle it all because He is competent.
I’ll never get over what my kids thought I could fix when they were growing up. They thought I could fix the weather. They thought I could fix TV shows that they had missed and bring them back. They thought I could put heads of decapitated dolls back together. On and on. As a father, my kids thought that I knew everything, could fix anything, could afford everything. But I couldn’t.
When you’re growing up, you think your dad is Superman. As a little kid you think, “My daddy can do anything!” But as you grow older, you realize that your father had limits to his resources when it came to allowance and there were limits to his wisdom when it came to advice. Sometimes he was just guessing, giving it the best guess.
But your heavenly Father really can do anything. He can do anything! Nothing is impossible with God. Ephesians 3:20 says “God is able to do far more than we would ever dare to ask or even dream of – infinitely beyond our highest prayers or desires or thoughts or hopes.” God says, “Think of the biggest dream for your life. I can top that. Think of the biggest goal for your life. I can top that. Think of the biggest problem you think you can ever come up against. I can solve it. Think of the biggest hurt you’ll ever have. I can soothe it.” God says, “I can handle it all. I’m your heavenly Father and I’m close and caring and competent and I’m consistent and if you’ll trust Me, things will go a whole lot better in your life.”
Here’s my question for you. What have you been doubting that God can handle? That situation that you’re in right now that you’re all stressed out about because you think, “I don’t think God can handle this. I need to do this one. I’m going to have to manipulate behind the scenes. I’m going to have to politic for that job at work. I’m going to have to pull ends and cut corners and streamline things and be a little deceptive here and there. I’ve got to work extra hours and make this happen because I don’t think God can handle this problem.”
What are you thinking? That you can handle something that God can’t? God can handle anything. You need to drop it in His arms and let Him handle it. The bottom line is God can take care of His children. And He does when we trust Him. Because He’s caring, He’s consistent, He’s close and He’s competent. He takes care of His children.
The obvious logical question then is, Is everybody a child of God? Will God take care of everybody’s needs? Is God the Father of everyone?
The answer is Yes and No. If you mean, Did God create everybody? Yes. If you mean, Does God love everybody? Absolutely. If you mean, Does God have a plan and purpose for every person on the face of this planet? Absolutely. God is the Father of everyone in that sense.
But it takes more than birth to be a father. It takes a relationship. Some of you were probably birthed by men you never met. They are your father by creation but they are not your father by relationship and you miss it. You long for it and you wish you had that relationship. God says, “I have created everyone but not everyone is My child unless they have a relationship with Me.” You are not in the family of God – you were created by God but you are not in the family of God until you choose to become a part of it. That’s a choice you can make today.
How do I become a part of the family of God? How do I become a child of God? How do I get God to be my heavenly Father?
Look at what the Bible says. John 14:6-7 “Jesus said, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. If you really knew Me, you would know my Father as well.’” Jesus said, “That’s why I came to earth – to show you the Father so you could get to know God.”
Galatians 3:26 ”We are the children of God through… being religious.” No, that’s not what it says. “We are the children of God by … going to church.” No. “We are the children of God by … keeping the Ten Commandments.” No. “We are the children of God through faith in Jesus Christ.” That’s the only way you get into God’s family – children of God through faith in Jesus Christ.
In human terms there are only two ways you can get into a family. You can be born into it or be adopted into it. There is no other way to get into a family. You’re either born into it or adopted into it. In the Bible, both of those terms are used as explanations of what it means to be a Christian, to be saved, to experience salvation, to become a part of the family of God. By birth –that’s called being born again. Or by adoption – by being adopted into God’s family.
1 Peter 1:3 “God has given us the privilege of being born again so that we are now members of God’s own family.” When you were physically born you were born into the human family. It’s called the human race. The only way you get into God’s spiritual family is by being spiritually reborn – that’s a change that takes place inside of you when Christ comes into your heart.
Ephesians 1:5 “His [God’s] unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into His own family by sending Jesus Christ to die for us. He did this because He wanted to.”
Either way you’ve got to come to God the same way. Through Jesus. By birth, by adoption – it’s the same way. By faith in Christ. John 1:12 “To those who believed on Him and received Him, He gave them the right to become the children of God.” How do you become a child of God? By believing and receiving. By believing in Christ and receiving Him into your life.
Some of you say, “I believe in Jesus. I believe in God and Jesus. I believe He was who He said He was.” I say, “Congratulations! You’re half way there.” It takes more than believing in Jesus Christ to get into God’s family. You must believe and receive. I must believe Jesus was who He said He was. And I must receive Him into my life and say, “God, You call the shots now. You be my Savior. You be the manager of my life. I’m putting on a sign that says, ‘Under new management.’ God, You’re in charge now from here on out.” When you put your faith in Christ, you believe and you receive Him, then you get into God’s family.
