God is Father Part 4: Who's the Metaphor

[Ed's note: Much of this I owe to my systematic theology prof, Dr. Gary Deddo, a mini-celebrity in my circles. This post is dedicated to him and the hundreds of IV-staff Deddo-heads across the country who have re-become Christians about every five minutes or so in his classes each summer.]

What some of us do when we see Jesus talk about God as Father is we think, "well clearly he doesn’t really mean that—he’s just trying to give us an image or symbol that we can understand."

But here’s my question and my proposal: what if God’s not the metaphor? What if we are the metaphors? What if God is the absolute real father, the most real and true and genuine and authentic father in all the universe? What if your dad is the analogy? What if we’re the metaphors and God’s the real thing? What if God's the substance and we're the shadow?

What if we are hard-wired to have a Father who loves us and we’re so made for a good Father that God in his mercy comes to you and to me tonight and says: "I’m your father; I know your dad screwed it up and we need to deal with that, but don’t let that keep you from meeting the need that you were made for: you were made for a good Father. Everything in you is crying out for a good Father. I made you for that. I made you for me."

I found some really interesting information out about fathers and how having a dad around affects kids as I was doing research for this talk. Check these things out:

1. According to a long-term study conducted in the United States and in New Zealand and published in Child Development, a father’s absence greatly increases the risk of teen pregnancy. The study found that it mattered little whether the child was rich or poor, black or white, born to a teen mother or an adult mother, or raised by parents with functional or dysfunctional marriages.

2. A Journal of Marriage and Family study found that the presence of a father was five times more important in predicting teen drug use than any other sociological factor, including income and race.

3. A published Harvard review of four major studies found that, accounting for all major socioeconomic factors, children without a father in the home are twice as likely to drop out of high school or repeat a grade as children who live with their fathers.

4. A Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency study concluded that fatherlessness is so predictive of juvenile crime that, as long as there was a father in the home, children of poor and wealthy families had similar juvenile crime rates.

Here’s the deal: we were created for healthy family relationships and all of us have unhealthy family relationships to some extent or another. Some of you are deeply wounded by who your dad is and what he’s done.

But we’ve all got to survive. So many of us have shut down, pretended it didn’t matter. We’ve hardened our hearts, steeled ourselves against the pain of the abuse or the neglect or the distance or the attempts to control and micro-manage your lives.

But there’s a design flaw there: you can’t just wish away your need for a good Father. It would be like being born with a crippled leg and pretending like you could just play through life like a person with two fully functional legs.

And so what it means for you and me to be healthy for us tonight is to come to God as a good Father and ask for his help!

It means that we go to God and say, “my dad’s a mess but I know that I was made for a good Father, would you be my Good Father?”

And if you’ve got all sorts of baggage associated with the word Father, then take Fatherhood away from your earthly dad but don’t miss out on the relationship that Jesus invites you to participate in with a Heavenly Father who always loves you perfectly.