A father is a source of provision. If God is the source of my identity, then my life is wrapped up in Him, and nothing you say or do changes who I am, because I'm secure in Him. He is my Father. I belong somewhere. So if you don't like me and reject me, that's okay, I still belong somewhere. If your identity is found in a relationship with an eternal spirit being, God Himself, then the security comes into your heart. When your identity is attached to the things outside you, inherently it's unstable, because they change. We think that church will be a certain kind of thing. It's a bit of a horror when you're a pastor, and you find it isn't quite like what you expected, and the people that loved you and said 'hooray' today can boo you tomorrow, and turn on you, just like that. But you see, it hurts very deeply when we don't understand: our identity is in our Father; and it's not to be found in the ministry, how big it is, how spectacular it is, or anything else related to it. Our goal is to honour our Father in the calling, just as sons honour their fathers.
A son is called to honour his father, and we'll show the ways that he honours him, in just a moment. So that's fatherhood. Fatherhood is under attack. Fatherhood's been under attack for such a long time. The Bible talks about sons, and our concept of a son is very much: they're just someone you raise up, and they're male, and they're a bit of a nuisance. They go out of home; but the biblical concept of a son, the word literally means it's the word 'ben', meaning: to build the father's house. So the biblical concept of a son is this: he is the extension of the father. The father works through his son to extend himself; and he works through the son as his representative - a delegated representative.
So a son always is the spokesman for the father, and advances the father's business. You see that in the mandate that God gave Adam: that he would subdue, have dominion and he would be fruitful and multiply. The dominion mandate is that God's Son would represent what He's like in the earth. That's what made the betrayal so big. He literally gave up the mandate, gave up the authority, and gave it into the hand of his Father's enemy; so from a biblical perspective, he brought immense shame on the family name - dishonour to his Father, shame on the family name. It would need another Son to restore the family honour, and to reconnect the lost children back to their Father. And once you start to catch these concepts, you'll see them everywhere; they're just unmistakeable!
You re-look at the scriptures, and there they all are, just exactly what it is. It's about God's heart; that He might restore His original purpose: sons and daughters, in relationship with Him, representing Him in the earth, extending His kingdom. And as soon as you lose any of those aspects, you then distort what ministry is all about. You begin to have something that does not represent the heart of God at all. So it tells us for example (in Luke 3:28), that Adam was the son of God. But God's thinking is not just to have a son. His thinking is to have a corporate son; so in the Book of Exodus it says Moses' message to the Pharaoh was, concerning Israel: let my son go, that he may worship me.
So God started with a son, but He had in mind a corporate son, which was Israel the nation; but beyond that, He had in mind the church, His son representing Him, and expanding His kingdom in the earth. So there's a progressive development, from one son in the Book of Genesis, through to a corporate son. First there's a family; then there's a corporate son - a nation. It's a nation of people. Now you understand when He talks about you; it should be a Godly nation, a holy nation, a royal priesthood - it's all about sonship. It's just the language of sonship; and the theme of sonship is everywhere. The whole family on earth draws its name, or its nature, from Father in heaven.