Fatherhood, Adoption, and the Family of God | June 15, 2025

Well, I think we call

that sermon sabotage.

Everybody, just so you know,

see what great love the

father has lavished on us.

There's a Greek word that means

gushed out, that God's love has gushed

out for us and on us and into us.

Look at the incredible love that God

has for us that we should be called.

Children of God that we become heirs,

that we become part of the family

of God and that is what we are.

That's all I'm gonna do today because

uh, I have a whole bunch of awesome

stuff prepared that I'm not gonna get to.

And then, you know, somebody decided

to go with this idea during the

sermon, so I'm just not sure about

the crinkling chip concept here,

Tina, but I see what you're up to.

Fun stuff.

Hey, I was thinking about this though Dad.

You're all that and a bag of chips

and I was listening to the sharing

time and I gotta be honest, I

heard some variations of that.

My dad is all that.

And maybe Jed, when you said he's a lot,

you meant a lot like Ana Bagga chips.

I'm not sure.

But Melissa listening to you share

about my dad, I was thinking, you

know, I've been sharing my dad with I.

Everybody my whole life, you know?

And what's crazy about that is

I don't, uh, I don't resent it.

I don't feel like there wasn't enough

of my dad to go around, because that's

the crazy thing about love, right?

When you are connected to God's

incredible love, man, there is no end.

I still remember the fear, you

know, Andrew, you're doing it

like two in a row right there.

I, so I don't know what that's like with

the two kids at one, you know, one whammy.

But when you're looking at your second

kid coming and you already love your first

kid like crazy, man, I remember doing

the math and it didn't make sense, right?

Like, how, how am I going to love Jed?

As much as I love Josiah, I'm

obviously gonna have to chop this

love in half, make a decision, right?

Or maybe I just, you know, go

90 10 some days and flip it.

I mean, what's, what's the play, right?

The math never made sense.

And, and I genuinely, I probably

didn't share it with a lot of people,

but I was worried about it 'cause.

I gotta tell you, man, one of

my favorite things in this whole

life and this gift that God's

given us is getting to be a dad.

I can't speak to

motherhood on Mother's Day.

I kinda let you ladies talk and

then I just stand back and be quiet.

I've learned that in marriage, but I

recognize that like there's something

special about motherhood, right?

But I get dad hood fatherhood, right?

Dad from the hood.

I don't know.

But I understand what

it is to be a dad, man.

And I love fiercely.

I love my kids.

Highly invested.

Would do anything, would

sacrifice anything.

I talked to some people this

week who were talking about how.

You know, there's parents who like

don't want their kids to achieve

more than them, or they kind of

feel threatened in that space.

And I was like, dude, I hope my kids

make me look like a pathetic loser

in comparison to what they get to do

and become in the eyes of the Lord

and for all the eternity, right?

I'd love to be left in the

dust at who they become.

'cause they matter more

to me than I matter to me.

Right?

I don't even care.

But I remember staring at this little

baby Jed, who arrives on the scene.

He wasn't little and he was a lot.

He was a lot, right?

But going into that room where

Jamie was having this C-section, I

was like, okay, here it comes, man.

Who do I love?

Jed or Josiah?

Jed or Josiah?

Which one?

What's it gonna be?

What's gonna happen?

And man, that moment when I saw Jed and

I realized I loved him a hundred percent.

I love Josiah a hundred percent.

And love is exponential, man.

It just, it can't be quantified.

It just, it's incredible.

And when the love of our heavenly father

lives in us, the way that we can love, and

I looked at that from the eyes of my dad a

little bit, thinking about all the people

that he's loved and all the people that

sacrificed to help who weren't biological,

but man, they, they became family.

And part of our DNA is

in the church is family.

It's kind of why this morning, those

of you who paid your ticket to get

an awesome sermon are just getting

me rambling about family because

this is really what church is, right.

It's okay to sabotage the amazing

message, or maybe it's better

some days just leave it right to

be able to just share together.

Testify together to the goodness of God.

'cause we're not here to

be impressed with music.

We're not here to be

impressed with knowledge.

I mean, those are nice

things to have, man.

We need to be here to experience

the presence of a heavenly Father

who has gushed out love on us

and invited us to be family.

And I was thinking about adoption the

other day and, uh, I love talking to

kids who've gone through adoption and

listening to the sharing this morning.

There's a lot of people who, for

Father's Day, there's these holes and

cavities and longings and, and wondering,

you know, and, and missing and, and

I can't help but think of adoption.

I was reading something this week from

somebody who, uh, who was adopted and just

talking about that being chosen thing.

Right?

You got the who the cool, like

got your day for adoption.

And I tell people who are

adopted this, man, wow.

What an incredible story.

What incredible love.

See, like me in my house, my parents,

you know, they were doing some stuff.

I don't wanna talk about it in front

of everybody, but they were doing some

stuff and they had no choice, right?

