Word of Salvation – Vol.32 No.33 – August 1987
Faith In God The Father
Sermon by Rev. M. P. Geluk on Lord’s Day 9
Reading: Isaiah 40:12-31; Job 3; Romans 8:35-39
Singing: Bow.H.818:1,2; Bow.H.818:3,4; Bow.S.68;
Ps.H.281:1,2,3; Ps.H.374; Ps.H.306:3,4
Young Ronald was mighty proud of his father. During school holidays he was allowed to go on trips with his father who had a transport business. It always fascinated Ron watching his father drive those big semi-trailers. Sitting inside the cabin of the truck was like being in another world. There was no doubting it, these huge trucks were the kings of the road.
When he was smaller, Ron used to tell the neighbourhood kids that his father was the biggest and strongest. Ron remained close to his father as he grew older. The two of them would often talk about modern technology, for Ron developed a real interest in space. Rocket power, satellites in orbit, space stations, and computers that just about worked everything out, fascinated him.
Ron was quite amazed what man could do, and with the good positive image of his father, he felt that if man went about things in the right way, then, as regards man’s ability, the sky was the limit.
When he sometimes heard or read about Christians speak of God as the Creator who made all things and who upholds and governs everything, Ron always found that to be rather unreal. Such a God existed only in people’s minds, he felt, a bit like Santa Claus.
Jim was another young boy but his father was quite different from Ronald’s. Jim’s father was nearly always drunk or getting drunk. What Jim knew of his father was that he was a violent, quarrelsome man who often used to beat his mum. Much time during Jim’s growing years was spent in fear of his father. He had learnt to stay well clear of him and the older he got the less time he was at home, for his father had made home a terrible place.
Jim kind of grew up by himself, for he had no one real close to shape his thinking and develop his character. He had heard of God but didn’t really know what to make of Him. And when Jim was told one day that God was like a father who cares and provides, he did not really know what was meant by that. Jim did not care much about fathers and so he wasn’t interested in God either.
I have given you these imaginary stories about fatherhood because in Lord’s Day 9 we are dealing with the Fatherhood of God.
With the first article of the Apostles’ Creed the Christian church confesses its faith in God the Father, Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.
Here we give a certain description about God. We say that He is Father – and the fatherhood of God leads us to believe that he is almighty, the maker of heaven and earth. What comes to mind when we speak of God as Father? Ronald and Jim were just two characters I’ve made up, but their different experiences of fatherhood can be real for a lot of people. And the way people experience their fathers can influence the way they think about God. And that can be quite wrong. It’s important, therefore, to hear from God Himself about His being Father and that our faith in God as Father be determined by the Word of God rather than by our human experience. And the Word of God calls us to: Faith in God the Father.
In the first place we see that this faith in the Father rests on knowing Him.
And in the second place, this faith in the Father leads to trusting Him.
- In the first place then, faith in God the Father rests on knowing Him. You have probably seen those car stickers that say: “Please, not so close, I hardly know you.” Closeness and knowing go together. Living can sometimes be a lonely experience. We think of God and wish that He be real close to us, so that He knows us real well and that we constantly experience His presence. The fact is that we can know God in that real intimate way because God has revealed Himself as Father. There is really no need for people to cry out for someone to understand them for there is God the Father who knows about them. Married people can have a miserable existence because their partnership with their husband or wife is going through some tough battles. Teenagers can have a rough time because they have difficulty in sorting themselves out. These and all others in their different life situations need to know about God as Father. The prophet Isaiah knew of people who stood in covenant relationship to God but felt forgotten by Him. They complained that their way was hidden from the Lord and that their cause was disregarded by God. (40:27). Thus you don’t have to be a stranger to God to experience forsakenness and loneliness. An orphan is someone who has no parents and could feel abandoned. Well, sometimes we feel like spiritual orphans. We have been baptised, we have heard about God, and there is supposed to be a bond between God and us. But like Israel of old, we sometimes cry: Lord, have you forgotten me? Am I hidden from you? Don’t you care anymore about me and what happens to Me? Don’t you think that’s how Job felt when we read chapter 3 in the Book of Job? Hard times had fallen on him. His children dead, his possessions stolen, a wife having had the same experience, for they were her children too, who ridiculed him in her pain for still holding on to God, and on top of it all a loathsome sickness. Job felt so bad that he wished he were dead. And that’s feeling pretty low.
