What Does It Mean to Call God “Father”?
The Heart of the Message
This Father’s Day, Pastor Kirt Anderson took us to a passage in Isaiah where God’s people, living in exile in Babylon, cried out to God and asked where He had gone. Drawing a straight line from that ancient complaint to the way Jesus taught us to pray, Pastor Kirt explored what it really means to call God our Father. The message was honest, personal, and full of grace, reminding us that even in the seasons when God feels distant, He has not forgotten us.
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Why Does God Feel Far Away When I Need Him Most?
It is one of the most honest questions anyone can ask, and it is not a new one. In Isaiah 63, the people of Israel asked the very same thing. Exiled in Babylon, far from home, the temple destroyed, they cried out: “Where is the one who brought Israel through the sea? Where is His mercy and compassion now?” Pastor Kirt points out that God’s seeming silence in that season was not abandonment. It was, in part, a space for self-examination, a time when failure and hardship stripped away pride and invited the kind of honest reflection that success rarely produces.
Does the Bible Really Call God “Father”?
Yes, though Pastor Kirt notes it is rarer in the Old Testament than many people realize. Isaiah 63 and 64 are among the few places where God is addressed directly as Father, with the people crying, “You are our Father. We are the clay and you are the potter.” What changes everything, Pastor Kirt explains, is Jesus. When the religious leaders confronted Him for healing a man on the Sabbath, Jesus replied that His Father is working, and so He works too. When pressed further, He said plainly: “I and the Father are one.” That is the claim that unlocks the Lord’s Prayer, because Jesus does not say “if you pray,” He says “when you pray, say: Our Father.”
What Does a Father’s Love Actually Look Like?
Pastor Kirt answered this one from personal experience. He described the moment his oldest daughter Erin was born, and how something erupted within him, a rush of love, protectiveness, and total vulnerability all at once. A mechanic at his church said it well: “Pastor, now you know why men fight wars.” That instinct to provide, protect, and sacrifice is not just a human impulse, Pastor Kirt says. It is a reflection of something true about God. In the same way a dad drives a crying baby around at three in the morning just to help her settle, our Heavenly Father will go to any length for His children. The ultimate expression of that, Pastor Kirt reminds us, was the cross.
He also shared a quieter, deeply moving image: sitting beside those near the end of their lives, holding their hand, and praying the Lord’s Prayer aloud. More times than not, there is a small movement, a twitch of the mouth or the eye, because that prayer runs so deep it reaches past everything else. We did not learn it so much as absorb it, passed down through generations, woven into who we are.
Scripture Focus
Primary Anchor Text: Isaiah 63:11-19 (NLT)
“Then they remembered those days of old when Moses led his people out of Egypt. They cried out, ‘Where is the one who brought Israel through the sea with Moses as their shepherd? Where is the one who sent his Holy Spirit to be among his people?… Surely you are still our Father. Even if Abraham and Jacob would disown us, Lord, you would still be our Father. You are our Redeemer from ages past.'”
Additional References:
- Isaiah 64:8 (“Oh Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay and you are the potter.”)
- John 5:17 (Jesus: “My Father is always working, and so am I.”)
- John 10:30 (“I and the Father are one.”)
- Matthew 6:9 (The Lord’s Prayer: “Our Father, which art in heaven…”)
