The Call of God - a Loving Father in Heaven — Zac Poonen

Praise the Lord. We have been thinking today about some of the distinctives of this wonderful New Covenant and what it means to live life under God's New Covenant. And we thought in our first session about the importance of allowing God, through the Holy Spirit, to lay the axe to the root of self in our life.

And then we saw what Jesus brought, grace and what it really means. We saw that grace was equated with help in Hebrews 4 .16. Grace to help in time of need. And we also saw in 2 Corinthians 12 .9 that grace was equated with power.

God as a Loving Father

My grace is sufficient for thee, for my power is made perfect in your weakness. What were the things that people like John the Baptist, Elijah, Elisha, Moses did not know? They could not experience these things that I just mentioned, an axe being laid to the root of self in their life.

They could not experience grace. And this evening we want to think of what is one of my favourite subjects, that God is a Father, a loving Father. None of the Old Testament saints ever knew God is a Father, even the greatest of them.

If you read the Old Testament, even though there are occasional passages, like the one in Isaiah 64, where it says in verse 8, O Lord, thou art our Father, that is so rare. Isaiah is actually expressing a longing rather than a reality.

That is such a rare thing. In those closing chapters of Isaiah, he is actually referring to that day when Jesus would come. It says in Isaiah 61, how the Spirit of the Lord is upon him. So he is speaking in a sense of that future day, prophetically of the Lord as our Father.

But otherwise, there was nobody who ever dared to call God, Dad. That is the real meaning of that Hebrew word Abba. It is the most intimate word for Father in the Hebrew language, which we are told in Romans 8, when the Spirit of God comes into us in the New Covenant, he cries out from within us, saying Abba, Father, giving us the spirit of adoption, which we saw was the spirit of Sonship.

I don't believe that I will ever get weary of speaking about this truth, and I never do want to get weary, because I find that wherever I go, it is because people don't know what a good God our Heavenly Father is, that they have so many problems in their personal life, and so many problems in church life.

Jesus Teaches Intimate Prayer

When Jesus was once praying, all by himself, and not all by himself, the disciples were with him. The disciples had grown up for thirty years or so in the synagogue, and they had heard the Pharisees pray many, many fantastic prayers to God in heaven.

But when they saw Jesus praying, it says in Luke chapter 11, verse 1,. And it came to pass, that as Jesus was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray.

They heard him pray, and it was like something they had never heard in their whole life. They'd never heard anyone pray like that. It wasn't a formal prayer, obviously. It wasn't just a prayer offered to impress people.

Jesus prayed, I'm sure, like one who knew his father very intimately, and talked like one who could talk and listen. You know, like you, I mean the best illustration I could use is, if you were listening to someone speaking on a telephone, you don't hear what the other person is saying, but you hear this person speaking, and you know pretty soon whether he's speaking to the managing director of the company or to his own dad.

You can make that out by the way he's speaking. And they'd heard the Pharisees speaking, and it was like speaking to the managing director of the company. And when they heard Jesus praying, it was so different.

And they said, Lord, is this how we are supposed to talk to God? We have never heard anything like this. Teach us to pray. And it was an answer to that, that Jesus said, when you pray, from now on, when you pray, begin by saying, our Father who art in heaven.

Because the most important thing in prayer is faith. If you don't have faith when you're praying, you might as well not pray at all. I've been to meetings where they pray all night. I've been to fasting and prayer meetings, and I saw nothing much happen in those assemblies, in spite of those, in spite of those churches, in spite of all these long hours of prayer.

People still fought with one another. They couldn't get along with each other. They, their quarrels in the homes, and they didn't have victory. All these long prayers didn't seem to accomplish much. There was no faith there.

It's like stirring something in a cup, and the cup is empty. You can keep on stirring. There's nothing there. It's better to have a little bit, maybe milk and sugar and stir it. Something comes of it.

But a lot of prayers, like stirring an empty cup. I mean, they ease their conscience. Most prayer goes by the clock. Okay, is the half an hour up, or is the one hour up? I remember years ago when I was a young Christian, and I was working in the Navy those days, way back more than 40 years ago.

