The Fatherhood of God | Steve Brading

It's great to be with you.

I had a dream last night.

I dreamt suddenly I was standing in front of two doors.

And the wind came through the door with such power I couldn't stand.

Just before the prayer meeting today, Andy said, I can see a door with the wind blowing through the doors with great power.

I believe it's a word for you as a church.

That God is wanting to bring a new power, he's wanting to free you from timidity, he's wanting to put a new power and a new anointing and a new joy and a new sense of his spirit powerfully upon you in this day for what he wants to do in Harpington, St.

Albans, and beyond.

Can you say amen?

Amen.

Hallelujah.

Turn with me to John chapter 20.

John 20 · chapter mention

My uh privilege today to be with you with everybody yesterday and uh really sense God's spirit among you.

It's great to great to be with Neil and Sonia again.

And I went to their wedding and uh spent some time with Neil many years ago.

He's a great friend, and I I really honour Neil and Sonia and for the work they do.

They're a tremendous couple and uh carry great blessing in God.

You're really privileged to have them as uh leaders in your midst, aren't you?

And other leaders, I know, but um you know they really are.

They're outstanding couple, so praise, praise the Lord.

Now I'm gonna round off today.

I'm gonna speak on the great Bible or the great New Testament doctrine.

You've been doing a series, and I'm gonna round it out today, and we're gonna speak on the great New Testament doctrine of the fatherhood of God, and I want you to look at uh John chapter 20, and I want you to look at first of all verse 11.

John 20 · chapter mention

It says this, but Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept, she stooped to look into the tomb, and she saw two angels in white sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet.

And they said to her, Woman, why are you weeping?

And she said to them, They've taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they've lain him.

And having said this, she turned round and she saw Jesus standing.

But she did not know that it was Jesus.

And Jesus said to her, Woman, why are you weeping?

Whom are you seeking?

Now, supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, I wonder how many times we missed Jesus.

Supposing him to be the gardener.

She said to him, Sir, if you've carried him away, tell me where you've lain him, and I will take him away.

And Jesus said to her, Mary.

She turned and she said to him in Aramaic, she said, Riboni, which means teacher.

And Jesus said, Do not cling to me, for I've not yet ascended to the Father, but go to my brothers and say to them, I am ascending to my father and your father, to my God and your God.

And Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, I've seen the Lord.

And she told the disciples of Jesus had said these things to her.

I'd love to have seen her face, wouldn't you?

I'd love to have seen her face.

And then John chapter 5 and verse 16.

John 5 · chapter mention

And this is after Jesus had healed a man who had been paralyzed for thirty-eight years.

He healed him.

And this is why the Jews were persecuting Jesus.

Because he was doing these things on the Sabbath.

But Jesus answered, My father is working until now, and I am working.

This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him.

Because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own father, making himself equal with God.

And so Jesus said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord or authority, but only what he sees the Father doing for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise.

Father, I thank you for this great church, and I pray that you keep me from being long-winded and boring.

I pray, Lord Jesus, that you'd powerfully come and do whatever you want to do.

Let that wind of your spirit come and breathe upon this church and take them into the area with a new sense of commission and anointing, I pray.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Want to speak, therefore, on the great doctrine of the fatherhood of God.

The Bible, I want to say by introduction, gives three things.

The Bible gives us two yardsticks of God's love.

The first one is John 16.

For God so loved the world, 3.16, for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

It's one which we know, but it's not the only one.

Because it says in 1 John 3.16, it says, In this is the love of God, now made manifest to us that we should be called the children of God.

And that's exactly what we are.

The children of God.

And so there are two yardsticks which are clearly given in the Bible.

Just imagine, um let's pick on um, it's Andy, isn't it?

Just you're right if I pick on you, Andy.

You're sitting in the wrong place, mate.

Just it just imagine, just for sake that um I'm I'm the headmaster of this school.

And Andy's one of the pupils.

And Andy has been the naughtyest boy in the school.

Is that possible?

Andy, these are supposed to be your friends.

It's a prophetic word, okay.

He's broken all the rules, he's graffited everywhere, he's smashed the windows, he's never done his homework, he's been rude.

And I call him into the office and I say, Look, I don't know what to do with you, Andy.

But what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna give you a new start, a clean start.

Next term, when you come in, I'm gonna pretend you're a new boy, and uh you start with a clean slate.

That is what the cross has done for us.

It's cleaned us up, it's given us a new start, a total, total new start.

But it's another thing when I say to Andy, Andy, I realize why you're so naughty, is because you don't have parents that care for you.

