The Love of God the Father

This week we are starting a new series called the Transformed Life. Over the next four weeks we are going to cover four different topics that we, Kelley and I, believe are the most foundational and fundamental truths for a transformed life. We believe it so strongly that it’s become the basis for our personal lives and connection with God, and it’s what we would call the core values, or core beliefs of what we do here at Cutler Bay Worship Center.

As I’ve been preparing this week and thinking about this, to be honest, over the last months and years, of processing what God wants to do here at this church, I’ve come to realize that what truly makes any person, or organization or ministry move with confidence is that they understand where they have come from, who they are, and where they are going, or who they want to become, and then they let that truth, that information, what they believe, become the basis of what they do.

This really shows itself in two different ways.

/ / The Belief Structure (Internal)

Everyone has a believe structure, or a set of what we would call, core values, that they live by, whether they see it or not and whether they recognize it or not. Sometimes it’s peoples lack of structure that defines their actions, and that in of itself is their core value, “I’m not going to lock myself down to one particular thing” - and the result can kind of be a mess. We talked about this quite a bit over the last series, when you don’t know the truth how are you supposed to live by it?

Malcolm X was the one who coined the phrase, / / “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.”

Without a structure of belief, or a system of values, our lives are left up to whatever way the wind is blowing at any given moment. And we see that displayed in people’s lives through lack of organization, confusion, anxiety, stress. The Bible says in Proverbs 1:7, / / Fear of the Lord is foundation of true knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline [instruction]. Basically saying, you’d be a fool to not follow God’s instructions for life, not to make His truth the truth you live by.

Obviously we’re not covering the entire bible in this short series in what it means to follow all of God’s instructions. What I am saying is that for each person and for each organization, each ministry, each church, that I have seen move with purpose and confidence, it has come out of a place of understanding what they believe, and who they are, so that they can confidently determine and communicate where they are going.

So, the first part of that is to identify that we need a belief structure, because this is the internal working that will result in an external flow.

/ / The Lived Life (External)

What we believe, and what we value, how we see ourselves and the world determine how we will live our lives, IF we take what we believe and apply it - not just SAY we believe it. In Matthew 7:15-20 Jesus gives a warning to watch out for how people act vs what they say. He says a good tree can’t bear bad fruit, and a bad tree can’t bear good fruit and he finishes with, / / …just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions.

You ever have a conversation with someone and they say, “Ya, i’m good..” and you’re like, “I know you’re not good… your actions are telling me you’re not good...”

What we say and what we do need to match up. This is why having that internal belief structure is so important, because until it becomes the thing we value, i mean, truly value, truly believe, we are not living out of it and our lives will reflect that.

We know James 1:22 says, / / But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves.

Remember, the fool doesn’t like wisdom or instruction… And so, this is kind of where the rubber meets the road, in a sense. One of the scriptures that came up a lot in our Be Prepared series was John 8:31-32 where Jesus says, / / “You are truly my disciples [followers] if you remain faithful to [learn / believe, follow / act upon] my teachings. And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

Why? When we truly believe something, and as a result live our life based on it, then whatever we do comes from that place, from the place of that belief. But the truth has to become a value for all of that to happen - it has to become the lived life, because if we say we believe it but it’s not evident in our lives, James says we’ve just fooled ourselves.

There is a fast food restaurant here in town and if you look in the back, past the register, past the employees, on a back wall that customers probably really aren’t mean to see, and if they are, then it’s more of a marketing ploy at that point. But, there’s a big sign on the wall that says, / / “Treat every guest like a friend in your home...”

That’s a beautiful sentiment, and although it’s simple, it is actually a pretty deep and well thought out line for someone in the food service industry. As a customer I want to be treated warmly, invited in, treated like I matter, and looked after.

So, if someone gets hired and says, “I’m going to do this job to the best of my ability, and the company philosophy is that I am to treat every guest like a friend in my home, then I am going do my absolute best to act according to that value.”

The value is: Treat every guest like a friend in your home, so we are making a few statements by saying that:

Everyone I see walk through that door is a guest, NOT a nuisance.

Every guest I encounter I will treat like a friend.

I will respect this place like it was my own home, in how I treat the building, the appliances, the family that is serving here with me, and the guests, who are friends, that we have over.

And that’s a pretty good way to think about how we want to be treated as customers and how people working in food service should view their work. But, I want to ask you a question, without knowing what restaurant this is. Without that even mattering. Do you think that every time I have gone in there, every experience I have had there, has measured up to that high standard?

