Message - Earner or Heir?

Well, I'm almost uh I'm almost moved to tears right now because uh I didn't know that we were singing Run to the Father this morning, and that song and the imagery of running to the Father, falling into his arms, falling into grace.

It comes from the scripture that the Lord put on my heart to lead with this morning.

Luke 15, 11 through 32.

And Jesus said, There was once a man who had two sons.

The younger said to his father, Father, I want right now what's coming to me.

And so the father divided the property between them.

It wasn't long before the younger son packed his bags and left for a distant country.

There, undisciplined and dissipated, he wasted everything he had.

After he'd gone all through his money, there was a bad famine in all the country, and he began to hurt.

He signed on with the citizen there who assigned him to the fields to slop the pigs.

He was so hungry he would have eaten the corn cobs and the pig slop, but no one would give him any.

And that brought him to his senses.

He said, All these farmhands working for my father, they sit down to three meals a day, and here I am starving to death.

I'm going back to my father.

I'll say to him, Father, I've sinned against God.

I've sinned before you.

I don't deserve to be called your son.

Take me on as a hired hand.

He got right up and went home to his father.

When he was still a long way off, his father saw him.

His heart pounding, he ran out, embraced him, and kissed him.

The son started his speech.

Father, I've sinned against God, I've sinned before you.

I don't deserve to be called your son ever again.

But the father wasn't listening.

He was calling to the servants, quick, bring a clean set of clothes and dress him.

Put the family ring on his finger and sandals on his feet, then get a grain-fed heifer and roast it.

We're going to have a feast.

We're going to have a wonderful time.

My son is here, given up for dead and now alive, given up for lost and now found.

And they began to have a wonderful time.

All this time his older brother was out in the field.

When the day's work was done, he came in.

As he approached the house, he heard the music and the dancing.

Calling over one of the house boys, he asked what was going on.

He told him, Your brother came home.

Your father has ordered a feast, barbecued beef, because he has him home and he's safe and sound.

And the older brother stalked off in an angry sulk and refused to join in.

His father came out and tried to talk to him, but he wouldn't listen.

The son said, Look how many years I've stayed here serving you.

Never giving you one moment of grief.

But you've never thrown a party for me or my friends, have you?

And then the son of yours who has thrown away your money on horse shows up and you go all out with a feast.

His father said, Son, you don't understand.

You're with me all the time, and everything that is mine is yours.

But this is a wonderful time.

And we had to celebrate.

This brother of yours was dead and he's alive.

He was lost and he's found.

That is one of the most famous stories that Jesus ever told.

It's often called the story of the prodigal son.

And even if you're here, even if you're watching and you're not that familiar with Jesus, you've probably heard at least the phrase prodigal son.

This is perhaps the most memorable and impactful story that Jesus ever told.

You could make an argument for some others.

Jesus was an amazing teacher, an amazing storyteller, but this one has stood the test of time as one of the most memorable, most quoted stories of Jesus.

And it's really the story of a father who is unbelievably loving, and it's also the story of a really tragic son.

I love this story.

I don't know how many of you maybe relate to the younger son.

You've had a season of your life where you've kind of run away from God.

Where you've turned your back on him and said, you know what, I'm going to live from myself.

I want to do things my way.

That's our culture, right?

That's the culture we live in.

Hey, live for yourself.

Do things your way.

Make sure you're looking out for number one.

You've lived for yourself and you've found that living for yourself is actually a really empty way to live.

And you've had some moment where you hit rock bottom.

Either it's a rock bottom that's obvious, or it's one of those sometimes even harder rock bottoms, where you have everything in the world going for you, and everyone who would look at you would say, Man, you must be so happy because look at all you have, but you recognize the deep emptiness that's inside of you.

And in that moment, maybe you recognize that you need the God that you thought you turned your back on, but you wondered whether or not he would have you back, whether or not he would accept you after all your mistakes.

And this story reminds us absolutely 100%.

We may turn our backs on him, but he never turns his back on us.

Never ever.

He's always looking for us, he's always waiting for us.

And the moment that he sees us taking one step toward him, he's already running toward us with his arms outstretched.

I love this story because it reminds me that I really can't escape the love of my God, even if I try really hard.

And so if you're here this morning or you're watching and you've tried to escape it, good luck.

You can't.

I said this is the story of a loving father and his sons, one of whom is a really tragic character.

The younger brother, he's not the tragic character.

