Knowing God as Father

Last week, we began a new series. We've entitled Wayform, which stands for Spiritual formation in the Way of the Master. And we shared a definition of spiritual formation.

I've got it here. Spiritual formation is the process of transformation of the inmost dimension of the human being, the heart, the spirit and the will.

It is being transformed in such a way that its natural expression comes to be the deeds of Christ done in the power of Christ.

In other words, it's this process of becoming more and more like Jesus, such that we act the way that he acts naturally, out of habit from the heart. And we spent last time last week looking at that crucial passage in Matthew 11.

And verse 28, the easy yoke, which is unsurprisingly an oxen's yoke, which involves work. It's an easy yoke, but one that involves some effort. And we saw how the way of the master is life lived with Jesus from the inside out.

That's a key idea with spiritual formation. It is from the inside out. And we shared this helpful diagram here, which gives us a picture of the components of our personhood involved in the transformation we're talking about.

Change happens on the inside and works itself out to the rest of our lives. And this process, if you look at it, is really what Galatians 5 and Romans 8 is talking about, where we read that we have life in the spirit. We walk in the spirit.

The heart will spirit is made alive by the grace of God through regeneration, and it affects our mind, emotions, body, and even the way that we live in our social context. So it's very much guided and affected by the Holy Spirit.

Now, the only reason the Holy Spirit can be affecting our lives is that we have become part of the fruit of the gospel. Amen.

Because Jesus lived a perfect life, died in our place on the cross, and rose again from the dead, there is the possibility for us to believe in Him, and by believing in Him, our heart comes alive, and the Holy Spirit comes and lives within us.

Now, the Spirit is at work because of what Christ has done, and Jesus is at work through His Spirit. But there are three parts of the Godhead. We believe in a triune God.

Matthew 28 talked about going out and making disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, baptised into Trinitarian reality.

So today, we're actually going to look at the Father's role in this process of transformation into the likeness of Christ. We have the Spirit because of what Jesus has done, but the Father plays a crucial role. So let me pray as we think about this.

Lord God, our Father in heaven, we are so grateful that we have a heavenly Father who loved us enough to give your Son to die in our place. Heavenly Father, may your will be done here in this room and online.

May we come to a greater appreciation of what it is to be a child of the living God, to have a Father like no other.

And that we might have a confidence as we dwell in the truth of your Fatherhood, that we belong and that we can behave the way your Son behaved by the power of your grace. In Jesus' name. Amen.

It was a sunny day. It was a Friday, the 8th of April, 2011. I was working on the pool filter.

And I had missed four calls from my brother, which was odd. It was unique that he would call me only a few minutes apart four times. I thought, oh, what's going on?

So I called him back and he mentioned three words to me that changed my life. It upturned our whole lives. He said, Dad has died.

If you've experienced a phone call like that, you know it changes everything. It's the call that you don't want to receive. Dad has died from a massive heart attack, completely unexpected.

I was 41 years old, and I was and am so grateful that I had a wonderful father. I know here and online, not all of us can say that, but I know many of us can. My dad, to me, was the best.

He was a fantastic dad. It's said that fathers are given unearned admiration from their kids. Would you agree?

Same with mothers. They don't earn it because as soon as a child is born, they want, we want to give admiration to our father and to our mother. We want to receive that, that affection, and give it back.

Now, if the very mention of the word father causes you to feel or experience pain, that is unwelcomed. I am really sorry.

I'm sorry because for some of us, just the word brings about all sorts of feelings that we don't really want to have, unless we choose to have them.

But I don't know how we deal with the father heart of God without talking about fathers without going there.

And I think the very existence of the pain or the joy associated with our father does at least raise the strong likelihood that our fathers are pretty important in the relational systems of our humanity. Would you agree?

In our second study of spiritual formation, as Stuart has already said, I'd like to look at Paul's teaching to the Romans in chapter 8. If you haven't turned to chapter 8 of Romans in your Bible, you might like to do that.

This is a core passage to the father heart of God. And I think as we look at it, we'll see that belief in becoming is crucial to being a child of God, belonging and behaving. That's what we're going to look at.

Belief in becoming, belonging and behaving. The Apostle Paul is writing to a small church. You wouldn't think they're very significant.

The Church of Rome in the epicentre of the power centre of the world, Rome. But it's probably a small church, probably about 60 people. And he's writing what ends up being the most densely theological letter we have in our New Testaments.

