God is My Father

Introduction: The Ballast of Truth for the New Year

0:04 Those of you who were with us last Lord's Day evening will remember, I trust, that I began to preach a New Year's message, which at that time I said I had every intention of continuing and completing as a communion meditation tonight. However, as I labored at more detailed preparation for tonight, it became evident to me that if I were to preach in a responsible way and respect the restriction of time that we believe is appropriate for the ministry of the Word prior to a communion service, that I would have to take two more evenings to complete that New Year's message. And so, God willing, I will leave the final head that I announced last week and will announce this evening, and that will have to await. Our time together, God willing, next Lord's Day evening. Using the imagery of the barrels of water that acted as ballast in the belly of ancient sea-going vessels, or sea vessels of any bygone day, I sought to identify those fundamental biblical truths that you and I need desperately to have stored away in the deep recesses of

1:26 our souls as we embark on what to us are the most important and most important things in our lives. The unchartered seas of the coming year. Without these truths, I asserted that we will be tossed about on the sea of life, unable to keep our bearings, and always in danger of capsizing. Now, we had time to address but two such truths, and I stated them this way.

1:52 First of all, I directed your attention to the ballast that is found in this truth that God is on his throne. God is on his throne. Governing all things in this universe as an absolute sovereign. And then the second ballast-creating truth I identified in this way, that the crucified, risen, and exalted Lord Jesus shares that throne as the administrator of all things, leading to a glorious consummation, and without even citing, let alone opening up many of these texts that we considered last Lord's Day, suffice it to say that we were reminded of truth number one in our call to worship this morning, Psalm 97.1, Jehovah reigns. We will be reminded of truth number two when we come to the table, for in those words of institution that are given to us by the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians, we have these words, as oft as you eat this bread and drink this cup. You do show forth or preach forth the Lord's death until he come, indicating that the consummation is to be in our eyes and hearts, even as we come to the table.

The Third Ballast Truth: God as Our Loving, Principled Father

3:16 Now tonight, in the much more restricted time allotted for a communion meditation, I want you to consider with me the first of the two remaining ballast-like truths. Tonight, we will look, as it were, at the flipside of the coin of that first truth. God is on his throne, governing all things in this universe as an absolute sovereign, and this truth that is its parallel, the obverse of that coin, is that the God who is on his throne is our loving, all-knowing, kindly-disposed, but principled Father in heaven. And as we consider that second ballast-producing truth, the crucified, risen, and exalted Lord sharing the throne as the administrator of all things, leading to a glorious consummation, God willing, next Lord's Day evening, we'll look at the reverse side of that truth, that the enthroned Christ is our advocate, intercessor, indwelling life, and constant companion. So tonight, we focus upon this third biblical truth which, I say, will act like ballast in our souls if it becomes something more than the theological tenet to which we point and

4:44 which we can recite upon being questioned, but when it becomes the very stuff of our reaction to God's dealings with us, the unfolding of his providence, the vicissitudes of our own experience, the confidence, the well-grounded confidence, the knowledge that the God who is on his throne is my loving, all-knowing, kindly-disposed, but principled Father in heaven. Coupled with the bedrock conviction that God is on his throne as governor of all things, we must have an equally strong, biblically informed, and sunken-in-the-wings key to us. Many, many, many, many, many of us know, many, many, many people know, many, many, many, many people know the things that God wants to tell us, what God wants to tell us, what God wants to tell us about Christ. form persuasion that this God is our Father if we are the true people of God. The apex, the very pinnacle of redemptive privilege, is not our justification. I stand with the great historic stream that had been buried for generations and centuries and broke out into an open, wide river during the Reformation that justification by faith, faith directed to Christ, and faith that embraces Christ and His work on behalf of sinners as the sole

