Time with the Children of God
Today is Fathers’ Day—a day to remember our fathers or those who have been a father figure to us and give thanks to them for the care and love they have shown us. Something I remember about my dad is that he used to love being in the shed, fixing things and making things. Sometimes mum and I would give dad some tools on Fathers’ Day, like a power drill or saw. They’re old, but they still work well.
On the screen there’s a picture of a bridge. Do you know what bridge this is? Yes, the Sydney Harbour Bridge. That amazing picture of the bridge being built was taken nearly 100 years ago.
Dad made all kinds of things, but he never made a bridge. But God did once. It is a very special bridge, even bigger and more important than the Sydney Harbour bridge! I thought we could have a go at making a bridge like the special bridge God made. While we’re working away at the bridge let’s read what Jesus says in John’s Gospel: “I am the way and the truth and the life—no one comes to the Father except by me.”
No one can come to the Father in heaven except by Jesus, because when people are born, no one is pure and perfect like God. All people are born with a sinful nature. That’s why there’s so much evil and fighting and pain in the world. Our sinful nature means we are already cut off from God at birth. We don’t know God, and we can’t know him or come to him, or live the way he wants to. It’s like we broke the road to God, and we can’t cross over it.
But God doesn’t want us to be cut off from him. He loves everyone. So he fixed up our problem—by building a bridge to bring us back to him. So, let’s have a look at it. [hold up cross] This doesn’t look like a bridge at all, does it! And it uses only two pieces of wood. But it is the greatest bridge ever. It is a Cross.
On the Cross, Jesus died for the sin of the world. There, God who is holy and just, punished our sin. But God who is also a loving God, punished our sin in his own Son Jesus, that whoever trusts him may live. By his suffering and death Jesus has opened up the way from earth to heaven forever. Jesus has freed us from sin and death and made us right with God, by his own precious blood.
Today on Father’s Day, we can give thanks that Jesus has brought us into a family relationship with his Father in heaven, so that through faith in Jesus his Father is our Father too. That’s the wonderful message of the Bible. Let’s read the next verse from 1 John 3 together: “See what great love the Father has showered upon us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!”
So there’s just one thing left for our bridge: this sticker “A child of God”. Take this cross with you today to remind you that because of Jesus, you have a loving Father in heaven. Every day, then is Fathers’ Day. Every day is a day that you can call out to your loving Father in heaven, and thank him for his saving love to you in Jesus.
SERMON—“Hope for Fathers’ Day”
The occasion marked on our national calendars today is Fathers’ Day, where many enjoy a time of celebration. But originally it was tragic circumstances that led to our modern-day commemoration of fathers. On the morning of December 6, 1907, an explosion ripped through two of the mines of the Fairmont Coal Mining Company, in Monongah, Western Virginia. The event is still considered the worst mining disaster in American history, killing 362 miners. Two hundred and fifty of the miners killed were fathers, grieved by an estimated 1000 children.[1]
One of these, little Grace Clayton, convinced her pastor to hold a special service to honour the fathers who had died. This regional celebration was observed annually, until Sonora Dodd advocated for a national day to honour fathers, in the same way West Virginian Anna Jarvis founded a national day to honour mothers. In 1966 a national holiday to honour fathers was proclaimed by President Lyndon B. Johnson. Around the same time Fathers’ Day became firmly established in Australia, with the day officially designated as the first Sunday in September throughout the Commonwealth in 1964.[2]
What began as a day for expressing appreciation, gratitude, and love for fathers and father figures, acknowledging their guidance, support, and sacrifices, has become a commercialised venture by retail marketers which has seen the opportunity that another day of celebration brings. But for many, Fathers’ Day is a difficult day to celebrate. What might today’s parable have to say to us as we gather here on Fathers’ Day?
