I rarely, if ever, call on God the
Father.
My prayers are always directly to the Lord.
Even though Jesus said that we should pray
to the Father in His name, I pray
directly to the Lord.
I'm more comfortable with the word Lord than
I am with the word Father.
Maybe I'm striking a note for yourself.
You would think that it's a small matter
how we address God.
But thanks to what the Lord has been
giving me last night, early this morning, I'm
being persuaded that it's a great matter.
And that we have suffered appreciable loss by
the failure to acknowledge and to call upon
God the Father.
Our Father, which art in heaven.
When the disciples asked Jesus how to pray,
this is how we answer them.
Pray in this way.
Our Father.
And when He was resurrected, He said, I'm
going to my Father and your Father.
So this is more than just a little
punctuation.
This is at the heart of the mystery
of the Godhead.
The Trinity.
Father, Son, Holy Spirit.
And not the least of the functions of
Jesus as Son is to reveal the Father
who sent Him.
All that He did, He did through the
inspiration of the Father.
Never speaking His own words, but that which
the Father gave Him.
And even at the last, He prayed, Father,
if this cup could pass, let it pass,
nevertheless at your will.
So Jesus is a remarkable statement of a
Son who reveals the Father.
But if that's not taken into our deepest
consideration, we're missing something so foundational that I
have no way even to express or to
assess.
And it evidently is on the heart of
God to correct this deficiency.
Because through Jesus, we've been given the privilege
to call upon God the Father.
And not just any Father, or just an
abstract little term, but a distinctive person who
has certain characteristics that saves us from ambiguity
and from abstraction.
Because if God is an abstraction, the fleshly
mind is quick to fill in the God
of our own choosing.
We might find ourselves worshiping an idol just
by the reference to the word God.
So I know someone very close to me
in the flesh who is away from the
Lord and out of the faith and is
under present judgment and justifies his present course
and conduct as being pleasing to God.
But which God?
It's the God who endorses the line that
He has chosen for Himself by which He
can indulge His lust and destroy His family.
So it's very important that when we use
the word God, it's a reference to the
God who is God.
And to assure that, the Lord wants us
to understand God the Father who is the
foundation of everything.
So I'm going to pray now for some
illumination on the basis of things that I've
been looking at this morning, early today, for
today, that we might receive the benefit.
So Lord, I don't call upon You, Lord.
I'm calling upon God the Father.
Asking precious God on high for mercy to
rectify a terrible deficit, Lord, for myself, many
in this room, the church at large, that
has disfigured our concept of God.
And Your provision was that we would have
a foundational understanding of the Godhead in relationship
to Yourself as Father.
That Jesus alluded frequently to the Father, but
our own references are not as frequent.
And when they come, they're rather inadequate and
shabby and imaginative rather than accurate.
So we're asking, Lord, to help us in
this regard because it affects everything.
If we have not a concept of God
the Father, what concept do we have of
fatherhood itself?
And if we have not understood the authority
that is inherent in fatherhood, what are we
able to recognize when You set it before
us in the church?
So everything is adversely affected to the degree
that we do not have a right reckoning
and an understanding that is appropriate to us
as Your children.
Because how shall we be children in a
serious way if we have not understood the
Father in a serious way?
Everything suffers loss.
Not only the recognition of Yourself, the recognition
of ourselves declines in proportion to the inadequate
understanding of Father, which is the pivot of
every consideration that makes the faith the faith
and by which we can call ourselves Christian.
So, Lord, it's going to take a grace
from God the Father because many of us
have suffered loss.
Either we have grown up without fathers and
therefore the concept of God the Father was
something that we could not lay hold.
Or we had fathers who were derelict either
in their neglect or their abuse and have
given us a terrible slant and a prejudicial
attitude about the word Father itself that we're
not comfortable in invoking that word in reference
to You.
Somehow our own human experience has colored the
way in which we have perceived You.
And maybe the reason we've had derelict fathers,
those who did not set forth the genius
of fatherhood from the great prototype of the
God who is in heaven is because they
themselves were not instructed.
And therefore, generation to generation suffers loss and
we communicate to our children in a way
that is less than what ought to be
communicated as fathers.