Adoption as the Apex of Redemptive Privilege

6:08 ground of our acceptance with God, that truth was designated during the period of the Reformation with renewed clarity as the article of the standing or the falling church. And I stand with the great historic stream that had been buried for generations and centuries and broke those who assert the place of justification by faith alone. However, justification, the declaration by God to the penitent believing soul that all of his sins are cancelled and that all of the perfect righteousness of Christ is credited to that believing sinner, justifying grace is not the apex or the privilege or the pinnacle of our justification. I stand with the great historic stream that the apex, the pinnacle of redemptive privilege, is not justification, but it is adoption. It is the God who declares us righteous on the grounds of the righteousness of Christ, who then, as it were, steps off His throne from the place of the moral judge of the universe, goes into His parlor, and invites us as justified sinners into His parlor, and invites us as justified sinners into His parlor, and invites us as justified sinners into His parlor, and invites us as justified sinners into His parlor, and then He gives His presence and holds out before us a duly drafted legal title to becoming

7:30 His sons and daughters. And we become His adopted children. This is brought forth in several passages in the New Testament. Perhaps one of the most clear of those passages is Galatians chapter 4, Galatians chapter 4. And verse 4 and following, But when the full fullness of the time came, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, that he might redeem them that were under the law, in order that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because you are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father, so that you are no longer a bond slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God. And this same emphasis is brought before us in

Jesus' Emphasis on God as Father in the Sermon on the Mount

8:31 the middle section of Romans chapter 8. And it was this very truth for which Jesus was preparing his disciples in his repeated emphasis on this reality of the true people of God. The people of God being the sons of God, particularly in the Sermon on the Mount. And I want you to turn with me, please, to Matthew chapter 5 and following. And in my study Bible, I took a red marker, I mean a bright yellow underline or highlighter, that's the word I want, and I went through and just highlighted all the references to your Father, your Father in heaven, your Father who sees. And no, just how in this declaration of the great principles of the kingdom of grace that our Lord Jesus came to establish from the description of the character traits of the sons and daughters of the kingdom in the Beatitudes, to their influence upon the world, to their living under the light and

9:39 under the direction of God's holy law as God intended us to understand it, their life lived before the Father, in their almsgiving and in their praying and in their fasting, in their relationship to the world of food and drink and clothing, in all of those things, notice how Jesus, again and again, is preparing them to think in terms of God as their Father. Matthew chapter 5 and verse 16, even so let your light shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father. And I will be giving emphasis to certain aspects of these phrases, and I trust you'll see the purpose for that as the matter unfolds. Verses 44 and 45, love your enemies, pray for them that persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven, for he makes his Son to rise on the evil and good and sends rain on the just. and the unjust. Verse 48.

10:50 You therefore shall be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. Chapter 6 and verse 1. Take ye that you do not your righteousness before men to be seen of men, else you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven. And then again, verse 9.

11:14 Verse 8. Be not therefore like unto them for your Father knows what thing you have need of before you ask Him. After this manner, therefore, pray our Father who art in heaven. Verse 14.

11:32 If you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. If you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. And then again, verse 26. Behold the birds of the heaven, they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, and your heavenly Father feeds them.

11:57 Verse 32. After all these things to the Gentiles seek, for your heavenly Father knows that you have need of these things. Chapter 7 and verse 11. If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father, who is in heaven, give good things to them that ask Him?

How NOT to Conceive of God as Father: Avoiding Idolatry

12:23 Now I ask you, after listening to the Lord Jesus in this Sermon on the Mount, surely if you had half an ear to what He was saying, you would come away with the conviction that the sons and daughters of the kingdom, marked by the character traits delineated in the Beatitudes, are a people who should think of God as a person who is in heaven, within that kingdom, as their Father, as their Father who is in heaven. Now when I state that, it's vital that I say what I'm about to say. And I trust you'll listen very carefully, for there's a lot of nonsense going around in the name of Christian truth, particularly with respect to this matter of how the Christian is to conceive of God as his Father, particularly his Father who is in heaven. And the first thing we must understand is that we are not to take our experience with our earthly fathers or with any other earthly fathers and project them upward to God. The negative experiences and say, well, God, if He's Father, must be like that nasty, no-good Father. Or if they say, it seemed good to us to say, well, surely, if that character trait and action of my Father

13:51 was something I like, then God must be like my earthly Father. No, that's the essence of idolatry.

