When we've been considering this theme over the weekend of God as our Father, we've highlighted a number of different places in which that theme emerges very clearly in the scriptures. We've seen, for example, at the very beginning that our first parents were made in the image of God and that they are designated in that relationship as being sons of God, made in God's image, just as Adam had a son, Seth, made in his image. And we understand from other passages in the scriptures that humanity has been made to reflect the fullness of the Father's life and the fullness of the Father's presence, but not even simply to reflect that fullness, rather even more to participate in it, to share in it. As we were saying this afternoon, for those who are here, God's purpose is that we would become, in Jesus, partakers of the divine nature. That the nature and destiny that God has planned for us in Jesus far surpasses anything that we could even begin to think or imagine. That what He has granted to us as our inheritance in Christ is far beyond anything that human reason could ever have thought God would have given us. and he grants us that inheritance by means of his own grace when human reason tells us that inheritance could only come if we were in such a state of holiness that God could bless us because we've deserved that blessing. I don't know if you've picked up in the reading from Hosea chapter 11, but he speaks about the fact that he cannot give up his people Israel, he cannot give up Ephraim, he will not execute his fierce anger and the reason for that is because I am God and not man. And then the second expansive comment on that, I am God the Holy One in your midst. And sometimes we have a view of holiness which is somewhat distorted from the scriptures. We would think if God is the Holy One in our midst, that would be the very reason why he would destroy us. But God's holiness is such that He operates that, operates if we could use that phrase, He works in holiness to redeem. He is the Holy Father who out of His holiness redeems by His holiness that His children may share in His holiness and it's because of His holiness that He doesn't hold His anger forever against His people. Sometimes our desire to destroy, to bring judgement, to call fire down from heaven is actually because we think of ourselves holier than thou. God's holiness is not holier than thou. God's holiness is the holiness of love, by which he comes to redeem. God's holiness is the holiness of humility by which he comes to serve. God's holiness is the holiness of grace by which he comes to consume, that would destroy us and bring us settled into his holy presence. It is, if you think about it, quite a remarkable statement I will not destroy Ephraim again because I am God, not man. I am God the Holy One in your midst. That's why I do not destroy in my anger. So we see that God the Father God the Holy Father has his children, beginning with our first parents, Adam and Eve, made in his image. But then we see, of course, almost immediately, that the children rebel against the Father in an irrational act that can never explain sin, beloved, never try to. Never try to comprehend sin, never try to explain it because sin is utterly irrational. It's lawlessness. It is not subject to any law. It's not subject to any law of explanation. You cannot explain human sin. You cannot understand the sinfulness of your own heart, let alone anyone else's. And so we cannot understand the sin of our first parents who, in a picture of utterly irrational human rebellion, rebelled against their Holy Father and that Holy Father then, as we've heard this weekend, became the Seeking Father. Thou art our Father, our Redeemer from of old is thy name. So, he sought Adam. He sought out his people. Remember John, records the conversation of Jesus with the woman at the well in John chapter 4 and says that those who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth for such the father ever seeks to be his worshippers. That does not mean that the father is looking throughout the world hoping that he might find someone It does mean that the Father looks throughout the world and in that world He creates worshippers who seek Him. He seeks them that they may seek Him. He seeks us that we may seek Him. And so in the history of God's dealings with the nations, God chose one man, Abraham, through whom His eternal purpose to bless the nations would be enacted And through Abraham's seed, all of the nations of the earth would be blessed. But that chosen seed of Abraham, we come to know as the children of Israel, that seed is God's adopted son. Israel is my son, my firstborn, let Israel go, that he may worship me. So Israel, as God's adopted son, knows that God is their father, but they still turn from him. They still have their backs to him, not their face. They still run. The more his prophets called to them, the more they ran away from him. Now like, it's a picture of little disobedient children perhaps in your back garden. The more you call, the more they run because they don't want