So, this is a weighty matter and will
require a remarkable grace to attend and we
ask that now in Yeshua's holy name.
Amen.
The Father chastens those whom He loves and
that this is very love and for the
want of that chastening we have many derelict
sons today or children that are unwise or
unruly and may be expressing, as I've shared
many times in here, this place, the rebellion
of the children of our generation may be
an organic cry for the want of fatherhood
that chastens because chastening is painful and only
a father's love will enable it to be
expressed.
A father who does not love his children
will shrink from chastening because it hurts him
to inflict it.
But the thing that distinguishes Father God is
that He does not hold back.
He bears the pain but He performs it.
And where do we see that on the
grander scale?
Where do we see the chastening of God
the Father toward a son on the greater
scale?
Huh?
The cross.
The crucifixion of Jesus was the father chastening
the son who knew no sin but became
sin for our sake that we who knew
no righteousness might become righteous.
There was a chastening that was required and
the son bore that penalty freely and voluntarily
but the father did not withhold it as
anyone who has contemplated the cross knows.
Jesus bore it in full and even as
a son, what shall I say, trembled in
the garden of Gethsemane knowing what it was
going to mean.
Not only the physical torture, brutal though it
was, but the denial of the presence of
the father.
The exquisite and final mark of that chastening
was the absence of the sense of the
father at the most critical crisis moment when
a son who has long eternally lived with
that presence has at that moment to forsake
it.
Because one of the things we're going to
be taking up in the days ahead, you
guys will regret that you're not here, is
the pre-incarnate life of Christ.
Few have considered the history of Jesus before
his history.
Before his human advent, where was he?
And what was he doing and with whom
was he?
Jesus had a relationship with the father since
time immemorial, eternally.
He lived and basked in that presence.
It was his chief delight.
He forsook and left that to come to
the earth retaining that presence with him in
proportion but at the cross it was removed.
And therefore the great cry, my God, my
God.
He might have said, my father, my father,
why hast thou forsaken me?
So that was the chastening that Jesus had
to bear and that the father did not
withhold.
And we have a whole generation of unruly
and wild unmanageable children and sons who are
organically registering their lack of love most profoundly
expressed through chastening by going off into forms
of rebellion to actually humiliate the father by
punctuating their skin with earrings and tattoos and
every kind of grotesque thing letting their hair
grow long or wild and everything that they
know will discomfort the father because he has
failed them to express deepest love through chastening.
Got the idea?
This prototype of God the father is critical.
It's not a little luxury, it's not an
icing on the cake as we so often
say, it's the cake itself.
If we miss God the father, how do
we understand the son?
How do we understand ourself as sons if
we miss God the father?
How do we understand authority?
The precious thing about the fatherhood of God
is not only providing the prototype by which
fatherhood can be modeled but also the grace
to be it.
It takes grace to be a father and
it's my most conspicuous failure, naturally speaking as
the present condition of my sons testify and
yet ironically, as I travel the world I'm
continually acquiring sons spiritual sons and it's clear
that it's the Lord who's establishing that relationship
and that requirement so I have no natural
qualification to be what the Lord is calling
for but praise God that there's a prototype
of the father in heaven and a grace
from that father to be that in the
earth because as Paul said, we have many
teachers but we have few fathers.
