The Heart Of The Father - Father's Day

John 17:25-26 (KJV) O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me. 26 And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.

I've been trying to imagine how God feels about the human race in general

The prayer of Jesus for us in John 17 gives us some great insights of our Father

To start with, I don't think we've given enough thought to the whole idea of us being created by someone in the first place

Someone who is incredibly difficult for us to imagine

Because God is just so far beyond human comprehension

The more science reveals about the wonders of life in the universe

the greater this creator becomes

So much so, that it is hard to think of him as being anything like us

We are mere creatures, and very vulnerable ones at that

What human like creature could have ever been able to make even one sun?

Much less, all the other unfathomable bodies spread over space that we called the universe

But according to the Bible there was something of God that he put inside each of us humans

Probably as a way of helping us to understand the spirit behind all that he created

Romans 12:3 (KJV) For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.

The Bible also says that we were created in the image of God

Genesis 1:27 (KJV) So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

And that image is what I want to address in this sermon

Jesus summed up that image of the spirit of God the creator in one simple word -Father!

He consistently refers to God as “The Father” or “Our Father” or “My Father”

Many artists have tried to depict God as an old man with a white beard

But that has caused many people to make fun of such an illustration

Because obviously when it comes to God,

we're talking about something so much more than an old man floating on a cloud

Nevertheless, let’s think about the spirit or the heart that resides in that creator

Whether we describe him as an old man

Or as an incredible force greater than all the Suns in all the galaxies of the universe

It's so important for our salvation

That we learn to recognize and appreciate all that the father represents for us as His children

Not all of us have been parents, but we have all had parents

Sure, for some those parents have died or left us

But for most of us, we have grown up with them influencing us in many deeply significant ways

These people, our parents, have been responsible for bringing us into the world

and for protecting us

They provided for us throughout our youth

and taught us skills which they hoped would prepare us for life as an adult

Some have obviously done a better job than others

But in one way or another, even atheistic parents do try to protect, provide and prepare their children for a better life

But now think about how often you, or people you have known, have complained about their parents

Children can be so cruelly unappreciative of all that parents did to bring them into this world and to provide for a better life for them in this world

For most of us, this series of complaints starts during adolescence

But for a surprising high percentage of us,

this negative attitude toward their parents continues right throughout adult life as well

We blame a lot, if not all of our faults and sufferings on our parents

It’s only when we begin to suffer at the hands of our children do most of us recognize just how terribly unappreciative, we have been to our parents

Especially of fathers

Probably because they're the ones who most often have taken the responsibility of disciplining us

So, one of the most radical thoughts that crossed my mind as I was thinking about this was that we make impossible demands on our parents

Assuming that everything that goes wrong in our lives can be traced back to something they did

I often even hear the parents themselves asking through tears,

“What did I do wrong?” “Where did I fail?”

They often do this when they see their children rebelling and being hateful

or in some other way