NO, of course not. Half of the time it’s kids making minimum wage treating me like I AM nuisance that IS getting between them and the end of their shift.

I was in a conversation with someone a couple weeks back and they said they were at a grocery store and asked the cashier something and the response was, “I only make xx.xx per hour...” Basically saying, I don’t make enough to care that much, sorry...

How many times have we seen in the news a company come forward and have to say, “So-and-so who has just made a complete fool of themselves… does NOT represent the values of our company. We have let that person go. They do not speak for us. They do not represent us...”

Why?

Because the value set before them never became the value they wanted to live by.

Kelley and I both understand this… because we both grew up in the church. For us, church was a way of life, it was a part of our lives, in fact, it was the most important part of our lives. We didn’t miss. No way. That was not an option. And I am so grateful in my life now that the value of church and community were instilled in me at such an early age.

But as much time as we spent in church, and as much as we were around that atmosphere. Our lives didn’t always measure up. As Paul says in Romans 3:23, / / we missed the mark, we fell short of God’s glorious standard. It didn’t matter even if we were made to be there. That didn’t mean that our actions lined up with the value system displayed or represented to us.

Classic illustration: Just like hanging out in a burger joint doesn’t make me a burger, or spending time in a garage doesn’t make me a car, or even spending time at a university doesn’t make me a doctor, hanging out in a church building doesn’t make me a christian, or doesn’t make me live like I should. This is what Jesus meant, be faithful to my teachings, which we looked at over the last series as / / Listen / Accept / Act upon the teachings of Jesus.

Jesus never said, hang around me and you’re good. No, even when he did say, simply follow me, it came with a healthy dose of “deny yourself, pick up your cross and follow me” implying there is much more than just proximity going on here.

Here’s how things changed fo Kelley and I. We had moments growing up where we did our best to live by a set of rules, because that’s what we thought we were supposed to do. And we both failed miserably at it. But, when we were 19, both at separate times, we both encountered these transformational truths that we’re going to share with you over the next 4 weeks that truly made us who we are and became the core of what we do and how we live life. And I believe wholeheartedly that within these truths are the keys to a truly transformed life.

Now, to make it easy, they form the acronym: / / F.I.R.E.

Fire is all throughout the bible.

Hebrews 12:29, which isn’t directly, but possibly quoting Deuteronomy 4:24 says, / / For our God is a devouring [consuming] fire.

If you know the story of Moses, when he’s in the wilderness, trying to hide from his problems, and hide from his responsibilities - how does God get his attention? / / A Fire! Moses sees a burning bush, that’s not burning, the fire has fully engulfed this bush, but the bush is not burning… And in the conversation with God in the fire, Moses steps into his destiny.

In the book of Revelation, multiple times Jesus is described as having eyes of fire. John says in Revelation 19:11-12, / / Then I saw heaven opened, and a white horse was standing there. Its rider was named Faithful and True, for he judges fairly and wages a righteous war. His eyes were like flames of fire....

Revelation 1:14, / / His head and his hair were white like wool, as white as snow. And his eyes were like flames of fire...

And probably one of the most notable scriptures in the bible when it comes to fire is Acts 2:1-3, Jesus had been crucified, raised to life again, and spent 40 days with his disciples, and then tells them to go wait in Jerusalem until the Holy Spirit that he promised he would send them, comes and meets them. And so they waited, and the bible says, / / On the day of Pentecost all the believers were meeting together in one place. Suddenly, there was a sound from heaven like the roaring of a mighty windstorm, and it filled the house where they were sitting. Then, what looked like flames or tongues of fire appeared and settled on each of them. And everyone present was filled with the Holy Spirit...

Fire, in those scriptures it’s representative of the Father, Son & Holy Spirit. And these transformational values we are going to be looking at are centered in this belief, that the Trinity of God, Father, Son & Holy Spirit, are the best foundation we can lay for our lives!

/ / F.I.R.E

/ / F - Father’s Love - The love of God as Father is revealed to us by the leading of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit

/ / I - Intimacy - The Presence of God and a relationship where we connect with and hear God’s voice.

/ / R - Restoration - We all have a belief structure that either inhibits us or motivates us. This was truly the preparing we looked at in the shoes that are the gospel of peace, the act of preparation, the working out of our salvation. This includes a restoration of our heart and soul.

/ / E - Equip / Empower / Engage - When we know God loves us, we develop a relationship with Him, we allow Him to transform us and restore us, we realize that we are also meant to be equipped and empowered to engage with society around us in a meaningful way.

