Father’s Day. I thought I’d put a message together. I’ve never preached this message before. I’ve been thinking about Father’s Day, and Father’s Day is not the same day all around the world. It’s Father’s Day here in New Zealand today, a day when we honour fathers.
When you look around you today, there’s lots of different types of dads. There’s the good, the bad, and the ugly among our dads. I hope you fall into the ‘good’ category, and there’s also some of your dads that aren’t even around today.
It has quite an impact upon people’s lives when there’s not a father figure, for it’s very important. But as Christians, we are blessed. Even though you may not have a father that’s still alive or that you’ve hardly seen your father in your lifetime, you have a heavenly Father.
And I want to talk a bit about our heavenly Father today. A lot of our dads had faults, but there’s one thing about our heavenly Father, and that is that he is absolutely awesome. He is perfect, amen? He’s wonderful. And I find that the devil is constantly coming against us, lying to us, and saying that our heavenly Father doesn’t love us. This is happening because your heavenly Father doesn’t love you, and we need to have our minds renewed to understand the love of our heavenly Father.
I want to talk about a bit of a journey that I’ve had in discovering my heavenly Father. When I first got saved, I didn’t really think much about the Father. I thought more about Jesus and the Holy Spirit, and so I want to talk to you a bit about that today. My relationship with my dad and my relationship with my heavenly Father. Now, my relationship with my dad was that he was a bit distant from me. You might have fathers who are distant, who were angry, who were your dads, who were not interested in you. You might have had a dad who abused you, all sorts of things like that. You might have had a dad who was very critical of you. I often have come across that as a pastor, finding sons who had a critical dad, and it had quite an impact upon them. You’ll struggle in your relationship and your understanding of your heavenly Father if you had a bad relationship with your dad. The Holy Spirit really has to work on us to renew our minds to understand what our Father is like.
Now, for many of us, if your dad was a real strict person, you will think that your heavenly Father is like that too, that he is up there with a big stick. You often hear people say that God is up there with a big stick, and he’s ready to hit you at any time. Have you ever heard that story? But that’s far from the truth. Our heavenly Father is not like that. It’s far from the truth.
When you look at that story of the prodigal son, you see that the son went away and spent all his inheritance on wine, women, and song. All that time while he was in sin and far away from his father, the father was waiting for him, longing for him to come back. That’s a picture that our Father has for us. He’s always longing for us, always loving us, always looking out for us. He’s not saying, “I’m going to turn my back on you now.” No, he’s there, wanting to love us and bless us.
Now, my earthly dad was a good guy. He was a great guy. He was very helpful to his neighbour. He was a very clever guy. But the one thing, when I’ve been thinking about it, was that he was sort of around. He wasn’t always there for me. He had a lot of other interests. To give you an example, on the day that I was born, my father was out fishing, much to my mother’s disgust. She’s there in the hospital, and there’s dad out there on the cliffs at Urenui somewhere, I think, fishing away, looking for a snapper, not realising that a little ‘whipper snapper’ had been born on that day many years ago. So that’s giving you an idea of my father: he wasn’t really there for me. He had other interests, and fishing and going down to the pub, were two of the big things.
Now, one of the good things about the fact that my father loved fishing was that he built a batch at Mokau, and we were constantly going up there to Mokau. We had a boat up there, and we were fishing up there for flounder, for snapper, for trout. My sister and I had a wonderful time there at Mokau, and so there was a good side to that, that we spent a lot of time at the beach back in the day.
But my father, as I said, wasn’t really that interested in me. He had other interests that were far greater. I can only remember once that my father came to look at me at sport. I wasn’t that good at sport, but he came once and that was it. He wasn’t really interested in me when I played tennis or other things like that. Once, my dad took me to the movies, and I can remember him sleeping through the whole thing. So afterwards, we couldn’t really discuss what the movie was like because dad fell asleep during the whole time.
When I became a Christian, my image of the Father, my heavenly Father, was a little bit distorted. But I also remember that my heavenly Father wasn’t really that interested in me. He liked me, but I wasn’t high on his agenda. It’s amazing how what your father does and the attitude of your father can affect your attitude. My wife often laughs about that, and I laugh about it, that my father wasn’t there on the day that I was born and it nearly happened to me too.
