Everlasting Father

Trinity Church Tamworth

EVERLASTING FATHER Trinity Hebrews 4:14 – 5:10 / Isaiah 9:6 17.12.23 For 3 Sundays we have read Isaiah 9:6: “To us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” It is so obviously Jesus, isn’t it? What is God saying when he says that Jesus is “everlasting father”? Don’t you think that’s a strange name? He is God the Son, isn’t he? He is one with God the Father, but he is not God the Father. Then, in what way is he father? It could be that he is the one from whom something else comes. Like we say Hippocrates is the father of modern medicine, or Henry Parkes is the father of federation. Something came from them. It is true that it is Jesus who gives physical life to us all. And he gives life spiritually: new eyes, ears, and new life itself. We know that being a father is bigger than that. You can give life and father a child, but not be a father. Boris Johnson, the failed British Prime Minister, fathered so many children by different women, he didn’t know how many there were even. He was hardly father to them. Jesus gives us the life we have – but he also fathers us. We could say he is fatherly, or father-like towards us. For some of us, this is going to be extra important. When we think our earthly father, all we can think of is someone distant or uninvolved. Maybe someone who was cruel or abusive. Perhaps someone who was fickle or talked big but never delivered. Or perhaps he is someone who walked out. Or we do not even know who he is. It is going to be important for us all of us, for none of us has had a perfect father. The best father is limited, and flawed, unable totally to understand us, or provide what our hearts long for. This father is different. I think that is why Isaiah names him EVERLASTING father. That means more than that he goes on being father-like to us forever and ever. I think it means that he is from out of this world and comes as a different kind of father. He comes as the perfect father, the wise father, the always up-close-and-personal-father, the father who can protect and provide for us in a way that the best father on earth can never do. How is he like that? Because of his own real-life experience in this world- as a real man. Please look at what we read in Hebrews 4 and 5, which Brandon read earlier. Look at 5:7,8. Life in this world for Jesus was hard and painful. His own family wrote him off as mad. He best friends betrayed him. His enemies bashed him with ridicule and with fists. Worst of all, his own heavenly Father turned his back on him, at the cross. Of course, there were agonising cries and many tears. He experienced dark things more deeply than any other man, ever. It is a mistake to think that because he was perfect, he didn’t really feel the pain and weight of it all. The opposite is true. Two men are free diving into the ocean where it is, say, 100 metres deep. The first man dives 20 metres, where pressure on the lungs is three times greater than on the surface. At 20 metres, he pulls out. The other man goes all the way, 100 metres, without pulling out. Which man was under the greater pressure? The man who gave in part way, or the man who felt the full pressure without giving in? Which man feels the full force of temptation and trial? The man who gives in on the 3rd attack of Satan, or the man who goes the full distance without giving in at all? Jesus’ perfection didn’t mean he felt the pressure less than those of us who are imperfect. It meant that he felt it more. We know part of it; he knew the whole of it. What pressure could you be under that Jesus was not under? What strength of temptation might you face that he has not? This is part of what makes him such a perfect father to his children, wherever they are in the depth. Look at 4:15 “We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathise with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (without giving in or giving up part way through). Sympathy is not enough. Earthly fathers can and often do feel very deeply for their children. But they can’t heal the weeping or fix the pain. Or put a stop to the reckless way of life. Jesus is the better father, the true father. Not only does he know, from experience, what it is like to tread the road to the very end. He can do what his children need more than anything else. And what is that? 4:16 “Let us then confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” Mercy? We sure need that. Some days we get a lot more wrong than we get right. We don’t need a lecture – we know how stupid and wrong we have been. We don’t need to be sent to our room. We need big mercy for big sin. And grace to help us in our time of need? How else will we keep going under pressure without caving in or giving up? How else will we walk away from that sin that was so appealing? How else will we make a stand for Jesus when we are pressured to take the easy options? How does he know what we really need? You could say he knows because he knows everything. What reason does God give here for his knowing what we need? He has been under the same pressure. He has been there … “in every respect he has been tempted as we are”. He knows from experience.  Which father knows what we need to hear when the heat is on?  Which father knows what guts and comfort we need?  Which father’s arms are strong enough when we are at the end of ourselves, and in a mess of our own making perhaps?  