23rd March - Teaching Service - Paul Jukes - Recieving your inheritance

Amen in men. So it's a privilege to be here

this morning. Thanks for the opportunity. Dave and Julia, they've

looked after as Actually we stayed over last night and man,

she can cook, I have to say, I mean I

would be booking in there as a hotel every week.

It beats Premier in and holiday in. So but thanks

for your hospitality. It's been lovely and it's lovely to

be here this morning. We're from our Stoke on Trend

to church called Breathing New Life there. I've been there

for twenty years, been married for you know what I mean.

I've been there for my wife. You know that luke.

I just got the luke. I've been married for twenty

two years. I've been in the church for twenty three years. Okay,

so I'm here with Sarah and my wife and who's

a great preacher. Actually she could be preaching this morning,

but I have the privilege of preaching and I want

to speak to you this morning. Are about receiving your inheritance,

receiving your Do you know that you have an inheritance

in Christ? Like you have an inheritance? And sometimes I

think sometimes we fully we don't fully understand the abundance

of the inheritance that we have that is available to us,

and sometimes we don't always receive it because we have

some issues in our lives that we need to work through.

Does that make sense? So I want to talk to

you about that. I want to look at Luke fifteen

this morning. It's quite a long scripture, but it's really

important to read this to understand some of the points

I'm making. So this is the third story that Jesus

talks to some pharisees, some religious leaders. He's talked about

the lost coin and lost sheep. Now he gets into

the family dynamic. We usually get problems with sheep, but

with family we get more problems, don't we. So we're

going to look at this family dynamic, Jesus continued. So

it's Luke fifteen, eleven to thirty one. There was a

man who had two sons. The younger one said to

his father, father, give me my share of the estate.

So he divided his property between them. Not long after that,

the youngest son got together all he had and set

off for a distant country, and there he squandered his wealth.

So I'm just going to put a time a time is,

so I don't go over, is okay? So he squandered

all of his wealth. He is so. After he had

spent everything, there was a severe famine. Notice the famine

is the turning point in this story. Without the famine,

there wouldn't be a change. So sometimes if you've got

children who've gone off and they're not with the Lord,

and they're going through a difficult season, maybe it's the

turning point for them. Don't stress or get anxious or

worry when they're going through a difficult season. Believe God

will work in and through it. I'm a prodigal. I

was lost and I've came back. I wasted everything, and

know what it's like to be in a famine. So

he went and hired himself out to a citizen of

that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs.

He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that

the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.

When he came to his senses, he said, how many

of my father's hired servants have food to spare, and

here I am starving to death. So I set out

and went So I will set out and go back

to my father and say to him, father, I have

sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer

worthy to be called your son. It's really important we

understand that, sonship, I am no longer worthy to be

called son. Make me like one of your high hired servants.

So he got up and went to his father. But

while he was still a long way off, his father

saw him. His father saw him and was filled with

compassion for him. He ran to his son, threw his

arms around him, and kissed him. The son said to him, father,

I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am

no longer worthy to be called your son. But the

father said to his servants, quick, bring the best robe

and put it on him, put a ring on his finger,

and sandals on his feet. Bring the fat and calf

and kill it. Let's have a feast and celebrate, for

this son of mine was dead and is alive again.

He was lost and is found. So they began to celebrate. Meanwhile,

there's always a Meanwhile, the other oldest son was in

the field. When he came near the house, he heard

music and dancing. So he called one of his servants

and asked him, what was going on? Your brother has come.

He replied, your father has killed the fat and calf

because he has him back safe and sound. The older

brother became angry and refused to go in, so his

father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered

his father, Luke, all these years I've been slaving for

you and never disobeyed your orders. Yeah, you never gave

me even a young goat so I could celebrate with

my friends. But when it's son of yours, when this

son of yours, who has squandered the property with prostitutes,

comes home, you kill the fat and calf for him,

my son. The father said, you are always with me,

and everything I have is yours. But we had to

celebrate and be glad because this brother of yours was

dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found.