In Zimbabwe, when our firstborn, Adrian, was in the throes of being born. We were up there at the hospital, and he wasn’t coming. So I’m looking at my watch. I was a real ‘space cadet’ back in those days, and I’m thinking, “There’s a prayer-meeting at the church. I don’t know. I’m just waiting around here.” So I said to my wife, “Bye bye,” and I went off to the prayer-meeting. So it sort of rubbed off. My father wasn’t there on the day I was born, but fortunately, I got back in time for the birth of my son Adrian.
So, yeah, my father didn’t give me his full attention. But you know, our heavenly Father, he is constantly thinking about us. He loves us. He actually, more than just liking me, he actually is in love with me. Now, I know that’s hard. We sort of get a funny distortion of that, but actually He is love, and He is loving me. He loves me, and He loves me so much that He sent his most precious possession, His son, to die on the cross for me, to die on the cross for you. He didn’t send an angel; He sent his most precious possession. We are high on our Father’s agenda. He doesn’t just like us; He loves us. In fact, He doesn’t even sleep. He’s constantly thinking about you and me all the time, 24-7. And that’s an amazing thing. We have a wonderful, loving heavenly Father. But my heavenly Father is the best ‘multitasker’ in the world. Us men, us blokes, can only do about one thing at a time. Women can do lots of things at a time, but my heavenly Father is the most amazing multitasker. With your understanding of His greatness, you can understand that He can make you feel like you are His favourite, that you are the only one, and He can make you feel like you are His favourite. He’s not like our dads, who can be disinterested in us. But with a renewed mind, you can sense the incredible love of the Father, and you can feel like you are His favourite. Believe me, it’s possible, and it’s possible with a renewed mind.
The Father in heaven has no other interest but you. No other interest at you. If you pray and call out to him, He’s not going to say, “Listen guys, better stop this game of golf now. I’ve got to go and sort out Graeme down there on earth,” or “I better stop fishing. I’ve got to come down there and help them.” No, He’s just constantly thinking about us. He has no other interest but us.
I love this scripture. It talks there about the sparrow. It says there that there’s not one sparrow that falls to the ground without the Father’s knowledge. And it says there as well that he has numbered all the hairs on our head. It says,
“Are not five sparrows sold for two copper coins? Yet not one of them has ever been forgotten in the presence of God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not be afraid, for you are far more valuable than many sparrows.” Luke 12:6-7
That is an amazing thing, that God has numbered all the hairs on your head. He’s actually finding it easier with me each and every day because I’ve got a few less than what I used to have. But He has numbered all the hairs on my head, so he is very, very interested in me. He’s very interested in you, and he knows every detail of your life.
Once you’ve become his child, you’ve been washed in the blood of the lamb, and your sin has been taken away as far as the east is from the west. You’ve been made righteous in the sight of God, and he is interested in you. He’s an expert on you. He knows every detail about you, not to say that he’s going to put all the bad things—he’s washed those things away. He knows all about you, and he could write a book about you. He knows all the hairs on the heads of every person in the world—7.6 billion people.
…on the planet, and he knows how many hairs are on the heads of 7.6 billion people in the world. If you were to ask him now, he could tell you far better than Google, far better than Copilot and Microsoft, all the hairs on the head. Apparently, redheads have 90,000 hairs on their head. I would have had quite a few more—that’s a picture of me back in the day. Blondes have 150,000 hairs on their head. With my beard, I would have had about 180,000 hairs on my head. But he knows all the hairs on our heads. He’s an amazing God.
So if he were to add up 7.6 billion people, that’s 7.66 quadrillion hairs on the heads of the people in the world. Man, there’s no calculator that could work that one out. And that’s not counting animals. He would know all the hairs on the heads of the cats, dogs, bears, all of these things. There’s no God like him. He’s an amazing God.
And the other thing is, he knows all the names of the stars there are in the universe—zillions and zillions of them. He knows their names. And also, he says there in Psalm 139 that his thoughts towards you and I are more in number than the sand upon the seashore. When I go walking along Fitzroy Beach, I remind myself of that. The beach, for that matter, or a sandy path, I just thank God that his thoughts towards me are more than all the sand upon the seashore. He’s always thinking about you and me. Praise God, he’s always thinking about us.
