Mindful of Me - Everlasting Father

Welcome/Christmas Eve Invite

Hey everyone! Merry Christmas and welcome to Prairie Lakes. We are already at week 3 of Advent - the period in the calendar where we prepare ourselves for the gift of Christmas.

And hey: what a weird three weekends it’s been. Tons of snow the first weekend; more snow the second weekend; and our good friend Mr. Polar Vortex has returned in time for this weekend.

And so if you haven’t ventured out on a Sunday in awhile and are maybe joining us online again this weekend, please know that you’re missed. And hopefully the weather will start cooperating with us again—at least in time to celebrate Christmas Eve together.

Don’t forget:

People in Iowa—your friends, your family, your neighbors, your coworkers—they are way more likely to say yes to an invitation at Christmas than at any other time of the year. I looked at our Christmas Eve attendance data just this past week—and we see our normal weekend attendance double. 100% increase.

And:

We see tons of people respond to Jesus at that service—over 100 last year at Christmas Eve across our campuses! So, snow or not: be praying. Make that invite. Let’s see what God can do.

Series Intro: Mindful of Me

Alright. This Advent season we’ve been in a series called “Mindful of Me.”

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SHOW SERIES GRAPHIC WITH WEEKLY TOPICS

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Jesus’ mother, Mary, when the angel Gabriel comes to her and says that God is going to fulfill a promise and prophecy through her son, says this:

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Luke 1:46–48 “And Mary said: “My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed…”

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Now, here was the prophecy that was made about her son, Jesus, by the prophet Isaiah:

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Isaiah 9:6 “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

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And in week 3 of Advent, let’s talk about that third title Isaiah gives this promised Son: he will be our “Everlasting Father.”

Everlasting

Everlasting.

You know, when I think of that word “everlasting,” I immediately think of (2) things from my childhood. Two things. The first one is this:

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SHOW EVERLASTING GOBSTOPPER PICTURE

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This, of course, is the everlasting gobstopper from the 1971 movie, “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.” It was Wonka’s latest candy creation that…

Never gets smaller.

Never loses flavor. And:

Can be enjoyed forever.

Now the movie is actually an adaptation of a book called “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” And if you’ve never read it, this everlasting gobstopper is actually intended for children with “very little pocket money.”

Meaning:

They wouldn’t have to buy candy ever again.

Of course… no candy like that actually exists.

In fact, the idea of, well… anything being everlasting | is just about as fictitious as the everlasting gobstopper itself.

In the real world, it’s quite the opposite. I bet all of us could finish this 3-word phrase:

“Nothing lasts...”

(Forever.)

(Pause.)

Including fathers.

In this life, there’s no such thing as an everlasting father. You get whatever cards are dealt to you there.

This past weekend was the first weekend in December. And as long as I’ve been a pastor at Prairie Lakes, I have never, ever preached the first weekend in December. Never have. Wanna know why?

It’s first season for hunting deer with a shotgun. First season shotgun.

And in the family I was raised in, that was something we always did. My dad’s dad and his boys, my dad and my brother and my uncle and my cousins, and now…

This guy:

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SHOW JUDE DEER HUNTING PICTURE

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Underneath all of that orange is my son, Jude, who spent his first weekend in the woods with a shotgun just last weekend.

(And, yes… he took a crack at one. And here’s what we learned: we learned that after you shoot your first shot, whether you hit him or miss him, you should… reload. We’ll get him next year.)

Now: my son got to do something last weekend that I never got to do in all my years of deer hunting—and that was this:

My son got to hunt with his grandpa.

I never got the chance to do that. My dad’s dad died when I was about a year old from the same heart condition I got fixed up at Mayo a couple of years ago.

And who knows: maybe next year my dad will get to see something that his dad never did: his grandson’s first deer.

But there will come a day when we’ll have our first season without my dad, just like there will come a day when my son will have his first deer season without me.

Just like for several of you here this Christmas—with this being maybe your first Christmas without your dad or your grandpa or another loved one around the table.

Fathers aren’t everlasting. Because nothing and no one lasts forever in this world.

And so when Isaiah says that this promised Son will be our “Everlasting Father”—

Well… that’s kinda hard for us who live in world where everything ends to wrap our minds around.

Our Family of Origin: God Our Father

So let’s start there. Let’s try and wrap our minds around this—first by going back to the beginning of our story. Because I don’t care who you are or what kind of family you came from—every human being who has ever lived has the same story.

(Introduce readers…)

It starts here:

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Our Family of Origin: God Our Father

He created us. (Deut. 32:6)

He befriended us. (Jer. 3:4)

He set an inheritance aside for us. (Jer. 3:19)

We disowned him. (Jer. 3:20)

He wants us back. (Is. 63:16)

He’s working to get us back. (Is. 64:8)

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Now, our family of origin story is going to continue—but this time in the words of the promised Son, Jesus, who says:

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Our Family of Origin: God our Father

He is unseen—but sees us and hears us. (Matt. 6:6)

He knows what we need before we ask. (Matt. 6:8)

He provides for us because we are precious to him. (Matt. 6:26)

He’s a great gift giver. (Matt. 7:9-11)

He is Jesus. (John 10:30)

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This is how the prophecy we read in Isaiah 9 about a Son is also about an Everlasting Father. Jesus says, very plainly:

I am him. I am God in the flesh.

