Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Wednesday, June 25th. Jesus shocked His followers by calling God Father. As a believer, you have that same privilege. You can call Him Father too. One of the most comforting truths in all the Scripture is to know God as our Father. And what I'd like for you to think about for a few moments is how His Fatherhood is expressed toward us. How does God the Father express this Fatherhood toward us? It is the same way that every father should express his Fatherhood toward his sons and toward his daughters. So I want you to listen carefully in two ways. Number one, knowing that we're talking about our relationship to the Father and how He's expressing His Fatherhood toward us. And secondly, how you are to express your Fatherhood towards your sons and your daughters.
It's the same. And so I want to encourage you to get a pencil and paper and jot these down. Because if you want to be a good father to your children, here's the pattern.
Where does this pattern come from? It comes from Almighty God. And if you'll think about the God that you and I know as given to us in the person of Jesus Christ in comparison to all the other religions in the world and their God and their prophets and their messiahs and so forth, there is no comparison whatsoever. Listen to how this awesome God of ours desires to express His Fatherhood toward us. Well, first of all, He desires to have an intimate relationship with us. This is why He says we're to address Him as our Father, not just as God, not just as Sovereign of the universe, not just as Holy One, not just as Judge, but He says we're to address Him as Father. When you and I sense that we belong to God, that there's a closeness and you know in your own prayer life when you get on your knees before God or sit somewhere quietly, close your eyes, you're reading the Scripture and you and God are being alone, you know when you sense, listen, when you are aware of His presence.
You know what God is doing? In those moments, He's being intimate with you. He is revealing His presence with you. He's unveiling to you Himself that He loves you enough, that He desires a relationship with you. Listen, that He's willing to meet you.
He's willing to meet you when you're quiet, meet with you when you want to talk with Him, meet you when you're silent, meet with you when you want fellowship and companionship and a sense of belonging and a sense of oneness with Him. God, I'm needy. What am I doing? I've opened my heart. God, I feel weak in this temptation. What am I doing?
Opening my heart. God, I blew it with this person. Lord, what I said wasn't kind.
God, I'm being transparent. So what does God do? He says, I understand your weakness. I'm going to forgive you the way you treated this person. I'm going to be to you what you need. The wonderful privilege of knowing Him as my Father is to be able to know Him intimately. A second thing that I want you to remember is that we have the privilege of knowing Him as our Father. Listen, a Father who desires to communicate with us. Listen to what He said. He says now, you want to talk to the Father? You want to get in a conversation with Him? Here's what you do. You say, my Father who art in heaven, holy is your name.
And then you begin to express your needs and your feelings or whatever they may be. I want you to notice another couple of passages here that are very important because He was talking to them about fasting and about praying and so forth and then about in this particular passage on prayer. Look, if you will, at what He says in the sixth chapter of Matthew down in verse six. He says before, don't be like the Pharisees and the hypocrites standing in the synagogues to be seen. But He says in verse six of chapter six, But when you pray, go into your inner room, when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will repay you.
What does that mean? It implies and it says He heard you. You can communicate with your Father. He heard you.
And you know what? He's going to answer your prayer. And so one of the wondrous things about knowing Him as my Father is He's the kind of Father I can talk to.
I can have a relationship with. I can talk to Him. He listens to me and He may not like everything I say and He may not give me everything I want. Thank God He doesn't.
And so what is He going to do? He says, if you and I know how to give good gifts to our children, how much more will the heavenly Father? He delights in giving good things for those who ask of Him.
Think about this. One of the most comforting things about knowing Him as my Father is that I can have this intimate relationship with Him, that I can communicate with Him. And thirdly, that He loves me unconditionally. Every once in a while, somebody will say, well, now where is this unconditional love bit?
I'm going to give you a couple of passages of Scripture here, but I want you to think about something first. If God loves you and me conditionally, what does that mean? Remember now, His omniscient knows everything. He's omniscient.
I'm always in His presence. And so therefore, since He's all wise, knows everything about me, if He doesn't love me unconditionally, how will I ever know when He is and when He's not loving me? If His love for me is conditioned, let me ask you a question, what is it conditioned upon? What would be the normal, natural answer to that question? If God loves you conditionally, what is it conditioned upon?
Listen carefully. God's love isn't conditioned upon anything. That is His nature to love. He loves the sinner and the saint. The sinner just positions himself in such a way that he can't enjoy and can't experience and can't glean from and get all the fruit from a God who loves him, positions himself so he cannot. Because God's not going to bless the unbeliever and person living in rebellion against him as he will someone who's living in obedience. So God doesn't love us conditionally but unconditionally.