So this story is a story about inheritance. Is about

a father who gives his son this inheritance, and it

would have been shared out, probably two thirds to the

older one and the younger one would have got a third.

But usually you didn't get your inheritance in someone till

someone died. This is quite an unusual story, but for

the New Testament, for us today, what is our inheritance.

Do you know what your inheritance is? And do you

know how to receive it? And do you know how

to steward it? Because if you don't, if you're not

expecting it, you won't receive it. But if you're expecting,

like Dave said, I believe we'll receive it and we're

able to walk in the blessing in the inheritance that

God has for us. So let's look at Ephesians one.

This is Paul, he writes. He gives us some understanding

of what it means what God has done for us.

In the New Testament, he says, Praise be to the

God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ, who has

blessed us, who's blessed this morning? Do you know God

wants to bless you? Do you believe God wants to

bless you? Way above anything you can imagine. He really

does want to bless you. You've been blessed in the

heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. It's important

we understand it's in Christ, not in us. In Christ,

it's available for He chose us in Him before the

creation of the world, to be holy and blameless in

his sights in love, He predestined us for adoption into

sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will,

to the praise of his glorious grace, which He has

freely given us in the one he loves. In him,

we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins,

in accordance with the riches of God's grace. Don't you

love that? There's a lot in that? Isn't there? There's

a lot in that? But I believe this is what

Paul is doing. Paul is explaining how you get your inheritance.

What your inheritance is, but how you get it. So

to understand this, we've got to understand something about adoption.

What it means to be adopted, but what it meant

to be adopted. Then now I don't know what it's

like to be adopted. I had decent parents, not perfect parents.

So somebody said to me, oh, it's like you're adopted.

I don't kind of get that because I always felt

that I had love in my family, So it doesn't

quite make sense to me. I can try and understand it,

but I probably don't understand it as much as someone

was adopted. But in Paul's day Jews generally he didn't

adopt people. We don't hear much about adoption, but Romans

adopted people. So for Roman had loads of money, loads

of cash. He had a status, he had a house,

and he wanted to pass it on. He wanted to

carry on his name. What he would do is he

wouldn't have it. And if he didn't have a child,

his name and his status and the inheritance wouldn't be

passed on. And that was pretty shameful. That was not

good for the Roman who had earned all this money

and he was going to waste. So what the Roman

would do is he would go to a family and

he would find a family who had slaves, and he

would look for the child and say, which one do

I want? I choose this one, I've chosen you. Now

imagine being a slave as in a family. You've got

very little future, You've got very little hope. You are

paying off a debt that you have accrued against this owner,

and this owner has taken you into slavery to serve

it that debt off. And usually you're not paying that

debt off, You're going to be stuck in that family

the rest of your life. So you've probably got a

slave master who's not very nice. He's unkind to you.

He beats you, he condemns you, he tells you no good.

He's not affirming at all. He's not loving. He just

wants to get what he wants out of it and

use you and abuse you. Okay, But this new master,

he comes in and says, I want you. So what

does this do to us? Then this number one? We

get freedom from slavery. As a child of God, You've

got freedom from slavery. Slavery to what, I'm not a slave?

And what am I a slave too? The Bible teaches

us that we're a slave to sin. First of all,

the power of sin in our lives were a slave

to these two sons, they were both slaves. Now one

of them was a slave to what we call hedonism,

which is seeking pleasure to fulfill a hole or a

gap in his life. And you can see he keeps

filling it, even even looks at the pods and thinks

they look satisfying. He's eating whatever he can to fill

this hole. And he never satisfies. Why because he's a

slave to sin, and sin is never satisfied, So he's

enslaved to sin. The other one he's enslaved to the law.

You've got to do it my way. I've done all this,

I've earned it. And he's a slave to earning his

love by his works. So both of them are in slavery.

But this is the good thing. Jesus Christ came. But

first of all, God chose you. He says, I want you,

I love you. I'm taking you out of the power

of sin, and I'm putting you into a new family,

a loving family, a God who never will abandon you

or leave you. This is the heart of the Father.