He loved you even when you were a sinner, so how much more, in a sense, could you say he loves you now that you are his child? It says, “How deep is the Father’s love for us.” It says in Romans 8 that
if God spared not his own son but delivered him up for us all, how much more will he not, with him, freely give us all things?
He loves us, brothers and sisters. He really does. He’s a wonderful heavenly Father.
My father was distracted by fishing on the day that I was born, but your heavenly Father has your full attention. He has your full attention. He is not distracted by cell phones. Like many, I’m sad. I often see parents out with their kids saying, “I’m going to take you to McDonald’s today and while they’re there the whole time they’re on their phone, while the child is sitting there next to them. They’re not giving that child their full attention. I praise God that I grew up in an era when there weren’t cell phones, and my mother gave me her full attention. She was constantly relating to me, but I don’t see that happening very much in the days in which we live.
But our Father in heaven gives us His full attention. He is not called away by something else when we cry out to Him. He doesn’t sleep, as I said. My dad was missing on the day that I was born, but my heavenly Father was not missing on the day that I was born. Here is an interesting scripture that I want to read out to you: it says,
“Even when you are chased by those who seek your life, you are safe in the care of the Lord your God, just as though you were safe inside his purse or his wallet. But the lives of your enemies shall disappear like stones from a sling.” 1 Samuel 25:29 TLB
So in God’s wallet, he’s got a picture of you. He’s constantly reminded of you. He’s a loving heavenly Father.
Now, it tells us as well, it says there in Psalm 139,
“For you created my innermost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” Psalm 139:13-14
So my father wasn’t there on the day I was born, but my heavenly Father was constantly there the whole time that I was being formed in my mother’s womb. He was always present.
It tells us in Jeremiah, it says there,
“The word of the Lord came to me, saying, ‘Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you; before you were born, I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.’” Jeremiah 1:4-5
So it says that even before you were formed in your mother’s womb, your Father knew you, and he knew you in your mother’s womb far greater than any dad on the earth. What an amazing God.
And the other thing it says there in Ephesians, it says,
“Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes.” Ephesians 1:4
So even before the foundation of the world, your heavenly Father had you on his mind. Amen. You need your mind to be renewed to even get a little glimpse of what this means. It’s amazing. Our heavenly Father is amazing.
But this journey that I’ve been on to discover even a little glimpse of my heavenly Father has taken time because when I first became a Christian, as I said, I could really only relate to his son Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. I got baptized in the Holy Spirit but I didn’t really understand or see Him as my Father. I didn’t see this Father image, and I can’t really tell you why. I can’t explain that, but I have begun to relate to him more and more as the years have gone by.
When you look and read about Jesus, you see that He had an amazing relationship with His heavenly Father. He was so in love with His Father, and He knew that everlasting love of the Father for Him. When e taught us the Lord’s Prayer, He said right at the beginning, “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.” And straight away, I thought, “Well, there it is. That’s why I’m having trouble relating to my Father, because He’s up there in heaven, and I’m down here on earth. That’s why I’m having a problem relating to my Father.” This sort of backed up this image: Jesus is here, He’s in my heart, but my Father is up there. That’s the way I used to think. I’m not saying it’s right.
So, Jesus went through it all. He died on the cross for me. He knows what it’s like to be a human being, so I could relate to Jesus, but I had a bit of a problem with relating to the Father.
The way in which the Lord really caught my attention was a time when we were in Zimbabwe, and I was feeling quite miserable and quite frustrated in the ministry, wondering why I wasn’t experiencing the abundant life that Jesus spoke about. It says in John 10:10, “I’ve come to give you life and life more abundantly.” I remember saying to Bernice, “I feel like crossing that scripture out of my Bible because it says there that Jesus has come to give us an abundant life, but I’m not experiencing an abundant life.” I couldn’t figure out what the problem was.
I want to just explain a little bit there. You know, sometimes when we’re feeling down, we look to the world to comfort us. Each one of us has different ways in which we comfort ourselves, and often we turn to the world for comfort. I would watch quite a bit of TV or watch movies back in that time, and I particularly liked sci-fi movies or something of fantasy. But I found that they cheered me up for a little while, and in the end, they made me feel even worse.
