The fatherhood of God
The Lord’s Prayer
The Fatherhood of God
God is interested in what concerns us. Fatherhood talks of the status of our relationship with our God. We begin the Lord’s Prayer with the words ‘Our Father’. Each time we say that prayer we are recognising the headship and lordship of God within the context and framework of family – a place of security, protection, trusting, nurturing, and training. When we profess God as our heavenly Father, we are saying that we do not view our lives as being outside the sphere of who we are in Him – His children. We are expressing the context in which we say we belong to Him and He belongs to us.
Just as a baby, a toddler, a child, a teenager, a young adult and even a more mature person depends on the comfort of knowing they can securely trust, that as far as it is within their ability to do so, their family will not leave them distant, destitute and estranged. Their family will be there to guide, to protect and to watch over their lives and to communicate with them in fellowship, based on a foundation of love.
This, rightly, is the desire and expectation of every child, regardless of their age or background, but sadly for some this has not been their experience. The word ‘father’ brings pains to the memories of some and is an abstract concept to the minds of others – those who have never known or experienced what it is to be fathered. This is what King David said for those who have not known the love or guidance of a father:
“Sing to God! Sing praises to His Name. Exalt Him who rides on the clouds. His Name is the Lord – and rejoice before Him. A Father to the fatherless, and a defender of the widows, is God in His Holy habitation. God settles the lonely in families.” Psalm 68 v 4 – 6
We can make our family at home in the Church – the house of God, with our spiritual brothers and sisters.
As family we celebrate together in the good times and we support each other in challenging times. This reflects the heartbeat of God. The apostle Paul said:
“Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we ca comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves had received from God.” 2 Corinthians 1 v 3 – 4
What we learn from our Father, we express to others. So, our response to Fatherhood is to be teachable and to apply what we have learnt. The apostle John said:
“My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth.” 1 John 3 v 18
In the natural, we celebrate those fathers and those we are not fathers but mentors, because they have chosen to take on the mantle of responsibility – the mantle of preparing and guiding the next generation in order to encourage them to maximize their potential and to live wisely before God and each other. King Solomon asked God for wisdom to lead a nation. He was able to apply the wisdom for a nation to his own personal circumstances – passing on the baton of his wisdom as a father to his sons. He said:
“Listen, my sons, to a father’s instruction; pay attention and gain understanding. For I give you sound teaching; do not abandon my directive. When I was a son to my father, tender and the only child of my mother, he taught me and said: “Let your heart lay hold of my words, keep my commands and you will live. Get wisdom, get understanding; do not forget my wisdom, and she will guard you. Wisdom is supreme, so acquire wisdom. And whatever you may acquire, gain understanding. Prize her, and she will honour you. She will set a garland of grace on your head; she will present you with a crown of beauty.” Proverbs 4 v 1 – 9
When we open in prayer with the words ‘Our Father’ we are making a confession of our faith before God that we recognise Him as our eternal Father. We acknowledge His existence as we present our lives and petitions before Him. We take our eyes off our surrounding and our circumstances, as we approach Him and focus on Him alone through our hearts and minds. We leave the realm of the temporal earth to connect with our Father God in His throne room. Our home is in another dimension – the ‘Kingdom of God’. Our hearts, our minds and even our hands are turned upwards in recognition that even if we feel discouraged and downcast, by coming to our Father God in prayer, we are choosing to look up to Him as both our source and our resource. King David said:
“My voice you will hear in the morning, O Lord; in the morning I will direct my voice unto You, and I will look up.” Psalm 5 v 3
When we come to God as ‘our Father’ we can rejoice in knowing that before we made a choice to choose Him, He had already decided to choose us first. He created us to be His children, to be like Him. The apostle Paul said:
“For He chose you in Him before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless in His presence. In love, He predestined us for adoption as His sons through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, which He has freely given us in the Beloved One.” Ephesians 1 v 4 – 5
The apostle John also said:
“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are.” 1 John 3 v 1
‘Our Father!’ He is your heavenly Father and He is my heavenly Father. He is our heavenly Father, not by virtue of who we are but because of the sacrificial obedience and resurrected life of His Son, Jesus Christ. Knowing this Jesus Christ said:
“Everyone the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me, I will never drive away.” John 6 v 37
We come to the Father in prayer through Jesus Christ, His Son.
In 1872, Fanny Jane Crosby wrote the redemption hymn “To God be the Glory, Great Things He has Done”, in which she rejoiced at how in His infinite wisdom, our Father God made reconciliation through Jesus Christ, a possibility for us all, so that our relationship and position within His family could be restored. The lyrics of verse 1 and the chorus say:
Verse 1:
To God be the glory, great things He has done
So, loved He the world that He gave us His Son
Who yielded His life our redemption to win
And opened the life-gate that all my go in.
Chorus:
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord
Let the earth hear His voice
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord
Let the people rejoice
Oh, come to the Father, through Jesus the So
And give Him the glory, great things He hath done.
The way to the Fatherhood of God is to have faith in Jesus Christ. Without that faith the Lord’s Prayer have no intrinsic meaning to you and makes no sense in your life. The Lord’s Prayer is not for the one who claims to believe in a god but for the one who has faith through Jesus Christ to approach God as Father. It is faith in Jesus Christ that enables us to be directed towards our heavenly Father. It is Jesus Christ who leads us back into our right relationship within the family of our heavenly Father. We are all welcomed home to our Father’s house when we have fellowship with His Son through salvation. Jesus said:
“Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me. There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am. And you know the way to where I am going.” John 14 v 1 – 4
When Jesus Christ shared this truth, His disciples asked for clarification:
“Lord”, said Thomas, “we do not know where You are going, so how can we know the way?” Jesus answered, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. If you have known Me, you would know My Father as well. From now on you do know Him and have seen Him.” Philip said to Him, “Lord show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.” Jesus replied, “Philip, I have been with you all this time, and still you do not know Me? Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father. How can you say ‘Show us the Father? The words I say to you I do not speak on My own. Instead it is the Father dwelling in Me, performing His works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me – or at least believe on account of the works themselves. John 14 v 5 – 11
You cannot truly open the Lord’s Prayer with the words ‘Our Father’ without first accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord ad Saviour, otherwise they are the murmuring of empty words, without the power to release their ability to impact your life and the life of those around you for good. The apostle Peter said:
“Through Him (Jesus) you believe in God, who raised Him from the dead and glorified Him; and so, your faith and hope are in God.” Peter 1 v 21
Through Jesus Christ our Saviour our Father God says “Come!” We do not have to live our lives outside His family. He welcomes us all, so ‘Come!’
Amen xxx