When he was nailed to that cross on
the ground and that cross was lifted up,
an ivy lifted up and set into its
hole there was a, in that socket there
was a, what's the word a sound like
a shot heard around the world the weight
of that body hanging suspended on those nails
and when that thing went into its socket
every nerve and tendon and muscle and joint
and bone felt the shock of that thing
coming into the earth so I would say
he was broken not literally but metaphorically and
actuality in pain and suffering in every joint,
that cadaver was a mass of brokenness inflicted
even as the cross itself was set in
its orbit so there are many ways to
consider that but he's the epitome of brokenness
and therefore that's at the heart of sonship
he made himself a voluntary candidate to experience
that in obedience to the father which was
not academic or antiseptic but out of the
love of the father because the activity of
the son glorified the father and so we
read that to him every knee shall bow
and every tongue shall confess that Jesus the
Christ Jesus is Lord to the glory of
God the father so we need to have
this inserted that our every action our every
service and conduct has as its ultimate consideration
the glory of God the father that's how
it was for Jesus unto death at the
cross and that's how it must be for
us also but if the father is only
an abstraction if it's only a word that
has no palpable meaning no cogent image that
is true what kind of glory can be
rendered and what kind of sacrifice and service
can be performed if it's not to the
glory of God the father in a way
that is really relative to our cognizance of
God as father you've got to listen to
this this is unrehearsed, this is just coming
out I'm being instructed out of my own
mouth but you need to hear so are
you persuaded thus far that the concept of
God the father is no small thing I
hope to quote from this book either today
or in some future days I just happened
to stumble upon it in my bookcase, The
Forgotten Father by an English theologian who was
one of the leaders of the British charismatic
movement and even then when this book was
written he was sensing already certain unhappy aspects
of charismatica that were the result of the
absence of this consideration of God the father
and that had extracted the spirit of God
that independent of the rest of the triune
Godhead which was always a danger to celebrate
the spirit as an independent entity and he
says the evangelicals or fundamentalists are equally as
guilty in celebrating the son independent of the
father so you must not allow the father
to be extracted as some kind of invisible
hidden entity that is behind the scenes and
that somehow the emphasis is on the son
or the spirit or you will have a
disfigured view of God and a disfigured Christianity
you will not be able to submit to
authority and I'm not talking about a grim
submission but a joyous submission because you've lost
the initial connection with the issue of authority
itself that resides in the father which is
what Jesus demonstrated in his continual obediences both
in word and in deed I can't even
begin to measure the heartache and problems that
we have had to experience in the history
of this little community just over the issue
of authority not that we're heavy handed but
there are believers who have come to us
that have been so disfigured by their own
earthly experiences or religious experiences that they're unable
to recognize and submit to the measure of
authority that is becoming to them here in
this place and we've had to struggle through
their misconception because they simply cannot relate to
authority because they have never settled the issue
nor known it at its foundation with God
the father so it's a very great matter
and we have been praying to God we
just finished a three day time of fasting
and prayer for these days this is the
first Sunday morning after that time of consecration
in which our continual plea to God was
Lord lay the foundations set before us my
God those absolute and foundational things that have
suffered neglect or indifference we don't want to
go on to lofty end time considerations and
lack the very foundations which are needful and
I can't believe or think of anything more
foundational than the subject that is now being
set before you so many of us have
an unconscious way of relegating the father to
the dustbin that he somehow set everything in
motion this is like the deists and set
the clock ticking and then absence himself the
hidden God and that the action is carried
on now by the son and the spirit
and God the father is only an afterthought
as if he is not the central and
foremost thought well all of these considerations came
with this book which I again took off
my bookshelf in looking for some other subject
and read up on it and then the
book lay on the bed and I don't
know at what point I just began to
thumb through it and there's an entire chapter
on fathers and children more than a chapter
and that's how I got into it the
author is Karl Barth and it's on a
section called the foundations of the Christian life
and what does he take up as the
first question the children and their father why?
