God Is A Father - A Father's Day Sermon

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NORTH PINE BAPTIST CHURCH

Sunday 7th September 2025 – Father’s Day

Luke 15:11-32

“God Is A Father”

Here we are on another Father’s Day.

Dad’s, on this day do you feel like you have an important calling?

Do you feel important?

Because Father’s Day is a day of mixed emotions isn’t it.

On one side we celebrate all that is good about fathers.

The ones who are great with kids.

The hard-working and great providers.

The ones who can mow lawns and clean toilets.

The number one Dads in their own family.

Then there is another “father” reality.

The absent father reality

… literally absent because they don’t live with the family.

… or absent because they are at work all the time.

… or absent because, even when they are home, they are un-engaged.

The abusive father reality

... might even be worse than the father who is absent.

… living with a father that, no matter what you do, you can never seem to win.

There is the father reality of the very loved father who is no longer with us.

… the father who passed away.

… the father who left but really didn’t want to.

There is also the father reality of men wanting to be fathers but can’t

… it might be because they are still single.

… or they are unable to have children.

… or they are not allowed to see their children

Father’s Day is a mixed bag of emotions. And in the middle of these emotions is the reality that there are a whole heap of fathers here today who sit heavy with the weight of fatherhood.

We wake up knowing what we need to do … we go to bed knowing we have missed the mark.

As fathers we know we have strength to protect our families … yet even the very best of our strength has not been enough to protect our family.

As fathers we get the #1 Dad cups from our children … yet we feel less than #1

Sometimes it is hard to believe as a father that we are important.

So today I want to remind us of the biblical importance of being called a father.

But this isn’t just a sermon for fathers.

To the married men here … you’re seeking to understand what is foundational to being a godly father.

To the single men who want to be fathers … you’re listening to learn what the Bible tells you about the sort of man you should seek to be.

To the married women here … you’re wanting to learn ways to encourage your husband in his calling as a father.

To the single women who are looking for a future husband and father … you’re looking for the biblical characteristics of the man you should be looking for.

There is also a group here who I would call “spiritual fathers”. You may have children of your own, or not. You may be married, or you may be single. A “spiritual father” is someone who speaks into the life a younger person in a godly father-like manner. This sermon is also just as much for you.

So, as we focus on the biblical importance of fathers there is something for all of us this morning.

So, fathers, how important are you?

• There are fathers who, when their children come with an A on their report card, will say, “why didn’t you get an A plus.”

• There is the father who is looking for something, and blaming everyone that they have taken it, only to find it was in the right place the whole time. But then he never says sorry to anyone.

• There are the fathers who – when they are out in public are so nice and charming. But who are distant and demanding and emotionally destructive.

I can give you a hundred stories. Plenty that are much worse than these. People who have shared about the way they were treated by their father. Then those same people at some point are confronted by the Bible. And in the Bible they read about God who is a heavenly Father.

And the testimony of these people as they talk about their own father is, “I struggled with that”.

I struggled with the idea that God is a heavenly Father because of what my own father did to me.

Some people overcome that struggle.

And some don’t.

There are people I know who want nothing to do with faith, and the Bible and Jesus because their experience from their own father is so wounding they have come to the conclusion that … “because God is a Father … I want nothing to do with Him”.