14:01 Idolatry is to conceive of God in terms of the character traits of man, the creature, or to descend to a lower plane, to beast. But in Romans 1, it says they make God into an image like unto God, unto their fellow men, and then to birds and beasts and to creeping things. So when Jesus said, your Father who is in heaven, He did not expect His listeners to think of their earthly experience in relation to their fathers projected upward with negative or positive connotations with reference to God. There is one place where He appeals to fatherly instinct even in sinful men and doesn't say God's like that. He said, God is much more than that. But take away that one reference. Jesus does not say, think of God your Father in terms of earthly categories spun out of your own experience.

15:02 Furthermore, He does not want us to sit down and spin out of the stuff of our own psychological needs what we think the Heavenly Father should be like. That also, is idolatry. When Jesus rebuked Peter in the very passage we read this morning. Why did He rebuke him?

15:27 And He called him a devil.

15:30 Surely the loving Jesus doesn't call one of His disciples Satan. Yes, He does. He says, get behind me Satan. Why?

15:39 For you think not the thoughts of God but the thoughts of men. When men with their thoughts conceive of God's as Father it is an offense to Jesus Christ. It's idolatry. We are not to take our concept of God as Father from our experience with our fathers or other people's fathers positive or negatively.

Christ as the Perfect Revelation of the Father

16:08 We are not to spin a concept of God as Father out of the stuff of our own hearts. Rather, we are to conceive of God as Father in precise, the way He's revealed Himself to us as Father. And you know what the focal point of that revelation is? It's Jesus Himself.

16:32 You remember John chapter 14? Words could not be plainer.

16:38 John chapter 14? Jesus has made the declaration in verse 6, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes unto the Father but by me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also.

16:57 From henceforth, you know Him and have seen Him. Philip says to Him, Lord, show us the Father and that suffices us. Jesus said unto him, Have I been so long time with you and you do not know me, Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.

17:22 How do you know the Father? How do you know the Father? How do you know the Father? How do you know the Father?

17:23 How do you know the Father? How do you know the Father? How do you say, show us the Father? You see what Jesus is saying?

17:28 He is not saying, I am the Father, but He says, I am the perfect revelation of the Father. When I have told you in the Sermon on the Mount to think of God within the kingdom as your Father, what kind of a Father are you to think of? You are not to think of Him in terms of the negative experiences of your own family or someone else's family and project them upward to God. Nor are you to think of Him in terms of the stuff you spend out of your own heart.

17:59 You are to conceive of God as Father as I have revealed Him. He that hath seen me hath seen the Father. Do you see that? With your own eyes and your own Bible.

18:12 Now we are on safe ground, you see. We are not shying away from God because our own experience of a Father was some unprincipled, unprincipled, unpredictable, loveless, capricious, self-centered bum who just as soon smacked you on the head for no reason as to put you on his knee and slobber you with kisses. You didn't know what to expect of him. What a wicked thing to project such an experience upward to God and be shy of God because that's your experience with an earthly Father.

18:47 Furthermore, it's just as wrong to say, well, I think I need a heavenly Father who is like this. And make your idol of what the Father should be and what he should do and not do. No, no. You look at Christ and in Christ you see the perfect representation of the Father.

19:08 He that has seen me has seen the Father. The Father's love shown in Jesus looking at the multitudes and being moved with compassion. The Father's care in Jesus calling himself the great shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep. The Father's principled commitment to see his children become more like his son when he rebukes one of his choice disciples and calls him a devil.

19:45 And when he says to all of the disciples, oh fools and flow apart to believe in all that the Father has revealed. All that the scriptures have said. You say, I can't conceive of God ever calling me foolish. Well, then you've got a conception of God that's unscriptural.

20:07 I can't conceive of God ever calling me a devil. Then you've got an idol and not the God of the scriptures.

20:14 He that has seen me has seen the Father. The tenderness of Christ. The principled, righteous antipathy to sin in Christ. The Father's anger against religious tradition and clogging the way to God.

20:31 You see it mirrored in Jesus with flashing eye and cord in his hands overturning money tables and throwing down the money upon the temple floor and driving out the money changers. That's the Father. He that has seen me has seen the Father standing with the woman at the well telling us that the Father is mirrored in the parable of the prodigal throughout the Gospels. Get hold of this principle.

