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The Father who names us

Ephesians 3: 14 – 21

Rev. Peter R Green, Sunday morning, 03 Sep, 2006

WE HAVE all had fathers. Some of us knew our fathers, some didn’t. Some feel let down by the fathers we had, some feel they made us, some have mixed feelings. But we all have had them.

A retired pastor told me about his childhood with an alcoholic father. He remarked, “If we can do one thing better with our own children than our fathers did with us, we are ahead.”

It’s true, but we have more options, because we Christians have a Father who provides the ideal model.

Ian lost his father in an accident when he was four. He barely remembers his father. He was raised by his mother, his grandmother and his aunt. There were very few men in his early life. He said, “I struggle to know what a father should do, because I have no model to refer back to.” He said that he just tried to treat his children the way God treats him.

He seems to have done pretty well.

We all have a heavenly Father who is the model for all earthly fathers.

Jesus said,

If you, though evil, know how to give your children good gifts, how much more will your Father in Heaven give good things to those who ask him?

We can all learn from our Heavenly Father.

Here in this church we have more men than women. That is unusual, but it is not a bad thing. Many churches have far too few men, and would concentrate far more on Mothers' Day, and talk more about women’s roles.

The fact is that we men tend to stand back and let women do things when they are around. Women hate it, but it is how mothers train their sons. And then, when the sons turn 25 or something, everyone wonders why we don’t suddenly change.

The more men we have, the more models we all have for being men. And the more fathers, uncles, brothers the women have. It's healthy to have a balanced group.

Where I work, the men are definitely outnumbered. Roy Morgan Research often wins awards for its women–friendly policies.

I generally get on well with the women I work with, and I am comfortable in that situation. But I do feel a slight unease sometimes that there are so few men to relate to. Some of you met David Duke. He’s one of the few.

We all need balance.

Today, I want to reflect on the importance of fathers, and I want us to realise that there is a heavenly Father who makes up for the deficiencies of earthly fathers.

The New Testament is full of discussion of fathers.

We read the passage from Ephesians.

^{EPH 3:14} For this reason I kneel before the Father, ¹⁵ from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. ¹⁶ I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, ¹⁷ so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.

Here is God revealed as the Father. It is from him that the whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name.

In our society, names are little more than tags.

Have you ever been to an Ikea store? You can buy shelves named Rönskär and ceiling lights named Fartyg and dining tables named Forsby and so on. I am sure that the Ikea people just select names at random from a Swedish Baby names book.

Somewhere back in the dim past, my ancestors possibly lived near the village green. They may have had names like Henry atte Green or Susan aGreen. Or maybe they lived around Nottingham, where the people specialised in cloth dyeing, and the green dye was famous. Or maybe the village people thought that one of my ancestors was a bit green, and was easily tricked.

Neph's family name is Bautista, which means Baptist in Spanish. His grandfather was a Presbyterian, but maybe there was a Baptist somewhere in the family in the distant past.

I wouldn’t like to guess about everyone’s name. Mc or Mac in your name says you are the son of someone. That’s Irish Gaelic. Scots and Irish share the Irish Gaelic language background.

People named Fletcher are descended from a man whose job was to put feathers on arrows; the Coopers made barrels; the Chapman family probably had a market stall.

Most names have an origin in the kind of father who ruled the family. Kennedy means, I think, "Ugly head". And a Tupper was sexually loose. So you never know until you go into it.

But these names are just labels today. Some of the Kennedies have outgrown their ugly heads, many Tuppers seem to lead chaste lives, and most of the Greens don’t live by a village green any more.

But there is one Father who gives his name to his family, and that is God the Father. And that is one name we can all wear with pride, because it does say something about us.

And we can show a family resemblance to this Father.

Just as the women in a church can be extra mothers to the younger people, so all we men can in a way be fathers to others.

We can learn about fatherhood by observing God our heavenly Father.

When I was at Wentworthville Church, there were two girls there about the same age, late teens. They were both friendly towards me, but I talked about them with the Senior Pastor, because I was a little uncertain about one of them.

I said, “I think that Alice — whatever her name was — needs a father, because her dad died. So she borrows me as a kind of father when she talks to me.”

He said, “That’s a good observation.” And we talked that over, and how I might respond to it.

Over the years, I have had that same feeling about a number of people. A few months ago, a young woman who had just recently married had lunch with me, partly to talk over some issues she was noticing in her marriage, wanting to get a man’s perspective. Her parents were a long way away, and I was sure she was getting a father’s perspective by talking to me.

I used to have lunch every now and then with a young fellow who didn’t get on with his father, but I think liked to talk to me like he would with his father.

So here are a few hints about how to be a bit better as a father to others, by copying our Heavenly Father. They will work if we are real, biological fathers, or if we are parafathers, people who take on some of the role of being fathers with other people.

