Daddy Issues

Fantastic. Well it is great to be with you

and thanks for having me guys. I really do appreciate it.

I am here with my lovely wife. Do you want to quickly stand up

and just give everyone a wave? This is my lovely wife.

I do have a family photo, is that OK?

If I show family photos, is that OK?

This is our family, so This Is Us.

We have three children. We have three children.

We have Jordan there in the black and she married an

incredible young man in in Nathaniel and they are both 26

years of age. Obviously, there's myself and

then there's my wife and then there's our youngest there,

Bailey. We call her BJ.

She's doing her last year of high school, which is just

awesome. And then we have our middle son

Mitchell, and he married an incredible keyword girl called

Caitlin, which is just amazing. So our family just continue to

grow over the years. But the core thing is, 10 weeks

ago we became grandparents for the very first time and we got a

little baby. Girl, Oh, stop it.

Look. Look at that.

My gosh. And you know what?

When I when I saw this little baby for the very first time, I

wept. I didn't weep for my other three

kids. I didn't.

I did not cry. I did not cry when our first

three were born, but when this little grandbaby came along and

I found myself saying what every grandparent out there has said

before and has felt deeply. It just hits.

Different when your. Kids have kids and every cliche

that every grandparent has ever said.

Came out of my mouth. With tears to my eyes.

And they're. Just as stupid.

They're so cute. But look at that and her name is

Benny. BE double NI.

That's cute, huh? And because my son and his wife

live in New Zealand because he married a Kiwi girl, the middle

name is reference to his hometown, Adelaide.

So Benny, Adelaide Rainbow. That awesome.

Fantastic. I could just stare and look at

that phrase. She's so cute.

Oh my goodness, me. Anyways, better keep moving on.

Hey, got to preach. It's like, got to focus, focus,

Tony, got to preach. Well, this is a very special

year for us because we are celebrating 2 incredible

milestones. The first one is that me and my

wife, we've been together this year for 40 years 4.

Zero, I mean. That's crazy.

Way back in March 17, 1984 at roller skating.

What's roller skating? For all you young people who

don't know what roller skating is, I want you to think of the

coolest thing to do right now. Roller skating was cooler than

that. That's all I'm saying.

And so I skated up to this young lady on the 17th of March and I

grabbed her by her hands and in a couple skate, because skating

always finished with a couple skate.

So at 10:25 we were skating hand in hand.

I was going backwards. Why?

Because I can. You're welcome.

And I looked you in the eyes and I don't know how you ask one

another out in this day and generation, but back in the day

we would ask a girl out this way.

Will you go out with me and she? Said yes.

And we've been together ever since.

Isn't that awesome? And on top of that, this year

marks 30 years since we planted our church in Adelaide.

And so we've had long service leave, which is the last six

months. We've just been able to have a

sabbatical and enjoy each other's company.

And we've been travelling around the world for the last six

months as love struck teenagers just enjoying each other's

company. And in that time we've had the

opportunity to have some incredible God conversations.

It's, it's just been an amazing time celebrating these two

incredible milestones. And as we started talking to

people because we just, we are people, people.

I'm sorry, hashtag not sorry. I, we just, I just love people,

which is amazing. 30 years of ministry and we still love

people. That's a miracle.

And we would talk to people and we would get to know each other.

And that asked me, why are you traveling?

I'm, I'm so glad you asked. And I'd say we're celebrating

two major milestones. And I'd tell them we've been

together for 40 years and everyone's surprised.

Everyone's shocked, one, because I don't think they think we're

old enough to be together for 40 years.

But the other thing is no one stays together for that long.

And so we got in people's worlds and in their lives.

And, and then I'd say, and the other thing we're celebrating is

the fact that we started a church 30 years ago and people

were shocked about that. They were more shocked about the

fact that we were pastors and they were saying what?

There was one particular woman, she was 77 years of age, and

Amy's jam. We met her on the cruise as she

was going around the Greek islands, which was amazing.

And she goes, Tony, you need to know I'm an atheist.

And I said, Jan, that's incredible because we started a

church for atheists. And she said, ah, if I came into

your church, the roof would cave in.

