The Father You Can Finally Trust

Transcript

Edited machine transcript. May contain errors.

[00:00:01] When someone says, God, your father, we tend to filter that word through our experience, whether it's good or bad, through our own dads.

[00:00:08] And I'm here to argue, don't do that.

[00:00:11] I don't care how good your dad was, it's never a good image of who God really is.

[00:00:16] And if your father, you didn't have one, you don't know who he is, or he was horrible.

[00:00:20] God redefines this relationship.

[00:00:23] He actually defines it properly.

[00:00:25] Just like we need to redefine the word love, don't let the world do that because most of the time it's just sensual.

[00:00:31] We need to redefine the word father and the relationship as it relates to our God.

[00:00:35] I promise you, this will encourage you, especially if you struggle with the word or the concept of a dad or a father.

[00:00:40] Stay tuned.

[00:00:42] Ever read the Bible and walk away feeling like you're failing?

[00:00:45] No matter how hard you try, you're never measuring up.

[00:00:48] That's not a motivation problem, that's a reading problem.

[00:00:51] Most people have never been taught how to read the Bible the way Jesus taught it.

[00:00:56] So when they hear things like, be perfect, deny yourself, take up your cross, they assume it's all about trying harder.

[00:01:03] But what if that's not what Jesus was doing at all?

[00:01:05] What if the law isn't meant to fix you, but to reveal your need for a savior?

[00:01:10] And what if the gospel isn't advice, but an announcement of what Christ has already done for you?

[00:01:16] That's the difference between law and gospel.

[00:01:19] And once you see it, everything changes.

[00:01:21] Clarity, rest, and confidence.

[00:01:23] In the Bible, according to Jesus, I show you how to read scripture the way Jesus intended.

[00:01:29] So you stop feeling crushed and confused, and start living with confidence and rest in Christ.

[00:01:35] You can get your copy of the book at theocast.org.

[00:01:53] Welcome back to another episode of Theocast.

[00:01:55] I'm Moffitt.

[00:01:55] I'm your host, I'm the pastor of Grace Reform Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee.

[00:02:00] And if this is your first time listening, we're so glad you're here.

[00:02:02] You can learn more about Theocast at theocast.org.

[00:02:05] We have articles, other podcasts, videos, books, two new books that are over there.

[00:02:10] This one came out earlier this year: The Bible According to Jesus.

[00:02:14] If you want to know how to study the Bible to find rest and joy, and an introduction to covenant theology, that's what this would be.

[00:02:20] I encourage you to grab that.

[00:02:22] And then enough in Christ.

[00:02:24] It's free for you.

[00:02:25] You can have it, but if you'd like to read it on paperback, you can go to Amazon or our website.

[00:02:31] They're available there.

[00:02:32] And let's go ahead and jump into today's subject.

[00:02:36] This topic means a lot to me.

[00:02:39] I've been thinking about it for a while, and a recent conversation finally pushed me to say, I got to do this.

[00:02:47] I got to do this episode.

[00:02:49] We're about to have Father's Day for you.

[00:02:51] Father's Day has already passed, so you're already thinking about this.

[00:02:54] And the subject of God as our Father has

[00:03:01] bothered me for a long time Long time because I think without realizing it, we fall into the heresy of humanizing our divine God, who we love, we end up humanizing him in a way that is extremely dangerous.

[00:03:22] As it relates to Jesus, Jesus is a fully God and fully man.

[00:03:26] This is not what this is about.

[00:03:27] I don't want to fall into a heresy where we're kind of disconnecting the humanity of Christ from Himself.

[00:03:33] That's not what I mean.

[00:03:34] I mean the relationship, this idea that God the Father is our Father.

[00:03:40] That's the relationship that I'm talking about.

[00:03:42] And our relationship to Him is important, and that we don't project upon Him the human failings.

[00:03:48] Now, when it comes to Jesus, I would say this is true as well, because Jesus is not governed by our limitations as far as our sin and how we are controlled by sin.

[00:03:58] Christ is in no way, shape, or form related to us in that way.

[00:04:02] As far as our weakness goes, the sufferings and the struggles that we faced.

[00:04:07] This is true because we are told by the writer of Hebrews that in every way he did experience those types of frustrations and weakness without sin, though.

[00:04:16] What I want to talk about to get the theological niceties out of the way and keep people from coming after me.

[00:04:21] I want to specifically talk about how we project upon God, our Father, a human ceiling.

[00:04:28] Well, we pretty much will look at Him through the lenses of whatever we think a father should be, or our experiences of our own fathers.

[00:04:39] And if you don't have a father, then it's hard for you.

[00:04:42] Like, I don't know how I've never knownown my dad.

[00:04:44] I don't, I don't know how to relate to other.

[00:04:48] I really don't, when someone says to me, God, our father, it either makes me angry because my father abandoned me, it makes me sad because my dad died, and I never had a relationship with him.

[00:04:57] So I don't know what it's like to have a relationship with God as a father.

[00:05:01] And this probably resonates with many of you that are out there who had horrible fathers.

[00:05:06] Like I think about God the Father, and it just puts a horrible taste in my mouth.

[00:05:10] I'm not excited about the concept of God being my father, just because I don't understand it.

[00:05:17] It's been a negative experience.

[00:05:21] You might be listening to this, and even be thinking to yourself, and I want to talk to you as well.

[00:05:26] This is the boat I find myself in.

