Speaker: Dr. Harold J. Sala | Series: Guidelines For Living

Though my father and mother forsake me, the LORD will receive me.  Psalm 27:10

 

John Hagee worked at a children’s home and noticed that on the days that visitors were allowed, one boy invariably would come and stand by the gate.  But John also noticed that no one ever came to visit the boy.  One day John asked him why he always waited when no one ever came.  “I’m waiting for my father,” replied the lad.  “Yes, but your dad never comes so why wait?”

The boy wistfully replied, “I don’t know my father, and until I know my father, I won’t know myself.”  What sadness!  Though you may have never thought of it in this way, one of the reasons that Jesus was secure and confident was that He knew His Father.  He knew where He had come from, and subsequently knew who He was.  There is an interesting statement in John’s Gospel which says of Jesus, “He did not need man’s testimony about man, for he knew what was in a man” (John 2:25).

Question:  Do you know who you are?  Or like the boy that always waited at the gate for a dad who did not come, do you wonder about your own father?  Yes, I agree, it is wonderful to know your biological father, yet because of circumstances beyond their control, thousands of men and women never really get to know their fathers.  But knowing who we are goes well beyond our earthly parents.

During the French Revolution, according to one story, one of the sons of Louie the 14th was raised by a debauched woman whose intent was to corrupt the boy.  When he was urged to do things which he felt were wrong, so goes the story, he would stomp his foot and say, “I will not do that.  I am the son of a king.”

Talking about the relationship that God’s children have with their heavenly Father, Paul wrote to the Galatian believers and said, “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus,” (Galatians 3:26).  In the paragraphs which follow, Paul related how that when we trust Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior we are adopted into the family of God, becoming His children with an inheritance which can never be taken from us.

“Until I know my father,” said the boy at the gate of the orphanage, “I will never know myself.”  Are you like that?  Long ago David cried, “Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me” (Psalm 27:10).   That’s good news.

Though often the youngest child gets spoiled in a family, it seemed that David got the tasks which nobody else wanted.  No wonder David sensed abandonment and revulsion.  But he also experienced something which is the antidote to standing at the gate wondering who you are.  He added, “The Lord will receive me.”

People the world over can testify to the fact that the family of God has a closeness which they never knew in the family into which they were born.  Jesus unites His children and gives them a love for each other which can surpass even the closest of human relationships.

Have you joined the family?  It begins by trusting Jesus Christ as your Lord and then is enriched by worshiping in community, by studying the Word to find out who you are in the sight of God, by learning how great is His love for you and how He provides strength for weakness and hope for your despair.

Don’t stand at the gate waiting for the dad to show who doesn’t show up.  As a believer, you are the son of the King.

 

Resource reading: Psalm 23:1-6