Nice Isn't Enough: 7 Signs You're a True Son or Daughter

Sermon outline

Knowing God as your Father gives you identity, a home, security and a reason to serve, and true sons and daughters show it by resembling, staying, trusting, honouring, obeying, following and believing, while walking humbly in the blessing.

1. Four results of knowing God as your Father

   Father's Day brings mixed emotions, for some have living fathers and some have lost them. Knowing God as Father gives you personal identity; it makes heaven your home and frees you from the fear of death; it gives you total security that God has your back; and it motivates you to serve God and people, not because you are compelled but because you love to. God has emotions and made us with them, so men need not hide their feelings or be afraid to show affection.

   Illustration: He grew up without a father and felt the vacuum into adulthood, until one day the Holy Spirit came on him and reminded him that God is his heavenly Father; from that day he was free of yearning for an earthly father. Pastor Zubeda lost her mother young, yet today the church calls them father and mother.

   “Jesus is the way, but God is our destination.”

   • John 14:6
   • Psalm 2:4

2. Don't be indifferent

   Ask yourself what you do for the Father who has done so much for you. Followers of a false cult give up homes and families and pour in their wealth, yet Christians who have the real thing are often indifferent. God loved Jacob, who would not let go until he was blessed, rather than the more upright but indifferent Esau. There must be a distinction between Christians and non-Christians, and we should stand up and be counted instead of sitting quietly while people demean our God.

   Illustration: A documentary about a cult whose followers travelled from all over the world to India and later to America, buying a huge farm with its own airfield and jets.

   “Indifference is a diluter.”

   • Malachi 1:2-3
   • 1 John 3:1
   • John 1:11

3. The nine fathers we relate to

   We relate to roughly nine kinds of father: our heavenly Father; our father in Christ, who led us to the Lord; our father in the ministry; our biological father; a substitute father who steps in when a father is absent, sometimes even better than the biological one; a father-in-law, as Jethro was to Moses; the father of a church, its founder; the father of a movement, as Abraham is of faith; and, sadly, a father of sin who teaches someone to do wrong.

   Illustration: In prison an old hardened criminal teaching a young man how to commit crime becomes a 'father of sin'.

   “I'm a dad to the men and women in our church.”

   • Ephesians 6:1-3
   • Matthew 6:9
   • Exodus 3:1
   • 1 Corinthians 4:15
   • Galatians 3:7

4. Being nice doesn't make you a son

   He reads a minister's account of telling a smiling church member that she was not his daughter but a 'VNP', a very nice person, because she shared nothing of his ministry. Church members can be very nice, very encouraging, very important, very significant or very dangerous people, but sons and daughters are recognised by their likeness to their father.

   Illustration: The minister asked how people know his own children running around the church: they look like him.

   “Just being around and being nice does not make you a son or a daughter.”

5. Sign 1: Sons and daughters resemble their father

   Jesus said that whoever had seen Him had seen the Father. Spiritual sons and daughters bear a ministerial resemblance to their father: they speak the same language, act in a similar way and even dress alike.

   “The similarities between sons and fathers are great tell-tale signs of a relationship.”

   • John 14:9

6. Sign 2: A son is forever

   A servant does not stay in the house forever, but a son does. Real sons and daughters always belong to the house of God and are not rolling stones transplanting themselves from place to place; those who leave show that they were never really part of it.

   Illustration: A couple he led to the Lord and pastored moved to London, yet the husband contacts him every week, and when they bought a flat he showed it to him on a video call and asked him to pray.

   “He's not here with us physically, but he's here with us spiritually.”

   • John 8:35
   • 1 John 2:19

7. Sign 3: Sons and daughters trust their father

   Workplaces are full of mistrust, but children trust their father absolutely; no child pickets against his parents. The more we trust our heavenly Father, the more of His blessing we experience, and in the church the anointing flows most to those who trust and receive.

   “The more we trust Him, the more we see His blessings.”

   • Matthew 6:9-13

8. Sign 4: Sons and daughters honour their father

   A son honours his father; from employees you get lip service and forced smiles, but from real sons and daughters you get honour. He asks each person to ponder whether they are a real son or daughter of the ministry.

   Illustration: A mega-church pastor admitted that appointing pastors from other churches and Bible schools had brought bad experiences, and he should have raised up his own spiritual sons and daughters.

   “A true son and a true daughter honours their father.”

   • Malachi 1:6

9. Sign 5: Sons and daughters obey their father

   Children are to obey their parents in the Lord and honour father and mother, the first commandment with a promise that it may be well with them and they may live long.

   • Ephesians 6:1-3

10. Sign 6: Sons and daughters do what they see their father do

    Jesus did only what He saw the Father doing, which is why at Bethesda He healed one man and left the rest. Spiritual sons flourish when they see their father preach, teach and heal, not as mindless clones but as good sons. Leaders lead by example and appeal in love rather than pushing, and he assures the church that he and Pastor Zubeda genuinely love them, pray for them and celebrate their victories, even when they have to be firm.

    “They are not mindless clones. They are simply just good sons and daughters.”

    • John 5:19
    • John 5:1-9
    • Romans 12:1
    • 1 Corinthians 11:1

11. Sign 7: Sons and daughters believe in their father

    On the cross Jesus committed His spirit into His Father's hands, believing in His power. Children believe their parents can buy anything, and God, who owns the cattle on a thousand hills, wants us to believe in Him like that instead of switching to the world's system and being stingy when He leads us to be generous. Obey the Spirit's small promptings, as Mary told the servants at Cana, and God will trust you with bigger things.

    Illustration: A little girl once ran up to him announcing that her father was very rich and could buy anything, because children never look at the price tag.

    “When you start being obedient in the little things ... you become obedient in the big things.”

    • Luke 23:46
    • Psalm 50:10
    • John 2:5

12. Walk humbly in the blessing

    The church prays for its people to prosper, but not everyone can handle success. Desiring more is not wrong, but you must keep your feet on the ground and stay small in your own eyes, because everything you have, God gave you. Samuel reminded Saul that God blessed him when he was small in his own sight, so parents must model humility for their children, who will copy them.

    “You do not have the spirit of the world. You have the spirit of your Father.”

    • 1 Samuel 15:17