Cosmic Fatherhood

Good morning. Happy Father's Day. Isn't it amazing that we still have Father's Day? We live in a culture that dilutes our minds by the rationalism of explanation. We live in a culture in which nothing means anything. And so today I want to shatter the drabness and scatter the haze that our culture has whipped up, our own fallenness has whipped up. to hide the glory of fatherhood. And so please turn with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 8. You look behind me, verses 5 to 6. Would you please stand with me as we read? 1 Corinthians 8, verses 5 to 6. This is God's word, and it is eternally true. The Apostle Paul says, For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords, yet for us, There is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we exist for him, and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, by whom all things, by whom are all things, that's right, and we exist through him. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Please be seated. Fathers, what are you? What are you? What is fatherhood?

In our society, everything in the world is simply the result of time plus chance plus matter. The glories of entire solar systems, right? Suns, galaxies are coldly analyzed in terms of gases and heat and hydrogen. The intricate dances of like honeybees, right? Are reduced to just bare instinct. Every human emotion is trimmed down to chemical reactions in some part of your brain. The sense of beauty is simply a biological response, if beauty even exists at all, right? Even men and women, even you and me, are reduced to nothing more than the equivalent of a virus or a bacteria. We're just accidental specks in the universe.

clogging up the world. We live in a land of constant fog, where colors are washed out, where the details are so muddled that there are no realities bigger than us. And we're not that great either, right? And so we all stumble around in this perpetual grayness and this wet blanket that we live under. brings with it an almost total lack of imagination. Our culture has flattened out everything, explained everything away, so analyzed everything, so destroyed every notion of wonder, of grandeur, of glory, that we have lost our ability to imagine, which means we've lost the ability to see. We've lost the ability to see. So think of this. What is a lack of imagination? What is that? How would you define it? How would you describe a person who has no imagination whatsoever? A person with no imagination lives as if what he can see and touch and hear and taste and smell is all that there is. As if the only things that are real are the things that he can sense immediately.

Now, do you see how wicked that is? Wait, are you saying that having a small imagination is a sin? Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. Total lack of imagination is not neutral. It is rebellion against God himself. Especially when your lack of imagination is a direct result of your unbelief. Because that's what it is, isn't it? Isn't it blatant unbelief to live as if... What you can see with these eyes is all that there is. It's complete rebellion against God. As if everything can be explained by atoms and chemicals and instinct. That is blatant unbelief. But that kind of unbelief is the air that our culture breathes and forces into our lungs. None of us are immune to this. We have all filled our lungs in one way or another with this toxic air of unbelief.

That leaves us flat and bored with withered imaginations that can only see the stuff in front of our eyes. Right? And I'm convinced that this is at the root of so many problems that we see both in the world and in the church and in ourselves. Okay? The French call it ennui. And the Germans call it angst. And we Americans call it... Meh. Or depression. No wonder we're depressed. Because we think we live in a bland world, a meaningless world. So if a person who lacks imagination lives as if the only things that are real are the things that you can sense, how would we describe the opposite of that? How would we describe a person who has a well-developed sense of imagination?

The person who has a well-developed sense of imagination is the person who can see what is really there, what's really here. Because imagination is seeing the invisible, isn't it? It's the ability to make connections between the visible and the invisible, between heaven and earth, between the present and the past and the future. Things you can't see. But you can see them, right? Do you see how that is vital to the Christian life? It's really at the center of it. You can't possibly be a good Christian without having a good imagination. Here's why. You and I don't live out of what we can see with these eyes. We live out of what our imaginations do with what we can see. And if our imaginations are shriveled, are atrophied, are desiccated, right? Totally dried out and withered. Then we ourselves are shriveled and atrophied and desiccated. Our lives are meaningless. But we should live out of a rich imagination. Now, kids, I'm not talking about making up things that aren't real.

but living out of the truth that we cannot see with these eyes that are very real. So imagination is what we can see with different eyes, with what the apostle Paul calls the eyes of our heart. Kids, did you know that your heart has eyes? Adults, did you know that your heart has eyes? So Paul says in Ephesians 1, 18 to 21, just listen to this. He says this. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, opened, able to see, that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you will know what is the hope of his calling, what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of his power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of his might.

