Living from the Love of The Father

Breakthrough Church: Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Breakthrough Church Podcast. It's good to be with you. ⁓ and I just want to share something the Lord revealed to me ⁓ a couple weeks ago when I was praying and spending time with the Lord. ⁓ I I think, just to set it up, I think one of the most life-changing, if not, no, no, let me rephrase that. The most life-changing discovery that anyone could ever make. Is that there is a God in heaven who loves them more than anything. When you discover the love of God and the love of the Father, everything else falls into place. Not meaning everything in your life will go great. What I mean is his love is life itself. ⁓ the psalmist David says in Psalm 63, because your steadfast love is better than life. My lips will praise you. David had discovered something in the presence of God that the love of God for him satisfied him in a way that nothing else in this world could do. When you discover the love of God and the love of the Father, it's as if you begin drinking from an eternal well that never runs dry, and the water is liquid love. And when you feed on that, you don't need to drink from anything else or any other well. Why do we sin? Because we're doubting the satisfying love of the Father. Why do we go to watch porn? Or why do we go to gossip? Or why do we go and get greedy or envious over what our neighbors have? It's because we have stopped drinking from the well of the Father's love through the Son who displayed that love perfectly on the cross. And by the power of the Spirit, the one who makes his love real to us. Paul says in Ephesians 3, he prays that the eyes of their hearts would be enlightened. Actually, that's Ephesians 1. Ephesians 3, he prays that they would know the love of Christ that what how does he say it? He know that you would know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. How can you know something that is above and transcends knowledge? Knowledge only by the power of the Holy Spirit in you. This is profound. ⁓ and it's very simple. And I believe this is what Jesus experienced on earth, like right before his baptism or right after his baptism, before he did any ministry, before he did anything for God, he found his identity from God. When he gets out of the water, the dove falls on Jesus. And with the dove comes a voice that says, This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased. Identity comes before everything else. And our identity is as beloved ones of God. Those who are loved by God. The primary identity we are to walk in is a person loved by God, who we get to call Father because of his son dying on the cross and sending his spirit. The spirit of adoption who comes in and cries, Abba Father. Identity as sons and daughters, loved by the Father, is where we start, stay, and end our lives. It is the well, his love is the well we drink from that keeps us from drinking from other wells, that keeps us from dreaming of other wells, that keeps us from being. discontent with what we have, because no matter what we have, we're like Paul. We've learned to be content, whether we have much or little, I can do all things through Christ, through his love. I can receive him. I have him. I have the Lord, whether I have platform or nothing, whether I have a relationship I want or nothing, the money that I want or nothing, I have the Lord. His love for me never fails. It's new every morning. This is powerful and really true. But here's the thing. You and I I'm including myself in this, y'all. We are really bad. Let me rephrase that. We really struggle with receiving the Father's love because we cannot earn it. We can't strive for it. We can't work for it in our flesh. Paul talks about this in Galatians. We're going through Galatians as a church right now, and he is abundantly clear that the love of the Father and the blessing of the Father comes. comes to you only by faith in Jesus, not by your works and your flesh. So because we live in a society that is so caught up in working and achieving, when we approach the Father, we think we have to work and achieve. Rather, we trust and receive. That's what we're called to do, trust and receive. But we really struggle to do that. And I think Galatians gives us insight, I'm sorry, Genesis. Genesis gives us insight into why it's very hard for us to receive the love of the Father. So I want to go there with you for about 10 to 15 minutes. ⁓ so whether you're driving in the car or sitting at home, maybe open the word if you have a chance. Not in the car. If you're in the car driving, do not open your Bible and read along. Just listen. But if you're home, you're somewhere, grab your Bible. ⁓ go to Genesis chapter two. Let's unpack this. ⁓ God in the beginning creates everything, right? Okay. ⁓ when he comes to the earth, it says that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. So the Holy Spirit's hovering over ⁓ the face of the waters, and all that's there is it's without form and it's void. It's wild and waste. There's no order structure, nothing to it, no life in it. And so the Holy Spirit begins to work and God speaks. And God said, Let there be light, and there was light. So I'm not going to go through all of it, but what you see God do is he brings order to the chaos and he breathes life into the order that he brings from the chaos. So order and life come as God creates. This is his desire for you. He wants order in your life and he wants to breathe life into you. When there's chaos in your life, the Holy Spirit, he is an expert at coming to bring order where there's chaos. And to breathe life where there's death or where there's nothing. This is what the Spirit of God does. And He does it in Genesis chapter one. Well, at the end of creation, He creates Adam and Eve, and He gives them one job. Basically, work the garden. Help the garden