How God Fathers by Pastor Dolapo Lawal: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

The Way Is the Way of Sonship

John 14:6 — Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me." Notice He did not say no one comes to a spirit, or to a god. He said no one comes to the Father. The way Jesus has made for us is the way of sonship — we are not going to meet an oracle, we are going to meet a Father. That is why He said, "I will not leave you as orphans."

If you had a difficult father growing up, please hear this gently: you didn't choose him, God gave him to you, and I am not saying this lightly. But because we were made in the image of God, we must be careful not to make God in the image of our earthly father. Don't import that experience into the new experience God is inviting you into. And if you had a wonderful father, God is still better.

My Father's House Has Many Dwelling Places

John 14:2 is often mistranslated in a way that flattens its meaning. "In my Father's house are many mansions" — the word for "house" there is the Greek oikia, meaning household or family, and "mansions" is mone, meaning dwelling places. Properly translated: in my Father's family are many dwelling places. The place Jesus went to prepare is not simply a location in heaven — it is a place of sonship, where God can dwell in us and we can cry, "Abba, Father."

John 3:16 is the most quoted verse in the world, yet the word "so" in "God so loved the world" is old English, functioning as a simile rather than an adjective — as in, "as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so God loved the world and gave His Son." God's love, agape, is a decision, not a variable feeling that can be adjusted up or down. There is no partiality with God.

From Only Begotten Son to Firstborn Among Many Brethren

Before the resurrection, Jesus was the only begotten Son. Romans 8:29 — those He foreknew, He predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Just as Jesus is a son of God, we have now become sons of God by adoption. Adoption carries choice — God chose to want us as children, and proved it by coming down from glory to experience our pain. That is why, even knowing He would raise Lazarus from the dead, Jesus first wept at his tomb — because He does not simply sympathise from a distance, He enters into it with us.

The Anointing Is a Call to Affliction, Not Comfort

There is something called firstborn inheritance, and to walk in it you have to be willing to lay down your life for your siblings. Imagine a room full of hungry people with lions outside. Everyone is hungry, but only a few decide, "If we stay here we die; if we go outside we die — I would rather die fighting than let everyone starve." They go out, fight the lion, and everyone else gets to walk free without having fought. That is the anointing — not comfort or privilege, but a call into affliction on behalf of others. Moses spent forty years leading a wandering nation through wilderness he did not create.

The Son came to earth and ended on a cross. God gave up His Son to make His enemies sons. Sometimes people who love you deeply — like Peter, who told Jesus "this shall not happen to you" — can love you right out of the will of God, because they cannot bear to watch you walk into what your calling requires.

Testing Whether the Revelation Has Landed

One test of whether you truly know God as Father is how you treat other believers — because if the revelation that God is Father has dawned on you, other believers become as close as biological siblings, connected by the eternal blood of Jesus. If you would not lie to your sister, do not lie to a brother or sister in Christ.

A second test is whether you are behaving like a child. A five-year-old whose father provides for the household does not sit on the stairs worrying about how school fees will be paid — that would be strange, because children are provided for. When you carry that same anxious worry as a believer, you are not behaving like a child of a good Father; you are behaving like an orphan negotiating survival. A child receives inheritance, not wages. If your mindset is "I work for God's love," you are not yet operating in sonship — we do not act in order to get God to act; we respond because He has already acted.

Serving from Love, Not from Stress

You can serve God and be stressed, or you can serve Him from love — the difference is not the action but the posture behind it. People burn out not because they are working too hard, but because they are working for God rather than from God — and when trouble comes, that mindset says, "After all I've done for you," revealing where the service was really coming from.

John 1:18 — no one has seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, has declared Him. The Greek word for "seen" there, orao, means to experience or perceive — it takes a son to reveal a father. Jesus came to declare, to the world, the God we've always half-known, now fully as Father.

Orphan Spirit vs Sonship

John 14:18 — Jesus said He would not leave us as orphans, yet many believers still carry an orphan spirit without realising it. Orphans typically:

• Feel abandoned and live with constant insecurity, struggling to trust
• Are quick to suspect rejection, unable to tell the difference between discernment and suspicion
• Fight for survival instead of resting in provision, and become people-pleasers, desperate to be chosen and liked
• See discipline as punishment rather than love, and interpret silence as rejection
• Struggle to call God Father with real assurance, settling for whatever crumbs they can get rather than believing for God's best

Do Not Be Anxious

Matthew 6:25-34 — do not be anxious about what you will eat or wear; look at the wildflowers of the field, more finely dressed than any king, though most of them are never even seen by anyone. If God gives such attention to a flower no one will notice, will He not take care of you? The peace of God that surpasses understanding can make a person look "irresponsible" to others precisely because they are resting in provision rather than striving in worry — worrying about a problem you don't yet have only means you suffer it twice, once in your imagination and once for real, if it even arrives at all.

Unanswered Prayer Is Sometimes God Redirecting

A woman had been job-hunting in Houston for over nine months with no success. She was praying, and felt led to a particular scripture, then sensed herself in Chicago. She began applying for jobs there instead, and within two weeks received an offer. In Chicago she also met her future husband, who attended the same church she'd been following online. She had been asking for a job and a husband — and both had been waiting for her in the right city all along. Sometimes what looks like unanswered prayer is God insisting you walk through the correct open door instead of the one you keep knocking on. If you are double-minded, the Bible does not say God withholds — it says you are not positioned to receive.

Entering His Rest

Matthew 11:28-30 — come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. The rest Jesus offers is found in the revelation of the Father — when you receive God as your Father, you receive rest for your soul, because He cannot mismanage your life, He cannot watch you drown, and He leads you in paths of righteousness for His own name's sake. If your life ends up a wreck, people will not simply pity you — they will ask, "Where was your God?" That is why He will not let you go.