I said Jan, that's amazing because when we build our

building, we put extra reinforced.

Steel in the ceiling. And she says, Tony, you've got

me. I'm so intrigued.

Jan actually lives in Brisbane in Australia.

We didn't know that at the time. And she said I'd love to come to

Adelaide. I've always wanted to visit

Adelaide. I said you can come and stay

with us, said that'd be wonderful.

I said, I'd love to go to your church.

Met another man. His name was Trevor.

I met him in Bali and we were chatting away.

Told him for 30 years, 40 years. And he goes, oh, look, you know,

I've been, I've been kind of toying with Buddhism and

Christianity and I've kind of, I've kind of decided to have

both of them in my life. He looked at me.

He said, is that OK? And I said, Trevor, I said, are

you married? He said, yes, I am.

I said, let me ask you a question.

If you went home tonight to your wife with a girlfriend on your

arm, would she be happy? And he said, you're saying, I

can't have both, aren't you? And I said, Trevor, I haven't

said a word. You said that.

And I told him about a great church in Bali.

Friends of ours lead want to get along to that.

Met another young couple in the pool.

They were drinking cocktails. That's what you do in Bali.

And we got chatting, talking away.

Told him about 40 years together.

Wow. Told him about 30 years leading.

He said hang on, you're pastors. He said we are.

As we start talking, I find out about this man's life and he's

got a young 5 year old daughter. They've been together a year.

She wants to get married. She's a little bit skeptical.

We start, we're in the pool, cocktails in hand, and she

starts weeping. We went out to dinner that

night, continued the conversation, became good

friends. They're actually going to come

over in November and stay with us for a week.

We're going to take them to church and just enjoy their

company and get to know them a whole lot better.

And essentially all these conversations, and there's many,

many more at the crux of all these conversations.

See what we did? We just talked about how good

God is. We just talked about the

goodness of God. Turn to the president and say

God is good. And I think it's important that

we know that. And I think it's important that

we tell our stories as to how good God is, because that's the

thing. The enemy always attacks the

very first attribute that was attacked way back in the Garden

of Eden. Adam and Eve were there and the

serpent just appears out of nowhere.

And they say, why don't you eat from this tree?

And essentially what he was doing is attacking the goodness

of God. They say we can't do that.

We've been told we're not allowed to do that.

It's interesting to me that the enemy, the serpent for that day,

didn't try to deny the existence of God.

He didn't say God doesn't exist. He didn't say God's not real.

Essentially what he was saying is God's not real nice, God's

not real kind, God's not real good.

That's essentially what was going on in the garden that day.

And that is the challenge of every father in this room,

indeed every parent in this room.

We have to combat this challenge that comes our way from our

beloved young ones. So if you loved me, you would

let me. And that's what the enemy threw

at Adam and Eve. If he loved you, he would let

you. If God was good, he wouldn't

withhold anything from you. He was defying, He was

challenging the goodness of God. But what I've learned is loving

a child is not always giving them.

Everything they want. We had three kids in our home

growing up and in those early years they tested us

particularly around bedtime, and we had set bedtimes and was very

strict about our bedtimes for our kids.

And invariably they would push back.

And it was usually the middle kid, Mitchell, who'd push back.

As a dad, I'm not tired, I said. That's funny, Mitchell, because

I'm tired of. You go to.

Bed. End of discussion.

Go to your room. Can I get an Amen out there?

Hey, I don't know about you. I am grateful that I've been

around long enough and I'm old enough to be able to say thank

God that he didn't give me everything I ever wanted.

The fact that he doesn't give me everything I want is the

evidence of just how good he is. Because I prayed and asked some

of the dumbest things. I thought they were good and

smart at the time. But with time I look back and

think, oh Lord, I'm so glad you are so good.

You are so kind. Thank you for saying no.

Sometimes God didn't even say no to me.

Sometimes He just ignored me. That's how good He is.

That's how kind He is. Because every father in this

room knows if you really love your kids, you cannot give them

everything they want because they are too young and too dumb

to know what is good for them. And I don't care how old you are

in this place today, we are still in the economy of God's

eyes. Still too young and too dumb to

know what is best for us. And so God says no.