to come and see you. You're calling them in for a beautiful, big, lavish banquet. They want to play in the mud out the back. The more you call, the more they grow deaf to your ears, to your calls. Sometimes you ask, where were you? And they say, I didn't hear you. And my mother used to say to me, well there's perhaps enough dirt in your ears to grow carrots, we'd better clean them out then. But God keeps calling to His Son. He keeps seeking His Son. He keeps pursuing His Son. And the picture throughout the Old Testament is of Israel as God's Son, for the most part turning their back to Him, not their face, for the most part seeking out security and comfort in gods that are not God. And you get some dreadful pictures of that in the Prophet Jeremiah and other places. where Jeremiah says they bow down to a rock and say you are my father or they bow to a tree and say you are the father who gave me birth. We worship anything or anyone rather than God our true father. But if you've ever noticed that you're involved in a relationship which is idolatrous, That idol will do two things to you, as our friend Dominic Smart pointed out in Aberdeen just a weekend or two ago. That idol will demand absolute loyalty. It will suck out every bit of life from you. And the second thing is it will tyrannise you. You'll know no freedom under that idol. It will enslave you. It dominates you. It leaves you drained and enervated. It doesn't give you spiritual life. It drains away spiritual life and leaves you in a state of spiritual death. But Israel kept running after the idols and God kept running after Israel and God kept sending His prophets God placed kings on the throne of Israel and in particular the great king David is shown to be God's adopted son. David is given a covenant and that covenant is not just for him but for his descendants. David as the adopted king, son, anointed messiah, king of Israel is given promises by God. Not because David was perfect or David was sinless, quite the contrary. It all is because of God's own grace and mercy that he has granted the promises. And the promises include one who would come, whose throne would last forever, whose dominion would know no end. We come to know him later in the New Testament as great David's greater son, the seed of David, the son of David, Hosanna to the son of David. And so as you look through the Old Testament, you find this theme of the Sonship emerging again and again. From Adam, through Abraham, through the seed of Abraham, Israel, through the king's seed of God in the adopted king, David. Through that, all the way through into the New Testament where you look for the coming of the great Messianic King who would be the seed. And of course, when he comes, no one expected him to be the way he was, but he was and still is a descendant of the Father David. He is the Messianic King, his name is Jesus, and it is this Jesus who is indeed the Son of God. And what we've seen also over this weekend is this, that every expression of human sonship failed. Adam failed in his sonship. Israel failed in its sonship. The Davidic kings failed in their sonship. There is only one true Son of the Father in all history and the only true Son of the Father in all history is Jesus Christ. He is the eternal Son, the Word become flesh. But more particularly, as He is the Word become flesh, He is the embodiment of all of the promises God had ever made to Israel. And in this one true son, in this representative king priest, in the anointed Messiah, all of the promises of God to all of his sons for all time are all going to find their fulfilment. So, everything hinges on the one true son. Now, all of that is introduction to the main things that I want to say tonight. The first thing that I want to say tonight relates to the way in which God treats his sons. In response to that failed sonship that we've noticed, you never find failed fatherhood from God's side. When God's fatherhood is met by human wickedness, God's fatherhood responds in a way that human fatherhood never would. When God's mercy is met by human rebellion, God's mercy responds in a way that human mercy would run out very quickly, it would peter out. God's mercy comes into its own at that point. And you'll notice that what happens throughout history is a repeated pattern The sons of God, be it Adam, be it Israel, be it the Davidic kings, the sons of God turn their back on the Father. The Father always has his face towards them. And you say to me, but doesn't he bring judgements? Did Adam know judgement for his rebellion? The answer is yes. Did Israel know judgement for its rebellion? The answer is yes. Did the Davidic kings know judgement for theirs? The answer is yes. But, how can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I let you go, O Israel? How can I treat you like Adamah? How can I treat you like Zeboim, these places which were just left to desolation? My heart is turned over within me, says God, because you are my son and I cannot and will not let you go. And so whether it was Adam or whether it was Israel