Week commencing Sunday 30th October 2022

Our gracious Father, we confess that we have sinned against you and done many things to grieve you; we have often been selfish, we have sometimes forgotten to pray to you and we have not loved you as we should. For these and all other sins forgive us we pray through Him who died for us- Jesus our Lord.

Father we thank you for the grace you show us. This undeserved favour. Stooping down to us and treating us who are inferior on equal terms. For our creation and all the created gifts we enjoy. For your provision of salvation through Jesus Christ. That He died for us, even when we were your enemies. For this grace you show to us throughout our lives, and that one day, because of your grace, we will share eternity with you. Lead us to meditate on and believe in these truths today. We worship you and give you thanks. Amen

Reading. Luke 15:11-32

15¹¹ Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. ¹² The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.

¹³ “Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. ¹⁴ After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. ¹⁵ So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. ¹⁶ He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.

¹⁷ “When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! ¹⁸ I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. ¹⁹ I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ ²⁰ So he got up and went to his father.

“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.

²¹ “The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’

²² “But 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. ²³ Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. ²⁴ For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.

²⁵ “Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. ²⁶ So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. ²⁷ ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’

²⁸ “The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. ²⁹ But he answered his father, ‘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. ³⁰ But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’

³¹ “‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. ³² 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.’”

Hymns

“You have loved me” (Guitar. Not in book)

Paul Oakley

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BL1CmJCL6KU

“Abba Father” (Keyboards) MP 3

Dave Bilbrough

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rPGn_KTYuU

Song. ‘Until the day’ Graham Kendrick (From the album ‘CompassionArt’) Congregation listen. Played from the front.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwlFI1tpVk0

Prayers

Father, we come before you today humbled and in awe of Your grace and mercy. Lord, we thank You for the way You have designed what a family is supposed to look like and the specific roles You have ordained to a mother and a father of how to lead their children. Yet Lord, through our sinful ways we have taken what You have made holy and created our own version of today’s families. Because of this, our children are suffering. It is for the fathers, families, and children of our nation that we do pray today. 

Lord, we pray specifically for fathers and fatherhood across our land. Your Word clearly instructs fathers to bring up their children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4). God, we thank You for the men who are leading according to Your statutes and the ones that are laying their lives down for Your purposes. We pray that You will continue to use these men to lead their families and other men. We pray You will strengthen the fathers of our nation and that You will continue to empower churches, organizations, and individuals to invest in fathers and fatherhood for the sake of our children.  

We pray for the single fathers out there; whether they are raising their children alone or even if they are doing the best they can with the time they have. We pray for strength, protection, wisdom, and discernment to help them through whatever trials they may be facing. Thank You Lord for these men and please guard their hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, help meet all of their needs, that they may experience Your peace that surpasses all comprehension. (From ‘Crosswalk’)

The Lord’s Prayer (traditional)

Reading. 1 Thessalonians 2:9-12, 17-20

Surely you remember, brothers and sisters, our toil and hardship; we worked night and day in order not to be a burden to anyone while we preached the gospel of God to you. ¹⁰You are witnesses, and so is God, of how holy, righteous and blameless we were among you who believed. ¹¹For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, ¹²encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory…

But, brothers and sisters, when we were orphaned by being separated from you for a short time (in person, not in thought), out of our intense longing we made every effort to see you. ¹⁸For we wanted to come to you – certainly I, Paul, did, again and again – but Satan blocked our way. ¹⁹For what is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes? Is it not you? ²⁰Indeed, you are our glory and joy.

Hymn

“My Jesus, My Saviour” (Keyboards) MP 1003

Darlene Zschech

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6uStuSq7s4

Sermon. “Like a Father”

We began to see previously that 1 Thessalonians chapter 2 provides us with some fascinating insights into Christian leadership of all kinds within the Church.

Central to all else Paul says in Chapter 2 is that a Christian leadership is like that of a parent.  Last week the apostle taught the Christian leader is like a mother.  He commended courage- in a willingness to suffer reproach and a boldness to speak for God. Integrity- derived from a faithful stewardship of God’s truth and consciousness that He sees into our hearts. And Love, a love like that of a mother for her children, not domineering but gentle and caring; a love that has come to mean the sharing of our very lives with those who we have influenced.

Today we see from our passage the Christian leader is like a father. Paul describes himself as a mother and father to show his deep pastoral concern for these Thessalonian believers.

We see this compassion in his desire not to ‘be a burden’ to them. Verse 9: “We worked night and day in order not to be a burden to anyone while we preached the gospel of God to you.” It was in order to avoid being dependent on them financially that he and his companions had worked night and day. Paul at this time earned his living and paid his rent through tent making. We know Paul received some gifts from the Philippian church, but the Macedonian churches suffered from ‘extreme poverty’ (2 Corinthians 8:1, 2). So in these circumstances Paul decided not to ask the Thessalonians for financial support.

This is interesting because in 1 Corinthians 9:6-15 Paul asserts the right to receive financial remuneration from the church for Christian ministry.

So how do we reconcile Paul’s approach with the Thessalonians?