God doesn't always allow us to have our own way.

Not because he's not good, On the contrary, It's because He is

incredibly good. He's incredibly kind and He

loves us so much. And I believe This is why the

role of fathers is so important. Why?

Because so many of today's issues stem back to what I call

daddy issues, the way we see our biological father and also the

view we have of our Heavenly Father.

Every time I preach, I desire to be biblical, practical, and

inspirational. I'm here today.

With the help of the Holy Spirit to help us put the word of God

into practice so that we can be with Jesus, become like him, and

ultimately do the things that Jesus did.

Sound good? So if you have your Bibles, turn

with me. The one Corinthians chapter 4

verse 15. This is Paul the apostle

writing. He says even if you have 10,000

guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers.

For in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel.

I love this passage of scripture.

It's one of my go to passages. Paul talks about all these

guardians. What would a guardian represent

in today's economy? It represents all those

podcasts. It represents all those

conferences. It represents all the

information that technology throws at us, all of which are

not bad. But the thing about all of those

things is there's not the personal, intimate knowledge of

who you are for them to speak into your situation.

I thank God for the times I've been blessed at conferences.

I thank God for the Word. I thank God for the things I've

learned. And maybe you've got your

favorite keynote speakers and all those things, but this is

what I know. They don't know you and so as a

result, they don't pray for you. And I think one of the things

that puts the church under attack is that we are enamoured

with the guest speakers. We're enamoured with the

podcast. We're enamoured with social

media. And we neglect and get familiar

with the local pastors and the local church family that pray

for you, that weep over you, that stand with you, that lose

sleep because of the situation and the circumstances that you

are going through. Never ever allow familiarity to

get in the way of those that we are closest.

Two, Christianity in it's purest, simplest form is a

relationship that can be had with Jesus.

Isn't that awesome? See, Paul saw his old mission

through relationship, not structure.

The gospel is founded on relationship.

John chapter 3 verse 16, one of the most well known verses in

John 3:16

scripture says God so loved the world that he sent his Angel,

that he sent to cherubim. He sent his Son.

Jesus saw his whole mission through relationship.

There was this one time when Jesus went to the temple and he

was disturbed by what he saw. There were people buying and

selling and it just got him mad. Now, he didn't get mad because

he didn't have a he had a bad night's sleep.

He didn't get mad because he had an upset stomach.

He got mad because they turned his father's house into a den of

thieves. He was motivated.

He was inspired. He was indignant.

He turned over the tables. Why?

Because this is not what we do in my dad's house.

We don't do that here. Inspired by relationship.

Inspired by his love for his father.

See, the devil's strategy, I believe, is to distort the

relationship with fathers in order to destroy the potential

of sons and daughters. Because he knows that the more

we know God, the closer we get to Him, and the closer we get to

Him, the kinder he becomes. Now, I know God does not change.

God doesn't get kinder. He's kind, but our understanding

of how kind he is. Grows.

When I got saved, I knew God was good.

I gave my life to a good God, but over the years I've learned

he's much better, He's much kinder, he's much nicer.

And so my understanding of the goodness of God has grown.

God didn't change, but my understanding of Him has.

And I'm here to tell you categorically this morning, 3 CI

that we have an incredibly good God.

And so today in the remaining time that I have, I want to just

look at very quickly 4 characteristics of the father

heart of God. Why?

Because he's not only worthy, he's not only a worthy father to

be honoured, but he's also a great example to be followed.

And I realized not everyone in this room had a good father role

model. And if that is you in this place

today, I'm so glad you're here. You're not here by accident.

You're not here by chance. You're here by the goodness and

the grace of God. I'm one of those incredibly

privileged people that grew up with an incredible father.

But the amazing thing is that my dad didn't have a good dad, but

coming into a relationship with Jesus changed his life forever

and he adopted this sort. My father showed me what not to

do. So I'm going to do the opposite

of what my dad did, and he came into being an incredible dad for

me. Such a redemptive story.

So we're going to read from Psalm 103.