or whether it was the sons of David, God's judgements were never a final word. When Adam was expelled from the garden, God followed him. He clothed him in animal skin. He taught him about sacrifice. He still gave him the gift of worship. We think that they were outside the presence of God. But you remember that curious statement that Cain makes when he begs with God or pleads with God saying that his judgement is too great for him to bear because he says, if you send me away, I'll be away from your face, away from your presence. In other words, God's face was still turned to Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel, even outside Eden. And he taught them about sacrifice and provision and he'd given them a covering. And when God came to Abraham, Abraham was an idol worshipper in the era of the Chaldees. Abraham had the back of his head turned towards God. Abraham had his face turned towards an idol. Abraham was like one of those people bowing down to a rock saying, you are my father and God comes to him and taps him on the shoulder and turns him around and says, Abraham, I'm your father. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham, the deacon Stephen says in the New Testament, and when the God of glory appeared to Abraham he ceased being an idol worshipper, he turned to worship the living God and God blessed him because he had chosen Abraham to be a blessing to the nations so that the knowledge of his fatherhood would go to the ends of the earth. Abraham had problems in his life, didn't he? Abraham was a sinful, failed human being like the rest of us. But God persisted in his love for Abraham and through Abraham's seed, he persisted in bringing through the truth of his fatherhood. He persisted in facing his people even when his people's backs were turned to him. And so even when it came to the great judgements in Israel, it was never a final abandonment. When you get those great prophetic statements about the coming of the Assyrians to the north to take away the captives or the coming of the Babylonians to the south to destroy Jerusalem, there is a promise of a covenant beyond the broken covenant. Israel's sin, the sin of the Son of God, was not going to be God's last word. His judgements were always intended to be judgements of mercy. They were indeed and still are judgements of mercy. They were judgements of love. They were judgements to turn His children around. They were judgements that were not an abandonment. They were a chastisement. They were judgements that came out of His holiness so that His children may face Him. Now you might be in that situation tonight. You may have been running and running and running and you've come to the end of your tether. And you're like a dog on the end of the lead perhaps and you're sort of choking and straining and coughing and spluttering. And you're fearful to look around because you think God's after you with a big stick. But when you actually turn to face him, you find that he's led you all the way with cords of love. And the leash that you think is choking your throat is in fact the hands of love to bless you. and the judgement you fear is actually a great gift of mercy so that instead of bowing down to a rock or a stone or some other inanimate object, instead of giving your heart to some wastrel activity and person or thing, you'd be filled with the blessing of God. If that's where you are tonight, God's not after you to destroy you. If you're at the end of your tether, God's let you go there so that you'd turn and see that his arms are around you and always have been. His face has been towards you and always has been. If you're in a situation tonight where you have found that all of your spiritual energy has just drained away and your life seems empty and your joy's gone and your hope has evaporated and your love seems pointless, It might just be the love of your father's allowed that to happen so that you'd find true hope and true love in him who's loved you always. Don't be scared to face him because he's facing you. He's not after you with a big stick to destroy you. He sent his son. And the sun has not come to destroy men's lives but to save them. The sun has not come to condemn the world but to save it. The sun is here tonight not to condemn you but to save you. Don't turn away in fear because the one you fear is the one who has always loved you. You're only turning away in fear tonight because of the guilt that lies heavy on your shoulder and you know that there is a holy God, but His holiness is the reason why He does not give up on you. And He is not like a man who would give up on you the drop of a hat. And so God allowed Israel to go its way. God did bring judgments to Israel. God did bring judgments to the Davidic sons who turned from him and led the nation into idolatry. God did bring judgments in all of those ways but none of them finally was the last word of judgment. They always were and always are still judgments that will turn our hearts. judgments which will turn us away from the idols which would destroy us so that