Who’s Your Daddy?
Dear Faith Family,
Of course, there are many ways to think of family. You have a mom and a dad, grandparents, maybe some siblings and more cousins than you’ve had hot dinners. I call you my “faith family” because we are all brothers and sisters in the faith—God is our Heavenly Father.
Yet Scripture speaks of faith family in an additional way. You have a right to refer to the greatest patriarch of the Old Testament as “Father Abraham.” I’ll always remember one of the most expressive professors I had at the Seminary talking about Abram and his name change to Abraham: “’Av-ra-ham,’ hmmm? ‘Exalted Father,’ hmmm? (dramatic pause, then) ‘BIG DADDY!’”
Who’s your daddy? In a tremendously inclusive fashion, your loving God has made your family name synonymous with that of Abraham. Most of us have little experience or connection with the history and culture of the Jewish people. The more we consider the history of God’s chosen people, the more special and significant it is that through faith we are placed in the same faith family as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
God used the Apostle Paul to pen these words to the faith family in Galatia:
“Consider Abraham: ‘He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.’ Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham. The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: ‘All nations will be blessed through you.’ So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.”
In some cultures, marriage is carefully handled so that a family’s prized son or daughter marries someone of equal status, level, and name. Your spiritual “name” is of the very highest stock, through faith in the same Savior God who called Abram from his family home.
In a similar way that we Christian parents might give an encouragement to our pre-teen or teen kids to “remember who they are” as they head out the door to spend time with friends, we each have an opportunity to remember who we are. Not only do we have a spiritual family connection to Abraham, the father of all who believe. We also bear the name of our God. Through baptism, we are God’s own children.
With such a tremendous heritage, too often have we acted like a mindless Hilton Hotel heiress. Too often have we failed to live up to God’s expectations and the high calling of His Name. Sin is so awful. Sin wrecks so much. Sin had hit us with such a horrific hellish bent to our future.
But Jesus bore the brunt of the punishment for sin. Jesus, the blessing for all nations promised to Abram, has made your status as a treasured Child of the Almighty secure. Jesus has done everything to bring you home to heaven and dramatically alter every day for the better until you are called there. The same faith Abraham was gifted lives and bears abundant fruit in your life, all to God’s glory. Abram’s people bore the wandering moniker ever since the “Big Daddy” got his name (the name “Hebrew” means “wanderer, pilgrim, immigrant”). Well, the fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree, does it. We wander through this life as the Lord leads us day by day on our way home. God bless you, dear faith family, today and every day as we walk together on the way home.
Prayer idea: Thank God for bringing you into his family. Ask God for direction for your decision making today. Ask God to bless your family and your faith family.
Blessings on your week!
--Pastor Dan