Pastor Koay Kheng Hin
18 June 2023
On this special Father’s Day, I believe that God does indeed have a message in season for all fathers.
Today’s message is spoken to all of you, especially fathers.
I wish to begin by stating that it is not easy to be a father in this generation. I speak to fathers who struggle with wayward children, to fathers who have obedient children who have dreams and aspirations that you personally as a father find difficult to help them in the pursuit of their dreams and hence feel a sense of inadequacy and to fathers who desire to grow in fatherhood and finally to fathers who have made wrong choices in life and who aspire to turn on a new leaf and be good fathers.
The text for the sermon today is Romans 5:8-10.
8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
9 Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! 10 For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!
These three verses reveal to us the depth of the love of our heavenly Father for all of us.
From verse 8, we can see that the death of Jesus on the Cross of Calvary is the clearest demonstration of our heavenly Father’s love for us through the fact that he loved us so deeply that he sent Jesus, his Son, to die for us while we were yet sinners.
The mention of us being enemies of God in verse 10 emphasizes the incomprehensible nature of the Father’s love for us in that while we were yet his enemies, the heavenly Father sent his Son to die for us.
This love of our heavenly Father for us is depicted in the parable of the lost son of Luke 15:11-32.
In this parable, the love of the heavenly Father for sinners is shown analogically through the love of a human Father for his sons. The parable of the lost son is arguably one of the most versatile parables.
This is because each of the three characters that make up the parable, the younger son, the older son and the father, can be equally seen as the main character.
Today we are looking at this parable from the viewpoint of the father as the main character.
The younger son, in demanding his share of his inheritance while the father was still around showed great disrespect for his father.
In time to come, after squandering away the wealth that he received, he decided to go back to his father. Verses 20-24 show us the magnanimity of the father in his big-heartedness, his forgiveness, his grace and his mercy.
The self-centredness of the older brother was evident in his anger and bitterness against both his father and his brother. Verse 28 describes his father pleading with him and verses 31-32 describe the father trying to persuade him to view the whole matter with understanding showing the patience and magnanimity of the father in his love for his children.
Finally, as we look into the Scriptures, we can find the best description of magnanimous fatherhood in the relationship between David and his son Absalom.
Absalom had conspired to wrest the kingdom from David and while David was fleeing from him he had initially thought of pursuing him and killing him ( 2 Samuel 17:4). Eventually, in the battle between the armies of David and the armies of Absalom recorded in 2 Samuel 18, we can see that even though his son Absalom had planned to kill him, David’s heart was still turned towards his son.
He had tried to protect his son’s life(2 Samuel 18:5) and after hearing of his son’s death, he had mourned deeply(2 Samuel 18:33).
David is the clearest expression of the heavenly Father’s love portrayed on a human level. May we all grow in our appreciation of magnanimous fatherhood on this Father’s Day and draw inspiration and empowerment from experiencing first the love of our heavenly Father for each and every one of us. To God be the glory. Amen!
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