He's building on the work of Jesus that he's been explaining throughout the letter of Romans. And now he's talking in this very important chapter, chapter eight, about the work of the Holy Spirit. So let me read again from verse 14.

Paul writes, For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you receive does not make you slaves so that you live in fear again. Rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship.

Those who are led by the Spirit are the children of God. John's Gospel says in Chapter 1, Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.

Children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision, or a husband's will, but born of God. Those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.

Those who believed in his name, were given the right to become children of God, believing and becoming. It's quite common for people to assume we're all children of God, wouldn't you say? It's very common.

If you are human, you tend to think, well, humanity gives me the right to be a child of God. We're all God's children. It's a phrase you'll hear.

That's not what the Bible teaches. The Bible says we have to become a child of God. The text says those who believe are given the right to become.

So I'm not making it up. It's what the Bible says.

And later in John 3.16, I was just quoting from John Chapter 1, John 3.16 is that relatively well-known passage, the verse that says, for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have

eternal life. For those who believe that Jesus died for them and rose again, this belief transfers them from death to life, and they become a child of God.

A little earlier in Chapter 3, John's Gospel, he said, very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again. We're talking about what needs to take place to get into this diagram that we've been looking at.

I think I've got it there. This is a picture of what is being transformed. But we're not even on that diagram unless we are a child of God.

And how do you become a child of God? Through belief. Because if you look at that, the heart, the will, the spirit, they're actually dead until we're a child of God.

This is what the Bible says in Ephesians 2, as for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air.

All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath.

Without belief in Christ and what belief produces regeneration, we are spiritually dead. It's what scripture teaches. Our heart is stony and we have no capacity for free will to obey God as we should.

If you look at the diagram again, our spirit, heart and will need to come alive. And this happens quite genuinely. It is mysterious and miraculous, the new birth, that our heart and spirit would come alive through belief in the gospel.

We become children of God. Paul wrote this, for those who, which is the passage we're looking at, for those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God.

The Spirit you received does not make you slave so that you live in fear again, rather the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. So are you born again? Are you born again today?

Is at the core of you, there a heart that's been made soft and renewed? Do you know that you know that you are alive at your core in your spirit, because the Spirit of God lives in you? Christianity is not coming to church on Sunday.

Amen. And Christianity is, interestingly, not believing that there is a God in heaven. The devil believes this as well.

Romans 10, 9 makes it clear. It says, if you declare with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and believe, that word believe, believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

To be saved is to be forgiven our sins, saved from the consequence of the wrath of God upon our sins, and to be saved is to be adopted as a child of God. The Spirit seals us, Scripture says, and says, you are adopted as a child of God.

Ephesians 1, 13 says, you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation.

When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession to the praise of his glory.

Sealed, when we are adopted, when we are adopted, I can only imagine the joy to be adoptive parents, and probably only adoptive parents could know what it's like to expect to adopt a child and then all of a sudden, they are given to you into your

care. They're your child. You're their father, their mother. They are your daughter.

They are your son. This is the idea of the Holy Spirit sealing our hearts, saying, you are now adopted.

So I want to do something a little bit odd and ask you, have you expressed belief that Jesus Christ died for your sins and rose again, such that you have received His Spirit and you are born again? Let me look online as well.

Often we will wait until the end of a sermon or at some special, I don't know, outreach gathering, Billy Graham Crusade. The piano is playing. There's an opportunity.

The lights go down. There's an opportunity to come forward. Or not, or not, or there can just be an opportunity.

I want to pray for you. If you want to express your belief that Jesus Christ is the King of the Universe and He died for your sins, and you want to know your Heavenly Father, you want to become a child of God.

If you have never expressed that, let me lead you in a prayer. Can we pray together right now online and here together? If this is you, I pray that you would pray with me, that you would admit that you are a sinner.

You would pray a prayer something like, Dear God, I know I have failed you. I know how I have sinned, and I'm sorry. I believe that Jesus, you died for my sin.

And I believe you rose again from the grave. Would you save me? I commit to live under your lordship, all the days of my life.

Amen. If you have prayed that prayer, it's not about how you feel, it's about what you believe, amen. Because there's nothing you can do to earn your salvation, it's all been done.

And today we're talking about spiritual formation, we've talked a lot about effort, but none of that effort will save you. It just helps you become who you've already been made by the grace of God, amen. That's the gospel.