reach its potential. When God created it, he said it was good, not that it was perfect. Not that it was it had a flaw. It was good and without flaw, but it needed to be stewarded so that it could reach its potential. And that was Adam and Eve's job. They were given dominion over the earth, which is kingdom language. They were given authority and power to rule over the earth as if they were in God's shoes. Basically, he's giving them authority. I mean, this is crazy. God is trusting creation and trusting creation to Adam and Eve. Powerful. This is crazy. And he gives them authority. So they name Adam names the animals, and then finally he creates Eve. And Adam's like, ⁓ flesh of my flesh, bone of my bones, you shall be called woman, for you came out of man. They get married. And now you have this married couple that has authority and dominion over the earth to cause it and to steward it into all God wanted it to be. This is leadership. This is biblical leadership, and this is what humankind was created to do: to steward what God has given and created, what God has brought ordered to, what God has brought life to. We are the steward so it can reach its full potential in God and his purposes. This is the goal of creation. So at the end of creation, ⁓ it says that there's a day seven and God rests. A little weird. Why does God rest? Is he tired? Well, no. To make a long story short, resting in the ancient Mesopotamian area that this book was written in, in the ancient Near East, r a God resting me w was connected to temple building. So when a God would build his temple, he would then rest in his temple. His presence would then fill that very thing that he created. This was the goal of all creation. The goal of all creation was for God to dwell in the midst of his creation. Creation is his temple. And his presence was going to flood all of it as Adam and Eve stewarded it and caused it to reach its potential. God's presence. would fill it. His very presence, himself, God himself, his goal was to dwell in the midst of his people and his creation. Powerful. God wants to dwell with you. Paul even says in Ephesians two twenty two that you also are being built together. To be a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. The church, the people of God now, we are that dwelling place now. We are the dwelling place. He has brought order to our lives by forgiving us of our sins through Jesus and giving us the Holy Spirit. He's brought order and breathed life according to the finished work of Jesus. So in creation, God has finished his work and then fills his work in the same way Jesus finished the work, which is redeeming mankind, and then fills his work, the redeemed mankind. With life, that is the Holy Spirit. You see the connection here. And God, what He's doing is ⁓ building a place for Him to rest, building a place for Him to dwell, building a place for Him to be. It's powerful stuff. But here's here so I'm I'm I'm setting you up here because the goal is divine intimacy with the Father, with God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit dwelling intimately with all of mankind. This was the goal. Infinite Love. It says that they were naked and unashamed. Adam and Eve were naked and unashamed. They needed no covering up. They were completely exposed, no threat, no fear, no shame, totally loved by God and each other, receiving and giving love to God and to each other. It's amazing. And so this relationship was supposed to be based in love. In John, Jesus says, Would you ⁓ what does he say? Love ⁓ glorify me with the glory I had with you before the world existed. And then he talks about the love that God had for him before the world existed. What existed before creation was a triune God dwelling in perfect unity and in love with each other. Only love. This God is love, first John tells us. And out of that love came creation. He wanted to share that love and intimacy with his creation, specifically mankind. So, what marks this relationship is love. What should mark you and I, what's the most normal, natural thing according to God's original design, is that you and I would live in complete harmony with the love of the Father. That we never second guess, we're naked and unashamed. Everything about us is exposed to God, and He is exposed to us, and there's no hurt or fear or shame, but perfect love dwelling together. That's the goal. But There is a problem. And here's the problem. God told Adam and Eve, You can eat of any tree of the garden, but the tree of the knowledge of the tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, do not eat of it. So this represents a choice. Are Adam and Eve going to trust in God and his provision and his love for them? Are they going to find total rest and satisfaction in divine intimacy and love with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? Or are they gonna think there's something better out there and choose to go find it on their own in their flesh? What is the consequence? God tells them the con the consequence of you going to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is death. Okay? You're gonna die if you eat of that tree. So let's see what actually happens. Let me just read from Genesis 3. Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, Did God actually say, You shall not eat of any tree in the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, You shall not eat. Of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it lest you die. But the serpent said to the woman, You will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. Okay, stop. What is this what is the serpent doing? He is casting doubt on the nature and character of God, his love. He's saying, For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be open. So, in other words, God isn't telling you the whole picture, the whole story here, Adam and Eve. He knows something he's not telling you. And that if you eat of it, your eyes are going to be opened. You're going to be like God and you're going to know good and evil. What does know good and evil mean? Knowing good and evil means being able to determine good and evil on your own, independent from God. So you are basically acting like God. You're saying that's good and that's wrong. And this is the promise that Sirp the Serpent says. You're going to become your own God. He knows that if you do this, you'll be your own God. You won't need him anymore. And so he's afraid of that happening. And so he doesn't want it to. He gave you this rule. He doesn't actually love you. He just wants to h hold back from you. He wants to not ⁓ be good to you. And here we have right here one of the first and one of the primary ways we struggle or reasons we struggle to receive the Father's love is because we think he's holding back from us. If we really just had this thing that we want. Then I'll know God loves me as much as He did. And until we let go of that agenda, that expectation, that thing we're longing for, until we let go of it and realize that it may not be God's will, it may not be from God. And I just go to God and I receive his love unconditioned, I won't be able to because I haven't let go of that thing. What's what what the enemy loves to do is cast doubt and say, God knows that if you, if you really just ate of that thing. Then you'd be like him. So he's actually holding back from you. His greatest lie of the enemy is that God's not as good as he said he is, and he's holding, he's withholding from you. But what we know from the gospel is that what Paul says if he who did not withhold his own son will only also graciously with him give us all things, we've seen the nature and character of God in the cross. We have seen what he has done on the cross in not withholding his greatest possession, most valued possession. It's hard to put, you cannot even put a number to how valuable Jesus is to the Father. They existed for eternity past and will always exist together in perfect intimacy. There's no one the Father loves more than the Son. And he gave him up to die on a cross for sinners like you and me. We should never doubt the love and goodness of God towards us. Yet the serpent is so good at wiggling into our minds and hearts and saying, God's holding back from you. So you need to go get what's yours. And this is what the enemy does, and this is what Adam and Eve do. So they go and they see the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise. She took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. So they do exactly what they didn't. They look at this other well, this other way of maybe r receiving what they only can receive in God, but now they doubt they can receive it in God, because God's holding back from them. So I've to go over to this well and drink from this well. Cause the other one ain't cutting it anymore, which isn't actually true. This is a lie. The enemy runs on lies. His scheme is lies. He lies to you that this well over here will satisfy when God has said, No, I have the unending well of my love for you. Just drink of this whenever you want. You can have it whenever you want. And if you go over to this other well, it's just gonna l end in death. And so, what does death look like when we in our flesh take and eat from some well that's not been provided for us? What does that produce in us? It produces death. And in verse 7, we see what death looks like in the eyes of God. Because they don't drop dead physically. That's not what he means by death, although that's a consequence later. That's not primarily what God means by death. Then the eyes of both were opened, which is exactly what the enemy said that would happen. So there's some truth in his lies, which makes them very believable. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew. That they were naked. The first consequence to drinking from a well that God did not provide for you is knowing that you're naked. Which begs a question, did they not know beforehand? Remember, they were naked and unashamed. They were naked, but they didn't give one thought to it. It was God, I mean, they just knew they were naked. God, God didn't tell them to cover them themselves up. Being naked and exposed and unashamed in God's presence was the original design. There's no fear, there's not and now here all of a sudden they know that they're naked. The first thing that happens when you sin is awareness of self. You become aware of yourself, your shortcomings. Your guilt, you just become aware of yourself because you're doing something God did not create for you. And death is separating yourself from God. And instead of being conscious of God, you're conscious of yourself. And that is death. Being conscious of self is death according to God. Why is it death? Look what it leads to. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. They covered themselves up. They covered themselves up. Did God ever say being naked was bad? No. Being naked was not bad. But in their newfound quote unquote freedom, which is really slavery to sin and death, in their newfound freedom, quote unquote, they looked inward, were conscious of them themselves alone. And determined that their nakedness was bad, something God never determined was evil, they determined was evil. Left to our own devices, we determine things are evil that God determines are good, and we determine things determine things are good that God determines is evil. We cannot be God. Our view is skewed and our perspective is limited. And when we try to be God, we look inward when we're conscious, conscious, conscious of ourselves. We look inward and begin to pick apart ourselves and say, that's bad, that's evil, that's ugly, gotta cover that up. And we begin to cover it up, and this is called shame. So now they're naked and full of shame. And