Now, if you’ve been in our School of the Heart sessions over these last 20 weeks or so, you’ve gotten more of a deep dive into all of these. And as we move forward, these will become a regular offering to immerse ourselves into these topics through various classes and trainings. But over these next four weeks we are going to walk through an introduction to these foundations that we live by so that we can be aligned in heart as we also align in purpose.

So, / / today we’re going to talk about the Love of God as our Heavenly Father.

/ / 1. God has always been Father

I think sometimes there’s a misconception about God as Father, that He’s the father of Jesus, which is true, Jesus says many many many times throughout scripture that God is his father, in a whole bunch of different ways. But sometimes that can translate to us not understanding that He is also our Father. And this didn’t suddenly happen when Jesus was born.

I wasn’t a father until Kelley was pregnant with Kaylee.

God the Father has always been, is, and will always be God the Father, because Jesus the Son, has always been, is, and will always be God the Son… This wasn’t a Christmas present to God, “It’s a boy!”

This is one of those hard to fathom and yet, absolutely crucial truths of the Christian Faith that we believe. God is expressed fully in each of the Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit AND, they have existed for all of eternity, well, really, eternity is a word of time, and God created time and has just always been - OUTSIDE of time and space.

So, Father, Son & Holy Spirit have always been...

One of Jesus disciples, Philip, asks him in John 14:8, / / “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” Jesus replied, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still don’t know who I am? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father!”

Has this always been true?

Well, we can see that from the very beginning of the story it has.

In the book of Genesis we see the story of creation. And all are present.

Genesis 1:2 says / / ...the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.

John 1:1-3, 14, says, / / In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He existed in the beginning with God. God created everything through him, and nothing was created except through him…So the Word became human and made his home among us…

Look at that… the Word was WITH God and the Word WAS God. Jesus, with God the Father, and IS God himself.

Genesis 1:26 says, / / Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us.”

I believe that is the voice of the Father speaking at the very beginning.

If you’ve looked at Kaylee, especially if you saw pictures of her as a baby, and then as she’s grown up - and Kelley and I were saying this yesterday as we were watching her just interact with people, and then go off by herself… If you look at her and how she acts - what would we say of her, “She is the spittin’ image of her mama and daddy...”

She just is, we have to own that... she’s gonna have to own that. She’s been made in our image, there is NO doubt about that. Me and my brother have these funny conversations sometimes where we will say to one another, “do you do this?” and the other will say, “Of course”…and it’s something we watched our dad do over and over as a child… We have become our dad! And honestly, that’s an incredibly wonderful thing to become. If you’ve met my dad you know he’s someone worth aspiring to become like.

Just like I have become my dad in so many ways, hopefully in character, but definitely in mannerisms, and just like Kaylee is so her mom and me..

In the same way, when Genesis 1:27 says, / / So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. I hear the heart of God the Father saying to you, / / “I made you. And not only did I make you but I made you to be like Me...”

“You are not a mistake. You were not an afterthought. Maybe you haven’t always felt wanted, but I have ALWAYS wanted you.”

Ephesians 1:3-4 says, / / All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ. Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.

He has always been a Father.

He will always be a Father.

And He chose you before you were born, before you were even a twinkle in your mama’s eye, Father God had a plan for you.

There is no doubt in my mind that / / God IS a Father, He is YOUR Father and He is a GOOD Father.

/ / 2. Jesus needed God as Father

We know Jesus was perfect, but even perfect people need a Father. Jesus was no exception. In fact, his connection to His father was the reason He was able to do what He did in this earth and why he was perfect because he had a father who gave me identity.

The story of Jesus being baptized by John the Baptist is in the books of Matthew, Mark and Luke. And all three of them essentially say the same thing, but the story in Matthew gives the most description. And in Matthew 3:16-17 it says, / / After his baptism, as Jesus came up out of the water, the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and settling on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my dearly loved Son, who brings me great joy.”

The only difference in that last sentence between how Matthew writes it and how Mark & Luke do, is that in both of their versions it says, / / “This is my dearly loved Son, and YOU bring me great joy.”

Matthew almost says it for our benefit, like God was speaking to us, letting the people around know that Jesus was His son. But Mark & Luke hit the nail on the head when they show that the heart of the Father was speaking directly to the heart of His Son.. Ed Piorek, who is an absolutely wonderful man, older totally cool surfer dude who lives on the coast of California, wrote a book called / / The Central Event. And he says this is the central event of the life of Jesus Christ, and that we all are designed to need this event.