If you have your Bibles, follow along or look on the screen.

Psalm 103 verse 8 says this. The Lord is compassionate, He's

Psalms 103:8

gracious, He's slow to anger, He's abounding in love.

He will not always accuse normally harbour His anger

forever. He does not treat us as our sins

deserve, or repay us according to our iniquities.

As high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His love

for those who fear Him as far as the east is from the West.

So far has He removed our transgressions from us.

As a father has compassion on His children, so the Lord has

compassion on those who fear Him.

Today we're going to look at 4 attributes, 4 characteristics.

There's many, many more. But today, for the sake of time,

4 things. And I hope it brings us into a

deeper understanding and greater appreciation of who God is and

what He has done for us and just how good He is.

How does that sound? Point #1 Father God has a long

fuse. He has a long fuse.

Verse 8 says he has compassion, He is compassionate, he is

gracious, and he's oh so slow to anger.

Do you know each and every one of us in this room are the

beneficiaries of his long fuse? The question that begs to be

asked is why is he so patient? Why is he so patient?

And I believe he's so patient because he wants us to make it.

He doesn't want anyone to perish.

He wants us to make it. And every good dad in this place

today wants their kids to make it.

They want their kids to to have a great life.

As a dad, I've had to. Teach all three of our kids to

drive a car. One of the worst jobs in the

world for a dad to do. Those sleepless nights when the

baby's nothing on teaching them how to drive.

I'm just saying. But our oldest, Jordan, she was

the first cab off the rank and she learned to drive in a manual

car. Big mistake, and I'll never

forget this one particular day telling her all the things she

needs to do. Turn the car on, check your

blind spots, pull out gently, make sure you indicate.

And so she turns on the car, she checks a blind spot, she

indicates, she goes to take off, the car stalls.

And we do that again. And again and again and again

and again and again and again to the point she's in tears because

that how am I meant to go parking and.

How am I meant to do this and how am I meant to do?

Hill starts. And how am I meant to do all

these others? And all the stuff that she had

to do into the future just got in the way of what we needed to

do right here and right now. And I looked her in the eyes,

said Jordan, look at me, you've got this.

Take a few deep breaths. You can do this, I said.

Now let's turn the car on again because that's what we needed to

do. And I was able to meet Jordan

where she was at. Because that's what God did for

me. And maybe there's some here in

this room today. You feel like your life has

stalled. Maybe you feel upset and

overwhelmed with all the things you know you've got to do, but

you can't even do the basic things.

This is what I know. God is kind and he's good and

he'll meet you where you are at. And I say this over you, if that

is you today, you've got this because God has got you.

You've got this because God has got you.

He meets you where you're at. Can I tell a personal story

which doesn't take me in a great?

Life like it. It makes me sound very

superficial. Anyone want to hear this story?

Story at my expense, He goes. So I'm at roller skating at a

youth event. Our pastor comes and joins us

and he says to me, hey, let's chat.

And I'm like mate, I don't want to chat with my pastor at roller

skating. This is my zone.

Long story short, he starts talking about our future

possibility of ministry and I, I've got to be honest with you,

my my response was not good. I just dismissed him.

I said I'm not interested. No thank you.

Love what you do, but I love the fact that you're doing it, not

me. That's it.

The thing about roller skating, when you skate off, you go in

circles and guess what? I caught him up again.

So, So what about anymore? Anyway, so we go home that night

and I'm lying in bed and I can't get to sleep because I feel like

I've just been rude. I've been dismissive not only to

our pastor, but also to the possibility of what God may have

for me. And so we have this chat with

God and I've never heard the audible voice of God, but I

just, I just know God's voice. And I hope God say to me, what's

your problem? Kind of like when he met Adam

and said, Adam, where are you? Where are you at?

What's going on? And so I'm like, what is the

problem? This is where it gets a little

bit superficial on my part because I said, well, I loved

our pastor, but our pastor represented all the pastors that

I knew back in the late 80s there.

And again, no disrespect if you fall into either one of these

categories, but this is this is a young man, a teenager talking,

OK, so please, no, no disrespect, please no offense

taken. But I said, well, I suppose I'm

just thinking, well, I don't know, I want to go into

ministry. And I thought, you know why?