[00:05:28] I had an amazing father, a wonderful dad.

[00:05:32] I mean, literally, if you had to choose and pick, I would, you know, vote if you're purchasing a father, pick mine.

[00:05:39] He was a wonderful dad, an example, wonderful example.

[00:05:43] And the man I am today is very much influenced by him, my best friend.

[00:05:47] And, you know, I just loved everything about him.

[00:05:50] But my dad had a ceiling, as good as he was.

[00:05:53] If I take what I know about my dad and try and project it into a divine fatherhood, my dad failed.

[00:06:00] Often he failed because he was a sinner.

[00:06:02] He was limited.

[00:06:03] Even the best view of a father has its limitations.

[00:06:07] And I would even say you are short-sighting yourself and you're hurting yourself if you try and think about your heavenly father as you do your earthly father, you are, without realizing it, you are going to find yourselves, you

[00:06:23] find yourself trapped in In humanizing your experience with your divine father because of your human experience with your earthly father.

[00:06:36] So, what we have to do is learn that our interactions with each other as humans are not the same with our God.

[00:06:45] For a long time, we wanted to try and lower the standard of God in our relationship with Him.

[00:06:50] And I understand why there was this distance that we would have between God.

[00:06:55] And, you know, we would say God is not a religion, but Christianity is not a religion, but a relationship.

[00:06:59] And so we wanted to add back in this aspect where we are relating to God, and there's definitely take and give on either direction.

[00:07:08] There's communication happening in either way, in either direction.

[00:07:11] And this is true.

[00:07:12] But what we have done in doing that is that sometimes we lower this relationship so much that we lose the divine aspect, this aspect where only God can truly care for us in a way and come towards us

[00:07:28] in a way that is unique to Himself.

[00:07:31] Like this, this relationship we have to God is unlike anything else.

[00:07:36] Just like the Trinity is unique, and we have to be careful to try and compare it to anything.

[00:07:40] Otherwise, you create heresies, trying to explain and compare the Trinity to anything.

[00:07:45] You end up actually lowering and ruining the wonder of the Trinity.

[00:07:49] And I think when you try to relate to God in human form,

[00:07:56] it creates a problem.

[00:07:57] I mean, God was father before the world began.

[00:07:59] This is the thing we have to remember: that the concept is not there.

[00:08:03] We are learning in return what this relationship can look like.

[00:08:07] So, what we want to do is always allow scripture to formulate our mind and our thoughts.

[00:08:12] Here's why.

[00:08:12] So let me tell you the end so that you'll hear this and not try to stop and say, well, this is going to be some like theological debate.

[00:08:19] No, that's not at all.

[00:08:20] And this is not going to be some like academic debate.

[00:08:22] No.

[00:08:24] When you hear God, our Father, when you pray, our Father who art in heaven, like that, when you pray out to Him, which is why I think some people have been struggling to pray, it's like I'm praying to

[00:08:33] Father, I don't want to Father.

[00:08:36] This relationship is too hard for me.

[00:08:38] When you pray, our Father who art in heaven, I want you to realize that that conversation and that relationship is unlike anything you've ever experienced or can in all of the universe, whether spiritual or physical, it does not

[00:08:54] matter.

[00:08:55] And here's the wonder of our Bibles: is that God defines this relationship to him.

[00:09:02] He doesn't look to, the only time he does, he's just like, yeah, you who give your children good gifts, how much more do you think I'm going to do?

[00:09:09] Like, the only time he compares himself is the weakness of how we can give, give our earthly fathers, give us good things.

[00:09:17] That's the only time.

[00:09:18] It's like, what if you think that happens?

[00:09:20] What do you think I'm going to do?

[00:09:21] Like, I'm going to do far more than that.

[00:09:23] You're limited.

[00:09:24] I am, I have no limits.

[00:09:26] So I want to recreate the word from a divine aspect because it's a divine relationship.

[00:09:35] This relationship is not a human relationship.

[00:09:37] Human relationships are limited, period.

[00:09:40] As good as any relationship that you might have on this earth, there is a limit to it.

[00:09:46] And that limitation is our human capacities, unfortunately, our sin.

[00:09:51] Our sin 100% limits the relationship that we could have.

[00:09:55] I have amazing relationships that are humans.

[00:09:58] My wife is the best friend I've ever had.

[00:10:00] And our relationship, I have a relationship with her that is beyond anything I've ever experienced in humanity with any other person.

[00:10:07] The only thing that would ravel close to it before I was married was relationships with my mom and my dad, right?

[00:10:13] Those were amazing relationships.

[00:10:15] But the intimacy that I have with my wife is even greater.

[00:10:17] I can't, like, the experiences and what we share is far greater than anything that I've ever had with my mom and dad.

[00:10:23] And that's just the nature of how things work.

[00:10:25] But even that is limited.

[00:10:26] I mean, there are times where we've had great amounts of struggle.

[00:10:30] Why?

[00:10:30] Because there's sin involved, and there's limitations in our capacities.

[00:10:36] So, when we think about God, the title might be there, Father, but that has to be defined by Him.

[00:10:43] And the image is there, like children and relationship and caring, that aspect is all there.

[00:10:48] So it is true that we have some kind of a connection to our father as it relates to our adoption to him.

[00:10:53] And there's a familial connection as far as the spiritual blessings that come to us in the eternity, but how we relate to him is very different.

