What Kind of Father is God?

Rev. Dr. Christopher Carlson

A speaker was speaking at a Family Life conference, Christian conference, when a man came up to him and handed him a letter.  It was a letter, a forty year old letter, from his father telling him how much he loved him.  This man’s father left for the war when he was three; and though his mother told him how much his father loved him all those years, he felt a void.  One day he was helping his mom move and she gave him an old Army picture of his father; and the picture slipped out of his hands, the glass broke and a piece of paper fell out.  It was indeed a letter from his father.  His father knew he might die in the war, so he had written a letter to his three year old son and hidden it behind the picture.  In that letter he shared all his love for his son.  So in his forties, this man had finally found what he spent his life searching for, his father’s love.  This morning I continue a series of sermons on How God Meets Our Deepest Needs, and one of our deepest needs is for a father that loves us.  One of the things that Jesus came to do was to show us a bigger picture of who God is.  The Old Testament was correct, but it was like a tree that was small and the New Testament came and the tree grew and expanded our knowledge of who God is.  So in the New Testament, in particularly in the gospels, we find the word Father mentioned 150 times to describe who God is and then even more in the New Testament itself.  Lots of conceptions of God out there, from a fickle being or beings like the Greek gods who you didn’t know what was going on with them, to someone who is way out there somewhere you’d never be able to know, or like the force who is with us, maybe, a power like electricity; but the bible tells us that God is personal and even more than personal, someone who can be known intimately, like a father, the best of fathers.  Of course, human fathers fail us.  Some of us had great fathers; some had very poor fathers; some had bad fathers; some had fathers who ran out on us.  But even the best of fathers are not perfect but our Father is.  In fact, many have gone as far as to say that if we want to name our God, it ought to be Father.  Aside from all the other names we find in the scripture, El-Shaddai, the all powerful one, El-Elyon, God most high, or Yahweh, which is the primary name of God, the God who is, Father is right up there with them.  It’s not Freudian and it’s not pop-psychology to say that we all need a father, or at least one parent, certainly a mother too, or someone who acts like that to us.  Without it we become damaged or hurt and we have a lot to overcome.  So what does the bible say about God.  Well, I had a hard time choosing scripture today because there is just so much talking about how God is our Father.  So I have chosen a few.  (Matthew 6:9, 28-32) (Romans 8:15-17) (Ephesians 3:14-16, 20-21)

From Matthew, chapter 6, of course, Jesus teaching his disciples how to pray.  “Our Father who is heaven, hallowed be thy name.”  We have gotten used to calling God, Father, but in those days it wasn’t done, and Jesus was shocking his audience.  Then he goes on and on, to call God father and here’s how he describes God and what we are to do in relationship with God.  He says in the Sermon on the Mount, “And why do you worry about clothes?  See how the lilies of the fields grow.  They do not labor or spin.  Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.  If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you,  O you of little faith?  So do not worry.  For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.”  Later Paul says, “For we did not receive a spirit that makes us a slave to fear, but you received the spirit of sonship.  And by him we cry, ‘Abba’, or Daddy, Father.  The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.  Now if we are God’s children then we are heirs--heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we might share in his glory.”  Paul prays this prayer in Ephesians, chapter 3, he says “For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom His whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name.  I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through the Holy Spirit.”  Later he says “to Him, our Father, who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine according to His power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations for ever and ever.” 

This is the Word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God!

Would you pray with me?

Father, you are our Father, a God who is as close as we are to ourselves.  You love us, you watch over us, you care for us.  Help us to love you too.  Help us to find a little bit more about you today that we may know you better and know you more. In Jesus’ name.  Amen.