And you're desperately trying to gain attention.

And I've been talking with my wife, and uh we don't have children, and we have decided to adopt you into our family.

So you will carry the headmaster's name, my name will now be your name.

You can drive the Ferrari, you can take the boat out at weekends, you can live in the east wing of the mansion, you know.

You everything that I have is now yours.

You see, not only is the cross forgiveness and cleaned our lives up, we have now been drawn into the kingdom of God.

We carry the name, we carry that we are children of God, we're a royal priesthood, a chosen people.

We belong to God, we're the children of God, and we need to walk with a new sense of dignity and uprightness that we actually are the children of God.

The second thing, by the way, of introduction, is that the fatherhood of God is a New Testament doctrine.

In the Old Testament, we get glimpses of God being the Father.

He's the Father of the Fatherless.

But by and large, in the Old Testament, he's seen as creator, Almighty, El Shaddai.

And uh the Jews knew the name of God Echiawe, and it was so holy that you you couldn't get the Jews to pronounce it because it was it was too sacred, it was too holy, and uh God is holy and separate from us.

We we we dare not even mention his name.

And when we come to the New Testament, we find that Jesus is the one who brings revelation, and the whole teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is based on the fatherhood of God.

And so when Jesus speaks, he says, by the way, he says, You are now to have the character of your father in heaven.

Character of our father in heaven?

What's he talking about?

Be sons of your father in heaven, and by the way, the whole life of faith, your father knows your need before you even ask.

Father knows our needs.

What's he talking about?

And by the way, when you pray, you are now to say our you to say our father.

And it was Jesus who bought this whole revelation.

And on the day when he died and rose again from the dead, and he appeared to Mary, and she supposed, I mean, she supposed he was a gardener.

Spurgeon has written a brilliant sermon on that.

Supposing he was the gardener.

Oh boy, read Spurgeon.

And then Jesus said, Mary.

She realized who it was, and he said, Go and tell my disciples, I am ascending to my father and your father, to my God and to your God.

And Mary Magdalene went with the news, I have seen the Lord.

The third thing, by the way of introduction, is this is that Jesus is the perfect example of a son.

And Jesus came to bring revelation of what it means to be a son of God in our midst, and on the lips of Jesus, to be the Son of God and to have God as his father, it means four things.

And all of those four things apply to you and to me as God's adopted children, as his sons and daughters.

The first thing that it means, it means to have authority.

To have authority.

When Jesus in in John chapter 5 he went to the pool of Beth Seda, he raised up this person because he heard from the Father, raise him up.

John 5 · chapter mention

And as he raised him up, the Jews said this.

They said, Well, what's going on?

What's going on?

How dare you do this sort of thing on the Sabbath day?

Now, how incredible, how blinding religion can be.

Because they see a miracle in front of their eyes.

You see a person who's been paralyzed for 38 years, suddenly walking down the road, carrying his bed, and um all the Jews can do is say, Wow, what right have you got to be doing this sort of thing?

And uh Jesus says this He said, My father is working, and I too am working.

Whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise.

In other words, what Jesus was saying, that that when the father spoke to him, he carried out the promptings and the voice of what the father was telling him to do, and when he did it, it carried weight and authority.

I only do what the father tells me to do.

Wouldn't that be amazing if we only did what the father told us to do?

It's not our own bright idea or scheme.

We did what the father told us to do, we would carry the weight and authority of heaven.

God has given to us the Holy Spirit, and we're told in Romans 8 it says that the sons of God are those who obey the Spirit of God.

All who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.

And what God wants with you and with me, He wants us to be so filled and sensitive to the voice of the Holy Spirit that when God speaks to us to do something or to speak to someone or go and pray for somebody or go into a situation, we do it.

And as we do it, we carry the weight and authority and blessing of heaven.

That's just how it is, that's what the church should be.

I'm gonna pray at the end this morning for you to have a new sensitivity, and me as well, I'm in on it, to the voice of the Holy Spirit.

My neighbour went into hospital very seriously ill.

I'd never spoken to him about Jesus, and I felt the Holy Spirit while I was praying in the morning really prompt me and say, write to him, send a text, and underline how you become a Christian.

And so I did that.

And I got a reply back saying, Thank you, Steve, for your text.

But to be honest, um, I've got way too much on my plate for this sort of thing.

I I've got a lot on my plate, and I can't cope with this right now.

And I thought, You fool, Steve Brading, what have you done?

And I felt the Holy Spirit just say, Hold on a minute, I told you to do it.

