I say kids, because we are all God's children. And what does that mean? Jesus, in his earthly ministry did a lot of communicating with parables, communicating with parables to make sure that we could understand the incomprehensible through things we do see around us on a daily basis. Object lessons and all that. And when he tells us to talk about God, he does as our father. Our Father. Unpack that for a second.
Think about your earthly father here. Think about your father and what he has in mind for you. Jesus Christ talks about this, when he mentions that God is our heavenly father, and that he does good things for us. And for us, who are earthly fathers, if our child asks for bread, will give that child bread instead of a stone. And if our child asks for an egg, we will give that child an egg, instead of a
Now, people will bring up a dichotomy in the scriptures, something that doesn't seem to add up. People will look through the Bible and see in there a split between the Old and New Testaments. People will look at the Old Testament, and say 'well, look, there's angry God there, and the God I like is the nice God, the happy God, the New Testament loving God. It's like they're two different guys.'
Sure enough. It says something about us that we can't figure this out, given that it is in every way analogous to our own lives. It falls in line with our own experiences as we grew up and matured. For you see, when you were a child, you had to do what your parents said to do or there would be consequences. "Wait until your father gets home" is a threat that is leveled against children, and it incubated the idea within them that they should do what their parents want them to do, because they would be punished if they were caught. You avoid breaking rules because of the punishment that would fall on you if you got busted.
Well, then you move out, you grow up, and things change. When you're on your own, when you're in your own space, with your own rules, maybe with children of your own, and then your father can't make you do anything. He can't force you anymore, and there are no threats of punishment. But one would hope that if you have been taking him seriously so far, then you would follow his counsel and guidance because, well, because it's the right thing to do.
Your Father will go through a lot of effort to try to guide you, to shield you from yourself, from your own decisions that you believe that you are smart enough to make. As a child, and especially as a teenager, you figure that you know everything, and that you know what is right to do. The Bible has a term for that, you know. It has a term for that, and we saw that term being used in the Old Testament reading on Sunday, where people 'Walk in a way that is not good, following their own devices.' That's what we are prone to do, because we are still children, and we figure that we're all about making good choices, and we don't need God's help anymore. We're baptized children of faith, we're not going to be kicked out of the family and devalidate our baptismal promises by not being nice to each other, surely not. But our earthly parents do something for us that we need to remember. They give us advice and guidance, they will help and direct us, will give us all the counsel and aid that we want, but they won't force us, can't force us, into doing what we ought. And there are natural consequences for our actions.
Galatians speaks to that, telling us that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different than a slave, though he is the owner of everything. The child is no paid for his work, receives no recompense for it, cannot earn more of his parents' love by doing things, none of that works at all. Instead, there is a matter, a simple matter of being subject to their wills and rules. That's Law, to be sure. But when the time comes for inheritance, for us to be redeemed by the will of Christ, then we were freed indeed. It's exactly like it is in your homes, in your own families. Why do you do the things your parents want you to do? Because you want to earn your way into the family? Not likely, you're arlready there, and you can't get more there. Instead, you follow their counsel and direction because you're convinced that it's the right thing to do. In the Christian church, in our faith, salvation has been won for us by Jesus Christ. We don't have the law as something we need to observe or we're out of the family. It's not a threat that if we don't do what Jesus would tell us to do, then we'll be out on our ears, that's not how it works. Because he has fulfilled all righteousness for us, because he has fulfilled the law, not cancelled it out but fulfilled it, then we are all of a sudden in a position where we look at the rules and guidance and counsel of our Lord, and are not compelled to do it, but free to.
Most of the problems we run into in our lives are because we wilfully ignore what it is our Lord has told us to do. He told us how to live, how to operate, how to function, and we expressly decide not to do it. We look at the situation, and decide not to be involved, not to follow up with his advice, to say to and about ourselves that we know best, and we know what the best action is to take, always. We follow the advice of our own hearts, we follow our own desires, and we're not interested in what God has to say.
But Father legitimately does know best. He's not going to force you into doing what he has set aside for you, he won't make you do it, but he will let you know over a lifetime that following his rules and ordinances was a good idea for a reason. If you don't clean up, you'll get vermin. That's true. You can avoid cleaning up, leave things out for forever, leave filth all over your home, and guess what, dad's never going to show up and yell at you. But the roaches and mice might just move in. If you smoke two packs a day, then you'll likely have health complications down the road. Maybe back in the day you had to hide your smoking from your father, but if you're own your own, daddy won't catch you. Cancer might.
It's usually only after our fathers have long since stopped raising us in their homes that we genuinely appreciate what they were trying to do. And it's usually at that point that we realize that he had a good idea of what he was talking about all along. He knew how we should avoid calamity, he knew how we should steer clear of trouble, he had a good idea of what we should be doing all along, and usually as children we were too stubborn to see it. It's the same with God. It's worth our while to remember that we, though fully grown, are really still children, because we will always be children. We will always be his children. And even though we are heirs, and can do what we want with our rich ineritance, it's always worth consulting with what our father has advised us to do. He knows best.
Happy Father's day, everyone.