He has a tragic season in his life, he has a tragic chapter, but his story ends really well.

Right?

He's a really hard season, but at the end of the story, he's the one at the party.

I mean, ask yourself the question: which brother would you rather be at the end of this story?

The one who's in the middle of a feast, having a party thrown on your behalf?

Or would you rather be the older brother who's out sulking, refusing to come in and join the dancing and the singing and the partying?

Who would you rather be, the older or the younger?

I don't know about you.

I'm not trying to tell you the right answer.

It's the younger brother, though.

Like, you want to be the one at the party.

See, the the older brother in this story, he's the tragic character.

He's the tragic character because he's in, hear this, he's an heir, living as an earner.

He is the heir of everything his father has.

In that culture, the oldest son was favored.

If you were the oldest son in a family, everything was stacked in your favor.

You had everything set up for success.

When your father passed, really everything went to you, and maybe a small portion would go to other family members, but if you're the oldest son, you're set.

And this young man, he's the oldest son of a wealthy man.

His entire future is already set in stone.

God has favored him and blessed him in every way you can imagine.

He is an heir.

He is set to inherit so much, but he's not living as an heir, he's living as an earner.

He has a mentality no different than the mentality of the hired hands that his father employs.

Listen to him describe himself to his father.

It's all performance-based.

He says, Look, father, I've worked for you X number of years.

I've worked diligently for you.

I've never caused you any grief.

I've never had a season like my younger brother.

I've never run off.

I've never squandered your money.

I've never wasted it on the wild living that my younger brother wasted it on.

I've worked for you all these years.

He's describing his relationship with his father in terms of performance.

And his father won't even hear it.

Because the father doesn't see him as an earner, as a worker.

The father sees him as an heir.

And he says, My son.

It's like it breaks his heart.

You've missed it.

Everything I have belongs to you at any moment in time.

If you wanted a party, you could have asked for a party.

I would have thrown it at the drop of the hat.

Because you're my heir.

That son is tragic because he was an heir living as an earner.

And I want to ask all of us a question this morning, all of us here in the room, all of us at home.

When it comes to your relationship with God, when it comes to your understanding of who you are in God the Father's eyes, are you an heir or an earner?

When I was in college, I interned at a church in Kansas City, Missouri.

It was one of the most impactful seasons of my life.

God's always been really faithful to put men in my life to father me.

Both my biological father, but also other men that he's put in different seasons of my life who have just poured into me, challenged me, helped me grow.

And at this particular time, there was a man named Roy who was pastor of the church that I was at.

And Roy was really good at challenging me.

And he really recognized holdups that I had in my relationship with God.

And he asked me when I was in college, Justin, do you believe you're an earner or an heir?

And I knew the right answer.

You know, if you go to a church that actually preaches the good news that Jesus came for us and loves us, like if you're here this morning and you've never heard the good news, here's what it is.

Doesn't matter what you've done, where you've been, who you are, doesn't matter what your biggest mistakes are, those don't define you.

What defines you is the undeniable love that God the Father has for you and the fact that He's given everything to know you.

He gave His Son to die on the cross so that you could have a relationship with Him.

That's good news.

And if you've grown up in a church that preaches that, you know the answer.

I knew the right answer.

I'm clearly an heir.

I can point to the scriptures, but in my heart of hearts, I lived as an earner.

I defined my relationship with God based on performance.

How well have I done this past week, this past month?

I saw the way God saw me in direct relation to how well I was performing at the time.

And what that created in me was a very insecure understanding of my relationship with God because I always felt like I was operating from a deficit.

I don't know if you've ever been in a relationship before where you feel like you're operating from a deficit.

Maybe you have a boss and you don't think your boss thinks very highly of you, so every time you're around your boss, you're trying to like prove yourself.

You feel so insecure.

Maybe you've been in a relationship, a romantic relationship, maybe, where you feel like you're operating from a deficit.

Like this person doesn't think you're enough.

And so you have to constantly kind of prove yourself, and that's a terrible way to live.

That's no way to live.

That's the way I saw my relationship with God.

And because of my sins and my struggles and my issues, which were many, there's still many, to be honest.

I felt like I was always behind.

And I had this incredibly insecure footing when it came to where I stood with the Lord.

But none of that was actually true.

See, I was an earner in my mind when in reality we are all heirs.

Are you an earner or an heir?

That's the question I want to run through your mind this morning.

Let that reframe your understanding of who you are and who God is.

