How is God Revealed? • Scripture • Nature • Conscience • Jesus Do we sometimes focus on what we WANT GOD TO BE – rather than on WHO HE IS ?
God the Father: Welcome to the Family • Through Jesus we are privileged to call God Abba, our Father, as he does. We receive the honour of relating to him as his beloved children living in his household, sharing his nature, called by his name, depending on him, free to ask for what we need, imitating him, learning to obey him, and loving our brothers and sisters. BY PAGE MALLET
Abba, Father Romans 8:15 For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. [Or adoption] And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.”
Abba, Father • Hebrew term (ab) does not imply physical fatherhood so much as protector and nurturer. • He is the father of the fatherless. From slavery to sonship. • ADOPTION
ADOPTION Ephesians 1:4-6 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will - to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.
ADOPTION • John 1:12 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God —children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
ADOPTION • Chosen • A new start We see the heart of the Father by the fact that we have been adopted into the family of God.
WELCOME TO THE FAMILY AS: CHILDREN BROTHERS AND SISTERS FATHERS AND MOTHERS
CHILDREN I John 3:1 “See how great a love the Father has lavished on us, that we would be called children of God; and that is what we are.”
CHILDREN needy, nurtured, developed, shaped • Understanding the love of the Father •
BROTHERS AND SISTERS Romans 12:5...so in Christ we who are many form one body and each member belongs to the other. I Cor.12:26...If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.
BROTHERS AND SISTERS • Equality of brotherhood and sisterhood - love • Flaws, dealing with conflict
FATHERS AND MOTHERS Psalm 68:5 A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows is God in his holy dwelling. John 1:27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. Colossians 3:21 Fathers do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged.
FATHERS AND MOTHERS Restored from brokenness • Through the love of Christ in us we open our arms to • nurture and protect others – imitation of God
The Family of God and the Culture of Self “The Dominant Self” as a principal cultural narrative - Charles Taylor, McGill Building Christian community involves a struggle with our own culture
Appeal : alpha, baptism, integration into the Westview family, reaching out to the community and the world
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