June 12, 2022
By Pastor John Kroeger
In the Bible we find many different names for God that tell us about Who is, what He has done and what He does. The bible also tells us how we can know Him and who we are.
In the bible we see that God is our creator, our helper, our comforter, our provider the one who guides us, God is a giver of good gifts, the greatest gift God gives us is salvation from our sins through His Son Jesus Christ. In the bible God is often described as a Father. As Christians we hold to the teaching of the Trinity, that there is One God who is revealed in three Persons.
I would like to share with you today about God as our kind, gracious, loving heavenly Father. Next Sunday is the day that we honor fathers, Father’s Day, is a day that can be complicated and cause a range emotions, some people grew up with a human father, who was warm and caring, while others might have had a father who was cool and distant. In the bible we see that God is Holy, He is a God of perfect justice, yet is He always only Good, loving and kind. God our Father is a perfect Father in a way that our human fathers could never be.
My own Father was a firm but kind and loving father, yet his father was cold, and could be cruel. My father was not perfect but he tried to show us the love and care of a father for his children. My father’s love and care were easy to see because my father sought to be not like his human father, but to be loving and kind like God his heavenly Father.
James 1:17 says: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”
We see that God is a giver of good gifts, God blesses and provides for us, and the greatest gift that God the Father has given us is Salvation through His Son. To adopt us into His family, to give us hope and purpose in this life, and eternal life with Him in heaven where we will glorify Him forever.
First I want to remind you of the loving care of God the Father, in Mathew chapter 6 Jesus teaches His followers about the Father’s love and care.
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?‘ (Mathew 6:25-31 ESV)
Jesus tells His disciples that the God the Father provides for our needs and blesses us in His love and grace.
Again in Mathew 10:29-31 Jesus speaks of the Care that God the Father has for us:“
” (Mat 10:29-31 ESV)
God shows His grace and compassion to us even in the simple things of life, such as the beauty of nature around us or a beautiful sunset are a reminder of God’s tender care for us. Earlier when we sang “morning has Broken” we were singing about the beauty of the world around us. Psalm19:1 says “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.” Why? Because he is God and he is good, the sunrise is a reminder of the greatness of God and all that he has done, and causes us to ask ourselves: If God causes flowers to bloom and birds to sing, how much more does He love and care for us? Though He is the sovereign God, he knows us so well that He knows the number of hairs on our head, God the Father knows us so well, he knows our thoughts and our Hearts even better than we understand ourselves.
In psalm 139 in the Old Testament King David writes, “O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it. Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,” even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you. For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I would count them, they are more than the sand. I awake, and I am still with you. O LORD, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up” Psalm 139:1–18 (ESV)
All of these verses tell us of how deeply the Father knows and cares for us. If we are His Children, we are safe and cared for, like a child we are comforted and carried when we or when we are weak, God is our perfect loving Father. Because God is our Father He delights save us from our sin and adopt us to make us part of His Family.
Now, you might have a question, “why if God is my father, do I have to be adopted in to His family.? I have been talking about how God is a loving Father, but we were not born into God’s family.
In the book of Genesis, we read that God created a perfect world, and created man and woman, in His image or likeness, to have a perfect relationship with God, with one another, with ourselves, and the world around us. The bible tells us that this perfect relationship was broken by sin or disobedience to the will of God who is perfect and pure and, holy. But that is not the end of the story. Because the relationship was broken there was nothing that we could do to meet God’s righteous standard or requirements (Roman 3:23) says: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” it also says that we became strangers and enemies of God. BUT, God in kindness and love made a way to restore and reconcile the broken relationship so that we can have hope and purpose in life.
And we can have a relationship with God the Father. The Bible tells us that in loving kindness God sent His perfect Son, named Jesus to live a perfect sinless life to show us how to live a life that pleases God, and that Jesus gave His life as a payment for our sins.
Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
God the Father did this through His greatest act of Love: by sending His Sinless Son, to live perfect life, and to paid the price for our sins.
Romans 5:8-11 “8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. 11 More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”
Though God is holy, pure, and separate from sin, God is not distant, cold, or uncaring, God is near to us and loves us, in His kindness and love God made a way for us to be near to Him. God the Father invites you and me to become part of His family, by believing in His greatest gift of love as father to send His son Jesus to pay the price for our sins.
Just like a human father who takes delight in giving a gift to His Child, God the Father takes delight in inviting rebellious sinners into His family, forgiving them, and giving them a new life, and a new family; God the Father does all of this for us because it pleases Him. God our Father is a perfect Father in a way that our human fathers could never be. God loves, blesses and provides for His chosen children, He invites you to completely trust in Him, trust that He is all that He says He is and will do all that He said He will do.
He is a father who always loves and never fails. Would you trust in God as your loving father today?
Let’s pray.