21:06 I have no right to cast shadows upon God from my negative experience as a son or daughter with my earthly father or anyone else's. I have no right to do it. I have no right to spin a God out of the bowels of my own self needs. I have every right and responsibility to conceive of a Father.

21:29 Who is revealed in Jesus Christ. For he that has seen me has seen the Father. And what kind of Father is revealed in Christ? Well, I've put together a string of adjectives and I'm not satisfied with them.

The Attributes of Our Heavenly Father: Loving, All-Knowing, Kindly-Disposed, Principled

21:45 Who can speak of God in any way and be satisfied? We touch but the edges of his ways. But I have said that we ought to have as we enter this new year and face all the unknowns we ought to have in the deep belly of our souls the ballast of this conviction that the Father who is on the throne or the God on the throne is our loving all-knowing kindly disposed but principled heavenly Father. He is our loving Father.

22:21 It's very interesting. You have to go out of the synoptic Gospels Matthew, Mark and Luke to find out the Lord Jesus referring to him as loving Father. You notice how I emphasized in all the references to Father in the Sermon on the Mount your heavenly Father your Father who is in Heaven your Father who sees not once does Jesus ever refer to him as our loving Father.

22:53 Now what you make of that fact can either be truth or heresy but it is a fact. He does refer to him in his own prayer in John 17, 11 as holy Father. And in the recorded praise of Jesus in Matthew 11 verse 25 at that season Jesus rejoiced in spirit and said I thank you Father, Lord of Heaven and Earth. He calls him your heavenly Father your Father in Heaven.

23:22 He addresses him as holy Father Father, Lord of Heaven and Earth. But never once does he address him as loving Father. And in the two explicit references to the Father loving his own it's not unconditional love. It's love conditioned by our response to Jesus Christ in his person and in his work.

23:46 We'll see that in the closing application. Now I hope I've rattled your cage a little bit as mine's been rattled. When I've come to my Bible saying oh my Father I want to think of you as you are revealed in Christ in his person, in his work in his words. And I want to go where my Bible takes me.

24:06 I've had to rethink some things. But nonetheless as I've tried to follow the track of my Bible I'm on solid ground to say we must think of him. We must relate to this sovereign, all-governing God as our Father who is a loving Father for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. 1 John 4.10 Here in his love not that we love God but that he loved us and gave his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Romans 5.8 speaks of the love of God manifested in the giving of Christ. In Romans 8.32

24:54 though the word love is not mentioned at the beginning of that paragraph the whole summation of all that is promised to us of God's commitment to give us all things necessary to take us to heaven and nothing in this life neither height nor depth nor principalities nor powers shall be able to separate us from what? From the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord whom the Lord loves he chastens and scourges every son whom he receives so we must think of our God upon the throne governing us in all things in his universe as an absolute sovereign. He is not an unapproachable sovereign. He is the sovereign whose heart is a heart of love. God is love. It is in the very essence of his being to love. And he has loved and continues to love us and will love us through all eternity and we are to think of him as he is revealed supremely in Jesus Christ.

26:02 Where the love of God is exegeted in the giving of his son and in his willingness to give him up to the death of the cross. He is our loving Father and once we are in the orbit of his peculiar love as his children the apostle throws out the challenge who, what, in heaven or earth or in hell beneath can separate us from that love. But he is also our all-knowing Father. Did you notice how many times Jesus emphasized this in his references to God as Father in the Sermon on the Mount?

26:46 Matthew 6 and verse 4 And your arms may be in secret that your Father who sees in secret shall recompense you. He is the Father who sees in secret. Verse 18 of the same chapter. That you be not seen of men to pass but of your Father who is in secret and your Father who sees in secret.

27:18 Verse 32 All these things do the Gentiles seek for your heavenly Father knows what things that you have need of these things. Jesus emphasizes the all-seeing all-knowing dimensions of the Father. And I must confess that it was in preparation for the meditation tonight that this thing hit me in a way I've never seen it before. And I'm still not satisfied that I can answer the question why did Jesus emphasize this aspect to his disciples in this magnificent declaration of the principles that are operative in the kingdom of grace.

