Word of Salvation – Vol.26b No.06 – November 1980
The Fatherhood Of God My Father
Sermon by Rev. John De Kievit on Lord’s Day 9
Scripture Reading: Psalm 103; John 6:25-40,
Psalter Hymnal: 327; 431:1,2; 204; 302
This teaching of the Eternal Fatherhood of God is one of the most fundamental truths of all Scripture. It is behind the whole revelation of salvation really. And this is what is needed most of all….. in our modern world in particular.
The Fatherhood of God tells us that sharing belongs to the very nature of the God “who created this universe and upholds it by His eternal counsel and providence,” as our catechism mentions. The Father shares Himself.
Many people today think it rather silly to still believe in God the Creator. If we can create our own test-tube babies, who needs God any more? A U.S. satellite has sent back T.V. pictures of planets and other bodies that nobody even dreamed of a short time ago. The Columbia space shuttle gives promise to space travel. Computers are changing our way of life. New strains of food are being developed. New life forms are being patented. If man can do all that, is it not backward to still need the crutch of God – except for some weak people? Religion the Christmas religion in particular…. is only for women and kids.
Well, brothers and sisters, if SHARING belongs to the VERY NATURE of God, for what other purpose would He have created all He has made, but to be a home for His creatures, especially for man, His highest creation? So that as Father He could share HIMSELF with us..!!! But how much HOME is there still left for us, with all our proud inventions, or for the man who ignores or denies the Fatherhood of God? Did you know that only 25% of the Australian population is registered as Christian? There are Atheistic philosophies galore!
Yet what has THAT given us? Any of those heavenly bodies, now being discovered could just as easily smash us all to smithereens…. and who is there to care?…….in the vast darkness of the Universe? And many of man’s inventions have unleashed so much uncontrollable power, that all we can do is fear for our very existence. Nerve gas is one of these inventions, and it is being used! And what is life worth when human foetuses are experimented on, or simply destroyed? Modern man has made us orphans – brothers and sisters – in a terribly scary, hostile environment. There is probably more basic loneliness and anxiety now than there has ever been before!
There IS no comfort in a meaningless universe. There is no sharing either, where man is the chance product of impersonal forces. It is dog-eat-dog all the time. Notice the political problems
the armaments problems
the refugee problems
the economic problems
created largely by man himself!
Man has chased himself really out of hearth and home by his denial of the Fatherhood of God. Young people are chucked or kept out of work without a second thought. Many old people are just thrown on the scrap heap and made to feel absolutely useless, even though they might still be able to do so many things. It has become a way of life! But in some mysterious way which goes way beyond our understanding the Father shared not just ALL He had, but HIS very BEING, with the Son – from all eternity. That is what the Bible tells us.
- Seen to be eternal in His Fatherhood of Christ.
God is the Eternal Father God of our Lord Jesus Christ. He has always BEEN the Father in such a way that the Son is not inferior to the Father, is not created either but BEGOTTEN, and is HIMSELF God from all Eternity.
And this is what makes ALL THE DIFFERENCE, as the Light of God shines into our modern darkness. God did not become a Father when He created man. He did not start sharing Himself from that time on. No, the Lord ALWAYS shared Himself in the fullest sense! THIS is what God’s Fatherhood IS ALL ABOUT! And all earthly fatherhood – even the very best of it is merely a faint shadow of this eternal sharing of Himself. Our Lord Jesus puts it so beautifully to His disciples in John 14: “The words I say to you are not just my own,” He told them, “rather, it is the Father, living in me, Who is doing His work.”
Brothers and sisters… that’s how close was this complete and everlasting sharing between God the Father and God the Son. Or… “As the Father loves me, so have I loved you”. It is this sharing God you see – Who created the Universe in which you and I are privileged to live. One modern artist once painted man’s condition by showing a human head in a glass box. And how apt this was..!!! Man, with his modern outlook on life and with all the power he has, feels himself trapped in a prison from which he knows no escape! And even when people still do believe in some kind of Creator of our Universe, quite often he is seen as a cold and uncaring monster (an absentee landlord) who just lets the world run on in its misery, or as an angry Judge Who simply cannot wait to smash it all up in His wrath. “There is nobody out there Who cares any more”, that is the cry of so many in our modern world.
