Finding Father

A FATHER'S ENCOURAGEMENT

Dearest family,

On Sunday we “finished” the “Finding Father” series only because time ran out on us, but I ended by trying to stress the crucial importance of fatherly encouragement. One of the passages we looked at was Hebrews 12, a passage that has been one of the main texts for the men’s ministry this year and your theme of “perseverance.” We noted that what is presented is a realistic picture of what most Christian communities, just like ours, face in the course of daily living in a culture that is utterly antagonistic to faith. This is not a stroll in the park, but a race, and the word used here implies conflict and potential pain. It is translated as “sufferings” in Phils. 1:30; as “strivings” in Cols. 2:1; as “opposition” in 2 Thess. 2:2; as “fight” in 1 Tim. 6:12. We looked at the number of descriptions of what are very debilitating circumstances and pressures:

ο Hindered (v1): bogged down, cluttered, no freedom of movement, feeling confined, carrying baggage and weights that interfere with forward progress;
ο Entangled (v1): tripped up, even little disorders that cause stumbling;
ο Unfocused (v2): unsynchronized eyes, a wandering eye, not fixed on what it should be;
ο Shamed (v2): maybe by the present situation, by present struggles, by present evaluation of life and prospects, by past decisions and mistakes;
ο Dejected (v3): losing heart, beaten down, disappointment like a dripping tap;
ο Fatigued (v3-4): the struggle against temptation and sin, continual resistance takes its toll and is wearying – it is part of the cost of obedience;
ο Troubled (v7): hardships keep pressing in and it seems that there are more opposing circumstances than enabling ones;
ο Indisciplined (v7): always intending to but never intentional, spiritually slovenly;
ο Weak (v12): exaggerated sense of worthlessness, and inability, loss of self-value;
ο Stumbling (v13): difficulty in standing firm in one’s commitments and convictions, not walking in the right paths;
ο Bitter (v15): undealt with roots of bitterness and offence that feed ingrained responses of anger toward God and others that corrupts the soul and defiles others close to you;
ο Impure (v16): polluting the streams of personhood with unholy sexuality.

How depressing is all this? How discouraging? Are you kidding me! The last chapter ended: “God had planned something better for us!” (11:40) So what hope is there? Right in the middle of all this we read: ”You have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons…God is treating you as sons… For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined then you are illegitimate children and not true sons…” (vs.5-8) What this situation of challenge and pressure and despondency most needs is the encouragement of the father. And that is exactly what is given. The encouragement is actually the perspective about what is really going on, that is not in fact going to bring them down but build them up. This truth crucially qualifies our understanding of “perseverance”. It is so easy to see perseverance as something that is going to be mainly determined by the right decisions we make, and the way we choose to hang in there, stay obedient, not let go, push through, resolve not to give up. Now it is not that there is truth in that. It’s not just the whole picture. The text says that it is not our “grit and grind” that makes for the perseverance, but the fact that we understand the following:
i. That the circumstances that seem unco-operative with my well-being are the very context in which Father God is training us to be like Him. Even Jesus was not exempt from this. Earlier in Hebrews (5:8) we read “Although he was a son he learned obedience from what he suffered.” In other words, endurance and perseverance is in fact a sign of true sonship. That’s what sons do. They persevere. Why?
ii. Because they understand that as sons they choose to “submit to the Father of our spirits.” (v9) The last words before those I just read to you from 5:8 described Jesus the son’s “reverent submission.” This is basically talking about God as our spiritual father. And what good fathers do best is train their sons and daughters in character and in wisdom. And what good sons do is submit to their love and nurture. Perseverance is only possible and understandable when we understand that the motivation behind it is all about relating to the love and will of the father. There will be no joy or comprehension in perseverance that does not get this. It cannot be sustained by an orphan, a slave or an illegitimate. If there is no assurance of God’s fathering of us, then we have no security about the outcomes.
iii. Talking of outcomes. We need to understand and accept the father’s intent in the circumstances he chooses, or allows to train us. The text is clear: “…for our good, that we may share in his holiness.” In other words, be just like dad. The text says he is treating us as his sons and daughters. The text states the reality: the training does not seem pleasant at the time, and it is really painful. There’s no point in saying it doesn’t hurt. It really does. It’s not about putting a brave face on it, but about bringing the reality of our feeble arms and weak knees, and all the other disabilities to the healing encouragement of the father.

We need to admit that the nature of difficulties in our lives and circumstances, the things that require perseverance of us, can have an adverse effect. , in making They can precipitate two things:
1. faithlessness: making us want to throw in the towel or wave the white flag.
2. hardness of heart: in the process of having to tough-it-out we actually become tough, we become hard which maybe expressed or manifested in many different ways like numbness, disengagement, unresponsiveness, cynicism.

It’s therefore interesting that a few chapters earlier, in 3:13, we are told to “encourage one another daily”. Why? So that we will be like jesus the son who was “faithful to the one who appointed him… faithful as a son over God’s house…” then later “so that none of you will be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.” In other words, encouragement is the powerful spiritual antidote to both faithlessness and hardness. Encouragement is the infuser of courage when faithfulness is challenged. The text says that like Jesus the son, we are part of the Father’s house, “if we hold on to our courage” or in other words, stay encouraged by the father, as Jesus was. Encouragement is the powerful softening agent if you like, of the hardness that is the natural by-product of all those things we listed at the beginning. Isn’t it amazing! Encouragement, to be encouraged, is literally to be filled with courage. So it is encouragement that is the gift that keeps us faithful as sons, even as Jesus was, as a son, and the gift of the father that keeps us soft-hearted amidst hard circumstances.

Have you known the encouragement of the Father recently? Have you asked for it? Have you received it?

Encouragingly yours,

Stuart

http://www.christourshepherd.org/pastlet.htm (and follow links to download MP3 audio of sermon)

ABRAHAM - PART 2

A PASTORAL LETTER

Dearest family,

Last Sunday we continued our observations about the ways that Abraham is our “father” in the faith. The basis for Paul’s teaching about how and why we are sons and daughters of Abraham, is grounded in Jesus’ teaching. This is what I spent most of the time on last message. Jesus is already identifying traits of Abraham that will be evident in true sons of Abraham, and thus true sons of God:

• Jesus said “do the things that Abraham did” (Jn.8:39) God himself is specific about what these things were in Gen. 26:5, “Abraham obeyed me and kept my requirements, my commands, my decrees, my laws.” To put it simply, he welcomed God’s word and walked in it. Jesus is arguing that if they were true offspring they would have the characteristics of the father. If they shared the same parentage as Jesus the son, then they would love the same things. But they didn’t so they weren’t.
• Jesus mentions another mark of true sonship in the words of 8:46 “He who belongs to God hears what God says.” Did you ever turn a deaf ear to your parents when they called or commanded? Was your hearing ever selective? Did you engage that kind of deceit? True spiritual sons do not close their ears. You can understand why Jesus’ opening parable deals almost exclusively with hearing. “He who has ears to hear let him hear.” It is actually a sonship parable. As a listening and obedient son himself, Jesus knew that if the Father’s words were not listened to, or were overcome by the birds of the air, and the thorns and the rocks of interference, then the relationship with His Father that he desired for all to have, would be impossible.

