If a person has a name like Richard, people often ask, “What do you like to be called?”. Does he want to be called Richard, Rich, Dick, Ricky, or Rick? In our church it took me a while to figure out that Bob, R.J., and Jack were all the same man. (I’m talking about Bob Hall, R.J. Hall, and/or Jack Hall.) Our church had a man named Ray Birch who was also called Jack. How do you get “Jack” out of Bob and out of Ray? It's confusing.

When it comes to God we have a similar situation, though it’s multiplied many times. God has a lot of different names, in the Bible and outside of it. He's called God, Lord, Good Shepherd, and King. Outside the Bible, and in modern times, He's called the Force (in the Star Wars movies), the Higher Power (in twelve-step programs), the supreme being, the ruler of the universe, and the unmoved mover.

What does God like to be called? One of His favorite names for Himself is “Father.” We don't see God referred to as Father in the Old Testament a great deal, but there are references there. It's mainly in the New Testament that God is called Father — particularly by Jesus. “Father” is Jesus' most common designation for God. There are 107 references to God as Father in the Gospel of John alone. When Jesus taught His followers to pray, He taught that God should be addressed as “Our Father which art in heaven, . . .” (Luke 6:9)

It may not necessarily be helpful for some people to refer to God as our Heavenly Father. Many people haven’t had a positive experience with their earthly fathers, so they may have trouble thinking of God as the ultimate father. A nun who worked in a men's prison asked the men whether they’d like to have Mother's Day cards to send to their mothers. She was deluged with requests, so she arranged for a donation of cards from Hallmark. Weeks later she thought she'd do the same thing for Father's Day, so she asked how many of the men would like to send cards to their fathers. Not a single prisoner asked for a card!

Many people here today had fathers who weren’t around at all, who were emotionally distant, who were abusive, or who were in other ways far less than what a father should be. If that’s the case with you, you still know what a good father is like — because you know that your father was the opposite! No matter what our experiences with our earthly fathers were — and no earthly father is perfect — let's think about what an ideal father would be like. The marvelous fact is that God wants to be a more-than-ideal father for us! He wants to be called “Heavenly Father” — but why?

LAVISHED LOVE
Let me give you three statements from the Bible about why God wants to be called Father. There’s a common thread running through them.

“When Israel was a child, I loved him, . . .” (Hosea 11:1)
“As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him;” (Psalm 103:13)
Here’s our key verse: “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” (1 John 3:1)

God has an amazing love for us. We aren’t just a part of His creation or even just the highest form of His creation; we’re more to Him than that. He wants us to have a personal relationship with Him! He wants to be like a father to us — a good and perfect father, our Heavenly Father! He has so lavished His love on us that we’re called His children, and we’re supposed to call Him “Father”!

WANTING TO BE ADOPTED
This special relationship that we can have with God, in which we call Him “Heavenly Father,” isn’t something that happens automatically: it's a choice we have to make. God is the creator and sustainer of everyone, but the Bible doesn't use the Fatherhood of God to describe this. Having God as our Father is more than having Him as our creator and sustainer. We don't automatically have a relationship with God in which we can call Him Father.

Scripture makes it clear that we’re by nature alienated from God. God is perfect — and we're not. This imperfection is called sin. God wants a close relationship with us whereby He can call us His children — and we have to want a relationship whereby we can call Him Father.

This is why God sent Jesus, His only Son, as one of us. He sent Him to earth to end up on a cross to die for our sins. When we accept God's Son Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we have the right to call God “Heavenly Father.” In a sense we're adopted back into His family.

Picture an orphaned teenager. A couple is willing to adopt him because they've come to know him and to love him. However, he must want to be adopted. It’s ultimately his final choice.