Because all the pastors were for my liking as a young man.

They were overweight and they had no hair.

So bad, so superficial. Oh, so wrong.

And as I. Verbalize that you kind of go

for the and I kid you not, the kindness of God.

I felt him say to me, hey Tony, if you look after your body,

I'll look after your hair. That's the relationship I've had

with my Heavenly Father. That's why I.

Refuse to get into debates about tattoo.

I just. I just think it's not the God I

know if he could meet me this young, superficial, ridiculous

request and he meets me where I'm at and he will meet you

where you're at. Just like I was able to meet

Jordan, our daughter, when she was learning to drive a car

where she was at. I knew at that moment it's

pointless talking about hill starts.

It's pointless talking about reverse parking.

She wasn't ready for that. So what did I do?

Let's just start where she's at. Let's turn the car on.

The car's incredibly good. He's incredibly kind.

We see it over and over again in the scriptures.

Jesus told the story about the prodigal son.

This son goes to his dad and says, Dad, I want my

inheritance. Do you know when you receive an

inheritance? It's when you're dead.

Do you know what this son was saying to his dad?

Dad. I wish you were.

Dead. I don't know about you, but if

my kid said that to me, I'd be gutted.

I didn't raise our kids so that one day they could look me in

the eye and say, dad, I wish you were dead.

That's got to hurt. And the father in this story

gives him his inheritance. And the young kid goes and does

what all young kids do, goes waste his money, comes to his

knees. And while he's on his knees, he

comes to his senses, has a revelation he was better off

back home. And then he comes home and guess

who's waiting? The dad.

Just looking. I wonder if today's a day

patient, patiently waiting. And when he saw his son walk

toward him, he ran towards him. And he wouldn't have any of this

nonsense about punishment. He says it's great to have you

back. This one time Jesus was doing

his thing and the Pharisees bought a woman caught in the act

of adultery. No man, just a woman.

I don't know how you can do that without a man.

But anyway, just shows the agenda.

And this woman is caught in the act of adultery and they bring a

challenge to test Jesus and Jesus basically says OK, fair

enough. The person here who is without

sin, they can be the first to throw a stone and it says oldest

to youngest they left. The old ones are smart enough to

realize actually that's not me. Until it was just Jesus and this

woman and Jesus offered this woman something that everyone in

this room, including myself wants from him.

He offered her forgiveness. You want that?

I do. Who preferred the forgiveness of

God rather than the judgement of God.

That's what He gave this woman this day.

And the second thing he gave her is a second chance to get it

right, another opportunity, an opportunity to say, lift your

head. Let's do this again, Jordan.

Let's do it one more time. Let's turn the key one more

time. Let's start the car one more

time. We serve a good God who is slow

to anger. He has a long fuse.

I am so glad that God is not like us and our short fuse.

He has a long fuse because He's patient and kind.

Amen. Second thing, Father, God has a

short memory, is a long fuse and He has a short memory.

Verse 9 and 12 says God removes our transgressions and He

remembers our sin no more. I love this thought that God is

not holding our sins against us. When we repent of our sins, when

we ask for His forgiveness, He forgives us, and not only does.

He forgive us, he. Forgets, you know, I did my

apprenticeship years with my dad.

I learnt to be a sign writer, an old school sign writer with

brush and paint and not the stick on letters, but the the

real old school deal. And they were happy days.

I loved those days working with my dad.

It's just a beautiful, beautiful time and we did many jobs

together around our city. I was that annoying guy driving

down the road. I did that, I did that, I did

that, see that? I did that, I did that.

Entertaining, we know you did that.

I said guess what did you know I did that one.

So there was this one day we were doing a car yard and dad

said set the Tressel up, paint out the old signage, I'll go

talk to the boss, see the new signage that's got to go up.

And so OK, done fressel's up, planks there, got the roller.

I'm rolling out all the old signage, you know the old

roller. What I didn't allow for that day

was the wind factor in a car yard.

