THE REVELATION OF A REAL FATHER
DYING EMPTY
November 15, 2014FROM SLAVES TO SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF GOD
December 4, 2014Series: The Father Heart of God.
Sunday Message
Every one of us has a certain picture of a Father in their minds, it is usually based on our experience at home, or the family we lived in on a picture given by our learning. Today we are going to look at good picture of a Father, the kind of Fathers most of us have experienced and the Father that Jesus revealed to us.
1. HOW DOES A TRUE FATHER LOOK LIKE?
A. He loves God and he encourages me to love God too.
B. He is my true friend, he is my hero and has real feelings for his kids.
C. He is present physically; he loves to talk to me, to hug me and to hang out with me.
D. I respect him but I do not fear him.
E. He is brave when I am scared.
F. He loves or loved my mother, honored her and made her the queen of our home.
G. He is the kind of man that his daughters would wish their husbands to be like or the kind of husband that boys would like to be like.
H. He is willing to say no to me and strong enough to discipline me.
I. He provides for our home. He makes sure our home is supplied for.
J. He is courageous enough to tell you about which boys or girls to befriend or not to.
K. He builds my confidence.
L. He is a teacher, a coach, and gives counsel whenever I need it.
M. He teaches me how to respect people and especially how real men treat women.
N. He teaches me how to work, how to save and how real life looks like.
2. WHAT KIND OF FATHER DID YOU HAVE?
Jesus said: Even the best dads are imperfect, only God the Father is perfect.
Luke 11:11
11 “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 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 the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”
Matthew 5:48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
3. THE KIND OF FATHERS WE USUALLY HAVE:
1. THE ABSENT FATHER (not there, he died, lives away from home, distant he is not there for the kids. Away at work.)
2. The apatheticfather. ( without emotion, disconnected, not intimate at all)
3. The AbusiveFather. (verbally, physically, emotionally, sexually) He torchers your mind.
4. The abdicatingFather. (this is father who gave up his responsibilities, he does not provide for the home, does not pay school fees, he let mama takes care of life.)
5. The polygamousFather. (when he got another wife, he abandoned his first family or has too much on his hands to spend enough time with you, or there is competition between the two homes.)
6. The authoritarian Father. ( He is an African chief, his a dictator, everyone in the home fears him, he can be violent, he treats a home like a barracks)
7. The achievement driven Father. (he is driven and he drives his kids. You are only loved if you are successful, you have to perform to please him, he will push you to be like him or some body else.)
8. The addictedFather. (he is an alcoholic, drug addict, into witchcraft. He is so bound he cannot take care of his responsibilities.
When we have such a father, it affects the way we relate with other people, it affects the way we treat our kids when we start our own families, it affects our jobs, but above all it affects the picture we have of God who is our heavenly father.
4. THE CHALLENGE OF WRONG PICTURE OF A FATHER
When we have negative or poor background of a father. You do not have a great reference point from which to base your value system. There is therefore a vacuum, an emptiness and the many times leads to being a slave or captive of our past.
HEART CONDITION
1. SEPARATION
Detached, disconnected, fear.
2. SHAME.
RESULT
BECAME A SLAVE INSTEAD OF A SON OR DAUGHTER OF GOD.
Many people react when they experience such situations.
1. Social
Social withdraw.
Trying to prove yourself through competition. Driven to achieve.
Others become irresponsible.
2. Sexual
Trying to fill the missing gap with sexual emotional fixes.
Such people tend to be misused by molesters, some involve themselves in prostitution, some boys end wondering whether they are men or women and there is a tendency to be drawn in homosexual relationships.
Many others are hooked on to pornography.
3. Spiritual
Some people instead hate God, and blame him for causing all the hurt feelings and the bad experiences they re going through.
Others get into cultic bondages, because cults usually have strong controlling leaders and these usually provide temporary security.
5. JESUS REVEALS TRUE FATHERHOOD.
Our parents may have caused all the pain we are experiencing now, but the road to our healing begins with realizing that they may also have been victims of a fatherless family, they are giving what they also got. DO NOT BLAME THEM, FORGIVE THEM.
John 10:30 New International Version (NIV)
30 I and the Father are one.”
John 13:3
Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God;
Jesus the greatest Expression of the Father: John 14: 8-10
8 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.” 9 Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.
Psalms 27:10.
10 Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me.
a. GOD is the perfect Father, at salvation we allow Him to become our new Father. John 1:12-1312 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
b. Adoption: The Spirit of God miraculously provides an exchange.
c. Adoption is a family idea, conceived in terms of love, and viewing God as father. In adoption, God takes us into His family and fellowship, and establishes us as His children and heirs.
“Eph. 1: 4-5 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—
BEFORE YOU WERE BORN GOD DECIDED YOU WILL BE ADOPTED
HE FORE WHAT YOU WILL GO THROUGH AND MADE A PLAN.
· Re-establishes us into a family.
· Restores Fellowship that we missed from our biological loved ones.
· He restores the rights of being a child.
· He gives us the right of being heirs.
· It is a free work of God which we appropriate by accepting him.
OUR ADOPTION RESTORES INTIMACY.
ROMANS 8: 15-17 15 For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” 16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. 17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.
ABBA: INTIMATE, daddy God. Closeness, someone in who bosom I can curl and feel loved.
d. We make a conscious decision to continually accept who are we are in Christ and not what we were before Christ.
Ø WE HAVE THE SPIRITUAL POWER TO BREAK FROM THE PAST.
Ø WITH OUR NEW RELATIONSHIP WE NOW HAVE THE POWER TO BECOME SONS AND DAUGHTERS BOTH IN REALITY AND IN OUR MIND.
Ø WE CAN BREAK FREE.
