Jesus often referred to God as Father (Luke 2:49, 9:26, 10:21-22, 22:29, 22:42, 23:34, 23:46, 24:49).

Jesus taught us to think of God as our Heavenly Father (Luke 6:36, 11:2, 11:13, 12:30, 12:32).

Let this sink in for a minute.

If God is our Father, then Jesus is our older brother! In fact, you can look at the tale of the Prodigal son (Luke 15:11) as a typology of the familial relationship we share with our Father and Jesus, with one exception. In the story we are the prodigal son and God is the loving Father, Jesus the elder brother. But, in our case Jesus is a loving elder brother, not only welcoming us back into the Father’s waiting arms, but going out into the sinful world and searching for his lost siblings, showing us the way back to our Father, and making the ultimate sacrifice to remove the final obstacle between us and our Heavenly Father – our sins so that when we go before our Father and say

Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me as one of your hired servants.

And God will look at us and say, “My child, what sins?”