because of that, they hide. They try to cover themselves up with fig leaves, fake clothes. And when they hear the sound of the of God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, they hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God. Among the trees of the garden, everything is now broken. When they were supposed to be naked and unashamed, receiving and giving love from God and to God continually all of their days, now they're hiding from the very one who loves them more than anything. And the Lord God calls out to Adam, Where are you? And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself. Why would someone hide if they were afraid? That fear has to do with punishment. So what are they afraid of being punished? They have disobeyed. They're full of sin now and full of guilt and shame. They've covered themselves and they're hiding because if they met with God, they would be met by punishment, and they would not be met by love. And he says, Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? And the man begins to point fingers, and the woman begins to point fingers. And so then God pronounces curses on the serpent, on Adam, and on Eve. It's a tragic story because they were supposed to dwell in perfect intimacy with the Father. Like I I shared at the very beginning, they were created to drink from the well of God's liquid love forever and ever, being totally satisfied by him and him alone, and by no one else or nothing else in this earth. And yet they go and they drink of another well, offending God and his generosity and his goodness and his love. And so God has to get them out of the garden, but he kicks them out of the garden, not because he's mad. You see, never in this story, I'm not saying there's not anger present because God is angry at sin. And he curses it. I mean, he curses them. So you can't tell me he's not just. But he doesn't lash out in raw anger because he's offended by their disobedience. He doesn't do it. He he does two things. He clothes them, clothes them, clothes them. That's a hard word to say. And he drives them out of the garden. Why does he do those things? Not because he's angry and mad and doesn't want anything to do with them anymore, but because if they stay in the garden, they'll eat of the tree of life and they will exist in the fallen, sinful state forever. And he does not want his children to do that. So he drives them out, places a cherubim and a flaming sword at the east of the tree of life and the tree of the garden or the garden of Eden. But the other thing that he does is very interesting. This is where I want to kind of close right here. And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skin and clothed them. Remember, Adam and Eve clothed themselves with fig leaves and loincloth. Why did they do that? Because they were covering something that they had determined was evil, and they hid because of that. What does that mean? That means that they believed and determined that their nakedness was going to disqualify them from the love of the Father. Okay, catch that. They determined their nakedness, disqualified them from the love of God. Here, the Lord God is covering their nakedness with garments of skin. Here's the question Why would God cover something he never said was bad? Nakedness was not bad according to God. He determined that nakedness was good. He never wanted to cover it up. They were naked and unashamed. God had no agenda, no plan of covering up their nakedness, and yet here he's covering up their nakedness. Why? Because their nakedness is what they determined disqualified them from his love. God is not covering their nakedness to make them lovable again. He's not covering their nakedness because he can't bear the sight of them anymore. He's covering their nakedness so that they would stop staring at it and disqualifying themselves from his love. He's giving them the capacity to receive his love again. Giving him the capac giving them the capacity to receive his love again in a now sinful fallen state. He's like, okay, now the deal has changed. You're not naked and ashamed, you're naked and shamed. I am going to cover your shame and your nakedness with garments of skin so that you can receive my love again. Because my love has not stopped for you. Yes, you've sinned. Yes, you've run for me. My love has not Ended. It's not ever going to end. It is a fierce river running towards you with force, always. But you now need to receive the capacity to receive my love again. Because we all do this, guys. We all look at different areas of our life, whether it's our habits, our relationships, our mindset, our lack of something, or abundance of something. We look at those things and we determine God will not love us as much as He says he does because of that. Or we may say, yes, I I believe God loves me so much, but in our lived experience, we have not received that love. We have not been healed in our hearts. We've not received it in fullness because we have something we look at and say, No way, God will love me because of that thing. And in God's grace and kindness, He wants to come and He wants to cover that thing so that you no longer give it attention, so that you're no longer conscious of it, but that you're only conscious. Of his great, amazing love for you. This is the powerful news of the gospel. Because this garment of skin is a picture of what Jesus will do later. Because in order to get these garments of skins, an animal had to die and blood had to be spilled. This is a reference to what Jesus will do later. When he hangs on a cross, it says that he despised the shame. And he endured the cross. He looked down on shame. And he, publicly exposed, naked, despising the shame on the cross, provides for you and I a better word than what we speak over ourselves. And his skin, when we say yes to Jesus, his skin then covers those areas. Ooh, get this. Covers