Some people, when they’re feeling a bit down, can turn to food—comfort food. It cheers you up for a little bit, but when you get on the scales a little bit later, you think, “Oh my goodness, no, that didn’t really help much.” You can turn to wine. You can immerse yourself in work to try and avoid all of those problems. You can also turn to sport but my particular weakness was getting into movies. I wasn’t into pornography or anything, but as I said, it was sci-fi. The more I got into it, the more distant God seemed. It wasn’t helping me much at all. I found it very hard to hear from God, and I didn’t know why. I realized that my heart was getting colder and colder, and I had a problem. I wasn’t single-eyed like the Bible says. It says if you’re single-eyed on the Lord, your whole body will be filled with light.
I had a dream—I keep on having dreams, don’t I? But I had a dream back then of being in a queue to go to the movies. In Zimbabwe back in the day, with inflation, things were getting expensive. I was in a queue with a friend, lining up to go to this movie. When we got to the ticket office, the woman said to me, “You’ve got to pay me in British Pounds.” I thought, “My goodness, how can I pay in British Pounds? That’s an exorbitant amount of money to come to this movie.” Then a voice said to me, “You’re paying a high price in what you’re doing. You’re paying a high price.” That really shook me because I realized that I was looking to the world to comfort me instead of looking to God.
This scripture was what really spoke to me back in those days, and it really has helped me. It says,
“Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world passes away, and the lust thereof, but he that does the will of God abides forever.” 1 John 2:15-17
That really made me wonder, what does it mean that the love of the Father is not in him? God loves us all; we’re all His children. We’re saved by faith. What does it mean that the love of the Father is not in him?
I realized that the more we get involved in the world or love the world, we can’t sense the love of the Father. Our heavenly Father is a jealous God; He’s a jealous lover. Often, we can look to the world for comfort, but He says, “No, I want you to come to me. I’m the only one that can truly satisfy you. I’m the only one.” I found that out back then. I found that, in a sense, He was withdrawing himself from me to help me realize what was going on. Back then, when I was trying to hear the voice of God, I found it so hard to hear the voice of God in fact, I would need about 10 visions, 14 scriptures, and 2 prophecies before I finally made a decision to do anything because I was double-minded. It says if you’re double-minded, don’t think you’re going to receive anything from God.
You know, it says of Lot, it calls him righteous Lot in Peter. It says righteous Lot vexed his soul daily while he was in Sodom. That scripture spoke to me—that my soul was being vexed. I was still saved, but my soul was being vexed. Lot was righteous still, but his soul was being vexed by the worldliness of Sodom.
As I said, my Father is a jealous lover, and He paid a great price to save us, and He wants us to give our all to him. I repented back then, and the journey to know Him more and more has grown since those days.
One thing I’ve found in the Song of Solomon is there’s an amazing analogy there of the king and the bride. The king loves the bride; the bride is the church. The king is Jesus. When you look at that, especially in all the different translations, you can see how much in love with us our Lord Jesus Christ is. He loves us.
When you look at marriage, when we get married, the Bible tells us that two become one. When we become Christians and we receive Jesus into our life, in a sense, we are married to Him, and we become one with Him. We are in him, and it tells us that those that are joined to Christ are one spirit. When you are joined to Christ and he comes into your life, you become one with him. As I understood that more, it was a journey further and further into the deeper love of God.
You know, when you look at relationships and families today, you can be an orphan, you can have a solo parent, you can have a solo mum or a solo dad, you can have no grandparents. But it’s better—it’s a far better, more beautiful place to have a mum and a dad. That’s a better place. It’s not always the case. I had heaps of cousins when I was younger. I feel sorry for kids today who don’t have lots of cousins to play with like I used to play with my cousins. And then you’ve got grandparents. It’s a far greater place to be when you’ve got a mother and father and you’re the child, when you’ve got brothers and sisters, when you’ve got cousins, and when you’ve got grandparents. But you can still exist without them.
And it’s the same with our Christian walk. We need to have a relationship with Jesus, we need to have an understanding of the Holy Spirit too, and we also need to have an understanding of the Father. We need to love our brothers and sisters in Christ. It’s a far greater, more powerful place to be in. It’s a greater, complete picture when we understand not just Jesus, not just the Holy Spirit, but understand the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
I’ve realized more and more the love of the Father, and it’s a far stronger, better place to be. Amen. It’s a far stronger, better place to be. You can survive just by being saved, but it’s far better that you know the Father as well.