See, at this point, the baptism of Jesus Christ - Jesus hasn’t done any miracles, he hasn’t called any disciples, he hasn’t changed lives or healed the sick, or died for our sins. He simply was. And in that place of simply being, God the Father speaks over his life, / / This is my Son, showing identity, this is who you are, you are the Son of God. And then says the most profound, important, life transforming thing you could ever hear.

/ / …and you bring me great joy.

The ESV along with most other translations say, …with you I am well pleased.

The Amplified bible goes for both, / / “You are My beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased and delighted!”

Either way, the word used there in the original greek language is to think it good, to choose, determine, to decide… Any way you look at that, it’s Ralph Wigham saying, I choo-choo-choose you...

Remember, Jesus has not done anything yet. He has not saved the world or even saved a single soul. He’s simply been himself, a son and THAT is what brings God the Father the most joy!

But see, then Jesus does what most of us think we don’t need. We just live life like we got this under control. Like we got it all on lockdown. We’re good. And we go on our merry way ignoring the fact that we need this crucial identifying moment of understanding WE ARE children of God and that He is PLEASED with us. He CHOOSES us. He Delights in us. / / You bring God great joy just being you!

Romans 5:8 says, / / But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.

So Jesus, who was perfect, hadn’t done anything wrong, sure, maybe he is worth choosing before he’s done anything to show he’s worth choosing. BUT, the important part is that He still, even in his perfection, needed to hear God say this to him!

How much more do we? And He does. In our sin, Jesus perfect but having not done anything extraordinary, hears, “I am pleased by you...” We, in our sin, failure, judgement and shame, hear the same thing, “I am pleased with you… so much so that I have given the life of Jesus Christ to save you from all that junk that’s hurting you.”

And then Jesus models something extraordinary. Again, he’s perfect, yet, he lives a life of continual pursuit of the love of His Father.

Luke 5:16 says, / / …Jesus often withdrew to the wilderness for prayer.

Matthew 14:23, / / After sending them home, he went up into the hills by himself to pray.

Luke 6:12 says it this way, / / …Jesus went up on a mountain to pray, and he prayed to God all night.

And in the moment of his greatest anguish, we see Jesus relying on his relationship with God the Father to carry him through. Mark 14, while Jesus is in the garden of Gethsemane, we talked about this last week, he’s taken the disciples to this garden, and then taken three of them, Peter, James & John alone to go pray, and this is right before he is arrested and crucified. Mark 14:36 shows his prayer, / / “Abba, Father”, he cried out [remember, that means daddy God, a personal, heartfelt cry to God as Father…] "everything is possible for you. Please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.”

In his greatest moment of struggle, he shows the greatest moment of resolve, and in the middle of that is, “Abba, Father...”

And we can look at this and say, Of course Jesus understood God as His Father, He’s Jesus.

And I get that, but Jesus is not just the first Son of God, He is the way to become Sons of God.

In John 1:12, and we read from John 1 earlier, Jesus is the Word of God that was present at the beginning of creation. in vs 12 it says, / / But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God . They are reborn - not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God.

This is why Jesus says in John 14:6, / / …I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.

/ / 3. Our Distorted View

The Problem is that our viewpoint of Father God has been defined and shaped by our experiences and viewpoint of our earthly fathers and those in our lives that are father figures. Maybe a boss, a teacher, an uncle or grandfather. And the reality is that as humans we aren’t always the best at representing God and His character and love. The sign on the wall might say, “Treat every guest like a friend in your home.” But we don’t always get it right...

In fact, In some way shape or form I would think that at this point in our lives we’ve all experienced some pretty horrible things at the hands and words of other people, and some of that may have come from people who held a position of authority or care over our lives that caused us to mistrust or misunderstand how that sort of position should be represented. And that leaves us not knowing how to connect with God as a Father, because we truly don’t understand, either that He is a Father, or that He’s a good father.

Have you ever watched a movie where someone has been estranged from their father, and the father has talked about that person for their whole lives, but they never knew them? And there’s this moment where the father is going to meet their child for the first time and the child maybe didn’t even know they had a father. What happens? An introduction has to be made. Because as excited as the Father is, the child doesn’t know them, and maybe doesn’t trust them.

1 John 3:1 says,

/ / See how very much our Father loves us… Now, you might not see that yet, that’s ok.

/ / ...for he calls us his children, and that is what we are! … And that is true whether we believe it or not...