we'd come to the Father who's always loved us. And we think it's just a cold mechanical process for God. God, and here I'm speaking reservedly, so listen reservedly. God the Great Eternal, the Great Metaphysical Omnipotent God who has such a sovereign plan and purpose worked out, he can just let them go because he knows they are going to come back. The Scriptures don't talk that way. When his children walk away, there are tears in the father's heart. When they turn their backs on him and he has to bring that chastising judgement, it breaks his heart up because he would love that son and daughter to be with him forever and not ever having under any circumstances to experience the terror of being given over into the hands of the idols who would rip the heart out of these people if they could. So his heart boils within him in compassion It's not an easy thing, beloved, to let his sons go. Not even to a judgement of mercy, it's not an easy thing, because he loves them. But then comes the Son, the one true Son, the true Israel. Out of Egypt I've called my son, we're told in Matthew's Gospel referring to Jesus. The true Adam, the son of David, the son of Adam, we're told in Luke chapter 3 verse 38. A true Davidic king, a true seed of Abraham. Here comes the one true son. And the father said, I have sent this prophet and I have sent that prophet. They have killed this prophet, they have killed that prophet. I have one more whom I can send. I will send my son and perhaps they will listen to him. Just put yourself in that position. The son in the house is the last member of your family left standing because every peace envoy that you sent into the enemy camp has been shot. So, do you send your son? Not you or not me, we don't send our sons. Our love stops. But listen to Hosea, I am God and not man. So I send my son. I am God and not man whose love never stops. whose love is as deep as the ocean, whose mercy is as high as the heavens are above the earth, whose grace transcends any known human dimension or affection, I send my Son. Knowing we would bruise Him, knowing we would nail Him to the tree, knowing we would beat Him and spit upon Him and crucify Him, God still sends His Son. So intent is He on seeking out His children. So full of His heart of love to bless His children. So He sends His Son and the Son comes. And that son experiences in his life something that none of the other sons of God ever experienced. Neither Adam, nor Israel, nor any of the sons of the Davidic kings, nor you, nor me, None of us have ever known what Jesus had to know. You are my beloved son, in you I am well pleased, he said at his baptism. And my dear son, I tell you this now because you are going to have to remember that. because there is a time coming which Adam and Israel and the Davidic kings have not known. There is a time coming when you will be abandoned up. When you will be abandoned up. And there will be no mercy. And there will be no substitute for you when you are abandoned up. And there will be no mitigation of the judgement. There will be nothing that will soften the blow. Because you, my son, uniquely in the whole history of the universe, you, my son, in your body, in one small space of a man, however tall he was, in one small window of time, you will be made sin. You will be the Lamb of God to bear away the sin of the world. You will be abandoned up to the judgement of the guilt of that sin. And in your experience in that abandonment, you will know a terror and a horror that none of the other adopted sons have ever known. Because in that place, my face is turned from you, not to you. and the amazing unalterable glory is that the Father's face is turned from Him because the Father's face is turned to us. He's got us in sight as He abandons up the Son. So, does God love you? Is there any compassion in the heart of God towards you? Is there any hope or comfort? This Father has loved you. We cannot speak in this way truly, theologically. And it's not helpful to speak in this way perhaps, but we can speak in this way comparatively. This Father loves you. Speaking very carefully. in preference to his own son. He sent everyone else into the enemy camp, but so great is his love for the enemy that he over leaps the love for his son so that his enemies might come in. I am God and not man. My ways are not your ways." And in that experience where Jesus Christ went under the weight of sin and under the guilt of that broken law and under the wrath of God and under the eternal judgement where he descended into hell on that cross, where he knew himself no longer to be a man but a worm. I am a worm and not a man. where instead of the close presence of the Father's fellowship, bulls of Bashan had surrounded him, wild dogs had encompassed him, his hands and his feet were pierced through, they could count all of his bones. His tongue was dried up like a pot shard, it stuck to the roof of his mouth and as he hung there as this naked, wretched, abandoned thing, God loved him more than he'd ever loved him before. because at that point the