[00:11:05] And so, what we're going to do today is look at the divine descriptions of this relationship between father and child in scripture.

[00:11:13] And I want you to hear it because when you hear this word going forward, no matter what your experience has been in the past, I want to help it change.

[00:11:20] I mean, some of you, I've had this experience too, where you have a bad experience with something.

[00:11:25] And when you hear the word, you're not, you're not interested at all.

[00:11:28] Like it could be a food, it could be an experience, a place.

[00:11:32] You know, oh, I went to that place, and this is what happened.

[00:11:34] And so you, something that's supposed to be enjoyable and wonderful, the word is mentioned, and you're done.

[00:11:41] This was popcorn for me for almost 20 years of my life.

[00:11:44] I couldn't look or smell or nothing.

[00:11:46] It made me so sick when I was in, uh, when I was 12 years old.

[00:11:50] I mean, I'm violently sick.

[00:11:52] And I don't know if it was the popcorn, but it was right after I ate popcorn.

[00:11:55] I was so sick that I could not eat it, wasn't even interested in it for 20 years.

[00:12:00] You know, we go to the movie theater, and man, I just see it and smell it, and it just would make me crawl.

[00:12:06] I'm like, I gotta walk past this.

[00:12:08] This is that, thankfully, that's not the case anymore.

[00:12:12] I just don't like popcorn just because it stuck to my teeth, but I don't get turned by it.

[00:12:16] What I have for you is that if you are nothing, like the word means nothing to you, or it's an offense to you, or you have a bad experience with it, what we're going to do is say, Yeah,

[00:12:27] that human experience, God is not trying to draw that so that you can look at Him.

[00:12:35] Just to be clear, God is not saying, Look at your earthly Father and draw knowledge from that about me.

[00:12:41] There happens to be a correlation between the word, but not the experience.

[00:12:47] Your relationship with your earthly father is really nothing like your relationship with your heavenly father.

[00:12:55] And being a dad, I can say that.

[00:12:57] And I want this, I'm doing this for my own children, I'm doing this for the kids and the people in my own church.

[00:13:03] Like, I really hope they listen to this and they learn that as good as your dad might be, or as horrible as they might be, God is not demanding you use your father's life as a window into Him.

[00:13:14] It is not.

[00:13:16] My life is not a window into God whatsoever.

[00:13:20] My job is to, as uh, Paul tells the church at Ephesus, to train my children not towards me, it says train them in fear and admission of the Lord.

[00:13:30] I'm actually re to retrain to help them rethink in light of the realities of who God is for them.

[00:13:36] So, I just want to walk through just a couple of concepts biblically.

[00:13:40] I want you to hear these words and hear these verses because they will help move and shift and change for you.

[00:13:48] Do you ever wake up already feeling spiritually behind?

[00:13:52] Like no matter how much you pray, how much you read, or how much you serve, it's just never quite enough.

[00:13:58] Well, friend, you're not lazy and you're not faithless.

[00:14:02] You're tired and you're not alone.

[00:14:05] So many of us are living in a quiet prison, the one that whispers, Grace saved you, but now it's up to you to keep it up.

[00:14:12] The one that turns rest into guilt, the one that makes you wonder if God is a little disappointed in you today.

[00:14:19] I wrote a new book just for you.

[00:14:21] It's called Enough in Christ: Freedom from a Performance-Driven Life.

[00:14:26] It's a book that takes you back to what Christ actually said from the cross, it is finished, and shows you how to stop living like there's still work for you to do.

[00:14:36] You can download the whole book free at theocast.org.

[00:14:40] Christ really is enough, and in him, so are you.

[00:14:45] Let's start with the probably the thing that matters the most in a relationship: love.

[00:14:50] Now, that word is defined by our culture, and it's also defined by our experience.

[00:14:55] Without it, we can't even help it.

[00:14:57] When someone says, I love you, then you look at their life and you try to define it by what they're saying, and then music and movies define love.

[00:15:05] Love is how you feel.

[00:15:07] Love is could be a physical action, right?

[00:15:12] Some type of interaction between the opposite sex or the same sex.

[00:15:15] Like, we define love at the end of the day when you really think about it.

[00:15:19] I'm just going to summarize this.

[00:15:21] We define love how something else makes me feel.

[00:15:24] If it creates an emotional and physical, or even some type of an adrenaline rush, we equate that to love.

[00:15:32] And so, if I don't have those experiences, then I don't have love.

[00:15:36] But that's not how God defines love, and it's not how He defines Himself.

[00:15:41] Listen, how God defines love.

[00:15:43] What he says, I love you.

[00:15:44] Let me define the word for you.

[00:15:46] It's a love that gives.

[00:15:47] So when I say I love you, it's not even just giving of flowers and gifts and candies and toys.

[00:15:54] It's a give that cannot be measured and cannot be compared, and no one else can give in this way.

[00:16:00] No one else has ever given in this way.

[00:16:02] This is John 3:16, the most famous verse, but think about how he defines it: for God so loved the world, and then he gives you the definition that he gave his only begotten son, he gave his only son.

[00:16:13] Right now, when we think about why is he giving it?

[00:16:18] Well, something had to pay for the crimes and your sin and this nature that you have.

[00:16:26] And God is saying, My love for you, I'm gonna show you how it's defined, it's defined by giving this precious relationship that I have, a son, so that he would then receive what it is that you deserve.

