John 14:2
John Wesley Sunday-
June 15, 2003am
“In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you.”
Today, I want us to draw our attention to this promise of God that we have a place, a room, a mansion in His kingdom.
I want to talk to you about a heavenly Father who loves you and cares about your deepest hurt and loneliest need. Our great Father in heaven is one who knows who you really are and yet still loves you. Our Father who is rich in mercy and owns the cattle on a thousand hills, realizes your financial stress and struggle. Our Father is here, cares and is not silent. What a tremendous truth for us to understand.
And still, we wander, we whine, we try to do life our own way. In fact, many of us try to do our Christian life our own way with our own strength.
But I see a heavenly Father who is waiting at the gate for our return home to Him. I see a loving Father who is ever near and ever present. I see a caring Father who wants to hear from you today. There is a Savior who knows my name.
This is Father’s day and so I could talk to the men about how they need to be bigger men and better men. I could talk about their responsibility to there wife and children. I could exhort and challenge them on various counts.
And yet, for any of us to truly know what our responsibilities in life are really all about calls on us to look to our heavenly Father who has a place for us in His kingdom.
And in knowing God better, I can begin to realize His great love and mercy for me.
The Bible says that a good father gives his children good gifts. This most certainly would describe our Father-God.
1. God is the giver of good gifts.
I am a man who likes presents. I love getting gifts whether its an appreciation card or a Kentucky Wildcat t-shirt. I cannot think of one gift that I have received from God that I didn’t like. I can think of a few gifts that I have gotten in the past that weren’t really- well, of my sort of taste. But God has never, ever brought to me a gift I didn’t like.
a) God has given the gift of eternal life. “For the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” By accepting Jesus Christ as Savior, I am born again. I now have within my life, the very nature of God himself. And because each of us name the name of Jesus by faith we receive this gift of eternal life. It is ours because of God’s grace.
b) God has given the gift of abundant life. In John 10:10, Jesus tells us that he came that we might have life and it more abundantly. The Christian life is not some static state that we live in but is a living, moving and breathing existence. Jesus Christ is our Lord as well as Savior. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son...” This is a gift from God to the world. Not simply for the gift of eternal life, but the gift of abundant life on earth.
3) God has given the gift of His Spirit. 1 John 3:24- “And this is how we know Jesus lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.” Each one of you who accepted Jesus as your Savior was given the Holy Spirit in your life. Now you no longer live for yourself or by yourself but you live for God through the gift of His Spirit that now lives within you.
There is more about God.
2. God is my Daddy.
The Bible says that we call him “Abba, Father” which means “Daddy.” When was the last time you went to your daddy? When was the last time you let your Daddy pick you up and hold you?
Sometimes, I have to just let go of whatever is ailing my soul and go to my daddy.
Amy Grant sang a song many years ago that had these words:
Lay down the burden of your heart, and know you’ll never miss it. Tell your Daddy where it hurts, and let your Daddy lift it.
What burden do you carry today that your Daddy wants carry for you?
3. God has given me mercy.
The Bible says that God will have mercy on whom he will have mercy. This means that those who have heard the message and have answered to the call of salvation have received God’s mercy. But how often do we realize the mercy to which God has given to us? Do we even realize that the wrath side of God’s holiness demands a payment for our sins?
You see, God’s mercy extends to us through his Son, Jesus Christ. It is through Christ’s precious blood that we are saved. His mercy is undeserved. We don’t get what we deserve and we get what we don’t deserve. We deserve eternal punishment and yet we don’t get it because of Christ’s atoning blood. We don’t deserve salvation and yet we receive it because of Christ’s atoning blood.
And so here we are today, contemplating our place before a holy God who sees all and hears all. Today we stand before our Father, our Daddy, and we are being called to make a holy covenant before him.
John Wesley found these times of recommitment and rededication as needed times in his life. He discovered something within this commitment service that inspired and reminded him of the calling to minister to others.
Today, I have not come to collect the rent from anyone.
Today, God has not come to collect the rent.
Today, we stand before God unable to collect the rent.
Today, we are called by the Holy Spirit to enter into a covenant with God once again to be what God has called us to be through the power and inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
Today, is your day of recommitment to living for Christ and Christ only.
Today, is your day of salvation.
One of the pictures we have of Charity and I is of me mowing grass with Charity on my shoulders. She was probably about twenty pounds and I had a stronger back. This is the kind of picture that God wants to take with us. That whatever we are doing, he is doing the work for us. We need to climb on His big shoulders and let him carry us through the muck and grime of a fallen world.
Today, God wants to be your Father- for real.