Paul concludes in Romans 4 that the key issue is not about the physical family of Abraham but the spiritual faith of Abraham that then defines the family. Now we have it. Here is the key mark of father Abraham that will be the disposition of those who are his sons in the faith, that’s you and me. Let me review, from the text, a few of the constituent elements of this faith that are ours as sons and daughters. Twice the spiritual fatherhood of Abraham is emphasized: “He is the father of us all…He is our father in the sight of God…” (Roms.4: 17) And lest someone says that this is only applicable to the Jews he was addressing, sandwiched between those two statements we read: “I have made you a father of many nations” which affirms what has already been said in v11: “so he is the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised.” So what is it about Abraham as a spiritual father that will be characteristic of you and me, his spiritual sons and daughters, his “offspring” (4:13, 16, 18) as Paul describes us. We began to observe and apply four things:
1. The persuasion of faith: “…being fully persuaded…” (v21)
2. The person of faith: “…in the sight of God, in whom he believed…”
3. The promise of faith: “I have made you…” (v17)
4. The provision of faith: “Gives life to the dead…calls things that are not as though they were…” (v17)

The text says that Abraham is our father. Does our sonship and daughterhood bear his DNA? Are we sons and daughters who have a persuasion of faith? Are we sons and daughters who are persuaded about the person of faith, about the utterly trustworthy character of the Father, who is not an absent parent of a spiritual latch-key child? Are we sons and daughters who are persuaded about the promise of faith that guarantees our position at the Father’s table? Are we sons and daughters who are persuaded about the provision of faith? Did not Jesus say, “O ye of little faith…your heavenly Father knows that you need them” (Mt. 6:32)? What’s your “them” list? Isn’t that Jesus’ version of Abraham’s “things that are not” list?

We then looked briefly at Genesis 22 where we read of that testing of Abraham’s faith and obedience in the offering of his “one and only” son Isaac. It is this faithful obedience of Abraham that is presented on three specific occasions in the NT to give us an understanding of what our faith as sons and daughters will look like if we have been truly spiritually fathered. As sons and daughters we will be obedient. We cannot be obedient without faith. At the very end of Romans Paul tells us that the proclamation of the gospel is for the obedience of faith. The NT writers uses Gen.22 and interpret it to help us know how sons and daughters can make every day a Father’s Day. Abraham is our father in the faith. Faith marks the DNA of the sons and daughters.

THE ASSURANCE OF FAITH (Romans 8:32) – “He who did not spare his only son but gave him up for us all – how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things.” This is taken directly from the language of Gen.22. Paul is concerned to assure us that our Father is for us. Things like indwelling sin, the unbelieving world, the devil and all his works, are bad enough without feeling that God is somehow against us. Paul is arguing that without a shadow of a doubt we can know our Father by the same name that Abraham did, Jehovah Jireh. Father God’s covenant commitment to us has been demonstrated in that he did the greater thing – he spared not his own son but gave him up for us. Thus he can do the lesser thing – provide us all we need to secure us safe passage in this life and our final salvation. Jesus was not taken from God, but God gave him up. As one saint said, “Who delivered Jesus up to die? Not Judas for money; not Pilate for fear; not the Jews for envy; but the Father for love.” The offering of the Father of Christ is the guarantee that we are now covered and cannot be abandoned. That sacrifice is the guarantee of the Father’s continuing care and generosity. This is the basis of our assurance of faith.
THE ANTICIPATION OF FAITH (Hebrews 11: 17-19) – “By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, ‘It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.’ Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did bring Isaac back from the dead.” Though bewildered, Abraham believed and refused to set limits either on his obedience or God’s trustworthiness. Despite the awfulness of what he was facing, his faith in God anticipated what God could do, on two different levels. First, on a personal level, he grasped the promises and word of God and knew that God could not lie, so even if Isaac was reduced to a pile of ashes, God would raise him from the dead! But Hebrews also tells us that he was “looking forward to the city with foundations whose architect and builder was God.” So his faith was anticipating what God could do on a cosmic level! He anticipated the demonstration of God’s power, not only in this life but also in the life to come.
THE ACTIONS OF FAITH (James 2:21-24) – “Was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. And the scripture was fulfilled that says, ‘Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness’ and he was called God’s friend. You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone.” James is here targeting the “vain” or empty person who has a profession without practice. They purport to be sons. It does not follow that if you acknowledge God that you love Him. Many believe in God but do not know him as Father in a personal sonship relationship. Abraham was not justified by offering Isaac, because righteousness was credited to him 30 years earlier when he chose to believe God’s promises. What it did do was demonstrate the true nature of his faith, that produced the works of obedience. His life was not a vague impression of belief but full of specific expressions of faith in God. Invisible faith was made visible. As Calvin said, “We are saved by faith alone but saving faith is never alone.” As someone else has said, “Works follow faith as sexual intimacy follows marriage.” The covenant relationship of sons with the Father is always demonstrated in our woks of love and obedience.

And there you have the NT’s application of Genesis 22. Is your conviction of your heavenly Father’s care for you grounded and rooted in the cross and its spiritual meaning? As a son and daughter, do you have the assurance of faith in the Father? Can you trust God with the outcomes of your obedience, especially when it hurts your prospects and promises, and can you believe the Father to do right by you and raise that which is dead in your eyes? As a son or daughter, do you have a holy anticipation of faith in what the Father can and will do for you that is in your best interests? Is your saving faith also a serving faith and a sacrificing faith? When all is said and done, is there more that is said than done? Are you expressing the actions of faith in your Father?

I have tried to show you how Romans 4 and Genesis 22 show us why Abraham is a spiritual father to us in the faith, but having noted his DNA, they show us what should be characteristic of our sonship and daughterhood, making every day a Father’s Day for our heavenly Father!

Pastorally yours,

Stuart

http://www.christourshepherd.org/pastlet.htm (and follow links to download MP3 audio of sermon)

MOTHER'S DAY

A PASTORAL LETTER

Dearest family,

I began my message on Sunday by saying that I would only be able to cover half of what I wanted to, but then I ended up only covering half of that half! Apologies, but I also think that what was communicated was sufficient, and what the Lord wanted for the day’s portion. I have been so encouraged by the many responses I have received from so many of you about what the Holy Spirit applied to your hearts. When you are teaching and preaching, you just have to trust the Lord with the process and the outcomes, especially when you are more aware of the challenges and weaknesses of the presentation. How relieving that it is always His Word and that He determines that it will not return void. Hallelujah!