27:59 I'm not sure that I know all the reasons but I do know that's where Jesus put the emphasis. And if he put it there then obviously he knows that we desperately need to think of our Father as all-seeing and all-knowing.

28:14 And I'm beginning I think to understand why he did this. You see you can't live honestly with your Father if you think you can hide from him.

28:26 And that happened with you kids. If you think you can do something naughty and secret and your Father won't see you then you're bold enough to attempt it. You're not going to conceive of something that's a blatant disobedience to your Father's revealed will and go right out in the middle of the living room and say hey Pop come here watch what I'm going to do. I mean you have got to be one cheeky dude to do that.

28:46 No you look around and say Dad won't see Dad won't hear you sneak in the bedroom you start listening to music you know Dad would never let you listen to you you hear anything come up the stairs you change the channel to WFME.

28:59 Isn't that right? You don't live comfortably with the Father that can only see some things if you've got any controversy with him.

29:11 But when next to pleasing God nothing is a greater desire in your heart than to please your Father you cannot not hide.

29:19 Your Father sees in secret.

29:22 How are we to relate to God his Father in such a way that we have no desire to hide? He sees he sees in secret your Father knows that brings tremendous liberty that I don't need to come to God and inform him of all the problems I have and all the needs I have and all the struggles I have and hope I can get his attention. There's no point in my pilgrimage where my Father does not know completely. No point in my pilgrimage no place I can go Psalm 139 but my Father's eye sees me and that brings tremendous consolation if I'm walking with integrity before my Father.

30:08 But that brings real conviction when I'm a naughty child and it ought to. If you're caught red-handed by your Father doing something he told you not to do the jigs up you're in trouble. You're embarrassed you know you're going to get it and rightly so.

30:27 Your Father sees your Father knows you walk with him you commune with him you live before the face of God. It's a liberating thing it's a delightful thing to know that God on the throne loves me he knows me he sees me he knows my motives he knows when I've acted with integrity of heart and yet I've done something stupid and I confess my stupidity but I can say Lord you know that in the integrity of my heart I did it. He knows. And then he's a kindly disposed Father.

31:10 Here I struggle with words and I've got whiteouts in my notes. How can you express the truth of Psalm 103 verses 8 to 14? The greatness of God's loving kindness as far as the east is from the west so far as he removed his transgressions from us like as a father pities his children so the Lord pities those who fear him for he remembers our frame. Matthew 7 11 if you then being evil know how to give good gifts to your children how much more shall your Father in heaven give good things to those that ask him when I come to ask for what in my perception is good and I plead with him I know he's kindly disposed to me even even when my understanding of my good is skewed and he withholds what I ask I don't question the kindly disposition of his heart he's kindly disposed to me as his child loving all knowing kindly disposed but he's a principled heavenly father and what do I mean by principle? I mean you can't con him you can't wear him down by whining you can't cajole him into thinking more favorably of you he's a principled father he fathers his children in principles of perfect love

32:39 perfect equity justice kindness all of his attributes together funneled down upon the head of a hell deserving sinner who has fled to Christ he's a principled father that's how he's described in Hebrews 12 4 when some of these Christians are complaining that things are getting rough and getting kind of hot in their Christian experience he says you've not resisted unto blood striving against sin but you have forgotten the exhortation which reasons with you as sons Hebrews 12 5 my son do not regard lightly the chastening of the Lord nor faint when you're reproved of him for whom the Lord loves he chastens and scourges every son whom he receives it is for chastening that you endure God deals with you as sons for what son is there whom his father chastens not I'll tell you the one that doesn't chasten him an unprincipled mushy soft unrighteous father doesn't chasten his son the book of Proverbs describes him he withholds correction he refuses to chasten he's an Eli his sons are guilty of sins and he barks out a few complaints but God indicts him and says you restrain not your sons you weren't a principled father don't project upward to God a father that you may have had and you could wear him down being cutesy if you were a little girl you knew just the buttons to push in your old pot

