The fatherhood of God is the heart of what Jesus came to show us, and in this message the pastor explains why it changes how we worship, how families flourish and how we are born again. Jesus came to declare the Father, not only to deliver Israel from Rome. Through Him, God’s heart turns toward His children so their hearts can turn back to Him, and believers are born of incorruptible seed as sons and heirs, not as foster children.
This message continues from Fatherhood of God: Knowing Who He Is, Not Only What He Does. Below are the video, a summary, the Scripture behind each point (NKJV on Bible Gateway), a timestamped outline and steps for this week.
Sermon at a Glance
The pastor explains that this teaching grew out of an earlier series on becoming worshipers. Worship, he says, is something we grow into, and that process led him to teach on the fatherhood of God. This message reviews the earlier lesson, then goes deeper into 1 Corinthians 15, 1 Peter 1, Romans 8, John 3 and Galatians 4 to show what it means to be born again into the Father’s family.
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Speaker | The pastor (not named by title in the recording) |
| Series | Fatherhood of God (second message) |
| Main text | Ephesians 3:13–15, 1 Corinthians 15:42–49 and John 3:1–8 |
| Key theme | Through the new birth we become sons of the Father, not adopted outsiders |
| Length | About 63 minutes, ending with a prayer of salvation |
Worship Is Bowing and Listening
The pastor starts with the names of God, many of which describe what He does: the Lord our Shepherd, the Lord who is there, the Lord who sanctifies. At creation He is Elohim; when He forms Adam He is revealed as Yahweh, the covenant keeper and grace giver who dwells with His people. Praise celebrates all that God does.
When Jesus came, Israel was looking for a deliverer from Rome. The leaders expected a soldier, and Jesus instead rode humbly into Jerusalem on the foal of a donkey (Zechariah 9:9). He came to bring a deeper deliverance: freedom of the soul from the bondage of sin, which is greater than any oppression people can bring.
Praise thanks God for what He did, is doing and will do. Worship goes further: it is bowing to who He is and listening to Him. That is the difference in the story of Mary and Martha (Luke 10:38–42). Martha was busy in the kitchen; Mary sat at Jesus’ feet to listen.
Jesus did not call Martha’s work wrong. He said Mary had chosen the good part. She stopped and listened, and that, the pastor says, is worship. When we do it, our lives are literally transformed.
Jesus Came to Declare the Father
The pastor teaches that Jesus’ one goal in all His preaching and ministry was to declare the Father. At Jacob’s well, the Samaritan woman raised the old dispute between Jews and Samaritans about where to worship. Jesus answered that the hour has come when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, because God is Spirit (John 4:23–24).
The pastor counts 167 times in the recorded Gospels that Jesus spoke of the Father, and notes that if everything He did were written down, the world could not contain the books (John 21:25). “Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32). Jesus did not just tell us about the Father; He showed us.
He also came not to condemn but to give life more abundantly (John 10:10). The pastor then turns to the last book of the Old Testament. In Malachi 3:6 God declares that He does not change. He did not create Adam because He was lonely, the pastor says, but because He wanted a family.
The final verse of Malachi promises that God will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest He come and strike the earth with a curse (Malachi 4:6). Moses came with the law, but Jesus came full of grace and truth (John 1:17). The Father’s heart went first to the people so that their hearts could come to Him.
The last verse of the whole Bible, the pastor points out, is a blessing of grace (Revelation 22:21). God does not want to curse anyone. He did not even curse Adam and Eve in the garden, he teaches. Adam’s name comes from adama, meaning dirt, earth or soil. Adam planted disobedience in his own ground, and God simply showed him what would grow from the seed he had sown.
A life like an overgrown lot full of thistles can be cleared and planted to feed the neighborhood. God did not send His Son to condemn the world but that the world through Him might be saved (John 3:17), and no one comes to the Father except through Jesus (John 14:6).
The Fatherhood of God: Every Fatherhood in Heaven and Earth
Before reading Paul’s prayer, the pastor stresses how much a father shapes a household. When a father goes to church regularly, he says, the whole family usually follows; when church is only a matter of convenience, the family has little chance of committing to Christ. That is why the fathers’ hearts must turn to the children first.
In Ephesians 3:13–15, Paul, in the middle of his own tribulation, bows his knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named. The pastor explains that the word for family is patria, from the word for father, and reads it from the Phillips translation: the Father from whom every fatherhood in heaven and earth takes its name.
The whole creation, he says, rests on fatherhood. The Old Testament society was patriarchal, not because men are superior in any way, but because God is a Father and things grow, increase and are blessed through fathers. Where a father fails, the family is often scattered and disjointed.
He uses the heartbeat as a picture. Take a pulse at the neck, wrist or ankle and it is the same everywhere, because one heart sets the rhythm for the whole body. Without a proper father, a family has no common rhythm and the children go in every direction. Despite critics of how he raised his children, he says, every one of them serves the Lord; he is not bragging, only showing that this works.
