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Brian J Hayes
JESUS & HIS
FATHER
Recently I read
again John’s Gospel and was struck how central to the LIFE & MINISTRY of
Jesus was His relationship with His Father. Even a brief look at John` Gospel shows us just how much Jesus’s LIFE
& MINISTRY was centred on His Father:
•
Jesus loves us because the Father loves Him – because the Source of divine love is the Father
Himself. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. (John 15:9)
•
While on this
earth Jesus displayed & lived out the life of God.
For as the Father has life in himself, so
he has granted the Son to have life in himself. (5:26) Through Jesus, and because we are IN CHRIST, we
now have that SAME life within us – because
in the New Testament the flow of life is from Father to Son, and then through the Son to us !
•
Jesus’ nature & character was that of His Father. Hebrews 1:3 tells
us that
and 2 Corinthians
3:18 reminds us that by the transforming work of the Spirit WE also are being changed into His likeness !
•
Jesus’ mission was the Father’s mission & His purpose was
to do His Father’s will
For I have come down from heaven not to do
my will but to do the will of him who sent me (6:38) .
These verses
clearly show that Jesus had no independent agenda. His purpose was His Father’s will
•
Likewise –
Jesus’ work was the Father’s work
For I did not speak of my own accord, but
the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it.....so whatever I say is
just what the Father has told me to say
•
His prayer
life focused on His Father (Matt 6:9)
•
The cup of
suffering in
•
and most
important – THE REASON for Christ’s death & resurrection was so God the Father could bring all of us
back to Himself. So 2 Corinthians 5:
18 & 19 speaks of God reconciled us to Himself through Christ....... and
also that God was in Christ bringing the world back
to Himself . Which is why Jesus
said:
These are just a few verses from John`s
Gospel..............
If we
go into the Epistles then the references to God as the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ – and God as our Father abound !
So from ROMANS
through to PHILEMON - 12 letters - each one begins with these or similar
words: Grace
and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
SCRIPTURE CLEARLY – places God the Father at the CENTRE of the life &
ministry of Jesus and therefore at the CENTRE of the gospel
So if that is true:
(1) Then surely our relationship with God as
our Father needs to be as important to us as was Jesus’ own relationship with
His Father. 1 John 1:3 tells us that Our fellowship is WITH THE FATHER and with His Son
(2) Then the goal of every Christian is to be like
Jesus – and being like Jesus is having the same kind of relationship as He had
with His Father.
Andrew Murray, a great preacher & writer (1828 to 1917) said: “Jesus’ life of dependency on
the Father was a life lived in the Father’s love. What the Father’s love is to Jesus His (the
Father’s ) love will be to us”
The Father’s life & love had priority of place in
the life of Jesus.
I wonder if it does in our life ?
THE FATHER IS AT THE CENTRE OF THE GOSPEL
The Gospel of Grace is about the FATHER’S LOVE
about a loving
Father reaching out to His children
•
who are his by creation but because of sin have
severed their relationship with Him
•
but His great love wants to embrace them and make them
His children again by redemption.
So the Gospel is
about the Father who because of His great love SENT Jesus
For God
so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in
him shall not perish but have eternal life (John
3:16)
The Gospel is about
the obedience of the Son who because of His love for His Father came
and died on the
cross. For I
have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent
me (John 6:38). And being found in
appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to
death–even death on a cross! (Phil 2:8)
LOVE expresses
itself in OBEDIENCE
Jesus’
death & resurrection was not just so He could save / redeem / forgive /
make us children of God (all true) – but
so He (Jesus) can bring us to the Father.
When we
come to Jesus - when conversion / redemption takes place
•
it is so we can be released from sin and made children
of God (John 1:14)
•
Jesus then becomes our elder brother whose purpose is
to lead us to –
that is reconnect us - with His Father.
The Gospel is all
about the Father & our relationship with God as OUR Father
We have made it
just about Jesus and about HEAVEN
But we cannot escape the reality that
in terms of the Gospel of Grace the dominant truth is that the gospel is Father
centred.
Jesus was
Father centred.
So when
we say that we want to be like Jesus that means
•
being focused on the Father
•
while at the same time seeking to become like Jesus - Who was a
perfect portrait of the Father.
WE –
THE CHURCH – NEED TO BE BOTH JESUS CENTRED & FATHER
FOCUSED
JESUS CENTRED
because Jesus is right at the centre of God’s LOVE & AFFECTION - the `apple of His eye`
This is
my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. (Matt 3:17)
The
Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands. (John 3:35)
For the
Father loves the Son and shows him all he does (John 5:20)
JESUS CENTRED
because Jesus is also at the centre of all of God’s PURPOSES
God`s purpose is to bring everything under Christ’s
feet and that purpose is clearly seen in
so much of the New Testament.
God’s aim is to cause Jesus to have the pre-eminence
(the supremacy) in and over everything.