which he brought about in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come. Can you see any of that? In one sense, no. But in another sense, yes, you must see it. That's what he's praying for. The eyes of your heart would be opened. that you may see. Now, I know what you're thinking. What in the world does any of that have to do with fathers, right? Well, it has everything to do with fathers. Because fathers, if you look at yourself with the eyes of faithful imagination, with the eyes of your heart being enlightened, you can see. You can see that you are filling one of the most significant offices In the universe. You are. Because being a father is not just the result of biological functions. It's not the product of our traditions. Being a father has its origin and meaning in the being and character and nature of God himself. And it's woven into the fabric of the universe. We know that, of course, based on the authority of God's word. Think about what we just read in 1 Corinthians 8.

He says, yet for us, there is but one God, the Father, right? The one God who exists is Father. We believe in God the Father Almighty. The Apostle Paul is not just making something up here. He's not just trying to whip up a nice picture of God. He's not just using fatherhood as a... convenient illustration to describe something about God. He's saying the nature of God is Father. There is but one God, the Father. There is no other God. The God who is real, the God who exists, the one and only true God is Father. This is why our culture hates fathers. God didn't take on fatherhood at some point in his existence. That wouldn't work.

He has always been father. And God certainly didn't just use fatherhood as a convenient way of describing himself. He didn't look around creation, right? Kind of trying desperately to find an adequate picture of what he is like. What am I going to say? What will they understand? What can I like kind of make up to point to? I'm kind of like this, you know. Aha, that's fatherhood. That's it. That's what I'll call myself. He didn't stumble upon the accident of fatherhood and then use it as a description for himself. Right? It's totally the opposite. Paul says in Ephesians 3 that God is the father from whom all fatherhood gets its name. He is the original father. In other words, God created fatherhood. God created fatherhood.

among mankind, among us, to reveal the greater reality of him and his fatherhood. That's why you exist, Father. This isn't just true of fatherhood. The entire universe was made by God and for God. Nothing is accidental. Nothing is arbitrary. Nothing is random. Paul says of Christ in Colossians 1, which we just read, For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things were created through him and, do you remember? For him. For him. For his purposes. For his glory. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. All things find their meaning.

makes sense in him. And so God is the goal and the end of creation. Knowing God is the goal and end of creation. It's the purpose of everything. He is the ultimate reality to which everything points. He is the one who gives meaning to every detail of the universe. He alone holds all of it together and makes it make sense. Now, so why is the world like it is? Everything that exists in the world exists to reveal truth about God. Everything. Dirt, roots, gardens, bread, wine, vines, branches, sheep, shepherds, roads, light, husbands. Husbands who choose and pursue and capture and delight in. and cherish and love and live and die for wives, right? Wives who respond to that love with glad-hearted submission and loving respect. Is that accidental? Is that a biological feature of accidental evolution? Is that cultural? Fathers. Fathers who care for their children and give them bread and fish instead of stones and serpents.

Fathers who encourage and exhort and implore and teach and discipline their children for their children's good. Fathers who welcome and embrace wandering sons and daughters. Cast robes around their necks. Place rings on their fingers. Sandals on their feet. Throw parties when they come home. All of this. Everything else in the world that God has made that is good. God made it all to show you something true about him. How are you going to see that? You have to have the eyes of your heart enlightened. None of this is arbitrary. None of it's accidental. God made all of this with a specific purpose of revealing himself to you. Did you really think that all the details of our world were accidents? That all those things just happened to haphazardly develop?

Right? But, you know, after all, the world could have been completely and utterly different if certain molecules had aligned in slightly different ways. Well, maybe we could live in a world that didn't have fathers. You could just reproduce like plants or, you know, just break off an arm and it becomes a child. That's what our unbelieving... unimaginative, flat, dreary, blind culture would have you think. That is the agenda of our world, to make you think that. But reality is so much more magnificent than that. The reality is that our whole universe is shot through with glory. It's everywhere. If only we had eyes to see it. Everywhere we look, we should be seeing what is invisible, but is very real.