It's good news. And if you've prayed that prayer, and by grace we believe what the Bible says, that you have become a child of God, and you will become more and more aware, as the Spirit testifies to your heart, that that's the case.

I hope you could tell someone, tell me, tell somebody, tell someone online, make it mention in the chat online, if that's you. After we believe and become a child, a child of God with a heavenly father, we need to know that we belong.

We need to know that we belong. The scripture says, and by him we cry, Abba, father. The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children.

I grew up with a mate called Ian, and Ian was adopted. And I think it's fair to say that even still later in his life, but certainly earlier on, he struggled as a person that was adopted.

He struggled to know that he knew, that he knew that he belonged. It was just hard. It is actually quite common for a person who's been adopted into a family, just to really know, I know I belong.

And I think it's so wonderful. God the Father knows that every human being has an acute sense of just how unholy they are. And so by faith, we come to know God as Father.

But there's this hunch, this suspicion that I don't belong. I don't belong. Like I look in the mirror and I know what I've done and what I think, and I know I'm fallen.

And I know he has forgiven me and Christ has died for my sin. And I've been told that I'm a child of God. But you know what?

The family, God's family, it's a holy family, right? And I'm not so holy. So but God knows that.

Hallelujah. God knows that we don't know. We don't know that we belong.

We struggle to know that we belong. So he's designed it that he would put his very spirit inside of us and his spirit would whisper to our spirit, you are a child of God. Deeper than any other voice could ever speak.

At the core of our being, our heart, spirit, will, you are a child of God. Any parents do that with your kids when they were in the womb? I used to do that.

We were four kids. And I used to love, actually, getting down low to that child in Leanne's womb, especially as they got bigger.

And I would have my voice right up close to them, and I would talk to them, and let the timbre of my voice be known to them, and the resonance and the vibration of my voice, and I would tell them how much the father in heaven loved them, and how much

their father and mum loved them. Anyone else do that? A few of us. And it's one of my favourite things to do on earth, to do that with my brand new six month old granddaughter, Lucy.

I just love holding her up high next to my face, and I talk to her very quietly, and I just tell her how amazing she is, and how much her parents love her, and how much she belongs, and how much we love her, and how much God loves her, and she is

loved. She is known and loved, because I am absolutely convinced human beings need that. We need to know that God loves us and that our parents loved us and love us.

When I was a teenager, I was at French's Forest Baptist, just late, probably just turned 20, and a young woman that I knew came up to me one night after one of the Sunday night services, and said, this is my boyfriend, and I got to find out some of

the story. He was 10 years older than her, and had lived what you might call a worldly life. He was a long way away from Christianity, and she said, he wants to become a Christian. Can you lead him in a prayer of salvation?

So we went out in the annex next door to the church auditorium, and I led him in a prayer. And if you've ever led someone in a prayer of salvation, you sort of go, did anything happen? It doesn't feel like this.

Normally not angels singing. Sometimes you might have had that. I never get the angels singing, the choir, but if you do it out of obedience like I just did before, it's like, you know what?

The Bible says that it's all grace and we confess our need for God and repent and believe. And we're a child of God. It's like, do you feel anything different?

No, no, no. And you know what? I'm actually thinking to myself, I don't know how well this is gonna go.

He's pretty worldly, you know. I don't know if he can really change this guy. I mean, I'm hearing some of his story.

And anyway, the next week, he comes up to me and he says, John, I'm a Christian. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, I know. I know we prayed last week.

He says, no, no, no, I mean, I'm a Christian. I was jogging on the beach yesterday, on the Saturday, and God spoke to my heart and said, you're a Christian. And he said, I know that I know I'm a Christian.

I'm a child of the living God. And that's how it works. Praise God.

That's the work of the Spirit to more deeply than anyone else could, to let us know we belong. We have a Father who loves us. It's what Ruth just mentioned.

1 John says, see what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God, and that is who we are. This is amazing news.

Through the grace of Jesus, when we repent and believe, we are made, we become children of God, and God wants us to know that we belong, because it's the most natural thing in the world to not feel like you belong.

And can you see how this is so key to spiritual formation in those circles? Because we are not putting effort in to become like Christ to earn his favour. Yes?

Amen? That's a false understanding. He already loves us, and wants us with a father's heart to become like Jesus, because there's no better way to live than becoming like Jesus.

