A Father’s Heritage

There is a Scripture that really speaks to what I’d like to talk with you about this morning on Father’s Day. It goes back to the beginning and God’s creation. When God made us He said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” (Genesis 1:26)

Now the Scriptures make it clear that our Heavenly Father is spirit, that is, He doesn’t have a physical body like you or I. And so physically we’re nothing like God, because God isn’t physical or corporal.

So since God is spirit, it is the spiritual man, the inner part of who we are that is like God.

And while there are many names that describe God, the one with the greatest significance, given that we have been made in His image and according to His likeness, is that of Father.

So what is our heavenly Father like, and how can we be those fathers and parents to our children?

There is something about a father. A father’s wisdom and many of his attributes and characteristics are passed down to his children.

How often do we hear how our children are just like us? I would sometimes hear how I was just like my father, and often times I wanted to be like him. And why not, his DNA is a part of my DNA.

This is no different with our heavenly Father. We should want to be just like Him, and why not, we were made in His image and after His likeness. In other words, His DNA is within us.

Jesus called God His Father and told us to call God our Father over seventy times in the Gospels. God wants you to know Him like a Father. Not just someone we know, however, but someone that we can relate to as Father.

It was such a name that Jesus and Paul used in describing God as a Father in whom we can come into His presence and have a relationship with. It’s the name “Abba.”

Abba is the Aramaic word for “father,” but it carries the idea of intimacy, which has been translated as “Daddy,” or “Papa.” So our heavenly Father is not cold, aloof, or uncaring.

Ilona knows me as Papi, one who will come and pick her up every morning when she calls out, “Papi come get me,” and who reaches out knowing that our relationship is such that I will always pick her up, or put her on my lap and watch nursery rhymes, or just cuddle on the couch watching one of her shows that literally drive me nuts.

So is our Abba, Father. He’s our Papi who is there to hold us when we call out in times of trouble.

When Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane He prayed to Abba Father.

“Abba, Father, all things are possible for You. Take this cup away from Me; nevertheless, not what I will, but what You will.” (Mark 14:36 NKJV)

Paul tells us that this is the type of relationship that we can have with God, that He can be our Daddy through faith in Jesus Christ.

“For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, ‘Abba, Father.’” (Romans 8:15 NKJV)

And because we are called children of God, He has sent the Holy Spirit into our hearts where we truly know Him as Abba, Father. (Galatians 4:6)

Paul said that our Heavenly Father establishes us in Christ and anoints us with the Holy Spirit as that guarantee that we are truly His children. (1 Corinthians 1:21-22)

So as our Abba, our Heavenly Father, what can we learn about Him, but also what we can learn about how and what we are to be as father and parents.

1. He’s a Consistent Father

In other words He can be counted upon. He is dependable and worthy of our trust, or as Chris Tomlin song says, “He’s a good good Father.”

To be consistent means that God can be depended upon and trusted. Another word we can use is faithful. Multiple times the Bible talks about the faithfulness of God, how there is no one like our God, who is our rock, fortress, deliverer, and our salvation.

“He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he.” (Deuteronomy 32:4 NIV)

When thinking about this idea of consistency, the old family sedan comes to mind, and since I am old, that’s why it comes to mind.

Years ago automobiles used to be advertised based upon their dependability. But now automobile advertising is all about the flash, with lightening, fireworks, and explosions. It’s no longer about dependability but horsepower, luxury, and electronic gadgetry. Whatever happened to the old reliable family sedan?

Sports have also changed. Gone are the Don Sutton’s and Cal Ripken’s, who have earned the nicknames “family sedan,” and “iron man” of baseball. Both spent over 20 years in the sport and compiled amazing statistics without all the flash and controversy surrounding most major league sports figures today.

God doesn’t need those who are all about image, but lack credibility. God wants the family sedans, the iron men of faith, those who are faithful, dependable, reliable, and consistent in carrying out God’s word.

But while some people are unpredictable, God remains the same. He is a consistent father. He loves us just as much on our good days as He does on our bad days.

God’s love for us as Father is not based on who we are, but who He is.

Paul said that even if we are faithless; God still remains faithful because He cannot deny who He is. (2 Timothy 2:13)

In a world where everything is falling apart there is one thing that we can count on and that is that God is reliable, that He acts towards us the same way no matter how inconsistent or untrustworthy we may be.

God is a consistent Father, and is in so many ways calling us to be consistent as well. Our children need to know that they can trust us and that there won’t be any variation or turning when it comes to our care for them.

Just as we need a consistent and reliable Heavenly Father, our children need consistent, reliable, trustworthy, dependable, and faithful fathers and parents.

2. He’s a Close Father

God the Father wants and desires a close and personal relationship with His children, with you and me.

“His purpose was for the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him—though he is not far from any one of us.” (Acts 17:27 NLT)

One evening when his father got home from work his son asked him how much he made an hour. Tired and in no mood for his son, he basically said it was none of his business.

But the son asked several more times until the father told him he made $15.00 an hour. The son then asked his father if he could have five dollars, which sent the father over the edge telling his son how hard he worked and that he couldn’t just give him $5.00.