Think about this. You and I have the wonderful privilege of knowing intimately and can communicate with a Father who loves us in that way. Didn't that John say in that third chapter? Behold what manner of awesome love the Father has for us that we are called the children of God. Not only that, but it's wonderful to know that we have a loving Father who not only loves us unconditionally but meets all of our needs.
He's promised to meet everyone of our needs. Now let's go back to this prayer for a moment in the sixth chapter of Matthew and look at that for a moment. Right before He gives us this prayer, here's what He says in verse eight. Chapter six of Matthew verse eight. Therefore, do not be like them, that is like the unbelievers, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. Praise God. That is, listen, when you and I come to Him, we're not giving Him information that He doesn't know. Amen? He says He knows our needs before we ask Him.
And I'll tell you, we can go a step further. He knows our needs before we know our needs. Now, listen to what He says in the rest of this chapter. Beginning in verse twenty-five, what He's talking about here is how the Father meets our needs. And so Jesus is saying that, look, don't be anxious. Don't get worried and upset and live a frustrated life because you're afraid of what's going to happen.
Listen to what He says. Verse twenty-five, for this reason I said to you, do not be anxious for your life as to what you should eat or what you should drink, your body, what you're going to put on it. He says, is not life more than food and body and clothing? Listen, look at the birds of the air. They do not sow, neither do they reap, nor do they gather in the barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them.
Are you not worth much more than they? He says, Lord, if your heavenly Father takes care of the birds, they don't sow, they don't reap, they don't store up things in barns. He says, if the Father takes care of them, will He not take care of you? Think about what a wonderful Father we have. Listen, that every time you and I have a need, He already knows about it. Every time we have a need, He's already taken care of it. Every time we have a need, ready to meet our need. You say, now wait a minute now, God doesn't always meet my needs the way I think He ought to.
The Bible doesn't say that. It doesn't say that He'll meet your needs always the way you expect them, when you expect them, how you expect them, but your needs He says He will meet. Paul said, my God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus. Why would He say to us, ask and it shall be given you, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you, if He didn't intend to meet our needs.
That's the pattern. He says, this is what you'd ask. You have a need, you ask, God to supply.
He already knows about it. Don't get anxious, don't get upset, don't get all bent out of shape. If He takes care of birds and lilies in the field, He's going to take care of you. What a wonderful Father you and I have. What a wonderful Father we have.
Have an intimate relationship with Him. We can communicate with Him. He loves us unconditionally.
He meets all of our needs. So let me ask you, Dad, have an intimate relationship with your children. Can you communicate with them? Do you love them unconditionally?
Oh yes. Let me ask you a question more important than that. Do they know and feel and really believe that you love them unconditionally? It's not just whether we do or not. It's how they perceive our love. Do you try your best to meet their needs? Their greatest need is for a godly Father to pattern and to share with them the principles of Scripture by which they can live firmly planted in the gospel of Jesus Christ, firmly planted in the principles that make for success in their life, firmly planted in the assurances and their promises of God's Word that no matter what happens in their life, their loving Heavenly Father will be there to assist them and aid them. You see, this is the one aspect of this relationship that you and I cannot promise our children, that we'll always be there.
We can meet their needs but we can't always be there. But one of the most awesome promises in the Scripture is that, listen, we have a loving Father who will always be there. He says, I will never leave you nor forsake you. What a wonderful, wonderful assurance that you and I have a loving Heavenly Father with whom we can communicate, we can have our intimate relationship, loves us unconditionally, meets our needs and will never leave us, never leave us nor forsake us under any condition no matter what.
There's not a parent in the world who can promise that child that, but let me say this, now watch this, that is you can't always be with them physically. But let me tell you how you can always be with them. I can tell you how my mom is still with me and she's in heaven. Because since I was a little boy, she got down by the bed every night and she prayed for me and called my name. I can still hear the way she pronounced my name. I can still remember some things that she would pray for me. I can still feel and sense the compassion and the genuine love and concern she felt for me. I can still remember some things she would tell me to do and I can remember some things she would tell me not to do.
And so you know what? Your child may get away from home, get away from the house, but dad, what you want to do is you want to pattern before them number one. And secondly, you want to share what you know about the loving Father in such a way that child will never be able to get away from you. Never, never, never. Dad, I cannot tell you how important it is. You can't stay with them, but you can so live they'll never be able to get away from you.