For some context, we're going through the book of Romans right now.

We're in a series called It Depends.

We're going through Romans chapter four specifically.

If you're new, Romans is a letter in the New Testament.

It's maybe the most impactful document that's ever been written in terms of our faith.

You can make that case for a few different uh documents in Scripture, but the book of Romans is maybe the most comprehensive explanation of who Jesus is, why he came, what he accomplished, what it means for us, how we can live in response to it.

And Romans is very deep and it's very dense, and it's one of those books that if you read it in one sitting, you're probably gonna go, whoa, that was a lot.

And so we're kind of going through it slowly, coming up for air every once in a while, taking a break.

And right now we're in Romans 4, and we're calling this series It Depends based on Romans chapter 4, verse 16.

Romans 4:16

And this is the uh the English Standard Version.

It just says, uh, for it depends on faith.

Just says it depends on faith.

That very simple statement.

I can see they've got way more scripture behind me than that.

That's for later.

Uh, Romans 4.16 just says, it depends on faith.

You might ask yourself, what depends on faith?

What is it?

It is everything.

It's everything.

It's who you are in God's eyes, it's it's your standing with him, it's the relationship that you have with him.

It depends on faith.

The simple act of putting your trust in Jesus and believing in him.

That opens up an entire relationship with God for you that changes everything.

It's a game changer, and all you have to do is believe.

Everything just depends on faith.

If you open up the New Testament and you read the number of times that verses say, through faith, by faith, because we believe, you'd almost lose count because constantly we're reminded that this relationship we have with God, it's not performance-based, it's faith-based.

It depends on faith.

Last week we did sort of a crash course on what faith is.

Looked at the life of a man named Abraham, who's talked about a lot in Romans chapter 4.

Romans 4 · chapter mention

If you weren't here, I encourage you to listen to it, listen on the mobile app, go to hishands.online, Spotify, however you want to, because it was a really, really interesting exploration of who Abraham was and what he teaches us about faith.

But today we're going to keep reading.

I'm going to read Romans 4, verses 3 through 12.

Romans 4:3–12

It says, For the scriptures tell us Abraham believed God, and God counted him as righteous because of his faith.

When people work, their wages are not a gift, but something they have earned.

But people are counted righteous not because of their work.

Hear that, not because of our work, not what we earn, but because of their faith in God who forgives sinners.

David also spoke of this when he described the happiness of those who are declared righteous without working for it.

Oh, what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven.

Anyone here ever have your disobedience forgiven by God and you recognize that?

That's exciting, right?

It's exciting when your disobedience is forgiven.

I know that because I have four kids and they know what it feels like for their disobedience not to be forgiven sometimes.

And uh, you know, it's exciting when you get away with it.

It says, yes, what joy for those whose record the Lord has cleared of sin.

Now, is this blessing only for the Jews?

Paul was a Jewish man, or is it also for uncircumcised Gentiles?

Embrace yourself.

There's gonna be a lot of discussion of circumcision in the next few minutes, and that's uh no one's favorite subject, okay?

Well, we have been saying that Abraham was counted as righteous of God because of his faith.

But how did this happen?

Was he counted as righteous only after he was circumcised?

Or was it before he was circumcised?

Clearly, God accepted Abraham before he was circumcised.

Circumcision was a sign that Abraham already had faith and that God had already accepted him and declared him to be righteous, even before he was circumcised.

Someone keep track of the number of times it says circumcised.

So Abraham is the spiritual father of those who have faith but have not been circumcised.

They're counted as righteous because of their faith, and Abraham is also the spiritual father of those who have been circumcised, but only if they have the same kind of faith Abraham had before he was, one more time, circumcised.

There's a stand-up comedian that uh made a joke once about how the challenges in the Bible really ramp up in difficulty.

The first one God gives is not to eat an apple.

Then it's build me a boat, and then it's circumcision.

And you gotta feel for Abraham because he's like, you know, the comedian makes the joke could I could I just build you two boats instead?

Can we work out that deal?

Like, I'll never eat an apple again for the rest of my life, you know.

It wasn't really an apple, we don't know, but either way.

Here's what you have to understand this is where Paul's coming from.

Paul's a Jewish man.

And in the Jewish culture, circumcision was something that was really unique to the Jews.

And it was this outward sign that they belonged to God.

It was a sign of a covenant that God had made with Abraham.

And in their line of thinking, because I am circumcised, God is good with me.