The First Adam and the Last Adam
Adam was the representative of all mankind, and when he sinned, all were affected. Jesus came as the second man and the last Adam, the final representative, and He did it perfectly. 1 Corinthians 15:42–49 says the body is sown in corruption and raised in incorruption, sown in dishonor and raised in glory, sown in weakness and raised in power, sown a natural body and raised a spiritual body.
The body is like a seed, he explains. He connects it to the parable of the sower (Mark 4:3–20): seed on the path is eaten by birds, seed on stony ground dries up under pressure, and seed among thorns is choked by the cares and lusts of this world.
He warns against a false gospel that says you only need to accept Jesus and you are good to go. Jesus sowed His life, and we must sow ours too; He told us to take up our cross and follow Him (Luke 9:23). At a crusade in Uganda, two young men asked for the power they saw in his life, but walked away when told they must leave their old god and give their lives to Jesus. No king gives his power to a passerby, he says; if you will not sow, you cannot reap.
Verse 45 says the first Adam became a living being and the last Adam a life-giving spirit; we are born naturally first and must then be born again. Everyone is born with a dead spirit, so the life Jesus gives starts in the spirit, not the pocketbook. As we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall bear the image of the heavenly Man.
Picture a jewelry store: a new hire left with the cash box might walk away with it. A son who watches the store hands the till back to his father, because he knows it is already his. Many Christians, the pastor says, beg God for health or provision like hired help, when the Father is pleased to give them the kingdom and they are heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.
Sons and Heirs, Not Foster Children
1 Peter 1:22–25 says we purify our souls by obeying the truth, having been born again not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the Word of God which lives and abides forever. If you want your problems to go, the pastor says, obey the truth, and you become tilled soil where good seed can grow. Jesus said His words are spirit and life (John 6:63).
Every seed produces after its kind, he says, which is why apples never give you watermelons. A life of partying will not produce stability. Evil company corrupts good habits (1 Corinthians 15:33), and he who walks with wise men will be wise (Proverbs 13:20). Everyone gets sucker punched in a corrupted world, but we change things by speaking the Word into them. Your spirit is made alive at the new birth, your mind needs renewing, and the body’s redemption is still to come.
Romans 8:15–17 says we did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but the Spirit of adoption. This, the pastor says, is where many Christians get confused, because God is not a foster parent. The word translated adoption, he explains, comes from the word for a son, and of the words for children it describes a grown, mature child: armed and battle ready, trained, able to hold a fort, earn a living and raise a family.
The table below follows his contrast between the two ways a believer can see himself.
| Living as a hired hand or foster child | Living as a born-again son |
|---|---|
| Takes the cash box, believing nothing is his | Hands back the till, knowing it is already his |
| Begs God for health and provision | Receives the kingdom as the Father’s good pleasure |
| Wants God to do, do, do for him | Sits at His feet, listens and obeys |
| Lives under rules and the fear of bondage | Lives by the law of the Spirit of life in Christ |
| Stays a baby who needs milk | Grows into a mature son, ready to teach others |
Israel, he says, knew the acts of God, but Moses knew His ways (Psalm 103:7). Anyone could go to the tent of meeting, but only Moses went. The people only wanted God to do things for them, so they died in the wilderness. Later, many who saw the Father’s works through Jesus still refused to listen, and in John 8:37–47 Jesus told the leaders that because they would not hear His word, they were of their father the devil.
Under the old covenant there were 613 commandments, not just the Ten. God never wanted sacrifices so much as a broken spirit and a contrite heart (Psalm 51:17). Even the Ten Commandments, he notes, are about relationship: four with God and six with people.
Born of Water and the Spirit
In John 3:1–8, Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night, and Jesus tells him that unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God. Without Christ, a veil lies over every heart (2 Corinthians 3:14–16), but when we give our lives to Him, the veil is taken away and there is liberty.
In place of the 613 commandments, there is now one law. There is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, for the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made us free from the law of sin and death (Romans 8:1–2). That law, he says, is love, and it is liberating.
Nicodemus asks how a man can be born when he is old. Jesus answers that one must be born of water and the Spirit. The pastor teaches that water here is not baptism; it is natural birth, like a mother’s water breaking before a baby comes, and Jesus explains it Himself: that which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Being sprinkled as a baby, he says, was his parents’ commitment, not his new birth.
The wind blows where it wishes, so new birth is personal between you and God, yet it always comes through Jesus. If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved (Romans 10:9).
Jesus was born of the Word and the Spirit through Mary, who said, “Let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38). Where, then, is the womb of our new birth? Galatians 4:22–26 describes two covenants: Hagar and Mount Sinai give birth to bondage, but the Jerusalem above is free and is the mother of us all. We are born of our Father’s seed through the womb of heaven.