And I wanted to pray all night, because Jesus prayed all night. And I found I was looking at the watch all the time, to wait till it became morning, and I had accomplished the feat, finally. It was worthless.

I might as well have slept and had a good night's sleep that night. No, prayer is not a feat to be accomplished, that I endured a whole day of fasting and prayer. It was never meant to be like that. It wasn't like that for Jesus.

It was talking to his father, and he was closer to his father than to anyone else on earth. Everything else was secondary. It was like two people who were in love with each other, who want to walk off by themselves, don't want anyone to disturb them.

And if they're really in love with each other, you see a young couple who are really in love with each other and planning to get married, they won't be always looking at the clock. If they're looking at the watch, you know, well, I doubt whether they really love one another.

And you know, prayer is like that. For Jesus, it was like that. It was intimate communion with the Father. You don't have to tell two people who are in love with each other, why don't you go off by yourself and spend some time together?

They're just always looking for that opportunity. That's how it was with Jesus. Nobody had to tell him, spend some time in prayer, spend some time in prayer. I've read so many books on prayer and heard so many exhortations on prayer.

They never seemed to, I mean, they stir me temporarily. And I'll tell you honestly, what most books on prayer that I read did to me was make me feel guilty, that's all. That I wasn't spending so much time in prayer.

And that guilt would stir me to do something. If you're honest, you probably have the same experience. I believe we could help each other a lot more if we were honest with each other. That's what I decided to be a long time ago.

And I found that it would stir me for a little while, because that power of guilt can stir you for a little while, but then it has a way of wearing out after some time. And then you don't do anything much, you revert back to the normal way of life till you read another book on prayer, or you hear another sermon on prayer, and then you get guilty again.

And it's these occasional, you know, stirrings of guilt that would drive me. I realized there's something wrong there. That's not the way. It's talking to God as my Heavenly Dad, bringing to Him the little things and the big things in life, not always understanding why He does certain things in certain ways, not always understanding why He doesn't answer certain, why He says no to certain prayers.

I used to say He doesn't answer certain prayers, it's not correct. I believe God always answers prayers. Sometimes the answer is yes, sometimes the answer is no. See, if my little son came to me and asked me for something, I wouldn't keep quiet.

No. I would say yes or no. I would never keep quiet. And I believe, all right, it will be yes, no, or wait. So it wouldn't be silence. Yes, no, or wait. And it's like that with God when we pray too. The answer is always there.

It's yes, no, or wait. It's not time yet. If my son asked me for a bicycle, wait, you're not old enough to ride one yet on the roads. Some others, the answer is no. Some other things, the answer is yes.

Sure, you can have that. It's God's exactly like that. And, you know, one of the byproducts of knowing God as Father was, it delivered me completely from competition with other believers. One of the great problems many of us face, I don't know, I'm sure many of you face it, I faced it very much as a young Christian, was feeling of inferiority.

I felt I wasn't as good as other believers. I was an introvert, looking inward most of the time. I was quiet. I was not an extrovert who would go out and slap people on the back and say hi. I was more reserved and shy and inward looking.

And such people tend to be melancholic and frequently discouraged, depressed, and secretly envy others, who are more outgoing and can make friends more easily, or more attractive personalities. And I used to wish I could be like them.

But I couldn't. If I tried, it wouldn't last long. And then when I became a Christian and started to serve the Lord, I felt the same way. And the thing is, people who feel like that, when they're asked to do something, they're very conscious of what they're doing and they want to do something in an impressive way, so that people will really appreciate.

Because such people long for somebody to appreciate them and say that was a good job. Because they feel so insecure. There are lots of believers like that. Somebody says that was a good job. You're a fine brother.

And then they feel encouraged. They keep going for some time. But you don't find many people like that who come to encourage you. Most people just discourage you. And a lot of messages in the meetings that we hear tend to make us feel guilty.

Encouragement Rather Than Condemnation

That's how it was in most churches I went to. A lot of churches that preach holiness, their main aim in the preaching is to make everybody feel nice and guilty at the end of the meeting. And feel they're not attained anywhere.

And almost feel you'll never make it. Okay, you did a lot but it's still not good enough. And I used to preach like that too. Because I didn't know God is a Father. But things changed. When I really came to see how good a Father God was.