because we cannot be proper children unless there
is a proper recognition and acknowledgement of the
father if we are not serious about the
father and have a reckoning and understanding of
the father that's reverential and respectful and appreciative
what kind of children we will then become
we will become unruly in the spiritual house
as the earthly children are in the world
so let me read what he wants us
to consider if we are to seriously perceive
ourselves as children of the father father God
is this independently of the attitude of disposition
with which other beings encounter or do not
encounter him God is the father whether or
not beings understand or encounter him or do
not encounter him he is it absolutely for
them and in no sense through them God
is the father as an absolute as a
given that is resident in reality he is
it essentially in all his inner and outer
glory and he acts and speaks as such
this explains the need for thought and speech
about him that can seriously truly and finally
take place only in this vocative vocalization the
word father that can consist only of calling
upon him as father until we call upon
him as father until we can employ that
word with meaning and reality pertaining to that
center of the Godhead then what else can
be in right place and relationship it waits
on this that's why when Jesus taught the
disciples to pray the very beginning of the
Lord's prayer is our father until you begin
with that there is no beginning and if
the word father is an abstraction or is
uncomfortable in coming from your lips as it
has been for me because the word father
had no coherence and no expression in my
own natural life growing up without one then
everything else will suffer loss that's the beginning,
that's the foundation it's God the father to
begin with the word father in true recognition
of to whom that word pertains it's not
an abstract word and it's not pertaining to
an abstract God it's a God who is
and ever and always was the great creator
the source of everything and he desires that
he should be addressed as father but he
should be addressed with meaning with a comprehension
that when we speak that word there's an
image that rises up in conjunction with it
that is true and befitting and appropriate to
him who desires to be known as and
called upon as father it's no more possible
than saying that Jesus is Lord accepted by
the spirit and accepted by the reality to
which we are brought in the wonderful sanctifying
work of God but this much we ought
to understand we need to come to it
if we have not come to it, we
need to come to it God desires that
we come to it and when we can
say Abba with affection and esteem that it
conjures up a sense of something that is
not imagined but real we have come to
a very great place and in fact can
we be children, can we be sons until
we can say that maybe one of the
things that hinders the reality is our premature
vocalizing of it before the Lord himself has
made it real so we need to guard
our mouths and desire the real thing desire
the reality, the foundational reality of God as
father and in such a way that he's
a father who's dear a father for whom
we have an affection the Lord has revealed
him in aspects of his fatherliness that we
would not have seen if the Lord had
not sent his son and when we say
father, something wells up in us of a
recognition and an affection and a worship appropriate
to him until that time we need to
hold back a premature expression of Abba so
that we wait for that when the Abba
comes it comes in spirit and in truth
for the father is seeking those look at
this, for the father not the Lord, the
father is seeking those who will worship him
in spirit and in truth so what kind
of worship have we been invoking and emitting
until we have come to this kind of
recognition it's clear that our worship is wanting
an exact proportion to the lack of this
foundational reality and God is addressing it now
so listen to Karl Barth he is it
essentially, the father in all his inner and
outer glory and he acts and speaks as
such this explains the need for thought and
speech about him that can seriously, truly and
finally take place only in this vocative, only
with this spoken word father, that can consist
only of calling upon him as father, one
thing must be clear and self-evident to
those who become and are obedient to his
command that is to Christians that in him
they do not have to do with the
final reality of a neutral character this saves
us from ambiguity about God is that too
fancy a word?
this saves us from vagary this is specificity
itself because until that comes our worship will
be ambiguous our worship will be vague our
service will be shallow our relationships will be
wanting and our submission to his authority on
earth through the appointed sources will be wanting
we will be rebels in our hearts and
in a place of unhappiness until the reality
that comes with the word father can truly
be spoken God is not just asking us
to articulate a word who could not say
father but he wants the word spoken with
the comprehension of what it designates in truth
what it signifies as he is in himself
and not some vague term that we suppose
refers to him but is abstract and ambiguous
got the idea you guys?
abstract and ambiguous Christianity is a dud it's
a failure it's a formula for heresy, for
apostasy for all of the slipshod things that
prevail in Christendom today because maybe the root
of it is the failure to know and
acknowledge God the father for who and what
he is specifically in himself when you speak
the word father in him they do not
have to do with a final reality of
a neutral character whether it be described, conceived
or postulated in him they do not have
to do with a he that is a
mere cipher with more or less the knowledge
to an it concealed behind it which is
simply a bit of etiquette appended to it
more or less with conviction and skill.
