God -- Sermons; Jesus Christ -- Sermons; Sermons, English -- 20th century
I have often found great help in looking up again and again during the day
and just saying "Father." Try it. You, fathers, often say to your
children, "If you want me just call me." That is what our heavenly Father
tells us to do.
To know God means not only to trust Him, but also to _treat_ Him as a
Father. If you will read the 6th chapter of St. Matthew carefully when you
are at home, you will see that it gives the experience of the child of God
with the Father for one whole day. It includes all that we need during the
day:--food, clothing, forgiveness, victory over temptation, grace to do
God's will, and grace in dealing with others.
This experience is so deep, so real, so entirely something between Father
and child, that in this chapter we find the words "_in secret_" no less
than six times. When the little child is looking up into a loving father's
face and talking to him, it never thinks of those around. "In secret"
means a sweet sense of His Presence in the soul and of close communion
with Him. "I write unto you, little children, because you have known the
Father." [Footnote: I St. John ii. 13.]
God is our Father, because He is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ: this
is one of the greatest treasures of Redeeming Grace. All the teaching
about God as Father comes from the lips of Jesus, and it is in this way He
reveals the Father to us; so if we would know Him, we must drink in His
teaching and watch His life of communion with God. By His life He reveals
to us the reality of the experience into which He calls us to enter. He
also shows us the way. He not only says "Come to Me," but also Come
through Me. "I am the Way: no man cometh unto the Father but by Me."
[Footnote: St. John xiv. 6.] It was by dying for us He opened the Way.
"God sent forth His Son to redeem them that were under the law, that we
might receive the adoption of sons." "And because ye are sons, God hath
sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts crying, Abba,
Father." [Footnote: Gal. iv. 6, 7] So we are not only received into God's
family, but we have also all the privileges of sonship. We are made "heirs
of God, joint heirs with Christ."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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