[00:16:41] There's another way in which he defines it.

[00:16:43] Again, the Apostle John, the Apostle of Love, as he defines himself.

[00:16:47] 1 John 4:10, in this is love.

[00:16:49] Why would he have to say this?

[00:16:50] Because the world has changed, even up to this point, the world has changed the define of love.

[00:16:55] And John says, no, no.

[00:16:57] Let me tell you what love is.

[00:16:58] In this is love, not that we have loved him.

[00:17:01] So it's not a, it's not transactional.

[00:17:03] It's not that, hey, God, I love you.

[00:17:05] And he's like, oh, okay, well, I love you too.

[00:17:07] You know, I can remember the first time I said those words to my wife, like, I love you.

[00:17:11] And I'm like, oh boy, really hope I get it in return.

[00:17:15] Because if not, this is going to be awkward.

[00:17:17] This is not saying, okay, God, I love you.

[00:17:20] I hope he says it in return.

[00:17:21] No, he says, and this is love, not that we loved God, but he loved us and sent his son to be a propitiation.

[00:17:28] That means to be the payment for our sins.

[00:17:32] It's not transactional.

[00:17:33] God's like, I actually loved, I love you.

[00:17:36] I did it first.

[00:17:37] We love because he first loved us, and his love is sacrificial.

[00:17:42] It's not transactional.

[00:17:44] He's actually setting you up to love him.

[00:17:48] He's setting you up to love him.

[00:17:50] He's not responding to your love.

[00:17:53] Romans 5:8, right?

[00:17:55] But God shows his love for us, and that while we were sinners, Christ died for us.

[00:18:00] The gospel is the dripping reprogramming of a definition of love.

[00:18:06] The gospel is not transactional whatsoever.

[00:18:08] That's why it's described as a gift.

[00:18:11] It is a gift to us.

[00:18:13] So when the Father says, I love you.

[00:18:17] It's coming to you in this term that is zero transaction.

[00:18:21] It's him giving unconditionally.

[00:18:23] Now, that's just not, we're not used to that.

[00:18:26] And I'm with you when you go like, yeah, I hear that, but I just don't understand that.

[00:18:30] That's because we have to continue to use all of scripture to redefine the way in which we have this divine relationship with our God.

[00:18:37] We don't have relationships like this.

[00:18:39] As much as I love my wife, I'm limited, I'm a sinner.

[00:18:44] I'm so incapable of loving my wife this way or loving my children this way.

[00:18:48] I would hope that I would love them this way, but I'm not capable of doing that because I'm a sinner and I often need to ask them to forgive me.

[00:18:57] I don't know if a human outside of Jesus has ever, no, I can say that.

[00:19:02] No human outside of Jesus has ever demonstrated this type of love.

[00:19:08] This is why it has to be given by the Father first because He is the one who has to demonstrate how it works.

[00:19:14] We're called to this kind of love, but we've never done it.

[00:19:17] Not only that, when you think about love, it's easy to say that we love something until it until it turns on us, even if that love costs us in the beginning.

[00:19:28] Like having children does, there's a lot of pain and suffering, especially for the women, mostly for the women, 99.999% for the women, but for all of us parents, it does it.

[00:19:39] We have to sacrifice, right, for these children.

[00:19:42] But does the love hold over time?

[00:19:44] And it's like if this child doesn't respond in the way that we want.

[00:19:47] You know, we can see where many parents have struggled to love their children because of what has happened or what they end up doing.

[00:19:55] And so there ends up being this response to them.

[00:20:00] I love this.

[00:20:00] This is Numbers 23, 19, responding to Israel, helping them understand.

[00:20:04] Don't look at the kings, don't look at rulers, don't look at humans, don't look at your earthly father.

[00:20:09] I am not like this.

[00:20:11] This is Numbers 23:19.

[00:20:14] God is not man, and he should not lie, or son of man, that he should change his mind.

[00:20:22] Has said, and he will, He has said, and will he not do it?

[00:20:27] Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?

[00:20:31] You see, right there, I love that the writers of the Old Testament, you have Moses saying, do not think of God like a human.

[00:20:41] He is not limited, and he is not controlled by human passions, and he is not manipulated by sin or emotion, or adrenaline, or any of this.

[00:20:53] This is, God is not manipulated by these things.

[00:20:56] He is not controlled by these things.

[00:20:57] He is not bound by them.

[00:21:00] This is why doctrines are so powerful and so helpful.

[00:21:03] We don't want lust doctrine.

[00:21:04] We want more doctor, but let's not disconnect the doctrines and just look at it and say, Well, God is not a God that ever changes.

[00:21:10] Great.

[00:21:10] We want to know that because that is good for us to know that when I am failing, and I do change that.

[00:21:18] When his interactions with me is, I have forgiven you, you are now mine.

[00:21:23] I love you.

[00:21:24] He says, I don't change my mind on my love.

[00:21:26] No, we as humans do.

[00:21:28] Divorce is a real thing.

[00:21:29] People talk about falling out of love, right?

[00:21:31] People disown their children.

[00:21:32] It's a horrible thing that we do to women.

[00:21:34] We do it to each other.

[00:21:34] And God says, I am not like that.

[00:21:37] I am not like that.

[00:21:39] I am not controlled in that way.

[00:21:41] This is good.

