The Gift of a Father
This week I finished a book Suzy gave me for Christmas titled Born Lucky: A Dedicated Father, A Grateful Son, and My Journey with Autism by Leland Vittert. The book is about Leland’s relationship with his dad, and how his dad helped him navigate the challenges of autism.
Leland was bullied relentlessly at his school, by kids and teachers, and he talks about how his dad would meet him at the end of their driveway every day at 4:00 to help him process everything and put the pieces back together.
When he was five years old, his dad lifted him onto a tree branch and told him to jump into his arms. Leland was terrified but he jumped and his dad caught him and said to him, “I’ll always catch you…You can trust me to always be there for you.” Leland says, “When he put me on that tree, he wanted me to know the world wasn’t something to fear, at least not with him there. It was Dad’s way of telling me, ‘I can help you. Trust me, and we’ll figure things out together.’”[1]
When Leland was in his thirties and was about to go on a date with a woman he was interested in, his dad called and said he was in town. Leland told him he had a date that night and his dad said, “I’ll come along!” Leland writes, “To Dad, this seemed like perfectly normal behavior. I was, and always will be, his little boy. More importantly, why wouldn’t I want him to come along?”[2] So he went and, though his eventual wife Rachel was panicked, all went well.
With his dad’s help, Leland overcame so many challenges and is now a successful TV news anchor. The book is about all he learned and all he became because of his dad. The book is about the gift of a father.
Leland’s dad was a gift to him, a gift he didn’t choose, earn, or deserve, a gift his father wanted to give, even sacrificing his career for him. The gift of a father changed everything for Leland.
A Gift of Grace
In our text this morning, we’re going to learn that this is how God is too. God the Father loves to give himself to his children! And the way he does so is by giving them his own Son. The Father sent the Son so that the Son could bring us to the Father. And all this is a gift of grace. Knowing the care and protection and dedication and love of the Father through the Son isn’t earned or deserved. It’s a gift freely given and received.
Last week we saw that grace is more important than accomplishment (10:20). Now, in Luke 10:21-24, Jesus highlights grace again. Jesus says that he came to reveal God the Father and that those who receive the revelation do so because of grace.
The main point of this text is that knowing God is a gift of grace. You can’t earn or work for or deserve God. You can only be given him and receive him as a gift of grace. In our text, we’ll see who the gift is for (v. 21), what the gift is (v. 22), and when the gift comes (vv. 23-24).
Who the Gift is For
In verse 21, we see who the gift is for. I said that knowing God is a gift of grace, so who’s the gift for? Jesus says it’s for “little children.” He says that the Father reveals the saving realities of his grace in Christ to “infants.”
Jesus is drawing a contrast between “the wise and understanding” and “little children.” He’s not disparaging intelligence, but he is saying that participating in his kingdom doesn’t depend on intellectual resources. One writer says, “Jesus laid the ax to snob appeal.”[3]
Contrary to expectation, God’s revelation is awarded to “infants” because they profoundly understand their neediness and are open to instruction and grateful for God’s kindness. They stand in contrast to the “wise and understanding,” not because they’re not intelligent, but because they’re humble.
So far in Luke’s Gospel, the “infants” are Mary the mother of Jesus, the shepherds, the poor, the handicapped, the demon-possessed, the tax collectors and sinners, the fishermen. The “wise and understanding” are the Pharisees and scribes who know the Bible but fail to perceive God’s revelation in Jesus.
God withholds his revelation from them, not because they’re lacking in intelligence, but because their hearts are proud. Isn’t this what Peter later says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (1 Pet. 5:5)?
It’s commonly understood that salvation comes to the strong, the wise, the intelligent, the ones who have their lives together. We think that power and wealth indicate God’s blessing. But Jesus says that God reaches down to those who have nothing to offer but their need, giving them every spiritual blessing and making them truly rich and strong. Jesus says here that God prefers the weak over the strong.
Help from the Hands of the Weak
This kind of plot twist is in all the best stories. Toward the end of Tolkien’s Of the Rings of Power, Elrond and Mithrandir (aka Gandalf) wonder if the “One” great ring will ever be found again. Elrond says, “I forebode that the One will yet be found, and then war will rise again, and in that war this Age will be ended. Indeed in a second darkness it will end, unless some strange chance deliver us that my eyes cannot see.” Then Mithrandir says, “Many are the strange chances of the world, and help oft shall come from the hands of the weak when the Wise falter.”[4]
And of course, that’s exactly what happens. Frodo and Sam, the smallest and most unlikely candidates, take the One ring to Mount Doom and destroy it once and for all.