I don't know if you know this, but when you roll paint on a

roller there's little flecks of paint that come off of it, which

is not a problem if it's not windy.

Becomes a very big problem if it is windy.

Very big problem, and unbeknownst to me, I was so busy

doing my job. Dad comes out about 20 minutes

later. Half an hour later, talking to

the boss, this is a New Scientist.

Then I see my dad's face. He's like, stop.

And for me, time slowed down. My dad's running to me in slow

motion. Now you'd think if paint was

coming off my roller and the wind, you'd think God would

allow those little bits of paint to land on the grass.

No 50 cars. I knew it was serious, but I

thought I'd kind of lighten the moment with the British humour.

I said hey Dad, we should charge them extra for that.

That didn't go down well. Young people do dumb young

things anyway. We had a a big clean up job to

do after that. There was a consequence to my

actions and we had to fix it and all risk it.

But but you know what? My dad never did hold that

against me. He's like, now you're fired, get

out of here, get another job. We laughed about it later, a lot

later became a great blessing to the point I'm sharing that story

today. God redemptively using my

stupidity to help us understand something of just how good God

is. I'm so glad that my dad was

there that day to this, not holding that moment against me.

You know, this is the whole idea behind what the Old Testament

calls the Day of Atonement. The Day of Atonement was one day

a year that was set aside to empty your buckets.

What was in those buckets? Hurt, regret, disappointments,

the things that you've done that you find really hard to forgive

yourself. And every year God created this

moment for the people to come and just pour out the bucket

with all of its funk and junk in it.

But if you didn't take advantage of that and you went into the

next year with that bucket, guess what?

The next year is going to have more regret, more hurt.

You can't avoid it. And so if you don't get rid of

your bucket, you go into the next year and you pick up

another one. And so after two years, you've

got 2 buckets. And if you don't, take advantage

of the Day of Atonement. And you go into the third year

and do the same thing. Now you've got 3 buckets.

And if you don't deal with that, pretty soon you've got to

consolidate all that funk and junk and put it in a barrel.

And you've got to grab the barrel, put it on your back,

start walking around. I'm a Christian.

Follow me. It's not very appealing, is it?

And if you don't deal with that barrel, pretty soon you're going

to have to get a crane to carry your funk and junk around for

the rest of your life. But God and His kindness created

a day where we could just. Pour it all out.

And have a fresh start. Years later, one of the psalmist

wrote, hey, it's even better than that.

God's mercies are new every day. You don't even have to wait once

a year. You can have a fresh start every

day because his mercies are new every morning.

How good's that? And then Jesus comes along, the

revolutionary that he is and forever will be.

He says guys, you can forgive yourself and others not just

every day, but 70 * 7 in a day. Now some of you are thinking.

Whoa. That's a heel start for me.

That's just too much. That's OK.

If you can't take on board what Jesus said, at least take on

board what the psalmist said every morning.

And if you can't take on board what the psalmist said, at least

go back to the book of Leviticus and take on the once a year and

let go of your funk and junk. And if your God is meaner than

the book of Leviticus, you need to find a new God.

God is kind, He's good and he's gracious and he loves us and he

wants the best for us. The third thing Father God has.

Is a thick skin if I say thick skin?

Verse 10 says God does not treat us as our sins deserve.

If God punished us every time we deserved it, we would be in a

perpetual state of punishment. You just think about it.

Just selfish attitudes, hurtful words, prideful responses,

materialism. That sounds like my day and

God's thick skin. He doesn't jump on every little

thing that we face. You know, this is what I've

learnt as being a dad is that your kids will let you down and

make you look bad. I certainly did that to my dad.

I think the church has certainly done that when it comes to God.

We make him look bad and I'm so glad that God doesn't come and

just rid us all. I remember when I was 12 years

of age and I did something that did not make my dad look like a

good dad because I made a decision that I was going to

steal something and I stole a packet of bubble gum, got

caught. I was with my mum, she was not

happy. She drove us home and she said

wait till your father gets home. Ever heard those words?

And you know what? When my mom said that, I did not

want to see my dad again. Which was interesting because

only the night before I couldn't wait for my dad to get home

because in the summer months dad would come home from work.