GIVING

The first thing we can learn by observing our Heavenly Father is giving.

Most of us have had fathers who provided in some way for us. Some did better than others. But every father who gives is a representative of God our heavenly Father. As we already read,

¹¹ If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! ¹² So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.

God is a loving Father who gives abundantly more than we can ever imagine.

I have been encouraged, seeing some younger fathers who are much better fathers than I have been, better givers, more engaged. But we can all learn, and we can observe others. And we can see how God sends his rain on the just and on the unjust. We can see how God so often provides exactly what we need at the time we need it. We can see how God sent his Son, how he gave the greatest gift he could give, because that was what we all needed, and always will need.

NO CONDEMNATION

The second thing we can learn by observing our Heavenly Father is not to condemn.

As fathers, we have to set rules so the kids can learn to have boundaries. But we can start condemning when they don’t keep to the rules we have set.

It starts when kids are little.They do something dangerous, like opening the cupboard under the sink where the cleaning products are kept. We smack their hands, which is a sensible thing, because they have to learn not to touch that cupboard.

Then we say, “You are a naughty child!” And that is not a good idea, because that says, “There is something wrong with you.” The child needs to learn that doing something naughty is different from being naughty.

But we train our child to feel naughty. We say, “Why are you watching TV? You should clean up your room! You are being naughty.” Bit by bit the child learns that there is something wrong with him or her, because he can’t guess what he should be doing, or shouldn’t be doing, she can’t set her own boundaries and limits because there is always a parent with a rule.

Then that child goes to work, and can’t progress, because he knows that he is no good; he knows that a boss who doesn’t approve is a boss who disapproves, he knows that God himself doesn’t approve of him.

Only that disapproval comes from the devil, not from God.

As we read in Romans,

^8:31 What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? ³² He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? ³³ Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. ³⁴ Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. ³⁵ Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?

Or in I John, we are comforted with the words,

^{1JN 3:16} This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. ¹⁷ If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? ¹⁸ Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. ¹⁹ This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence ²⁰ whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.

^{1JN 3:21} Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God ²² and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him. ²³ And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. ²⁴ Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.

It is not God who condemns, because there is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.

Chris — my wife, who works at Anglicare — saw a client the other day, a girl who was pregnant, abandoned, at university, unable to afford her rent, on a student allowance, not eating properly. Anglicare gave the girl food and baby clothes. It didn’t condemn her; it helped her. And that girl is going to look at one of the local churches, because she realised that people in churches are like her granny who goes to church and cares for people.

What would condemnation have done?

Sometimes, particularly when I was younger, I got too rules bound and too condemning with our kids. I think I am learning to do this kind of thing better, but we can all learn to be more Godlike, and more able to accept people who have made mistakes.

WRATH

The third thing we can learn by observing our Heavenly Father is wrath.

When we are used to thinking about how loving and giving and non–condemnatory God is, it is hard to think about his wrath.

But I think that is perhaps one of the most important.

I was good at withdrawal, and occasionally gave way to rage, but I was not good at wrath.

Naomi, our daughter, was talking to me once about a threatening incident that happened when she was at school, and she said, “Dad, you didn’t react. You just accepted that it was OK. That was nearly as scary as what happened in the first place. I didn’t feel protected.”

Wrath sees something wrong and tries to right it. Wrath is the kind of anger which judges and tries to get rid of what is wrong and set what is right in place.

In Romans 2 we read,

⁸ But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. ⁹ There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; ¹⁰ but glory, honour and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. ¹¹ For God does not show favoritism.

There is a place to show the wrath of God, because it is closely tied to his love.

Women often do better at wrath than most men do. I think that is because we have seen rage and other inappropriate expessions of anger, and we have thought that is how we men should do it. But we need to see God’s wrath as it really is, and know that it is safe for all who seek his mercy and his protection.

If you had a father who showed you even a glimpse of those qualities, you can be thankful. All fathers are fallen and fallible human beings, but we can all reflect something of God, and you will glimpse God in others if you look.

We can all learn to be more God–like, by studying God’s qualities in the Bible and imitating those qualities. And never be too proud to follow the example of some human friend if you need to understand just how these things work out in practice.

And, men, we have a particular responsibility to help each other, to make up for each other’s shortcomings, and to be supplementary fathers to those who need us in that way.

Let’s give thanks for the good we have received from our fathers, let’s follow that good example, and let’s determine to do at least one thing better, and so bring glory to our God. AMEN

© Peter R. Green 2006. Permission is granted for quotation in full for non-commercial purposes provided that authorship is acknowledged and this copyright notice is displayed with the text. Portions also copyright The Bible, NIV (Zondervan Ltd.)