Know Your Place Before His Face!

by Rev. Sjirk Bajema

 

Sermon on Heidelberg Catechism, Lord’s Day 46

Scripture Reading: Luke 15:11-24

 

Dearly loved church of the Lord Jesus Christ…

If there is any one Bible passage that shows how God is our most ultimate Father, it would have to be ‘The Parable of the Prodigal Son’. Or, as the N.I.V. entitles it, ‘The Parable of the Lost Son.”

That son was a bad boy. Totally despising the love he’d received so richly throughout his life, he thought he deserved his father’s possessions. And, then, showing even more his complete disregard for what had been built up over years of hard labour, he squanders it all on wild living. He had the wine, the women, and the song. No wonder he ended up in a pig sty! After all, wasn’t that where he really belonged?

But he woke up to himself. He pleads upon the mercy – the love – of his father. And what a scene it was, when, though still in the distance from home, his father, who had waited so long, rushes out to joyfully weep over his poor son. For that’s what he was – poor. Not just materially either! For now he had come to see himself as he truly was.

Imagine if that son had had a different response. Instead of being filled with remorse and deep bitter regret for all that stupidity and hurt he had caused, imagine that he said to himself, “Well, being in the pig sty’s no fun! I’ll go back to the old man. He’s obliged to take me in.”

What! Hasn’t he just despised his father and blown half his wealth? Doesn’t he have any sense of shame for what he’s done? How dare he! Of course we’d be upset if he took that kind of attitude back to his father.

And how indignant would we be if this son says to the father who’s welcomed him so lovingly, “Hey, well, we’re mates anyway, aren’t we?” The kick on the pants as he’s sent flying through the door couldn’t have come sooner! The cheek of it!

Yet, brothers and sisters, young people, what’s far worse than any fictitious lost son being smart with his father, is that today thousands of thousands of Christians are doing the same! Their God has become a cartoon character in the modern Christian magazine. He’s a genial old man. He won’t ever judge – He just smiles amiably and constantly!

There’s even a video about the life of Jesus which always has this permanent smile set on his face. Here is someone speaking this way about how they relate to the Lord: “When I laugh, he laughs; when I hurt, He hurts, and He waits for me to crawl up onto His knee and receive a ‘cuddle’ from Daddy.”

Now, you might be wondering, “So? Isn’t such a person showing how close they feel they are with the Lord?” Shouldn’t we be doing whatever we can to make our relationship with God a more personal and meaningful one?”

Certainly, we must. But never at the expense of failing to see how God wants us to meet Him in the first place! So the first aspect we consider to this teaching about the first phrase of the Lord’s Prayer is crucial. For… WE ARE ON EARTH.

We are on earth

Well, that should be obvious enough! Still, if we get the physical and spiritual confused, this is to our deepest peril. Then we forget what God Himself says about how we are to come to Him. In the words of Ecclesiastes 5:1-2, “Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, who do not know wrong. Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth.”

Don’t forget, dear believer, right now WE ARE ON EARTH! Be oh so careful to respect the high and incomprehensible character of God. We cannot begin to understand even the smallest bit of who He is!

Why we do we get chummy with God? How come that Christianity today is becoming so enraptured in those clouds of mysticism? Mysticism – that’s the word to describe when believers in the past have gone too far in thinking they can know God personally. For, then, congregation, they even begin to think they are God!

Our Lord’s Day is vitally relevant. As it explains the Lord’s Prayer, it shows that right at the beginning of what we pray we must know WE ARE ON EARTH! Answer 120 confesses that Christ commanded us to call God, “Our Father,” because, “At the very beginning of our prayer Christ wants to kindle in us what is basic to our prayer – the childlike awe and trust that God through Christ has become our Father.”

Young people, that word “awe” is important here. It means we have the most special respect for God. And since it describes a spiritual relationship, we cannot completely describe exactly how we are to highly esteem the Lord.

There are things that happen in our world that give us glimpses into this. For example, you might remember the fuss several years ago when the New Zealand Prime Minister wore a pants suit to a formal meeting with the Queen. It was said, and with some justification, that she wasn’t showing the proper respect for the Sovereign Head of our Nation. Rather, it could be taken that she was treating the Queen just like anyone else, with no regard for who she was!

This is the danger that can trip up believers in their relating to God. And what’s more, if we don’t have that child-like awe we cannot trust God the way we should. When you highly respect someone, you’ll do whatever you can to keep them honoured. That’s why you and I – as children of God, subjects of the Greatest King -are to highly esteem our Father.

There’s a difference! I’m a child – He’s my Father! And to be blessed in this relationship, I have to remember my place.

Still, as a child of God, though faith in Jesus, He is my Father. That was something I didn’t know in my heart before.

Oh, I may have known in my head about God. I’ve heard those stories about creation, and how He made this all. But that this God who made everything, and who especially sent His one and only Son to die for my sin – that wasn’t a fact to my soul! And yet now it’s the only thing I need to know!

For not only is it that WE ARE ON EARTH it’s also, secondly, WE HAVE THE EARTH!

We have the earth

Suddenly we can spiritually see! All the working of life around me, and within me, are part of what God the Father is doing! As Answer 121 explains in regards to the phrase, “Who art in heaven,” “These words teach us not to think of God’s heavenly majesty as something earthly, and to expect everything for body and soul from his almighty power.”

