Who's Your Father?

WHO’S YOUR FATHER?

LUKE 11:1-4

INTRODUCTION: In the model prayer, Christ taught, “When you pray, say, ‘Our Father’”. Can you and I truly pray, “Our Father”? Do we belong to a universal brotherhood? Is God the Father of everyone? If God is not the Father of everyone, then who is your Father?

I. The Belief in the Universal Fatherhood of God

A. People often speak of the “Fatherhood” of God suggesting that all people are the children of God. This belief of the universal fatherhood of God is not unique to any particular religion. It has been advanced in both Christian and non-Christian circles.

B. What is noteworthy is that the majority of churches advocating the “universal fatherhood of God” maintain a theological position which rejects any or all of the Bible as the Word of God, denying the supernatural elements of the Bible and the miraculous character of the Person and work of Christ, magnifying the universal brotherhood of man, with an emphasis on the social gospel as opposed to the New Testament need for evangelism.

C. The social gospel a heresy, which redefines Bible, terms in a way that changes the message of the gospel with social reform not spiritual transformation as its highest objective.

D. Acts 17:24-29 God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwells not in temples made with hands; Neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he gives to all life, and breath, and all things; And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device.

E. Offspring of God - Greek, "genos", = “stock”, “kind”, “genetic descendant”. The reference is to the creation-work of God in which He made man in his own likeness as recorded in Genesis. Paul is rebuking the thought that "the Godhead is like unto gold," etc.

II. God’s Relationship to all Mankind Affirmed in Acts 17

A. It affirms that God is our Creator – vs. 26, “He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth”

1. You are no accident. God made you. We did not just happen by chance. We are part and parcel the creation of God.

2. A paraphrase of Isaiah 44:2 reads, “I am your Creator. You were in my care even before you were born.” (Contemporary English Version © 1995 by American Bible Society)

3. A little girl crawled up into her great grandmother’s lap one day. And looking up into her great grandmother’s face she saw all those crevices, lines, and wrinkles. Then she felt her own smooth baby-like skin. She said to her great grandmother, "Did God make you?" Her great grandmother said, "Yes honey, God made me." Then the little girl said, "Well great grandmother, did God make me?" Her great grandmother said, "Oh yes, God made you too." And then the little girl said, "Well great grandmother, don’t you think God’s doing a lot better job these days?" - Mike Minix

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

5. We are the work of His hands – Job 34:19 states that all, both rich and poor, are “the work of His hands”

B. It affirms that God is our Sustainer – verse 28, "for in Him we live and move and have our being”

1. He is the original fountain of life, and he upholds us each moment.

2. Romans 11:36 For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory forever. Amen.

3. Colossians 1:17 And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.

4. While God is absolutely independent of our existence, if God ceased to exist, so would everything else. All life would cease. There would be nothing. All that exists only does so because God wills it to exist. Should God stop willing the existence of anything or everything, then that existence would instantly end.

C. It affirms that God is our Judge

1. Acts 17:30-31 And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commands all men every where to repent: Because he has appointed a day, in the which He will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he has ordained; whereof he has given assurance unto all men, in that he has raised him from the dead.