The next day I got another text, and he said this.

He said, I've been awake all night.

He said, I've read your text and reread your text.

He said, I've prayed through every single line of your text.

He's become a Christian, he's read through Matthew, Mark, Luke, John.

We do a Bible study with him every week.

We baptized him last year.

We're doing a Bible study with him and his wife.

It's just because at the end of the day, we step out of our comfort zone and we obey the promptings of the Holy Spirit, and God opens a doorway to what he wants to do.

It isn't, it's not, it's not rocket science.

All it is is simple obedience to the promptings of the Holy Spirit.

So when the Holy Spirit tells you to um speak to that person, to speak to that person in Sainsbury's, to encourage that person, to write to that person, always, always, always obey the promptings of the Holy Spirit, because when we do, we carry the weight and authority of heaven.

Sometimes it gets a bit scary.

It gets a bit scary.

When I first got saved, I used to um hitchhike around and um used to speak to people any any words which came which I felt God give me.

Sometimes I would drive and just pick up hitchhikers too, in the days when they used to hitchhike a little bit.

And uh I remember saying to a guy as I picked him up, I said, Why why I just felt the Holy Spirit say, ask him why he doesn't go to church anymore.

I said, Why do you go to church anymore?

He said, How do you know I used to go to church?

I said, I feel the Holy Spirit just prompted me to ask you.

So he said, You're right.

He said, I used to go to church.

I used to be in the choir, and he's and then he told me a story.

He said, I've I got married some months ago, and he said, My wife has just tragically died.

He said, I'm going to her parents.

I end up praying with this guy.

We are in a in a world where there are broken, needy people all around.

They're waiting for you and me just to be obedient to the promptings of the Holy Spirit.

I had to go to New Zealand to speak while we were living in Sydney, Australia.

We lived out there church planting for eight years.

The taxi arrived early in the morning, arrived at five o'clock in the morning, and this is where it gets a bit scary.

A taxi arrived at five in the morning.

I always like to sit in the front of the taxi because um I can talk to the driver.

I sat in the front, he drove towards the airport, and as we got probably about half a mile down the road, I felt this Holy Spirit say to me, say this to me.

He is cheating on his wife.

So I said, Lord, please, no, not at this time of the morning.

I'm I'm just not going there.

And as we got further down the road, I just felt my heart was going to explode.

I just felt say to him, he's cheating on his wife.

So this guy was merrily driving along.

I just turned to him and I said, Are you cheating on your wife?

I mean, I thought, oh, here we go.

I'm getting out at the airport, I'll be gone.

Um, but at that moment, it's almost as though he lost control of the car.

And he turned and he said, Yes! How did you know?

I said, I'm a pastor of the church.

God has just told me.

So he looked at me and he started to repent of every sin he'd ever done.

He started to say, I've done this, I've done this, sending my son to college and to a Catholic college.

And I ended up praying with him to become a Christian and praying with him in the car.

He said he'd come to church the following Sunday.

And I could give you example after example of situations which happen like this.

Because when we obey the prompting of the Holy Spirit, when we move out of our comfort zone, what we do, we carry the blessing of God because God is wanting to reach a lost and needy and desperate world out there, and he's wanting you and me just to obey the promptings of the Holy Spirit, move beyond our comfort zones and go and do it.

Amen.

In our home, we needed the TV aerial fix in.

And the guy came round, and as he walked across the room, I just felt God say to me, He's got a bad back.

So as he walked across the room, I said, Uh, do you have a bad back?

So he looked at me, he said, How did you know that?

I said, I'm pastor of a church and God has just spoken to me.

So he said, All right.

I said, Well, what we normally do, I said, we normally pray for people.

Um, he came over to me and he took off his hat and he said, I'm all yours.

So I so I said, All right.

Um, so I said, Well, where what's happening then?

What what where's the pain?

He said, The pain, he said, I have a pain which starts in my stomach.

He says, it goes down through my left testicle, he says, up to my back.

He said, I've been to doctor and doctor after specialist after specialist, he said, and nobody seems to be able to help me.

And I laid hands on him, and as I did, the Holy Spirit came on him.

He said, But this is what he was doing in our front room.

Woo! And then he said, uh, he said, uh, he says, I think I'm getting taller.

And uh he says, and then he said, he said, I feel like dancing around the room.

I said, well, please do, you know, and uh and uh and suddenly um he would he was touched.

He said something had happened in him, but the power of God had touched him, and then he said this to me.

