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

0:45 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 important and important things that we need to do in order to be able to continue our 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. First of all, I directed your attention to the ballast that is found in this truth that God is on his throne governing.

2:01 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 the 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.

2:44 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 shall be filled with the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. But 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. 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.

The Third Ballast: God Is My Loving, Principled Father

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4:00 in heaven. And as we considered 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 pennant

4:43 to which we point and 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 God. 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

Adoption: The Apex of Redemptive Privilege

5:23 things, we must have an equally strong, biblically informed 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

6:03 that embraces Christ and his work on behalf of sinners as the sole 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 those who assert the place of God. The apex 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

6:46 is not the apex or the privilege or the pinnacle of our redemptive privilege. 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 presence and holds out this

7:24 for us, a duly drafted legal title to becoming 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.

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

7:52 But when the fullness of the time came, God said, 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 heart, crying, Abba, Father, so that you are no longer a bond slave but a son. And if a son, then an air through God. And this same emphasis is brought before us in the middle section of Romans chapter

8:34 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 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

9:14 heaven, your Father who sees. And notice how in this declaration of the great principle, 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 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. Their relationship to the world of food and drink and clothing, in all of those things, notice how

9:58 Jesus, again and again, is preparing them to think in terms of God as their Father. Chapter 5 and verse 16, even so let your light shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven. And I will be giving emphasis on the word of God. 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,

10:35 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, you therefore shall be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. Chapter 6 and verse 1, take heed 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

11:11 again, verse 9. 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, if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. If you forgive not men their trespasses,

11:40 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. 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,

12:10 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? 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 within that kingdom as their Father, as their Father who is in heaven.

Conceiving of God as Father: Not from Earthly Experience or Psychological Needs

12:53 Now when I say 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 the Christian is not to take our experience with our earthly fathers or with any other earthly fathers and project them

13:34 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 seem good to us to say, well, surely if that character trait and action of my Father was something I like, then God must be like my earthly Father. No, that's the essence of idolatry. Idolatry is to conceive of God in terms of the character traits of man, the creature,

14:08 or to descend to a lower plane, to beast. But in Romans 1, it says they make God into an image like unto their fellow men, and then to birds and beasts, and to creeping snakes. 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

14:51 that one reference. Jesus does not say, think of God your Father in terms of earthly categories spun out of your own experience. 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.

15:18 When Jesus rebuked Peter, in the very passage we read this morning, why did he rebuke him? And he called him a devil. 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 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. We are not to spin a concept of God as Father out of the stuff

Christ: The Perfect Revelation of the Father

16:13 of our own hearts. Rather, we are to conceive of God as Father in precisely the way he's revealed himself to us as Father. And you know what the focal point of that, is? It's Jesus himself. You remember John chapter 14? Words could not be plainer. John

16:38 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. From henceforth you know him and have seen him. Philip says to him, Lord,

17:03 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. How do you say, show us?

17:25 The Father. You see what Jesus is saying. 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

17:49 own family or someone else's family and project them upward to God. Nor are you to think of him in terms of the negative experiences of your own family or someone else's family to think of Him in terms of the stuff you spend out of your own heart. You are to conceive of God as Father, as I have revealed Him. He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.

18:09 Do you see that with your own eyes and your own Bible? Now we're on safe ground, you see. We're not shying away from God because our own experience of a Father was some unprincipled, unpredictable, loveless, capricious, self-centered bum who'd just as soon smack 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

18:43 of God because that's your experience with an earthly Father. 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.

18:59 You look at Christ, and in Christ you see the perfect representation of the Father. He that hath seen me hath 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 God.

19:25 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. And when He says to all of the disciples, O fools of heart, 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.

20:03 Well, then you've got a conception of God that's unscriptural. 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 hath seen me hath seen the Father. The tenderness of Christ. The principled, righteous antipathy to sin in Christ. The Father's anger against religious tradition and closet.

20:30 Logging the way to God, you see it mirrored in Jesus with flashing eyes and cord in His hands over turning 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 Bible there's a word that says, to God, that I am the Savior.

21:02 The word I am the Savior. To God and His Son is the Savior. The Word I am the Savior. To God the Gospels, get hold of this principle. I have no right to cast shadows upon God from

21:10 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 who is revealed in Jesus Christ, for he that hath seen me hath seen the Father. And what kind of father is

The Father's Attributes: Loving, All-Knowing, Kindly Disposed, Principled

21:39 revealed in Christ? Well, I've put together a string of adjectives, and I'm not satisfied with them. 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

21:56 all the unknowns, we ought to have in the deep belly of our souls the blessing of 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. It's very interesting. You have to go out of the Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, to find the Lord Jesus, referring to him as loving Father. Do you notice how

22:35 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. 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 the Holy Father, and in the recorded praise of Jesus in Matthew 11.

