Children of the Father

Father’s Day can be tender, complicated, or downright painful, so we start by telling the truth about what many of us carry into the day. Then we turn to 1 John 2:28 to 3:3 and ask a bigger question than “How do I feel about my dad?” What if the most defining thing about you is that you can be called a child of God, not as a vague spiritual slogan, but as a real identity anchored in Jesus Christ? 

We talk about what the Bible means by “children of God,” why that isn’t the same as saying all humans are God’s children, and how Christian faith describes adoption into God’s family as a gift. You’ll hear why “abide in Christ” is about steady connection instead of performance, why righteousness is a direction rather than perfection, and how the gospel confronts shame with confidence. We also wrestle with the emotional side: if your earthly father was distant, neglectful, or hard to trust, how do you learn to trust a Father who calls you near? 

The conversation builds to the heart of the message: the Father’s love is costly, shown in the cross, where Jesus lays down his life so outsiders become family. We connect that to prayer, the Spirit of adoption, and a grounded call to dads to reflect God’s character with presence, patience, and discipleship at home. Finally, we lift our eyes to Christian hope: Christ will appear again, and the promise of a restored world shapes how we live today. If this encouraged you, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review with the line that hit you hardest.

Transcript

Church Plant Update And Prayer Request

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Good to be with you all. Good morning. Yeah, as Billy said, I am been a pastor of New City Presbyterian Church, uh Norton for many years. Um about to plant uh hope in the College Hill neighborhood, uh Lamb of God Presbyterian. Um and we are yeah, hope hopefully setting the launch September 13th, although sooner if God provides a space for us. Um so glad to be with you all. Appreciate your prayers for that. If you do think to pray for us, uh please please pray that God will give us a space to meet. We have people, we have funds, we just need to kind of the final piece is locking down a space, and then we can start public worship. So uh but we're trusting in God for that. Um but yeah, good to be with you all here uh on this, as we said, Father's Day. Um and I don't know about you, I'm gonna dive into scripture for a second, but Father's Day is one of those days that probably provokes a lot of mixed emotions for us for all kinds of reasons. Um, you know, some of us had great dads, some of us have had not so great dads, some of complicated relationships with our dads. Um, some of us are even struggling as dads. Um I just want to acknowledge that on Father's Day as we talk as we talk about these things. It's not always a cheerful, happy day. Um, but despite that, fatherhood is a high calling. Uh, being a dad is a godly vocation that God may call men to. In fact, the first man, if you look at the early pages of the Bible, the first man, Adam, was a dad, right? Uh it wasn't an accident, like, oh crap, uh, now I'm a dad. But like it was part of God's will, right, for humanity to be fruitful and multiply, uh, to be in obedience to that calling. And so that Adam was a dad. And contrary to what the world says, uh, isolated, independent human beings is not the norm for us as people. Uh, the first humans that I mentioned were a family. Dads were not meant to be deadbeat goofballs like Homer Simpson, as funny as The Simpsons is, um, or evil like Darth Vader or even Dr. Evil, right? Um, most of our post-World War II portrayals of fatherhood have put forward a picture of dads who are to be rebelled against, to be overthrown, or just to be laughed at. But the scriptures tell us that fatherhood is something to be celebrated, right? Even though in a fallen world it doesn't always look the way it should be. Um And you know that. We know that we fatherhood is something that we uh we know it's not the way it's supposed to be because we have this picture uh in the Bible and at the heart of creation of um a good father, right? Woven into the fabric of creation is a good father. The heart of the universe is a good father. Um, and he calls us children. So I want to explore that a little bit, that theme today,

Father’s Day And The Weight Of Dad

SPEAKER_00 2:55

a little bit, through uh John the Apostle's first letter. Uh John the Apostle, Saint John the Beloved, it's your namesake. Um his writing to Christians, uh early Christians. Um we're jumping in the middle of this. We're gonna look at uh 1 John chapter 2, starting in verse 28. If you could stand for the reading of scripture, um we're gonna look at what it means to be God's children and what it means that God's our Father. Um we read from the scriptures. John writes, And now, little children, abide in him, so that when he appears, we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming. If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him. See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God, and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is, and everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Let's pray. Father, I do thank you that you are a good, good father, um, that you have revealed that us us to reveal that to us in Scripture and through the love of your Son Jesus Christ. Lord, I pray that as we as we dive into your word this morning that you would give us eyes to see and ears to hear, and uh minds to know and and hearts to to love you more. Um we pray this in the matchless name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Abide In Christ As God’s Children

SPEAKER_00 4:41

Um okay, as I mentioned, um we're gonna look, I want to look at what it means to be God's children and what it means that God's our Father and why that's actually really good news in a broken and confused world. Um I want to start, start in verse 28. The start of this section, John calls his, the recipients of his letter, little children. You notice that? And now little children. Um he considers them his children in the faith, right? Some of these are Christians that John actually maybe came to help come to faith, um, but also God's children.

unknown 5:15

Right?

