This week’s sermon from Pastor Mark is called “I Am Fathered,” preached out of Ephesians 6:1–4. In this devotion, Deacon David Ginn looks back at losing his father to cancer and learning truths about God the Father, and looks forward to becoming a new father.
“He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” Revelation 21:3–4
My father died from cancer when he was 27. I have no memory of him because I was only three years old when he died. In fact, one of my first memories as a child was my cousin telling me that the man at my house, whom I called “Dad,” was not my biological father, and that my actual father was dead. I remember going home in tears and asking my mom if this was true—was my father dead? My mom hadn’t been trying to hide this truth from me; I was just so little that I hadn’t put all the pieces together.
Throughout the course of my life I have asked God, often with tears and loud cries, “Why did you take my father? Why did you let him die? Why couldn’t I have had a different life, one with him in it?” I was hurt, angry, and bitter with God because I knew that my dad didn’t have a choice in the matter, he didn’t willingly leave me.
But God has been so patient with me and, over time, he has shown me different truths about himself as Father:
- He didn’t take my father away from me—death did. As a Christian, God is not our enemy; Satan, sin, and death are our true enemies.
- God sent his Son to rescue and save my father and me from sin. (My family has told me that my father became a Christian before he died.)
- God the Father does not delight in the death of his children—he grieves over it more fervently then we do. It’s OK for me to grieve over the death of my father, and it’s OK for me to miss him. As Psalm 116:15 says, “Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints.”
- God the Father is my true, perfect, heavenly Father. He has never left me, he can never be taken away, and he will never hurt or betray me (Rom. 8:38–39).
- One day I will be with my father, and we will both stand in the presence of our heavenly Father together.
God has given me a lot of grace, and in his timing, as I am writing this, my wife and I are expecting our first child. I am so grateful to have the opportunity to be called “father.” My hope for my child (we don’t know the gender yet, but we’re calling it the “gummy bear”) is that he or she will not only know they are loved by their father and mother on earth, but that they are loved infinitely more so by his or her Father in heaven.
Be sure to listen to this week’s sermon from Pastor Mark, “I Am Fathered,” preached out of Ephesians 6:1–4.