But we're not earning his favour, and the Spirit we're told teaches us to cry, Abba, Father. Abba, Father. You might know it's, Abba is a guttural expression.

It's the utterance of a small, small child, not an older child. Abba means dada or papa or daddy. The most important thing about Abba is that it contains wonder.

It's like horsey. Oh, look, horsey. Abba.

You can't say Abba for a Jewish person. You can't say Abba without wonder. You can't say, oh, Abba, whatever.

It doesn't work. It's got to be with joy and expectation, which is pretty cool because Paul is talking about how we, or John is talking about how we can interact with God. Paul.

Paul is talking about it. I wonder if you, because of your shaping, Ruth mentioned that she's had a filter, as we all do, our family of origin. The way that our dad treated us will give us this filter.

And so some of us think, I don't need it farther in here. I don't need to know that I belong. Because you've got a tough outer exterior that you've learned to put on, haven't you?

To protect your heart. I didn't get much love from my dad. Maybe he was never there.

So, I don't need the love of a father. But you know what's interesting? Even Jesus needed the affirmation of his father.

One of the most profound interactions you'll ever see between father and son is Luke 3. When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. He's starting ministry.

And as he was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven. It said, You are my son, whom I love.

With you I am well pleased. Jesus required his father to say, This is my son. I love you.

I'm proud of you. And you are good at. You should listen to him.

I love you, son. I'm proud of you. And you are good at.

That's a tip for parenting if you didn't get it. If you didn't get it. As we consider spiritual formation, we must know that we have become a child of God and that we belong in God's family, becoming belonging.

And it's out of this rock solid identity, because if you don't have a rock solid identity, you'll chase that identity from all sorts of places that are going to make you vulnerable. Right? This is not vulnerable.

And out of this place of knowing God as Father, that we belong, we then renew our minds in the truth, and experience and regulate our emotions, and guide our bodies, and experience community.

Believe and become, belong, and learn the way of the Master. Behave. Behave as that child.

Verse 17, Paul writes, If we are children, it's not just to stay as little bubbers. If we are children, we're going to grow up. Then we are heirs, heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ.

If indeed we share in his suffering in order that we may also share in his glory. John says in chapter 5 that Jesus mentions, Very truly I tell you, the son can do nothing by himself.

He can do only what he sees his father doing, because whatever the father does, the son also does. For the father loves the son and shows him all he does. It's a pretty amazing verse, isn't it?

What that says is the son is always about the father's business. Amen? The son is always about the father's business.

As much as it is so helpful for us and we are invited to pray to God as dad, daddy, Abba, yeah, I'm your child. I need to know that you're holding me in your arms. It's both that and grown up, isn't it?

So, grown up kingdom members, grown up gifted parts of the body of Christ about the father's business.

What would it look like for us to develop in our spiritual formation with God as father so that we are doing the works that Jesus would do as grownups for the kingdom?

I don't think you can go past the Lord's Prayer as one of the ways in which Jesus teaches his disciples, this is the way your brain should be thinking.

This is how you should be living, because these are the things you're going to ask God about and for, and this is going to describe what kingdom living is going to be like for you.

So, very quickly, I want to finish off our time in this passage by looking at the Lord's Prayer and how it is indicative of how we should behave as the father's kids, as being about the father's business.

Jesus says in Matthew 6, When you pray, don't do it like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. This is Matthew 6. Truly, I tell you, they have received their reward in full.

But when you pray, go into your room, close the door, and he knows your relationship with Father in heaven is super important.

So when you're praying, pray to your father who is unseen, then your father, because you have a father in heaven, because by belief you have become a child of God, then your father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.

This then is how you should pray. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Being about the father's business is about honouring the father's character, isn't it?

His name's renown is affected by my taking of his name's renown to all the world. I uphold his character by living the Jesus way. I honour him because I want his name to be hallowed.

His character matters, and that's affecting what I do in the rhythms of my daily life. The father's character, is he being honoured? The family business, the kingdom, the king of the kingdom, the father.

Is he being honoured by the way I live? Jesus says, pray this way. Father, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Being a grown up child, a co-heir with Christ, living for the family business, the kingdom of God, means we live for the father's kingdom. We seek it first. We live for his glory, his name's renown in all the world.

We live for the gospel of the father's son to be proclaimed. We live for the justice and goodness and love of the father to express through the kingdom come, amen? Which we as co-heirs have the keys to.

