"God is... Father"

“God Is…Father”

Robert M. Thompson, Pastor

Corinth Reformed Church
150 Sixteenth Avenue NW
Hickory, North Carolina 28601

828.328.6196   corinthtoday.org

 (© 2011 by Robert M. Thompson.  Unless otherwise indicated, Scriptures quoted are from The Holy Bible, New International Version, Copyright 2011 by New York International Bible Society.)

The only response asked by the Father is trust.

This summer at Corinth we are climbing a mountain.  Two days ago, Linda, Jeni, and I did a little climbing of our own.  It was mild climb, to be sure.  We walked the Rough Ridge Trail on the Blue Ridge Parkway, south of Blowing Rock about 15 miles, near the Viaduct.  It took us only about 20 or 30 minutes to get to the top of the trail. When we got there, we were in the shadow of Grandfather Mountain, elevation 5946 feet. Grandfather is only a babe next to the highest mountains in the world.

Coming down the trail yesterday, we reached the half-way point where a deck protects the vegetation and provides a ramp to one of the many ledge rocks that provide an astounding view of the humbling scenery.  As we came to the deck, I saw three men in uniform and commented, “I think there are some Boy Scouts over there.”  Linda answered, “Maybe Park Rangers?”

Park Rangers they were, and one of them said, “Do you have any questions?”  I think he was expecting questions about structural fire control, wildlife management, or the elevation difference between Grandfather Mountain and Linville Gorge.  But I didn’t even know enough to ask the right questions, and muttered something like, “Ummmm, which direction is Hickory?”

The mountain we are climbing this summer is the knowledge of God.  It feels more like Mt. Everest than Rough Ridge Trail.  I am sure we will not reach the summit.  I only hope we can begin to ask some good questions.

We began two weeks ago saying that God is knowable.  We can say that confidently not because we know everything about him, or even close, but because God has told us he is knowable.  In fact, when God thought up the idea of human beings, the design of us included the capacity to know God.

Then last week we said God is Spirit.  It was the first of three Sundays on what C. S. Lewis called “the three personal God.”  The uniqueness of our faith, Lewis said, is that God is personal.  Other religions insist God is impersonal (a cosmic force), beyond personality, or less than personal.  (Mere Christianity, 160)

God has revealed himself to us in three persons so that we can know him in these three dimensions.  Is that complex, mysterious, hard to grasp?  Of course it is.  Again, quoting Lewis, “We cannot compete, in simplicity, with people who are inventing religions” (165).  Whoever suggested the quest to know God should be simple?  That would be like suggesting the climb up Mount Everest is a walk in the park.

The Spirit dimension of the three personal God, by itself, would not make God seem more personal.  The Spirit is wild, free, and invisible.  His personhood is shown in his nearness, in his Spirit-to-spirit communication to teach, comfort, and convict.  Knowing God as Spirit is wonderful, but we crave more.  We need God as Father.

Dangers

The primary reason we speak of God as Father and pray to him as Father is because Jesus modeled and taught us to do so.  But God-as-Father is not limited to the New Testament.  Moses asked rhetorically, “Is not God your Father and Creator?” (Deuteronomy 32:6).  David said God has compassion on his children as a father does (Psalm 103:13).  Isaiah’s prophecy of Messiah gave him the name, “Everlasting Father” (53:6).  Malachi said, “Do we not all have one Father?”  (2:10).

And so we turn to Isaiah 43 on Father’s Day to learn of God the Father. But as we do, we need to understand that in some ways the fatherhood of God is potentially limiting.  J. B. Phillips wrote, “When we limit the mind’s stirrings after its Maker by imposing upon it half-forgotten images of our own earthly parents, we grow frustrated in spirit and wonder why for us the springs of worship and love do not flow.”  (Your God Is Too Small, 22) 

Think of all the ways thinking of God-as-Father being like your biological father might create misunderstanding of God.

