FATHER’S DAY
THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD
DR. JIM DIXON
JUNE 20, 1999
HEBREWS 12:3-11
Moses was about 80 years old when he had a life changing experience. He was tending sheep in the Sinai Peninsula on the slopes Mount Horeb, which was sometimes called Mount Sinai, and today is called “Jabel Musa”—the mountain of Moses. And it was there that Moses experienced a theophany. God appeared to him, and God spoke to him through a burning bush. And God called Moses to go and stand before the Pharaoh of all Egypt. God called Moses to set His people free. And Moses said to God, what is your name? Whom shall I say has sent me?
And God said to Moses, “I AM that I AM. tell them Yahweh has sent you.” And thus was revealed the name of God, the divine name of Yahweh, which means “I AM,” and which theologians call the Tetragrammaton because the name of Yahweh has four letters. The name of Yahweh is regarded as holy. It is regarded as sacred. But for us as Christians, for us as believers in Jesus Christ, there is a name given to God that is still more precious. For us as Christians, there is a name given to God by our Lord Jesus Christ. And that name is Abba.
This is the most precious name of God, Abba. And of course, Abba means father. Or as Gene said in his prayer this morning, Abba means daddy. And this morning we examine the fatherhood of God in order that we might understand the meaning of fatherhood.
First, when we call God Father, we are not saying that God is a man. God has no gender in the biological sense. The Bible is clear that men and women are created equally in the image and likeness. God, the Bible tells us, is spirit. Those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. But when we call God Father, we are recognizing His relationship with us, for we are sons and daughters of God through faith in His Son Jesus Christ. What Jesus has by nature, we have been given through adoption. And when we call God Father, we are recognizing His loving authority in our lives.
Now, this morning, as we examine the fatherhood of God, I want us to take a look at two titles given to God the Father. And the first title is Jehovah M’Kaddesh. God the Father is Jehovah M’Kaddesh. And we cannot understand the fatherhood of God or even our own fatherhood apart from this title. Now, it’s in the book of Leviticus, the 20th chapter, the eighth verse, where God says, “I am Jehovah M’Kaddesh, the Lord who sanctifies you.” Jehovah M’Kaddesh, the Lord who sanctifies you. Now in the Greek, the word sanctify is the word “hagiasmos.” It comes from the word hagios, which means holy to sanctify. In Hebrew and in Greek, to sanctify means to make holy. When God says, “I am Jehovah M’Kaddesh,” He is saying that He seeks to make His children holy. He seeks to sanctify us, to make us holy. And if we would be good fathers, good dads on earth, then we too must seek to make our children holy.
Now, to sanctify children requires three things, biblically. First of all, it requires instruction. In Leviticus chapter 20, verse eight, God says, “Keep My statutes and my commandments and do them, for I am Jehovah M’Kaddesh, the Lord who sanctifies you.” In the prior verses and in the prior chapters, God has given through Moses all of His instruction with regard to holiness; all of His statutes; all of His commandments. And then God says, “I am Jehovah M’Kaddesh.” He seeks to make us holy by virtue of His instruction, by his commandments, by His statues. Now, if we would be as Christian fathers, good fathers, then we must instruct our children in the statutes and commandments of the Heavenly Father.
I read two weeks ago a Breakpoint commentary by Charles Olson on the subject of pornography in America. Of course, pornography is a multi-billion-dollar business in this nation, and the dollars keep rolling in unabated. And indeed, the revenue from pornography is increasing almost exponentially. Pornography has spread from magazines to videos and movies, and now to the internet. And according to Colson, pornography is finding increasing acceptance amongst the intelligentsia, amongst the academically elite. And today, many colleges and universities in our country are offering courses in porn studies. This is true of New York University. This is true of Columbia University. This is true of the University of Northwestern. And really this is true of many colleges and universities all across this country. They have new course offerings in porn studies and students are shown graphic illustrations, pornography. Porn actors and actresses are invited to the college campuses as visiting lecturers.
And indeed, according to Colson, there is a porn scholar circuit. People are actually becoming professors of pornography. And in these classes, students are actually taught that pornography is a good thing and that pornography can make them whole and complete—that pornography has a healing influence and leads to wholeness because pornography can break the shackles of traditional morality (which means of course, to break the shackles of Judeo-Christian morality). And students are taught that pornography can set them free to become their natural and instinctual selves and that this sexual liberation is indeed a liberation of the whole person. All of this is taught in the name of Enlightenment.