[00:21:42] You need to have this in your mind when you're saying, Our father, who does not change, who is not controlled by emotions in the way in which humans are fickle, he is not moved based upon, well, I'm just

[00:21:54] not feeling it today.

[00:21:56] And when you show up and you expect your father to be there, or you're hoping your father is there, there is no hoping.

[00:22:04] He says, I am there.

[00:22:05] I am not controlled.

[00:22:06] It's like, yeah, well, I have something else better to do.

[00:22:08] We've all had that moment where our fathers have let us down.

[00:22:11] They didn't show up as they should.

[00:22:13] Something got their attention, their emotion.

[00:22:15] They're angry when we're hoping they would be happy.

[00:22:17] It's like, feel the waters today, right?

[00:22:18] You're like, hey, dad, how's it going today?

[00:22:20] You know, like, you know, my kids do this to me because I'm a failure.

[00:22:24] And my dad will, my kids will feel me out, like, hey, you know, like, how's dad doing today?

[00:22:30] This is not him at all.

[00:22:33] Hosea 11:9.

[00:22:35] For I am God and not a man, the holy one in your midst, and I will not come in wrath.

[00:22:41] You're a youth, you have failed, and you're expecting this wrathful, vengeful God to come upon you.

[00:22:46] I'm going to correct you because I correct the ones whom I love, but my wrath is not coming upon you.

[00:22:50] Why?

[00:22:50] Because I put my blessing upon you and you're my children.

[00:22:53] Micah 3:6.

[00:22:55] Micah 3:6, For I, the Lord, do not change.

[00:22:58] And this is good.

[00:23:00] Therefore, oh children of Israel, of Jacob, are not consumed.

[00:23:04] I'm not going to consume you because I have already promised to save you.

[00:23:09] Notice the context.

[00:23:10] It's not that I'm a God who does not change.

[00:23:12] It's like, oh, that's good to know.

[00:23:13] It's like, oh, wait a minute.

[00:23:15] Yeah, I know you said you love me, but did you see what I did?

[00:23:18] Have you?

[00:23:20] What?

[00:23:20] Like, did I'm not a guy that changes?

[00:23:24] I'm not like humans.

[00:23:25] I am not controlled in the ways in you are.

[00:23:28] I am true to my word, and none can stay my hand.

[00:23:31] I love Daniel 4:35.

[00:23:32] And who can stay his hand?

[00:23:34] Who can keep him from doing what he wants to do?

[00:23:36] He says, I want to love you.

[00:23:38] I'm not responding to you.

[00:23:39] I gave my love for you.

[00:23:41] As a matter of fact, you were like, well, how do I know you love me?

[00:23:43] I gave my son.

[00:23:45] I set you free from your sin.

[00:23:49] Like, I gave the ultimate gift.

[00:23:52] That's how you know I love you.

[00:23:54] Well, how do I know you're not going to stop loving me?

[00:23:57] Because I don't change.

[00:24:00] I'm not a God that is changed.

[00:24:02] I can't change.

[00:24:02] I won't change.

[00:24:03] I don't change.

[00:24:05] It's not a part of who he is.

[00:24:07] He's not like a man.

[00:24:09] Humans, we are fickle.

[00:24:10] He is not like us.

[00:24:13] So when God says something to you like this, Romans 8:35.

[00:24:18] Who will separate us from the love of Christ?

[00:24:21] Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?

[00:24:25] Like there's nothing in heaven or on earth.

[00:24:28] Nothing, not even you, you fit into this.

[00:24:32] You can't separate yourself from me.

[00:24:35] This is Romans 8:37, 39.

[00:24:37] No, all these things, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us, who not Not what, what who love?

[00:24:47] How are we conquering this?

[00:24:49] We're not even just conquering, it's more than conquering.

[00:24:51] Like, I don't even know how to describe what that means: the victory we have in this relationship with the Father is because of love.

[00:24:59] For I am sure that neither death nor life nor angels nor rulers nor things, I mean, he is giving you every possible thing.

[00:25:06] And then when he's like, whatever else you want to try to throw in there, I mean, angels and demons, swords, death, you think debt, nothing and anything else can separate us from the love of God, which is in

[00:25:17] Christ Jesus.

[00:25:20] So it's important when Paul says, I am sure.

[00:25:24] He goes, not that I hope.

[00:25:25] I hope this is true for you.

[00:25:28] If you are in Christ, you believe in the gospel, you are an adopted child.

[00:25:32] And Jesus looks at you and says, Call upon the father.

[00:25:35] Oh, by the way, this father, not human father, not the one who changes, not the one that is like a man.

[00:25:42] He's not like a man.

[00:25:43] He does not change.

[00:25:45] You call upon this father.

[00:25:48] Don't think about this one over here.

[00:25:50] That's not the relationship.

[00:25:51] This is the relationship.

[00:25:53] And how is it that we have that relationship?

[00:25:56] It is not a relationship based upon take and give, human interactions.

[00:26:00] He says, I am sure of this because you are in Christ.

[00:26:05] We have been clothed.

[00:26:06] We have been washed by the blood of Christ.

[00:26:08] We've been covered by the robe of Christ.

[00:26:10] And we are in this relationship by faith, meaning that I trust that my forgiveness is true and my righteousness is true.

[00:26:16] And how do I know I have that?

[00:26:18] John says, I write these things that you might know and you may believe.

[00:26:21] How is it we know?

[00:26:22] Well, here's what he did.