As part of our “Finding Father” series I was arguing that if scripture describes Abraham as our “father” in faith, then as true sons and daughters of Abraham, we should learn something about our sonship by observing what scripture presents as his spiritual fathering DNA. This is an exposition that is first made by Jesus himself as we saw in John 8 when he challenges the Pharisees about a true understanding of what it is to be a true descendant of Abraham, and thus lays the foundation for Paul’s treatment of the matter in Romans 4. Similarly, Paul concludes that the key issue is not about the physical family of Abraham but about the spiritual faith of Abraham that then defines the family likenesses. Thus this text shows us the key marks of father Abraham that will be the disposition of those who are his sons and daughters - that’s you and me. The spiritual fatherhood of Abraham is emphasized: “He is the father of us all…He is our father in the sight of God…” And lest someone says that this is only applicable to the Jews he was addressing, sandwiched between those two statements we read: “I have made you a father of many nations” which affirms what has already been said in v11: “so he is the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised.” So what is it about Abraham as a spiritual father that will be characteristic of his spiritual sons and daughters, his “offspring” as Paul describes us. I only had time to make some brief comments about one of the four characteristics I wanted to point out, and that was about the “persuasion of faith: “…being fully persuaded…” (v21)

Because of the trustworthiness, the guarantee of the heavenly Father’s grace, sons can live free from doubt, free from anxiety, free from uncertainty, free from fear about anything that could possibly separate them from the love of the Father, or the will of the Father. If the Father was fully persuaded, so should and so could the sons be. This is compelling because for Abraham there was literally no conceivable hope. Faith was not gong to be assisted by Viagra, or by fertility treatment. But Abraham did not allow the feelings of hopelessness (the subjective) to overcome the facts of faith (the objective). The text says that he did not do two things: he did not weaken in his faith (v19) and he did not waver (stagger) through unbelief. Biblical faith is utterly realistic and true to circumstance. The text gives us a father’s lesson to a son in what to do when there’s nothing that can be done. Note these two responses:
He examined the facts: Truth is not a threat. Tampering with it is, because that means that if we adjust the reality of the circumstances and the need, we are actually less likely to trust God and seek God because we have rationalized it, taken the measure of it, managed it, marginalized it, minimized it, or just ignored it, or denied it. Why do we want to make things appear not as bad as they really are? These are not my words but scripture’s: v19, “He faced the fact that his body was as good as dead” which of course is not good at all. And then there’s more reality to cope with. Sarah isn’t a spring chicken bursting with eggs either. Anything else to add Abraham? “Sarah’s womb was also dead.” Womb, tomb, doom, gloom. Game, set and match. I guess it’s all over. God will have to rethink redemptive history! The whole eternal plan for the universe, forget just my life, is scuppered. To face the facts is the very stuff of faith, not the denial of it. Facing and stating the facts is not a negative confession. It is bringing the reality of a son’s life to the love of the Father.
He exercised faith: “Abraham in hope believed…” The reason we need the shield of faith is precisely because of all the fiery darts of doubts. But that which would seek to quench faith becomes the very fuel that serves to provoke our continuing quest to know the Father’s will in all circumstances. The worst that can happen is that we’ll end up spending a lot of time asking the Father about these things in the Son’s name, and as we’ve seen from my last series on asking, this presses us into intimacy with the Father. In Jesus’ words. It invites us to abide in Him more. Whatever happens is good for our experience of sonship, whether it’s what we want or what we would not choose.

The point is that Abraham was not threatened. It was Calvin who cut to the chase and said: “Everything by which we are surrounded conflicts with the promise of faith.” Our inadequacies may well be a threat to ourselves, may well be an embarrassment before others, but they are not a threat or a disqualifier to Father God. Did we not bring them with us into his presence when we first came and did he not accept us just as we were. In the words of the old hymn, “I came to Jesus as I was / Weary and worn and sad.” Our weaknesses, the places where faith is tested, become what someone has wonderfully described as “the arenas of his power.” The text says that our father did not weaken, but he understood that the circumstance was in fact not a death threat edged in black, delivered by a dark gloved claw, but an invitation to be strengthened. Abraham was not threatened.

On the contrary, he thrived. The text says in v20 that he “was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God.” We want to tell Abraham not to be so hasty on the glory bit! No need to be too trusting, too hopeful! But of course, the glory was not grounded in the satisfaction of his circumstances; his worship was not a response to prayers answered but to the one he knew had heard his prayer. That was enough. His worship did not need a changed circumstance in order for it to be fueled, but only the changeless character of God. Likewise, every son’s weakness is an invitation to Father’s strength; all barrenness is an invitation to His fertility; all desert is an invitation to his forestation program; all chaos is an invitation to his order; all inability is an invitation to his power. So the result was two-fold: Abraham was edified – he got strong by simply refusing to weaken; and God was exalted – there was no room for the enemies of faith, because the test strengthened trust. I love the way that Martin Luther put it with such typical earthiness: “Faith grips reason by the throat and strangles the beast. Venture no more to criticize the word of God. Sit thee down. Listen to His words and believe them.” Or how about the hymnal words of Charles Wesley:
Faith, mighty faith, the promise sees,
And looks to that alone;
Laughs at impossibilities
And cries ‘It shall be done!’
So the first thing we note about our spiritual father that will characterize our sonship is the persuasion of faith. But what was Abraham’s faith persuaded about, that true sons and daughters of the Father should equally be persuaded about? That’s for the next message in the series!

Pastorally yours
Stuart

http://www.christourshepherd.org/pastlet.htm (and follow links to download MP3 audio of sermon)

ABRAHAM

A PASTORAL LETTER

Dearest family,

I began my message on Sunday by saying that I would only be able to cover half of what I wanted to, but then I ended up only covering half of that half! Apologies, but I also think that what was communicated was sufficient, and what the Lord wanted for the day’s portion. I have been so encouraged by the many responses I have received from so many of you about what the Holy Spirit applied to your hearts. When you are teaching and preaching, you just have to trust the Lord with the process and the outcomes, especially when you are more aware of the challenges and weaknesses of the presentation. How relieving that it is always His Word and that He determines that it will not return void. Hallelujah!