The keys of the kingdom. It's what we're about. The father's character, the father's kingdom.

We know about the father's provision, where is children? And we receive it gratefully and we share it with others. We know every good gift comes from our father who is in heaven.

As kids of the king, sons and daughters of the Most High God, we tell of the father's forgiveness, don't we? How could we not? We've been forgiven.

Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. Jesus says you should be about the father's forgiveness, sharing of it and giving it to others. Giving your forgiveness.

We're about the father's guidance. Jesus says, pray this way, Father, lead us not into temptation. That's what we'll expect as being about the father's business.

We expect the father's protection, but deliver us from the evil one. Can you see how wonderful this prayer is? For behaving like Christians.

We're about the father's character, the father's kingdom, the father's provision, the father's forgiveness, the father's guidance, and the father's protection. Believe and become. Belong.

Behave. I've mentioned before, my dad was an opera singer. He was 40 years with the Australian Opera.

He's a principal singer. In his world, which is our world, he was famous, and he had an international career and sung with all sorts of people.

I just knew him as dad, obviously, but it was fun to go to the opera house, and in the 70s and 80s, there was a bit more access to parts of the opera house than there is now.

But I used to love going to a dress rehearsal as a sort of primary schooler, early high school, and you come down those long stairs out of the opera theater, and then you'd come do a quick turn into the stage behind the stage area.

And there's a security table there, and at the desk, you say your name. Oh, Don Shanks, I've got your names here.

So we go in, you go up the stairs, and you come to the green room, and at the back of the green room, there's this lovely view of the harbour.

And then you turn right, and you go down this long corridor, and as a kid, I always felt like I was in a spaceship, because it's all these corridors, and all these magnificent, extraordinary costumes either side.

There's people everywhere walking around with the costumes on that you've just seen in the show, and you finally come to the very end, and his dad's one of the principal singers, and then you see Donald Shanks. And I don't hesitate.

I go up and knock on dad's door, and come in, and he's half dressed. He's got a dresser helping him get his costume off, and he's taking his makeup off. And we're like, oh, that was cool, dad, that was so good, oh, thanks, thanks.

And then one of the stars, the international stars, would come and open the door and say, hey, Don, well done. He'd say, oh, this is my son, Jonathan, and my brother, my other son, Murray. You know where I'm going with this?

In fact, I meant to say, we used to be able to, you can't now with OH&S, but we used to go up on stage and walk around the backstage, and all that was so great. Where I'm heading with this is, as Christians, we have an all access pass to the Father.

Amen. Some of you guys have had experiences just like that with your dads or your mums, where someone special to you just gives you access to places that no one else is allowed in.

Like the old story of the son that runs into the CEO of the biggest company in the world and just bursts in and says, hey dad, because you've got access. It's an awesome truth that when we believe, we become children of the most high God. Isn't it?

Isn't that amazing? It's out of that safe place that we form spiritually. Spiritual formation is not to strive that maybe the father might accept me.

No, he already does. He loves us in Christ. And we know we have received his love when we believe, Jesus died for my sin and rose again.

The Holy Spirit comes inside me and whispers to my heart, says, You are a child of God. Now live as though you are. We're in the family business, NorthernLife, and we've been given the keys of the kingdom.

We've been given the power of the name of Jesus to do the works that he would do if he was still here. Isn't that amazing? We're about the father's business.

So in very technical, formal terms, can I just encourage you get amongst it? Get amongst it.

Be spiritually formed into the likeness of the son, our Lord Jesus, by the grace of God, and fail your heart out, and know you've got a father in heaven who is the best coach, the best dad you could ever imagine, who's got enough grace for our

failures. What matters is that we believe, we receive the truth that we belong, and we start to behave and become who we are called to be in Christ. Lord God, our Father in heaven, thank you for making a way for us to be adopted as your children.

Giving us 24-7 access to your grace. Lord, I pray for those of us who are struggling right now with pain in their heart, and that there's genuine suffering, when even the thought of father.

Lord, all we can say is remember that you sent Jesus, and Jesus, you know all about suffering. You know all about the unfairness of this life.

And it's out of that real, authentic, and vulnerable place that you have promised to guide us with a yoke around our neck and show us the easy way.

We are so grateful for the journey that we're on, and I pray, Lord, even now, for some of us who are still questioning whether they can believe or not, that you would lead them to faith in Jesus' name. Amen.

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