Sunday morning message 21st April 2024
Nick Jenkins
Objective: To discover the nature of the Father
Leaders Note:
Pick and choose what part of this study below fits your group.
Key thoughts: “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”- A. W. Tozer
Questions for possible discussion:
What image do we get when we think about the Father?
How did we get that image?
How much is due to our own biological father vs what we learned through church?
One of the most famous sermons of all time, by Jonathan Edwards during the great awakening of 1740 is called “Sinners in the Hands of an angry God.” A quote from this sermon demonstrates the views of the time. "The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: His wrath towards you burns like fire; He looks upon you as worthy of nothing else but to be cast into the fire; He is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in His sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in His eyes than the more hateful venomous serpent is in ours."
Reflection
How would this sermon affect people's view of the Father?
Does this sermon reflect our own views?
Wrath
orgé: impulse, wrath
Orgē comes from the verb oragō meaning, 'to teem, to swell'; idea of a fruit ready to burst with juice.
Also, from oregomai; desire, to stretch out, to reach after, to yearn for.
It's an intense emotion, teeming, eagerly desiring. Example of a dog attacking a child- our wrath is directed at the dog, rather than the child.
God hates sin with the same passion that He loves us. There has been this idea that Gods wrath is connected to anger, hatred, he ‘abhors you’. God’s wrath is not separate from His love.
Luke 19 : 41 "As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it 42 and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. 43 The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. 44 They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.”
Questions to discuss
Have you seen the Father as one who is angry and wrathful at you?
How does Jesus weeping over Jerusalem’s future suffering affect your view of the Father?
Separation:
If we are separated from God, is it God pushing us away, or is it us who is running away from God?
Reflection:
“He is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in His sight”
Orphan thinking- shunned from his presence.
Or is the reason for separation on our part due to shame?
Garden of Eden:
Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?” Genesis 3:8
Optional:
Study Psalm 22. Was Jesus quoting the whole psalm on the cross? If so, how does this shape our view of whether the Father can look on sin?
Jesus did not come to change the Fathers mind about humanity, rather that Jesus came to change humanity's mind about the Father.
Agree or disagree?
Jesus came to reveal the Father:
Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.” 9 Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. John 14:6-11
So Jesus said to them, “…the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. John 5:19
For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form. Colossians 2:9 NIV
The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being. Hebrews 1:3 NIV
The trinity is united. They are three in one. It’s not Jesus as the ‘good guy’ to appease the ‘wrathful angry and distant father’. Jesus being the ‘good guy’ is just showing us what the Father is like- a ‘good Father’.
When Jesus shares a meal with the ‘worst’ in society, it is the Father sharing a meal with them. When Jesus forgives the woman caught in adultery, it is the Father forgiving her. When Jesus embraces the children, it is the Father embracing them. When Jesus washes His disciples feet, it is the Father washing their feet. Everything that Jesus did was a perfect expression of who our Father in Heaven truly is. He shows us the Father Heart of God.
The story of the prodigal son reveals a Father who runs to us, forgives offence, embraces us in our mess and welcomes us into the family.
Views of the Father to discuss with your group:
Orphan:
Wrath as punishment
Distant
Unapproachable
Smites
Coercive
Morally ambiguous
Master of slaves
Son:
Loving
Close
God who pursues us
Forgives
Gives free will
100% good
Father of sons and daughters
Key ideas:
Jesus came to reveal the Father. He is the authentic representation of the nature of God. He hates sin but only because he loves you, and he hates what it does to you. But we are not separated. He runs to us, he seeks the lost, he embraces us in our mess and wants us to be part of the family.
Question: Are you free enough to let yourself be held completely in the safe embrace of the Father?
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