The pastor shares that after a hard pregnancy and his mother’s serious illness, she could not speak for years. She called her children home with a cowbell, and later with a shrill whistle they could hear a mile away. He connects it to God’s promise to whistle for His people and gather them (Isaiah 5:26) and to the heavenly call that will gather believers to meet the Lord in the air (1 Thessalonians 4:16–17).
Living the Fatherhood of God This Week
The pastor says God is into relationship, not just instant results. He has seen instant healings, but he describes fasting and sitting with God for days without hearing anything, then finding old habits losing their grip and a new desire rising. It begins with humbling ourselves and turning to Him (2 Chronicles 7:14). Christianity, he says, does not make anyone perfect; it makes us a perfect lover of God. Here are practical steps from the message:
- Sit at His feet. Set aside quiet time to listen to the Father, not only to ask Him for things.
- Know you are a son. Stop begging like hired help; receive what the Father is pleased to give His heirs.
- Sow the right seed. Choose wise company and fill your life with the Word, because whatever is sown comes up.
- Obey the truth. When problems press in, obey what God has said and let your soul be purified.
- Turn your heart to your children. Fathers, lead in seeking God so your household finds its rhythm.
- Give your life, not just your agreement. Take up your cross; you cannot reap what you are unwilling to sow.
He closes by inviting anyone not yet born again to pray: Jesus, forgive me for trying to live my life on my own; I give my life to You; Father, fill me with Your Spirit and give me a new heart.
Timestamped Outline
- 0:00 From becoming worshipers to the fatherhood of God
- 1:16 Elohim, Yahweh and the redemptive names
- 2:22 Israel looked for a deliverer from Rome
- 3:34 Worship is bowing and listening
- 4:46 Mary chose the good part
- 6:00 The woman at the well: John 4
- 7:01 Jesus declared the Father 167 times
- 9:15 Malachi 4:6: turning hearts
- 10:31 God did not curse Adam
- 12:57 Fathers and Ephesians 3:13–15
- 15:32 Every fatherhood is named
- 17:02 The heartbeat of a family
- 18:11 The first Adam and the last Adam
- 20:36 A false gospel, and the crusade in Uganda
- 24:21 Born twice: natural, then spiritual
- 26:53 The son who hands back the till
- 29:12 Incorruptible seed: 1 Peter 1
- 34:38 Romans 8: not a spirit of bondage
- 38:27 Israel knew His acts, Moses His ways
- 42:01 613 commandments and relationship
- 44:49 Nicodemus and the new birth: John 3
- 50:44 The Jerusalem above: Galatians 4
- 54:59 A mother’s whistle
- 1:02:24 Prayer of salvation
Fatherhood of God Series
This message is part of a four-part teaching series at NTC Ministries. Go back to the previous message or continue with the next:
- Previous: Fatherhood of God: Knowing Who He Is, Not Only What He Does
- You are here: Fatherhood of God, Part 2: Born Again as Sons, Not Foster Children
- Next: Fatherhood of God, Part 4: From Knowing His Acts to Becoming a New Creation
Frequently Asked Questions
Is accepting Jesus enough to be saved?
The pastor warns against a version of the gospel that treats salvation as simply accepting Jesus and moving on. He teaches that Jesus sowed His life and calls us to sow ours, taking up our cross and following Him. Confessing Jesus as Lord means owner, master and ruler, and believing in your heart that God raised Him from the dead. His story of the two men in Uganda shows that wanting God’s power without giving Him your life leaves you with nothing to reap.
Why doesn’t God simply change me instantly?
The pastor says he has seen instant healings and miracles, but God is into relationship. Much of the change in a believer comes through a seed process: hearing the Word, obeying the truth and spending time with the Father. He describes times of fasting when he heard nothing for days, yet afterward found habits that fed the flesh losing their hold and a new desire for God taking their place.
Does this teaching say men are superior?
No. The pastor addresses this directly. He says the Old Testament society was patriarchal not because men are superior in any way, but because God is a Father and creation grows and is blessed through fatherhood. His focus is on fathers taking responsibility: turning their hearts to their children, leading the family in seeking God and giving the household a common rhythm, like a single heartbeat felt throughout the body.
Scripture References
All passages open in the New King James Version on Bible Gateway:
- John 4:23–24 — worship in spirit and truth
- Luke 10:38–42 — Mary chose the good part
- Malachi 4:6 — the hearts of the fathers and the children
- Ephesians 3:13–15 — the whole family named
- 1 Corinthians 15:42–49 — the first and last Adam
- 1 Peter 1:22–25 — born of incorruptible seed
- Romans 8:15–17 — heirs of God
- John 3:1–8 — you must be born again
- Galatians 4:22–26 — the Jerusalem above
How this summary was made: written with AI assistance from the sermon’s own transcript and checked against the Scriptures listed above.
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