I want to show you a couple of scriptures. It says there in John 17,
“Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.” John 17:25-26
So it says there that they might know that the love that you have for me may be in them. Remember that other scripture, where it said that if you love the world, the love of the Father is not in you. Jesus prays that we might know the love of the Father in us and know that Christ is in us.
For many of us, God’s way up there, Jesus is out there somewhere, but it says that He wants us to know that Christ is in us. Christ in you is the hope of glory. He doesn’t want us just to sing about him; He wants us to know that Christ is in us.
There are a couple of other scriptures that I want to show you in different translations. In the Living Bible, it says,
“I have revealed you to them and will keep on revealing you so that the mighty love you have for me may be in them and I in them.” John 17:25-26
Jesus wants you to know that he’s in you, but not only that, he wants you to know the mighty love of the Father in you. I must confess, I’m knowing it more as the days go by. It’s making me stronger.In the Passion Translation, it says,
“I will reveal to them who you are and will continue to make you even more real to them so that they may experience the same endless love that you have for me, for your love will now live in them even as I live in them.” John 17:25-26
That’s a prayer that’s worth praying. Oh God, help me to know that same endless love that you have for your Son. Help me to know that love as well. Amen. It’s a wonderful place, the same endless love. You know, the gospel that many of us have been presented with is that getting saved means you’ll go to heaven. Well, that’s great—praise God, we’re on our way to heaven. But getting saved is far more than that. The Spirit of God wants us to know the relationship that we have with Christ. He wants us to know God while we’re here on earth. Otherwise we should just die when we get saved and go to heaven it would save a lot of problems. He wants us to know the love of the Father. He wants us to know the Father.
As it says, “Our Father which is in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” He wants us to know that kingdom here on earth, not just when we get to heaven one day. That’s the way we should be praying.
So when I look back over my walk, the Spirit of God has been developing my relationship with Jesus. But as I’ve got to know Him more and that I am one with Him, now He’s opening up this door for me to understand that I can go directly to the Father. This is what He’s wanting to do for you as well—that you might be able to come directly to the Father because of your relationship that you have with Jesus Christ. It’s a powerful place to be in. I believe that God is wanting to bring the church to that place where we can really understand that we can go to the Father.
For here is eternal truth: When that time comes you won’t need to ask me for anything, but instead you will go directly to the Father and ask him for anything you desire and he will give it to you, because of your relationship with me. John 16:23
I preached a message the other day where I was looking at Psalm 2. In the middle of that, it says,
“You are my son, and I’ve become your Father. Today, ask me and I will give you the heathen for your inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for your possession.” Psalm 2:7-8
When you understand that you are His son and His daughter and that you can go to the Father, you’re going to be asking for bigger things than just a new television set or a better car. You’re going to be asking God for things like a nation. Ask him for New Zealand and have that confidence that you’ve come to the Father and that you’re asking Him for these things, knowing that He’s hearing you. Amen. So we need to be asking God for these bigger things. It’s a place of authority. It’s knowing the love of the Father and coming directly to Him, coming to the Father, coming into that place.
Jesus did bring heaven down to earth when He died on the cross. He came into me. He presented to me the Father. We need to be asking the Holy Spirit to open our eyes, our spiritual eyes and ears, to know the love of the Father. Remember that our God is a jealous God. He wants us to love Him with all our heart, all our mind, and all our soul. He gave everything for us; we should be giving everything to Him. Amen. We should be giving him all our hearts. Praise God. Amen.
Father, I thank you for this day. I thank you that we can remember you. We thank you that we just remind ourselves that you are our loving Heavenly Father, that you love us with an everlasting love. Thank you for sending your son to die on the cross for us, that in His death, the curtain was rent so that we might come into the very presence of God. Forgive us when we don’t talk to you, Father. Forgive us when we ignore you. We thank you that you’re always interested in us, that you were there even before we were born. We ask you in these days to open up our understanding to know you more, that the picture will be complete, that we will know Jesus, we will know the Holy Spirit, and we’ll know you, Father. In Jesus’ name, thank you, Lord. Amen.