I was the result and

they got stuck with me.

They didn't choose me,

they didn't pick me out.

They didn't build any kind of

connection or, or like they

just, this is what you got.

You got Andy, right?

But I don't tell this to

the kids, just so you know.

But like when, when you get adopted,

you get chosen, you get chosen.

Like the parents had a choice, right?

I don't want this kid, I changed my mind.

That doesn't work really

well biologically.

If we're following Jesus,

we got what we got, right?

And kids, you can't get outta this either.

You're stuck with your parents.

So just happy Father's Day.

But at the end of the day, God chose

you and he chose me and he said, Hey.

You don't just get to come be a servant

at my house and you don't get to just

come hang out and be part of the group

and watch from the stands as my biological

children and I feast around the table.

You get status right as legitimate sons

and daughters in the family of God.

And that is what we are.

And that's crazy cool.

And we don't understand it in its full.

No way.

We can't, we can't grasp the

entirety of what that means.

But to latch onto just a little bit,

to recognize that the God of all

creation wants you in his family,

he doesn't have to, he didn't make

a deal where, okay, Jesus, you die.

And then anybody who says the

secret prayer, they get in

whether we want 'em or not.

No application, right?

He wants you.

He loves you.

He loves you.

Even knowing who you are,

even knowing what you've done.

I look in the mirror sometimes and

I'm like, nah, God, for real, right?

Like why?

Well that's 'cause his great love.

That is exponential and you

can't quantify it and you can't

mathematically figure it out.

But he has enough love that he

loves you and he loves the person

sitting next to you and me.

And he loves the person that hates

him to the full and to the max.

His heart bursts with love.

It gushes out for us his kids.

That's a crazy cool love.

And some of us feel like maybe we don't

have the ability to celebrate Father's

Day without feeling some sadness.

And I totally get that in this life

and in this world that we live.

But man, I was just reading Revelation

this week and there's a day coming.

Every tear gets wiped away.

Every bit of sadness is gone and God's

people are hanging out with him forever

and ever in a space that is beyond

our wildest dreams and imaginations.

So full of love, that there's just no

room for longing or sadness or sorrow.

There's just no space.

'cause God's love envelops

everything and everyone beyond

capacity and that day is coming for

all of us that are in his family.

And that's a cool invitation,

but we get to experience even

just a little bit of that.

Now we get to be the love of God to

one another, as you guys have shared

in some cool ways, trying to step in

and be surrogate uncles and dads and

cousins and nephews and all the different

pieces that come into that place.

Man, don't mistake how important

or don't let the devil tell you

how unimportant your role and

involvement in the body of Christ is.

Satan's does an awesome job of

convincing the church that you come

and you sit and you watch, and you're

a spectator, and that's what church is.

It's part of why I scrapped

what I was gonna do this morning

because I just wanted to remind

you, it's not what church is.

It's not a show, it's not a

performance, it's not a presentation.

It's God's people, the family of

God coming together, loving him,

worshiping him, and loving one another.

And you guys, man.

Your love for each other.

That's a powerful weapon against all

the lies and the deception of the

enemy that he's trying to perpetrate

in people's lives all around you.

We sit in this space and there's

a lot of hurt and there's a lot of

pain, and there's a lot of struggle,

and there's shame and there's guilt.

There's some joys and some

great things in there too.

But man, we're not sitting here

with a group of perfect people.

If you heard that this morning,

um, you missed some pieces, right?

Because I mean, I love being a

dad, but I'm not a perfect dad.

Jed and Josiah and I had some great

emotional talks this week with some tears,

and a lot of it was because their dad was

sucking at being a good dad in the moment.

Let's be real with that.

Like it's not perfection that we

live out, we're striving in real life

and pressure and weight and things

happen and stuff comes into play and

we, we push each other, we press and

there's, there's all kinds of stuff.

But at the end of the day, what I

want my kids to see is authenticity.

In my walk with Jesus and with them.

I'm not trying, I'm trying to be

as, I'm trying to be a perfect dad.

Lemme tell you, I am, but none

of us in this fallen world

are gonna hit those marks.

But we gotta love through the

brokenness and we gotta reach and we

gotta speak life in the midst of it.

And we gotta be willing to

just be honest and say, Hey.

Dad screwed that one up, man, I did.

I need to do better at that.

And we walk forward because I'm not

trying to pretend like I'm a perfect dad.

I'm trying to be more and more like that

heavenly father, and have that family

resemblance of who God is in my life.

And I wanna show my sons what that

looks like as they walk things out.

And so if you're sitting here

and you're thinking, man, I

had a really messed up dad.

We all did.

We all did.

We all saw, our dads have moments

where in their brokenness, they

said something or they acted in a

certain way or pressure got to 'em.

We all have that.