/ / But the people who belong to this world don’t recognize that we are God’s children because they don’t know him.

This is a simple case of introduction. And he starts vs 2 with:

/ / Dear friends, we are already God’s children...

From before the foundation of the world God has been Father, and we read Ephesians 1:4 that says, / / Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us…God decided IN ADVANCE to adopt us into his own family...

The issue has been that there are two father’s trying to win our affection and make a legal bond with us through adoption. It’s no wonder the word adoption is used. To adopt something is to choose to take up, follow or use. And If we are created in the image of God our Father, then our desire SHOULD be to adopt HIS character, HIS instruction, HIS love… but as we’ve seen over our entire last series Be Prepared, there is another father trying to vie for our attention and affection. Trying to get us to adopt HIS ways so he essentially can adopt us into His family.

Jesus says in John 8:44, / / For you are the children of your father the devil, and you love to do the evil things he does. He was a murderer from the beginning. He has always hated the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, it is consistent with his character; for he is a liar and the father of lies.

I believe that this is why the enemy has tried so hard to destroy the image of a father for both those who are fathers, and the children they have.

Listen to this...According to Psychology Today, children who grow up absent from their father have:

A diminished self-concept, and compromised physical and emotional security. Feeling abandoned and struggling with their emotions and feelings of self loathing.

Counselors identify that fatherless children have more difficulty with social adjustments, and are more likely to have problems with friendships, behavior problems; and many develop a swaggering, intimidating persona in an attempt to disguise their underlying fears, resentments, anxieties and unhappiness.

They struggle more in school. 71% of high school dropouts are fatherless.

Delinquency and youth crime. 85% of youth in prison have an absent father.

Promiscuity & Teen Pregnancy. Fatherless children are more likely to have an unhealthy outlook and understanding of true intimacy and sexual health becoming active before the age of 16 while not using contraception which puts them at risk of transmitted infections and teen pregnancy, and especially for young girls, abandonment of fathers plays a huge role in becoming susceptible to exploitation.

Drug & alcohol abuse. Fatherless children are more likely to smoke, drink and abuse drugs starting in their childhood and carrying through into adulthood.

The list goes on and on, it’s absolutely tragic - the world of psychology know it. Even Hollywood makes it a part o what they do. How many movies And shows have we seen with the joke, “Got daddy issues?!?! Here’s a tissue… build a bridge and get over it…” and it’s not one sided. / / We have a society of fathers who don’t know how to be fathers, leaving children without the fathers they need.

And we all know that just because you are the male partner involved in a pregnancy, doesn’t mean you suddenly know how to be a father, even if you did stick around...

We all have had different experiences. Whether that is fatherlessness, an absent minded or hearted father, an abusive father, a father who just didn’t seem to care, or maybe didn’t have healthy relationship modeled for them so they didn’t know how to have healthy relationships. Father’s who don’t know how to show emotion. Father’s who don’t know how to connect with their children.

Our experience of a father can be as varied as the number of father’s there have been in this world because each is completely unique. And the unfortunate reality is that good or bad, indifferent or intentionally abusive, our experiences shape our expectations.

And the first thing we need to understand in our journey to a Transformed Life is that God loves us, and it is the love of a Father, and that Jesus was the gift to make a way, and the Holy Spirit is a gift to lead us to that place of truly understanding that God is a Good Father who loves us.

When we read John 3:16, Jesus starts with, / / For God so loved the world that He gave… the NLT says, For this is HOW God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son… why? John 1:18 says, speaking of Jesus, / / …the unique One, who is himself God, is near to the Father’s heart. He has revealed God to us.

/ / The gift of Jesus Christ was to reveal the true heart of His Father to us and He gave his life so that we could receive the Holy Spirit who would lead us to the Father.

Ministry Time

So, where do we go from here??

We go for freedom this morning. To truly understand the heart of our Father God we MUST deal with our distorted view so we can be introduced to a Father we may not know. We need to release all of the damaging and hurt views we have received in this life of what a father is so we can adopt Jesus’ viewpoint of His Father. So, we’re going to do that this morning. I believe that in faith we can take steps this morning to remove from us certain things so we can step into something new.

/ / 1. Forgive our earthly fathers / father figures

Regardless of whether they were abusive, absent, unapproachable, or really good.

If you have something specific to forgive, we will make room for that. And if nothing specific is coming up that’s ok, we will just pray to forgive our fathers of any way they may have misrepresented God as Father.