But knowing this God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, as revealed to us in the Scriptures, who of us can still look at the world in this way? At the very time of creation itself, He made man in His own image. From the very beginning He again could not help Himself – we could almost say – but shared Himself with His highest creation. He made us for fellowship with Himself, so that, eternally, we could be at Home with Him. And it is THIS Father God Who is STILL in charge of the world today. Despite sin and the cancers of evil which man has invited into his very existence, God is still in control. There is no need therefore – brothers and sisters – for modern man (any of us) to be or feel an orphan in this world.
God could not pay us any greater compliment than to make us in the image of Himself. Oh, what a privilege it is to simply be a human being. For God could give us no greater gift than that we might be related to Him and display His Glory in the dominion we have over the rest of creation, in the fellowship into which He drew us since the moment of creation. There IS Someone Who cares “out there”. He is the Eternal Father God of our Lord Jesus Christ.
- Displayed to Perfection in Jesus Christ.
We can see this caring love of God our Father only through faith in Jesus Christ, His Son. There is comfort in the knowledge that God loved us so much that He sent HIMself – in His Son – to set us free from Sin. So in Jesus – brothers and sisters – we see the Fatherhood of God displayed to perfection for us sinners. There is good reason why modern man feels as he does: lost and forsaken. We have spoiled it all- by our sin which came through Adam. All we can do is:- Confess like the prodigal Son that we “do not deserve to be called your son any more”. Instead, what we deserve INDEED, is the anger, condemnation, and judgment of the Father God of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who shares so much with us. And THAT produces the pressure, tension and anxiety which are felt by modern man – even if he does not recognise it. But here is where the Word of God comes also to man TODAY, brothers and sisters, with the overflowing abundance of His sharing grace – to you, me and all who have spoiled His creating work. For “THIS ETERNAL FATHER,” says our catechism, “is MY father”. And why? For the sake of Jesus His Son!” Yes, that is why at the start I said that this Eternal Fatherhood of God is at the back of His whole great plan of salvation! For God the Father has revealed Himself to perfection in the saving life and work of Jesus Christ. If we want to know what the Fatherhood of God REALLY involves, in other words: what it means to our world today – in all its fullness, THEN LOOK AT JESUS CHRIST, THE SON.
For it was the Father Who sent the Son into the world, says John, “that the world might be saved by Him”. It was the love of the Father for His children which made Him do that. He sent His Son into our misery to restore us again to our true humanity and to prepare a home again for us for eternal sharing and fellowship with Himself. Would any earthly father go that far, that he would give his very dearest possession to reclaim that which had wilfully destroyed itself? How many would give themselves? Yet “God was in Christ” – Paul proclaims – “reconciling the world to Himself”. He could: say no more than what He said in Jesus Christ; He could give no more than what He gave in Jesus Christ; He could: share no more than what He shared in Jesus Christ. Yes, THAT is what He did… for you and for me. For the sake of Jesus, His Son, He has again become…. MY GOD! AND MY FATHER!
Here is life and hope, brothers and sisters, in the midst of the fear, the despair, the death of modern man – IN JESUS CHRIST! Here is the way out of this prison which the world has become for so many. And it is so important to know that this Grace comes to us from the Fatherhood of God.
Sometimes there is a tendency to separate the Father from the Son – to imagine that God is the hard judge of His people – that God is the accuser whose dearest wish is to execute His anger and judgment on the evil-doer – that God had to be bought around – so to speak – by the love and sacrifice of JESUS,
But NOTHING is further from the truth. It is Satan who is the accuser of the Brethren who wants to make our names black before God.