If We Believe in Jesus

You might not have caught it at the very beginning—but I said there were two things from my childhood that come to mind when I think about this word “everlasting.” The first was a movie from the 70’s. But the second…

The second is actually a Bible verse.

I grew up in a family that went to a church that preached from the King James version of the Bible. And I memorized a lot of scripture from the King James Bible.

But one of the first verses that I memorized was John 3:16—which says this in the King James:

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For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

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Here’s what I want you to see:

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Because God is Jesus, we can have everlasting life with an Everlasting Father.

We can be in his family forever.

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This is what I want to spend the rest of our time unpacking—and here’s how:

We’re gonna go back and forth between these last two Scriptures in John—here in John 3, and then back John 10. Because I want you to see something with me.

So stay here in John 3 with me for a second. Jesus says that we can have everlasting life as a member of God’s family. God can be our Everlasting Father—

If we believe.

And he’s going to explain what he means by that in the next few verses. Read with me in verse 17:

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John 3:17–18 “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.

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God is our Father. We’ve seen that.

He’s a great gift giver. We’ve seen that.

And his greatest gift to us was his Son, Jesus.

But this gift of Jesus is a particular type of gift:

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Jesus is a saving gift. Jesus is our rescue.

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Now:

Saved from what? Rescued from what?

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Jesus is a saving gift. Jesus is our rescue.

Jesus rescues us from the distance of our disowning God as our Father.

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Isaiah describes us like sheep—we’ve all gone astray. We all wandered off.

Matthew records Jesus as describing us like prodigals—demanding our inheritance early and walking out the door, spending our dad’s money on all the things our dad would hate.

Paul describes us like criminals who have racked up a debt of injustice. We’ve all sinned.

And if we read the context of some of those other verses that we already read in Isaiah and Jeremiah and Deuteronomy, every single one of those document the exact same tendencies in our faith ancestors:

We’ve always denied him. We’ve become experts at disowning him. Long ago we decided that our way was better and then we went that way.

And as a result, we put so much distance between us and our Father in heaven that we could never, ever close it.

Until God himself decided to close it—by coming to us in the flesh.

Jesus isn’t just a gift to us; he is our salvation. Because at the cross the Father places all of the debt the rest of his children racked up upon his firstborn of all creation.

Jesus paid it all—so that we could go back home again…

If…

If we believe.

If…

If we admit:

Yes, Father: you created me.

Yes, Father: I disowned you.

Yes, Father: you want me back.

Yes, Father: you made a way for me to come home again.

And yes, Father: I believe.

I believe that you are Jesus. I believe that I need Jesus. And I believe that what Jesus did for me is enough for me.

And, hey:

That’s not always an easy thing to admit.

It’s not easy to admit that you need Jesus. That you’re not good enough; that you can’t lead yourself back; that you’ve created too much distance for you to close on your own.

But there’s no other way. This is why Jesus himself goes on to say in John 3:

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John 3:19-21 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.”

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When you let your spending get out of control, sometimes it’s just easier not to look at the credit card bill.

When you let your eating get out of control, sometimes it’s just easier not to step on the scale.

When you let your inbox get out of control, sometimes it’s just easier to not check it for a day (or 3… or 5).

It’s a terrifying moment to open up that statement, step on that scale, or discover who has been waiting for you to respond—because each will shed some light into some dark areas. You (and maybe others) will see just how out of control that part of your life has become.

And it’s embarrassing—to be confronted by your shame. To be exposed for who you really are.

And yet, this Jesus, who is one with the Father, invites us to come out into the light.

Be exposed. Be confronted by your need.

It’s a terrifying leap—if you’re willing to take it.

Now go back with me to John 10.

This same Jesus who knows that you’ve wandered so far away that you can’t find your way back home says this in John 10. Jump up to verse 14:

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John 10:14–18 “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me—just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.

The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.”

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Jesus isn’t inviting you into the light so he can shame you. He’s taken your shame.

He’s not inviting you into the light so you can do your penance. He’s taken your punishment.

He’s inviting you into a home you didn’t buy, into a family you didn’t build, with a name you didn’t earn.

Because he freely, willingly, and joyfully. Loves. You.

And he wants you to have the same kind of intimate relationship with our Father in heaven as he does.

Forever

If you’re a little OCD, you might have noticed that our Family of Origin list is a little incomplete. We’ve listed (11) things; (6) on the first screen, but only (5) on the second. Eleven’s not a biblical number.

Here’s where we left off:

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Our Family of Origin: God our Father

He is unseen—but sees us and hears us. (Matt. 6:6)

He knows what we need before we ask. (Matt. 6:8)

He provides for us because we are precious to him. (Matt. 6:26)

He’s a great gift giver. (Matt. 7:9-11)

He is Jesus. (John 10:30)

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Now, we’re ready for the 12th:

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Our Family of Origin: God our Father

He is unseen—but sees us and hears us. (Matt. 6:6)

He knows what we need before we ask. (Matt. 6:8)

He provides for us because we are precious to him. (Matt. 6:26)

He’s a great gift giver. (Matt. 7:9-11)

He is Jesus. (John 10:30)

He will never let us go. (John 10:27-29)

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Close your eyes for a second if you could. I want you to hear Jesus’ words without any distractions.

He’s never going to let you go. Here’s what he says:

John 10:27–29 “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.”

CLOSING PRAYER