Like Father Like Son

Have you met my father?

I don’t know if any of you here have ever met my father. He is the kind of guy though that once you have met him you would not forget him. He is an incredible guy actually. He is from the old school.- he is one of those dads that provided and still provides for me and brothers and sisters. . He says that sometimes I remind him so much of him in looks and in mannerisms. I don’t think so but I think that we all go through that. Try so hard not to be like our folks, but in the end turn out just like them in some ways.

I hope that you meet my dad one morning. He comes to all the services quite regularly. In fact some have said that he is part of the furniture here. So if you have not bumped into him here yet, I suggest you come to the front after the service and meet him here at the rail. He is here waiting for you, because he is your father too. Each one of us my brothers and sisters, act like our heavenly father on occasion, we do things just like he does them, maybe not as well but almost exactly as he does them. He is our father so it is only natural that we have some of his traits and habits.

Illustration

How clearly do we identify that we are Gods children and as such carry Him with us just as we carry our physical parents?

A man boarded a plan one morning and sat down next to a gent on his way to Durban on business. They exchanged names and started some idle chit chat. The man turned to the gent and said “Do you know who I am?”

“No” said the Gent “I am afraid I don’t.”

“Surely you know my father?”

“Sorry said the gent I don’t know him either. Who are you?”

“Well” said the man – “My name is Joe and you wouldn’t know me But I am one of God’s Sons and brother of Jesus Christ.”

So real was this mans belief – that he knew his dad was God the Father and his Brother was Jesus Christ.

Explanatory Link

All this talk about fathers and brothers and sisters and family. Well the sermon this morning is entitled “like father like son”. I mean that completely in the non sexist way that could very well be like father like daughter. But whatever way you look at it, one thing is for sure. We all have some of our biological parent’s traits mannerisms looks and even habits.

Do we believe this though about our heavenly father. In our first reading we learn why we can be assure of the fact that we are like God. We were made in his image. In fact that is one of our greatest purposes in life. To live in Gods image is one of the primary reasons God created us (SERMON NOTE 1). – What a privilege!

Christ as an Example

So strong is Gods desire that we be like him that he sent the best possible example of himself to earth, to show us exactly what Gods image was all about.

Yes we can quickly come to the conclusion that if God wants us to be like him, we need to be like Christ. We need to be Christlike. Col 1:15 says to us that if we want to see the purpose of everything he created we need to look at Christ. (SERMON NOTE 2)

Character Building

But that’s going to be tough don’t you think. To be Christlike? I mean Christ was perfect????

God did not us on the earth to live lives of comfort and luxury; he put us here to ensure that our characters are built and we improve as people and be ready for service in heaven. He wants us to move from as far away from being like Christ to as close as we can be to being like Christ. You see it’s about our characters. He moulds our character to image his own. That is our purpose -that is why we were made!

See God is just like us dads. “That will teach him, that’ll make a man out of him. That will teach him some character.” Only thing is God wants us to improve, he wants something better for us, he wants us to become Christlike. He wants us to improve because of his enormous love that he has for us.

Improve Example

Kevin my son was playing out in his sand pit the other day. I was playing with him and decided to go in and get some ice cream. When I returned, he had a mouthful of sand. Where I intended to put a treat, he had put dirt.