[00:26:23] And how do I know that I have Christ?

[00:26:25] I believe.

[00:26:27] Faith comes through hearing and hearing the word of Christ.

[00:26:29] Did you hear it?

[00:26:29] Did you believe it?

[00:26:31] Did you know this is true?

[00:26:32] Right.

[00:26:33] And even that gift, you're like, well, I don't know if I have enough faith.

[00:26:36] Well, that's not the right question.

[00:26:38] It's been given to you.

[00:26:39] And it's not a way you measure.

[00:26:40] You don't measure your faith.

[00:26:42] You measure the one saving you.

[00:26:44] Is Jesus sufficient to save you?

[00:26:46] Then you have this relationship with your father because he chose to enter into it while you were a sinner.

[00:26:51] It wasn't like, Lord, I repent.

[00:26:53] I believe.

[00:26:54] Now I'm adopted.

[00:26:56] No, the Father said, No, when you were a sinner, when you were at your worst, when you were not running towards me, the adoption papers were signed by my son in blood.

[00:27:07] He chose us before the foundations of the world.

[00:27:10] You see how this relationship works?

[00:27:12] This is very different, right?

[00:27:14] No, many times your father either chooses to have you, which is great.

[00:27:19] You know, it's always good to be chosen.

[00:27:20] Like, okay, my earthly father chose to have a child, and that's the result of what I am.

[00:27:26] Or he doesn't.

[00:27:27] You're an oops.

[00:27:29] Either way, the relationship is complicated.

[00:27:31] And the father is like, Before you ever even knew my existence, I decided to choose you.

[00:27:38] I entered in this relationship and I sealed it with the blood of my son, so that you would always look at it and say, is not my performance.

[00:27:46] I don't call him father based upon faithfulness.

[00:27:49] I call him father because he adopted me in Christ.

[00:27:53] Man, that's a different way of thinking about it.

[00:27:56] Now, sometimes this is the last part, we can kind of feel as if, yeah, I know I've got this relationship with the divine being, but

[00:28:06] it doesn't really feel like he's here, like, I don't ever really feel his presence, yeah.

[00:28:15] Does he care?

[00:28:16] Well, again, you are letting the world or Satan, or just the lack of knowledge to define your relationship with him, let him define it.

[00:28:29] It's literally, he saved your soul, he created you, and then he's like, here's a book that helps you understand me.

[00:28:38] Here's a book, a big one, full of stories.

[00:28:42] When it's so great about the Bible, it's not just facts, you know, like a dictionary, it's a dictionary on God.

[00:28:48] God is love.

[00:28:50] He's like, How about I give you some stories?

[00:28:52] Stories that define my love.

[00:28:56] I love this.

[00:28:57] This is a psalm.

[00:28:58] This is like a song, right?

[00:29:00] Someone needs to write a song about this.

[00:29:02] Maybe there is.

[00:29:03] I don't know a lot of modern songs, Christian songs, but Psalm 56:8.

[00:29:08] The writer of this psalm says, You have kept count of my tossings.

[00:29:14] Now, a guy who tosses a lot, I mean, my poor, my poor wife, I end up ripping sheets because I'm like, flip-flop, flip-flop.

[00:29:22] And a lot of it's because of anxiety, or I just have a hard time sleeping, or whatever.

[00:29:25] Right?

[00:29:26] He's he actually he knows, he counts it.

[00:29:29] Now, why would he lie?

[00:29:31] Like, up to this point, I gave my son for you, I know all things.

[00:29:36] Why would why would he lie?

[00:29:38] Why would the psalmist write that and just be like, yeah, I kind of, it's like a metaphor.

[00:29:42] He really doesn't know.

[00:29:43] No, God is very aware.

[00:29:45] I mean, He lives within you, the Holy Spirit, right?

[00:29:48] The Holy Spirit is actually, we talked about prayer a couple of weeks ago, but crying out with groanings deeper than we could even possibly understand.

[00:29:55] And so the father is in constant communion with us.

[00:29:58] But he says, Yeah, I see your tossings.

[00:30:02] Even more, it says, Put my tears in your bottle.

[00:30:11] Are they not in your book?

[00:30:13] Like, somehow God is taking note of the joy, but in this particular situation, if you're tossing the heartache, like he knows you, he is watching you.

[00:30:28] You think about Santa Claus, ugh, it's creepy.

[00:30:31] He knows if you've been bad or good, so beware for goodness sakes.

[00:30:35] The psalmist is like he sees you when you are distraught and he loves you.

[00:30:43] You don't keep things in a bottle as a count of, like, I'm going to hold this as accusations against you.

[00:30:47] It's like, no, I keep track of my children because I love them.

[00:30:54] This is why John says, see, this is love.

[00:30:57] This is love.

[00:30:59] He cares about you.

[00:31:00] I mean, that's not in there just so it can have a fun frame on your wall, so that you know, you got to put something up on the wall.

[00:31:10] This is in here so that you would sing it, you'd memorize it, and you would remind yourself: He is a father who cares about my experience in this world.

[00:31:21] He truly does.

[00:31:23] I love Zachariah 3:17.

[00:31:25] He says, The Lord your God is in your midst.

[00:31:28] Now, why would he say that if they already knew that?

[00:31:31] They didn't know it, right?

[00:31:32] They were forgetting that they had a God who was with them.