He's a God who encourages us. A God who lifts us up. You know in the book of Hebrews in chapter 3, it says, exhort one another daily while it is called today. Lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.

Hebrews 3 .13. Exhort is a word which means many things, challenge, rebuke, correct. It's all involved in exhort. Stir somebody up to do something. Some lazy fellow sitting there doing nothing, stir him up.

Exhort. But that word in the Greek language Hebrews 3 .13 is a word from which we get the word comforter in John 14. Paraclete in the Greek. Jesus said I will send you a comforter. Supposing this word were translated like that.

Comfort one another daily. That meaning is also inherent in that word. Encourage one another daily. Lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. I thought of it like this. Okay, here is a Greek word which can mean exhort one another daily or encourage and comfort one another daily.

Here is a word which means either. In fact some other translations of this verse and other translations translate it as encourage one another daily. But here it says exhort one another daily. Which translation, if you are a preacher, which translation do you like of that word?

If the Greek word means both. I'll tell you that depends on your personality. It depends on whether you know God as a father. Some would say exhort. That's the thing we need brother. We need to exhort people.

People are lazy. They are just sitting there doing nothing. We got to stir them up. We got to challenge them. Because otherwise they will get hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. Yeah, there is a place for that.

But if you don't understand God as a father, you won't be doing it properly. You will exhort people in a way that will condemn them. I know because I did it. What about taking the other possible meaning of that Greek word.

Encourage one another daily. Lest you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. Is it only through exhortation that we are going to save people from the deceitfulness of sin? Encouragement. You know word of encouragement can do wonders.

And encouragement even with little children. A word of encouragement to that child can very often do more than ten words of criticism. Please remember that with your children. And I didn't do that with my children when I knew God as one who only exhorted me.

But when I saw God as a God who encouraged me, then I could do that to others. See this verse in 2nd Corinthians chapter 1. We know that the Apostle Paul went through a lot of pressures, trials, temptations.

He suffered a lot. And he says here in 2nd Corinthians chapter 1 in verse 3. Blessed be God, even the father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of mercies and the God of all comfort. The God of all encouragement.

Do you know God is the God of all encouragement? I tell you, that's the only knowledge that can help you when you go through trial. When you go through pressures, which he goes on to say here, that this God, and the word is the same, paraklesis.

The same word, comforter in John 14, the Holy Spirit. Notice the number of times this word comfort comes here. I want you to just notice it. Comfort, consolation. What is the theme here? The subject is trouble.

First of all, let me show you that verse 8. We would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life.

Now, years ago, I, I don't know whether I have it here, I wrote a little, I read a little piece of poetry about this verse, where it speaks about being pressed out of measure and pressed to all length.

Pressed so intensely, it seems beyond strength. Pressed in the body and pressed in the soul, and so on. And this type of pressure, pressed into knowing no helper but God. That's the type of situation God allows us to go through sometimes.

Pressed into knowing no helper but God. And in those type of situations, it says here, He was pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch, verse 8, that we despaired even of life. Have you ever been in situations like that?

Where the pressure of so many things, and you don't have to be an apostle. You just got to be a mother with a few sick children to face this. You don't have to be an apostle. Pressed out of measure, so many demands on you, so many things to do, not enough time in one day to do it.

And it looks as if everything goes wrong on the same day. Above strength, you say, Lord, can I ever bear this? Will I be able to endure till the end? Insomuch, that we despaired even of life. I thank God for the honesty of the Apostle Paul.

Some of us, if we despaired of life, we would not like to admit it, lest we be considered unspiritual. Paul was humble enough to admit it, and there were certain times when he despaired even of life, and we had the sentencing of death in ourselves, and the whole purpose is that we should not trust in ourselves.

So that was the type of situation Paul is describing, and how did he get help in that? God of all comfort, verse 4, comforted us in all our tribulations, that we may be able to comfort them, which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted by God.

Now I want you to notice the number of times that word comfort comes, in verse 3, verse 4, 1, 2, 3, 4 times in verse 4, consolation, verse 5, consolation, verse 6, consolation, verse 7, the last part, and consolation, the last part of verse 7, and verse 6.