Pray with me this morning:

Dad, I forgive you for any way you misrepresented God as Father. [anything specific - I forgive you for not being there. working too much, not showing me love, abusing me, hurting me or my other family members] I forgive you for the hurt you caused, the misrepresentation you displayed and the pain it dealt to my heart, body, soul and life. With the help of the Holy Spirit, because of what Jesus did on the cross to provide redemption, I release you now, you owe me nothing. God, with your help, I choose to forgive my father / father figures.

/ / 2. Repent of any judgements we’ve had toward our fathers / father figures

God, I repent now and ask you to forgive me for placing judgements on my father / father figures because of how they expressed what a father is, in their own hurt, pain and misunderstanding. Forgive me for judging them and holding their actions against them.

Holy Spirit, help me walk the road of forgiveness. Not just in this moment, but in every moment. If I am reminded of the things I have experienced that both hurt me and caused me to hurt others, help me be quick to forgive. Help me watch my heart and my tongue, not to fall back into judgment. And if I do, help me to be quick to repent. Help me to be truly transformed in my ways by changing the way I think!

/ / 3. Repent of any judgements we placed on God because of how we viewed Him as father or not.

God, I know you are the perfect Father, and you did not do anything wrong. But my own ideas, misconceptions and how things were modeled for me, done to me and how You were represented and misrepresented caused me to make my own judgement on how you would be as a father. Forgive me for placing those judgements on you. Help me see the truth of who you are as my Father, a good and perfect Father.

/ / 4. Forgive yourself for our impressions of who He is as a father.

Sometimes it can be hard to deal with these things because we feel like we made a mistake in believing something. Or we are hard on ourselves because we didn’t do it right, we didn’t understand correctly. We feel bad because we didn’t walk away from toxic relationships or those who were hurting us. We are hard on ourselves for the period of time we lived believing a lie.

I want you to forgive yourself for being taken advantage of by the enemy through life circumstances and false representations of who God is that caused you to believe these lies.

I choose, with God’s help to forgive myself for believing the lie that God was like my earthly representation of fatherhood. That I believed that the negative ways my father and father figures in my life treated me was how God would treat me. I forgive myself for not seeing the truth. I forgive myself for not believing the truth. I give myself the gift of forgiveness to no longer believe the lies but to embrace the truth that God is a Good Father who loves me. That I am made in His image. That He cares for me.

5. Ask Holy Spirit to lead us to the Father

Romans 8:14 says, / / For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. [we sang that this morning, right, I’m no longer a slave to fear…] Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father.”

The same thing Jesus called him, “Abba, Father.”

I was in a meeting a few years ago and someone said something that has stuck with me for years now. He said, “Do you realize that in the same exact way that God the Father loves Jesus Christ His Son, He loves you? Do you realize that God loves you just as much and in the SAME WAY that He loves Jesus..”

This is why we can now cry, “Abba, Father… Daddy God...”

But all these hurts, pains, misrepresentations, or maybe even having a good Father that meant we didn’t need God to be our Father, has made it difficult to come to the place of accepting this as a reality. That’s ok. In some way shape or form, all of us have been duped by the father of lies.

But Jesus said in John 16, It is better than I go away, if I don’t, the advocate, the Holy Spirit, won’t come, but if I go away, I will ask my Father, and He will send the Spirit to you. And in vs 13 he says, / / When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth.

So, today, regardless of our past, regardless of our experience, regardless of how God may have been represented or misrepresented, we want to take a moment and ask Holy Spirit to lead us to the Father.

And remember, I said last week that the word lead means to take someone by the hand and and help them move forward with you… We are asking Holy Spirit to take us by the hand and lead us gently, to the Father.

For some of you it might feel like that moment we’ve seen in the movies, where the child doesn’t know the dad, and they’re scared, or apprehensive, and they are left to trust the person who brought them. If you feel apprehensive this morning. If you feel afraid. If you aren’t sure. Maybe you’ve been sitting here, just kind of thinking, “Sure, this is all good, I don’t need it...” Maybe you’ve just felt kind of indifferent. I want you to take a step of faith this morning and simply ask Holy Spirit to lead you to the Father.

HAND TO KELLEY

Father God, I’ve forgiven my father and those who were father figures in my life. I have repented for my judgements toward them. I trust your word that says I am free because of what Jesus Christ has done. I receive your forgiveness wholeheartedly.

Jesus Christ, thank you for making away for me to come to the Father. I believe in You.

Holy Spirit, I trust you. Would you lead me to Father God...