In the parable we hear that the younger son turned his back on his father and his family. He wants out. He demands his share of the inheritance from his father which was, essentially, an outrageous declaration of rebellion; the equivalent of saying “I wish you were dead!” His demand shows that he resents living with his father, and that his only concern is feeding his own greedy desire. In a closeknit village, with the neighbours looking on in shock, the youngest son thumbs his nose at his father and cuts his own family off, bringing deep, public humiliation and shame on his father and his family as he sets off for a distant country—as far away as he can get. Without an iPhone, Instagram or Facebook, the father is not going to hear from his son anytime soon. How can it end this way with his son whom he loves; his boy he played hide and seek with, took fishing, threw birthday parties for, helped with homework, and said bedtime prayers with at night?
For Jesus’ Jewish audience of the day, going to a ‘far off’ country meant that the son had left Israel, the nation which God had chosen for himself. It seems that, as well as turning his back on his father, he has also turned his back on God. He has turned to a foreign land with its foreign gods and lifeless idols of pleasure and that cannot give life and blessing as only God can.
There, the son squanders the money that his father had earned over a lifetime of hard work in the seedy, low-lit venues of the ‘Hindley Streets’ and ‘King’s Crosses’ of the day, rather than using it for his future, as his father would have wanted. With nothing left to his name, his life is literally in the pits when a famine spreads throughout the land. With no money and no food, the son hires himself out to work for a pig farmer—an abomination for Jewish people whose holiness code forbade them to have contact with pigs. Yet the son is so desperately hungry, he even longs to eat the pigs’ food. The son has ruined his life, and he simply can’t sink to any lower depths than this.
The purpose of Jesus’ parables is to use everyday realities to teach us truths about the kingdom of heaven—how God reigns on earth. Sadly, family breakdown is an issue with which many people are all too familiar with—with their children turning their back on their love.
Imagine how hurt and angry the father in the parable would be. He could have said: “That unappreciative brat! He wants out—well he can have out!” We could picture how anxious for his son he might be, lying awake at night worrying how his son was, where he was, missing him, longing for his return. That worry might turn into self-doubt: “Where did it all go wrong…what did I do wrong? I tried to love him as his father.”
What wisdom is there in this parable for fathers—or anyone for that matter—whose loved ones have turned away from them?
Simply to be there. What may have happened to this young son if his father had not been waiting for him as he made that humbling journey toward home? Verse 20 of this parable provides sound wisdom about being an effective and godly father: it was “while he was still far off.” The picture is that the father never gave up on his son. He never stopped praying until his son’s safe return. He was waiting, longing, watching for him, his gaze fixed on the horizon, where the road meets the sky far off in the distance, hoping to see the top of his son’s head emerge into view, and then the rest of his body, as he trudged back home.
What are we to do when our loved ones are far off—whether they have literally left, or whether they are distant emotionally, and far away in their love for us and for God? Jesus shows us through this parable that the best thing we can do is be there, and when those who we care about return, not to exercise retribution, hold their wrongs against them, judge or condemn, but show compassion.
The father waited for his son. He determined to be there…not because his son deserved it. He waited for his son, longing for his return, simply because he was his son, and he loved him. Before the son could even make his confession, it is the father who takes the initiative to run to his son. There could be no mistaking by the son that he was forgiven as soon as his father put his arms around him and kissed him. So many people today who have dysfunctional behaviours, mental health issues, addictions, and abuse others is because they have never heard the words “I love you” or had compassion and forgiveness expressed to them by their father.
Then the father said to his servants: “‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.” (Luke 15:22-24). In the culture of the day, when the host supplied sandals to guests it signalled that they had a special place of belonging in the host’s home. The ring represents the restoration to the family as an intimate member, and ‘the best robe’ was kept for distinguished guests. In doing this, the father covers over the shame of his son with grace and reverses the situation by honouring his son publicly. He has not only restored his son to the family home but given him a place of even higher honour in it. The father gives the command to kill the fatted calf—a practice done only for the greatest of celebrations because of its expense.