You're hearing this. So he takes you out, He takes

you out of this wrong spirit, and he puts you

into a different home and a different spirit. It's called

the spirit of adoption, and you are adopted into the

heart of God. Now it's a trustworthy place, it's a

loving place. It is a place that is safe and sound.

Did you hear it in that scripture? My son is

home and now, and he is safe and sound. There

is a place in God that is safe and sound

for you, where there's no condemnation. God loves you. Is

this making sense? So you're a free you get taken

out of slavery of sin and slavery of the law.

You don't need to earn that love. You know, when

a child is born, they come out, right, I'm guessing

how they come out. I was there when my foot

my children come out. They come out, and none of

them came out and said, hey, Dad, what do I

need to do to earn your love? None of them

came out and said, Dad, do you need the dishes doing?

I'll do them. I wish that would happen, but yeah,

it's happening. But you understand what I'm saying. They don't

need to earn I looked at my child and I

just loved them with all my heart. It's the same

heart that God has for you. You don't need to

earn it. God loves you. So there is freedom from

And it says that the Father chose to do that

before the beginning of the world, and he chose it

in love. There's nothing we can do about that. That slave,

he can't get out of it. But that the Roman

comes in and says, I want you, I've chosen you.

Let me take you out of that family and put

you into a new family. Amen. I feel this church

is a church family. I feel this church is a

spirit of adoption. There's a spirit of adoption in this

place that adopts people and accepts people and loves people.

And I believe as you nurture that people feel safe

and sound when they come in. They don't feel judged,

they don't have to. There's just a real sense. I

believe the spirit of adoption in this house. Credit to

Dave and Juliet and this this church. But there's a

freedom from slavery. Second thing. Then you get a new status.

Your status before was a slave. Your status now is

a child of the Living God. So you imagine before

you had no status, you had no future. You were

just a slave. You were just left. You were nothing.

You had no future. Now you've been taken out of that,

and the Father says you are my son. Everything I

have is yours. You imagine how that change. From being

in poverty, nothing in lack, Now you have everything, Every

spiritual blessing is yours. In Christ. You have a new status.

I am a child of the Living God. I'm not

a slave anymore. See how the son struggled with it.

But one of them came back and he said, I'll

just be a slave in the house. What does the

father say, you are my son? He refuses to give

him a slave mentality says you are my son. And

he gives him and he covers him with the robe,

and he says, you're my child. I love you. I

don't want this shame anymore. I'm going to cover that shame.

How does that happen? How do we get that new status?

We get that new status by the son, the son

Jesus Christ came to rescue us and redeem us by

his blood. So the debt of that slavery was paid

by God's son sent for you. He took your place

in that place as slavery. He took your sin on

the cross, said I'll take your place so I can

get you out of that, redeem you and put you

into a new life. Is you're redeemed by the blood

of the sun. Amen, You're forgiven. Come on, Yeah, we

get it wrong some days, but you are forgiven. You

are absolutely forgiven. Your future now is safe and sound.

You're forgiven by the blood of Jesus. You've got a

big brother that stood up for you and took your place.

I've got a big brother. He didn't always stand up

for me. He did sometimes, but he didn't always. But

we've got a big brother who's faithful. See. I think

there's three sons in this story. There's one son who

ran off, there's one son who stayed at home, and

there's another son who's reading the story to you. His

name is Jesus. He's the perfect one. The others aren't perfect,

but he is perfect and he's trustworthy. So you've got

a new status. You're a child of God this morning.

And by the way, ladies, you can hear this. Sometimes

you think, I don't want to be called a son.