God is not an it and he is
not a he as abstractions yes he is
he God the father but God wants to
save us from neutrality, from ambiguity from a
shallow concept because if we are shallow there
if we are inadequate there where then shall
we be real and be true this is
the pivot this is the foundation of reality
in God the centrality of God the father
to whom Jesus said is greater than I
and that when Jesus finishes the totality of
his work and brings every kingdom in submission
he then turns them over to the father
who then will be all in all so
in the end the father who sends him
receives the full work of the son that
he might be all in all because he
is all in all or he would not
have sent his son got the picture God
the father as father in himself has got
to be understood has got to become real
for it's God's provision to save us from
floundering from having an it rather than a
God a he who is just a neutral
entity and not the actual father whom Jesus
depicted in his every word and gesture and
act if you see me you see the
father the father invoked by Christians is not
just called such when deep down and in
truth he is more than an idea or
the epitome of fatherhood deep down and truly
he is really father he is thus a
speaking and hearing subject a subject that acts
personally he is more than a powerful and
efficacious object he is an object only to
the extent that a person can also be
an object that is by making himself itself
subject an object to others in himself he
is not an object whatever may be meant
by fatherhood it stands or falls by whether
or not it is the distinction and revelation
of the nature of this person the manifestation
of his inner and outer glory the whole
thing rests or falls on what he is
in himself as father and not by whether
the person is simply the personification it is
not an abstraction that fatherhood is some kind
of symbol or a term that refers to
certain abstract qualities there is a living person
and entity who is the father and God
does not want us playing about with an
abstraction of a neutral kind that is a
he or a nit when he desires to
be known for what he is in himself
as a distinct aspect of the Godhead, the
foundation of the Godhead, father, the father who
sends so by the speaking of the word
father Christians are empowered and required to think
and utter and live out as evocative with
no conditions or reservations it is invocation of
the self acting subject father and only thus
is it invocation of God well just to
put this in everyday English only when the
word is spoken with comprehension and reality that
requires a revelation by which the father becomes
cognizant and is an object of affection as
well as obedience have we come to that
reality and that is our privilege to speak
the word our father which art in heaven
and I remember one remarkable episode of my
41 years in the faith on the west
bank in Israel when we came to a
orphanage Palestinian Christians and they were looking at
me with great suspicion as a Jewish believer,
my first time with them and there were
the kids of the orphanage assembled and their
guardians were standing up around the wall of
the room with their arms folded over their
chest suspicious of anything that would come from
a Jew, even a Jew who is a
Christian and I'm looking to the Lord what
do I say in a situation like this
I can't begin to tell you what's at
stake because if the Lord had failed in
that moment my wife would not now be
involved as she has been all those years
since with that very orphanage and those young
kids who have grown up now to manhood
to which she has given herself in great
involvement and sacrifice that they should have college
education that they should have vocational training that
they should have this or that she herself
did not know what was resting on that
moment a crisis moment that had come in
a hostile environment and men, Palestinian Christians looking
upon a Jew suspiciously and rightfully because what
had they known from Israeli and from Jews
but oppression, opposition, mistreatment harshness, so who is
this guy so what does the Lord give
as a message when a whole future is
at stake and is now presently being propounded
that had it's origin in that moment and
waited on a word that only God could
give and the last episode of that relationship
came on my own visit to the West
Bank and that young man who was then
a boy and an orphan is now in
his 20's and waiting to marry and has
since married and has become a father but
what was holding up the works is that
he was building his home above that of
his parents that's the way the Palestinians do
they go up rather than out and he
had built everything for 7 to 8 years
but his kitchen was not yet complete and
according to their customs you do not marry
until you can provide a home for the
wife to be he needed $2000 to complete
the work and my wife was wondering if
I would make him alone so he showed
me this remarkable apartment it was so spacious
I said how many children are you planning
to have a hundred this is more than
a young couple would ever need it was
spacious tile floors I mean he had poured
everything in 7 to 8 years pinching pennies
and building himself until he had come to
this and so we were about to leave
after our visit and I knew that Inga
was waiting for this loan so I took
out my checkbook and I wrote a check
but it was not as a loan but
as a gift and as I handed the
brother the check the Lord quickened to me
and impressed me that this spacious home is
not for a hundred children that that couple
will conceive and birth, it's for Israelis it's
for Jewish settlers just over the brow of
the hill of their community called Abud on
the West Bank when the bottom falls out
for Jews that this will be a place
of flight and immediate safety for those who
will be brought there by the Lord and
is prepared to receive them and so as
I gave him the check I'm saying you
have a calling for those Jews over the
hill in that Israeli settlement and this is
more than just a spacious apartment for yourself
he was completely bewildered but the Lord gave
that in a moment so this is going
to be life and death that goes all
the way back to that moment in what's
that city on the West Bank?
Ramallah where everything is waiting for the word
that's going to come from me that will
make or break all of the future relationships
of the kind now that not only affects
Palestinians will affect Jews.
Can you believe that so much hangs on
a word?
Are you guys following me?