Well Paul insists on a principle which he applies here and with other questions of conduct. It can be put like this:

“All things are lawful, but not all things are helpful: there are a good many things which I have a right to do, but that does not mean that I should therefore do them!” Underneath Paul is asking another question. Not about his own personal entitlement. Rather he asks himself “What course of action will be most useful in promoting the work of the kingdom and the glory of God?” (1 Cor.6:12; 8:9, 13: 9:12; 10:23).

So we see Paul’s action here is very selfless and by it we see his care for the Thessalonians welfare that he should so deny himself. He, Silas and Timothy must have been exhausted, working during the night, preaching during the day. But it shows how Paul really was a spiritual father to this church family.

So Paul’s defence here scuppers any criticism that he was some kind of religious salesman. Merely using religion as a means of fleecing people of their money.

Unfortunately there were people in the early church who were attempting to cash in on their Christianity.

The first Christian book of order is called the Didache: The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles.

In it there are some interesting instructions! Here is a relevant one: ‘Let every apostle that comes to you be received as the Lord. And he shall stay one day and, if need be, the next also; but if he stays three days he is a false prophet. And when the Apostle goes forth, let him take nothing save bread, until he reaches his lodging. But if he asks for money, he is a false prophet.’ The date of the Didache is about AD 100. Even the early Church knew the constant problem of those who traded on charity.

Paul’s outlook here certainly challenges our ‘stand up for my rights’ culture!

We put a great premium on Justice. Particularly how that relates to us! We believe we deserve certain things, and consequently our culture has embedded a series of rights into our legislation. This way of thinking, however is not an improvement on what has gone before. In our desperate efforts to become more secular, more atheistic and insist on our rights we have turned our culture into a battle field with groups and individuals fighting each other to get what they believe they deserve and carry out retribution on those who are perceived to get in their way. You see it in Government at this time, you see it in strike action rather than a consideration of the common good, you see it in the punishment of those who do not support the absolute right of minority special interest groups our society has deemed above reproach.

Of course all of this makes for greater social hostility. The Post Christian mentality being pushed for today is not an improvement. Why? Because it has missed the vital ingredient. The vital ingredient shown here by the Apostle Paul. That ingredient is love. Love! Paul’s willingness to give up his own rights for the sake of the Thessalonians!! Self-sacrifice for the benefit of others.

And where does that basis come from?

His heart is like our Heavenly Father here. Our Heavenly Father pours out generously on all people material blessings, not least the gift of life itself. In addition the Father gives His only Son, the Lord Jesus Christ at great cost to Himself, in order to redeem us from our sin. The sacrificial, generous nature of the Father towards us His erring children. But through that grace He adopts us into His family and treats us as if we are His real Son the Lord Jesus Christ. Even to the point where He makes us joint heirs with Jesus of the promised inheritance. Even sharing eternal life. Praise God!! His giving up His own rights for the benefit of others, as we see in Paul and supremely in the Lord Jesus, makes for those beautiful Christian virtues of mercy and forgiveness. But if our heavenly Father insisted on Justice alone, as our society does in its self-righteous arrogance, He would be within His ‘rights’ to promptly pack us all of to hell for our sins and rebellion against him. Every single one of us. And because God really is perfectly righteous He could have done that. And on the Day of Judgment He will do it with those people who spurned the gospel of grace in this life and who continued in their rebellion and sins.

The reliance on rights alone is self -absorbed and breeds a victim mentality. You ignore God and the result is increasingly dog eat dog, the survival of the fittest outlook and trying to make it look good with talk of personal rights. This outlook is symptomatic of the sinful nature.  The focus instead should be on God, His gracious love, being replicated more and more in our own experience, then directed out towards others. In this way Christ’s great commandments can never be improved on, namely ‘Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength ‘and ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’ (Mark 12:30, 31)

Paul reminds the believers how ‘holy, righteous and blameless’ he, Silas and Timothy had been among them. This follows on from the earlier verses we studied last week. His appeal was not from error or impure motives. They did not use trickery by trying to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes!

Rather he makes this appeal to them: “For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God” (The language here is quite vivid in the original, as if to say ‘We were doing so and so; don’t you remember?’)

So instead of being a burden to them, Paul had been like a father to them.

Paul was gentle with the Thessalonians- gentle like a mother. But Paul also knew how to be firm. Christian love was in no way easy or sentimental. There is an instructional/educational side in what he is saying here. This cluster of words has instruction in mind ‘To encourage, comfort and urge’. In older translations the words exhortation and admonishment are used. Paul compares this to the way fathers are called to teach their children. He says he and his companions were like that with the Thessalonians. They wanted to see these young believers ‘live lives worthy of God.’

Of course, to that end, both mother and father are to teach their children. Proverbs 1: 8 states “Listen my son, to your father’s instruction and do not forsake your mother’s teaching” But there is much said in Scripture about Fathers imparting God’s wisdom that they themselves have learnt from the Scriptures and how our lives are to be governed by that wisdom. Whole chapters in Proverbs speak of that father’s role in this way. In the New Testament Paul writes to the Ephesians saying ‘Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord’ (Eph.6:4, cf Col.3:21) And Proverbs 3: 11, 12 is written in that context “My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline and do not resent his rebuke, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, as a father disciplines the son he delights in.”