He'd grab us. Boys and all the friends in the

street and we'd go down to the paddocks and play cricket.

I couldn't wait for him, but that particular night I didn't

want to see him again and I was taken right back to the Garden

of Eden when Adam and would walk and talk in the call of the

evening with God until he just did something he shouldn't have

done and then he went into hiding.

And so I went into hiding and went to my room and I was hoping

I'd never see my dad again. This is so crazy.

It's funny where we run, isn't it, When we've done the wrong

thing. Day before I ran 2 my dad after

stealing, doing the wrong thing, I ran away and hid.

When we read the Bible, let's not read it with the eyes of

divinity because we know the end of the story.

Let's read it with the eyes of humanity.

Let's put ourselves in Adam's shoes.

Let's put ourselves in the disciples shoes.

So why were they so afraid in the boat?

Because you would be too. Just because we know the end of

the story doesn't mean we'd have acted any differently.

And so here I am, 12 years of age, hiding in my bedroom, which

is no different than hiding behind a Bush all those years

ago with Adam. Then I hear the car rock up.

Oh, that's my dad. He's coming home.

Mum shouts. Tony, come down.

Tell your father what you did. With tears in my eyes, I managed

to get the words out. I was a hysterical managed to

get the words out that I've got caught shoplifting and I and I

tensed my butt cheeks. You young ones won't know what

that reference is to. We grew up in a different world

and I'm not. I'm just like and he says, Tony,

look at me. He says, Tony, you should have

been quicker. Now I knew two things that day.

My dad was not condoning shoplifting, but he was meeting

me where I was at and he was modeling something that Jesus

models to us, unconditional love, Beautiful.

He didn't make that moment about him.

What I'm so appreciative of that moment was he didn't punish me

according to what I deserved. He didn't give me what I

deserved. I did not deserve what he said

to me. I didn't deserve that.

That was kind. And he didn't tell me off out of

anger or embarrassment as to how I made him look.

Because let's be honest, when your kid steals as a parent, you

don't come off looking good. And he parked all of those

thoughts, parked all of those emotions, said I'm going to give

you what you need. He didn't give me what I

deserved. He gave me what I needed.

And what I needed was the reassurance.

What I needed was the unconditional love.

What I needed was no matter what you do, no matter where you go,

I will never stop loving you. You'll never stop being my son.

Stealing a packet of bubble gum doesn't change your last name.

He told me all that as we went for a walk afterwards.

I'm glad my dad has a thick skin and I trust that as we grow in

Christ our skin gets thicker while our heart remains soft,

that we might continue to display the goodness of God.

Which brings me to my last point, and that is Father God

has a big heart. Verse 13 says that God's

compassion so that he has compassion on His children.

Why? Because God is love.

Doesn't say God. Loves it says he is love.

For God to stop loving would mean he stops being who he is.

And because he loves us, we can love.

And the call today is for us to be in a loving, living

relationship with Him. If you are not a Christian in

this place today and you're in a relationship with him, that's

the invite. But if you are, it's to go

deeper in that relationship with Him.

You know, we've been taught about the 10 commandments

growing up in church many, many times.

I'm sure most of us here have heard of the 10 commandments,

but what you may not know is that the word commandments is

not the word that the Jewish people used.

It wasn't a word that existed for them.

The word that they used was katuba and the 10 commandments

was a ten word katuba. And a katuba was like a a

marriage proposal. It was an offer of relationship.

I love this thought. And the question with any

ketubah or any relationship is what are the expectations in

this relationship in other words?

They're not a list of 10 rules and 10 things that you have to

do in order for God to love you, but they are 10 proofs that He

already does. When Kat and I decided to get

married, we talked about what that would look like, the

expectations. But we talked about those

expectations because we were. Already in love.

And we just wanted to make sure that that love was sustainable

over the years. So what are the expectations?

It wasn't I don't love you, but if you do these things, I might

love you. Can you, Can you imagine that?

Can you imagine me looking at a case of, hey, look, can you do

this, this, this, this and this? And if you do all those things,

I might love you. It's not very romantic, is it?