As part of our “Finding Father” series I was arguing that if scripture describes Abraham as our “father” in faith, then as true sons and daughters of Abraham, we should learn something about our sonship by observing what scripture presents as his spiritual fathering DNA. This is an exposition that is first made by Jesus himself as we saw in John 8 when he challenges the Pharisees about a true understanding of what it is to be a true descendant of Abraham, and thus lays the foundation for Paul’s treatment of the matter in Romans 4. Similarly, Paul concludes that the key issue is not about the physical family of Abraham but about the spiritual faith of Abraham that then defines the family likenesses. Thus this text shows us the key marks of father Abraham that will be the disposition of those who are his sons and daughters - that’s you and me. The spiritual fatherhood of Abraham is emphasized: “He is the father of us all…He is our father in the sight of God…” And lest someone says that this is only applicable to the Jews he was addressing, sandwiched between those two statements we read: “I have made you a father of many nations” which affirms what has already been said in v11: “so he is the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised.” So what is it about Abraham as a spiritual father that will be characteristic of his spiritual sons and daughters, his “offspring” as Paul describes us. I only had time to make some brief comments about one of the four characteristics I wanted to point out, and that was about the “persuasion of faith: “…being fully persuaded…” (v21)

Because of the trustworthiness, the guarantee of the heavenly Father’s grace, sons can live free from doubt, free from anxiety, free from uncertainty, free from fear about anything that could possibly separate them from the love of the Father, or the will of the Father. If the Father was fully persuaded, so should and so could the sons be. This is compelling because for Abraham there was literally no conceivable hope. Faith was not gong to be assisted by Viagra, or by fertility treatment. But Abraham did not allow the feelings of hopelessness (the subjective) to overcome the facts of faith (the objective). The text says that he did not do two things: he did not weaken in his faith (v19) and he did not waver (stagger) through unbelief. Biblical faith is utterly realistic and true to circumstance. The text gives us a father’s lesson to a son in what to do when there’s nothing that can be done. Note these two responses:
He examined the facts: Truth is not a threat. Tampering with it is, because that means that if we adjust the reality of the circumstances and the need, we are actually less likely to trust God and seek God because we have rationalized it, taken the measure of it, managed it, marginalized it, minimized it, or just ignored it, or denied it. Why do we want to make things appear not as bad as they really are? These are not my words but scripture’s: v19, “He faced the fact that his body was as good as dead” which of course is not good at all. And then there’s more reality to cope with. Sarah isn’t a spring chicken bursting with eggs either. Anything else to add Abraham? “Sarah’s womb was also dead.” Womb, tomb, doom, gloom. Game, set and match. I guess it’s all over. God will have to rethink redemptive history! The whole eternal plan for the universe, forget just my life, is scuppered. To face the facts is the very stuff of faith, not the denial of it. Facing and stating the facts is not a negative confession. It is bringing the reality of a son’s life to the love of the Father.
He exercised faith: “Abraham in hope believed…” The reason we need the shield of faith is precisely because of all the fiery darts of doubts. But that which would seek to quench faith becomes the very fuel that serves to provoke our continuing quest to know the Father’s will in all circumstances. The worst that can happen is that we’ll end up spending a lot of time asking the Father about these things in the Son’s name, and as we’ve seen from my last series on asking, this presses us into intimacy with the Father. In Jesus’ words. It invites us to abide in Him more. Whatever happens is good for our experience of sonship, whether it’s what we want or what we would not choose.

The point is that Abraham was not threatened. It was Calvin who cut to the chase and said: “Everything by which we are surrounded conflicts with the promise of faith.” Our inadequacies may well be a threat to ourselves, may well be an embarrassment before others, but they are not a threat or a disqualifier to Father God. Did we not bring them with us into his presence when we first came and did he not accept us just as we were. In the words of the old hymn, “I came to Jesus as I was / Weary and worn and sad.” Our weaknesses, the places where faith is tested, become what someone has wonderfully described as “the arenas of his power.” The text says that our father did not weaken, but he understood that the circumstance was in fact not a death threat edged in black, delivered by a dark gloved claw, but an invitation to be strengthened. Abraham was not threatened.

On the contrary, he thrived. The text says in v20 that he “was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God.” We want to tell Abraham not to be so hasty on the glory bit! No need to be too trusting, too hopeful! But of course, the glory was not grounded in the satisfaction of his circumstances; his worship was not a response to prayers answered but to the one he knew had heard his prayer. That was enough. His worship did not need a changed circumstance in order for it to be fueled, but only the changeless character of God. Likewise, every son’s weakness is an invitation to Father’s strength; all barrenness is an invitation to His fertility; all desert is an invitation to his forestation program; all chaos is an invitation to his order; all inability is an invitation to his power. So the result was two-fold: Abraham was edified – he got strong by simply refusing to weaken; and God was exalted – there was no room for the enemies of faith, because the test strengthened trust. I love the way that Martin Luther put it with such typical earthiness: “Faith grips reason by the throat and strangles the beast. Venture no more to criticize the word of God. Sit thee down. Listen to His words and believe them.” Or how about the hymnal words of Charles Wesley:
Faith, mighty faith, the promise sees,
And looks to that alone; Laughs at impossibilities
And cries ‘It shall be done!’

So the first thing we note about our spiritual father that will characterize our sonship is the persuasion of faith. But what was Abraham’s faith persuaded about, that true sons and daughters of the Father should equally be persuaded about? That’s for the next message in the series!

Pastorally yours

Stuart

http://www.christourshepherd.org/pastlet.htm (and follow links to download MP3 audio of sermon)

SONS AND SLAVES - PART 2

Dearest family,

I know you thought we were through with the parable of the prodigal sons a long time ago in this series, but because you are so familiar with it now, it is a good place to start. They are both sons. Their identity as sons has never been reclassified by the father. It’s how he sees them, how he loves them, how he provides for them. But both of them make equally bad choices in their relationship with the father, and both choose a different persona. Though a son, the younger wanted to be a “hired servant”, the very person that Jesus said could not live in intimacy with the father, or be taken into the father’s confidence. The older brother betrays himself in his angry outburst when he describes his life as “slaving for you”. What this does tell us is that though a son, you can in fact end up living as a slave or a servant, and consequently, you will only see the father from a slave’s or servant’s perspective. There are so many who are called and loved as sons and daughters who are “hardly sons” but in fact living as servants and slaves. Fundamental to all healing and deliverance is the recovery of the assurance of our sonship and God’s fatherhood.