And we can see it through the stuff that we can see. We should be seeing the God who made this world to declare his own glory in every detail. Now, brothers, do you see what this has to do with fatherhood? I hope it's just so perfectly obvious to you. Being a father is not just about you and your individual life and your individual responsibilities. It's not just about biology. right, and paychecks and making it to soccer games from time to time. No, being a father is really about the very nature of the universe God has made, and it's ultimately about the very nature of God himself. That's what fatherhood means. To be a father is to take on the earth-shaking responsibility of participating in glorious ways in the one big story that The universe was designed to present fathers. No matter who you are, no matter how poor you are, no matter how rich you are, no matter how educated or uneducated you are, no matter where you came from, you are kings. Every one of you, you are kings. You are kings of entire realms. Your home. And that's just not a show. It's not some kind of sham kind of...

pretend. This is not what you pretend to be as a father. This is what you are. This is what you are. Another way of putting that is that you stand in the place of God in your home. That's what John Calvin said. You represent God in your home. Is this how you see your life? Now, you could take that and do really awful things with it, only if you don't know God. Is this how you see your life? Do you see the glory of fatherhood that lies just below the surface of every responsibility, every provision, every act of loving discipline, every encouraging word, every self-sacrificing death for the well-being of your wife and your kids? Do you see that for what it really is? Or do you only see a life of mundane hassles and headaches?

slogging it out, trudging through the gray fog of blandness and meaninglessness from one weekend to the next, where at least you can get a little momentary thrill from the big game or the golf course or the boat ride or whatever it is you live for, actually, that dulls the ache of the meaninglessness, the blandness, the mundaneness of your life as a father. Do you see your children as simply inconvenient byproducts of your honeymoon night? And at least I pay the bills. At least I put a roof over their head and give them food and shoes. Or do you see your office as father as a magnificent, glorious honor that lets you take part in eternal realities?

that are significant and meaningful beyond your wildest imagination, if only you had eyes to see. Now, what does that look like? What does it look like? What are the practical implications of thinking like this? Well, the question for every one of us fathers for the rest of our lives will always have to be, how faithfully am I living out my place on God's stage? The whole universe. down to your living room, okay, is the stage of God, the theater of God, where all this is getting worked out and God himself is being glorified. What's that going to look like? Fathers, how accurately are we showing men and angels what God is really like? That's what your fatherhood is really about. It's about God. The glory of fatherhood is the glory of God.

So if your fatherhood is really about God and showing what God is like to the watching universe, most of which we can't see with these eyes, the watching universe, then one of the most helpful things you can do in your office as a father is to know what God the Father is really like so that you can accurately represent him, right? So what is God like? How does God relate to his children? There's so many things we could say about that. Here's just a couple. God the Father disciplines his children. Not out of wrath and anger, but out of love for their own good. That's what the Bible says. Hebrews 12. And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves and chastises every son whom he receives. That's what our Father is like.

If you're disciplined by him, what does that mean? Your son. A son whom he what? Loves and receives. It is. It's amazing. But now, how many of us fathers don't discipline our children at all? Or at least not enough? Not enough? Not enough. Or when we do, how many of us discipline them out of anger and frustration? Not because we love them, but because we love ourselves. And we are just sick and tired of the hassle of kids who won't jump through my hoops or who embarrass me. That's not the kind of discipline our Father gives to us. Here's another one. Obviously, God provides for his children, right? He provides for us. Matthew 7, 9-11, listen to this. Jesus says, Or which one of you, if his son asked him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asked for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask? But how many of us fathers truly display that kind of...

great-hearted generosity to our kids. Those are some obvious things. There's a lot more than that because Jesus says in John 14, 9, whoever has seen me has seen the Father. You want to know what the Father is like? Look at Jesus. That's what he said. Whoever's seen me has seen the Father. So think about how Jesus treats us, okay? He intimately embraces and welcomes us. Romans 15, 7, therefore, accept one another, or another way you could say it is welcome one another. Just as Christ also welcomed us to the glory of God, Christ welcomes us. The Father welcomes us, embraces us. How many of us fathers recoil from physical warmth and emotional intimacy with our kids? You know?