Dear believer – where are we? As the words of one of our hymns says it so well, “This is my Father’s world, and to my listening ears all nature sings and round me rings the music of the spheres. This is my Father’s world; I rest me in the thought of rocks and trees, of skies and seas – His hand the wonders wrought.” (PH 374:1)

Young people, we heard about having a proper respect. But having that high esteem for God doesn’t mean He’s too far beyond us.

Take our Queen, again, as an example. Do you think that Prince Charles, when he comes and visits with his mother, is shaking in his boots? Would he be afraid?

No – he’s her son! So, though he knows she is the Queen, yet he’s able to go to her and be with her, just as any other son with his mum. Mind you, if he’s been naughty he might be a little apprehensive!

As you know you can depend on your Mum or Dad to give you what you need, so can he. That’s why our Catechism is spot on when we confess that our attitude is “to expect everything for body and soul from his almighty power.”

If your Mum or Dad can do so much for you, how much more won’t our Heavenly Father do, he who has everything under His control? Since we’re His spiritual children, because of what Jesus did, we can, as Hebrews 4:16 says, “approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

This is the most special privilege. Paul in Galatians 4:3-7, tells us of that great privilege. He says there, “we were in slavery under the basic principles of the world. But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, ‘Abba, Father.’ So you are no longer a slave but a son; and since you are a son, God has also made you an heir.”

Dear friend – now there’s no reason to worry without reason! There should be no despair! For we aren’t left as orphans here!

Please consider where you stand with the Father. And if you still doubt your faith, you look through Scripture and you find even one single text that God doesn’t accept you! Warts and all! Pimples and split ends!

You see, WE HAVE THE EARTH. By faith there is all the difference between knowing where you’re going and so being a part of what’s really happening, and not knowing where you’re going and so aimlessly wandering through life.

Paul spoke of this in Ephesians 2:12-13. He reinforced it to the converted gentiles, as he spoke of the past: “At that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.”

No wonder the famous Matthew 6 passage about not worrying appears in the footnote to Answer 121! Our Heavenly Father has given us exactly what we need! And when we needed it, too!

What a comfort. And what a motivation! WE ARE ON EARTH… WE HAVE THE EARTH… and so we come to, thirdly, WE SEEK HIM FOR EARTH!

We seek Him for earth

This is what we confess in the second half of Answer 120. As we read there, “Our fathers did not refuse us the things of this life; God our Father will even less refuse to give us what we ask in faith.”

Moving on from our highly privileged status in that unique position with the Father, we do seek that which is good. And this is no sudden shift into mysticism, as though becoming somehow fused with God is the only way to be really blessed. Instead, we love our King to visit!

Mind you, how would you be if our earthly Queen came to visit right now? Perhaps you’re wearing your Sunday best now, but imagine if she were to suddenly pop in at any time at all! It could be quite embarrassing, couldn’t it?

In the same way, what is happening in our hearts as we openly pray to our Father God makes us ready for Him. And to see how it is so we simply need to look to our older brother – Jesus. I mean, why did he give us the Lord’s Prayer anyway? Isn’t it because the disciples saw Jesus always been in touch with His Father? And so, seeing what their Lord did, and realising the difference that made to Him and to others who prayed, they asked Him, “Lord, teach us to pray.”

And, yet, what they showed in asking this was already the right way! There was that inner motivation – the work of the Holy Spirit upon their hearts – that made them ask and seek all that God so powerfully is, for His way in their lives.

Brothers and sisters, young people, are you ready to receive? Is there that uniqueness for you about praying to your God? Can you definitely say that you’re seeking His will in all things?

Or, rather, does asking these questions show you what you don’t have? And also how much you struggle with even beginning to make a start to what is such a glorious and loving relationship with God Himself through Christ!

You know, with those thoughts you can pray, “Our Father, Who art in heaven.” For then you know your place – you understand your situation – and you look forward to making Him reign all the more in your heart! You have fallen at His feet, pleading, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.”

And this is joy! For you have asked in faith. Even though it is so far from anything we could ever possible deserve it is Jesus who has brought us near. We pray, “Our Father, Who art in heaven,” not to show who we are, as though we have special knowledge to know, but rather we begin our prayers this way because of Him who alone can make any sense of the ignorance we have become. WE SEEK HIM FOR EARTH!

No one else can do it! The intricate and self-worshipping grandeur of man’s religions have all shown, and will continue to show, how simple it really all is!

We might be able to pretend to our Queen that you respect her. You wear the right clothes. You call her by her correct title. You even curtsy or bow the proper way. But you can never fool the Heavenly King. He sees right through you! So even if you think you can hide something away God has already seen it through and through.

You could just pretend and hope He goes away. But you tell it truly to the Lord, and like that prodigal son, you’ll hear, to your great surprise, “Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is now found.” (Luke 15:22ff)

Each time you sincerely pray, it’s like this. You’ll be amazed and surprised at what the Lord does do. And simply because you were ready – ready to receive!

Amen.

 

 

PRAYER:
Let’s pray…

O Most Loving Father, we lay ourselves and all we are before You now. For we are sinners – rotten through and through. We don’t deserve anything. We can only plead for Your mercy.

And that we do Lord! Please hear us and answer. For the sake of Your Son, our only Saviour, Jesus Christ, Amen.