Title: God the Father / John 17:25-26
We believe in God. However, when you ask what kind of God you believe in, you will see that each believes in a different God. Why do we believe in a different God even though we go to the same church? Is the Bible different? Is it because the family is different? no. Knowing God, but knowing and experiencing Him as a person makes a difference in our faith. Who is God? God is the Father.
1. We must know God the Father.
We know God. But how much have you experienced such a God? Jesus knows God the Father well. Not theoretically, but empirically. Jesus is expressing God as an intimate Father. Jesus loves his Father so much that he obeys him even to death. And the Father proclaimed how much he loved his Son, Jesus, saying, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” There is a very close and beautiful relationship between Jesus and the Father. There is no conflict or discomfort here. Full of love, freedom and joy. It is an inseparable relationship.
In the Lord's Prayer, Jesus said, “Our Father who is in heaven,” indicating that God is also a Father to us. What kind of father are you? How different are your fathers? There are unjust fathers and bad fathers. I have a good father. You have a great father.
Who is God the Father? If you know your father, you will love him. I'm going to resemble my father. I respect you. I miss you.
How much does a son want to be like his father? According to the monthly ‘Father and Family’ survey of 100 men between the ages of 13 and 18, only 33% said they wanted to be like their father. On the other hand, 37% said they do not want to be like them, and 30% said they don't know. Heavenly Father is our example of what kind of parent we should be. What kind of God is the Father to me?
2. Jesus makes us know the Father.
He wanted to know God the Father through his physical father, but there are not many fathers who can properly fulfill that role for their children. That is why Jesus came to this earth. Jesus came to make us known the Father and His love. “I have made your name known, and I will make it known” What does Jesus make known? It is to experience the love of God the Father through the life and teachings of Jesus and the cross. The cross of Jesus makes us know God the Father properly. Through the cross, our wounds are healed and our relationship with our physical Father is restored.
We need to continually know our Heavenly Father more and more. You have to keep getting to know your father. How old do we have to be to know a little about our physical father? To know more, you need fellowship. The deeper you get along with your father, the more you get to know him.
Knowing our Heavenly Father intimately will not go astray. Walk in the middle of the light. Walk in the path of righteousness. The farther away we are from God the Father, the more we commit sins.
3. If you want to know God the Father, forgive your physical father.
We do not fully know the God who is the Father whom Jesus speaks of. It is because the thought of our physical father makes us realize that our Heavenly Father is also like that. We picture our Heavenly Father through our physical father. If the idea of being a father is not good, then Heavenly Father is not very good either.
Who was our physical father?
My Korean father doesn't speak much. Even if your child comes with a report card, he says, “Okay, okay,” and reads only the newspaper. When I get home from work, the only question I ask is, 'What about your mother?' A believer who has experienced this kind of father cannot come close to the presence of God. I can't pray for long. What about father? I can't pray for fear. Because of the fear of God. Worship begins with a relationship with God. Praise, prayer, and dedication reflect our relationship with our Heavenly Father.
I have a laissez-faire father. If the father had a good father and had no discipline or reproof, he would be spoiled and arrogant when worshiping God. They would say they worship God with their arms crossed and their legs crossed. There is no sense of reverence. It is to think that God is only kind and good as a Father.
I have a father like a general. He is the dictator of the family. They treat their children like soldiers, as in the movie The Sound of Music. Train and take a break! Dress up! If you make a mistake, get down and stretch out! He is eager to point out and correct mistakes. Children who have such a father shout, “I am free” when my father goes out. When the father returns, he says, 'Father is coming. put it away quickly Hurry up.’ So it’s quiet. Those who have such a father do not know the kind Father God. We cannot experience God the Father of love.
There is a father who wields violence against his wife. On the day he comes after drinking, he shakes his wife's hair. Hit it with your fist. It also takes a stick. The children who grew up listening to their mother's screams vow to take revenge on their father when I grow up. Even when these children hear the word “father”, their heart hurts and they reject it.
We were loved, protected, and nurtured by our Father. In the process, I suffered a lot. According to the data surveyed by the Family Ministry Research Institute, 40.7% chose “father” as “the person who hurt me and made me suffer.” The survey was conducted on 181 unmarried Christians in their 20s living in the metropolitan area. 53.1% of all respondents said that they were hurt by their parents. Children who grow up in Christian families are also hurt by their fathers a lot. When these children teach that God is their father, it is difficult to think of God as a good person.
In order for us to properly know, trust, rely on, and love our Heavenly Father, we must forgive our physical father for hurting us. Forgive your physical father. Otherwise, we do not know our Heavenly Father. We must take off our glasses of our physical father and see our Heavenly Father. Among those who do not believe in Heavenly Father, even God can become a burden on their hearts because of bad thoughts about their physical father. Also, even those who believe in God can think of God the Father as the level of their physical father. Those who did not have a good relationship with their physical father do not have a deep relationship with Heavenly Father as they think the same. There are people who believe well in Jesus and the Holy Spirit and have a good relationship with God, but the relationship with Heavenly Father is not good. It is rarely called Jesus or the Holy Spirit. Therefore, even if I hear the name Jesus or the Holy Spirit, it is okay because I have never been hurt by a person with such a name. But we've heard the word father too many times.
This is the result of a ‘Survey on Adolescents’ Consciousness toward Parents’ of 1,400 teenage boys in collaboration with ‘Young Boys’, a British youth charitable organization. It was found that boys who grew up with a lot of attention from their fathers were more confident and tended to be less involved in drugs and the like. And it was found that boys who grew up in an environment with a close relationship with their father felt less depressed or alienated. In fact, the impression of a physical father felt by the criminal boys was that of a tyrant who interfered and prevented rather than a giver of love and understanding.
My physical father never hugged me. I don't know what a father's arms are like. I haven't heard from my father that I love you. So when I heard that God loves me, I didn't know how good it was. When I experienced Heavenly Father, I did not deeply feel the words that I love or that he is merciful. I knew that this was because of the thought of the father in the flesh. So, when my father forgave me for words or actions that hurt me, he allowed me to experience God's love.
Have you ever had a father who hurt you at this time? Forgive our father. Only then can you experience God, who is the perfect Father. Together, we will surrender the wounds we received from our physical father to the Lord. And let's pray for our children to repent for not becoming perfect fathers like our Heavenly Father.