But what about this “hired servant” idea? If you remember, there were three levels of enslavement or service and he happened to choose the best of the three, the one that had a little more give and benefit than the bondsmen and the slaves – but whether you eat cake in prison or dirt, you’re in prison! No matter how you dress up or rationalize your bondage, you’re a slave. You can give slavery a good name if you really work at it. You can try all you want to make it sound good, feel normal, but it’s a world away from being in the father’s embrace and living in the father’s house. Being a son is about being both near and dear. Why this hired-servant thing? Because he believes he has forfeited being a son, by killing the heart of the father. He has believed the lie that he is now excluded from that kind of intimate relationship, or that having once sinned against it, it cannot be recovered. Somehow he still thinks he can make a deal with the father that will at least be better than the slavery of the pig-sty but still some kind of servitude that could never be the sonship that once was. The only thing that could possibly change this for him would be a revelation of the true nature both of fatherhood and sonship – the same way there are thousands sitting in pews who need a revelation of the running father, who is unashamed by the tunic up around his waist, unashamed of the way he is revealing his fatherly needs and passions for the son, welcoming them home again to an experience of sonship, sealing their deliverance from the slavery of that pig-sty, and assuring them that they will never be a slave again to fear and bondage. We have not been healed and delivered from the enslavement of Satan, to become a hired hand for the Father.

Being a hired servant was what the son knew best to be, apart from his father’s grace. But hear me: the love of the father will not allow us to be or become what we are not. In any case, his idea that by working he was somehow going to be able to earn to pay back, or save to recover what was lost, was unattainable, plain impossible. It turns out that just as the father was always the father, so the son, despite all that had happened to disfigure his identity or appear to disbar his sonship, was still a son, was always a son. Maybe a dead son, but still a son and not a servant. Maybe a disobedient son, but still a son and not a servant. Maybe a delinquent son, but still a son and not a servant. The father has no other desire or intention but to have a son: he can raise a dead son, he can restore a disobedient son; he can redeem a delinquent son. So how does the father respond to the son who has chosen to be a hired servant, not a son? He reinstates him to every vestige of sonship: the robe, the ring and the roast.

The older brother was no different. In his anger he exposes himself. “I’ve been slaving for you.” Long before Paul wrote to the Romans or to the Galatians about being slaves again to fear, the contrast between a slave and a true son is presented by Jesus. The two sons are equal in their estrangement from the heart of the father, whether through license or whether through legalism. Here is the tragedy of living in the father’s house as a slave. But it also shows us some of the bad fruits of this slavery, the evidences of this bondage.

As I shared on Sunday, pursuant to the last message I preached in this series, Jesus not only said that he would not leave us as orphans, but that he no longer even called us servants. Furthermore, having said that everyone who sins is a slave to sin, and pointing out that a slave has “no permanent place in the family” (Jn. 8:34-36), Jesus said that if He as the Son set us free we would be free indeed, just as He was as a true son of the Father. How amazing is the Spirit of adoption, but how virulently does the enemy of our souls want to deny us living with the rights of sons, and therefore the inheritance of sons and daughters.

Please find attached the summary of the powerpoints I showed on Sunday, that are Jack Frost’s presentation of some of the major differences between the heart of orphanhood and the heart of sonship. I do so hope that this helps you.

Finding Father together with you my brothers and sisters,

Stuart

http://www.christourshepherd.org/pastlet.htm (and follow links to download MP3 audio of sermon)

SONS AND SLAVES

A PASTORAL LETTER

Dearest family,

As we saw on Sunday from the story of the prodigal sons, before Paul’s expositions in the epistles on sonship and slavery, it is Jesus in this parable who puts in the mouth of the father the words of rebuttal to the slave designation of the sons. The father’s answer is simply: no, you are the heir. “Because you are sons, God sent the spirit of his son into your hearts, the spirit who calls out ‘Abba father’. So you are no longer a slave but a son: and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir.” (Gals. 4:4-7) The father assures the elder brother of the truth about who he is and what his holy rights are as a son, that he does not need to grasp or does not need to fear will be taken or removed. The tragedy is to live as a slave and fail or refuse to avail yourself as a son, of all that is available in the father’s house. He could have had a fatted calf if he had wanted. The fact is, the father had already given it to him by deed and title at the beginning of the story. His blame of the father was therefore shameful, because unfounded, ungrounded, just wrong.

The other thing that the father is so concerned to communicate is that he was always there and available. “My son, you are always with me.” The son could only take himself away from the father. It is the devil’s work to steal and rob and destroy the family of the father. There is no limit to demonic envy and hatred for the intimacy of the father and son/daughter relationship. You see this so deeply in the High Priestly prayer of Jesus in Jn. 17, another crucial passage for understanding the father-son relationship. You can hear echoes of this passage in it. Jesus keeps talking about himself being with the Father “with you” (vs.5); about the Father being in Him and he being “with them” (vs.12) And then of course, this intimacy is expressed as being “in” each other, the only way to express this closeness of paternal DNA. There is nothing more awful that the slave spirit does than impose a distance, an unapproachability with God.

Jesus himself said that he would change slaves into sons. There is a deliverance from slavery, in any of its myriad manifestations, into sonship. Jesus said that he would not leave us as orphans, but send his Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Father, the Spirit of adoption. We talk a lot about the works of the Holy Spirit, the manifestations of the spirit, but there is none greater than the Spirit’s continual testimony to our spirits: “You are a son of the Father…You are a daughter of the Father…God is your Father… in you he is well pleased…”

There are so many ways and reasons why people who are sons and daughters end up living or choose to live as slaves or orphans in their spiritual identities. We’ve discussed many of them as they relate to the formative effects of human fathering. Fathers who are hard taskmasters not surprisingly impose enslavement upon the spirit. The unbelievable fall-out of parental failure and disappointment and discouragement that creates an orphan spirit that has lost trust in fatherly authority, that has closed the heart in self protection, that sets severe boundaries on relationships and intimacies (but ironically blames others for being unwelcoming or unfriendly) that carries burdens that cannot be shared or cast on another, that chooses to live among the family of God as one who remains homeless, unable to abide, unable to make a place their abode. How raw is the orphan spirit that doesn’t find a place of belonging, that is always on the outside looking in, that ends up always having something to prove. Someone has described Satan as the first spiritual orphan – cast out of heaven his home. Ezekiel says of him, “You were in Eden…on the mount of God.” It is interesting that the demonic envy of that enslaved and orphan spirit paid a visit to a son and a daughter in Eden, that resulted in another banishment from home and the beginning of the story of redemption that is essentially all about recovering us from the slave quarters, from the orphanage, back into the Father’s house.