abandoned son in his body on the tree was the means by which the father was bringing his other sons home. Now one thing that Israel should have learned but never did was that their life always hinged on the life of another. Israel's history, wherever you look, told them that their life hinged on someone else. Just a few examples. Think for example of Abraham and Isaac on top of Mount Moriah and there's a lamb caught in the thicket. You think of all of the sacrificial system in Israel, morning and evening sacrifices, the sacrifices of atonement, the day of atonement sacrifices. Everything in Israel's worship told Israel they lived by the life of another in their place. Think of the role of the high priest in Israel. where the High Priest entered into the Holy of Holies, where the High Priest bore on his chest the 12 stones which represented the tribes of Israel, where the High Priest symbolically carried Israel into the very presence of God on the Day of Atonement. Israel stood outside and the High Priest represented them. They lived by the life of another. Think of Israel's life when Moses had to intercede for them. They lived by the intercession of another. Think of Israel's life when God had to intervene for them against the Egyptians with a cloud of glory. They lived by the life of another. Everything in Israel, wherever they looked, told them, should have told them, we live because we have an exchange. We live by the life of another. And all of that was a prophetic preparation of the fact that you and I live by the life of another. This man, Jesus, this man who is the Son of God, this man who is God's own Son, is the Lamb by whom we live. He's the High Priest who intercedes for us. He is the High Priest who carries us in the presence of God. He has our names written on His heart before God. He is the High Priest who intercedes for us and He is the High Priest who even in heaven now is interceding for us at God's right hand. Everything in Israel's history said you live by the life of another and it pointed, if they had eyes to see it, like a huge arrow to one man, one Redeemer, the Son. Israel's Sonship failed. Adam's Sonship failed. The Davidic Sonship failed. your sonship has failed. No matter how good you think you've been, you've failed. And you've probably failed worse in your goodness than you have in your sin. But you and I live by the life of another. There is one son, one son. And God does something in that son. He takes us and just as that lamb had the hand laid on it and transferred the sins symbolically to that lamb, so we were there with Christ when he was crucified. Just as the high priest representatively took Israel with, so we were there with Christ when Christ went to the cross. There is one son, and all of the sons and daughters of God scattered abroad from the earth meet their judgement in that one Son. They find their resurrection in that one Son and they find their eternal life in that one Son and by God's grace as we are in Him, we have been crucified with Christ, buried with Christ, raised with Christ, and are now seated with Christ and we are one with Christ. And God the Father looks at that one son with all of his members in him and says, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. And Jesus, from his point of view, is not ashamed to call us his brothers. Is there a black sheep in your family? I come from Australia. You sent most of your black sheep out there, didn't you? Are you a black sheep? Have you come to the experience where your family is just a bit ashamed of you? Or have you come to the experience where you're just a bit ashamed of a member of your family? Beautiful thing about the Lord Jesus Christ, He's not ashamed of anyone. He's not ashamed to be with thieves, tax collectors, prostitutes, sinners, drunkards. He's not ashamed of anyone. He's not ashamed of you. And in a statement that I can hardly believe I make, He's not ashamed of me when I would be ashamed of me. He's not ashamed to call us His brothers. And the Father looks at what He's done in the Son and He's well pleased with it. and we in the Son bring great delight to the Father and the Son stands with us now tonight and He's not ashamed of us and He has not remembered us in wrath but He's remembered us in mercy. Where we deserve to be cut off, we were cut off only in Him. Where we deserve to be judged, we were judged only in Him. Where we deserve to be abandoned up forever, we were abandoned up only in Him. So beloved, let's try to close by bringing some of these things together this evening by asking a couple of questions. Firstly, this. Do you have still in your heart tonight any reservation about whether God the Father loves you? Do you have in your heart tonight any reservation about whether God the Father loves you? If you have, you'll be trying to find within yourself some reason for why God should and the more you go down that route, The more slippery it becomes because you'll never find anything within yourself which will tell you that there's anything good enough in you to be loved. But