ROMANS 5:1-5 “hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us”.
The Love of God, the Love of your Father is an experience of the heart not about an intellectual understanding or knowledge of the head.
Mike Bickle relates this story about life on a game reserve in Africa: After a while the rangers began to discover animals that had been brutally killed and butchered but the meat hadn’t been eaten and the hides hadn’t been taken.
After setting some traps and watches they soon discovered the problem.
When the reserve was being set up they imported a lot of animals from elsewhere and among these animals were a handful of immature bull elephants and it was these who had been going on a rampage.
They puzzled over it for a short while before hitting on a solution which stopped the carnage (they imported some mature bull elephants).
Hundreds of young men in our city run wild rampaging because they have no idea how to behave, how to relate to other people; others have little value in their eyes because no one has given them a perspective on life – everything is imbalanced and these boys spend life trying to prove to themselves that they are men without really knowing what a man is.
In an article in the Herald newspaper one contributor wrote about the levels of delinquency in Glasgow. He considered one of the factors which contributed to this was the absence of older male role models for young men.
He realised for many years there has been a father gap in our society but it was somewhat compensated for by the number of apprenticeships where young men were trained by older, mature tradesmen who taught them, perhaps imperfectly, how to be a man – it no longer happens.
Fathers are missing and people think it is a modern problem BUT for centuries Fathers have been absent – they have ignored their children, they have been cruel to them, they have abused them, they have been emotionless with them, they have walked out or died young and children have missed what is probably the most significant human relationship you can ever have.
It is from your Father you get your sense of significance and importance; it is him who should be the one filling you with confidence, providing you with security and affirming you in being the person you were created to be.
But for too many it is not so – the normal people are now those who have no father or have had no relationship with the one who sired them.
Those with good father experiences and good father relationships are the weird ones in today’s society.
I have talked a lot about God as our Father and now I want to take us through a few weeks of looking in more detail about the Father Heart of God.
God wants to Father you – not from a distance but up close and personal; in relationship. That may be hard for many of us but it is not impossible. God’s heart for you is the heart of a true Father; he isn’t angry with you because God so LOVED the world that he sent his son. Jesus is an expression of Father’s love for you – Jesus didn’t come into the world to condemn but to save.
Jesus spoke of God as Father; in fact it was the one name Jesus consistently called God throughout the Gospels and, to me, this makes the Father Heart of God a major issue we ignore at our peril.
This isn’t a wee side issue or a novelty thing for a small group of Charismatics who are looking for the next new thing – this is a move of God which really began in the 1970s with people like Jack Winter and has been carried by the Spirit of God through people such as Ed Piorek, James Jordan, The Arnotts, Jack Frost, and so many others.
We have the opportunity to be in at the start of a new move of God as it begins to gather momentum and flow through God’s church.
It is a time for you to choose whether you will embrace this move of God’s Spirit or be indifferent – get on fire or remain cold and passionless.
You cannot claim God as Father and remain unmoved or emotionless because God’s love is warm toward you. Those who call God Father yet cannot express his love have never experienced that love for themselves – God desires you to experience his love and thus “know” he loves you.
There have been a number of “moves” of God throughout the centuries which have had an incredible impact upon the church and society.
Obviously Pentecost was a massive move of God when 120 people became church and changed whole cities and nations.
There was the Moravian mission movement which rediscovered the great commission to “GO” and sent people all over the world, even to the U.K.
Some of them sold themselves into slavery so that they could witness to the slaves on plantations in West Indies and America – that’s how serious they were about embracing the move of God.
The Reformation restored the scriptural foundation of salvation by Faith in Christ without the religious trappings.
A great move of God which cost some their lives, reputations and their living.
The Pentecostal experience was recovered in 1906 Los Angeles in Azusa St as people sought God in prayer day and night.
It cost many of these people their reputations too.
The Charismatic movement of the 1960s and 1970s was a restoration of the supernatural to the church and from that has flowed the restoration of Prophetic and Apostolic ministry to the church.
People have opposed it, ridiculed, set up web sites, written books against it – it didn’t come without cost.
The next move of God is the restoration of God’s Father Heart to his children before the Bride is ready for Jesus’ return.
Jesus is coming back for the Bride his Father has chosen for him just as Abraham sought a wife for his son.
Like all of the previous moves of God the restoration or rediscovery of God’s Father Heart is ignored or even resisted and ridiculed by many sections of the church; through ignorance and fear; pride and prejudice or a religious spirit.