We read Job chapter 3, not to make us all feel depressed and miserable, but to show how human agony, also with those who know God, can be terribly real. But not just for that reason did we read it, also to show that Job and people who sometimes feel like him, need to know again that God is Father. Remember we’re talking about faith in God Father. Well, that faith can only be present and doing something for us when we know God as Father.
But before we go any further let us be very clear about something else. God is not the Father to all and sundry. He is Father only to those who have put their faith in Jesus Christ. We cannot go around trying to comfort people with the Fatherhood of God if such people are not redeemed by Christ. Only to those who have repented of their sin and who believe that Christ has died for them on the cross and rose again for them in His resurrection, only for those does the Fatherhood of God mean anything. This doesn’t mean that we should refrain from speaking to non-Christians about God the Father. It means that we should not give people false comfort about the Father looking after them, for it’s only to those who have accepted Christ as Saviour from sin, who will experience the blessings of the Father. We’re not now talking about God being good to all people in that all receive His sunshine and rain. No, we’re talking about the special blessings that God as Father gives to those who are His children in Christ. It is because of Christ that God is my God! It’s because Christ has made me a new person by cleansing me from sin that God the Father is my Father!
How can I talk so personally about God that I can say He is my God and my Father? Am I not being too forward? Am I not being a bit presumptuous? No, not in the least! God is my God and my Father because He has made me His child through Christ who died for me. That’s faith speaking and every believer in Christ may talk that way.
You can also see now why our knowing about God as Father comes not from our own ideas about fatherhood but through God adopting us as His children in Christ. If we think about God’s fatherhood in the way we experience our human fathers then we’ll make a mess of trying to know God. Human fathers are not perfect. They range from very good to very bad and even the best fathers are far from perfect. No, we learn from God Himself about what fatherhood is really like. The way God has come to us in Jesus Christ and how through His whole redemptive work the Father made us His children, all that is already teaching us facts about fatherhood which we will never find among human fathers. For see how God gave His only Son over to terrible suffering and death on a cross, just so that many can be His children forever! In fact, the way God made so many His children, so lovingly, so sacrificially so undeserved by us, that already helps all human fathers to go about their fatherhood in a completely new way.
But now why it is so exciting, so comforting, so wonderfully reassuring that believers in Christ know that God is their God and their Father? Well, we can point to a number of things. First of all, God is the eternal Father of Jesus Christ. God did not become Father when Jesus was born. The Bible reveals that from eternity God is the Father of Jesus Christ. Christ the son has always been. When Jesus was born in Bethlehem it meant that Christ Jesus became human in order to save man. But Christ did not begin there for He has no beginning. God has always been His Father. Now why is this important for us to know? It’s important because our existence in this world is tied to God who is there for ever and always. When we are made to belong to Christ, we discover that we are also tied to the eternal God. Just try to think that through a bit. We are creatures of time. To us there is a beginning and an end, the day of our birth and the day of our death.
But when we believe in Christ then we receive eternal life. His death and resurrection do that for us. But this new life we receive is eternal because God is. We are fastened to God who has always been and will always be. Christ is always and ever made fast to God His Father and when we are made to belong to Christ we are then also made fast to God the eternal Father. Time can now no longer destroy us. Everything and everyone who does not belong to Christ will perish and pass away. But when you belong to Christ then, like Christ, you are tied forever to the eternal Father. Earth will pass away but not the believer in Christ. He is now for always the child of the eternal Father, just like Christ the Son is. So it doesn’t really matter if we grow old, become weak and frail, become sick or die in the body. We are with Christ eternally belonging to God.
Can you see the comfort in that? Here you are as one person among billions of people. Of all the centuries your time-slot happens to be in this 20th century. No big deal really, many existed before you, many will come after you. But now because of Christ you are the child of the eternal Father. From eternity he has known you, tied you to Himself and forever you are His. Yes, it’s mind-boggling but it gives believers great comfort and reassurance to know that they are not tied to this temporary life in this passing world but tied eternally to God the Father.
Well, that’s fine. What else is exciting for believers knowing that God is their God and their Father? The second exciting, comforting fact is that God the Father is the Creator of heaven and earth and everything in them. It’s not the place now to speak about how God created everything. But it is the place here to simply say that my God and your God, my Father and your Father is the Creator. We have a very powerful God for He has made everything. Remember we spoke about those people of God in Isaiah’s day who complained about feeling forgotten and abandoned by God? Well, through the prophet God said to them:
“Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens: who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one, and calls them each by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing. (40:25,26).”