I want to be called a daughter. No no, no, no,

no no no. In Paul's day, if he called you

a son, he was including you in the inheritance. Daughters

did not get the inheritance. So if you were called

a son, now it's mine as well. Women in that

day they had no future and no hope. Now, with

Paul saying you are like a son, you have everything

that the that the brothers have. So you have new

status and you have a new hope. He's still with me. Okay,

you're free from slavery, you're a son, and now you

have a new hope. Before you had no future. Now

in the New Family, you have a future, not just

every day, but eternity now is secure, save and sound

because of the payment of the blood of the Son

got you there. Now you say, how how can you

be sure? Though, Paul, how can you be sure? My

future is secure? Let's read what Paul says and Ephesians won.

He says, you also were included in Christ. How do

we get into Christ? By faith? Trust that Jesus died

for us and accepting the forgiveness of God. By faith,

I choose to trust in God. That's how we get in.

So it says, included in Christ when you heard the message.

So God speaks to us, and we open our hearts

and say, I want to believe the message. He says,

the message of truth, the Gospel of your salvation. It says,

when you believed, you were marked in Him with a seal,

the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance.

Come on. So you have the Father who chose you,

You have the Son who redeemed you by the payment

of his blood. And now you have a Holy Spirit

who comes and lives in you and seals you, guaranteeing

your inheritance and your future. How good is God? Amen?

So the Father of the Son and the Spirit are

all uniting together to rescue you and secure your future

and guarantee your inheritance in Christ Jesus. But I love this,

but it says until the redemption of those who are

God's possession. You know, Jesus Christ died. He was God's son.

He died for you and for me. And because God

was so pleased with that sacrifice, he gave his son

an inheritance. And that inheritance is the greatest thing he

could have received. It's the greatest riches. That inheritance is you,

and you are his inheritance. You're the one who he

died for. He says, what do I want more than anything?

I want my children, I want I want my creation,

so I will die. And the inheritance that he received

was you. You are his special treasure that he was

willing to sacrifice his life for. So what stops us

doing this? Then I hear what you say, Paul, what

sometimes a struggle and we all struggle? So what stops

us walking in this inheritance and believe in the blessing

of God and outworking it. Three quick things. Okay. Number one,

You've got to stop the cycle of deception. You've got

to stop the cycle of deception, because if you believe

the word, you'll start to walk in it. If you

don't read the word, you won't believe the word. But

if I read the word, I'll start to accept it

and believe that I am God's child and I have

an inheritance and I can walk in it. But if

I don't read it, I'm not going to believe it.

And it's so easy in life, through life to have

experiences and then choose to believe because things that happen

to us that this is who I am. So you

might have had something where you didn't feel loved and

you go, I am not loved, And I walk through

life saying I'm not loved or I'm not very nice,

and we believe that lie because of life's experiences, from

our experience of a not very nice slave master, so

we wore still enslaved through deception is just making sense.

And the journey for us to is to to inherit

our inheritance is go through a journey of renewal by

changing the way we think and if we change the

way we think, then we'll change the way we behave

because of the truth that we're receiving in Christ. So

you are a son. You are a son, and you

are a daughter. You get up tomorrow and know that

you have value and worth in this world no matter

what anybody says. You are valued. You are God's treasure

and he paid a high price for you. So you

wear that best robe. Don't settle for second best. Say

I'm wearing the best rope that he gave me. I'm

eating of the fattied calf because this is my father

in heaven and he loves me. Are you loved? Come on,

you loved. So you've got to you've got to break

the cycle of deception. That means at times you've got

to buckle up the belt of truth. You've got to say, hey,

I'm going to hang on to this truth. And might

be going through what feels like a cycle of like

like I'm stuck in a washing machine. Had anybody experience life,

you know, you feel like you're been thrown around everywhere

and it's like, what's going on? How do I get

out of this? We all go through these cycles of

these torments but if you hold onto the truth, I'll

guarantee Jesus is a faith He's faithful, He's guaranteed, and

you'll come through the other side and you'll be a

transformed person. You'll come out of your washing machine completely different.

So you've got to stop the cycle of deception. Say hey,

I'm going to stick to this. I'm gonna I'm going

to commit, even though I don't feel like it at times.

