Introduction
In a time of national crisis the LORD spoke through Jeremiah, “Has a nation ever changed its gods, even though they are no gods? But my people have changed their glory for that which does not profit.¹² Be appalled, O heavens, at this; be shocked, be utterly desolate, declares the Lord,¹³ for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me,  the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.” (Jer 2:11-13). In the course of my lifetime Australia has exchanged acknowledging the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ as our national God for the gods of pleasure and convenience.

The measure of this horrible transaction came strongly to me at a recent wedding. Like almost 80% of couples marrying in Australia today the husband and groom had been living together for some time[1] and also had a child from their relationship; an increasingly common reality (about 1/3 of children are born ex-nuptial)[2].  As different people gave speeches I was grieved to realise that both the idea of “living in sin” and the scandal of illegitimacy are completely dead and buried in popular culture[3]. The foundational reason for this loss of conscience comes out in a story told by a Christian friend. From time to time he protests about the cruder sexual jokes told in staff meetings. On one occasion after a young woman told such a joke, he drew her aside and asked politely, “What would your father say if he heard you tell that joke.” To which she replied, “I learnt the joke from my dad.” The solution to our society’s inability to sense sin can only come through a renewed vision of a loving heavenly Father[4].

Losing the Father
In the Genesis creation story the LORD is pictured as walking in the garden of Eden and conversing openly with Adam and Eve (Gen 2:15ff; 3:8ff.). The visibility of the Creator was a sure sign of bearing the dignity of being a “son of God” (Luke 3:38). In hearing, seeing, tasting, touching and smelling the beauties of Eden Adam and Eve experienced the presence of their divine Father and knew that they were deeply loved. In his preaching to pagans Paul makes plain that the divine intention was always, “the nations should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for “‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said,” ‘For we are indeed his offspring.’” After such a positive affirmation that all human beings have God as Creator-Father, Paul turns to warn his hearers about idolatry. “Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man.”(Acts 17:27-29)

This warning must be spoken because human beings always worship something other than the true image and glory of God as Father[5]. Even when these idols were called “father” this image only inspired greater terror in the hearts of their worshippers (Jer 2:27)[6]. The root of all idolatry can be traced back to the Satanic temptation in Eden; ““You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it (the tree of the knowledge of good and evil) your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”” (Gen 3:4-5)[7]. Nothing could be more natural than the God-given desire of a son/daughter of God to want to be like their Father. But to want to be like God apart from God springs from unbelief that he is sincerely committed to share all of himself with us. The consequences of such unbelief are disastrous[8].
God’s judgement upon those who choose to worship anything other than him is to hand them over to a state of spiritual blindness (Isa 6:10; Matt 13:15; Rom 11:8). “The idols of the nations…have eyes, but do not see…have ears, but do not hear…Those who make them become like them, so do all who trust in them.” (Ps 135:15-18).  If you spend too much time listening to human opinions don’t expect to hear God clearly, if you feast your eyes on the delights of the flesh (Gen 3:6; 1 John 2:16) don’t expect to see in the Spirit, if you have made food a source of comfort beyond the will of God[9], don’t expect to “taste and see that the Lord is good” (Ps 34:8). If the enjoyment of a cosy bed is more important than time spent with Christ don’t anticipate the knowledge that his “mercies are new every morning” (Lam 3:22-23). The undisciplined spiritual immaturity of the Western Church is a sure sign that we have deeply imbibed the hedonistic idolatry and of the wicked godless culture that surrounds us.

The True Son
Only a perfect revealer of the Father can save us; this is the precisely why Jesus came. “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14 ESV). In Jesus, “Like Father, like Son.”, is perfectly imaged. Jesus is the eyes, ears, hands, and feet etc. of the Father. Through his fellowship with the Son the Father is intimately aware at the deepest possible level of the joys and sorrows of what it means to be a human being. When Jesus says, ““Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.”” (John 14:10) he means that the Father is clearly revealed in the compassion, mercy, love, warnings, signs, miracles and healings of his life and ministry. There is no separation between Father and Son, ““I and the Father are one.” This incredible testimony provoked Christ’s Jewish opponents to stone him for blasphemy because the likeness of God which appeared before them was in conflict with the idolatrous images of God to which they were devoted (John 10:30-33 ESV cf. 8:58-59)[10]. The revelation of the Father will always provoke persecution from the children of the devil. As Jesus said to those who sought to kill him; “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning” (John 8:44). In a world which lies in the power of the evil one Jesus must die (1 John 5:19) and he prophesied that oppressions and persecution would inevitably fall on all his faithful followers (John 15:18; 17:14; cf. Acts 14:22; 2 Tim 3:12).

This is why I was astounded to see played on national TV a recording from 1999 released after the conviction of paedophile Brett Peter Cowan for the murder of Daniel Morecombe. During the interview Cowan proudly claims to be a new man and a born again Christian.  Something is profoundly wrong where a claim to follow Christ can be an asset in a world that is in rebellion against God. What is wrong is that “Christianity” is no longer identified with God’s great act to make his Fatherhood visible in our darkness; this is the action of the cross. How does the death of Jesus fully and finally reveal God as Father?