There’s something about the weak and unexpected ones defeating the strong that hits a chord with us and draws us in. Sight of the inbreaking of the mighty kingdom of God in Christ is given to those you’d least expect. Have you seen it?
What the Gift Is
The gift of God’s grace is for “little children.” But, secondly, what exactly is this gift of grace? Verse 22 says that the gift of grace that’s revealed to “little children” is knowing the Father.
Jesus, the Son of God, came to make the Father known, to “reveal him.” This means so many things for us! It means that at the heart of what Jesus is doing is more than dying for our sins or bringing the kingdom. At the heart, Jesus came to show us his Father.
Why is this such good news? Because this is what we were made for and what our hearts are hungry for. We long to know God as more than Judge or Creator or King. Rather, we want to rest in the arms of our Father.
And this is what Jesus came to give us. Jesus came to bring us to the Father.
More than Creator and Judge
Let’s probe a bit deeper into why this is such good news. If God were merely Creator or Judge, we’d rightly stand in awe of him and cower before him. But if he’s a fatherly Creator and Judge, then doesn’t that change the way we think about him? It would mean that he’s powerful and tender, that he’s just and merciful, that he’s Lord and love.
Theologian Michael Reeves says in his little book Delighting in the Trinity, “The most foundational thing in God is not some abstract quality, but the fact that he is Father.”[5] This means that God doesn’t just do fatherly things but is Father. Reeves again, “It is not that this God ‘does’ being Father as a day job, only to kick back in the evenings as plain old ‘God.’ It is not that he has a nice blob of fatherly icing on top. He is Father. All the way down…all his ways are beautifully fatherly.”[6]
Eternally Father and Love and Life
What does it mean that God is Father? It means that he begets children, is love, and is life-giving. This is the textbook definition of “father”: giving life and love and begetting children.
Being Father means begetting the Son eternally. The Son has always existed because God is a Father. What’s amazing is that God has always been Father. He’s eternally a Father because he’s eternally had a Son. The Son has his eternal being from the Father.
Because he’s eternally Father, he’s eternally had a Son, and therefore he’s always been love. God is love because he’s Father. He wouldn’t be love if there was nobody to love. But because the Son has always existed, he has loved the Son eternally. As Jesus prays, “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world” (Jn. 17:24).
Because he’s eternally Father, he’s eternally had a Son, and therefore he’s always been life-giving. The Father is like a fountain that must pour forth life. A fountain is not deficient if it overflows. The Father begets the Son eternally, but he creates the cosmos as an overflow of his love and care and wisdom and glory. He’s “Lord of heaven and earth.”
The Father that the Son came to reveal is a begetting and loving and life-giving God. The God Jesus came to reveal isn’t the cold and grumpy and mildly displeased and disdaining God who we often envision. He’s the perfect Father. His love isn’t won through performance so you can stop trying to prove yourself to him. His life isn’t cold or uncaring so you can let your guard down. He doesn’t look upon his children with arms crossed and brow furrowed. He’s not distracted but is fully present with you. You can’t impress him, you can only be loved by him. He’s Father, “all the way down.” This is who Jesus the Son came to show us.
Bad Dads
This contrasts with how many of us think of “fathers.” The “fatherhood” of God isn’t an instinctively warm idea for many who had overbearing or indifferent or abusive fathers. In fact, many are turned away from God’s fatherly care because of how their fathers treated them.
Michael Foucault was a twentieth-century French philosopher who wrote about the evils of authority, a notion he likely picked up from the first authority figure in his life: his father. His father was a surgeon who made him watch amputations when he was a little boy to toughen him up. Foucault’s dad didn’t use his paternal power to care or nurture, so the word “father” came to be associated with “a host of dark images.”
Michael Reeves draws an important lesson from Foucault’s experience for us. He says:
“One’s heart goes out to the children of such fathers, and those of us who are fathers ourselves know that we too are far from perfect. But God the Father is not called Father because he copies earthly fathers. He is not some pumped-up version of your dad. To transfer the failings of earthly fathers to him is, quite simply, a misstep. Instead, things are the other way around: it is that all human fathers are supposed to reflect him – only where some do that well, others do a better job of reflecting the devil.”[7]
Jesus, the Son, came to show us the perfect Father our hearts long to know.