I'm going to trust in Jesus. The second one, and

I think this is the biggest one. I know it's

the biggest one for me. You've got to stop the

cycle of rejection rejection. I'll guarantee at some point you've

been rejected. Anybody being rejected. Yeah, I remember being in

primary school. We used to play football and I wasn't

very good at football then, and you'd have you'd have

you'd have two teams on the playground and you'd have

one person he'd start picking the players for his team

and the other one and pick and you'd dread it

because they'd pick the best one. And then they pick

the best one, and who'd be last? Me? And where

would I go? In gold? Because nobody else wanted to

go in goal, and I was like, if someone would

just pick me, and very often you'd feel that rejection.

And I think in life, we've all experienced rejection. We've

all experienced some disappointment where you know, maybe you've lost

a job, or you didn't get the job, or the

relationship there somebody you know turned away from you said

I don't want to be with you anymore. These things

really hurt, really hurt, and we've got to be able

to process these things. We've got to be able to

walk through and be open and honest, but process and

so that they don't have a grip on us for

the rest of our lives. You know, when I was

when I was growing up, my mum was a really kind,

loving I had great parents. But for quite a few

years I had low self esteem. I still struggle with

it at times. And for the past three years, I've

struggled with anxiety. And I don't understand why I was

struggling with anxiety, and I've wrestled through it. You can

speak to my wife, She'll tell me my good days,

my bad days. But I've struggled with like a low

self esteem and anxiety. And recently I spent some time

just listening to some things and talking to the Lord.

And I felt like the Lord showed me some things

of my past, my from when I was a child,

and how these things had affected me. And I remember

going to school. I'd got this visual image of going

to school and my mom dropping me at school with

a lady who had never met before, a strange, no stranger, danger.

You taught don't speak to strangers. So my mom takes

me school, who she leave me with? A stranger. It's

like she's a stranger. I've never met her before, in

a room I've never been before, with children I've never

met before. And my mom literally turned away and walked out,

went down the corridor, walked out the door, and left me.

I was like, that seems a normal thing to do.

She wasn't doing anything wrong, but as a child at

that moment, I thought, and this is what I did.

I went mom. You've read that. I was screaming at

my mom and she just turned away and carried on walking.

And then when I was a little bit older, My

girls are laughing. When I was a bit older, my

mum took me and she put me with childminders. Again, stranger,

never met her before. Strange house, strange children. And she

left me there and she turned away and she went

to work, you know, as most parents do. And again

I felt like, Mum, I'm scared you're not listening to me.

I don't want to be left with these strangers. And

then they had some other experiences which really compounded that experience.

But this is what I felt. The Lord's show, show

me what's happened to you in life is when your

mum turned away from you, and when you shouted to it,

it was like what I was saying didn't matter. She

turned away from me. And I made the decision in

my heart that my mom's not listening to me, and

she's not listening to me, I don't matter. I don't

even exist. If I don't exist, I don't matter and

I have no value. Now I didn't understand as a

five year old, a six year old, how to deal

with that. Now I'm fifty, in God's saying, come on,

let's deal with this low self esteem that you've got.

I'm fifty and I'm still working this thing out that

God still loves me even though I've got me issues

in my struggles, and at fifty is saying, let's go

a bit deeper, Paul, Let's get you out of this cycle.