23:08 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. He addresses him as Holy Father, Father, Lord of heaven and earth. But never once does he address him as loving Father. And the two explicit references to the Father loving his own,

23:38 Lord of heaven and earth, are not unconditional love. It is love conditioned by our response to Jesus Christ in his person and in his work. We will see that in the closing application. Now, I hope I have rattled your cage a little bit, as mine has been rattled. When I have

23:52 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. I have had to rethink some things. But nonetheless, as I have tried to follow the track of my Bible, I am on solid ground to say we must think of him. We must relate to this sovereign, all-governing God as our

24:21 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

24:53 Romans 8, 32, 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. 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

25:27 must think of our God upon the throne, governing all things in his universe as an absolute sovereign. He is not an unapproachable. He is sovereign. He is the sovereign whose heart is a heart of love. God is love. It

25:45 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's revealed supremely in Jesus Christ, where the love of God is exegete 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.

26:18 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. And did you notice how many times Jesus emphasized this in his references to God as Father in the Sermon on the Mount? Matthew 6 and verse 4, And your arms may be in secret, that your Father who sees in secret shall recompense

26:57 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. Verse 32, All these things to the Gentiles seek,

27:23 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? I'm not sure that I know all the reasons,

28:01 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. And I'm beginning to think of our Father as all-seeing and all-knowing. And I'm beginning to think of our Father as all-seeing and all-knowing. And I'm beginning to think of our Father as

28:15 all-seeing and all-knowing. 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. And that happened with you kids. If you think you can do something naughty and secret and your Father

28:30 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. No, you look around and say, Dad won't see. Dad won't see. Dad won't see. Dad won't see. Dad won't see. Dad won't see.

28:48 Dad won't hear. You sneak in the bedroom. You start listening to music. You know, Dad would never let you listen to. You hear anything come up the stairs. You change the channel

28:55 to WFME. 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. But when next to pleasing God, nothing is a greater desire in your heart than to please your Father. You cannot hide. Your

29:19 Father sees in secret. How are we to relate to God as Father? In such a way that we can we have no desire to hide. He sees. He sees in secret. Your Father knows. That brings

29:35 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.

29:58 My Father's eye sees me. Now that brings tremendous consolation. If I'm walking with integrity before my Father. But that brings real conviction when I'm a naughty child. Then it ought to.

30:12 If you're caught red-handed by your Father doing something he told you not to do, the jigs up. You're embarrassed. You know you're going to get it. And rightly so. Your Father

30:27 sees. Your Father knows. You walk with him. You commune with him. You live with him. You

30:35 live before the face of God. It's a liberating. 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

30:53 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.

The Father's Attributes: Principled Heavenly Father

31:10 Here I struggle with words and I've got white outs 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

31:37 7 11. 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 when my understanding of my good is skewed and he withholds what I ask I don't question the kindly disposition of his heart.

32:08 He's kindly disposed to me as his child loving. Matthew 7 11. All-knowing, kindly disposed, but he's a principled heavenly father. And what do I mean by principled?

32:21 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.

32:34 He fathers his children in principles of perfect love, perfect equity, justice, kindness. All of his attributes together funnel 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.

32:56 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. You've not resisted unto blood striving against sin, but you have forgotten the exhortation which reasons with you as sons. Hebrews 12.5.

33:13 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.

33:29 For what son is there whom his father chastens not? I'll tell you the one that doesn't chasten him. And on principle. Mushy, soft, unrighteous father doesn't chasten his son.

33:39 The book of Proverbs describes him. He withholds correction. He refuses to chasten. He's an Eli.

33:46 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.

34:03 If you were a little girl, you knew just the buttons to push in your ovaries. And you could come in and you could push those buttons. You could get anything you wanted. God's not your push button pop.

34:16 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.

34:29 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.

34:45 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, scraping his boils with a piece of a broken pot.

35:05 Looking off and seeing the freshly dug graves of his 10 children and having his accountant show him his white doubt and dozen owners say, loving heavenly father, come off it. No, don't come off it. He's a principled father. God had issues to settle in the unseen world where demons and the devil and the powers of darkness operate in conflict with God.

35:36 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.

35:59 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 before God and men. But he had new levels of discovery of God's inscrutable sovereignty. Of God's right to do what he willed.

36:18 With his own. And God dealt with him in a way that had the appearance of ruthlessness. Why? He's a principled father.

36:30 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's off 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.

36:56 Truly my father, you don't want me to serve you with this overwhelming impediment. Take it from me. No answer. Another season of prayer.

37:08 Take it from me. No answer. Another season of prayer. Why?

37:14 He's convinced God is his father. God knows him. God knows his need. He perceives that his need is to have.

37:22 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.

37:40 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.

37:56 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.

38:12 God's dealings were the dealings of a loving, all-knowing, kindly disposed, but principled heavenly father. Not a mushy, unprincipled, capricious. Able to con him with whines and pushing buttons kind of a father. No, he is our father.

The Father's Attributes: Principled Father (Matthew 18 Example)

38:37 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.

38:53 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.

39:06 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.

39:22 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. He should pay all that was due.

39:43 Angry. Delivered to tormentors. Now notice the application. Verse 35.