“The Ayes Have It”
The gift of grace that Jesus came to give to all the “little children” who understand their need for it is the gift of knowing the Father.
I keep saying it’s a gift of grace because Jesus talks about the Father’s “gracious will” in verse 21, and because of what Jesus says at the end of verse 22. He says that the only people who get to know the Father are the ones he “chooses” or “desires” to reveal him to.
We may not mind Jesus having some authority, but there’s a rebel streak in us that doesn’t want him to have too much. There’s a story about Abraham Lincoln dealing with a dispute in a cabinet meeting. At the end of the dispute, in which he’d been outvoted, he said, “Seven nays, one aye; the ayes have it.” As President, Lincoln could do math like that because he had the authority. And so does Jesus. Our knowing the Father rests on his decision. That may ruffle your feathers, but “infants” just bow and worship because they understand grace.[8]
When the Gift Comes
Third, and finally, we see when this gift of grace comes in verses 23-24. The disciples were blessed because of what they were privileged to see. Jesus has already been talking about the gift of grace coming through sight, or revelation (vv. 21-22). Now he tells his followers that they are indeed seeing things that the giants of the past longed to see.
The gift of grace came to them when they saw, and so it is with us. When God gives us eyes to see, we’re also blessed. And the blessing comes by seeing two things: our need and Jesus’ sufficiency.
We will not see the Father until we see our need for the Son. Our need is desperate because our sin is so great and insurmountable. We’ve broken God’s commands and loved everything but God with all our hearts. And we actually think that we’re good without God! We have to see our sin, our need for the cross, our need for grace, or we’ll never see Father.
And we have to see the sufficiency of Jesus. He and he alone lived the life that perfectly pleased God, died for our sins, and rose to offer us new life. He and he alone can forgive our sins and show us the Father. His work, not ours, is what secures grace for us.
When you see your need and Jesus’ sufficiency, truly see them with the eyes of your heart, you can be confident that the Lord’s salvation has come to you, that you know the Father and the Father knows you.
“Come to Me and I Will Give You Rest”
Many of us have wounds from our fathers that create so much unresolved angst and anxiety and anger in our hearts. We often keep these injuries out of sight and out of mind because the pain and loss is too much to bear. But the effects of the wound are still there. As Mr. Miyagi says in The Karate Kid, “Grief trapped in the heart become big anger.” Injustice creates grief and grief often creates anger, not so much because we were hurt, but mostly because we were hurt and no one seemed to notice or care. This residual and pent-up pain is often what drives many of our pathologies, or abnormalities and addictions and anger and insecurities.
But if we’d allow ourselves to walk into that storm, we’d find that the Lord is already there waiting for us, wanting to take our burden and give us rest, wanting to show us the Father.
In Matthew’s account, he follows up Jesus’ statement with an amazing invitation (Mt. 11:27-30).
Into the storm of our lives, Jesus calls, “Come to me!” And when we hear his voice and go to him, we find that he’s not like the God we may’ve expected. His call is like cool water on a hot day, like finding the relief of shade from the scorching sun.
And our hearts long for what he offers: grace to cover our guilt and to finally be held by the Father. We find that his heart is “gentle and lowly.” We find rest and relief. And we find this because, in Jesus, we find the life-giving Father who is love.
Leland Vittert’s life was changed by the gift of his father. Jesus came to give us the gift of the Father. And for those who receive this gift of grace, everything changes.
[1]Leland Vittert, with Don Yaeger, Born Lucky: A Dedicated Father, A Grateful Son, and My Journey with Autism (Nashville: Harper Horizon, 2025), 46.
[2]Ibid., 227.
[3]Frederick W. Danker, Jesus and the New Age: A Commentary on St. Luke’s Gospel, rev. ed. (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988), 219.
[4]J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion, ed. Christopher Tolkien (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2004), 311.
[5]Michael Reeves, Delighting in the Trinity: An Introduction to the Christian Faith (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2012), 23.
[6]Ibid.
[7]Ibid., 25.
[8]Dale Ralph Davis, Luke 1-13: The Year of the Lord’s Favor, Focus on the Bible (Fearn, Ross-shire, UK: Christian Focus, 2021), 180.