After the boy went to bed the father was feeling guiltily for the way he treated his son, so he went into his son’s room and apologized and gave him the $5.00. The son then pulled out ten dollars he’d been saving and asked his father if he could please buy an hour of his time.

Many kids grow up with absentee parents, even if they’re living in the same house. They’re either never around, or they never engage with their children. But that’s not the way our heavenly Father is. God is not detached.

God is never too busy and neither should we.

It says in Psalm 145:18: “The Lord is near to all who call on Him.”

Now, as our original premise indicated we have been made in the image and likeness of God, and as our heavenly Father is close and near to each and every one of us, we need to be close and near to our children as well.

Knowing that our heavenly Father is near, we need to be near and be there for our children so that they may know that when they are in trouble or have questions they can call out to us and that we will hear and answer.

3. He’s A Capable Father

Nothing is beyond our heavenly Father’s ability, resources, and power. Whatever problem we may have, whether it is at home, work, or at school, God can handle it, because He is a capable Father.

One of the things that every man has deep within his DNA is the need to provide for his family. If we’re not providing then in many ways we feel like we are not fulfilling our purpose and mission.

God, our heavenly Father, is like that, and He wants us to stop looking to other things and other people to be god to us, and start looking to Him to be our God and so He can meet our needs.

And what we need to realize is that others will fall short, but with our heavenly Father, nothing is impossible.

Regarding Elizabeth, John the Baptist’s mother, who was barren for her entire life, the angel said,

“For with God nothing will be impossible.” (Luke 1:27 NKJV)

What this is saying is that not only is God capable to meet and supply our needs, He more than capable and will meet our desires and hopes.

To the Philippian church Paul said, “And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:19 NKJV)

And to the church in Ephesus Paul said,

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.” (Ephesians 3:20 NIV)

The Apostle James said in 1:17, “Every good and perfect gift is from the Father.”

And Jesus said that if we being evil know how to give good gifts to our children, how much more will our heavenly Father give to us one of the best of gift of them all, the Holy Spirit. (Luke 11:13)

The point is that as good fathers and parents we are to take care of our children, because just as we can count on our heavenly Father to meet our needs because He is capable, we need to help meet the needs of our children.

Now this doesn’t mean we give to them everything they want, but rather we are to give to them those things that are needful. But the greatest gift we can give is the same great gift our heavenly Father gave to us, and that is the gift of His Son, Jesus Christ.

With that in mind we come to our last aspect about Abba, our heavenly father, and that is

4. He is a Compassionate Father

We have a loving, caring, and compassionate heavenly Father who is there for us, and who will never leave nor forsake us, and who is a father to the fatherless. (Deuteronomy 31:6; Psalm 68:5)

Israel thought that God had forgotten all about them due to their situation, but through the prophet Isaiah the Lord said, “Can a woman forget her nursing child, and not have compassion on the son of her womb? Surely they may forget, yet I will not forget you.” (Isaiah 49:15 NKJV)

We matter to God. God cares about us. He loves and is interested in us and wants to take care of us as a loving and compassionate Father. As such the Apostle Peter said, “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” (1 Peter 5:7 NIV)

Personally I love what King David said in Psalm 103. He begins by saying that God doesn’t treat us as we or as our sins deserve, but as the heavens are high above the earth, so high and great is his love for us. And then David said something very beautiful.

“As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him.” (Psalm 103:13 NLT)

Jesus tells us about just how loving and compassionate our heavenly Father is in the parable of the Prodigal Son.

The younger of two sons asked his father for his inheritance early so he could enjoy it. The father granted the request and the son took it and spent it on all the wrong stuff. Soon he found himself without any finances or friends, and to survive he hired himself out to a pig farmer. Things got so bad that the pig slop looked good to him.

Realizing his mistake he headed back to his fathers house hoping just to be a hired hand. But when his father saw him coming, for he had kept watch day and night, he ran to his son and threw his arms around him. He then had his son clothed with his best clothes in the house, and put upon him his signet ring indicating that he was indeed a son and still an heir.

And that is the heart of our heavenly Father. He loves and cares for us, because like the prodigal we too were lost, but now we’ve been found.

Going back to our original premise how we’ve been made in the image and likeness of God, we too need to be loving, caring, and compassionate toward our children, even when they stray. As God is compassionate towards us, let us be compassionate toward our children.

Conclusion

God is a consistent, close, capable, and compassionate Father, but not everyone is able to call Him their Father. Only those who have a personal relationship with Him through faith in Jesus can do it.

The Apostle Paul said,

“You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:26 NKJV)

Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6 NIV)

Jesus said, “I am the way” not “I might be the way,” or “I hope I’m the way,” or “I point the way.” He said, “I am the way.”

Without that personal relationship with Jesus, we cannot come to Father the way the prodigal came to his father, and that’s because we are not his children until we have that born again relationship.

The Apostle John said,

“But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:12-13 NKJV)

When we received Jesus Christ as our personal Savior and Lord, then we become children of God with God as our consistent, close, capable, and compassionate Abba, Father.