[00:31:37] Now, their experience of a divine relationship is again, we want to try and humanize it.

[00:31:41] I think the relationship would be like this.

[00:31:43] Well, then it would be like any other human relationship.

[00:31:46] If we let God define it, it becomes wonderful and glorious, more powerful than anything we could ever imagine.

[00:31:52] And he's saying, He is in your midst, a mighty one who will save.

[00:31:56] This is the prophet reaching out to these people, saying, Stop turning to other gods.

[00:32:01] Stop turning to idol worship.

[00:32:03] Stop turning to sensuality and to other nations, to other kings.

[00:32:08] Your God is with you.

[00:32:10] You don't need these other things.

[00:32:14] And then there's this language that it's not just that he has saved us and he clothed us, but this relationship has an eternal impact that our physical, our physical fathers can even, like, I can't guarantee the eternality of

[00:32:28] my kids for nothing.

[00:32:31] I had no control over that, but our father does.

[00:32:35] This is Ephesians 1:5.

[00:32:38] He predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will.

[00:32:44] This isn't like he's got no plan, he has a plan for you.

[00:32:49] He's gathered your tears, he wants to hear from you, he's creating a mechanism for you to pray to him.

[00:32:55] Go back to a couple of weeks ago in that episode.

[00:32:57] He wants to interact with you.

[00:32:59] Romans 8:15.

[00:33:00] For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, Abba, Father.

[00:33:08] He's saying in the midst of this struggle, he goes, I didn't want you to go back into your sin.

[00:33:14] He delivered you from it, and you can cry out for help.

[00:33:17] Like, God, help me.

[00:33:19] Like, I don't want to be trapped in these sins, He doesn't want you trapped in these sins.

[00:33:22] And when we cry out with tears, He's there receiving them.

[00:33:26] His arms aren't crossed up saying, Oh, I can't believe this is happening again.

[00:33:30] Like, that's the attitude, as if there's a limitation to our Father and His forgiveness.

[00:33:35] What does the psalmist say?

[00:33:36] Is that He has separated our sins as far as the East is from the West.

[00:33:39] He's thrown them in the deepest parts of the sea, never to be found again.

[00:33:42] Not your past sins, but all your sins.

[00:33:45] It covers everything.

[00:33:47] This is

[00:33:50] Galatians 4:6.

[00:33:51] And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba Father.

[00:33:58] He loves us.

[00:34:00] The Spirit lives within us, and there is this unique relationship that is between Him that you have a connection.

[00:34:07] Yes, we have a connection with our earthly Father, but you have a connection on a spiritual divine level through the power of the Spirit.

[00:34:13] And inside of us, it is actually evoking us to have this intimate relationship.

[00:34:18] Well, we can't have that intimate relationship with Him if we're not willing to train our heart and our mind to think of God in the ways in which He has called us to think about Him, we cannot put

[00:34:29] a ceiling to this relationship from a human standpoint and a human father, but we have to allow the Father through the Word by the power of the Spirit to reshape the way in which we interact with Him.

[00:34:43] Go back to 1 John 3:1.

[00:34:45] See what kind of love the Father has given to us

[00:34:50] that we should be called the sons of God, and so we are.

[00:34:56] see what kind of love this is?

[00:34:58] This isn't God saying, Yeah, I love you, kind of like I love ice cream or I love mountains.

[00:35:03] I love you and I've adopted you.

[00:35:07] And so we are.

[00:35:08] This is

[00:35:10] listen to this from Jesus.

[00:35:13] This verse is: I remember preaching John 17.

[00:35:16] I loved preaching John 17.

[00:35:17] It totally kept me in ministry.

[00:35:20] It just revived me from a really dark moment in my life.

[00:35:23] This is John 17:23.

[00:35:25] I in them, and you and me, this is Jesus talking, that they may become perfectly one.

[00:35:31] So there's this relationship that we have because we are sons.

[00:35:36] This is the Son, we are in Him, He is in us, we're in the Father.

[00:35:39] And then He says, This so that the world may know that you sent me and loved me.

[00:35:44] So, this is the prayer, right?

[00:35:46] He's having this prayer, talking about what's going on, this relationship.

[00:35:50] It's very complicated but wonderful.

[00:35:54] But listen to this last phrase.

[00:35:56] He says, So that the world may know that you sent me and loved them, we the adopted ones, even as you loved me, and you're thinking to yourself, well, there's, yeah, I mean, the love between the father and

[00:36:13] the son is like, no one can touch that.

[00:36:15] That's insane.

[00:36:17] That is, there's that, wow.

[00:36:19] And Jesus says, Yeah, but that's the love you get.

[00:36:22] Like the love that God, the Father, has with me.

[00:36:24] That's the love you get.

[00:36:26] It's not a secondary love.

[00:36:28] I don't understand it.

[00:36:30] You see, see, when he says you're adopted, all the benefits that he gives to Christ, all of the blessings that come to Jesus, Paul literally says that those blessings come to us because we're in Christ, because we're adopted.

[00:36:44] Like that, that includes our future, that includes our relationship, our current standing with Him.

[00:36:52] I talked about how this is not just a doctrine, a book of doctrine, but it's stories.

[00:36:58] You know, the prodigal son is probably a story that we all need to be reminded of over and over again.

[00:37:04] But what's interesting is Jesus is defining this relationship that we have with the Father.