Because every time someone rejects you, you feel like you're

not loved. You need to know that my love is

deeper than that. Does that make sense? So that cycle

what happens when we have that. We often reject people

when they don't give us what we want, right because

because our low self esteem. So we've got to we've

got to break them cycles to understand God's blessing, God's

inheritance in God's love is way deeper than all of

those rejections. Does that make sense? So all it takes

is you look to someone you want the affirmation and

someone doesn't affirm you. It could be a it could

just be somebody giving you a pack of sweets and

you go like that and they go, no, I'm not

a brother or sister. It could be just with small

moments and you make that decision, which is deception, that

you're not loved, and that thought goes with you for

the rest of your life. Now, sometimes we might not

work out where that is. But actually, if you can

recognize the lie that I'm not loved and say I

want to know that I'm loved and experience the love

of God and the spirit of adoption that makes me

safe and sound and feels my heart Paul as Paul promises,

then I can be safe and sound and feel more

secure on this journey doesn't make sense. And we've all

got stuff we've been through. But I think that hurts,

and that pain if we don't deal with it, it

stops us living in the inheritance that we have in

Christ Jesus. It stops us knowing that we're really loved

and we can love others with His love. He's still

with me, right So, And the last one I'll just

touch on it is the cycle of legalism, legalism, the

other brother. If you notice one brother, he's rebellious, he

goes off and wastes everything. The other one he's a

real good boy. He stays at home, He conforms, he says,

I will do as I'm told. And then when the

other brother comes home, rather than being graceful to him,

he can't do it. He says, no, he said, I've

been slaving. I've earned this. So legalistic people, yes, they

might look good on the surface, but in their hearts,

they can't be graceful, they can't be loving because they're

in a cycle of legalism is earning and I've done

this and I can prove this. Both are from a

place of woundedness. Both are from a place of lack right.

So both struggle with the inheritance and seeing. If you

notice what the father says to him, he says, my son,

He says, you are always with me, and everything I

have is yours. But he doesn't see it. He's sees

in self as a what I would call an orphan.

He doesn't see himself as loved in a new family,

with everything that God has for him. So he holds

it like a If you're ever an orphan, or you've

you've lost things in your life, then you'll hold on

to it and say, I can't be generous. But if

you weren't in a family that's abundantly blessing you and

you can trust, then you freely give it away like

it's freely been given to you. So you have to

watch out for these for these wounds in our lives,

because I believe these stoppers living in our inheritance and

receiving it and it flowing through us to bless other people.

You know, one person who I believe approached his rejection.

In a way that God loved was King David. When

King David struggled in his in his journey, he would

often go to God in prayer. He would often offload

his pain. He would often go to him and express

how he was feeling, and God would meet him and

minister to him and start him off again. He could

be in the worst of situations yet have a joy

and a peace and feel safe and sound even though

people were against him, even though people rejected him. I

want to read Psalm twenty seven. It says this. We're

going to finish with this in a minute. Psalm twenty

seven says this, the Lord is my light and my salvation.

Whom shall I fear? Like if you struggle with low

self esteem or you know he worried about what people

say or think, it can because you don't really know

how loved you are. He says, the Lord is my

light and myself. Whom shall I fear? He says, the

Lord is the stronghold of my life? Of whom shall

I be afraid? He says, one thing I asked from

the Lord. This only do I seek that I may

dwell in the house of the Lord all the days

of my life to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord,

and to seek him in his temple, for in the

day of trouble, he will keep me safe in his dwelling.

What does David say? David says, I need my eyes

to be on God, and I need to know that

God's eyes are on me. He's not turning his back

on me. He's not rejecting me. But his eyes are

forever on me. If I know the Lord's eyes are

on me, I know he loves me. Does this make sense,

he says, Then hear my voice when I call out, Lord,

be merciful to me and answer me. My heart says,

of you seek his face, see wants to see his face,

Your face, Lord, I will seek. Do not hide your

face from me. So don't turn away from me. Affirm

me that I'm loved. Do not turn your servants away

in anger. You have been my helper. Do not reject

me or forsake me. God, my Savior, though my father

and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me every time.

The Lord, he knew, would receive him, no matter where

he'd been, no matter what he'd done, Just like the

prodigal when he came home. What was the father doing?

He was waiting for him? What was he doing? He

was looking for him. His eyes were always on him,

They were never off him. They were never thinking. Oh, man,

here he comes again with that mistake. No, he says,

let's go again, and let's try again. There's second chance

after second chance. With Jesus a man, his eyes are

always on you. So when you doubt if his eyes

are on you, you say, no, my God's eyes are

on you. Deuteronomy six, let me just read it. We

haven't got it up there. Deuteronomy six is Aaron's blessing.

