The challenge facing today’s Christians is not the necessity to translate Christian convictions into a modern idiom, but rather to form a community, a colony of resident aliens which is so shaped by our convictions that no one even has to ask what we mean by confessing belief in God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The biggest problem facing Christian theology is not translation but enactment. No doubt, one of the major reasons for the great modern theologians who strove to translate our language for modernity was that the church had become so inept at enactment. Yet no clever theological moves can be substituted for the necessity of the church being a community of people who embody our language about God, where talk about God is used without apology because our life together does not mock our words.

Our Sunday worship has a way of reminding us, in the most explicit and ecclesial of ways, of the source of our power, the peculiar nature of our solutions to what ails us. Resident Alien

“Not a sparrow falls without your Heavenly Father.” It means that no sparrow ever died alone; not one of them died alone. When a sparrow dies, God is with him. “He’s in the first heaven. He’s in the second heaven. He’s in the third heaven. He rules over all, and He’s right here with us.

Matthew 10:29 Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.

Jesus draws attention to the sparrows that were sold in the marketplace for food. They were very small birds and could command only a very small price. Clearly, they ranked low in the scheme of things and must be regarded as of little importance. Jesus is affirming that the little sparrows matter to God.

The Bible says that Jesus “came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.”
John 1:12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:

That’s the way we become children of God. That’s the way God becomes our Father. We are supernaturally born again. When God becomes our Father, His very life comes into us.

God is Father only of those who have come to His family through His Son, Jesus Christ. Scripture makes it unmistakably clear that God’s fatherhood of unbelievers is only in the sense of being their Creator. Spiritually, unbelievers have another father. In His severest condemnation of the Jewish leaders who opposed and rejected Him, Jesus said, “You are of your father the devil” (John 8:44). It is only to those who receive Him that Jesus gives “the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name”.

If God is interested in the smallest of his created beings, he is also interested in the smallest details of the people he has made in his own image. It scarcely seems to matter how many hairs we have on our heads71 (and we certainly do not have that information ourselves; even the hairs the head, all (of them), this emphasizes that the Father has complete knowledge of the most insignificant information about each one of his children.

God cares about details. If you comb out some hairs in the morning, the record in Heaven is changed.—John R. Rice

To be able to go to God as our heavenly Father first of all means the end of fear, the fear that pagans invariably had for their deities.

God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. (Exodus 3:14).

God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. Say this to the people of Israel, I AM has sent me to you” (Exodus 3:14). The most fundamental thing that can be said about God is that he is. And the most staggering thing to our imagination is that he never had a beginning. He simply is—from all eternity.

Since God cares for the humblest members of his creation and since he has knowledge of the most unimportant piece of information about his people, those people need not fear. In this Gospel Jesus often tells people not to be afraid; fear is no part of being a disciple. On this occasion he gives the reason that they matter very much to the heavenly Father; their worth74 is much more than that of many sparrows.

Stop being afraid” or “Do not be in a continuing state of fear”; either way the command makes it clear that the believer should live a life without fear. Mt 10:31

Knowledge of God’s fatherhood settles uncertainties and gives hope.

If the best earthly father will spare no effort to help and protect his children, how much more will the heavenly Father love, protect, and help His children.

Matthew 7:11 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?

Bread and fish are selected because they are common foods around Galilee.

Knowing God as our Father settles the matter of loneliness.

Even if we are rejected and forsaken by our family, friends, fellow believers, and the rest of the world, we know that our heavenly Father will never leave us or forsake us.

It is strange to be known so universally, and yet to be so lonely.—Albert Einstein*

live in a vacuum that is as lonely as a radio tube when the batteries are dead and there is no current to plug into.—Ernest Hemingway*

Hebrews 13:5 Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.

Now He’s saying here the Lord says, I will never leave you (in verse 5). And as a result of that, we’re to be content with such things as we have.

Mt 8:26 And he saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm.

Now all of us, all of us have three basic needs. We want to be satisfied, and, we want to be secure, and, we want to be significant. Now let’s talk about this thing of satisfaction here and see the contentment that we have when we know that the Lord will always be with us. Discontent is a terrible disease. Contentment, the secret of contentment is not having what you want. The secret of contentment is wanting what you have. A great philosopher said, “To whom little is not enough, nothing is enough.”

1 Timothy 6:6 But godliness with contentment is great gain.
7 For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.
8 And having food and raiment let us be therewith content.

Knowing God’s fatherhood should settle the matter of selfishness.

Jesus taught us to pray, Our Father, using the plural pronoun because we are fellow children with all the rest of the household of God. There is no singular personal pronoun in the entire Lord’s prayer. We pray holding up to God what is best for all, not just for one.

Luke 10:30 And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.

Matthew 25:40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

Knowing God as our Father settles the matter of resources.

He is our Father who is in heaven. All the resources of heaven are available to us when we trust God as our heavenly Supplier. Our Father “has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ” Ephesians 1:3

The specific spiritual blessings that Paul has in mind here are then worked out in the following verses. They include things like: Election to holiness. When was the last time you praised God for that? Adoption as the children of God. When was the last time you praised God for that? Redemption and forgiveness. When was the last time you blessed God for those things?

Knowing God as Father should settle the matter of obedience.

If Jesus, as God’s true Son, came down from heaven not to do His own will but His Father’s (John 6:38), how much more are we, as adopted children, to do only His will. Obedience to God is one of the supreme marks of our relationship to Him as His children. “For whoever does the will of My Father who is in heaven, he is My brother and sister and mother” Matthew 12:50.

John 6:38 For I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me.

1 Sam 15:19 Why then did you not obey the voice of the LORD, but did fly on the spoil, and did evil in the sight of the LORD? 20 And Saul said to Samuel, Yes, I have obeyed the voice of the LORD, and have gone the way which the LORD sent me, and have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. 21 But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the chief of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice to the LORD your God in Gilgal. 22 And Samuel said, Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams.

Yet in His grace, God loves and cares even for His children who are disobedient. The story of Luke 15 should be called the parable of the loving father rather than the prodigal son. It is first of all a picture of our heavenly Father, who can forgive a self-righteous child who remains moral and upright and also forgive one who becomes dissolute, wanders away, and returns.