Never. Well, to know Him as my Heavenly Father, one of the most wonderful things about it is to know also that He's the Father who disciplines me. I want you to turn to Hebrews chapter twelve for a moment.
Hebrews chapter twelve and look at this. You see, one of the wonderful things about God is to know Him as a disciplinarian. So there's nothing good about that.
Oh yes, there is. Because you see, you as a father, you discipline your children. Why? I certainly hope it is not in anger. Discipline is an expression of loving correction for the good of the person being disciplined.
Not because you want to vent something that you're angry about. Now God disciplines His children. Now look how important this is. Twelfth chapter of Hebrews beginning in verse five. He says, And you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons. My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are approved by Him. For those whom the Lord loves, He disciplines, and He scourges.
I mean, He puts it to us every once in a while. Every son whom He receives, it is for discipline that you endure. God deals with you as with sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you're illegitimate children, not sons.
You know what He says? The fact that God disciplines you and me is one of the evidences that we are the children of God. That's what you expect from a father. Listen, when your children disobey you, it is your responsibility because of your accountability to God to discipline them, correct them in love, to protect them from further disobedience. What does God do? Does the same thing.
Look at this. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us. We respected them.
Shall we not much more, He says, be subject to the father of spirits and live, that is, to God? What did He say? He says, our fathers disciplined us and we did what? We did what? We respected them.
Now look at this. For they disciplined us for a short time, it seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, that we may share His holiness. He says, listen, we have a loving father who disciplines us and sometimes it stings and sometimes we don't like it and sometimes we want to run away and sometimes we won't escape. He says, it's always for our good. But He says, listen, He disciplines us.
Look at this. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful but sorrowful yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness. You know what the purpose of discipline is?
Training. Training, listen, in the home training children to be obedient, learning to be accountable so they will learn to be accountable to God. And I believe that there's one principle, if there's only one principle that those kids need to walk away from home with is simply this. I am accountable to the living God for my life. Whether I'm at home, away from home, or wherever I am, I am accountable to God for my life, for my conduct, my behavior, my attitude, my actions, I am accountable to God. A kid can walk away from home without burning in his or her heart.
It'll protect them from a lot of things. One last thing I would say. You and I have this wonderful loving Father.
What a privilege it is to know Him. Listen, to know a heavenly Father who will always guide us to do the right thing. Always guide us to do the right thing. Your Father and my Father, our heavenly Father, will never lead us in the wrong direction. This is why He said in that sixteenth chapter of John, He said, when the Holy Spirit comes, He will guide you into all truth.
Listen to this. This is the anchor verses for me in the whole Bible. Trust in the Lord with all your heart.
Lean not to your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him. He will direct your path. Proverbs three, five, and six. Psalm thirty-two verse eight. I will guide you with my eye upon you, God says. I will guide you with my eye upon you.
I will teach you in the way which you should go. Think about that. We have a wonderful loving Father that we need to get to know. We can have an intimate relationship with Him, communicate with Him, experience His unconditional love, have our needs met, sense His presence, who will discipline us when we need it, and guide us always to do the right thing. That's the kind of God we have. Now would you not agree that it's wise to be able to call Him your Heavenly Father? And you call Him your Heavenly Father by confessing your sins to Him, accepting His Son Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, and simply saying to Him, I'm asking you Father to forgive me of my sins.
I do believe that Jesus Christ died on my behalf. Trusting Him for that forgiveness and asking you to save me and make me one of your children. He will answer that prayer instantaneously the moment you ask Him. And all of us who are believers, we have the awesome privilege of living with this kind of a loving Father. Father, how grateful we are, how grateful we are that you're that kind of God. I pray the Holy Spirit will build these truths, sink these truths, establish these truths, root these truths so deep within us that they will continually bear fruit, that every time we look to you, we can be able to say with confidence, my Father, know that you're listening and know that we'll hear from you. I pray for those Lord who've never been saved, that today they trust Jesus as their Savior. And Father, today if there are fathers or mothers here who look at this list and say, my, my, how I failed, not to be discouraged, but to make a decision today, to work at each one of these aspects of your love for us so that their children will sense and feel and know and believe and experience and never be able to escape. Godly Father and Godly Mother, in Jesus' name.
Amen. Thank you for listening to part two of Knowing God as Our Father. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by intouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.
