As Father's Day Approaches

This past Sunday, I was asked to give the message at a small farm church in Waterloo called Mount Hope United Methodist Church. It was a great experience, as it reminded me of my grandfather who often was asked to do the same during his preaching days. The following is what I talked about with my new friends. Much of it comes from ideas learned in the Emerging Journey’s course Katie and I took at Orchard Hill, and the book Knowing God by J.I. Packer.

As we are coming up on Father’s Day, I wanted to talk with you all about our relationship to God as our father. Father’s day has a special significance to me, because 2 years ago, July 31st, my father unexpectedly passed away. The relationship and experiences I shared with my father greatly affected the way I relate with God as my heavenly father, just as the way everyone relates with their own father, or parental figure, affects the way they relate with God as well. In some ways, and in some circumstances, these earthly relationships strengthen our ability to understand and relate with God, and in other ways and in other circumstances, these earthly relationships greatly hinder our ability to have the relationship that God wants to have with us.

I want to back up a bit, and ensure that we are all on the same page of understanding the adoption process that God has gone through to ensure our place in His family as his true sons and daughters. Galatians 4:4 says, “But when the time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.” In Roman law it was a recognized practice for an adult who wanted an heir to carry on the family name to adopt a full grown man as a son. This is a lot different than the common infant adoption of today, but the apostles saw Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross as a way for them to be purified and able to be adopted by God. This same adoption is the offer that is given to everyone who places their faith in Jesus. When we can really begin to realize that God is our adoptive Father, we then can begin to understand Him, and the relationship He wants to have with us, in a very tangible way.

We have all had different experiences with our earthly father’s, or parental figures. Some good, some bad, some loving, some hateful, some present, and some virtually or literally non-existent. My father was a cold, quiet and angry man for the majority of his life. I had trouble relating with him on any level, because I was afraid anything out of my mouth would not be worth his time. However, no matter how much I resented him, there were two things that I always wanted: to know about him, and to make him proud. I think that is pretty common. We want to know our family history, and that starts with our parents. We want to know their passions, the story of how they met our moms, what they did when they were our age. We want to know what makes them who they are. We also want to make them proud. We want to know that they are happy we are their kids. We want them to see the best in us. I think that if we can have those same two desires in our relationship with our heavenly father, we will be on the track to a truly amazing relationship with our savior.

First off, we need the desire to know our Father. I don’t know about you, but my biological father was a complex man. The last few years of his life threw everyone for a loop, as he became a practicing Christian and actually started smiling, crying and liking people. But, even before that, I could never figure out really who he was or why he acted the way he did. One thing that made him a little different than most dads was he was obsessed with instruction manuals. This is pretty counter intuitive to the normal manly concept of, “Who needs directions?” When he brought home my first car, he made me read the instruction manual from cover to cover, and then gave me a test on the material before I could drive the car. He not only made me pass the test, but get 100% of the answers correct before I could touch the keys. What I really wish was that he would have written and instruction manual on how to interact with him. You may already see where I am going with this, but our heavenly Father gave us an instruction manual. He gave us His Word, the Bible. It tells us His history, it gives us insight into why He does some of the things He does, it gives us a firm knowledge of His love without having to wait for an awkward hug at your high school graduation or your wedding day. So, if we realize that God has adopted us into His family, and we want to know about our Father, than lets read the instruction manual. Let’s read His word. Let’s make time to get into the Bible and find out all we can about our Father.

Now don’t get me wrong, I understand that the bible is deep and often times very hard to comprehend. It has many layers and intricacies that know lay person, pastor or theologian will every fully understand. However, we have been provided with an opportunity to see into the heart of our Father, and it is our responsibility, as His children, to take Him up on the offer.  Also, the bible is the main source of our knowledge of God, but it is definitely not the only source. One thing the Bible tells us that God created everything. He is omniscient, omnipotent, ever present and timeless. Once again, the verse Jeremiah 29:13 comes to mind that says “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” The key point for this message is that if you seek you will find. There are no boundaries of where to seek, only the call to seek. The promise is that no matter where you look, if you are looking for your Father, you will find Him. As you know if you commonly read this blog, I could write forever just about that idea, but I better move on for now.  

I believe it is an inherent instinct to want to make your father proud. I know that no matter how much I disliked my father’s actions or words towards me, I still wanted to make him proud.  Back to that first car. I remember one night sitting at the dinner table and my dad began to tell me how proud he was that I had been driving the car for a little over a year and had done no damage to it. This was pretty spectacular since it seemed pretty much any gift given to my brother or me was broken within the first couple of months. What he didn’t know, or maybe he did knowing my father, was that the night before I had been trick-or-treating for cans for a high school food drive and brushed up against a post in a person’s drive way with the side view mirror on the car. It left some scrapes that were really no big deal, but my heart sunk to my stomach when I knew I had to squash his prideful thoughts of me.  After I told him, he said that it wasn’t a big deal and he was just happy I was honest.

 A lot of my friends throughout the years have had a tough time reconciling James’s words in the second chapter of his book that, “faith without works is dead.” I think that we have a tendency to take this verse out context and assume that James is saying that if you aren’t putting enough money in the plate, or you aren’t volunteering every spare moment at the food bank, you might not make it to heaven. Well, if we really believe that we have become adopted children of God when we put our faith in his Son, this just cannot be the case. I believe that when James talks about faith, he is talking in some ways about our relationship to our heavenly Father. Let’s look at my first car as our faith, or our relationship with our heavenly Father. The scrape on the side mirror is an act of disobedience. This could be a sinful action or an omission of a good deed when the opportunity was made available. By going to my father quickly and telling him about the scratch, he is able to comfort me and fix the damage. Now, if I am constantly ignoring the commands of God, I am outwardly living in sinful nature, and I am constantly ignoring opportunities to feed the hungry, help the sick or provide comfort to the widow, it is like taking a sledge hammer to my car. The windshield is broke, the tires are flattened, and the bumper is torn off. It is a lot harder to go look your father in the eye at that point and ask him to fix the car. The relationship has been damaged, your faith has been damaged, and now there is this awkward space between us and our heavenly Father.

Those situations when we feel like we have messed up beyond repair are when our relationships with our earthly parents can really get in the way of what God desires us to know about our relationship with Him. We may fear that God, like some earthly parents, won’t fix the car, they won’t forgive us, maybe what we have done is so damaging that they kick us out of the house, remove us from the family, sever our relationship and retract their love. The amazing thing is that is not how our heavenly Father works. Once we are His children there is nothing we can do that will take away His love. There is now damage that is beyond repair. We have an eternity warranty on our relationship with God. He will always be there with His arms spread open, running towards us like the father to the prodigal son. However, what James wants us to know is that we have an opportunity and a responsibility to have a close and gratifying relationship with our heavenly Father by making him proud. To figure out how to make Him proud, we just turn to one of the hundreds of pages in His instruction manual that tells us how. My favorite is when Jesus is asked what the greatest commandment is.  He responds with an answer of how we can make our Father proud, and strengthen our relationship with Him. Mark 12:30-31 says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.”

So, with Father’s day quickly approaching, remember that you have a Father that loves you beyond any love we can ever comprehend. Then out of respect and  honor of that love, begin to get to know Him more by reading His word and make Him proud by honoring His commandments through loving Him and loving your neighbor. The relationship, and eternity of forgiveness, that is offered in return will be well worth every second spent worshiping your Father.