SPEAKER_00 5:15

This is their, John's saying, this is your identity as Christians. You're not just a Christian, you're also God's children. And what does that mean for your life? Well, it means, he goes on, that it means that we live a certain way. He says, here's your calling as God's children. First, remain in God, right? Abide in Christ. Stay connected to Jesus, in other words. Don't shrink from the faith. And second, this includes the direction that we try to live in. God is righteous and just and moral, and so we should try to live that way as well. John says, your identity as a child of God calls for a response. Why? Because we're now part of God's family. So, for example, my house, I have three kids. Um, they're not here today. We woke up to a water main break in the neighborhood, so there's no water. Then my wife decided to stay home. Um, but uh my kid in my household, we say I say stuff like, hey, you know what, previteras love each other, right? Uh we're kind to one another, we follow God together, we do chores together, um, right? And do my kids do that all the time? No. Do I do that all the time? No. Uh but you but in our house you don't get kicked out of the family because you're mean to your sister, right? Same thing here. John's saying, okay, you're God's children. And so that means we're now called to live by the household rules, the family expectations. And ultimately, this is about a direction, not perfection. Right? And that's true whenever the Bible gives directions on how to live or instructions on how to live. It's all about the direction of which your life is going, not the perfection with which you obey, because you can't, and we don't. But this we we do this, and we need to know this because this identity as children of God is not natural to us as human beings. Now, let me stop here for a second and and back up, because we're coming midway in midway through John's letter. Um, we're starting in the middle of it. And John has already explained some of this in other parts that I didn't read this morning. But in our culture, we have this idea or saying that we're all God's children. It's another way of saying that we're human. We're all human, we're all equal, which is true. Um and in again, in general, that's mostly true. Um, if you believe in a God and you believe that human beings are his creatures, then yes, we're all children of God, metaphorically like that. But that's not how the Bible's using this phrase. Um, children of God, for John, are those who are disciples of Jesus Christ. Not every human being who's ever existed. We're all creatures, but we're not all children. John's very clear in this letter that there are those who walk in darkness and those who walk in the light. In fact, he tells these Christians not to love the world. He says here that the world doesn't know them because they didn't know the Father. Um in verse 23 of this letter, first uh this chapter, excuse me, um, John will even say, No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. And so it's very clear in John's writing that being a child of God is something that's not natural, it's unique, and based on your connection to Jesus Christ. So how do you become a child of God then, you might ask? Well, John actually tells us in the first chapter of his gospel, not the letter, his gospel, right? The gospel of John. Uh John chapter 1, verses 12 to 13. If you had a Bible, you can flip there or you can look it up later. Uh but he says, but to all who did receive him, that's Jesus Christ, who believed in his name, he gave their right to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. So the Bible says that what makes you a child of God is not your own will or effort, or how good or successful you are, or your genetics, or your heritage, or where you come from. What makes you a child of God is whether or not you have received Jesus. And receiving Jesus means that you put your identity, your hope, the animating principle of your life, or you give your allegiance to Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah. Um it means that you recognize that you need help, that you're powerless over your sins, and you need someone to rescue you, and you look in hope to Jesus as the one who can do that for you. That's what it means to receive Jesus. And that is what makes you a child of God. And it is a gift, actually, because uh he hasn't made us his children because we're so great or anything, right? He's made us his children because of our reception of Jesus alone.