He says, this is to Aaron and his sons. Aaron

and his sons, Okay. And then he says this the Lord.

Many of you'll know it. The Lord bless you and

keep you. The Lord makers face there you go, face

shine upon you, and be gracious to you. God is

a giving god. Amen. And then he says, the Lord

turn his face towards you. His face is towards you,

and give you peace. When life doesn't go the way

you're expecting it, turn to God and understand that he's

turned to you. When you doubt his goodness, Worship him anyway,

and say, God, I know your eyes are on me,

They're never off me. I am a child of God.

I am loved by you. I am safe and secure.

I can rest in the knowledge of that, even though

I feel like I'm in a washing machine going round.

You are safe, secure, faithful, and constant. And I believe

if you do this, no matter what you go through

in your life, your inheritance will continue to be flowing

in you and through you, and you will bear fruit

all the days of your life and honor your loving

Father in heaven. Amen, Its face shines upon you. Amen.

I'm going to invite the band up. We're going to worship,

and just before that, I want to pray for you. You

know that I've given you some practical things up there

when we look at when you're dealing with walking in

that inheritance with the Father and the status of his son. Practically,

you can bless people. If you're not blessing people, you're

cursing people. Usually it's because something's happened to you. But

if you're blessing people, you'll know your heart is good

and the inheritance what God wants you to do is

flowing through you. That's a practical thing you can do.

But you know, sometimes spiritually, some things have happened to

us and they need to be addressed in our hearts.

We need the Father to come in and heal us,

and we need the Father to heal wounds. We need

the Father to come in and give us a revelation

of his love that says, Wow, I will love you forever,

even though you even though you make mistakes, I will

always love you. Sometimes we need a fresh revelation of

his love, don't we. I know I do. So I

want to pray for you spiritually that God would speak

to your hearts. Say, Lord, speak to my hearts this

morning that I can know you more and more. May

I see your face shine upon you? You know I pick

this up at the back. It says good news. Can

you all see that? You can see it on light?

There's a smiley face on there right. God's into the

emoji business, is into putting smiley faces on you and

smiley faces on other people even when we don't like them.

And I believe that's what God wants to do to

you today. He wants to speak to you through the

spirits and tell you that He's pleased with you. He's

pleased with you because of the sacrifice of the blood

of his son. It is enough for you. So Heavenly Father,

we just come to you this morning. We thank you

for your son. We thank you for his sacrifice. Father,

there's no one like you. You offer your love to

us every day for eternity, and Father, we asked that

you would speak to our hearts. Holy Spirit, we welcome

you this morning. I pray that you would open the

eyes of our heart to know your love more and more.

May your children know that you delight in them this morning.

May they see your face smiling upon them this morning.

May that you bring that sense of delight in their

hearts of how much you love them, and what you

want to do with them today is to go away

and send them delighted and joyful. So Father, we pray.

I feel like God wants to lift some people this morning. Spiritually.

He wants to lift you out of the miri clay

and put you on a rock so you feel more secure.

You feel more safe. Maybe people listening online, God wants

to remind you how deep his love is. You know

you've made mistakes and you think, oh, I'm struggling with shame.

Bring it out into the open. The love of God

is greater than any shame you can ever imagine. It

covers a multitude of sins. The Heavenly Father, we welcome

you this morning. I pray for these people to know

your love more and more. Fill them with your love.

May they know that they are in a safe, secure family.

They've been adopted by you, Holy Spirit. Really fill their hearts,

showing them that it's guaranteed. Their future is secure. Lord,

they are safe in You, secure in you this morning

in Jesus' name. And Lord, if there's people who've hurt them,

may they forgive them. And Lord, may they learn to

put emoji faces over their enemies and see them the

way you see them. Lord, in Jesus' name, equip your

people far the filling with your love. In the mighty

name of Jesus. He is a good good father. He's

a good good father. Come on, begin to thank him,

begin to worship him. Let's stand. We're gonna