Genesis 18:19 “For I [the LORD] have chosen him [Abraham], so he will direct [lead] his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing what is right and just so that the LORD will bring about for Abraham what He has promised him.”
For many people – Jews, Muslims and Christians – Abraham is seen as the father of their faith. Abraham was chosen by God to be their ancestral father and from those people groups he has many, many spiritual descendants. Abraham was very human, but the most significant thing about him (as far as the LORD is concerned anyway) was his unwavering faith in the LORD. God told Abraham he would have a son by Sarah, and Abraham believed Him. Abraham fathered his son Isaac late in his life through a miraculous work – Abraham was 100 years old when Isaac was born, and his wife, Sarah was 90 or so (well past menopause!).
Many people know the story of the LORD asking Abraham to give his son Isaac as a burnt offering to Himself…. and Abraham obeyed. Abraham loved Isaac, but his love for God and his obedience to His command went even deeper. As I meditated on this story, I imagined myself in Abraham’s shoes. What horrible grief he must have been feeling as he carried the fire and the knife for the sacrifice, while Isaac carried the wood for the altar on his back as they walked up the mountain where Abraham had been commanded to sacrifice his only son. What an uncanny resemblance to the story of Jesus’s final walk up the mount of crucifixion with the wood for the “altar” carried on his back. Imagine the grief of his Father! And unlike the story of Abraham and Isaac when God Himself provided the ram for the sacrifice and burnt offering… there was no one to stay the hands that killed His only begotten Son. Isaac, unlike Jesus, was spared and lived to carry forward the covenant promises of the LORD to His people.
The LORD is our good, good Father. What He did is radical…. He saw the desperate needs of His lost, broken, and sinful children for a Savior, and abandoned His heaven and gave up His glory to come to earth to do what a good father would do. Prior to Abraham, all of the men of Jesus’s lineage became fathers around the age of thirty years old (although Abraham himself did not become a father until his old age). Thirty is also the age at which Hebrew men stepped into their priestly roles. Jesus began His ministry at the age of thirty, and in a way, became a father to those around Him in how He led them. Jesus, in so many ways, perfectly modeled what a good and true father does with and for his children.
Jesus’s fulfillment of the role of “father” is seen in how He sacrificed His power, glory and comfort to meet the needs of His children – the unique needs only He could meet. In addition to everything His ministry entailed, He also modeled what a good father would have done for His children by how He related to those around Him. He led His children (the disciples and the others who came to Him in faith) into the way of righteousness by living out what a holy life looked like in front of them. He modeled humbleness and obedience in all that He did – and by all that He said. He was always teaching, frequently rebuking, and He loved His people with a passionate, fully intimate love. He was entirely engaged with His children – spiritually, emotionally and physically. He taught them the things they needed to know to become the men and women He intended them to be. He rebuked them – some of them harshly – so that they might recognize their failings and sins and turn from them in repentance. He loved them enough to stay with them through thick and thin – even when they hurt and betrayed Him. Jesus waded into our mess in order to save us from ourselves and this world. He truly saw His children – the lost, hurt and broken people that they really were (and are). He loved them anyway and led them in the ways of righteousness and truth.
Tragically, there are many, many examples around us of the legacies of bad fathering – children who are a “train wreck”, both emotionally and in how they live out their lives. Bad fathers often leave a legacy of brokenness and rebellion – rebellion against the fathers themselves, but most importantly, against God.
Bad fathers don’t love their kids enough to put aside their own needs to meet the children’s needs. They are brutal when the kids don’t do what they want them to do, or when the kids are not what the father wants them to be.
Bad fathers aren’t willing to fight for their kids – they watch passively rather than being willing to speak when they see the kids going the wrong way.
Bad fathers abandon their kids – and don’t give the kids the chance to work out their issues with their dad in a way that leads to wholeness.
Many bad fathers are full of hypocrisy – they say they believe something righteous, but their actions speak loudly of their worship of themselves or their idols.
Every family has a different story, and every parent/child relationship is uniquely their own. What are the legacies of your father and your grandfather? How have their legacies played out in the lives their children and in your own life? Do the legacies have “good fruit”? Are their children and grandchildren people of integrity and wholeness, or are their legacies full of tragic stories of unfulfilled promise – full of hurt, suffering and disconnection from the LORD and from relationships with other family members?
A good father leads his children well. He models sacrificial love for them – putting aside his own needs and desires to serve theirs. A good father fights for his kids and speaks truth – even when the child does not want to hear it. A good father stays in relationship with his children – pursuing them even when they reject his pursuit – in the hope that in his pursuit the child can work out its issues with him and become more whole and healthy. A good father’s words and actions may not be perfect but are usually consistent and truthful.
A good father invests deeply in his children and sees them as a blessing from the LORD. Through his relationship with his children, a good father grows in holiness and fulfills the task the LORD has given him in leading his family well. Through this, he too is blessed.