It is exactly the FATHER-LOVE OF GOD which has brought us salvation and elected us in Christ from before the foundation of the world and calls the whole world through His Son today. Who says: “Whoever comes to me I will never cast out!” Oh yes, if any of us reject that call and do not need the ‘crutch’ of His Father love, or imagine we do not, then all that awaits us will be judgment, having spurned Jesus’ love which comes from the very depths of a Father’s heart. But those of us who know this Eternal Father as our own God – in Jesus Christ the Son – have a peace and a comfort which cannot be destroyed. For this Father-love of God for His people is secure from all eternity to all eternity! (Psalm 103). And yet, His Father heart is calling sinners – also in our modern world. That is why our Lord Jesus proclaimed that: “He who has seen Me, has seen the Father”. The Eternal Fatherhood of God is seen to perfection in the Person of Jesus Christ and in His love for this sinful world.
Have we then found the only way out of fear, despair and death through faith in Jesus Christ? There can be no greater relief and thrill for those who know the sound of His voice than to cry: “Abba, Father”. By the Spirit of Jesus Christ we recognise Him in His Father-love and cast ourselves on His grace, love and mercy, in Jesus Christ His Son.
- Is the Basis for His People’s Security and Service
If we do know this Father, then what difference does this knowledge or this confession make in our life or outlook on life? We still have to live in a world – you see – which is in great danger, largely on account of the cleverness and the inventions of man! The nuclear terror can strike here as well as anywhere else on our globe. Unemployment is a respecter of no person. The home which God has made has become a hell for so many. Can we be sure that we will be spared any or all of this? What does it mean, in such a world, to know the Fatherhood of God? What does it mean to you and me in practical every-day living? Can you say with our catechism that: “I so trust Him as to have no doubt that He will provide me with all things necessary for body and soul”?? Is God THAT REAL to you, in such intimate a way? In this world today? In your situation? Or is that a bit too far-fetched in the realities, difficulties and uncertainties of modern living? That is asking just a bit too much of Him, isn’t it? If you are hard up for a job – is this Father really caring for you and leading also your life, or has He perhaps forgotten you? If you are lonely through bereavement and no one cares enough, if you are made to feel useless because you are old? ….What about it? If you are rich for that matter, and have everything your heart desires, is God the Father real to you?
And yet, that is what the Fatherhood of God does mean, if really IT IS TRUE! It is still in His very nature to share – He has proved it in Jesus Christ! Will He then sell you or me short if He went that far to prove His love? ‘If He spared not His own Son”, asks Paul, “will He not give us then ALL things in Him?” Oh yes, He will brothers and sisters – I can indeed trust Him that also He will care for me today, no matter how impossible that may seem. He will care for me tomorrow, He will care for me into eternity, He will care for me in body and soul.
“If you – being evil – give good things to your children”, our Lord Jesus said to some earthly fathers….. “HOW MUCH MORE will your Heavenly Father give good things to those who ask HIM? “HOW MUCH MORE INDEED !?!?
Doesn’t that take away the crushing anxiety that destroys so many people in our modern world? Doesn’t that take away the fear of death, and despair, which grips our modern world? And hasn’t that set us FREE – to serve, not money, but the Living God? It cannot help but show them, can it? In our commitment to the work of Christ’s Church and to His Kingdom first of all?
It cannot help but show in our generosity in general – when so many others hold their purse strings tightly shut. We may have to work hard and to skimp because of this sometimes, but we do not have to scramble – do we? – for our piece of this world’s cake. For our Father God gives me all I need – even if that is not always what I want – nothing more or less. I know it, by faith, in Jesus Christ. In Him I can see what God is like,
Yes, even when he sends evil on me, confidently I may say: “If God be for us who can be against us?” For this Father of creation, the Upholder also of the world today, can turn all things – even the unpleasant ones – to my advantage and my eternal good. He is God Almighty AND HE WILL…!!! For isn’t He my faithful Father Who will never let me down in Jesus Christ?
What a blessing and what a comfort – brothers and sisters – if by faith we can live and serve this God in confidence in our world situation from day to day, listening to Jesus Who said:
“Seek first the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness
and all the things you need will be yours as well ”
Do you have this security in the midst of our uncertain world?
Do you know in Jesus Christ His Son..
… that God never stopped being Father?
… that God never will stop being Father?
… that God is also OUR Father?
Is that what we confess when we say: “I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth?”
May God grant this to be so increasingly by His rich sharing grace and unchanging Father-love.
Amen.