Copyright © S P Townsend
Westhill Episcopal Church
Sunday 18 January 1998
Knowing the Father’s Love
Reading: John 15:1-17
Introduction
For the next few weeks until just after Easter we are considering the way in which God is a Father to us, and how this affects us. Jesus invariably called God his Father, and He encouraged his disciples also to use this term of family relationship - “When you pray, say ‘Our Father ...’”. Well, what difference does this make to us? Suppose Jesus had started the Lord’s prayer with the term ‘Dear God ..’, would it make any difference? Yes, a great deal of difference. The relationship of a created being to its creator is a long way from the relationship of a child to its father. Father implies so much - shared characteristics, family relationships, benefits of unheritance, shelter, protection, and so on.
Of course, as we were reminded last week, the enemy of our souls is attempting to destroy our relationship with God, and one way he tries to do this is to spoil the child-father relationship, which is meant to be a picture of our relationship to our heavenly Father. Satan doesn’t want anything around to remind us of the truth about God. He’ll slash and vandalise the picture if he can. Think about that, fathers; think about that children; your relationship is meant to show what our relationship with God is like. Have you let the enemy vandalise it, slashing the canvas, spraying the paint-can, stamping underfoot?
This week we are looking at one important aspect of God’s fatherhood: knowing the Father’s love.
1 Jn 4:16 ‘God is love’; Jn 14:9 ‘Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father’; Jn 14:11 ‘I am in the Father and the Father is in me’; Jn 14:20,21 ‘Loved by my Father’; Jn 15:9 ‘As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you’. Jesus perfectly shows us what our relationship to our Heavenly Father should be like. Here is a picture Satan could not ruin. So close was their relationship that Jesus said looking at Him we actually see precisely what the Father is like - His attitudes, His behaviour, His likes and dislikes, and particularly His love.
1Jn 3:1 ‘How great is the love the Father as lavished on us’; Jn 14:23 ‘My Father will love him’; 1 Jn 4: 15 ‘God lives in him’, Jn 15:9 ‘As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you’. I suppose one of the worst childhood remembrances is the phrase ‘wait until your father gets home’. This is one of the ways the picture gets vandalised. ‘Father is coming home’ should instead be a term of security, comfort and joy. Jesus uses this term to describe our relationship to our Heavenly Father. It is a close relationship; it is a ‘togetherness’ relationship. You get an idea of what’s involved by Martha’s heartbroken cry to Jesus, ‘Lord if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’ You see, when He was home, everything was different.
“When Jesus comes, the tears are turned to gladness,
When Jesus comes, the night is turned to day,
He takes the gloom and fills the life with glory,
For all is changed when Jesus comes to stay.”
How do we enter this experience? John says in his letter this is for those who ‘acknowledge Jesus is the Son of God’. In the gospel he says it is for those who love Jesus and obey his teaching.
1 Jn 4:16,17 ‘We know and rely on His love .. whoever lives in love lives in God .. love is made complete’; Jn 15:9,10 ‘Now remain in my love .. obey my commands’;Jn 15:11 ‘Your joy complete’. Experiencing the love of the Father is not meant to be a one-off experience. It is meant to be a ‘remaining’ experience.
How do we remain in His love? Jn 15:10-14. I can only remember getting my father really angry once, and I didn’t enjoy it! I got upset with my brother and hit him. My father chased up the stairs and thrashed me. Our relationship with oiur Heavenly Father is a family relationship. Our experience of His love grows and matures as we share His love with one another.
Copyright © S P Townsend