• Absent.  Those whose fathers abandoned them or prioritized work and recreation might imagine that God is not there when we need him.
• Hurtful.  Some fathers, most often those raised by abusive fathers, damage their children through words and actions.  For them, if God is like a father, he is somewhere between angry and inconsistent.
• Cozy.  It is not much better to think of God as someone you can wrap around your little finger and manipulate as you did your Daddy.
• Passive.  Dads who are too quiet, too submissive, or insufficiently proactive, may also project a false image of God.
• Exclusive.  There’s a certain possessiveness we all feel about our fathers.  The circle of people who can call me “Dad” is very small indeed.  If I become parochial about the heavenly Father, I miss his heart.
• Small.  Although as small children we tend to think our Dads can do anything, in adolescence we come to grips with their limitations. 
• Predictable.  When our daughter Jeni came home about a week ago, she looked at me and said, “You got a haircut.”  I answered, “I got several of them cut.”  She responded, “Like I didn’t know that was coming.”  She’s heard most of my jokes a thousand times and finds me predictable.  Her heavenly Father is anything but.

These are some of the dangers of God as Father.  But he knows all of them, and God still wants us to know that one of the three persons to whom we relate should be known to us as Father.  Why? 

Isaiah offers several reasons, but only one response.  Let’s start with the reasons God reveals himself as Father.

Isaiah’s reasons

Your Father produced you (1, 7).  Both in verses 1 and 7, God says, “I created you…I formed you.”  These words are practically synonyms in Hebrew.  God is saying, “I caused you to exist.”

Today we honor our human fathers, the ones who caused us to exist.  This takes nothing from our mothers, whose role in bringing us into the world cannot be overstated.  But today is Father’s Day, not Mother’s Day, so let’s just name the fact that a woman’s body creates the possibility of a pregnancy about 400-500 times in her life, and the only way a baby comes into the world is with the contribution from a man.

A Dad can legitimately say to his offspring, “You wouldn’t be here without me.”  I produced you.  Today is a day to say thanks to Dad for the gift of life.  So it is with our heavenly Father:  “I created you; I formed you.”

Your Father claims you (1, 7).  Verse 1 says, “I called you by name; you are mine.”  Verse 7 says it a little differently:  “everyone who is called by my name.”

It’s hard for your mother not to claim you.  When you emerge into the world she’s connected to you, quite literally.  But when you bear your father’s name, he takes responsibility for your existence.  “You are mine.”  I named you with my own name, because you belong to me.

The heavenly Father also claims you as his own child.  The New Testament writers use the metaphor of adoption.  We are not God’s “only begotten Son” – that’s Jesus.  But we have been chosen by him to be in his family.

Your Father protects you (2).  God says, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you.  When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.”   Notice he doesn’t say you will avoid the floods or the fires; just that you will not go through them alone, and he will protect you.

This is the focus of the Heidelberg Catechism’s teaching on the phrase in the Apostles’ Creed that says, “I believe in God the Father Almighty.”  What does that mean?  Answer:  “I so completely trust in God that I have no doubt that God will provide me with everything necessary for body and soul.  Furthermore, whatever evil God sends to me in this troubled life God will transform to my good, for God is able to do it, being almighty, and God is also willing to do it, being a faithful Father.”  (The Heidelberg Catechism: A New Translation for the Twenty-first Century, Lee Barrett, Question 26)

Perhaps that raises questions for you.  It does for me.  Suffice it to say that whatever lack of security you feel for yourselves or others, those in Isaiah’s day or during the Sixteenth Century when the catechism was written had far more reason to question God’s provision and protection.  It’s not by sight, but by faith, that we say, “I trust my heavenly Father to get me through the floods and flames.

Your Father redeemed you (3-4).  The word “redeemed” is introduced in verse 1, but it is expanded in verses 3-4 with words like “ransom” and “exchange.”  Most of us have few parallels in our human experience with being redeemed or ransomed.  The image is of a child that has been kidnapped and bought back.  I hope it never does happen to you.