[00:37:12] And this is probably a place where you see God using a human relationship, but it blows the whole human relationship to apart because even the Pharisees that were listening to this story is like, this is ridiculous.

[00:37:27] They got angry with him.

[00:37:29] This is ridiculous.

[00:37:30] No one would ever do that.

[00:37:31] He's like, that's the point.

[00:37:33] What happens when the son comes home and he's trying to earn his forgiveness.

[00:37:37] He's trying to earn his way back into the father's good presence.

[00:37:40] Luke 15:20.

[00:37:41] And he arose and came to his father.

[00:37:43] But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion and ran and embraced him and kissed him before the son could even open his mouth.

[00:37:55] You see, the father comes to us in our sin before we ever attempt to try to come to him and earn.

[00:38:02] He just stops us.

[00:38:03] He hushes us and says, Let me lavish you because this is how this relationship works.

[00:38:09] You're not giving to me, I'm giving to you.

[00:38:13] This is the most humiliating moment in this young man's life.

[00:38:17] He has ruined his father's reputation, he has destroyed his life, he's lost everything.

[00:38:23] He is at the worst he could possibly be.

[00:38:26] He hasn't even had a chance to repent yet.

[00:38:29] Like he was coming to do it, and Jesus stopped him.

[00:38:32] I mean, Jesus in the story says that the Father stopped him.

[00:38:35] So, what I want you to notice about this relationship that you have with the divine Father is that the divine father gives in a way our fathers cannot.

[00:38:46] And they, and he holds us in a way that our fathers can never hold us.

[00:38:52] He will never let us go, he will never forget to show up.

[00:38:55] He will never change his mind.

[00:38:57] He doesn't have good days and bad days.

[00:38:58] We've all felt that, like, all right, God, let's test the waters here.

[00:39:01] You're going to be there?

[00:39:02] We're having a good day or a bad day today.

[00:39:04] He doesn't have good days.

[00:39:06] When he holds you, he holds you consistently.

[00:39:08] And when he gives to you, he never asks for it back based upon how well you're doing.

[00:39:14] Right?

[00:39:15] And lastly, we have to remember that this relationship we have with him is unlike any other relationship.

[00:39:21] It's forever.

[00:39:22] It's started in this temporary world, but it goes on forever.

[00:39:27] So we don't have to worry about whether our life ends and what's going to happen.

[00:39:31] It's like, my life ends.

[00:39:32] I'm going to be with my father.

[00:39:35] The one who never fails me, who've always loved me, who's always ready to listen to me, who's never abandoned me.

[00:39:44] And to help me understand this, he's given me a book.

[00:39:47] He's given me the Holy Spirit, and he's given me the church.

[00:39:50] He's given me a family.

[00:39:51] And in that family, we sing about him, we pray together, we talk about, we learn more.

[00:39:59] Jesus says that the family of God is the most important thing for him.

[00:40:03] He goes, Why?

[00:40:03] Because he died for it.

[00:40:04] He says, I literally died for the church.

[00:40:07] So I want you to redefine, no matter what your relationship with your father might be, good or bad, it could be good.

[00:40:13] Doesn't it's going to end that way?

[00:40:15] Right?

[00:40:17] Don't let that define your relationship with your father going forward.

[00:40:20] Allow God, who defined Himself?

[00:40:25] This is why a good church that preaches the gospel faithfully week in and week out, it goes through the text and demonstrates for you your lack of capacity in any way, shape, or form to do anything that will

[00:40:36] grab the attention of God other than his wrath, and that the way in which you grab his attention, it's impossible to please him without faith.

[00:40:44] It's like, just believe me, child.

[00:40:47] You want to please me?

[00:40:48] Trust that I can do this.

[00:40:50] Believe that, and I'll be happy with you.

[00:40:52] That's nuts.

[00:40:54] Believe I love you, I've forgiven you.

[00:40:56] I will sustain you, and I'll come back and give you a new home.

[00:40:59] You mean just believing that makes you happy?

[00:41:02] It's like, yeah, yes, yes, it does.

[00:41:07] Well, hopefully that was helpful for you.

[00:41:09] And if you want to learn more on how to read the Bible in this way, this is definitely how I wrote this book: The Bible According to Jesus, and then Get Enough in Christ.

[00:41:18] That book will help start with who you are in Jesus, and then you can transfer that to thinking about this particular.

[00:41:25] If you can't afford any of that stuff, reach out to us, we'll give it to you.

[00:41:28] If you want to have a dialogue with me or anybody else, we have a whole group, a wonderful community full of hundreds of people called the Theocast community.

[00:41:36] And people are, we just had a recent missionary who hopped in there who was discouraged and needed to be encouraged, and she's finding a ton of encouragement.

[00:41:43] That's in there.

[00:41:44] Just, it's a wonderful place to go in and just free from social media garbage.

[00:41:49] So, you can go look at that at theocast.org.

[00:41:52] Hey, guys, real quick.

[00:41:53] Some of you are listening to this and it's encouraging to you, but you have questions.

[00:41:57] So, where do you go?

[00:41:58] How do you interact with other people who have the same questions and share resources?

[00:42:02] We have started something called the Theocast community, and we're excited because not only is it a place for you to connect with other like-minded believers, all of our resources are there: past podcasts, education materials, articles, all of it's

[00:42:14] there, and you can share it and ask questions.

[00:42:16] You can go check it out.

[00:42:17] The link is in the description below.