I have I've done what God has said to do, and because I have performed and I'm part of the Jewish faith, and circumcision proves that, it's good.

That's the way they saw God as operating all the time.

It was you do this, and then God will accept you.

If you perform, then God will receive you and accept you.

And Paul's trying to debunk this.

He's trying to get them to think differently.

He's saying, look, that's not the way it works with God.

Because God accepted Abraham, loved Abraham, made promises to Abraham long before circumcision was a thing.

He made those promises to Abraham by the way, before Abraham had done anything.

God gives us gifts based on his love for us, his passion for us.

He blesses us because he wants to.

But we receive those gifts by faith.

Hear this, it's not even that we put our faith in God and then that impresses God, and he's like, okay, now I'm gonna bless you because I see your faith.

Now, faith turns into blessing.

But it's that we receive the blessings of God by faith.

He's giving all the time.

God is a God who blesses, He speaks blessings over you, He speaks wonderful things over your life, He loves you, He has plans for you, good plans for your life.

Scripture actually tells us that God has brought us into a relationship with Him so that we could do the good things that He planned for us long ago before you ever breathed, before your grandfather ever breathed.

God had good plans, good things planned for your life.

But you have to receive those by faith.

And Paul's trying to completely dismantle this idea that God only responds to our obedience.

That we are earners of his goodness.

Are we earners?

Is God's love for us and acceptance of us?

Is it wages earned or is it a gift given that we receive by faith?

Paul is saying, you are not an earner, you're an heir.

And we see this language, this language many other times in scripture.

Ephesians 2.8.

God saved you by his grace when you what?

Believed.

Right?

Not when you gave 10% of your income, not when you did that really great thing for that person who was in need, not when you opened up scripture and began to read it.

No, when you believed, simply through faith.

And you can't take credit for this.

All of you who are performance-oriented are like, dang it, I like taking credit for things.

You can't do it.

It's a gift from God.

It's a gift.

God's love for you, his acceptance of you, it's a gift received by faith.

Romans 8, 15 through 17.

You have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves.

Instead, you received God's spirit when he adopted you as his own children.

Quick show of hands.

How many of you have a parent that is very important?

Good, you you got it.

Some of you are like, no, yeah, God.

Right?

You've got a dad who's incredibly important.

Now, another show of hands, how many of you have an earthly parent who is a very important person?

And just because you are the child of that person, you've got perks in life just through that.

Okay, stay after church.

After uh, I'd like to I'd like to know all of you guys.

Um I'd really love a chance to, yeah, make some new relationships.

That's great.

You know, it's funny, my my oldest, and Liam, I apologize because he didn't know I was gonna tell this story.

When he was like three, one of the first times I ever had a moment with him where I had to be like, you can't do that, um, he was young enough to realize that I was like in a position of authority here.

I'm the pastor of the church.

And so one day he was playing on the playground.

We have this amazing playground, if you've never seen it for the kids, can't wait for that stuff to get started again in January.

So he's playing in the playground, and uh, and all of a sudden, that is an incredible ringtone.

Whoever's got that playing, you go ahead, just click the button.

It's not you.

Oh, sorry.

That's that's that's like the I don't know if you can hear that or not.

That's a pitch that usually I just run right through those, but whatever that pitch is, it just is going right into my brain.

Um so anyway, so Liam, he's on the playground, he's playing, and uh, and he gets in trouble.

And the lady is like, hey Liam, you need to come down.

And so uh so he ends up going, nope, my dad's the pastor.

And that means you work for him at three years old.

I mean, he found out quickly that's not the way it works, but at least he understood that, hey, yeah, you know, sometimes when the child of someone who has authority, there there's perks.

All of us have a father who's incredibly important because God the Father has adopted us as his very own children.

Your father is God.

Your dad is the king of the universe, he's the one who spoke everything into existence.

That's your dad, if you've given your faith to Jesus Christ.

Go on.

He says that his spirit, or he adopted us his children.

Now we get to call him Abba Father.

That's a very intimate term.

And then it says, for his spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God's children.

And since we are his children, we are his heirs.

In fact, together with Christ, we are heirs of God's glory.

But if we're to share his glory, we must also share his suffering.

Okay, so it uses this language of being heirs.

I actually want to read verse 17 in the NIV.

It says, Now, if we are children, then we are heirs, heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ.

If indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

I want you to think for just a second of what this is saying.

You are co-heirs with Jesus.

You are co-with Jesus.