Adoption Comes Through Receiving Jesus

SPEAKER_00 10:25

And this is what Christian thinkers call the doctrine of adoption. Um, if you're a Christian, it means that you're not just a disciple of Jesus, you've also been adopted into God's family. And that means, whatever your experience of your earthly father has been like or is like, you in reality have a father in heaven. A father who loves you and is for you. Right? And John tells us that we have a father in God who does all this because he loves us and wants to save us. He says, see what kind of love the Father has given to us. See what kind of love the Father has given to us that we should be called children of God, and so we are. And you know what? God's love isn't some cheap love. It's not like a, hey, I love you, by the way. Um, love you, bro, whatever. It's not like that. God's love and favor and adoption of us come at a great cost. Because the Bible's picture of human beings is not that we're these like cute orphans left on the roadside that need a home, right? The Bible's picture of human beings is that we're more like runaway problem children that don't want anything to do with our family, don't think we need them, who are in all kinds of trouble and committed all sorts of offenses and crimes. And probably should be in jail. And God said, you know what? That's who I'm gonna rescue. The problem child. So the kind of love the Father gives to us is the willingness to die for his enemies and those who don't want anything to do with him. Because again, humanity's rebellion against our creator, when we did that, we didn't just reject our dad. We also committed treason against the king of the universe. And we become our own worst enemies, and we're so deep in our own muck and mire that climbing out isn't actually possible. And so the kind of love that the Father has given us is the love of God shown in the declaration that the Son of the Father took the judgment of God in our place, that God was willing to trade places with us in order to get us out of that hole that we dug for ourselves, and was too deep to get out by ourselves. And there's a lot of complicated theology packed into that statement uh about the nature of God's being there, but imagine this scenario. Um, imagine that my one of my sons, I have two sons, uh one of my sons and one of you all are tied to the railroad tracks like one of those old cartoons, like one of those old Western movies, right? And there's a train coming. Now, most of you in that scenario, I would I think would say, Mike, don't worry about me, save your son. Assuming you're all generous people like that, right? Um, but instead of listening to you, I leave my child there and rescue you. Now, all of us would probably think that's absurd and maybe really immoral. Right? No one should do that. You should rescue your kid, leave the old guy to die, it's fine. Um but in fact, this scenario gets even more strange. Because imagine that same scenario, but my child actually says, Dad, don't save me. Save that random person from St. John over there. And I do. Now that's not a perfect analogy, but that's the kind of costly sacrificial love that God shows us. God the Father, let's God the Son die for us, so that God the Spirit might make us his children. That's the kind of love God had for us. Jesus was the Son tied on the track, not a, not, not a train track, but the wood of the cross. And the train of death and sin and hell, and God's judgment came barreling toward him, and he said, Father, leave me and rescue them. Let me let me take this. That's the kind of love God has for you and me. It doesn't make sense, actually. That's the heart of the Christian message, though. Uh, John 3.16. You might know this verse. For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. And this is the basis for all of John's instructions about how to live. There's a number of instructions here. Uh, but it's all based on this the knowledge of the love of God for us. And there's no doubt about that love. He says, we're children of God, right? And so we are. And that changes how and what you live for.

The Costly Love Of The Cross

SPEAKER_00 15:27

Because as a Christian, you can be sure that you have been rescued, that you have been made a child of God, that you can see the Father's great love for you, no matter what, that was accomplished 2,000 years ago on a hill outside Jerusalem, and live in light of that.

unknown 15:47

Man.

SPEAKER_00 15:51

And you might say, well, that's really great, but do I know this father? I mean, he seems pretty good, but how can I know? What kind of father is he? Because um, no matter what kind of experience you've had being a dad, or with your own dad, and I have a complicated relationship with my own dad, so I'm speaking from personal experience with this. Um God is an even better father. And we can see this in the way that the Lord Jesus calls us to relate to God. Um, you may not know this, but uh ancient Jewish prayers typically started with this phrase Blessed are you, O Lord of the universe, and then thank you for whatever. Um that was pretty standard. A lot of faithful Jews still pray that today. Uh, if you watch the chosen, that that's the way all the disciples pray regularly. Um but when Jesus tells us to pray in the Sermon on the Mount, uh, Jesus says to his disciples, call the Lord of the universe Father. He commands us to pray, our Father who art in heaven. That's pretty wild, if you think about it. It's pretty revolutionary. Jesus told his disciples, even, that the Lord of the universe, who's who they should address as Father, knows all their needs. It's his good pleasure, he said, to welcome us into his kingdom. He won't give us bad things when we go to him with our needs. This is all over the Sermon on the Mount. And what kind of father is this? This is a father that not only rescues us, who knows our needs and provides for us, who welcomes us into his household, but he's a God who wants to be with us always. Uh, we read the verse um earlier at the in the um in the assurance of pardon from Romans 8. Um, but he God dwells in us uh by the Holy Spirit, which Paul calls the spirit of adoption. And and and Paul says in Galatians chapter 4, he says, Because you are sons, God has sent the spirit of his son into our hearts crying, Abba, Father. So you're no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son and heir through God, right? This is a God, what kind of father is this? This is the father who's not an absent, distance father, this is the father who wants to be with you always, who wants to dwell with you. And so if you're a dad, dads, our calling as men is to seek to live for God. Number one. Because your kids and my kids are gonna think about God rightly or wrongly in response to how we act as fathers. My dad, as I mentioned, was he was pretty distant, neglectful, absent, self-absorbed my entire life. And to this day, as a 41-year-old man, my gut expectation is that God's just like him. Even though I know that's wrong. Even though the scriptures tell me the total opposite, my gut expectation is God is distant, absent, neglectful, self-absorbed, doesn't care about me. And so, dads, our calling is to be like the God of the Bible to our kids. As imperfectly as we'll do it. In fact, the Apostle Paul tells us, fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. In other words, try not to be a crappy dad. Pretty good, right? Yeah. But seek to live and love like your father in heaven and make disciples of Jesus in your family. If you can do one thing, that's it. That's hard. That one thing's really hard. But seek to be like our father in heaven. And there is nothing in that that even smells like toxic masculinity or Homer Simpson or any of the dad characters shown to us daily in media. There's nothing abusive in that either. It is the picture of God as our Father, and our call to be like Him is one of the most beautiful, kind, loving things you'll ever see. Now, sometimes churches just stop right there with this message of Christianity.