34:06 and you could come in and you could push those buttons you could get anything you wanted God's not your push button pop he's a principled father and when he sees that we need his rod of chastening he'll bring it upon us and all our whimpering doesn't move him a bit he may say like my mother would say to my father give him some more dad he's not sweet yet and God's dealings with us at times can have the appearance of ruthlessness the appearance of ruthlessness where do you get that in the Bible read the book of Job here is God's son righteous above all other men in his generation look at him sitting on a heap of axes with sackcloth scraping his boils with a piece of a broken pot looking off and seeing the freshly dug graves of his ten children and having his accountant show him he's wiped out and doesn't own a thing loving heavenly father come off it no don't come off it he's a principled father and God had issues to settle in the unseen world where demons and the devil and the powers of darkness operate in conflict

35:35 with God and God was doing something in the discipline of his child to answer to those cosmic powers and to bring Job to a new level of self-discovery and self-disclosure and you read his repentance in Job 42 not a repentance for shacking up with other women not a repentance for taking advantage of his servants he protests all through the book the innocency of his conscience in matters ethical and moral because he's not before God and men but he had new levels of discovery of God's inscrutable sovereignty of God's right to do what he will with his own and God dealt with him in a way that had the appearance of ruthlessness why he's a principled father get close to where Paul was praying those three times he gave himself to intense seasons no doubt in my judgment of fasting for he says in fasting God as well as in hunger imposed upon him three times he lays hold of God in intense season of prayer saying oh God this thorn in my flesh I can't go on and serve you with it truly my father you don't want me to serve you with this overwhelming impediment take it from me

37:05 no answer another season of prayer take it from me no answer another season of prayer why he's convinced God is his father God knows him God knows his need he perceives that his need is to have this impediment whatever it was this thorn in his flesh that made him consciously and obviously weak before the eyes of others he believes that the best thing God can do is take it from him until finally after the third season of prayer God says no my son I see that there's something far more far more disastrous in your life than being consciously physically weak and that's for you to be a man puffed up because of all the privileges of grace I've conferred upon you and lest I be exalted over much he says God showed me this discipline was to keep me consciously weak for when I am weak then am I strong God's dealings were the dealings of a loving all-encompassing all-knowing kindly disposed but principled heavenly father not a mushy unprincipled capricious able to con him with wines and putting pushing buttons kind of a father

38:33 no he is our father but he's principled and notice how Jesus emphasizes this in several other places I take one specimen Matthew 18 it's a very interesting use of the same phrase of heavenly father he's dealing with the subject of forgiveness he's been asked how many times should we forgive those who sin against us and Peter sets a limit and the Lord says no true forgiveness has no limit among the sons and daughters of the kingdom because they are forgiven by the God of heaven and if the monarch of heaven has forgiven them then they must have a forgiving disposition to all of their fellow mortals so he gives a parable and shows one man who didn't have that disposition verse 32 then his Lord called him unto him and said to him you wicked servant I forgave you all that debt because you besought me should not you have mercy on my fellow servant even as I had mercy on you and his Lord was angry and delivered him to the tormentors to see he should pay all that was due angry delivered to tormentors now notice the application verse 35 so shall also now look at this my heavenly father do do to whom unto you if you forgive not everyone his brother

40:02 from the heart who is Jesus father he's a principled father who will be angry and deliver people to the tormentors oh my father my concept of God has no rabble and torment then reject your idol and begin to worship the God of heaven Jesus said I've come to reveal him and he's the God who when his forgiveness is brought to you through my work a disposition of forgiveness is implanted within your breast that you will never consciously deliberately and impendently take a fellow sinner by the throat and say I'll never forgive you and Jesus said if that's your disposition then my father will be angry and deliver you to the tormentors that's what the text says it doesn't matter whether you feel comfortable with it bring your comfort zone into line with the Bible the father is revealed in the Lord Jesus and then very briefly I said the God upon the throne is our loving all-knowing kindly disposed but principled father and son in heaven did you notice how many times I tried to emphasize it in reading the phrases

