The Summer of Love: The Father’s Love
Does anyone here know my middle name?
(Take some guesses). It’s Dean. Some people don’t like their middle names. They
are embarrassed of them, for whatever reason. Maybe they sound weird or they’re
old fashioned. But I’m proud of my middle name, because Dean is also my dad’s
name. I’ve talked about my dad some before. My dad and I are a lot alike, even
though my mom is the one who is a pastor, and my dad is like Holly, he’s a
preacher’s wife. People ask him all the time if he’s a pastor, too, and he
says, “No, I’m just sermon fodder now.” Which is basically true.
My dad and I have always been pretty
close, but when I was a kid, he worked a lot. He had a full time job where he
worked lots of over time, and he was also a full-time farmer. So I didn’t
always see him very often, and usually when he was gone and he’d come home, I
wasn’t really looking forward to seeing him, because the first thing he’d say
to me was, “Your mom told me what you did while I was gone.” That was pretty
much our standard greeting for one another.
Time passed and I went on to college.
By my junior year I had become a resident advisor, also known as an RA, and
once a week we would have a training session. During one of these training
sessions, my boss, whose name was Don, asked us to write a letter to someone
who was a huge influence in our lives, and to just tell that person how we feel
about them. I thought about my mom, and how close we were, and I thought about
Holly, who I was engaged to at the time, and friends from high school and
coaches. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that my dad was a
huge influence in my life, and I had never really shared with him how much I
appreciate him and how much I love him. Now this wasn’t surprising, because
we’re guys, and guys don’t usually talk that way with one another. But I really
felt like I needed to write the letter to him, so I did. And I can’t remember
all the details of the letter, but it basically laid out how thankful I was
that he was my dad, and how much I appreciate him and love him.
I dropped the letter in the mail, and
a couple of days later, my dad called me up. He told me how much he loved the
letter and how proud he was of me and what I was becoming. And then before he
hung up, he told me he loved me. And I told him that I loved him, too. I don’t
think we had really said that to one another since maybe I was a little kid. I
never doubted that he loved me, but to hear him say it was one of the best
feelings in the world. Ever since that phone call, my dad and I have been
closer than ever, and I can honestly say that my dad is one of my best friends.
A father’s love is not something to be
taken for granted. Dad’s sometimes have a hard time showing affection. Guys,
for the most part, are just wired different. You don’t need me to stand up here
and tell you that guys and girls are different, and that men are usually less
affectionate than women. But I don’t think that necessarily means men are less
loving than women. They just don’t always let it out well. Like, I helped coach
t-ball the last few weeks, and there were t-ball moms and dads watching the
games. And the t-ball moms were always saying things like, “Good job honey!
Nice try! You almost caught that ball, but use your glove not your face! I love
you!” But the t-ball dads were different. They said things like, “Choke up on
the bat! Get your glove down! Run faster! Swing harder!” And it might seem like
the dads need to just ease up a bit, but they aren’t hard on their kids because
they don’t love them. They’re hard on their kids because they DO love them and
they want them to do well. They want their kids to succeed.
They are just expressing their love in
a way that doesn’t necessarily always seem loving, or at times even healthy.
But in whatever form it is, children crave love from their fathers. Whether you
had a good relationship with your dad, or a bad one, or no relationship at all,
or someone who stepped in and was that fatherly figure for you, that love, that
fatherly love, is precious.
The Greek word for that type of love is storge. It is
that bond, that affection that occurs between family members, and especially
between parents and their children. It’s a different and distinct kind of love.
It’s not eros love, like romantic love. It’s not agape love, like just general
or Godly affection, it’s more than just philos, friendship love. It’s
different. It’s unique. It’s deep. It’s innate, born within you, but can be
nurtured and can grow into something wonderful.
And how special is it that regardless of your
relationship with your dad here on earth, whether it’s good or bad, you can
still experience that fatherly love in the most pure and meaningful way from
your Father in heaven. Listen to 1 John 3:1 again: it says, “See what love the
Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what
we are.” Isn’t that beautiful? The love of the Father, for us his children.
And Romans 8 tells us that there is more to it. We are
God’s adopted children. It says beginning in verse 15, “You did not receive a
spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of
adoption. When we cry “Abba” which means like daddy, or father, “it is that
very spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if
we are children, then we are heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.”
See, we have been adopted into God’s family. If we would accept Christ and his
love for us, then we become official members of God’s family, and joint heirs
with Christ. We have a share in the inheritance.
So if we are a part of the family of God and God is our
Father and God loves us like a Father, that’s great right? Can you imagine a
cooler dad than God? Wouldn’t you like to take him on that game show “My Dad is
Better than Your Dad?” Right? You’d smoke those other kids with dads who are
like computer programmers or high school basketball coaches. Your dad is God!
You can’t lose! God has to be the coolest dad in the world!