Of course, it should not surprise us because in a universe without God, people are little more than animals and people hate the statutes and the commandments of God. But if you’re a Christian, if you believe in Christ as your Lord and as your Savior, then you must love the statutes and commandments of God, and you must bring your children up in the statutes and commandments of our Heavenly Father. This is our call in Christ.
Of course, we live in a country where many parents, many dads, do not instruct their children morally. In the Rocky Mountain News this morning, there is report on the Summit on Youth Violence Conference. And pastors, scholars, and police officers in agreement have said that the children of America are in desperate need of values. They need to know rights from wrong, and these values need to be spiritually grounded.
And of course, as Christian parents who seek to sanctify children, we know that we must rear them in the instruction of the Lord. Now, if we would be involved in the sanctification of our children, we must also discipline them to make holy means, to instruct and then to discipline. In Leviticus chapter 20, verse eight, God says, “Keep My statutes and commandments and do them, for I am Jehovah M’Kaddesh.” I am the Lord who sanctifies you. I’m the Lord who makes you holy. And then in the subsequent verses and chapters, God goes on to explain the discipline, the consequences, that will come to all of those who disobey His statutes and commandments. You see, God disciplines His children. In our scripture for today in the book of Hebrews, the Bible says, “Have you’ve forgotten the exhortation, which addresses you as God’s children saying, ‘My child, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord nor lose courage when you are chastised by Him, for the Lord disciplines those whom He loves, and he chastises every child that He receives.’
“It is for discipline that you must endure. God is treating you as His very own children, for what child is there whom his father does not discipline? And if you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you would be illegitimate children and not children of God. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them. Should we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits? In life, earthly fathers disciplined us for a short time at their pleasure, but He disciplines us for our good that we might share His holiness. For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant. But later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to all who have been trained by it.” You see, God is Jehovah M’Kaddesh. He is the Lord who sanctifies. He’s the Lord who makes holy.
He does this through instruction in His statutes and commandments and then through discipline for all who would disobey. So it is that as earthly fathers who believe in Christ, as earthly fathers who are children of the heavenly Father, we have been called not only to instruct, but to discipline. When we instruct our children, we plant flowers in their life. When we discipline our children, we pull weeds. Both are necessary. If we want our children to be a garden of God, we must plant flowers and we must pull weeds. We must give instruction just as God does in our own lives. That is why in the New Testament the Bible says, “Bring your children up in the discipline and the instruction of the Lord.” That is why in the Old Testament, the Bible says, “He who spares the rod hates his child, but he who loves his child is faithful to discipline.”
So we have this exhortation from God’s Word that we are to rear our children in the discipline of the Lord that they might be sanctified and made holy. Of course, we’re to do this in love. It says in Titus chapter two, verse four, that we are to love our children and discipline should always be administered in love. And it says in Ephesians six, and in Colossians three, that we are not to provoke our children to anger. There’s a certain wisdom we must bring to this whole area of discipline. And again, at the Summit on Youth Violence, in Rocky Mountain News this morning it was reported that all of the leaders said that we are a culture that has failed to discipline. And part of the problems we’re experiencing in America today reflects a lack of discipline in American homes.
If we would sanctify our children as Jehovah M’Kaddesh sanctifies His children, then we all must also seek atonement for them. You see, Jehovah M’Kaddesh is “The Lord who sanctifies, the Lord who makes holy.” He instructs His children, He disciplines His children. He knows that despite all the instruction and all the discipline His children are still going to make mistakes because they’re fallen. He then offers atonement. He offers atonement because we’re sinners. We need to make atonement. And of course, in the Old Testament, there was the Jewish sacrificial system where the blood of animals were offered upon the altars of Israel for the sake of atonement, for sin. And in the Old Testament, there was the Day of Atonement, when the high priest of Israel offered the blood of animals upon the mercy seat of the Ark of the Covenant, seeking to atone for the sin of the people.