So many times, comfort, consolation, encouragement, comfort, consolation, encouragement, comfort, comfort, the God of all comfort. It wasn't exhortation, it wasn't rebuke. When we are pressed out of measure, despairing of life, what we need is not exhortation, what we need is encouragement.

And very often when such people come to a meeting in a church preaching holiness, what they get is exhortation, not encouragement. And they go away discouraged, when they should have received encouragement.

And very often that's because the preacher doesn't know God as a loving Father. He only knows God as a holy God, who's got all these demands. It must be like this, it must be like this, it must be like this, it must be like this, and why isn't it like this, and why isn't it like this.

And I've heard a lot of holiness preachers, they just make people feel guilty when they, when they come to the meetings. They don't know God, the God of all encouragement. That's the meaning. God of all comfort means the God of all encouragement.

Everywhere you look, it's encouragement. God's a loving Father. He's one who's there to help us. This demanding God, that's proclaimed in a lot of pulpits, is the result of a preacher being under the law, making you feel no matter what you do, that you're still not good enough.

You hear preachers like that? No matter what you do, it's not good enough. Think of you, if your son was doing something, maybe it's his homework, or trying to please you in some way, and maybe he's cleaning your car for you, and you go and inspect it, and you say, well, that's not good enough, there's a little bit of dirt over there.

And then he cleans that, and you find some other spot of dirt underneath somewhere, and so it's still not good enough. And you just tell that to him four or five times, and keep doing that for a few years, and just see what type of teenager you're going to have when he gets to that age.

Well, those type of rebellious teenagers, who had parents who never encouraged them, always exhorted them, this, that, you're not good enough, this, this, this, this, this, is the type of people we have in a lot of churches.

Difficult people who are trying to appear holy, trying to appear as though they have no problems, because they think everybody sitting around them has no problem. People are riddled with problems. They're waiting for some word of encouragement, which they never get.

I'll tell you what God told me once. He said that I was like a surgeon in the olden days, would find a patient with cancer, cut him open, expose the cancer, rebuke the parent, rebuke the patient for getting the cancer, and with his stomach wide open, wheel him out of the operating theater.

I said, that's what I was doing Sunday morning. Preaching, exposing the cancer, rebuking people for getting the cancer, cutting their stomach open, say, go home, and the Lord said, that was not what he wanted.

Does the cancer have to be exposed? Sure. Does the stomach have to be cut open? Sure. But it's got to be removed, and the stomach's got to be stitched back together again, and the person's got to be given a painkiller, so that when he wakes up, he wakes up without a feeling of pain, because he's been given a painkiller, and he's on the way to healing, but it's very rare, very rarely, that you hear a message like that, that can expose sin in you, and yet send you home with a lightness in your heart, a spring in your step, a song in your mouth, and a twinkle in your eye, because you know God has encouraged you.

There's hope for you. It all comes through knowing God as a Father. That's the God Jesus came to proclaim, and the Pharisees, who were the preachers in Jesus' time, had portrayed such a caricature of God as a strict policeman, waiting to catch you for something or the other, or like an officer of the IRS, doing an audit of your accounts.

A lot of people know God like that, and searching into, and what's this, and what's this entry, and what's this, and where did this money come from, and where did you spend this? A lot of people know God like that, and no wonder their lives are so miserable.

There's no joy in their faces. The spirit of praise is not in their life. They don't know what it is to rejoice in the Lord always. Now, I praise God for opening my eyes to see that the one I have in heaven is not a policeman, not an IRS officer.

It's a Father who understands, who forgives, and who encourages, who tells me, even if I did it wrong, never mind, you can do it better, and who helps me. You know that verse in Romans chapter 7, I remember the day when God opened my eyes to see how in seeking victory over sin, like we considered earlier in Romans 6 .14, that grace delivers us from sin's power, and we pursue holiness.

Very often, people who go through that stage of being justified in Romans 3, and seeking for victory in Romans 6, do not end up in a life in the Holy Spirit, as described in Romans 8. They usually, in their pursuit of holiness, the type of holiness described in Romans 6, where you present your members as instruments of righteousness, as it goes on to say in the last verses of Romans 6, they usually end up not getting married to Jesus Christ, but getting married to the law.