Now if you are listening to this thinking, “Man, I
think I’d really like for God to be my Father,” you know, I’d like to get in on
that Fatherly love thing from God, if that’s what you’re thinking right now, I
should probably let you know some other things. Because just like with your own
dad, a father’s love doesn’t mean you always are going to get what you want or
just have it made in the shade.
If God is your Father, and he loves you with Fatherly
love, then there are some things you can expect. You can expect some
discipline. How do we know we can expect some discipline? Because he tells us
that we can. Proverbs 3:11-12 says, “My child, do not despise the Lord’s
discipline or be weary of his reproof, for the Lord reproves the one he loves,
as a father the son in whom he delights.” In other words, in some ways, God is
like the ultimate t-ball dad, right? He’s going to be tough on us. When we mess
up, we’re going to hear about it, and we may get punished. If we do well, he’ll
still correct us and tell us how we could have done it better.
I had a teacher in high school who was just tough. He
was tough. He made kids cry. He was in your face, and it seemed like there were
certain kids he picked on more than others. I was one of the ones who got
picked on by him. One day in class he was extra tough on me and just really critical
of my work. After the bell rang, he told me to stay in my seat while everyone
else left. I thought, great, here comes round 2. But instead he said, “Dan, I’m
tough on you because I know you are better than your work is showing. You are
capable of more. You aren’t reaching your potential. When I stop yelling at
you, that’s when you should be worried.”
Have you ever had a boss or coach or teacher like that?
I think that’s how God kind of operates. He corrects us, he rebukes us, he
disciplines us, why? Because he has created us and he knows what we are capable
of and he wants us to be the very best that we can possibly be.
You can also expect God to let you fall on your face.
Have you heard the story of the prodigal son? The son says, “Dad, give me my
share of the inheritance, and I’m out of here.” The dad knows it’s a bad idea,
but he also knows that the son needs to learn this lesson for himself.
How many times do we dig ourselves a deep hole and then
complain that God let us get into such a deep hole? I’m always kind of amazed
like when someone racks up thousands and thousands of dollars in credit card
debt, and then when they hit rock bottom they say, “God, why did you let this
happen?” Or when a guy cheats on his wife time after time after time and then
she gets fed up and divorces him, and he says, “God, why are you letting my
marriage fail?”
God gives us free will. We can choose to obey or not to
obey and God will lovingly stand there and let us choose for ourselves. That is
a part of the nature of God’s love. Is it really love if he dictates what each
of our decisions will be? Is it really love if he makes sure that every choice
we make is the right choice? Or is real love letting us choose to follow or not
to follow him.
And what follows that choice is something else you can
expect from God’s fatherly love. You can expect forgiveness. When you make that
wrong choice, and at one point or another we all do, God will be waiting just
like the father in the story of the prodigal son. He’ll rush out to meet you
and forgive you and he will be overjoyed you have come back to him. Forgiveness
is a huge part of the fatherly love of God.
And along with forgiveness, you can expect some
loyalty. Even when he are disloyal, he is loyal. He is standing there waiting
for us to come home, no matter what. You can run to the ends of the earth to
try to get away from him, you can curse his name, you can break every
commandment and every law in the world. But the moment you decide to turn
around and run back to him, you’ll see him standing there with open arms
saying, “Welcome home. I’ve been waiting for you.” Psalm 139:7 says, “Where can
I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to
the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I
rise on the wings of the dawn and settle at the far side of the sea, even there
your hand shall lead me, and your right hand will hold me fast.” You cannot
escape the love of your Father God.
Most of all, with the Fatherly love of God, you can
expect a love that you will never find anywhere else. Not from things and
stuff, not from friends or your spouse, or even your family. No, the love of
God is greater than that. As the song said, the love of God is greater far than
tongue or pen could ever tell. And if the ocean was full of ink, and the sky
was a scroll, we still would not have room to do justice in writing about how
incredible the love of God is. It is unfathomable. It is unconditional. It is
unchangeable.
Look, I don’t know what your relationship with your
father is like, but I’ll bet that there is someone in your life that you look
to as a fatherly figure. Or maybe someone looks to you in that way. You know
how special it is when a father tells their child, “I’m proud of you. You’ve
done well. I love you.” It is one of the most special feelings in the world to
hear that from your father.
Now imagine, picture that day, when you are standing
before God. How special will it be to hear those words come from him? “I’m
proud of you. You’ve done well. I love you.” If you have accepted the love of
God and the sacrifice of his Son Jesus, then that’s something you have to look
forward to. If you’ve never made that choice, today is a good day to do it.
Maybe you’ve never had a dad on earth who has really loved you. But you don’t
have to go one more day without knowing how it feels to have the love of the
Father. He’s faithful, and waiting for you to come home to him.
Hymn
140 Great is Thy Faithfulness
Pastor
Dan Metzger
Van
Buren United