And there is a great need for this today. Fathers would do well to teach their children to live lives worthy of God. Their children are not going to get that through the State educational system, so parents should make good use of Church Sunday Schools. But there is no substitute for parental instruction of their children in the faith. The book of Proverbs is a good place to begin. Its purpose is described at the beginning of the book ‘for attaining wisdom and discipline; for understanding words of insight; for acquiring a disciplined and prudent life, doing what is right and just and fair.’ The book is full of exhortation to avoid what is evil and do what is right. My father is not a Christian, but my mother more than made up for it in encouraging my sister, brother and I to live lives worthy of God through instruction in the Scriptures.

 I particularly remember her reading to me from chapter 5 of Proverbs which is entitled ‘Warning against Adultery’. That passage includes these words: ‘For the lips of an adulteress drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil; but in the end she is bitter as gall, sharp as a double edged sword. Her feet go down to death; her steps lead straight to the grave.’ (Proverbs 5:3, 4). I’m not sure how old I was at the time J, but that reading certainly made an impression on me!

Well Paul was like a spiritual father to the Thessalonians. His aim was to see those live lives worthy of God. And to that end he instructed, exhorted and admonished them. We know from Acts 20, verse 20, that his practice was not only to teach gathered congregations, but also go from house to house, instructing people in the faith.

But in the exhortations and warnings there is certainly a prevailing comforting and encouraging aspect in Paul’s mentoring. He truly cares for these young believers, as a father naturally cares for his own children. The Christian instruction is itself loving, showing true care for the soul- choosing the good and avoiding paths of evil and sin which are self-destructive, but Paul’s manner is full of understanding and love. The warnings are there, yes, not to put the other down, but to encourage them to move forward to something much better.

Cliff Barrows, associate and music director for the Billy Graham Crusades, said that when he was younger he was once asked to lead the singing at his church. It was his first opportunity to do such a thing, and the people didn’t sing very well. Cliff scolded them, saying something like, “This is about the worst singing I’ve ever heard, I’m ashamed of you. Now come on and let’s do better.” Returning home, his father pulled him aside and told him something he never forgot. “Cliff, you’ll never get people to sing better by scolding them and telling them how badly they are doing. You have to tell them that they’re doing pretty well, and you think they can do a lot better.” Cliff never forgot that advice, and through the years he became known for his smile, his encouragement, and his positive approach.

To encourage is to come alongside and build the other up. This is the way Paul and his companions were with the Thessalonians. And Paul comforted them, he had endeavoured to cheer and support their spirits under the difficulties and discouragements they might meet with.

I have also included verses 17-20 under our title ‘Like a Father’. There Paul explains how he had wanted to come to the Thessalonians earlier but was prevented from doing so. And then he says “For what is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes? Is it not you? Indeed, you are our glory and joy.”

Fathers have to learn quite quickly about giving out to their children. They work hard to provide for their families. Their children aren’t earning that provision. The father gives it freely. Good fathers will also pass on what is of importance to their children, supremely they will train their children to live lives ‘worthy of God’. And as their children grow up parents hope that what was important for them, will become important for their children, and they in turn as fathers and mothers will continue that legacy with their own children.

And the Apostle Paul I think has this idea in mind. He pictures himself standing before the Lord on that great day when Christian believers will be rewarded. And the Thessalonian believers will be there, and it’s as though the Apostle has that father’s pride in his spiritual children. A father takes great delight in his children’s accomplishments. A father hopes his children will ‘make good’ and perhaps surpass him. Although sadly this idea tends to be limited to material gain and status in our society.

But for Paul, the Thessalonians would have ‘made good’ in what is truly important. They had received the word of God, they had permitted the Holy Spirit to fashion their lives in ways pleasing to God. Despite opposition and through God’s grace they are welcomed into heaven. And that says Paul is reward enough for him. His fatherly heart would be bursting with joy. Indeed those believers he says will be his ‘glory and crown’ on that day. This statement reveals not only what was important to him as a ‘spiritual father’ but also his love for them.  

It can be difficult for a Christian father and mother if their adult children have gone away from the Lord.

Billy Graham recalling the difficult years when his sons were away from the Lord said “Ruth and I found out that for us, worrying and praying were not mutually exclusive. We trusted the Lord to bring the children through somehow in his own way in due time. On a day to day basis, however, we muddled through. But God was faithful. Today each of them is filled with faith and fervour for the Lord’s service.”

God is faithful and cares more for our children than we do. So we pray for them.

And when the prodigal returns fathers must resist the temptation to say ‘I told you so!’ Rather we respond like the good father in the Parable “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him” For that father is our Heavenly Father, and that is how He has received us in forgiving us our sins, welcoming and pouring out all manner of blessings on us though we have not deserved one. Our merciful Father:

“But when the kindness and love of God our Saviour appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy” (Titus 3:7)

Hymn

“From the highest of heights” (Keyboards) MP 1170

Laura Story

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLMVqNwypjA

Blessing

May the everlasting Father himself take you

In his own generous clasp

In his own generous arm. 

David Barnes 26/10/22