In one of the wonderful stories in the bible, we find the disciples in a boat, going across the lake of Galilee, because that is indeed what it is, it is a big lake. If you’ve been there you can see all the way to the other side, east to west, and if you’re in the north, you can almost see the southern end, 25 or 30 miles away.  But this lake is about 500 feet below sea level.  So when the winds come in from the ocean and they get a little bit over the mountains, they go straight down into the valley and from time to time huge storms come up.  The wind just pours down into this valley; and, of course, the water churns in those times and this is what was happening with the disciples.  They were going across on the lake in a boat and guess what Jesus was doing?  Well, he was asleep.  The boat turned and churned and all kinds of things.  Now you may not be able to imagine someone sleeping in that; but I slept, as I got ready to jump out of an airplane in Airbourne School, while the thing was doing this.  Of course, that was more nervous sleep; but you can do it, believe me.  He was asleep and the disciples were wondering what in the world he was doing.  Finally they woke him up and said, “Don’t you care that we are going to die?”  And Jesus got up and we know the story, he said “Peace, be still.”  And just like that, it was like the switch was turned off.  Now I believe this story happened as it is written; but I also see it as kind of a parable for what human beings do, particularly with God.  We look out into the world and we see all the mess that’s going on and we are wondering if anybody is driving this train.  Is anyone in control? Anyone in charge?  Particularly, in our own lives when bad things happen, we wonder that, but we also wonder does God really care about me?  Sometimes when it rains it pours and bad thing after bad thing happens and we wonder, “Does God really care?”  It is a profound question of human existence.  Does God really care for me personally, for my hurts, what I’m going through, the stresses that I’m feeling?  The answer is decidedly, “Yes!  Yes!”  The Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says” Don’t be anxious about anything.  Look at the birds, God provides for them.”  God even numbers the hairs on your head.  Has any one of us bothered to count?  Course for some of you, that would only be one or two, but….  That’s a lot of hair.  Does God care about your house payment?  Yes!  The fact that your grandchildren or kids need braces?  Yes!  Does God care about grades at school?  Yes.  The bible says that God cares.  But being who we are, we worry.  The fact is when we are worrying, we are doubting God as we’ve talked about.  We doubt God is in control and that God cares, and we say to ourselves, “I better worry about that because God can’t handle this one; or God is caring about somebody else; or He doesn’t care enough.”  I remember a story about a man who came to a Pastor.  Going through panic attacks he felt nervous and pressured and fatigued; he was telling about all the things he was worrying about and finally he said, “I guess what my problem is Pastor is that I just don’t love God enough.  I guess that’s my problem.”   The Pastor said, “You missed the point entirely.  Your problem is not that you don’t love God enough, your problem is you don’t realize how much God loves you.”  God does love you.  So God cares.

The second thing the bible tells us about God is that God is consistent.  Now for those of you who are keeping notes you are noticing a pattern here of “c’s”.  The second one is consistent.  Now the truth is our earthly fathers are inconsistent and unpredictable; like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get.  Now on the spectrum of one to ten, some of us have had great fathers, 9’s and 10’s; and some of us are zips, and everything in between.  But even the best, fail us.  It is important to know who God is in the bible.  I think it is really important to hear, again, some of the attributes of God that we think about.  One of the attributes of God the bible tells that God does not change.  It is kind of like the old philosophical question about what God can’t do.  Well there are a lot of things God can’t do.  One is is change.  God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.  That’s important for us on a very practical level because God is not moody.  God doesn’t have a bad day.  God doesn’t wake up on the wrong side of the bed.  He is not grouchy, so that he doesn’t get up and say “Who can I zap today?”  The good news is that because God does not change, God does not show favoritism and God treats us the same.  The bible says that if He is our Father He loves us and we are His and He takes care of us.  You know one of the greatest causes of resentment and rebellion in children are broken promises.  Some of you still have thoughts of times when your parents broke a promise; and maybe you still have thoughts of times when you broke promises, because we are all imperfect.  But God does not break His promises.  God is consistent.