Which father loves in a way that means he never turns his back or walks away, no matter what we have done to hurt him? When his children come to Jesus, they don’t see a frown, or someone impatient at being disturbed. Jesus tenderly says, in the most fatherly way, “Come to me all who labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.” We are not his hired hands who have to put in the hours, or employees who earn wages. When we belong to Jesus, we belong to him as our fatherly saviour. To quote the prophet Zephaniah, “he will rejoice over you with gladness … he will exult over you with loud singing.” (Zeph 3:17). Do you remember that I said that some of us have had sad and bad fathering. Others of us have had good fathering, but always limited and imperfect. I’m talking this morning about the father who is the father you need more than every other father. The one who is from out of this world. Who knows the depths like no earthly father knows. And who has such richness of mercy and power to help, that he can be and do what no earthly father can ever be or do. A vision of Jesus like this changes everything. It means that I REPENT. Not only towards Jesus, in a whole-of-life sense. But in a specific way I want to mention. When Jesus is like this to you – when he is more than enough – you don’t have to demand that a parent, a spouse, a friend, a church be perfect and deliver what you need most. They no longer must bear the weight of making you feel good, or loved, or significant. They no longer must be right. Jesus as the everlasting father knows the worst about me and accepts me fully, with a smile and not a frown. The God of all delights in me …so they don’t have to, for me to feel I matter. Do you get so disappointed with others because of what they do or say that you feel you don’t matter? Might you have forgotten the smile of pleasure that Jesus has in you as everlasting father? When you keep focussing on what others are saying about you or doing for you, or not doing or saying, is it because you have stopped measuring everything by the immeasurable fatherly love of Jesus for you? Friends, this is a call to REPENT from requiring others to be what they can never be for you, because all you need you already have in Jesus. This will revolutionise the way that you relate to others in your home, in church and elsewhere. It is also a call to REST. To rest in the strong and wise arms of Jesus who delights to embrace his children. One man wrote last week: “Early in the morning, I wake and quietly make my way to the grey wing chair in my home office. I’m determined to be productive in these precious pre-dawn hours. Only a few minutes into my routine, however, the door next to me slowly opens and my four-year old walks in, bleary-eyed. All he wants to do is crawl into my lap and put a tired head on my shoulder, my plans for the moment are spoiled, but I couldn’t care less. Why? Because I am this boy’s father, and he’s, my son.” (Samuel James Dec 6, 2023) Is Jesus “Mighty God”? Of course he is. But distant? Abusive? Fickle? All talk and no heart? That’s the pretend “god” of Islam: Allah. He does what he wants but without any personal interest in or concern for those whose lives he blindly pushes along in impersonal fate. The Jesus of the Bible is nothing like that. The name “father” is the name of love and care, of acceptance and intimacy, of commitment that is full of affection and personal closeness. You and I may trust each other and enjoy our friendship and fellowship. But if you find out what I am really like, it is likely that will all come to an end. Jesus knows what I am like, more than I do, and he says, “Come to me as the place to find rest” and be safe forever. Really? Yes. For he is the everlasting father, and he has brought me into what Hebrews 5:9 calls an “eternal salvation”. Safe when loved back in eternity? Safe when I also call out with loud cries and tears? Safe into the future and that eternity? Spurgeon says, “There is no unfathering Christ; and there is no unchilding us.” That’s the place to REST. And REJOICE. How can I not rejoice when I know that Jesus is not only MIGHTY GOD but also EVERLASTING FATHER. Wouldn’t there be something radically wrong with me if I see Jesus go deep, without sinning and go ho-hum? If I see that by his life and death he wins an eternal salvation, and think it’s not a big deal? If I know that in him there is more mercy than I will ever need, and greater grace to help in time of need than I can really imagine, why do I complain more about what I do not have than rejoice in what I do have? This has been a sad week in many ways … two precious friends have left us. Other members of our family have ended in some deep, deep waters. The world out there is crazier now than it was this time last week. There is more than enough in this world to make you weep deeply. But all of that is part of a bigger story. Over it all, and through it all, Jesus is being everlasting father. Giving life to his children, loving them, being close to them, and then bringing them home forever. While we weep, we rejoice more than weep. Through the tears we see Jesus as everlasting father. So that even with the tears, we repent, we rest, and we rejoice. Thet are the “Three R’s” that matter. Repent of demanding too much of others. Rest in the one who is always enough. Rejoice that every believer, every boy or girl, man or woman who belongs to him, the everlasting father.