39:49 So shall also. Now look at this. My heavenly father do. Do to whom?

39:58 Unto you. Unto you. If you. Forgive not everyone his brother from the heart.

40:04 Who is Jesus' father? He's a principled father. Who will be angry and deliver people to the tormentors. Oh, my father.

40:15 My concept of God has no wrath 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.

40:32 To you through my work. A disposition of forgiveness is implanted within your breast. That you will never consciously, deliberately, and impenitently take a fellow sinner by the throat and say, I'll never forgive you.

40:49 And Jesus said, if that's your disposition, my father will be angry and deliver you to the tormentors. That's what the trust.

41:00 It doesn't matter whether you feel comfortable with it.

41:04 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 in heaven.

The Father 'In Heaven': Reverence and Awe

41:28 Did you notice how many times I tried to emphasize it in reading the phrases out of the Sermon on the Mount? Your father in heaven. Your heavenly father. What is Jesus doing?

41:38 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.

41:50 Giving us the freedom of addressing him as our father. Putting within us the spirit of adoption. Enabling us to call the God who was our judge. To now call him our father.

42:03 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.

42:21 Because he becomes our father. And there is some of this teaching that makes me sick. That says if you really appreciate the grace of God, you'll come tripping into God's presence anywhere, anytime. Plop up on his lap and say, hi, daddy.

42:36 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.

42:52 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.

43:15 Reverence. All. All. I'm not at all inconsistent with saying, oh, God, my father, I love you.

43:25 I know you love me. Thank you for your all-knowing, kindly disposed heart towards me. But he is my father who is in heaven.

43:39 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. The only one who had intimacy with the father as a fellow.

43:55 Never speaks of him in a buddy-buddy way.

44:01 Say, I never thought of that. Nor neither did I. So just now.

44:07 Where did Jesus speak to him 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. He's your father in heaven.

44:30 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.

44:42 He sits upon his throne. Before him are these creatures who've never known the stain of sin, veiling face and feet and crying as they fly 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.

45:08 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.

45:19 In the sheer ecstasy of being overwhelmed with the consciousness that God is not of our kind.

45:27 He is of a totally other kind. And in Christ, we can yet feel comfortable in his presence.

Reverence Shaped by Redemption's Price (1 Peter 1)

45:38 One other text. I hope some of you thought of this. It was many, many months ago, several years ago, that I expounded it. Remember 1 Peter 1?

45:48 Here's the Father revealed in Christ. 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?

46:06 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, pass 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, knowing God, whom you nor no one else can con or push the buttons.

46:46 If you call on him as Father, who has not relinquished 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 any time he's 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 that you were redeemed not with corruptible things, with silver or gold from your vain manner of life handed down from your fathers,

47:29 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's so holy that his love could not save me without an atonement. He's so just that he could not confer just pardon without punishing his son.

48:01 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 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.

48:39 Now I know that to preach this is to cut right across the grain of contempt, the contemporary ethos of modern evangelicalism. 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.

49:04 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.

Who Can Claim This Relationship? Only Those in Christ

49:26 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.

49:42 As we seek to fill the barrel of our souls with this truth is ballast, that 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. And here I give you the two texts from John that I mentioned earlier, John 14.

50:09 And this again struck me as I studied and said, there must be a lot of passages that speak of God's unconditional love. Very interesting. This is what Jesus says in John 14 in verse 21. He says, He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is that loves me, and he that loves me shall be loved of my Father.

50:35 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.

50:46 He did. That's contrary to my concept of God's unconditional love. Then junk your concept. Bend it to the word of God.

50:55 Let God be true in every man alive, even those who write their books on unconditional love. Listen to Jesus in John 14, 23. Jesus said, If a man loved me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him. Conditioned.

51:13 This peculiar, intimate love of the Father is reserved for those who do what? Who love Jesus and keep his word. Well, who are those who love Jesus and keep his word? We'll turn over to John 16.

51:26 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.

51:52 Here the Lord traces their love to him, back to their faith. 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. And here Jesus says those who can repose, the old writers would say, in the complacent love of God.

52:17 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.

52:45 The Galatians 4 passage tells us we needed the sending forth of the Son, before we could have adoption as sons. In 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. The God on the throne is my Father.

53:13 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 at so dear a price. redeemed us that we might receive the spirit of adoption, enabling us to enjoy the reality of that status. The Spirit enables us to cry, Abba. May God grant that as we come to the

Conclusion: Enjoying the Privilege at the Lord's Table

53:45 table, we'll see in the bread that symbolizes His body assumed, given in death for us, in His blood, shed in the vile and 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, principle, heavenly Father. What we talk about now and wonder at times if we know anything

54:20 of what we're talking, someday we'll see and know face to face. Let's pray. Our Father, what a presence. What a presence. What a presence. What a presence. What a presence. What a presence.

54:34 To call you that blessed name. Forgive us when we have carelessly let it trip off our lips. We would bow fresh 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, oh 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.

55:18 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.

55:36 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. Amen.