Living as a Dearly Loved Son of God

I have a confession to make.  I’ve always found it easier to relate to the paradigm of being the Bride of Christ than being a son of God, even though I’m a guy.  I know… weird.  But lately I’ve been feeling like God wants me to really understand the son paradigm so I can enjoy more of the benefits and liberties of being a son of God, and I’ve been grappling with what it means for a few months.  Fortunately, God is helping me.  And I thought that I could share some of that insight just in case in might be helpful to you. (By the way, just as men are part of the Bride of Christ, women are “sons of God”. Yep. Take a look at Galatians 3:28 and Romans 8:15. So what I write here applies to men and women.)

I suppose a reasonable place to begin is to listen to what Jesus has to say about his own relationship with his Dad.  I know you have to be a little careful, because Jesus was uniquely God’s only begotten son, who was with God from eternity past, spoke Creation into existence, and is one with God, King of Kings and Lord of Lords — some attributes we don’t share with him in ourselves (though we participate in some of those attributes — see, for example, Ephesians 2:4-6).  But here goes…

Perhaps you recall that when Jesus began his ministry, he went out into the wilderness for forty days and was tempted by the devil.  It turns out that in his replies to the three big temptations of the devil, he revealed quite a bit about what it means to be a son, from his perspective.  You can read the story in Matthew 4:2-10, but I gleaned these three points:

• The son lives by every word that comes from his dad
• The son doesn’t put his dad to the test
• The son is immensely loyal and loving to the dad, and cares about what his dad wants

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Defending himself to the religious authorities in John 5:19-27, Jesus revealed more things about his thinking about the relationship of a son and a dad.

• The son looks to his dad to see what his dad is doing, and follows his dad’s lead
• The dad loves the son, and wants his son to know everything about what he is doing
• The dad acts so that those who honor him honor his son as well
• The dad gives the son authority

If I can summarize these points, I would say that the relationship between a son and Dad, as Jesus lived it, is one of great intimacy.  As a son, he looked to know his Dad’s heart, and see what his Dad was trying to accomplish.  And yet Dad loved his son so much that he gladly revealed his heart to his son.  And he sought not only to honor his son, but to bless him.  And he trusted his son to do the right things, because he gave his son authority.

One of the questions that I grapple with is how independent are we from God as sons?  I hear people teaching about the authority we have as sons, but I usually do not hear in those teachings any boundaries or qualifications.  Indeed, we can see that it is true that dad gives his son (and by analogy, his sons) authority.  However, we can also see from what we gleaned that our authority has to be contingent on our intimacy, because it is only because a son knows his dad’s heart and really wants to honor his dad that the dad can release that son to greater authority.  Recall John and James asked Jesus if they could call fire down on a Samaritan village (Luke 9:52-55).  To their credit, at least they asked Jesus first! But they didn’t quite have the intimacy to know what Dad’s heart was on that issue, so were not granted the authority to do what they asked.

Jesus and the Apostle Paul often used analogies to being a son of God in their teaching.  I have discovered through talking with a number of friends that we all get different pictures of what that means when we hear it, and depending upon what we picture, we draw different inferences.  Analogies are powerful in helping us gain deep understandings.  That’s why it’s important to try to get the best picture we can in our minds, and important to be careful not to infer things the speaker never intended for us to infer.  I am going to tell you up front that the picture I am proposing in this sonship analogy is one of an extended farming family, living together under one roof, so that sons dwell with their dad, even when they are grown up.

I like this picture because in perhaps one of the most famous and clearest illustrations in the Bible — the one that has been typically called the Parable of the Prodigal Son — the adult sons clearly live with their father.  I also like it because of all the instructions in the Old Testament, particularly in the Psalms, to dwell in the house of the Lord, in the shelter of the Most High; and the clear instructions of Jesus to abide in Him, which clearly is about living in intimate connection with Him.

Thinking about the Parable of the Loving Father (aka the Parable of the Prodigal Son) found in Luke 15:11-32, we see some really dysfunctional sons!  Towards the end of the parable, we see that maybe the younger son is starting to understand sonship a little bit, but the older son has us a bit worried.  Before we summarize what the parable teaches us about being sons of a really loving Dad, I can’t help but pose an explanation why these guys were so dysfunctional.

What I am suggesting is based on Galatians 4:1-7.  The Apostle Paul writes that as long as the son is a child, his life really looks no different than that of a slave.  Children are told, “Do this!  Do that!” just like slaves.  There’s plenty of practical reasons for that.  But at some point, children grow up, and they have to learn that they ought not to live as they did as children.  The Apostle Paul says that the whole estate is theirs (NIV)!  The relationship between dad and sons are supposed to change as one grows up.

In the Parable of the Loving Father, neither son grew up.  Yes, they did physically, but relationally, no.  They never learned to live as adults in their dad’s house.  The older son learned the lesson of obedience very well as a child.  But he did not mature to the point where he felt free to share his heart with his dad, or for that matter really understand his dad’s heart.  He thought that his dad was a harsh taskmaster, and did not listen to his sons’ ideas and requests, and did not want good things for them.

Both sons thought the property was all their dad’s, and that they weren’t free to enjoy it.  The older son decided that meant that he just had to wait until his dad died.  The younger son decided that he couldn’t wait that long.  They thought their dad was into possessions, and was not generous or one to share.  What they both needed to learn is that their dad loved them so much and that he saw everything that was his as belonging to the sons, as well.  They lived with him, but they weren’t intimate with him.  The sons needed to know that the father wanted them to know his heart so that they could share in everything.

Galatians 4:7 says that we are sons and heirs RIGHT NOW.  That means that we need to see our Dad as loving, as wanting to make available to us everything he has.  But to really grow into the adult relationship that will signal our ability to live freely in Dad’s house and all that implies, we need to get to the point of intimacy where we really know his heart.  Otherwise, we will find ourselves running off with his wealth to spend it on things that are not worthwhile, or we’ll get a slave attitude that stunts our growth.

If you really believed that you are an adult son, dearly loved by his dad, living with him, what would you do differently?

• First, what would you do to cultivate that relationship with him, so that you could know his heart, and he yours?
• Second, how would your faith for praying change?  If God has all power in the universe, would you feel free to use some of that power?  What things are on your heart that need a breakthrough that you might be able to get as a dearly loved son?
• Third, how would you see your present circumstances differently?  Have you been living like a guy who feeds the pigs in regard to your human relationships, work, or school?  What would a guy with a ring on his finger and a master’s robe do in those situations that a pig-feeder would not?