Your heavenly father cannot bear that you would be a slave or an orphan in any part of your being, in any part of your personhood and identity. For him to be falsely viewed by you through the lens of a servant/slave or an orphan is a grief to his heart, but it won’t stop his loving fatherly pleadings with your spirit. This is why we all need constant experiential encounters with the Holy Spirit. Our understanding of the baptism of the Holy Spirit is often, rightly, associated with the enduement of power. But any suffusion of the Spirit, any infusion of the Spirit, by definition, brings such a boldness, such a liberty, such a recovery of doing the will of the Father and the works of the Son, precisely because it is a spirit of adoption. Peter makes it clear in his Pentecost sermon that the Spirit is “received from the Father”. We are assured afresh about who we are as sons and daughters. Against all the lies and assaults and challenges and pressures and pains and disappointments and failures, the Spirit keeps coming to us, and we keep receiving him as the scripture says, and when we do, two things happen:
1. Roms 8: He testifies with our spirit that we are the children of God. But your spirit has to
make that witness and confession for it to be the duet it is presented as.
2. Galatians 4: From our hearts he calls out in our voice “Abba, Father!”

There is no need to go through another message in this series bearing the spirit of a slave or an orphan in your relationship with God. Would you call Jesus a liar? He said that as the Father loved him, so the Father loved us. I want to encourage you to get as familiar as you can with your Father by calling him so. There is a spiritual power and breakthrough and deliverance from enslavement and orphan-hood when we declare the truth to him about who he is and always has been to us, who have been born again of his spirit, adopted into his family, set free from the slavery of sin to be the sons and daughters of the Father. The Spirit is the spirit of his son, and God the Father will never reject the Spirit of his son; he cannot reject you anymore than he could now reject the glorified Jesus. You see, when you confess the truth of his identity as father, you are equally expressing your identity as a son or a daughter. And you declare that in the face of every counterfeit comfort and false father – you declare it in the face of the fathering of the devil, whose intent is to separate you from the love of the Father. Your adoption is irreversible, and you have the nature of the father, the spirit of the father and all the resources of the father, that give you all the rights and responsibilities of a son.

The cry of “Abba!” doesn’t fit politely into a polished service schedule or an ordered liturgy. It broke from the lips of a suffering Jesus in Gethsemane with guttural and emotional power, with a pained and strained earnestness. It is a cry that is spontaneous, that is confident, that is expressive. Yes our assurance is rooted in our assurance about what scripture teaches us about who we are. Yes, our assurance is rooted in all the personal evidences that we know are the mark of his life within us, like love for the brethren (basically other sons and daughters!) But it is this witness of the Spirit, this stirring, this reception in our hearts of his testimony that we are indeed sons, by the cry, “Abba, father!” that is such an assurance. Slave children never used the word “Abba!” You are not a slave or orphan – so use it!

Pastorally yours,

Stuart

http://www.christourshepherd.org/pastlet.htm (and follow links to download MP3 audio of sermon)

PRODIGAL SON 4

A PASTORAL LETTER

Dear family,

Thank you for your attention on Sunday as we looked at the second half of the parable that is commonly named “The Prodigal Son.” However, as we’ve noted, this story was introduced by Jesus like this: “There was a man who had two sons…” So it is a story made up of two equal accounts. The second son is not just a sub-text to the first. We’ve already noted that though silent, the elder brother was present at the beginning of the story. He witnessed what happened, he too received inheritance, but he failed to respond as any son would have been expected to, in discouraging the brother or intervening. He disappears for all the years that the younger son is gone. He too, though apparently in the outward geography of the father, though appearing to be functioning in the father’s house, is actually no less in a distant country of the heart. He is not in the town, where the reunion would have taken place. The sound of music and dancing, the sounds of another’s experience and testimony of deliverance fall on his soul. The code word “fatted calf” tells it all. This is as high as you can raise the restoration stakes of celebration. But this is as low as someone can respond to the joy of another’s restoration to the father.

Note the parallelism: another son coming towards his father’s house, equally bound, equally in need of restoration of his relationship with the father. The answer of the young boy to his question about what was going on is not quite as passive as it sounds: the brother “has come”. The nuance, so the textual scholars tell us, emphasizes the action of the father in bringing him back. The imperfect tense of v26 implies that the brother kept on asking the young man questions no doubt getting all the information available, so he would have known the state in which the other son arrived and all the responses of the father. The word for “safe and sound” is the same one used in the Greek translation of the OT for “Shalom”, which is the ultimate word for healing and wholeness. So we are left in no doubt about the extraordinary nature of the recovered relationship between the younger son and his father, the nature of the healing and deliverance. The immediate response of the older brother leaves us in no doubt about his equal estrangement from the father. “The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him.” Now we start seeing what is in him by what is coming out. There is indeed a deep root of entrenched anger and even hatred. The refusal to go in is another defiance against expected responsibilities, as tradition required the older son to be the one at the door to welcome guests. There is a root of rebellion here, and it’s been around for a long and unresolved time.

Let’s not beat about the bush here. What is the primary object of his anger? It is not the brother, but the father. He represents those who have clenched their fists at God for their own aggrieved reasons. There is then a repeat of what happened with the younger son. The father takes the initiative and comes after the son, who is now arguably acting worse than the younger one did. At least that exchange was private; this is public as the son stands in the open courtyard in his defiance and rage. This is another but different presentation of the pain of broken relationship between father and son. But despite the son refusing to be the son, the father refuses to stop being the father. He didn’t order his son’s compliance but pleaded. There is such poignancy in these pleadings. We know that the spirit of our father goes to great extents to strive with men and women: to persuade, to draw, to convince, to woo. But the same father who went after the first son, goes again after the enemy of grace. He wouldn’t come to where the father and his brother was, so note that the father went to him! This is pursuing paternal love and grace!

There is a tenderness and terrible vulnerability in the way that the father puts himself at the mercy of the son, and puts himself into his hands through this loving appeal that may be rejected to the heart-break of the father. What we witness is the elder son having his way with the father, as the crowd that crucified Jesus had their way with the Father’s heart not long after he told this story, and in the same way that we have our will when he is rejected by us through our disobedience and neglect, or when, in the terrifying words of the writer to the Hebrews, we harden our heart and sin, and treat the blood of Christ as an unholy thing, and trample underfoot the holy Son of the Father and thereby reject the Father.