Imagine the sun setting, the beach, the candles and having

that conversation. Not very romantic.

And this was the the heart behind these ten word Ketubah of

gods. So God's saying, if we're going

to be in a relationship, if we're going to be married, let's

have no other idols. Hey, hey, let's have no other

partners. How about we delete the old

boyfriends, the old girlfriends off social?

How about we get rid of them? Can you imagine going to

someone's house and you've got all these?

These are my old boyfriends. That's not going to work.

And God's saying, I love you, but for this to work, we need to

get rid of some of that stuff. Why?

Because He loves us. And how's this one?

He says, hey, if we're going to do this together, how about we

have one day a week where it's just you and me, Let's have a

date day. I would encourage every married

couple in this place to set aside a day, half a day, a

couple of hours once a week where you can just have no kids,

no friends, no extended family. It's just you and your spouse.

Because a happy house or so a happy spouse makes for a happy

house. It's not a happy wife, happy

life. That's too one sided.

That doesn't work. When does a relationship ever

work? When it's one sided.

Happy wife, happy life. You're kidding me.

No for a. Relation to work.

I have to go both ways. Happy spouse.

I have a responsibility to her, she has a responsibility to me.

Makes for a happy house. So how about we have a day off?

Call it the Sabbath. Oh, game changer.

Now, Can you imagine hearing this from the perspective of a

Jewish slave? That if I'm to receive God in my

life, a life with God, we get a day off.

Jewish slave never had a day off in their life, I get a day off.

Are you telling me that the biggest, strongest people can't

kill the weakest people? Are you?

Are you telling me that this new life with God, this new God's

world, I'm not going to have my stuff taken?

I don't have to have my wife. She's not going to be slept with

by other men. I tell you, no slave is hearing

this thinking. Don't put all these rules on me.

The biggest, strongest people can't rape our wives in God's

new world. Our life, our wife and our stuff

is protected. And on top of that, we get a day

off. This is the best news ever.

If the band come up, our view of our Heavenly Father needs to

change. That we our eyes might be opened

to just how good our God is. He's not waiting for us to get

our life in order in order to have a relationship with Him He

loves. US.

As we are, I mentioned that we became grandparents 10 weeks ago

and when we had the opportunity. Just to hold her.

I found ourselves just staring at her, absolutely besotted, in

love with this young child. Do you know what this young girl

has done for me? Nothing.

It's so bad. Then I looked at her and said

smile, smile. Come on, give us a smile.

Give us nothing. And yet I love her.

I love her, I love her. I hand it to my wife, she does

the exact same thing. At least she got a smile.

Who's staying with me this morning?

Just close our eyes, just for a moment.

Holy Spirit, we're so grateful you're in this room right now.

You never draw attention to yourself, but you point us to 1.

He's been so good and so kind, so gracious.

So loving and so strong. And we take this moment right

here, right now, just to honour you, just to worship you.

My prayer this morning is that every eye would be opened to the

goodness and the greatness of our God.

How kind, how loving, how forgiving is our God?

Holy Spirit, won't you come open our eyes afresh to your

goodness, your kindness, your greatness, and your love as

every eyes close this place? I just want to make a quick

appeal. I mentioned early in the service

that there are some here who maybe you feel like your life is

stalled. You're overwhelmed with all the

things that you know you need to do, but you just can't even do

the basics. I want you to know God sees you,

God knows you, God loves you, and I'd love this moment just to

pray with you and for you. If that is you, can you just

raise your hand wherever you might be?

Say that's me. You pray for me.

You pray for me right now. God bless you guys and girls.

That's awesome. Father, we thank you that you

see us and you know us. And I pray, Father, that where

lives have seemingly been stored, where lives are

overwhelmed with what's not happening, that you would come

in right here, right now, like a flood and overwhelm people with

your goodness, your grace. I pray for a spirit of rest, the

spirit of hope to fall in this place.

Touch people's lives and hearts afresh today.

Won't you come, gracious God, gracious God, come and saturate

us with your love. Come and saturate us with your

brave. Come and saturate us with your

hope in Jesus mighty name.