unknown 20:23

Right?

SPEAKER_00 20:24

You know, God's your Father,

A Near Father And A Dad’s Calling

SPEAKER_00 20:25

He loves you, He died for your sins. We stop there. And that's all true. But notice John doesn't stop here. John actually goes on. Um, the message that we've been deeply loved by the Father, washed clean by the blood of Christ, adopted into God's family, and indwelt by the Holy Spirit is actually just the prelude to what God's actually in the business of doing in the world. Notice this, he talks about um little children abide in him, so that when he appears, we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming. And he says, beloved we are this is verse 2 of chapter 3, beloved we are God's children now, and what will be has not yet appeared, but we know that when he appears, we shall be like him because we shall see him as he is. Jesus said in John 14, Gospel of John 14, in my father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and I will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. Here's the deal. Beloved children of God, you have hope for the future. No matter what is going

Future Hope When Jesus Appears

SPEAKER_00 21:55

on in the world, or whatever things are going on in your life, or whatever you're struggling with, or the pain that That you're experiencing now, whatever it might be, the scriptures tell us it does not have the last word. Do you see that? Jesus wants us to be with him. God is going to return and make things right. God, our Father, is preparing a home for us, right? Dad wants us to live with him, in other words. And not just spiritually, metaphorically. Because the message, the full message of Christianity is that not only did Jesus die for your sins and adopt you into his family, but that Christ is going to return. And he is coming to bring transformation to the world that we live in. The world that we live in will be healed. If we die before that, we'll be resurrected. If we're alive when Christ appears again, we'll be transformed. But the scripture paints this picture of a world in which there is no more death or pain or sickness or dying or abandonment by our parents. And God, our Father, will wipe away every tear from our eye. It's a good world where we stand and live in the presence of God always. And there isn't this sense of where is God? No, we know him, and he is with us. That is the hope that we have. John says, we don't exactly know what it's going to be like, but it's the hope we have. And we know when he appears, we shall be like him, and we shall see him as he is, and everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. And John says that this life of struggle and sin and pain and death will be no more. That's our hope. Right now, even if you're new to Christianity, you've been a Christian for a while, you might feel like, even though you have this identity as an adopted son and daughter of God, it might feel like a weird fit sometimes. Being a part of the family is a weird fit. The church can be a church can be a weird place sometimes. But the hope is that when Christ appears, we will finally and fully be part of God's family. And it won't feel like a weird fit anymore. It'll be the most wonderful, natural thing ever. And so this Father's Day, regardless of your own story with your father, or your own struggles as a dad, or your desire to be a dad and not seeing that fulfilled, whatever your experience is with that, and it's complicated, I know, know that you have a Father in heaven who loves you to the point that he would do anything and everything to have you in his family. That he gave his son to adopt you. That Jesus, our elder brother, laid down his life to make us part of God's family, that God the Father is not far off or distant, that he is so close that he dwells in you by his spirit. That everywhere you go, his presence is with you, and that nothing can separate you from the love of God. And know that there will be a day when fully and finally, like not only will we know this intellectually, but we will fully and finally be in the presence of God, our Father, forever. Amen. Amen. To God be

Closing Prayer And A Neighborhood Mission

SPEAKER_00 25:23

the glory. Let's pray. Um, Father, thank you for your great love for us. That even as I stand here and speak about it, Lord, it seems so unbelievable. Um, I pray for all of us that by your spirit, um, that you would help us to grow and trusting you as our Father, um, and living as your children, and hoping in the appearing of our Messiah, Jesus. Lord, thank you for this great gift that you give to us freely, simply by receiving you and your son. And Lord, we pray that you'd make us more ambassadors of this peace that you've given us in our neighborhood, where there are lots of folks struggling with suffering and fatherlessness and despair. Lord, make us members of your household that welcome others in. I pray you be glorified in all that we do, and the rest of this day, we ask in the name of Jesus Christ, your Son. Amen.