And there's a lot of difference between the two. And here it says in Romans 7 .4,. Wherefore, my brethren, this is one step higher, you have become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that you should be married to another.

Even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. So I saw this as a marriage. I was formerly married to the old man, who was a wicked husband who beat me up and hammered me and treated me badly, and I got sick and tired of that.

I didn't know how to escape from this marriage. Divorce God hates, and here I am married to the old man for life, and mercifully, one day God kills the old man. That's Romans 6. Your old man was crucified with Christ.

And I'm free. Thank God. Now I want to marry someone who's upright and honest, and who obeys God's laws. And instead of marrying Christ, I marry the law. That's the experience of lots of Christians. The law is not like the old man.

The law is never hammers me, never troubles me, never asks me to do one wrong thing, but always asks me to do the right thing. But it's so demanding. I must be up at 5 .30 in the morning. It can't be late.

I must keep the house in order. I must have breakfast on the table by eight o 'clock. And he doesn't lift one finger to help me. And the house must be tidy, and the shoes must be in the proper place. The clothes must be ironed properly.

Everything must be washed without a speck of dirt on them. And it's everything like that. And I say, what did I, whom did I get married to? And the law will never die, like the old man. He's healthy and strong and will live forever.

And I'm doomed. When we talk about legalism, when we talk about people pursuing holiness, this is the experience of people pursuing holiness, if they're honest. They've got all these rules, which they live by, and it's such a strain.

When Jesus said, come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. He was talking to such people who were weary and heavy laden, trying to keep these numerous laws in their pursuit of holiness.

Trying to live by the standards of what their church taught them, mostly external standards and rules and regulations, and hoping that they'd kept it all right. So demanding. And then Romans 7, 4 says, when the law wouldn't die, God made another way.

He still hates divorce. He made another way to break that marriage. And that is, he made me die. The wife die. That was the end of that marriage. Isn't that a wonderful way? God liberated me. It says, you are made dead to the law.

Romans 7, 4. You die. Hallelujah. This wretched marriage into which I've gotten to. My first marriage is bad. My second one was bad. But I escaped out of both through the death of my first husband and through me dying in the second one.

And now I can be married, it says in verse 4, to him who was raised from the dead, to Jesus. And his demands are just as strict as the law. But the difference is, he helps me. He says, okay, let's have breakfast at eight o 'clock, but let's do it together.

And he works with me. And if I'm the lazy type of person who can have breakfast ready only by 12 .30 in the afternoon. Jesus says, never mind, let's work on it. We'll work on it. You and I work on it.

By next week, I get up to 11 .30. In another month, I come up to 11 o 'clock. The Lord never gives up. He says, let's work on it, work on it. And maybe after four or five years, I get to eight o 'clock.

I say, hallelujah. And the Lord says to me, you made it. You made it. Now let's work on keeping the shoes in the proper place. And let's work on some other area. Wouldn't you like to be married to such a husband?

And he's helping you all the time. This is Christianity. So many people are married to the law and mistaking that for Christ. It's not. Have you seen in the Gospels how Jesus was always there to help wherever people were in need.

If they didn't have wine at a wedding, and he was there, he was there to help them. If there were 5 ,000 people without food, he was there to help them. And the disciples toiled all night and caught nothing.

He went right out there to help them. He was always there to help. And Mary and Martha were discouraged because their brother had died. He went there and raised him up from the dead. I never find a situation where Jesus didn't help.

He didn't just rebuke, you should have done it like this, and you shouldn't have done it like that. He never went and told people, I told you to be like this. No, he came to help. A God who encourages us.

He revealed, and the Bible says that Jesus told people, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. See, that's why I'm telling you what Jesus did. Because Jesus said to Philip, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father.

What you see in me is what your father is like. He's there to help you. I never see a single situation in the Gospels where Jesus had to scratch his head and say, well, I don't know how to solve that problem.

Never. But some of us think that your problem is so big that Jesus is forever scratching his head and say, boy, that's a tough one. I didn't know how to do that, solve that one. You think if you found out a problem like that, well, you can make Jesus scratch his head today and say, I don't know how to deal with that one.