But all of this was just a foreshadowing of the cross. All of this was just a foreshadowing of the true atonement that God would provide through His Son Jesus Christ. And in the fullness of time, God sent His Son into the world to atone for your sin and mine, to atone for the sin of the children of God. He had instructed them, He had disciplined them, but sinners they remained. And so, He came to offer atonement for sin. And Christ died on Calvary. He died on Golgotha. He died for you, He died for me in substitutionary atonement, paying the penalty for your sin and mine because God the Father is Jehovah M’Kaddesh. He is the Lord who sanctifies. He’s the Lord who makes holy. And if we would be good earthly dads, then we must not only instruct our children and discipline them, but we must bring them to the cross where atonement is found. We must bring them to Christ.
We must bring them to the grace and the mercy of Christ. I thank God for a mom and a dad who not only instructed me in the statutes of God and disciplined me when I needed it (perhaps a few times when I didn’t) and who also sought to sanctify me by bringing me to the cross and to the grace of Christ. They led me to a faith Christ. I thank God for my father. I thank God for my mother.
I know many of you have heard of Catherine Bates. Catherine Bates was a professor of English at Wellesley College for girls outside of Boston. And it was the summer of 1893 when Catherine Bates began to make a journey from Boston westward. She had been invited to be a visiting professor here in Colorado in Colorado Springs at Colorado College. And so that summer of 1893, Catherine Bates began to come by train westward.
She stopped in Chicago for the World’s Fair. She marveled at what she saw there, what she learned there. And then she began to travel further westward until she came across the Great Plains and she marveled at the beauty of this nation. Then she came to Colorado Springs, and she came to Colorado College. There with a few of her co-professors she went up on top of Pike’s Peak in a horse drawn buggy. And there, in July of 1893, Catherine Bates stood on top of Pike’s Peak. She looked out and she received the inspiration she needed to write that great song, “America the Beautiful.” And on July 4th, 1895, those words were given by Catherine Bates to a magazine of the Congregational Church and published for the first time. And since then, that song has been precious to most Americans and often sang.
If you look at the first and the last stanzas, there’s only one phrase that is repeated. And that one phrase is, “God shed His grace on thee, America.” America, God shed His grace on thee. And Catherine Bates knew that this nation needed the instruction of God, the discipline of God, and yes, the grace of God. Her father was a Christian minister, and her father had reared her in the instruction of the Lord, had disciplined her and the instruction of the Lord. And her father had then led her to the cross where she might find the atonement of Christ and the forgiveness of Christ. And she came to Christ and she found forgiveness by His shed blood. And when she wrote that hymn, she knew this nation was in desperate need of God’s grace. And to this day, this nation is in desperate need of God’s grace. It is also in desperate need of God’s instruction and God’s discipline.
But if this is true of our nation, how much more is it true of our very selves? And how much more is this true of our children, that our children must have God’s instruction? God’s discipline and God’s grace. God does not offer atonement to nations. God offers atonement to individuals. We need to rear our children and point them to the cross God as Jehovah M’Kaddesh —the Lord who sanctifies, the Lord who make holy. He instructs his children, he disciplines them, and he offers atonement for their sanctification.
Well, finally, God is Jehovah Shammah. God is Jehovah Shammah, the Lord who is there, the Lord who is present. God wants his children to know He is Jehovah Shammah. He wants His children to know that He is with them. And this title is given to God in the last verse of the book of Ezekiel—Ezekiel chapter 48, verse 35. And in that book, Ezekiel has painted a portrait of the millennial Jerusalem that is yet to come.
Ezekiel says that that city will one day be called Jehovah Shammah, the Lord who is there. And this name became for the Jews one of the most precious titles of God, because the Jews felt that God was not there. They looked forward to the day when He would be present, but they felt that in their lifetime He was not there. They could look back on their history and remember times when God had been present with them through the Glory Cloud and through the pillar of fire. They could remember when God had been present with them through the tabernacle and when God had been present with them through the temple. They could remember when God had been present with them in the Holy of Holies. And God had been present with them in the Shekinah that hovered over the Mercy Seat of the Ark of the Covenant.