The Enlightenment of the Cross
Let me start with an experience I had last year in Cambodia. As I was praying I could sense what God saw as he looked at the cross, I could see that he did not so much look at the cross as look through the cross. And what he saw was himself, he saw the fullness of his own glory perfectly imaged without any defect, distortion, corruption or stain (Col 1:15). He saw the perfection of his Fathering in the human life of his Son. He beheld the fullness of himself as the Father of “the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim 2:5). Jesus taught, ““Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust….You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.””(Matthew 5:43-48 ESV). In the sacrificial love of Jesus for lost sinners and in his dying prayer, ““Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”” (Luke 23:34), the Father saw the completion of his own forgiving love in a human form. As the Son is made perfect through suffering the Father is perfectly revealed (John 1:18; Heb 2:10; 5:9). The cross is the symbol of Christianity and lots of people, unbelievers as well as believers, wear crosses but we are not seeing the Father.

The reason for our spiritual blindness is found at the centre of the book of Lamentations. The context of Lamentations is crucial to understanding the depth of its revelation. The Babylonians have invaded the land to punish Israel for her idolatry; Jerusalem is burned to the ground, the temple is destroyed and the children of the LORD have been slaughtered or enslaved, evil seem everywhere triumphant. It is precisely in this environment of massive pain that an incredible weight of revelation breaks forth; “For the Lord will not cast off forever, but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love; for he does not afflict or grieve the children of men from his heart.”(Lam 3:31-33 ESV). These prophetic words put us deeply in touch with the pain God feels in condemning sinners[11]. No matter how severe the blows from God’s hands seem to feel you will never find wrath in his heart[12]. This dazzling Old Testament revelation attains its perfection in the cry from the cross. ““My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”” (Mark 15:34).

In hearing Jesus we are hearing the lament of the Father[13]; in the voice of the Son who is the complete expression of God’s heart (Luke 6:45) the grief and anguish of the Father in condemning lost men and women to eternal punishment is made clear[14]. Centuries before the LORD had pleaded, ““As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, people of Israel??”” (Ezekiel 33:11). Passionate pleas were not enough however; Israel refused to turn back and live and was crushed. Only when the Word of Life himself perished on the cross in utter absence of all the pleasures of God  could the full extent of God’s Fatherly love be clearly seen (Acts 3:15).
When Jesus appeared to his disciples after his resurrection he quickly showed them his scars, for the scars of Christ are the visibility of God as a loving and tender Father. Today in heaven the Lamb of God “standing as slain” still bears on his body the marks of torture and death eternally testifying of the love of God for each of us (John 20:20; Rev 5:6).. How do such powerful heavenly realities reach down to us today; we find the answer in the life of Paul.

Seeing the Father Today
Paul’s passion to communicate the revelation of God’s Fatherly love comes through clearly in his relationship with the Corinthians. “I am not writing these things to shame you, but to warn you as my beloved children. ¹⁵ For even if you had ten thousand others to teach you about Christ, you have only one spiritual father. For I became your father in Christ Jesus when I preached the Good News to you. ¹⁶ So I urge you to imitate me.” (1 Corinthians 4:14-16).
The power of Paul’s appeal to his spiritual children to obey his words is always built on a description of his sufferings on their account; “To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless, and we labour, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we entreat. We have become, and are still, like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things.”(1 Corinthians 4:11-13 ESV). Paul’s willingness to suffer for the sake of the churches is the evidence that he carries the reflection of image of the Father seen in Christ. His agonies shine God’s light into the Church; “So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory.”(Eph 3:13 ESV cf. 2 Cor 1:6; Col 1:24). Suffering for the sake of the salvation and spiritual growth of others is the divinely appointed means to communicate his Fatherhood.

I was listening to the testimony of one of the founders of a ministry to broken young women recently (Esther Foundation). As soon as she spoke of the black eyes and broken noses the Christian workers had endured I could sense such blood sacrifice had made transparent the love of the Father. Ministries built on such sufferings always see the hand of the Lord in extraordinary ways and carry a grace which leads to mature discipleship. One of my favourite stories illustrating this truth concerns the great 18^th century evangelist George Whitefield. At the end of an open air sermon a young man approached Whitfield and said, “I came with stones in my pocket to break your head, but your tears broke my heart.” The bearing of pain on behalf of others is the lens through which lost men and women can see that in the suffering of the cross the love of the Father is revealed.

Conclusion
The spiritual and moral and moral crisis of the invisibility of the Father is killing our culture. Many thousands of Australians were shocked when the news broke on 22^nd February this year that well known beautiful and intelligent TV personality Charlotte Dawson had committed suicide by hanging. What the media will not tell you is that in her autobiography Dawson records her first experience of depression followed an abortion; an abortion which was insisted upon by her then champion swimmer husband.  He was concerned the expected arrival of their child around the time of the Sydney Olympics would spoil his chance of a gold medal. In her own words; “”Who needed a developing foetus when a gold medal was on offer, eh?””. Such was the selfishness of this child’s father. This may seem like an extreme example; but the horrible truth is that the prayerless ingratitude of our nation (Rom 1:21) reveals that deep in our hearts we think of God as the sort of Father for whom our existence is some sort of inconvenience. Such a depth of confusion should move the Church in Australia to deep lamentation.

Comfortable ambience, high quality music, relevant preaching, slick children’s and youth programmes and top quality coffee…cannot reveal the measure of the love of the Father. The reality of God as a loving Father can only be revealed through those who share in the seeming forsakenness of Christ on the cross, rejected by men, persecuted and in pain. This is the paradox of the gospel of the kingdom of our Father (Luke 11:2). Whoever sacrifices a treasured possession, a career, finance, time, or friendships for Christ’s sake will surely become a lens through which the light of God streams revealing the truth that there really is a loving heavenly Father. Christ’s Spirit is calling us to become his co-sufferers so that through us men and women might see the Father (cf. 2 Pet 1:4).