And the enemy would love to speak

that as the existence of dad and the,

the legacy of dad and, and no, that's

not the whole picture of what God was

doing in the life even of your own dad.

Some of us had dads who

weren't following Jesus at all.

And those are hard, hard

realities to walk through and see.

It doesn't change the importance of

trying to honor what dad tried to

bring to the table even, even so small.

But man, whatever you've walked through,

whatever your experience has been,

our heavenly Father adopts us in.

And you can celebrate Father's Day

regardless of what your earthly

father experience was like.

Regardless of the pain and the

hurt, regardless of what you think

of as the joys and all the good

stuff, he's worthy of our praise

and our honor on a father's day.

And you guys did an awesome job of

revealing that in your sharing and in

your worship together this morning.

And so I'm not gonna beat you up with

a really long, awesome sermon that

would've had you cheering on the way out.

This is what we call like

overselling for next week.

Maybe God will let me use it then, and

you'll be like, I'm glad I missed it.

That was rough.

But here's what I want to do to

close our time together this morning.

Because you've heard plenty of truth.

You've heard plenty about God's love and

you've been invited into relationship

with him if you're not there.

But if you are there, you've been

reminded, not by me, by each other

of the incredible love of God that

calls you his son, that invites

you into relationship with him.

And that's a pretty beautiful thing.

So if you're a dad, we already had you

do this once, but it's a cardio day.

Dads, would you stand

up for just a moment?

And we're gonna pray as

we close this morning.

Now, I just wanna say this ladies,

I'm not really even sure what time it

is 'cause it doesn't really matter.

We might be getting out a little

early and it's not 'cause it's

Father's Day and we want to go grill.

I don't want any, any misunderstanding.

I'm just trying to be

obedient to the Holy Spirit.

Move on.

But we're gonna take a moment here

and, uh, pray over all these dads.

And if this is one of your dads

standing up, would you do me a favor?

Would you just kinda put your hand on 'em?

Maybe stand up next to him if you need to.

That's okay.

But let's lay hands on all

these dads and let's, uh.

As kids, you gonna follow me back here?

All right, man.

I'm gonna do this too.

Let's just take a minute and we're

gonna pray over all the dads who are

here today and ask God to bless and to

continue to use them to be impactful

in the family, uh, of God, and also

the nuclear family that they're in.

Happy Father's Day dad, just since

I didn't get to say that yet.

Okay.

Hey, and do me a favor.

If you look around and there's some

people who don't have a son or a

daughter, don't forget who you are.

Church, your sons, daughters,

brothers and sisters in Christ.

Would you make sure and put a hand

on those people beside you and

let's lift them up before the Lord

as part of this big family where we

all are loved and get to love one

another in some pretty cool ways.

Let's pray.

Father, thank you for our dads.

Lord, thank you for their sacrifice,

for their love, for the pressure

and the weight that they carry,

for the responsibility before

you that they carry to lead.

God is a super heavy thing.

And Lord, I pray that you would

encourage the heart of every dad

here today specifically about the

times they fall short, the times

they miss moments or lose their cool.

And Lord, there's plenty of fallen

and brokenness in all of us.

And even though we strive, Lord, I

pray that you would forgive us for

the moments that we fall short and

that you would restore hope and joy

and life in those relationships we

have with our sons and daughters.

And God, I pray that you.

Would encourage and strengthen the resolve

and the drive within every one of these

men to lead their families, to lead your

people, even, to lead themselves Lord,

in faithful obedience to you, I pray

you, Lord, that you would impact the

whole world around them through their

love for others, that you would help them

be connected to your love in a way that

would empower them and mobilize them to

reach even further than they are and love

even more than they are, and that as they

stretch to do that, that they would find

a never ending supply to be able to love.

Well, father, I pray that you

would bless these dads, that you

would meet their needs financially,

that you would pour out provision.

Lord, I pray for their physical needs,

Lord, that you would touch their

bodies, restore health and protect them.

God, I pray for all the emotional needs

that the Dads are carrying in this

room, that you would heal and strengthen

and restore hope deep inside of them.

God, I pray that you would bless

their interactions with their family

and with the people around them.

And God, I pray that this Father's Day

would just be a special day where more

than even all of those things that they're

reminded of their heavenly Father of

his call to action as a dad, but also

of his love for each of these dads as

the sons that they are in his family.

And God, I pray that that love would

just be ripple effects through our

whole church and through our whole

community that the love of God through

these dads would change all eternity.

Thank you for my dad.

Thanks for the honor

of getting to be a dad.

Thank you for the legacy that we get

to walk in together as your children.

And I pray that you had blessed today

in a special way, and remind us just how

much we matter to you and to each other.

And Happy Father's Day, heavenly

Father and Jesus name we pray.

Amen.

Amen.

Yeah.

All right.

Think you guys are dismissed to

go grill something somewhere.

Have a wonderful Father's Day.