They could remember when God was present. But you see, the glory cloud was no more. The pillar of fire was no more. The tabernacle was no more. The temple was no more. It had been destroyed by the Babylonians, and the Holy of Holies was no more. And the Shekinah and the Mercy Seat and the Ark of the Covenant were no more. It had gone away. They knew not where. And they looked forward to the day, they longed for the day, when God would be present with them again. Jehovah Shammah. But we know, we know as sons and daughters of God through faith in Jesus Christ, that He is Jehovah Shammah right now. We know that He is with us this day. We know that He came into our world to be present with us through His Son who was called Emmanuel, which means God with us. And we know that by His Holy Spirit God has actually come into our souls and God has and dwelt us, all of us who believe in His Son Jesus Christ. And we have become temples, tabernacles of God, in whom God dwells. And His presence with us is inward. And we have faith in that. And we remember, as Christians, the promise of God in Hebrews chapter 13 verse five, “Never will I leave you. Never will I forsake you.” Jehovah Shammah. Never will I leave you. Never will I forsake you.
And as earthly dads, we need to make sure that we are there for our children. I read this past week the story of Dr. Phil Littleford. Dr. Phil Littleford went on a fishing trip to Alaska a few years ago with two of his friends, and he took with him his 12-year-old son, whose name was Mark, and they landed their sea plane in an isolated bay. They wanted to catch running salmon. And the fishing that day did not disappoint. They caught fish all day long. At the end of the day, their seaplane was sitting on dry land 23 feet from the ocean shore. They decided to have a fish fry right there by the seashore. And they did. They had a great dinner. And then they decided to sleep on the seaplane, which they did that night. And when they woke up the next morning, the sea, the seaplane was floating on the water because the fluctuating tide had come in.
So they decided that they would just take off. They did not know that one of the pontoons on the sea plane had been punctured and that pontoon overnight had filled with water. And as they tried to take off, the plane was too heavy and they wound up crashing within sight of the shore. But the tide was strong and it was going outward. The two friends of Phil Littleford managed to swim to shore. They barely made it. When they made it to shore, they turned around and looked back and they could see Phil and his 12-year-old boy being swept out to sea. They could see Phil and his 12-year-old boy arm in arm together. That 12 year old boy was not strong enough to swim against the side. He did not have the strength.
Phil did not have the strength to swim against the tide while bearing his son’s weight. And so together, they died. And the US Coast Guard said that they probably died within one hour because the water was so frigid, the water was so cold. And they said that the 12-year-old boy Mark probably died first of hypothermia because his body was smaller and he was young. He probably died in his father’s arms. And then his father died also of hypothermia. And the amazing thing is that Dr. Phil Littleford could have made it to shore. He was a stronger swimmer than his two friends. He could have made it to shore, but he refused to abandon his son. He refused to leave him alone, refused to let him die alone, and he died with his son. And most of us who are earthly fathers can understand that. We can understand that we would not want our child—our son, our daughter—to die alone. And we would say to our children, never will I leave you. Never will I forsake you.
And yet, sometimes as earthly dads, we’re just not there. We’re just not there when our kids need us. Sometimes it’s easier to be with them through death than it is through life. And we’re just not there. I read this past week of the story of a father, a true story. The father came home on a Friday night from work. He was exhausted. He’d had a hard and a long day. He sat down in a chair in his family room, took out the paper, began to read it, and his eight-year-old daughter came up to him and said, “Daddy, how much money do you make?” Well, he was irritated anyway, and he was very tired, and he did not like the question. He did not think it proper. He told her stuff. He said, “Dear, you don’t need to know how much money I make.”
She said, “Well, daddy, how much money do you make an hour?” That’s what I really want to know. Well, he didn’t really like that question either, but he said, “Well, I make $25 an hour.” She said, “Well, daddy, can I borrow $10?” Well, he really didn’t like that. And he said to her, “I want you to go up to your room and close the door. You go to bed. I don’t want you to stay up any longer. You have to go to bed now.” Well, the next morning when the father woke up, he was refreshed and he felt a lot better. And he felt bad. He felt bad about the way he responded to his daughter. So he went to her and he said, “Dear, last night you asked me to borrow $10. I didn’t even ask you what it was for. What was it for?” she says, “Well, just loan me the $10 daddy, and I’ll show you.” So he loaned her $10 and then she ran upstairs and she got her piggy bank and she came back downstairs and she emptied the piggy bank on the table and she counted out $15, which is all there was. And then she added the $10. And she said, “Daddy, here’s $25. Can I buy an hour of your time?”