Let me say a word to those of you who are fathers since this is Father’s Day. If you haven’t done this, what are you waiting on? I don’t care if you’re Catholic or Protestant or Jewish or no religious background. No religion will get you into the kingdom of God. No religion will get you into God’s family. No religion will get you to heaven. There’s not one verse in the Bible that says religion is the way. Not one. It says a relationship to your Father is the way, through Jesus Christ. I hope you make that decision today. If you are a father (and I say this to mother’s too), the greatest thing you can do for your children is introduce them to their heavenly Father. That’s the greatest thing you can do. You may teach them to be a Little League All-Star. You may raise them up so they get straight A’s and go to Harvard. They may become famous and make a million bucks and become well know and live a happily ever-after kind of life. But if you don’t introduce them to their heavenly Father, you have failed as a dad. You have failed in the single greatest task and that is to get them to know Christ so they can go to heaven when they die. We’re talking heaven and hell here.
You say, “It’s a little late. My kids are already grown and married and they’ve got their own kids.” It’s never too late! You need to go home today on Fathers Day, pick up the phone and apologize. You need to say, “I’m sorry. I never told you about the most important thing in life. I wasn’t even a believer when you were growing up. I didn’t tell you about your heavenly Father. And even though I wasn’t always consistent, He is. Even though I wasn’t always there for you, He is. And by getting to know Jesus Christ, you can go to heaven. I know Him now and I’m going to heaven and the thought of me being in heaven without my kids is unbearable.”
If you don’t win them to Christ, they’re going to hell. This is serious stuff, folks. I held by breath for years while I waited to make sure, praying daily that each of my kids would come into God’s family and make their decision for Christ. The day my youngest, Matthew, finally stepped across that line I heaved a giant sigh of relief. Because I could not imagine me going to heaven without having my kids know the Lord. If your kids don’t know the Lord, you ought to pray every moment of your life and make it a major goal. If you don’t know how to share we’ll train you. You get them into church wherever they live because this is too important to just say, “They’ve got to make their own decision,.” If you love them you will do everything you can to introduce them to their heavenly Father.
Let me ask you this very important question. You parents, are you making it harder or easier for your kids to know God? By the way they watch your lifestyle, are they going to be more turned toward God or are they going to think, “If that’s what God’s like, forget it!” I once read a scientific study of 50 of the most famous atheists in the world – Sigmund Freud and others. They only had one thing in common. Every one of them hated their dad. Every one of them had a terrible relationship with their father. That is not an accident. It is true that as we grow up we are often warped, shaped by our own relationships. Tom talked about it so clearly. You say, “May I be the kind of person that causes my family to want to get to know God not turn away from Him.”
Prayer:
One of the greatest needs in your life is to have the approval of your father. Even if you never met your father, even if your father was a skunk, you still want his approval. You want it. You clamor for it. Even as an adult, subconsciously, you still often do things, are motivated by the desire to gain the acceptance, the approval, the attention, the appreciation of your father. But the truth is, you may never get it. You may never get it because your father may be unable to give it due to his own hurts, his own problems, the way he was raised. You won’t ever hear those words you’ve longed to hear or get that hug that you’ve longed to have. Maybe your father walked out of your life years ago because of divorce. Maybe your father has already died.
There is a father who loves you more than you will ver know and whom you can turn to for the acceptance and the approval and the attention and the care that you have always wanted. And He is your heavenly Father. He has seen every single moment of your life. He has witnessed every word you’ve ever said – good or bad, every hurt you’ve ever experienced, every fear, every sin, every sorrow you’ve felt. Unlike your human father, He has known every thought you’ve ever had and He’s understood it completely. Today, you can turn to Him because He’s a caring, consistent, close, competent Father. He will never leave you. Maybe you’ve allowed experiences with a human parent to warp or cloud your view of your heavenly Father and you’ve thought that God was unreasonable or unpleasable or unreliable or unconcerned. You were wrong. You need to turn to the truth today.
Would you pray this prayer in your heart? “Dear God, I want You to be my heavenly Father and I want to be Your child. I ask You to adopt me into Your home. I want to be spiritually born into Your family through Jesus Christ. Jesus, I don’t understand it all but I accept You as the way to the Father. I want You to be in charge of my life to guide me and direct me. Thank You that You are a loving Father. Thank You that You are a caring Father. Thank you that You are consistent. Thank You that You are competent and that You can handle all the problems that I give to You. I pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.”