I'm just not that way. My father wasn't that way. My dad never hugged me. I turned out okay. Right. You may not be that way by nature, right? But our Father in heaven is. And your fatherhood isn't about telling the watching universe what you are like. It's about telling the watching universe what God is like. He does not remain aloof and distanced from us. Hebrews 4, he says, For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Now, men, this is a tough one for us, for many of us, I know. Think about what this passage says about how Jesus treats us.

He does not remain aloof, right? Distance from us. He doesn't remain up on top of Mount Sinai and the clouds and the smoke and the fire hurling down his commands at us. Hey, you, get your act together. What's wrong with you people? That is not Christ and it's not God the Father. In the incarnation, Christ himself comes to earth and he dwells with us. crawls into our skin, literally, looks at the world through our eyes, enters our world, enters our life, experienced life on this planet in exactly the same way you do, tempted in the wilderness, tired and hungry and thirsty at the well, weeps with sorrow at Lazarus's tomb, experiences life just exactly the way we do. And because that is true, right? Hebrews 4 says, He can be our merciful, sympathetic, faithful high priest. He has suffered with us. Now, do you notice what that produces in us? Did you catch this in Hebrews 4? It says, we don't have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are yet without sin. Let us then, here's our response to that.

Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. When we come to grips with what it really means to have a high priest who is sympathetic with us, who suffers with us, who draws near to us, who looks at the world through our eyes, experiences the world through the same way we do, right? We respond to that by gladly and freely and confidently drawing near to him. Drawing near to him. Laying our hearts bare before him. Finding mercy and grace to help us. Now here's the thing. This is exactly the same thing that will be true with our kids. Fathers, do you want your kids to draw near to you with confidence? Or to shrink from you every time you walk in the room? Do you want them to pour out their hearts to you when they're weak? Or is weakness like blood in the water to you?

When they're afraid, when they're confused, when they're insecure, when they're anxious. Do you want to have conversations with them that don't feel like you're pulling teeth just to get a yes or a no? Then you have to do what Jesus did. We have to do what Jesus did. Enter into their world. Crawl inside their skin. Try to think, what is this like for you? Try to understand them, know them, sympathize with them. Then they'll feel free to draw near to you in their time of need. How often do we fathers utterly fail to do this? All of this. I know that I have most certainly utterly failed at so much of this. I've got four of my sons here. They can tell you. Seriously. It's hard. We can go on and on. The point is, brothers, okay, see your fatherhood for what it is.

It is a sacred calling, a calling that's not just about little things, boring things, mundane things, but magnificent and glorious things. All of us see the world in general and fatherhood in particular as a glorious picture of the king and father from whom are all things and by whom are all things, for whom are all things. We start to live and think that way. the drabness and the tedium and the depression of our lives can begin to lift away. And we can be part of something, God the Father's revelation of himself. That gives the mundane stuff meaning. One last thing. Jesus Christ will help you with all of this. Jesus Christ, that's what he wants. He wants the glory of his Father.

He wants to help you with this. He will fill you with his spirit. Do you believe in the Holy Spirit? He will strengthen you with his word, encourage you with his people, empower you with his grace to do all and be all that he commands you to do and be. You're not left to yourself. What a terrible father he would be to give you these commands and say, get at it, kid. You're on your own. You're not on your own. And he'll forgive you when you blow it. Pick you up and help you again and again and again. You are his son after all. And your family is ultimately about him. His glory is ultimately at stake in your fatherhood. So he's very invested in this. Right? He will fight in you. He will fight for you. Sometimes.

As needed, he'll fight against you. But that's good. Because he's fighting for his glory before a watching universe. So hope. Hope in him. Call on him. Wherever your fatherhood takes you. At the dinner table, beside the bed, at the soccer game. You know, everywhere. Wherever your fatherhood takes you, you are living out something amazing. You're always telling the world something. about God the Father. It could be entirely a lie, or it can be the truth.