The Father Who Is In Heaven: Reverence and Awe

41:31 out of the Sermon on the Mount your father in heaven your heavenly father what is Jesus doing by constantly saying father in heaven heavenly father he's underscoring that all the intimacy with which he enters into communion with us as his children giving us the freedom of addressing him as our father putting within us the spirit of God the spirit of adoption enabling us to call the God who was our judge to now call him our father but we never forget he's our father who is in the heavens literally he is our heavenly father he does not cease to be God exalted God majestic God terrible and awesome in his holiness and in his power because he becomes our father and there is some of this teaching that makes us sick that says if you really appreciate the grace of God you'll come tripping into God's presence anywhere anytime pop up on his lap and say hi daddy and then they try to prove it by saying the Aramaic word Abba has as its equivalent the intimacy of saying daddy my friends that's hogwash that's not solid biblical exposition and it's not sound theology you never had a daddy in heaven nor did I I had a dad who had much of heaven in him

43:00 but he was a fellow creature and in our most intimate moments we related as fellow creatures and fellow sinners God is never your fellow he's your father who is in heaven reverence awe are not at all inconsistent with saying oh God my father I love you I know you love me thank you for your all knowing kindly disposed heart towards me but he is not but he is not but he is not but he is my father who is in heaven Jesus addresses him in John 17 11 as I mentioned as holy father addresses him in Matthew 11 father lord of heaven and earth the only one who had intimacy with the father as a fellow never speaks of him in a buddy buddy way so I never thought of that nor neither did I so just now where did Jesus ever speak to him in the camera in a cavalier light and buddy buddy way holy I thank you father lord of heaven and earth that you have revealed these things unto me

44:23 he's your father in heaven because he is your father in heaven no flip hi daddy look at my new suspenders tripping carelessly into the presence of God he is my father in heaven he sits upon his throne before him are these creatures who've never known the spirit of God the stain of sin veiling face and feet and crying as they cry about the throne not in dread but in overwhelming ecstasy of delight in his majesty holy holy holy is the lord God the almighty look at those pictures in the book of the revelation that we considered last lord's day and when it's God upon his throne and then the lamb upon the throne where are those closest to the throne on their faces? in worship in adoration in the sheer ecstasy of being overwhelmed with the consciousness that God is not of our kind he is of a totally other kind and in Christ we can yet feel comfortable in his presence one other text I hope some of you thought of this many many months ago several years ago that I expounded it remember first Peter one here's the father revealed in Christ

45:52 what concept did Peter have of father after spending three years with the lord Jesus having the spirit given to him in a unique way as an apostle what was his perspective on the father? well look what he says verse 17 of 1 Peter 1 and if you call on him as father who without respect of persons judges according to each man's work passeth the time of your sojourning in skip happy light hearted hand clapping joy knowing you were redeemed not with corruptible things no you call on him as father who does not cease to be the all-knowing God whom you nor no one else can con or push the buttons if you call on him as father who has not relinquished his power his power his power his power his power his role as judge he without respect of persons judges according to each man's work pass the time of your sojourning in fear not the cringing fear of the son who has a capricious angry undisciplined father who will whack him anytime if no no it is a fear born of the reality of who he is and particularly notice verse 18 knowing who he is in the light of the work of Christ knowing who he is

47:20 knowing that you were redeemed not with corruptible things with silver or gold from your vain manner of life handed down from your fathers but with precious blood that is a lamb without blemish and without spot even the blood of Christ it is knowing the price of my redemption that frames my concept of God even when I know him as father I know that he is so holy that his love could not save me without an atonement he is so just that he could not confer just pardon without punishing his son it's the knowledge of the price of redemption that shapes our concept of God as father and we walk before his face with joy as his sons and daughters but we walk before his face knowing he'll deal with us impartially in the last day and because we've been bought with such a pressure such a precious price we have that mingled experience of all the liberty and delight of sons and daughters but sons and daughters of the father who is in heaven now I know that to preach this is to cut right across the grain of contemporary the contemporary ethos of modern evangelicalism