He said the previous week that he'd been at a baptism service, and his c his nephew had got baptized, and he said he got up and gave a wonderful speech.

He'd obviously given his testimony, and he'd have really spoken to this guy.

Next minute he comes into my house, walks across the room, you got a bad back.

And God wants to use you and he wants to use me.

I'm no expert.

There aren't any experts.

We all got big L plates, I have.

But God wants to cause us to obey the promptings of the Holy Spirit, and as we do, we will carry the weight and authority of heaven.

Speak to that person in your work, speak to that person in your office, offer to pray for them, go and see that neighbor, encourage them, and as we do, we carry the weight and authority of heaven.

We're not here just to come up with loads and loads of bright ideas and schemes.

We're here to obey the promptings and the leading of the Holy Spirit, and we carry the weight and authority of heaven.

Can you say amen?

It first of all means authority.

The second thing it means, it actually means fellowship.

In John chapter 8 and verse 29, it says this it says, The one who sent me is the one who is with me.

John 8 · chapter mention

He has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him.

In the context of John chapter 8, that it is probably the most difficult time for Jesus.

John 8 · chapter mention

One of the most difficult times.

The teachers of the law and the scribes and Pharisees came up.

And they said this, uh, who do you think you are?

Who do you claim to be?

And uh, who are you?

And in the end, Jesus said this He says, Verily, verily, or truly, truly, I'm going to tell you the truth.

He says, Before Abraham was, Egoimi, before Abraham was, I am.

And he says, as he spoke the truth, at that the Jews retaliated, they picked up stones to kill him.

Because he called and said, The divine name of God, egoime, I am.

He used the divine name of God.

And then he says this that Jesus said, In the midst of this, the one who sent me is the one who is with me.

He has not left me, for I always do what pleases him.

God's commitment to you and to me is amazing.

His word is, I will never leave you, I will never forsake you.

Therefore, we can be confident that God is our Father.

I will not be afraid.

What can man do to me?

When I first went to um I went to Bible college actually, not so far from here in Eisney, in Ware.

Is that nearby?

And uh up the I went there and then I had to go, I was there for two years, I had to go into church leadership.

I was called to be a youth pastor in this church.

And uh the first year nearly killed me.

My first Sunday, I'd ask a young man of 21 to come and give his test to me, and they said, Oh, there's an ambulance outside his house.

Ian is not here.

I said, What?

They said, he's been taken to hospital with appendicitis.

I went to the hospital and the nurse called me into the office and said, uh, who are you?

I said, I'm the pastor of the church, the youth pastor.

She said, We've opened Ian up.

He was riddled with cancer.

She said, He's got nine months to live.

He thought, What?

It's my first Sunday.

Another man got up and walked out of the church because he said to the church that he should have been the youth pastor and not me.

And he got up and he m he stood up and he marched out of the church.

And his words were, as I leave the church, God leaves the church.

That's what he said.

Actually, God blessed the church when he left.

I'd also given up a very good career with the management of uh Marks and Spencer's.

And they said to me, Money will never be an object to you if you stay with us.

When I got with the deacons, they were squabbling about how much money the minister could earn.

And I and one of them says, Well, I don't get paid that much.

And I thought, let me out of it.

I'll do I'll do this whole thing for nothing.

Just get me out of it.

And then some of the deacons took us out, and after we'd been there for two, after being there for ten weeks, two of the deacons took us out for dinner.

And I was the pastor, the assistant pastor, the youth leader, and they said this to us they said, Are we getting value for money?

We two of us.

I'm not value for anybody's money.

And their their thinking was this as businessmen, with a church of 100 with one person.

Now we got two, we expect it to grow to 200.

And they said, Are we getting souls for our money?

I'll tell you what, I've I was finished.

I thought, I've had I've had enough, I'm ready to quit.

This is my first year, I was 27.

I went home and I knelt down and I cried out to God, I said, I've had enough, I'm getting out of it, I can't cope with this.

I also spoke in tongues, and uh that didn't go down too well.

And when I knelt down to pray, I had the first vision in my life, I had a vision of angels descending and ministering to me, and then going back to the father.

In the morning, the phone rang.

The lady said, Steve, what on earth was happening to you last night?

I felt so concerned to pray for you.

She said, I prayed, and she said, I saw a vision of angels coming and ministering to you, and then going back to the father.

And I felt God just encouraged me that the one who calls us is the one who is with us.

No matter how difficult the situation gets.

And you've been in a difficult situation.

What's your name, my love?

Sarah.

Sarah.