And that story’s sad, but it’s all the sadder because it’s true. It’s absolutely true. And how many parents are there out there, how many dads are there out there whose kids would just like a little bit more of their time? In the report in the Rocky Mountain News this morning regarding the Summit on Youth Violence, it was also said that one of the greatest problems in America today is fathers who just don’t have time for their kids. Focus on the Family has done a study. They found that the average dad claims that he spends 20 quality minutes a day with his young children, playing with them and in meaningful conversation 20. Minutes a day. Then they, in a subsequent study, put hidden microphones on the children with the permission of the mothers and they monitored it, and they found the average dad spent 37 seconds a day of meaningful interaction with his children.
Now, I don’t know what to make of studies like that. I don’t know how accurate they are. Maybe they’re not accurate at all, but I know this: we’re not spending enough time with our children. Colin Powell just this morning in the Rocky Mountain News made a statement—in fact, it was a whole article reporting on his statements about how desperately children in this nation need their dads. I recognize some of you are single moms trying to raise your children. We thank God for you, and we know how hard it is and we’re trying to be there to help you. But is it not also true that if you’re a dad you need to be involved? You need to be involved, and you need to give time to your children. I want to close with a story about a guy named Reverend Clayton Dobson.
Reverend Clayton Dobson, in the year 1938, was very poor. He was an itinerant preacher. He made very little money. He lived in a one-bedroom tiny house in a poor section of the city. He had a son who was two years old, and that son was in the bedroom with Clayton Dobson and his wife. He had his own little bed right next to the bed of his parents. Clayton Dobson said that many nights he would wake up in the middle of the night and he’d hear a little voice saying, “Daddy, daddy, daddy, I’m afraid, I’m afraid. Would you hold my hand?”
Clayton Dobson said that he’d reach through the dark and grab his son’s hand while they were both in bed, and he would hold his son’s hand and he could hear his son. He could just sense his son calming down. He could hear the breathing go deeper. As soon he was holding his son’s hand, his son was sleepy.
Well, this happened many nights. Clayton Dobson’s son grew up and became Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. He served in that capacity for 14 years. He became the clinical psychologist at Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles and served in that capacity for 17 years. His son grew up to write countless books on the family and to found and establish a ministry called Focus on the Family. And his son, of course, was James Clayton Dobson, Jr. And James Dobson says today that he never ceased to call for his father’s hand. He said, “As long as my dad was alive, I always asked for his hand. He was always there for me. As long as he was in this world.”
I had a dad like that. My dad died a little over three years ago, just before my 50th birthday. But in the 50 years that dad and I were together on this earth, I can honestly say Dad was always there for me. And he would call every Sunday. He would not only call me, but he would call my brothers Greg and Gary. He’d call us. We all knew that he was there for us. We all knew that whatever the need was—if we just needed somebody to talk to, if we needed somebody to help us, if we needed advice, if we needed money—we knew that whatever our need was, he was there for us.
I think my dad in effect said to us, “As long as I’m on this earth, never will I fail you. Never will I forsake you.” I want to be a dad like that. Don’t you want to be a dad like that? God is like that. God the Father, Abba, He’s like that. He’s Jehovah Shammah. And He says, “Never will I leave you. Never will I forsake you.” He is also Jehovah M’Kaddesh. He is the Lord who sanctifies us, who makes us holy. He instructs us in His word. He disciplines us when we sin. And He offers atonement for our sin. As earthly parents, we are called to rear our children, to instruct our children, in the statues of the Lord, to discipline our children when they need it. We’re called to lead our children to the cross, to the atonement.
We are to lead our children to Christ, to forgiveness. And we’re called to be there, to be present. We’re called to, as long as we are in this world, be able to say to our kids, “Never will I leave you and never will I forsake you.”
As we close, I want to share the little story of a Sunday school classroom where a teacher asked her kids to draw a picture of God and one student drew a picture of a rainbow and said, “This is God. Another student drew a picture of an old man in the clouds and said, “This is God. A young boy drew a picture that looked suspiciously like Superman and said, “This is God. But then there was a little girl in the class and she said, “I didn’t know what God looked like. So I drew just drew a picture of my dad.” If you want to be a dad or a mom through which your children can see God, then you must be a little more like God. And God is Jehovah M’Kaddesh. He is the Lord who sanctifies and makes holy. And He is the Lord who is there. Let’s close with a word of prayer.