Who Can Claim This Relationship? Only Those in Christ

48:48 I hear at times these men who are Christian leaders and they say now before we begin let's have a word of prayer now Lord and they're just talking like they're talking what a wretched wretched parody of approaching the living God Jesus said when you pray say our father who art in the heavens hallowed be your name oh that's so formal Jesus said that's the spirit in which we're to pray you've got a father contrary to the word and the revelation made in Jesus Christ you've got a father you've got an idol deal with your idol the way you're supposed to now I know I've gone a bit longer than I should for a communion meditation in closing let me say this as we seek to fill the barrel of our souls with this truth is ballast the God on the throne is my loving all knowing kindly disposed but principled father in heaven we ask the question who can claim this relationship and the Bible answers only those who are rightly related to Christ here I give you the two texts from John that I mentioned earlier John 14 this again struck me as I studied and said there must be a lot of passages that speak of God's

50:16 unconditional love very interesting this is what Jesus says in John 14 in verse 21 he who has my commandments and keeps them he it is that loves me and he that loves me shall be loved by me and he that loves me shall be loved by me and he that loves me shall be loved by me and he that loves me shall be loved by me he that loves me shall be loved by me you want to be loved of the Father with a distinctive peculiar love then you love Jesus and keep his commandments that's what Jesus said I didn't write it he did but that's contrary to my concept of God's unconditional love then junk your concept bend it to the word of God let God be true and every man a liar even those who write their books on unconditional love listen to Jesus in John 14 John 14 1323, Jesus said, If a man love me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him. Conditioned, this peculiar, intimate love of the Father is reserved for those who do what? Who love Jesus and keep his word. Who are those who love Jesus and keep his word?

51:24 We'll turn over to John 16, and the Lord tells us, verses 26 and 27. And that day shall ask in my name, and I will not say unto you that I will pray the Father for you, for the Father himself loves you, because, because, this is conditioned love, because you have loved me and have believed that I came forth from the Father. Here the Lord traces their love to him, back to their faith in him, as having come forth from the Father. It is faith that works by love, Paul says in Galatians 5, and I believe it's verse 6.

52:09 And here Jesus says, Those who can repose, the old writers would say, in the complacent love of God. And what they didn't mean by complacent, they didn't mean that it was inactive, but it was a love of delight. Some of the old words are precious. The complacent love of God, for whom is that reserved?

52:28 Jesus says, for those, for those who've loved him. And those who love him are those who have come to faith. They've embraced Christ for who he is and for what he's done on behalf of sinners. It is only those rightly related to Christ who have God as their Father.

52:44 The Galatians 4 passage tells us we needed the sending forth of the Son before we could have adoption as sons. And Ephesians 1.5 says that we were predestined to sonship through Jesus Christ unto himself. If you're not in Christ, you cannot bask in this wonderful consciousness.

53:08 The God on the throne is my Father. Loving, all-knowing, kindly disposed, principled Father in heaven. But this is true for all who are in Christ. And what a shame to live beneath the joy and the privilege purchased is so dear a price.

53:28 Christ redeemed us that we might receive the spirit of adoption. Christ redeemed us that we might receive the spirit of adoption. Christ redeemed us that we might receive the spirit of adoption. Enabling us to enjoy the reality of that status.

53:38 The spirit enables us to cry, Abba.

53:43 May God grant that as we come to the table, we'll see in the bread that symbolizes his body assumed, given in death for us, in his blood shed in the violent death of the cross for us, this to the end, that we might sit here and say, he is my Father. Who is in heaven. Loving, all-knowing, kindly disposed, principled, heavenly Father. What we talk about now and wonder at times if we know anything of what we're talking.

Prayer of Adoration and Repentance

54:21 Someday we'll see and know face to face. Let's pray. Our Father, what a privilege to call you that blessed name. Forgive us when we have carelessly let it trip off our lips.

54:42 We would bow afresh in wonder and awe that you, the God of heaven, who spoke galaxies into being by the word of your mouth, you would send your Son that all the obstacles in your justice and righteousness and holiness might be overcome, that you might give us the status of sons and daughters. O God, fill us anew with the wonder of our privilege, and where we need to repent of erroneous concepts of you, Lord, help us to repent of them and bring our minds subject to the scriptures and help us ever to see more clearly day by day in the Lord Jesus, your heart, your disposition, your dealings with us, your sons and daughters. Thank you for your word. Thank you that we can now plead that you will continue to be with us as we come in obedience to our Lord Jesus, to this blessed table of remembrance. Hear us, we plead in Jesus' name.

55:50 Amen.