So you've been in a difficult situation, and they've been, I can see a question mark over you.

You've questioned, what on earth am I doing here?

You've even wondered, what is my value in this situation?

And the one who calls you is the one who is with you.

He will never leave you, he will never forsake you, he will be committed to you at the end.

And Jesus, when they were hostile towards him, they started throwing stones at him because he told the truth and was doing as God's will, he wasn't liked for it.

And not everybody will love you for wanting to serve God, and some will throw bricks and hostility at you.

But this is the truth that the one who calls you is the one who is with you.

He will never, ever leave you, he will never, ever, ever forsake you.

Amen.

You can go through some of the most difficult times, and God's commitment to you and to me is this I will never leave you, I will never forsake you.

Therefore, you can be confident, and I can be confident, that God is my helper.

What can man do to me?

I spoke to a friend of mine, Keith, and I said, How was your year last year, Keith?

And he said, It's been terrible.

So I said, What on earth happened?

He said, Um, he said, I had a court case over me.

He said, I'm an engineer, and he said I got involved in a project which went a bit wrong.

And he said, and they they decided to sue me.

And he said, I've had this case which has been over me for the whole year.

And he said, it's all got sorted out, got resolved, and we've moved on now.

And then he said this to me, he said this.

He said, What I don't want to do, Steve, is to lose the sense of the closeness of God that I felt during that time.

He said, I felt the presence of God.

It was a most difficult time, but I felt the presence of God like I'd never known before.

When you pass through the waters, it says in Isaiah, I will be with you.

When you pass through the fires, you will not get burned.

You will not.

And God's commitment to you is that I will never leave you, I will never forsake you.

You can be confident that God is my helper.

What can man do to me?

So it means authority, it means fellowship.

He will never leave you, no matter how tough the going gets.

The third thing that it means, it means this.

And this has got to be the greatest verse in the Bible.

It's it means love.

In John chapter 17 and verse 23, Jesus prays this astonishing prayer.

John 17 · chapter mention

And he prays that the world, John 17, 23, that the world will know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you love me.

Put up your hand if you believe God the Father loves his son Jesus.

Put up your other hand if you believe he loves him very much.

Yeah, we do.

Put up your hand if you believe that God loves Neil and Sonia.

Billy Graham, Terry Virgo.

Yeah, okay.

It's easy for us sometimes to believe that God loves Terry Virgo.

Loves Wendy Virgo, loves Neil, loves Sonia.

But it's more difficult sometimes that God loves me.

And what Jesus is praying, he said, I pray that they know.

I pray gunesco, I pray they get it, and it means deep in their in their innermost being, I pray that they get it, that they will know that they are loved as much as I'm loved.

I mean, loved as much as Jesus is loved.

Oh, come on.

You can love somebody loved as much as Jesus.

No, he's praying.

I pray that they get it, that they will know it, that they're loved as much as Jesus is loved.

It's interesting.

I've got one of my sons here this morning.

Well, now, first we have uh four children.

We have um we have three sons who live here.

We have one, a daughter who died, and she lives with Jesus.

We we have when the first son was born, David, I picked him up, his little wet sticky bundle, and I looked at him, and I thought, I just love this guy.

And you sort of don't quite know how to hold them or what to do, and you know, you do the best you can, and you just felt, I love this guy, number one.

And then Esther was born, and she died later.

But when Esther was born, I found an astonishing thing happened.

I thought, I love this one as well.

And I found the most amazing thing, I didn't have to say to David, oh sorry, we I loved you with all my heart, but sorry now.

We got two now, now it's only half, half and half.

And then when Simon's born, I didn't find I had to say, Oh, sorry, David, it was a whole, then it's half, and it's now a third, a third, a third, a third.

And then when Jamie was born, I found also the same that I love number four as much as number two, and number two as much as number one, and number one as number three, number three as much as who do you like the most?

I love them all.

You have, as a father or a mother, you have capacity to love them all with everything you've got.

And what Jesus is praying here is that we would get it, that we are loved as much as his loved.

Let them get it deep in their being.

And I want to pray for men at the end this morning because I've found that sometimes that men can struggle with insecurity, and sometimes because of their own fathers, have not brought them up or encouraged them or affirmed them, and it can leave deep scars on them.

I want to pray because it comes by a revelation of the Holy Spirit.

I was leading a ski trip once, and there was a very insecure girl on this trip.

Her name was Rose.

That's not her real name, that's just the name I'm using.