This is the life and the Lord and
you don't know what's at stake at any
moment because he alone knows the end from
the beginning but if he doesn't give the
beginning you're a dead duck and everything will
collapse and fail if you only speak out
of some familiar thing that you know and
is tested and you feel will be appropriate
it has got to be the word that
is given because so much hinges on the
future of that word so what word did
the Lord give that will one day now
affect the actual survival life and death of
Israelis who will find an immediate place of
refuge on the West Bank by a place
raised up by an orphan who has come
of age and who has been aided and
facilitated and his whole growth, even the job
that he holds as a chemist is because
Inger paid for his education and we have
paid thousands for their water bill, their electric,
their gas range their sinks, their washing machines
to keep them going because they cannot find
employment what was the word the Lord spoke
to these men with their arms folded over
their chest looking critically waiting to negate this
Jew here was the word our father that
was the word it just leaped out of
my mouth our father, and I kept saying
it our father, I kept raising my voice
our father, and I watched their eyes blink
what is this Jewish guy saying our father,
does he mean that our father God is
equally his father and that because he is
both our father and his father that we
are the children of the same father and
in fact brothers, though politically we are at
each others throats, but in the faith God
is our father and I watched them become
disarmed their arms fell from off their chest
to their sides their faces changed their expressions
and God won them over because of one
word our father so if God can do
that with a Jew and Palestinians who are
prejudiced against Jews likely because of mistreatment you
think he might even do it between other
aspects of the body of the church that
are not in the place of affectionate trusting
relationship there is a profound thing that is
foundational that needs to be rectified we do
not know God the father we don't revere
him we cannot worship him there is no
affectionate regard for him we have either celebrated
the Holy Spirit as charismatics or the son
as evangelicals and extrapolated them from the greater
context of the mystery of the Triune Godhead
of whom the father is pivot, center and
all so I want to pray so Lord
thank you for the beginning we bless you
my God because we sense in this morning
the jealous concern of the father not for
the honor that is becoming to you although
that is surely a great part of it
but you know how disfigured we will be
in our faith how much we will lose
how unable we will be to relate to
men in the place of authority how restricted
we will be in our own hearts and
suspicious and withholding until we have come to
a full recognition and a surrender to yourself
as father so thank you for this jealousy
Lord that has prompted this subject and we
ask you to continue until by the hearing
faith comes and the call is invoked our
father with such coherence such cogency, such true
faith that you are blessed to hear it
and we are released to speak it and
even that final triumph my God in which
we can say Abba Father complete absolute trust,
affectionate regard that this is not some tyrant
who occupies the ultimate throne of heaven to
whom we must give regard because we can't
help it but just gratitude that he is
who he is and he is benevolent and
that his greatest benevolence is his chastisement of
sons for where would we be if we
had no corrective influence like that if we
got away with murder, if we could do
everything at will and no one is there
to correct us or to challenge us we
would not be groomed and we could not
be raised as sons except that we experience
the chastisement of a father this is the
heart of fatherhood and we thank you Lord
for the blessedness of it the benevolence of
it as only you can bestow it and
where we are wanting as human fathers Lord
and as spiritual fathers it can only be
corrected as we perceive you in who you
are in yourself not abstractly but in truth
as our father who is in heaven and
we are asking Lord that mercy help us
my God to give up our faulty and
inadequate notions and just to use the word
as a little little expletive that means nothing
bring us my God to faith to truth
to recognition that when we pray we pray
to the father in the Lord's name with
real reverence, real respect, real affection thank you
Lord, oh help us Lord, correct us my
God and release us to be the children
of such a father the sons and daughters
of such a father not only to the
father but to each other because our relationships
are wanting for the inability to freely flow
out as the children of the most high
who have one father, our father that enables
us to be the children and sons of
him together thank you Lord, that's not only
the Palestinian Christians who need to recognize that,
it's all of us so come my God
and give us the benefit of the word
father bless our speaking of it in truth
let us receive all the benefit my God
you intend deepen our understanding we thank you
and give you praise for touching this foundational
thing, what's the purpose we've gone on with
other things and have failed here and continue
in it Lord until you have established this
reality and this truth and receive our gratitude
even today for the point of beginning calculated
even for those who have come in passing
just for this Sunday for God knows they
need it we thank you and give you
praise in Jesus name God's people said, Amen