Visit to Grace Communion Crossway
Last June 17, I was invited to preach on Father’s Day at Grace Communion Crossway, a local congregation of Grace Communion International meeting at D’Cup Coffee Republic in Mandaluyong City, Metro Manila. Since it was Father’s Day, I decided to talk about appreciating and knowing our Father on that day. Aside from the video, here’s also my notes below:
Knowing Our Father
Happy Father’s Day! Thanks to Pastor Aron for inviting me to speak to you again.
Every day there are around 4,500 Filipinos who leave the country and work abroad. This is roughly 12.5 million Filipinos currently working or are residing abroad. This is about 10-11% of the total Philippine population. This is according to the data of POEA as of September 23, 2017 – last year.
It’s sad that in our Philippine society today, many fathers (including mothers) are far away from their families due to the need to earn money in a far country. It is a challenging and difficult situation.
Many children of OFWs are growing up without really knowing who their fathers are. For many of them, they long to be with their dad. They long to get to know their dad. It’s a sad situation for many – not all.
Let me focus our attention today on knowing our fathers. Let us get to know and appreciate our Father today.
Our relationship with our human fathers
More and more children worldwide are growing up without the blessing and presence of a loving father. Even here in the Philippines, we have a lot of children whose fathers (including mothers) are away from home working as OFWs. And that can be a challenging situation for some of us affected by this.
Make the Most and Appreciate our human fathers
But let’s make the most out of our present situation and celebrate, be thankful that many of us have experienced or are experiencing a father’s love. Many of us are enjoying the presence of and knowing our fathers.
We are all familiar with many sad stories of broken families due to this OFW phenomenon. A teenage son or daughter, without the guidance of parents may sometimes resort to drugs and end up in deep trouble. Without the guidance of loving parents, some resort to crime and wrong habits destroying their young lives. That’s the national situation now. But let’s talk closer to home.
Absentee father, overbearing father or ungodly father
Most fathers love their children. But in our fallen world, some fathers do not act like loving fathers as they ought to be. Some of you may have experienced or are experiencing a father that – a father who is cruel, unloving or worse, maybe a child molester. That can be very devastating for a young child. That’s a sad thing that could happen to a child. But that is the real world we live in – in this “present evil age” which Paul mentioned.
Reminder for fathers – do not exasperate
Here’s a good reminder for all of us who are fathers. This is how we ought to treat and deal with our children: NIV Ephesians 6:4 – Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.
ESV Ephesians 6:4 – Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
Paul repeats the same reminder in Colossians: ESV Colossians 3:21 Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.
Sometimes as fathers, we can be so overbearing, annoying, demanding, utos dito utos doon, becoming like a dictator forgetting that our children need our love and affection. If we are a hot-tempered dad, let’s cool down and not forget this reminder from Paul.
Father’s responsibility – training and instruction of the Lord
It is our responsibility as dads according to Paul bring up our children in the training, discipline and instruction of the Lord. Let’s not become so permissive such that the child becomes a rebel and a brat as he or she grows up. Have some time to study God’s Word together or pray together especially when they are young, so they will learn early on.
As fathers (and mothers too) let us not exasperate or provoke our children that leads him or her to eventually hate us – the parents. Let us not discourage our children but instead boost their morale, train them, discipline them and give them instructions about the Lord in a loving environment.
This is how we human fathers ought to be. A timely reminder for all of us parents from time to time I believe.
For children: Honoring our parents – despite their human faults and weaknesses
This is so important that it’s part of the commandments given to us. Honoring our parents, not disrespecting them, loving them despite or no matter how evil our parents might be, that is the right thing to do.
Children let us never disrespect our parents. We are told to obey our parents in the Lord.
NIV Ephesians 6:1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 “Honor your father and mother”– which is the first commandment with a promise– 3 “that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.” 4 Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.
Now we have been talking about our human fathers up to this time. We have been talking about how we, the children ought to obey, love and honor our fathers and mothers and in return we fathers are reminded not to exasperate, discourage and shatter the spirits of our children.
Now let’s talk about our relationship with our heavenly Father.
Our relationship with our heavenly father
Distorted View of the Father due to bad experience with human fathers
Some have distorted view of the Father because of their bad experience with their human fathers. In such cases, it can be challenging to relate to God the Father. It can be a hindrance to knowing our father. But Jesus shows us who the Father really is and hopefully we can learn to love the Father more and more as we get closer to him through prayer and study of his Word daily.
Just last night I read this from one of my Facebook friends: “My Papa is the most selfless person I know! Always there to help, share and serve. <3 Happy Father’s Day Papa! It wasn’t difficult for me to understand God’s love because of you. Thank you, Papa Dear!”
In this example of a loving human father, the child will not have a hard time understanding who our heavenly Father is. The child can easily connect that God the Father must be very loving too because of his or her wonderful experience with his human father. The child will have no difficulty in knowing the Father.
Distorted view of the Father due to bad theology.
We are all familiar with what Jesus said on the cross when he was about to die at about 3pm. He said, “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?” From this verse, many have assumed that God the Father has abandoned his Son for a moment because Jesus became sin for us. The Father is pictured as being a harsh God of the Old Testament while Jesus is pictured as the loving God of the New Testament. We had that view before. Sad to say, that is the view of many. Maybe that’s your view too.
But that is a misunderstanding of the passage. It is quoted from Psalm 22:1. According to Jewish tradition, it was the title of the song or psalm. Literary context is important in Bible interpretation. When the title is mentioned, everybody knows what the message of the song is trying to convey. In this particular case, if we will read the whole of Psalm 22, we will find out that God the Father has not actually forsaken and has not abandoned his Son not even for one second. The Father and the Son are one as Jesus said. The Father has not actually abandoned the Son.
Who is God the Father?
Let’s pick out a few passages to show to us who our heavenly Father is. Let’s being knowing our Father more and more.
Psalm 68:5 5 A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling.
If we no longer have a human father, we must remember that we always have a heavenly Father we can turn to all the time for all our cares and concerns.
Matthew 7:11 11 If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!
We can ask God’s provision and intervention in our lives when we are in trouble anytime.
Ephesians 1:3-6 — 3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will– 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.
Romans 8:15 15 For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. {15 Or adoption} And by him we cry, “Abba, {15 Aramaic for Father} Father.”
We can call our heavenly Father as “Abba” or in our dialect, Tatay, Papa, Daddy – these are endearing words of a child who loves his dad. This is not blasphemy. We can call God the Father with an endearing word like the Aramaid word, Abba or in our dialect, Ama or Tatay!
Romans 8:38-39 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, {38 Or nor heavenly rulers} neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
It’s good to know that we have a loving and caring Father in heaven.
God is love. He is interested in a relationship with us – father and son.
Romans 8:35-39 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
NIV 1 John 3:1 How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. 3 Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.
Conclusion
Our God is a God who is interested to have a relationship with us. From the foundation of the world he has already predestined us to be adopted as his children. And that is already our status now. Let us continue knowing our Father. He is already our loving Father – our Abba, our Papa or Daddy in heaven. Let us be thankful that he has given us our human fathers and let us be thankful that he has given himself as our loving, heavenly Father.