On a clear night the heavens are littered with stars, too many to count even with the most powerful telescopes. But the Lord has made them all, and He knows them all by name. Now that mighty God knows also you, and He is your Father. How fitting it always is to begin our worship services with that beautiful statement of faith: “Our help is in the Name of the Lord who made the heavens and the earth.” (Ps.121:2). And how appropriate to pray: “Our Father who art in heaven…” and to conclude that prayer with: “For thine is the Kingdom, the power and the glory.”
Job, who suffered so much and who was so depressed to regret his day of birth, received back the strength of his faith when God made him aware how all the things in nature are dependent on God. Job, have you seen how this works? Job, do you know why this and why that? Job, can you do the things I do? Job, were you there when I made them? Oh, as with Job, God can make us feel so small but also so great in that God the creator of heaven and earth and everything in them is also our God and our Father. Modern photography has done us a great service by unlocking some of the secrets of nature and those nature films on television are helping us to to see the greatness of God our Father. But it’s a real shame that the National Geographic magazine constantly pushes the theory of evolution.
The third fact that excites us about God being our Father is that He upholds and rules all that He has made. Not only does our Father bring the seasons of the year and make everything grow from the tiniest of flowers to the baby in mother’s womb, but He also rules nations and those who govern. It is our God and our Father who “brings princes to naught and reduces the ruler of this world to nothing” (Is.40:23). To God our Father, “the nations are like a drop in the bucket; they are regarded as dust on the scales”. (vs.15). God our Father “blows on them and they wither, and a whirlwind sweeps them away like chaff”. (vs..24).
God our Father is in control and because He is, we His children can speak out and not fear what man can do to us. Thus we can protest against abortion and say that it is not God’s design to have the unborn murdered in the womb. It is not God’s design for people to take their own life when they themselves no longer see its purpose. It is not God’s design to have labour and management always at each other’s throats. It is not God’s design to see a high standard of living in the sense of having material goods as the ultimate goal of a nation. It’s God’s design to have all things glorify His name and to uphold and rule all things so that His will is done. And that’s the goal too of Christian education, to have students see God’s design.
- Finally, faith in God the Father leads us to trust Him.
Sometimes it happens that kings and queens, presidents and prime ministers, generals and governors hold court. Then all the influential and famous people in the nation are introduced to the most important person in the room. ‘Your highness or your eminence, may I introduce you to… (whoever it is)…? The name of the person is mentioned, his or her hand is shaken and her highness or his eminence says, ‘what a pleasure to meet you’ or words to that effect. After that the person is shoved back into oblivion because there is a long line of others to be mentioned and then forgotten. Now that’s the way it is among people. But how different with God our Father. Once Jesus Christ has brought us into the Father’s presence, we are never pushed back and never forgotten. We remain V.I.P’s always. From the moment we are His children we begin to see how the Father has always provided our needs, even long before we were introduced to Him through the gospel. Because we belong to him, our Father will provide for our body and soul. Not as we see it, but as He sees it. As the all-wise Father, He may even send us adversity. That may mean difficult things such as Job experienced. But the purpose is always for our good, even though we might never ourselves find out in this life what good it brought us. The thing for us to do is to trust Him. The worst thing we can do is to make God small by making Him as big as the thoughts of our little minds. The best thing we can do is to believe in the Father as being eternal, as the Creator, the One who upholds and rules over all things for the well-being of His children in Christ. And it helps to remember that this world is a sad, old world. Because it’s imperfect and has sinful people in it, there will be pain, sorrow, crying, death and mourning.
Don’t be fooled by all the superficial talk about peace. Peace will never come to the wicked. Peace comes through truth, justice and holiness. And all these can only come when people repent and call on the name of the Lord to be saved. Don’t even be fooled when people use the name of God. Rather listen first to see if people will confess Christ as the Saviour, as God. Wars, rumours of wars, hatred, anti-Christs, persecution, these will be until Christ returns. Beware, however, that such terrible things are not caused by you, the people of God. But whatever adversity God. sends, trust God that He is and always will be our God and our Father for the sake of Christ. He will provide whatever we need in order to remain His children. Believe this, do not doubt, for He is able to do this because He is almighty God; He desires to do this because He is and always will be a faithful Father.
Amen.