You almost hold your breath as the elder son responds with such anger, disdain and accusation, to these pleadings of the father’s love. Even the prodigal at the beginning of the story at least addressed his father as “Father!” There was at least a modicum of social respect even if his heart was also in rebellion. Here there is nothing. The son goes straight into his tirade against the father. Commentators who understand the cultural background and setting here that Jesus’ listeners would be familiar with, have no words to describe the intensity of the shock, not just to public civility, but to familial honor that this outburst would carry. It is as heightened a level of insult as you could imagine. It would be grounds for any father having him beaten and thrown out for good. It is the ultimate dismissing, denying and degrading of a father’s authority. But in his anger he exposes himself: “I’ve been slaving for you.” Long before Paul wrote to the Romans or to the Galatians, the contrast between a slave and a true son is identified by Jesus. The two sons are equal in their estrangement from the heart of the father, whether through license or whether through legalism. Here is the tragedy of living in the father’s house but still as a slave. It also shows us some of the bad fruits of this bondage – the anger is of someone who is bound. Because of this spirit of a slave, contempt has come into his heart for his father. Trust has been affected. His entire perspective on life and others has been twisted so there is no discernment of the father’s heart. For example, he can only see the party as an insult because it seems to suggest the younger son’s worth and value, and isn’t he a scumbag? What about his, the elder son’s, worth? He has no way of discerning that it is first about the heart of the father, the joy of the father. It is the father’s party, not the son’s! (Have you noticed how joyless the legalist is, how joyless is one who is enslaved, how joyless is the one with unresolved anger?)

It’s ironic that in the context of insulting and accusing his father he thinks he has never disobeyed him. But what about the fifth commandment that seems to have hit the dust in this explosion? Note the accusations: partiality and favoritism, injustice and neglect, lack of judgment and discernment. This is a litany of complaint, both about how he has been treated and how the father has dared to treat the other son. Essentially he argues his deserts; the father owes him, the father is his debtor and therefore his integrity and his authority and his honor are denied and derided, and consequently the father is defied. Other things then tumble out that betray his real state:


• “my friends”: this implies a self-consciousness of other relationships other than his father and family that are from another disconnected part of his life.
• “this son of yours”: not his “brother” because there is no recognition of a relationship, and this is yet another example of separation from the family. (Loss of fatherhood always produces this separation effect in relationship with others in the family – disunity in the body – finding a counterfeit fellowship – a counterfeit family – a counterfeit father)
• “with prostitutes”: this is particularly interesting because there is no word used earlier in the passage that implies immorality on the other son’s part. The word used implies financial recklessness with resources, and wastefulness. That is not to say he was not immoral, but it is to say that the only mention of sexual sin in this story was in the elder brother’s mouth and therefore in his mind. Did this “never disobeyed your commands” son betray more problems of an enslaved spirit than the younger prodigal? Did he envy the brother’s profligacy and possible sensual excesses? Was the fact that he hadn’t slept around have more to do with cowardice than righteousness? And while he and his friends may never actually have visited a brothel, did they share their mental pornography, or live in the brothels in their heads? It was not a heart-obedience but a religious compliance that he had manifested. (Don’t forget that Jesus’ audience here included prostitutes and Pharisees!)

The father’s response to this venom is as overwhelming and as consistent as the response to the younger son. The word “huios” has been used mostly for “son” up till now. But here the word he uses for son is “teknon” (beloved son) which is the same one Mary used to address Jesus when she found him in the temple: it is a sensitive mixture of heart concern but deep affection and love. Again, before the expositions of the epistles on sonship and slavery, it is Jesus in this story who puts in the mouth of the father the words of rebuttal to the slave designation of the son. The father’s answer is simply: no, you are the heir. So what Paul writes should sound familiar! “Because you are sons, God sent the spirit of his son into your hearts, the spirit who calls out ‘Abba father’. So you are no longer a slave but a son: and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir.” (Gals. 4:4-7) The father assures him of the truth about who he is and what his holy rights are as a son, that he does not need to grasp and does not need to fear something will be taken or removed. The tragedy is to live as a slave and fail or refuse to avail yourself as a son, of all that is available in the father’s house. He could have had a fatted calf if he had wanted one. The fact is that the father had already given it to him by deed and title at the beginning of the story. His blame of the father was shameful, because unfounded, ungrounded, just wrong. The other thing that the father is so concerned to communicate is that he was always there and available. “My son, you are always with me.” It is the devil’s work to steal and rob and destroy the family of the father. There is no limit to demonic envy and hatred for the intimacy of the father and son/daughter relationship. You see this so deeply in the High Priestly prayer of Jesus in Jn. 17, another crucial passage for understanding the father-son relationship. You can hear echoes of this passage in it. Jesus keeps talking about himself being with the Father (“with you” vs.5) about the Father being in Him and he being “with them” (vs.12) The tragedy, as for many professing believers, is that proximity doesn’t necessarily translate into an experience of presence. Being in the field (as the elder son was) doesn’t mean intimacy.

The second half of the story now ends on the same note exactly that the first one did: with the father’s joy at the dead son being alive, at the lost son being found. But it doesn’t actually end. What do I mean? This is a carefully structured story. Each half is meant to have eight stanzas and they careful parallel each other. But the second half has only seven stanzas. It finishes open-ended. There is a missing stanza which can only be filled in, only be completed by us. It is an inconclusive ending. The brother is still standing outside the door. Did he go in? He is left standing outside the door of the father’s house. Where are you in your relationship with your Father? Are you inside, or on the outside? If the latter, what keeps you there? What is the source of your resistance, of your reticence, of your rejection? Why are you angry at him? Are we submitting to the father’s ring and robe job or is there a part of us that is standing outside the door, for whatever reason, from unresolved anger to feeling hard done by, from being enslaved and bound, for whatever reason, whether self-inflicted, other-inflicted, or devil inflicted? What is our response to a fresh invitation from the father to live in his house on his terms and at his expense? The pride of both sons needed to be broken by an encounter with grace. One humbled himself and submitted himself again to the father’s gracious ministrations. The other one…I don’t know. But this story of the father and his sons, this story of the father’s love and grace and patience and forgiveness, invites us to choose how our stories will continue and how they will end. What is your response to the father’s invitation? How will your story end?

Pastorally yours,

Stuart

http://www.christourshepherd.org/pastlet.htm (and follow links to download MP3 audio of sermon)

PRODIGAL SON 3

A PASTORAL LETTER

Dearest family,

I didn’t get quite as far as I wanted to on Sunday but enough is enough! The parable of the two sons, or more accurately, of the father, is such a rich seam of truth in the mouth of Jesus, the perfect Son of the glorious Father. One of the features of the story that we dwelt on was the prodigal’s incompletion of his rehearsed speech. Why did he not present the “hired-hand plan”? What kind of reasons could be given? Was it simply that he was interrupted by his father, otherwise he would have presented all of it? Or was something else going on? The last word of his truncated speech was “son” at which point the father’s heart seems to leap with a cosmic divine “YES!” and the father’s speech now flows spontaneously, unrehearsed. Let the contrast between what they each said sink in to your heart: “I am no longer worthy to be called your son…” (the son), “This son of mine was dead and is alive again…” (the father). I asked you whose perspective you would rather have on your life?