The third thing is that God is close.  That means He is available all the time.  He is always there.  It is a good thing to recite what I call the ‘omnis’ in the bible about God.  God is omnipotent, omniscient.  He is also omnipresent.  That means that God is everywhere at all times; but not just in a force sort of way, in a personal way.  God is with us.  Many of us, again, have grown up with fathers who may not have been there for us as they should.  My father was a great guy.  I have great memories of him.  But in my teen years he had a job where he was gone five days out of the week at least.  For years, he was not there and I wish he was.  I don’t blame him.  I don’t have resentment about that, but I do have a sort of emptiness that I wish were filled.  But God has filled that, because God is close to us.  So that simply means that God is not too busy for you.  You know, we tend to think of God, “Well he has a lot to do.”  It’s kind of like that Bruce Almighty, I just love that movie; “He’s just too busy.”  Bruce couldn’t answer all the prayers so he finally just said ‘Yes” to all of them.  It became chaos.  Well again, what are the ‘onmis’ here?  Well God is omnipotent and omniscient.  He knows everything.  He can be everywhere.  God has all eternity for you.  He doesn’t exist in time like we do.  I don’t know how that works.  I just know it is; a very practical sort of deal. He’s not too busy for you.  He has all eternity to deal with you and me.  God knows your needs, every one of them; and He’s sympathetic.  You know, I think we sometimes grew up with fathers that were kind of like drill sergeants.  “Get over it son.”  “Shape up!”  Sometimes we need to.  But God is sympathetic to us.  I love the fact that it was almost heresy in Jesus’ time and Paul’s time to use the Aramaic word of “Abba” for Father, or Daddy.  How many of you feel comfortable calling God, Daddy?  You know, we kind of grow up thinking, and I think sometimes it’s the clergy’s fault, the Church’s fault, but we grow up thinking we got to approach God, and sometimes we really do, with reverence and awe.  And yes, God is awesome and there are times when we should be on our face before God because he is God.  But imagine your son or daughter approaching you like this, going up to you and saying “Oh thou most Holy Procreator of our family, thou who so sovereignly bestows our allowance upon us.  We beseech thee for a bountiful blessing for cash that we might goeth to the movies.”  I suspect if your son or daughter did that you would look at them as if they were absolutely insane.  Maybe God does the same thing for us.  Yes God is more than a friend, but He is our friend.  God is more than a daddy, but He is our Daddy, our Father.  God says when you come to talk to Him, you are to talk to Him in an intimate sort of way; that you are His and He is yours.

God is close.  God is also our shield, our shield.  If you read right at the beginning of the bible and you read the story of Abraham, you find Abraham being called out of what is now Iraq, into Canaan, which is now Israel and God speaks to Abraham and says two wonderful things.  He says “I am your shield and your very great reward.”  Now that is a whole another sermon how God Himself is our reward, but God promised Abraham that He was going to be his shield.  Kids need a shield.  I think part of our jobs as fathers is to be the protector.  Now I don’t mean an over-protector.  You know it is a tricky thing being a dad.  I don’t know how your emotion is, but my emotion is that if anybody wants to get to my kids they have to come through me first.  But, I also know that they have to be out on their own.  There have been times in my own life when I had to say “Go on and go” when I really didn’t want them to.  My oldest daughter was in “Up With People”, and she left when she was eighteen years old to go off by herself for a couple months to be a head of the cast in Finland in the middle of the winter.  It is colder there than it is here.  I let her go.  There is a story about a woman who had a son born without arms and she had a friend over and the son was struggling mightily to put his clothes on with his feet.  He was having a hard time with it and finally the visitor said “Won’t you help him?”  And the mother said, “I am helping him.”  The little boy grew up able to do everything with his feet because his mother didn’t hover over him and help him with everything.  It is part of being a parent.  But you know, when it comes to God being our shield, I think sometimes we just don’t believe it.  The fact is we are fickle; we really are fickle.  We tend to judge people’s love for us by how much they cooperate with our agenda.  Our agenda is to live as long as possible and as comfortable as possible.  We want to get on with our lives and live them in the way that we think would make us most happy.  So when something interrupts that plan like sickness, or hardship or struggle, we think God doesn’t love us.  But God’s agenda is a lot bigger than just that.  Maybe God has a mission for us to accomplish in which preparation for which might require a particular kind of suffering.  Yes, it does happen that way.  People go through things and it equips them for what they will do later.  God may change your life situation where you must sacrifice something in order to do something for God or to help another.  It doesn’t mean He doesn’t love us; it doesn’t mean He has ceased to be our parent, our Father.  We are fickle too because when bad things happen, particularly in bunches, we forget all the good things God has been doing up to that point, all the protecting.  We don’t know all the things God has protected us from.  You know, it’s kind of like Homeland Security.  I am a little bit in the government and I know a little bit more maybe than you do; and there are a lot of things that we never hear about.  But when that one thing happens, it will all go out the window. 

