Father’s Day 2023
Father’s Day and we all have different experiences of Fatherhood, the truth is that we will all have different experiences even as siblings of the same Father. One of my sons has a thing with me that when we get together, we will go for a walk and a chat where the other one and I on catching up take turns at shouting the other out for a Butter Chicken and we talk over the meal. One will call me a couple of times a week at least and the other once a month. For the boys it is good that we have “our thing’ and I am guessing with Janaki there will be some new tradition when we have both grown a bit older and she has left home. For the boys of course, there are things when they were younger that we would do together, it was my experience as a single parent that we spent a lot of time together while we were growing up, mostly enjoyable times, a few times when the boys would get up to a bit of mischief and I had be stern or grumpy Dad. There were a few funny things to reflect on that at the time were probably not so funny, they once built a tree hut and after I helped them with the platform base, all the nails, screws and bolts I had stacked away in my shed were found attached to the tree in some way or other, that feat must have taken days, I pity anyone who tries to cut that tree down as it’s a fair percentage metal. Louis, my oldest son and I were out driving one winter morning when he was eight and we hit a patch of ice and after the car spun 360 degrees; I was still shaking and breaking into a cold sweat having avoided sliding off the road, his little voice piped up, “Gee Dad that was fun can we do that again?”
We in life all have various understandings of who a father is and perhaps who they should be or who we would like them to have been, for some the name Dad can bring a feeling of joy for others concern, or perhaps even fear.
David in Psalm 26:12 says this about our God, the one that we know as our Heavenly Father, this from the New Living Translation; “Now I stand on solid ground, and I will publicly praise the LORD.” Or this from the New English Bible, “When once my feet are planted on firm ground, I will bless the Lord in the full assembly.”
In our relationships with God our understanding of him is that he is never changing and that he is Holy, he is good, Jesus tells us to relate to him as our Father in heaven. In the Old Testament we do not see God called the father, The Jewish people have a different view of God than Christians do and Jesus tells us that “no one can come to the Father except through the son.” (John 14:6). We could compare this relationship to how we understand a person as they are introduced to us by a family member of theirs, say Janaki introduces a friend of hers and says this is my Dad, they have come to know me Janaki’s Father through the daughter. Excepting, that the profound nature between the Three Persons of The Godhead is defined in the relationship between The Father, Son and Holy Spirit. As Christians, and Salvationists we have this belief that is one of our eleven doctrines, “That there are three persons in the Godhead- the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, undivided in essence and co-equal in power and glory.
So, the Psalmist in Psalm 26 is talking about his own situation, “Now I stand on solid ground, and I will publicly praise the LORD.”, remember that this was David who wrote the Psalm. At the time of writing, it appeared that he had lived what would be considered a blameless life, he states it in verse one. I guess the whole affair with Bathsheba and the arranging of her husband Uriah’s death were yet to occur. But the nature of a Father is to lift his children when they fall, and the nature of our heavenly Father certainly is, to set us on a place with a solid foundation, no decent father wants to see his children stumble or fail.
However David did by his own design fail, he stumbled big time, Psalm 51 sees David crying out to God for cleansing from his sins and the following four psalms are about; themes of repentance, trusting in God, the foolishness of not believing in God, God delivering people from their troubles, being under attack and being under attack but being saved by God. Until in Psalm 56 when David writes these words of confirmation of his standing with and before God.
In God, whose word I praise,
in the LORD, whose word I praise—
in God I trust and am not afraid.
What can man do to me?
I am under vows to you, my God;
I will present my thank offerings to you.
For you have delivered me from death
and my feet from stumbling,
that I may walk before God
in the light of life. (Psalm 56: 10-13)
We see a restoration occur in David’s life, a life where he had and knew he had been an
adulterer and a murderer, lived a life of stumbling and sinning, now restored and
walking before God in the light of life. We see David secure in who he is again as he
knows his standing before God. There are many who struggle through life, stumbling as
they don’t know their standing before God.
If we Leap forward to the time of Jesus, we have another example of a person's
understanding who they are before God, If you are wondering about your standing
before God this is worth listening to. Reading from Matthew 16:13-20. (Read)
Jesus asks Peter this question, “Who do you say I am?” The answer is no small thing
as this defines who Jesus is, it defines who the Father is and from it Peter comes to
realise who he is and where he stands in the divine plan of the future body of all
those who will be the body of Christ, ‘The Church’ When I say church, I mean massive
group of people who are in Christ as believers not a building or buildings, or even
separate denominations.
As Peter declares who Jesus is, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” He
identifies the relationship that all believers have with the Father and the Son. As he
does this, Jesus points out that this is not a human revelation but a revelation that has
come from our Father in Heaven. From this point Peter is defined, He understands his
identity is not something that he has to become but is given as a child of God the
Father.
As believers we are not defined by our human experience but by our standing before
God, Have you lived in sin and shame and have repented, if so because of the
relationship that you have with God through the son you are set free. Your justification
before God is a gift from him, because of Jesus. Your salvation, being saved by grace
through faith in Jesus, gives you a new standing before God, our heavenly Father, your
footing is secure, you may walk before God in the light of life.
This Father’s Day, while we celebrate and acknowledge our fathers let us live and
celebrate the knowledge that we are secure and able as we live in Christ to have a
relationship with our Heavenly Father that keeps us secure as we walk in his ways. As we do we know that we
have a secure footing on a solid place.