I don’t think that the speech ended early because the son made a calculated decision to do so. The loving, receiving, accepting, welcoming, rejoicing actions of the father brought the revelation of who he the son, truly was, with the equal revelation of who his father was. And what was he? A dead son, who realizes it at last as he is smothered in the embrace of the father, and wetted with the kisses of his mouth. There was no way he could become a live son any other way than this way, being raised again to life by the love of the father. His father didn’t leave him on the hook. It doesn’t even appear as if the confession mattered that much to the father. Don’t get me wrong, I believe everything scripture teaches about the necessity of our confession. But here is a wrench for your theology which may just suggest how huge the compassion and desire of the father is for us, that He seems to run through all the check-points of how you’re meant to approach him according to dutiful penitent custom. What is clear, by his interruption of the rehearsed off-by-heart speech is that his love cannot wait until the ending of the liturgy of confession. He has to have the son now! The son’s confession is almost ignored, certainly cut short, definitely interrupted. The father’s forgiveness preceded the confession. Don’t forget the father had died too. In claiming the inheritance the son had essentially told him to drop dead, to live now as if dead, and of course, in taking the inheritance he took the father’s living, his means of support. Out of his death came the forgiveness, way before the son’s realization of his need for it. Are you getting echoes of the gospel here, of the Father who was in Christ reconciling the world to himself? I’m thinking of Titus 3:4 “When the kindness and love of God appeared…he saved us…because of his mercy…” Does not Romans 2:4 say that it is “God’s kindness that leads to repentance…” Whether we come sinning or sinned against in our brokenness, it seems his fatherly passions and kindness ignore the litany of our worthlessness. We cannot even get the words out. He’s throwing out instructions to ministering spirits left and right and in two sentences, fewer words than the son had planned for the confession, the father has planned a celebration. As one observer has put it: “The father simply sees this corpse of a son coming down the road and, because raising dead sons to life and throwing fabulous parties for them is his favorite way of spending an afternoon, he proceeds straight to hugs and kisses and resurrection.”

You’ve got to get this. The son was kissed before he confessed. There was no negotiation here of his forgiveness and acceptance and restoration: no probation, no trial periods. No wonder penance is so attractive to the flesh that refuses to surrender to the kiss of the father. How can we defy grace with our offers of possible paybacks? We bring nothing with us but our brokenness! Of course we can understand the son’s attempts to manage his own recovery, to try and work the “hired hand” approach. The response of the father seems so indiscriminately gracious that it almost appears indecent, not true discipleship, too loose, too unwise, too unguarded, too naïve - to go straight from the forgiveness of this wastrel to the party? But we need to be shocked once in a while by the outrageousness of God’s grace to us, that we have got so used to confining to our polite theological formulations. Surely a probationary period before the public party would be wise? This would have fit in well with the son’s original “hired servant” idea.

It’s not that repentance is not required, or that coming to one’s senses is not necessary, or that coming to the father is unimportant – it’s just that they are all overwhelmed by the robe and the ring, the sandals and the fatted calf. The robe was the reinstatement of the father’s status and identity to the son. It was most likely one of his best personal robes. Slaves were bare-footed, the sons wore shoes – only free men wore shoes. The ring was the signet of authority to do business as the son of the father. So here is the son, decked out as a son with all the rights of a son. You should know that for a disgraced son like this one, Jewish communities had a very different kind of ceremony to the one the father gave here. Scholars of the customs of the time tell us that it was called the “kezazah” (the cutting off) in which he would have been officially rejected for what he had done. A life-time excommunication and the branding of “REJECTED” would be his sentence. The returning son well might have feared this was what he was walking into. The father’s answer is not banishment but an over-the-top celebration of welcome to which the whole community would be invited – thus the whole calf and not just a few pieces of steak on the barbecue. This is outrageous extravagance but this was the Father that Jesus knew. And speaking of that fatted calf…. It can slip by without notice in our hurry to get to enjoy it at the party. But it is yet another death in a parable full of deaths. Some see this as the image of the sacraments (admittedly it is a calf slain and not a lamb slain) – but the sole purpose of the fatted calf was to die that others may have joy in the father’s house. There is none the less the idea of “blood covenant” in relationship whenever an animal was killed for friends. The refrain is the same: life out of death is what happens when you come to the father’s house.

And another thought about that fattened calf. It was waiting fattened. There was full provision in the father’s house. He had all that was needed for restitution and restoration and reconciliation. He wasn’t caught short. There was no waiting period till joy and deliverance could be really celebrated. But as we were saying, the returning dead-now raised son is given all the rights of the son without even the righteousness of sonship being demanded, without him proving he can be righteous and worthy. His last true self-description was “unworthy”. Some wise and discerning person put it this way: “Reformation is the fruit of restoration, not the price.”

It was because of the father’s compassion that the son was received not because of his confession. This celebration wasn’t the father’s response to the speech. As we’ve established, the speech as rehearsed wasn’t even repentance. We already know how he intended to say it, with what intentions and limited hopes. What cut the speech short? The moment of true revelation and repentance when it was clear that it wasn’t about squandered money but about this broken relationship that could only be restored by the gifts of the father yet again. An 11th century Arabic commentary puts the reason for the “hired hand” bit of the speech being cut off most succinctly: “He did not say this. We say that he did not say this because of what he saw of his father’s love.” It was the outpouring of a heart that, days without number, had been filled with feelings of longing for the lost son. It wasn’t that his rehearsed repentance made the way for him to be received. The love that received him secured his repentance. So he wasn’t even received because of his confession but because of the father’s great love and grace. O what manner of love the father has lavished on us that we should be called the children of God! Being a hired servant was what the son knew best to be, apart from his father’s grace. But hear me: the love of the father will not allow us to be or become what we are not. In any case, his idea that by working he was somehow going to be able to earn to pay back, or save to recover what was lost, was unattainable, impossible. It turns out that just as the father was always the father, so the son, despite all that had happened to disfigure his identity or appear to disbar his sonship, was still a son, was always a son, and would continue to be loved and treated as such.

There is so little acknowledgement of the crucial relationship between our understanding and experience of freedom and our experience of fatherhood. Our freedom is a consequence of our assurance about fatherhood. It is not enough to understand it only in terms of the working of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit reveals Jesus, who in turn is showing us the Father. Neither the Spirit nor Jesus act independently of the will or work of the Father. The charisma is the father’s before it is the Spirit’s. It was the gifts of the father to the prodigal that recovered for him his freedom as a son: like the ring which now gave him the freedom to exercise his authority in the father’s name.

In the fifth message in this series we will begin to look at the elder son and see what further insights we have of the heart of the father. In the meantime, live as an obedient and loving son and daughter of your Father.


Pastorally yours,

Stuart

http://www.christourshepherd.org/pastlet.htm (and follow links to download MP3 audio of sermon)