those areas that we determine disqualify us from his love. And he says, no, no, no, don't look at those, look at my skin that was beaten for you. You wanna know what God really thinks about you? I don't care what you think about you. I want you to know what God thinks about you. And you know what God thinks about you? When you see that area of your life, that sinful habit, when you look at it, guess what you're gonna see it covered with? The skin off my back, Jesus said. That's broken, bloodied, and beaten. That's how much God loves you. You see, Jesus didn't die on the cross to make you lovable again. And Jesus didn't die on the cross so that God could finally bear to look at you. He died on the cross to prove that his love has never stopped and will never stop coming after you. And we receive that by giving him our nakedness, by giving him the things that we look at and determine God does not love me because of this thing. When we give him that in confession, which is very much like being stripped naked. And bear and exposing ourselves. When we do that, we are not met by punishment, we are met by love. A God who loves you more than you could ever imagine. This is the gospel message. That in Jesus we find the fullness of the love of the Father that has always been there. And now we finally have the capacity to receive it. Because our shame and our nakedness and our guilt has been covered. By the blood of the Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. When you say yes to him, that love comes rushing in. But saying yes to him is not simple as simple as just saying yes, Jesus. It looks like laying everything down at his feet, fully exposing yourself and saying, God, here's who I am. And I receive your love, anyways, because I know your love speaks a better word and is stronger than anything I'm holding on to. And when his love comes, he begins to heal. He begins to And to deliver and to lead you and shepherd you beside still waters and green pastures. He restores your soul. He's such a good father. And so if anybody out there has fear about what would happen if you brought those things to you or to the Lord, I want you to know that you will not be met by punishment. You will be met by love. Come to the Lord, give him your shame, give him your guilt. Those things that you've done. That you know are wrong, that consciousness of self, those things that you try to cover yourself with. You maybe sinned in this way, but now you're trying to cover it up by pursuing wealth, pursuing happiness outside of God, pursuing lust and sex and drugs and alcohol, ⁓ religion, even if you're looking. So all of these things we look to to cover the guilt that we feel. But when we give those efforts to him and the very guilt we have, he takes them and says, I've put those on my son Jesus already. You're free. Be free. And we receive by faith. And everything God has for us becomes flooding into our hearts because we finally receive the Father's love. ⁓ man, this is really, really good news. And we receive it by faith in Jesus Christ alone. Just believe it's true today, guys. Believe the Father's love for you today. Believe that He really is as good as He said He is. Let me pray for you. Father, in the name of Jesus, any lie. That anyone listening to is believing that came from Satan about how good you are or not good you are, I command that lie to fall now in the name of Jesus. And I pray, Father, that your love would flood hearts even at the mention of your name, Jesus, and even at the sound of this podcast. I pray, Father, that your love would flood hearts right now, that it would be received by faith, that you really do love us, and that your love overcomes the very things we think. Disqualify us from your love. Those are the very areas that we are to encounter your love the most deeply. So I pray we would begin to see the areas of weakness in our lives and see this the areas of struggle and sin. Would we begin to see those as portals to your love? And any lie about, ⁓ I want to, I don't want to take advantage of God. I got to earn it, right? I got to pay him back in some way. No, that's not how the love of the Father works. The love of the Father is unconditional because he created you in love and out of love. And there's nothing that he wants more than for you to receive his love. And so receive it now by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and by the power of the Spirit. Be clothed in the garments of Jesus. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ and his righteousness. You are perfect and holy and so loved in God's sight. Receive it now in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Such good news, guys. And I hope you receive it. Pray on this, meditate on this. If you need to listen to this again, go for it. Cause I just gave you a lot. ⁓ that was a lot in 30 minutes. I didn't expect to go that long, but I believe that it was the Lord. And I believe many of you that are listening to this are going to be set free from sin, guilt, condemnation, self-righteousness. You're just going to be set free as you receive the Father's good love for you. And so get after it. Go pray. Receive the Lord's love for you again. And we'll see you next week. As always, ⁓ come visit us on a Saturday, 5 p.m. where we end right around 6 30. It's a beautiful time. This last weekend we had a beautiful time of worship. The Lord was there and ministering and delivering. ⁓ it was really cool to watch people get touched by the Lord and would love for you to join us as the Holy Spirit just begins to form in us a dwelling place for God. ⁓ we pray Tuesday mornings ⁓ at 5 15 a.m. at the Farmers Branch campus of the branch church. and we also pray at 6 30 p.m. at 1320 Holly Drive in Richardson, where we meet also for church on Saturdays at five. I would love to see you at any or all of those. Love you guys and see you next time.