But the danger of ignoring what Holy Spirit is restoring to the church is that we end up like some of the churches in Wales who ignored and made fun of the revival in 1904-06. They died because they rejected what God was doing by calling it the work of fanatics or the work of the devil while people travelled from France, America etc to see what God was doing.
Travelling the world to see what God is doing in a location isn’t new; it’s not a modern phenomenon associated with Toronto or Smithton or anywhere else.
What I am proposing to you guys as a church is that we do not fall into that trap of ridicule, resistance or even just indifference BUT that we pursue God for the experience of the Father’s love.
Indifference is probably the worst of these things because we think we are in a good place and don’t need to pursue anything else.
I want to tell you church that this is the next big move of God and I am encouraging you to embrace and pursue it.
Don’t make excuses about why you cannot – don’t make excuses why it is too hard or asking too much of you or too demanding.
I really believe God wants this little church in the wilderness of Anniesland and intends to use it for his purposes and that we will see a great move of Holy Spirit in this place. I don’t know God’s timescale but I do believe that we are destined for great things and we need to press in to God, not lose heart and continue to pursue him: seeking first the kingdom of God and then seeing all these things added to us.
Jesus said that the kingdom is advancing forcefully and forceful people take hold of it; that means if you just sit back and make excuses it will pass you by and you will just end up cold, maybe embittered and definitely religious.
Please do not let this move of God pass you by.
I do not want us to be a church that dies because we ignored what God is doing: Jesus warned the seven churches in Revelation to “hear what the Spirit is saying to the church”.
Listen to what Holy Spirit is saying to the church about a restoration of the understanding of God’s Fathering and, more crucially, the experience of the Father’s love in your life.
Let’s get on board with what God is doing. This is crucial to the preparation of the Bride but it is also crucial to the evangelisation of the world.
When people see that we are living the love we talk about coupled with the demonstration of love then the world will be transformed and many more will embrace the Father who has always loved them.
160 times through the four Gospels, Jesus calls God your Father, your Father in heaven, my Father, the Father.
Jesus himself tells us that He is the way to the Father; Jesus’ intention was always to bring us into knowledge and experience of Father’s love BUT the church has ignored this aspect of Jesus’ ministry preferring to be slaves and servants in the house of God rather than children in a Father’s embrace.
God is not looking for servants but children.
The writer of Hebrews tells us that Moses was a servant in the house of God but Jesus was a son over the house.
And that is what God calls you and me: “sons / daughters” not servants or slaves. Remember John wrote that people who embrace Jesus have been given the right to be called God’s children; Paul wrote about our adoption as God’s sons and told us that Holy Spirit sheds God’s love in our hearts (Rom.5:5).
Over the next few weeks we are going to look at what the bible says about God’s Fatherhood and how we can experience it.
We will look at what the Father is like, how he responds to people and what he has done for people.
We will look at what Jesus has to say about the Father and his relationship with Father.
What Jesus has with Father is what is promised to you and me too because we are Jesus’ brothers and sisters, sons and daughters of God.
BUT we need the revelation of it.
This isn’t going to be made real to you because you memorise the teaching or because you read the books and watch the DVDs – this is a revelation directly from God – the teaching over the next while will help to point you in the right direction.
I would encourage you to look at the scriptures and see for yourself what they say about Father, about your sonship; listen to the CDs, read the books and watch the DVDs.
Start seeking God for the revelation of his love, of his Fatherhood for you.
Because if you never read another page of the Bible, if you never witness to anyone about your faith, if you never say another prayer or go to another church service you cannot stop Father from loving you, you cannot stop his heart beating to the tune of your name and you cannot change the fact that he sent his son to die for you because he loves you so much and so wanted you to be intimate with him.
You might not hear him speak to you – you may not experience his love because you are avoiding intimacy and relationship with him.
That’s what the whole Father Heart thing is about – you and God getting close and personal – learn to open your heart to him because he is not like men who hurt you, abuse you and abandon or reject you.
Father isn’t like men who ridicule you, ignore you or are cold and indifferent towards you.
Father is one who always has time for you, always wants to spend that time with you; he only ever has good things, positive things to say to you and about you – he will not laugh at you, name call you or speak ill of you and embarrass you in front of your friends.
You are not good enough, you will never be good enough – so you need to stop trying to be good enough because you will never manage it.
BUT Father still loves you and Father is always there for you, to listen to your pain and to heal your heart – not because you are good enough but because he is Father.
He will never let you down and he will always lift you up because you are his child.