God says I want you to think of me as a Father who not only made you, but then had to pay to reclaim you.   These words are fulfilled in the life and death of Jesus Christ.  As Pastor Paul often reminds us, we fathers may give almost anything for others except our offspring.  God gave his one and only Son.

Your Father loves you (4).  The main reason I chose this text to preach on the fatherhood of God is verse 4.  There are three key words in almost every translation of this verse –

• “precious” – expensive, something that is appraised as having high value
• “honored” – heavy, in comparison to that which has little weight or significance
• “love” – desired, longed for, delighted in

Recognizing again the dangers of applying fatherhood to God when we human fathers are such imperfect replicas, the normal response of a Father is to value his children above anything or anyone else.  I have certainly seen that in action in custody battles when a father who cannot sustain a relationship with the woman who bore him children will nevertheless fight like a tiger to be with them.  Likewise, God says, “Your value is high, you weigh heavy on my heart, and I want you.”  You’re mine.

Your Father will bring you home (5-6).  Every father, particularly those with children who have left the nest empty, knows that what he loves most about Father’s Day – or any day – is when his children can be home.  Due to circumstances beyond their control, two of our three kids can’t be here today.  But Jeni made a special effort to plan her summer around being here, and it makes Father’s Day for me.

God’s heart is to bring his children home.  That’s why he gave his one and only Son to make heaven possible for those estranged from him.  He wants you with him forever. 

Fear not

Those are the reasons one of the persons revealed as part of the three person God is Father.  But Isaiah says there’s only one response.  He says it twice.

Father’s Day is humbling for me.  I told you earlier that there are a limited number of people who call me “Dad.”  Three of them are my biological children.  But there are others.

We have five regular members of our Class of Joy here at Corinth.  They’ve been together for forty years, since Corinth first offered a class for developmentally delayed children in the early 70s.  Julie, George, Greg, Gene, and Joe have wound themselves into the hearts of this congregation in immeasurable ways.

When I came to Corinth 18 years ago, all five lived with both biological parents.  In the intervening years, four have lost their Dad, and three have lost both parents.  Some have started calling Linda and me “Mom” and “Dad,” and I must tell you I feel very unworthy of the honor.

Sometime overnight on Wednesday, Joe Gryder became the first of this faithful quintet to pass into the presence of Jesus.  Born with Down Syndrome fifty years ago this November, Joe is the one who would stand next to me as I greeted worshipers after the 11:00 service, quietly waiting until I noticed he was behind me and hugged him.

I’ll save most of my reflections on Joe’s life for tomorrow’s funeral service, but as I began my preparation last night I found on the web site of the National Association for Down Syndrome a delightful essay titled, “If People with Down Syndrome Ruled the World.”  Here are just a few ways the world would be different….

• Affection, hugging, and caring would make a big comeback.
• Big dress up dances would flourish.
• Order would rule.  Lunch at 12:00.  Dinner at 6:00.
• The word “hurry” would be replaced with “plenty of time.”
• There would be fewer movies, but they would be played over and over.
• Movie theaters would let people talk out loud about what happens next.

I’m going to add one to the list.  There would be more trust and less fear.  There’s a certain innocence to not fully grasping the significance of the price of oil, the next presidential election, or what Al Qaeda might do next.  There’s a peace that comes with contentment that if there’s food on the table, a set of Legos to play with, and someone to hug, the problems of the world are not that tough to face.

What I love about Isaiah’s message for Father’s Day is his response to God’s promises of protection and provision.  There’s only one response asked for in these verses.  Isaiah records it twice.  “Fear not” (v. 1) and “Do not be afraid” (v. 5).  The opposite of fear is trust.  God is saying, “I’m your Father.  That’s all you need to know.”

That’s a little simplistic, isn’t it?  Yes it is.  Amen.