My Name Is .... God As Father (Ab, Abba, Pater) Series

Scripture: Matthew 6:9-13; Luke 15:11-31

Series – Names of God

Theme: God as Father – Ab, Abba and Pater

INTRO:

Grace and peace from God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

I want to talk to you today about one of the names God is called that many believe He loves the most. It’s the one that Jesus used on several occasions – Abba – Pater - God the Father.

That word Father can bring up a great many emotions and memories. To some people it brings a smile to their face and to others it can bring quite a bit of discomfort.

I thank God that I had a good father. If you had met him, you would say that he was the typical American father of the 1950’s and 60’s. He was a hard worker, a disciplinarian, a great provider and a stabilizing influence in our family. He wasn’t always a Teddy Bear father or one that was big on sharing his emotions, but I knew I could always count on him being there for our family.

One of the things that Jesus wanted to do while He was teaching and preaching was to talk about His Father – God the Father (Jehovah – Yahweh).

However, every time Jesus talked about God being His Father it caused quite a stir. The mere thought about a human talking about the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY being their father brought a measure of shock and awe.

The Pharisees and the scribes were deeply offended at such an idea. They couldn’t conceive of a human being having the audacity of calling the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY, the God of Israel as their own personal father.

Even God’s name – the one that He gave Moses and the Children of Israel, the name we say as Yahweh or Jehovah was rarely used. In fact, over time the writers purposely left out the vowel points in writing God’s name – YHWH out of respect with the idea that God’s name was so holy it should not be written nor be spoken out loud.

Most of the time when someone was referring to Yahweh they used the term THE NAME or Adonai (the LORD).

One of the things that Jesus sought to do was to correct some of this misguided thinking.

In our passage this morning, Jesus shares with us this simple story of a father to help us understand

+How we as human beings are to act and live with one another.

+How we are to see our Heavenly Father.

Jesus used parables and stories to help his listeners and followers better understand some foundational truths. One of those truths was how they were to see His Heavenly Father, Our Heavenly Father.

The story is rather a simple one.

+A man had two sons

+The youngest son decided that he wanted his inheritance. He was tired of waiting for his father to die, so he approached his dad and asks for his inheritance upfront.

+The father agreed to the idea.

+The son took his inheritance or the legal amount he could take considering his father was still alive and set off to make his own life.

+At first it seemed like everything went well. They young man flushed with cash makes a lot of new friends and they all have quite a time living the party life.

+But then his money dries up and his friends run away.

+He has no marketable skills so he forced to hire himself out to anyone who would employ him which happens to be a pig farmer who had to be amused at hiring a Jew to take care of pigs. Nothing was more awful for a Jew to do than to take care of pigs.

+After a while the young man comes to his senses and decides he needs to leave the pig farm, travel back home and throw himself at his father’s feet. He knows that he has destroyed any chance of ever being the man’s son. After all, wanting your father to die and demanding your inheritance beforehand is not a good way of promoting a good relationship with your father.

+He makes up his mind that he will become one of the hired hands and if need be, accept the position of being a servant. At least he will have some clothes to wear and something good to eat. And so, he sets out to walk back to his home, weary, tattered and torn.

I am sure as Jesus was telling this story that his listeners were waiting for the father to either reject the son (for that was the custom of the day) or to accept the young man back as a slave but never speak to him or have any personal dealings with him.