The Father’s love does not protect us from all our problems but ultimately, God is our shield.  To go along with that, God is also a competent Father.  God is competent.  I think we’ve come full circle.  Just like the disciples who yelled at Jesus and said “Don’t you care?  Aren’t you in control?”  In our day it is quite common to portray fathers as being nincompoops.  From Homer Simpson to Al Bundy, to a dozen other things, we find fathers who don’t know what they are doing.  Now there have been notable exceptions to that; but in general, fathers are betrayed in a bad light in our society.  Maybe that influences our view of God, but God is in control.  Someone asked me what my view of God was a few months ago.  Do you believe that God is sort of just there and winds up the clock and lets it go or do you believe He’s in control?  I’m definitely in the second camp.  Even with the bad things that happen I cannot explain, and there are horrible things out there.  We tend to shield ourselves from the things that are out there that are just incredibly hard.  Not just the things that happen to us, but all over the world.  It is O.K. to ask why.  But better to believe in God who is in control of these things, then to believe in one who is not and have no assurance whatsoever.  So our God can do anything.  It’s like the two kids bragging in the school yards, “My daddy can beat your daddy.”  The other kid goes, “So what!  So can my mom.”  Not with God. 

So I close with just asking, are there things in your life that you have been doubting God can handle?  Is there something in your life where you are all stressed out and you don’t think God can handle this?”  I would ask you to reconsider.  What is God like?  There is a parable in the scriptures that I just absolutely love.  It is the parable of the Prodigal Son.  You remember, how one of the sons of this man, an Israelite man, runs off for the foreign lands, spends all his money and comes back.  And do you remember the picture of him coming back, the father is looking out the window and sees him way off, and he literally lifts up his robes and runs to his son.  Now it’s more than just him trying to say “hello” to him; because you see the son has not only embarrassed his father, he’s embarrassed the whole village.  So the village is lining up to greet this son and the son is going to run the gauntlet.  He’s probably going get rocks thrown at him, among other things; and his father is trying to protect him.  So he is a shield. Then in his grace, he said “My son who was dead is alive.”  God is not all to blame in our fatherlessness because sometimes we do get burned out and we get bitter and we forget.  God is there to welcome you back at any time.  If some of you today are being the prodigal in some way or another, scale of one to ten, it could be bad; it could be just a little bit.  God is there with His arms open wide to welcome you home; because that is what He is, a Father of grace, a Father of love.  So confess your rebellion and return; and He will give you the biggest hug you ever had.

Let us pray.

Dear Father, we thank you that you are our heavenly Father and we thank you that we are your children through Jesus Christ.  Lord if there are any here today who either don’t know you as Father or have run off for a little while, may their prayer be heard.  May they return to you Lord, with just this simple prayer, “Lord love me and receive me.”  We thank you that your are our God that who, even if our fathers fail us, you never fail us.  Even if our own fathers are weak and sinful, you are never weak.  We thank you for our earthly fathers, Father, whoever they are; but we thank you most that you are our Father and we pray to you as that, in the name of Jesus.  Amen.