on the basis of what we've heard tonight, you not just have every reason to believe but if I could be a bit bolder, you must believe that God loves you. because in what he's done in his son, which is for the blessing of the nations, you have the absolute rock solid guarantee that he has come not to condemn but to save. And the grounds of his love for you is in his own love. I am a father to Israel. Even though they have been a rebellious and disobedient son to me, I am still their father, so I love them still." And if you still have a niggling thing in your mind that says, but how could God love me? I have failed comprehensively. Every element of my life is tainted with sin. Every part of my history is shot through with failure. And I say to you, welcome to the human race, welcome to Adam's line, welcome to the line of Israel, welcome to David's family. There's none righteous, no not one, except the one son and in him God's love is made manifest to our hearts tonight. Second thing is this, Do you still feel this evening that God is after you to destroy you? Do you feel somehow under the weight of your guilt, your sin and failure that there's no way back to God, that God has given up on you and that he would, if you were to see him in the street so to speak, if you were to meet him face to face one night, he'd kill you as soon as look at you? I say this carefully, that is a lie of the devil who likes to portray God in some other way than he really is. But the way you see God in Jesus Christ and the way you see God hanging crucified in Jesus Christ, that is the way God really is. And if you tonight are feeling as though you're in a situation where you want to keep hiding from God because God is out to destroy you, I tell you do not listen to that voice because God is here not to destroy but to save. He is here not to curse you but to bless you. He comes not to exercise His wrath but to show you His love because His wrath has been exercised in Jesus Christ. He has come not to consign you to the grave but to lift you up out of it. He has come not to condemn you forever to hell but to bring you up out of that because that is where his son went, down into the depths of hell to bring back the captives. And the third thing is this, if God is for us, And everything you've heard tonight should tell you that God is for you, he's not against you, he never has been against you. Don't believe the lie that he's against you. If God is for you, who is against you? Who can bring a charge against God's elect? It is Christ Jesus who died and also who was raised and who has now ascended to the right hand of the Father who also intercedes for us. Beloved, your High Priest tonight, Jesus Christ, is praying for you at the right hand of the Father. The world and the flesh and the devil will bring a charge against God's elect. They will tell you morning and night and all the way through the night of what your failure is and how bad it is, but Jesus Christ speaks far better words than that. He speaks words of mercy and blessing and he comes with a reviving kiss of love to lift you up off your bed of death. He comes like the lover in the Song of Solomon, with myrrh dripping from his hands, full of fragrant incense to raise you up. Beloved, do not believe the lie that he's come to destroy you. Now if you've heard any of this tonight and the Lord's speaking to you, I'm not giving you anything to do. The one thing I'm saying is believe it. Just believe it. Receive what God has freely given. Don't keep your face covered in a corner. thinking he wouldn't be interested in you. Don't be so proud as to think that your sins are so great that God could never forgive you. Dear you, your sins are so great they cancel out what Jesus did on his cross. What a proud sinner. But even that pride was born. Beloved, what is there that will separate you? Who is the one who will bring a charge against God's elect? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare his own son, that abandoned him up for us all, will he not with him freely give us all things? And Paul's answer to that is yes, he will freely give us all things. So in your heart, in your spirit tonight as we sing our closing singing, you can actually just where you're sitting, turn to face God. You don't have to come to the front, you don't have to do anything. Just turn to face him. and you'll find that he's been facing you all the time and you'll find that his arms are there and they are stretched out to receive you because that's the way he's come in Jesus. We're going to sing Psalm 46 from the Scottish Psalter, page 271. Psalm 46 verses 1 to 7. God is our refuge and our strength, in straits of present aid, therefore although the earth remove, we will not be afraid. Though hills amidst the sea be cast, though waters roaring make, and troubled be, yet though the hills by swelling seas do shake, a river is whose streams do glad the city of our God, the holy place wherein the Lord Most High has His abode. Psalm 46 verses 1 to 7 to the Lord's praise. Let us sing together. Stand together.