Is there anybody sitting here with a problem? You think the Lord doesn't have a solution for it? There's not a problem like that in the world. There's never been one like that since the history of man.

Fellowship with God Before Service

When Adam sinned, it's wonderful for me to see. You see the loving father heart of God right there in the beginning. It says in Genesis chapter one, that God made man on the sixth day, towards the latter part of the sixth day.

And then the very next thing was the seventh day, which was a day of rest, which shows the father heart of God, that God said to Adam, we're going to have one day together. You and I just walking, talking together, enjoying fellowship with each other.

I don't want you to do any work this day. And then you can go out and work for six days in the garden. What was God interested in with Adam? He wasn't interested in his work. He was interested in his fellowship.

I want to tell you, my dear brothers and sisters, God's not so much interested in all the things that you think he wants you to do for him. He's interested in fellowship with you. He wants you to talk to him.

He wants to talk to you. Under the law, it was different. Under the law, it was six days you shall work and the seventh day you shall rest. But for Adam, it was not like that. It was one day you shall walk with me and rest.

Because the seventh day was the first day for Adam. He was created on the sixth day. God had done all the work. And Adam entered into the benefit of all that God had done for him. Do you know that's the meaning of the Sabbath?

And I think our Seventh-day Adventist friends have missed it completely. Because they think it's a matter of the seventh day of the week. Like the Jews thought it was. And Jesus came and said, that's not it.

That was only a picture. And that was not the seventh day for Adam. That was the first day for Adam. It was his very first day of life. It was the seventh day for God. But it was the first day for Adam.

And he didn't work for six days. He rested for one day. He fellowshiped with the Father for one day and then he worked. And it makes a lot of difference if you've gone out to work for six days without having had any fellowship with the Father.

And if you go out for six days after having had fellowship with the Father. It makes a tremendous difference. And what the Lord was trying to say through that incident way back in Genesis chapter one and chapter two is this.

That he wants us to have fellowship with him first and then go out do whatever you want to do for him. Otherwise you're going to have problems all through your life. You have all that work laid out for you dear mother with all your children and everything.

And the Lord says, I want you to fellowship with me. It doesn't matter so many things you're not able to do. I want you to fellowship with me. I want you to know my love for you. It's made a difference.

I remember the old days when ministering for God was a strain. It's not a strain now. Because to me ministry is not the important thing. Fellowship with God is the important thing. And I know that if I walk with God and talk with him and I listen to him and I walk with him through the garden, like two people in love with each other, walking with each other.

I know that he'll always tell me what I should tell other people. There's no strain there. Somebody asked me, Brother Zach, how long do you take to prepare a message? I say, well about 35 years. It's not a question of sitting down one Saturday and getting books and tapes and listening to all of them and writing it down.

It's walking with God, listening to him and saying, Dad, what do you want me to tell people? Sure, if you tell me something to tell them, I'll tell them. If you have nothing to tell them, I'll sit down.

My ministry is not my God. For a lot of people, their ministry is their God. They're in competition with other ministries because their ministry is their God. They have to show we're doing something. They have to show other people, I'm doing something.

When I started serving the Lord, when I came out of my job and started devoting my whole time to the ministry 34 years ago, I said, Lord, I'm never going to send a report of my work to anyone. Why should people know what I do for you?

So much of misunderstanding. Now, I'm not against people reporting. It's a question of motive. A lot of reports of Christian work are, it's obvious from the very tone of those letters that it's asking for money or it's showing off what a fantastic ministry our particular organization is doing for God.

So since I don't have a desire for either, what am I going to write a report about? For what? God takes care of our needs and it's enough that God knows. There's tremendous security when we're walking with God as a father.

We're not in competition with anyone. We're not here to show that I'm doing a greater work for God than that other person out there. To me, that's as stupid as the right hand saying, I'm doing a greater work for this body than the left hand.

Can you imagine anything as stupid as that? The right hand boasting, do you know that I sign all the checks? The left hand has never signed one and if the left hand ever signs a check, the bank won't accept that signature.

The right hand never boasts like that. All the important jobs are done by my right hand. He doesn't boast like that. And neither does the left hand feel jealous of the right hand at all. It's because they're all connected to the head.