Next, the father’s eldest son publicly shames his father—he is angry, and refuses to go in to the family celebration his father has organised, because he resents his father’s love for his brother. He shows where his heart is in relation to his father by the resentment and jealousy he spits out: “‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends.” He doesn’t even refer to his sibling as this brother, but “this son of yours” showing he has written him off, and written him out of the family too.
Yet, again, the father is there. He is there with the same compassion for his eldest son, as he was with his youngest. He loves his eldest son just as much. He pleads with him: “‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’”
How does this parable give help or hope for those whose father wasn’t there for them—who have not received compassion from their father, were failed by their father, unloved by their father, or even worse, abused or completely abandoned by their own father? Some really don’t want to remember Father’s Day, because it is simply too painful and for them, there’s nothing to celebrate.
Today’s parable gives the greatest hope and comfort for those whose father was not there for them. And it gives the greatest hope and comfort to all of us who have failed in some way as fathers, parents, children, husbands and wives, work colleagues, friends, and brothers and sisters in the church.
Jesus tells this parable to teach us that God has chosen to have a relationship like that of a father with us—even though, like the younger son didn’t deserve his father’s gracious favour, we don’t deserve our Heavenly Father’s gracious favour either. It was a tragedy worse than the West Virginia coal mining disaster which plunged the whole world into death. It was when Adam and Eve rebelled against God that sin, and its wages of death, came to the whole human race. Ever since Adam and Eve thumbed their nose at God and were cast out of the Garden of Eden, we have all wandered to a distant country, far away from God. And so, in a sense, we are all prodigal sons and daughters. Like the younger son, we are spiritually bankrupt before our Heavenly Father. Just as the younger son was lost and dead in sin, so are we all. The son’s confession to his father in the parable is true for us too—”Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son (or your daughter).”
But God has done all that the father did in the parable for us, and even more. Often this parable is known as the parable of the prodigal son. The word ‘prodigal’ means ‘recklessly extravagant’ or ‘having spent everything.’ So really it is a parable also about the prodigal father. On Fathers’ Day, we can celebrate that it is our Heavenly Father who is the biggest spender. He has extravagantly spent everything, holding nothing back, sending his own Son, to reconcile the lost to him. He does not just give up to 50% discount off of our debt to him, but he has paid the cost completely for you to belong to him as the top picks that your Father in Heaven loves.
The father in the parable points to our Heavenly Father’s extravagance, who lavished all his riches on the world in the person of Christ. He longs for all people to come home, actively seeking out those who turn their backs on him to restore them to his kingdom. It was when we were spiritually destitute and unclean, and could not work our way back to our Fathers’ favour that he restored you to your heavenly home. We cannot do anything to warrant our Heavenly Father’s favour and saving help. But when we look at Christ on the Cross, arms stretched wide, we see the Father’s own readiness to look for, run after, and embrace all the lost. That’s God’s extravagant love, for all people.
Your Father in Heaven embraced you, and brought you into his family, not as slaves, or workers, but as freed people—freed by the precious blood of Christ. He has given you the best robe when you were baptised into Christ, covered over with his own righteousness and holiness. He has given you a pair of sandals and a ring on your finger, as it were, when he graciously gave you a place of belonging with high honour in his kingdom. All this he has done that you may be his own, live under him in his kingdom, and serve him in everlasting innocent, righteousness and blessedness. These are the gifts your heavenly Father loves.
Our Father in Heaven hasn’t done all of this for us because we deserve it, but simply because he has chosen us as his sons, his daughters in Christ. That is why no matter what our relationship with our earthly father was, or is, like, every day can be a happy fathers’ day, for as John says: “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” And that’s what makes our Father in Heaven our #1 Dad! Amen!
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monongah_mining_disaster
https://www.wtrf.com/west-virginia/did-you-know-a-mining-accident-in-west-virginia-created-fathers-day/ last accessed 5/9/25 at 11:55am
[2]Williamson, Brett ‘A history of Father’s Day: From ties and tobacco to heartfelt family tributes.’ https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-03/a-short-history-of-fathers-day/8860498 Sun 3 Sep 2017