Colossians 1:15-20 leaves us in little doubt as to how God the Father
views His Son Jesus. Which is why
when we exalt Jesus, God our Father is glorified.
So we still need a Christocentric
theology because:
•
Christ is central
to everything which God as our Father has done and is doing.
•
Jesus is the only
way to the Father
•
For us to take on
the nature & character of our Heavenly Father we need to become like Jesus
who was a true reflection of His Father
So it is good to be centred of Jesus - but Jesus was
centred / focused on His Father
The modern church tends to be focused ONLY on Jesus - which leads to an insufficient
understanding of
the nature of the Gospel of Grace ! We`ve forgotten
(neglected) the Father;
or if there is acknowledgment of the Father it is just
as one more truth among many rather than it being the entire focus of our life
as it was in Jesus’ life – His priority
As James Jordan says, The Father & His love for us
is not just another book of truth but the bookshelf itself !
We may not have over emphasised Jesus – because we can never do that !!! -- but we may have forgotten the Father
Tom Smail, a leading theologian in the UK Charismatic
Movement of the 1970s & 1980s, wrote a book titled ‘The Forgotten Father’
which raised this very question – that the Christian Gospel itself is
essentially a Father movement. At
present the Father is forgotten in precisely the same way that the Spirit was
forgotten before the growth of the Pentecostal and charismatic movement
Jesus Himself is very clear when He says:
If you knew me, you would know my Father also (John 8:19) and He puts it even stronger in John 14:
7 If you REALLY knew me you would know my Father AS WELL.
Question ? Has Jesus’ Father yet to become ‘our
Father’ – remember His promise:
I will be a Father to you and you will be
my sons & daughters (2 Cor 6:18)
There are still
many Christians who love, worship and exalt Jesus to whom Jesus’s Father
remains a stranger. Is that true of us ?
Many of us – including myself – were in
this position - focused on Jesus but
forgetting the Father until we began to
received some revelation that God is love, and that He is a Father to us,
and most important -- He loves us ! And that revelation, coupled with ministry which dealt with issues that
had impeded me all my life, turned into an experience which at the time seemed
almost more radical than conversion. Certainly it brought a new dimension to my relationship with God. It restored the previously neglected dimension of God as my Father.
This leaves us with the question we need to ask ourselves today:
Are we still centred on the Father or have
we once again forgotten the Father by
emphasising only Jesus and speaking only of our relationship with Jesus ?
Does our language reveal that the focus on
the Father we once had has now dimmed ?
Because although we still use ‘Father language’ deep down we know that this living
relationship with God as our Father is no longer alive !
Let us
summarise so far:
•
The Father’s
love needs to be as foundational IN OUR LIFE as it was in the life of Jesus.
•
If we are determined to be like Jesus -
then we need to be focused on our Father
Is that how we are living ?
If in the past we received a revelation of
the Father’s love is that still vital to us today ?
WE NEED THE FATHER`S LOVE !
Will
you allow JESUS TO LEAD YOU TO HIS FATHER - TO YOUR FATHER ?
The Father’s
promise to each of us is:
I
will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you (John 14:18)
I
will be a Father to you and you will be my sons & daughters (2 Cor 6:18)
Jesus came to bring us to the Father
The
mission of Jesus was not just to save us but to bring us back to the Father
John
14:6 doesn’t talk about getting to heaven but about returning to the Father
I
am the way, he truth and the life. No
one comes to the Father except by me.
God our Father sees no difference in the love He has
for His Son and the love He has for each one of us as His sons & daughters
!!! I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known (reveal you) in order that the love you have for me[Jesus] MAY BE IN THEM. (Jno 17:26)
And the avenue for the Father’s love to come to us is:
•
through Jesus Himself
•
and by the Holy Spirit’s REVELATION
Jesus emphasised that He alone can reveal the Father:
•
All things have been delivered to Me by My
Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor
does anyone know the Father except the Son, and he to whom the Son wills to
reveal Him / make Him known. (Matt 11:27)
•
I have revealed (rendered
apparent / made visible) you to those whom you gave me (John
17:6)
•
No one has seen God at any time. The only
begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared (expounded Him /
unfolded and hence `revealed`) Him. (John 1:18)
So the more we know
Jesus - the more we should know His Father as our Father
BUT THIS
REVELATION also comes BY HIS SPIRIT
‘Revelation’ is a ‘knowing’ which comes from an inner
reality put into our spirit by His Spirit – the Spirit of Christ / the
Holy Spirit:
I keep
asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you
the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better [Eph 1:17]
Here again the
focus is ‘the glorious Father’ Who we can get
to know better – more deeply
God
our Father wants us to
both
KNOW and to EXPERIENCE His love
and to GO DEEPER
INTO HIS HEART:
And so
we know and rely on (experience) the love God has for us.
God is
love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. (1 John 4:16)
What an
amazing truth ! I pray that you will
begin to believe it and come to know the Father
God has
poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. (Rom 5:5)
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