God wants to be more than a concept to us, more than our creator/sustainer. He wants our relationship with Him to be very personal, like an ideal father/child relationship. Have you ever opted for this kind of relationship with God? The way to have a relationship like that is through Jesus. He said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well.” (John 14:6-7)

The apostle John, who was one of Jesus' disciples for three years, talked about this at the beginning of His gospel about Jesus. Referring to Jesus, John wrote, “Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God —” (John 1:12) The Heavenly Father lavishes His love on us, but we have to want that Father/child relationship!

WHAT THE HEAVENLY FATHER BRINGS TO US
What does it mean to have God as our Heavenly Father? There are many ways that God wants to relate to us as an ideal father would relate to his children. I’d like to discuss just a few of them.

First, of course, is the love of the Heavenly Father for us. We don't have to have a slave-like relationship with God that’s based on what we have to do for God, whether we like it or not. “For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, 'Abba, Father.'” (Romans 8:15) This is one of three references in the Bible where “Abba,” the special term for Father, is used. It's the Aramaic word of endearment for a person’s father, sort of like “Papa” or “Daddy.” Jesus used it in the Garden of Gethsemane just before His arrest and execution on the cross. When He was in the garden, “Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. 'Abba, Father,' he said, 'everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.’” (Mark 14:35-36) When Jesus was at His darkest hour He called God “Abba, Father.” We’re supposed to reach out to God in the same way. The third, final reference to Abba is in another of Paul's letters. He wrote, “Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out 'Abba, Father.'” (Galatians 4:6)

Sometimes when life's pressures build up I reminisce about being a little boy again and taking my dad’s lunch out to the field where he was tilling the soil. I’d wait at the end of the field until he had made his way back. He’d stop the tractor, climb down, and lean against the big tractor wheel while he ate. I’d sit in the soil, too. To this day I like to pick up a piece of moss and smell the fresh earth on the underside, because that smell takes me back to those days. We yearn to be close to a father's strong and loving presence. Even people who never had the pleasure of such a relationship somehow have a sense of what they’ve missed.

God wants to be very close to us! “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” (1 John 3:1)

Second, we begin to look and act more and more like the Heavenly Father: “like father, like son” or “like father, like daughter.” This month it will be three years since my father passed away, and I still catch myself saying things or expressing mannerisms that remind me of him. The longer we have a father/child relationship with the Heavenly Father, the more we act and think like Him: the more we have the heart of God. As we mature in our faith in Him we find ourselves thinking about the Christian faith less like “I ought to and have to” and more like “I want to.” We'll actually start to remind others of God when they see the way we live. Jesus said, “Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16) Our goal in life shouldn’t be self-improvement; we should work to become more like Christ and our Heavenly Father!

Third, we have the Father’s purposes to live for. When I was growing up and working on the farm I didn't have to come up with work to do; my dad did that for me! When you have God as your Heavenly Father, you live a called life! Your first question shouldn’t be “What do I want to do with the life I have?”. It should be “What does my Heavenly Father want me to do with the life He's given me?”. Jesus said, “The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.” (John 14:10) Jesus lived for the Heavenly Father. We’re supposed to be like Jesus and live for our Heavenly Father, too!

Fourth, we have the Father’s help. I remember trying to make a toy wagon to pull behind my toy tractor. I got really frustrated because I couldn't pound the nails straight to act as axles that would hold the wheels on my makeshift wagon. Then my dad came along and pounded them in for me. Dads are like that. Our Heavenly Father helps us, too — in many ways! Jesus said, “And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” (Matthew 6:7-8)

Fifth, we have a future inheritance with our Heavenly Father. Paul wrote, “giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light.” (Colossians 1:12) What if just before you were to die you could go through a procedure to get your body made young again and you’d be given 100 million dollars? You wouldn't mind growing old as much because at the very end you'd get a new body and everything you need. We will get those things! We call it dying, but really it's entering into our new life with everything that we’ll inherit from our Heavenly Father!

There's much more we could say about the benefits of having God as our Heavenly Father, but this is enough for now. It all goes back to the Heavenly Father’s love for us: “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” (1 John 3:1) Bask in the love of the Heavenly Father on this Father's Day!