And I noticed this when we stopped at a coffee bar that uh there'd be a group of girls chatting and talking, and Rose would come and suddenly she would she would talk, and everybody else would sort of disappear.

And I noticed this happened quite a few times, and she ended up on her own.

And I was with her on a ski lift, and I said, Look, Rose, I said, I can see you're quite an insecure girl, really.

You know, what is that?

And so she said, um, she said, Oh, I know, I know.

And I felt the Holy Spirit say to me, Ask her about her sister.

I said, Rose, do you do you have any sisters?

So she says, Yes, I have a sister.

And I said, What's your sister like?

And when I said, What's your sister like?

It's like something exploded in her.

What's she like?

She's like, she's like an angel, that's what she's like.

She's better looking than me.

She got A's in everything she did, I only got B's.

She drives a BMW, I drive a beaten-up mini.

She got a better job, she got a better boyfriend, she got a better house.

And she saw her whole life as living in the shadow of somebody else, trying, trying, trying, striving.

And we ended up praying for her for a revelation to come to her.

You don't have to live in anybody's shadow.

That Jesus loves you as much as he loves everybody else.

You're loved as much as your sister.

And what needs to happen is that we need to have a revelation.

And a revelation of God's love comes by the Holy Spirit.

Is God has poured his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

And God, I'm going to pray for you this morning or the end, if you want me to.

For a revelation of God's love to come into your life.

Sometimes young people don't have that of revelation.

They know it is in the word, but sometimes the revelation of it has never taken place in the heart.

And the Holy Spirit baptizes us by his spirit so that we cry out, Abba Father, we know that we're the children of God.

We're lovely of God.

So it means authority, it means fellowship, it means love.

The last thing it means is this to have God as your father.

It means honor.

It means honor.

In John chapter 17, verse 23, it says this.

John 17:23

It says that the world will know that you have sent me and that you love them me even as I love them.

Sorry.

In in John chapter 12, verse 23, it says, Um, the man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who love who loses his life will find it.

John 12:23

Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am my servant will be.

And then it says this my father, my father, will honor, honour the one who serves me.

My father-in-law is um quite a he's died now, but he's quite a well-known eye surgeon.

And he was in Afghanistan when the Russians were firing shrapnel into people's eyes.

He was there taking it out.

And on his furlough, he had a letter from Barbados offering him this incredible job.

Massive, massive salary.

And he told me, I've just had this letter, this offer of this massive salary.

I said, What are you gonna do?

He said, he just laughed.

He said, I'm not giving it another thought.

He said, I'm called to be a missionary in Afghanistan and in the world and in Pakistan.

He said, I'm going to go there, and he said, My salary will be less than the salary of a nurse.

He's died now.

The Bible says this that if we lay down our lives and honour him and follow him, he will honor us.

And my test means this when I left MS, Marks and Spencer's, they said to me, they had me in tears.

They said, they said, Money will never be an object.

You've done very well for yourself, Mr.

Brady.

Money will never be an object to you.

I thought, Oh, I'm wiping out all my savings to go to Bible college.

I find this that God has honored me, seen people saved, people filled with the Holy Spirit, honor me with my wife, with my family, with homes, with travel, with seeing things.

And my testimony is that as I've laid my life down to serve the purposes of God, God is no man's debtor, and he's chosen to honor you and me in this life, as we lay our lives down to serve him and in the age to come for all eternity.

To have God as your father.

It means you carry authority.

It means he will never leave you or forsake you.

It means that you're loved as much as Jesus is loved, and it means ultimately he will honor you in all eternity.

Honor you now, Christ in us, the hope of glory, and for all eternity.

What an incredible doctrine in the New Testament.

Jim Packer says this.

He says that it is the key doctrine in the New Testament, the whole doctrine of adoption, that we're adopted children of God, and that's exactly who we are.

In this is the love of God made manifest, that we should be called the children of God, and that's who we are.

I'm gonna pray.

If you say I want to be more sensitive to the promptings of the Holy Spirit and to move under the unction and the promptings of the Holy Spirit, I put my own hand up because I can get dull.

And I want to um move in the promptings of the Holy Spirit.

My wife's brilliant at this.

We just we want to keep going.

I'm gonna pray and ask for the power of the Spirit of God to come on you.

I want you to come and stand here.

If you know that you need a revelation of the love of God in your heart, and there's some men here, at least six men who do, I want you to come and stand here.

And it's gonna be a work of the Holy Spirit which comes and seals, puts a branding iron in you that you know that you know that you know that you're loved of God is going to be something which the Holy Spirit does.

Let's just stand.