Think about that.

You're co-Jesus.

Like, do you actually believe that?

This is one of those moments sometimes in church where we have to ask ourselves the question do I actually believe that?

Like I read it intellectually, yeah, yeah, I'm co-with Jesus.

Do you see yourself as co-with Jesus?

How many of us see Jesus as above us?

Alright?

That makes sense.

How many of us believe that through some miracle, through some incredible act of just divine love, that we've been elevated beyond our station and we are now co with Jesus?

Do you really believe that in your heart?

It's hard, isn't it?

I've

For years, I would love to be co-anything with Jesus.

If Jesus asked me to co-host a TV show, I would say yes.

I would be honored.

If Jesus asked me to co-chair a committee with him, I'd say yes.

If Jesus asked me to co-pilot something with him, I'd say, I don't really know how to fly, but but if you're the pilot, I trust you.

The answer is yes.

I would even be honored to co-sign on a loan for Jesus if he needed a car.

In this scenario, he has no credit and he needs me to co-sign.

It's a weird scenario.

But I would be honored to be co-anything with Jesus.

Co-anything with Jesus.

If I was a co-worker with Jesus, I would be honored, but I'm not a co-worker.

You're not a co-worker.

You're a co-heir with Jesus Christ, the King of the universe, the Alpha, the Omega, the first, the last.

You're a co-heir with Jesus.

That's unbelievable.

It almost sounds too good to be true.

Anyone agree that sounds too good to be true?

It's not.

But it's too good to be earned.

It's not too good to be true.

It's just too good to be earned.

And there's something inside of us as people that's so wired to think like an earner.

We're wired to say, no, that can't be.

There's no way I could do enough to earn that.

And guess what?

You can't.

Congratulations.

Ding ding ding.

You get it right.

It is too good to be earned, but it's not too good to be true because God says it's true.

You are a co-heir with Jesus.

And this means two incredible things.

Number one, you get to co-suffer with Jesus.

People don't get very excited about that.

It's interesting, the Apostle Paul, who wrote Romans, he actually was excited about suffering for Jesus.

It's almost like the way Paul lived his life.

Anything that he could do that gave him more in common with Jesus, he was happy about.

And Jesus was really honest with us.

Sometimes we would suffer simply for obeying him, simply for being his followers.

In fact, he says it really clearly in John 15.

He said, If the world hates you, remember that it hated me first.

The world would love you as one of its own if you belong to it, but you are no longer part of the world.

I chose you to come out of the world, so it hates you.

Do you remember what I told you?

A slave is not greater than the master.

Since they persecuted me, naturally, they will persecute you.

And if they had listened to me, they would listen to you.

They will do all of this because of me, for they have rejected the one who sent me.

Look, sometimes as Jesus followers, we suffer.

We're blessed in America that our suffering tends to be much milder than most of the suffering that has existed in the world right now for Christians.

Christians are by far, it's not even close, the number one most persecuted people of faith in the world.

You can look up statistics on it, it'll blow you away.

As someone who lives in America, we often feel persecuted for things that really aren't persecution.

But we live with the reality that following Jesus means that sometimes people will just judge us, think things about us, just discount everything that we say.

And that's okay, because they did the same thing to Jesus.

Sometimes we suffer.

But we're not just co-sufferers, we're co-heirs of glory.

Paul never forgot about that.

That's why Paul actually says in Romans 8:18, yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory that he will reveal to us later.

Romans 8:18

We are co-heirs of Jesus' glory.

And that word glory is a word that we don't use very often in our vocabulary.

And if you're like, what is glory?

Glory, it's kind of hard to describe.

I would say glory is like praise and blessing and adoration and majesty all rolled into one thing.

It's kind of like a casserole.

You know, I didn't really know about casseroles until I moved to the South.

Uh until I had the first Thanksgiving with my wife's family.

And it's just a bunch of casserole dishes and they all look the same, and there's just Ritzcrackers on the top, and I had no, I'm like, what is this?

She's like, that's the green beans.

I'm like, why what is that?

Like, that's the broccoli.

That's the I was like, okay.

And then I tried it.

I said, yes.

South.

You guys, you know what you're doing, and 20 pounds later, I'm still I'm still doing it.

It's all good.

Us northerners, we need everything separate.

You know, it's like you guys just put it all together, put some cream and some butter on top, and like, let's do that.

And that's awesome.

Glory, it's like a casserole.

Okay, that's what I'm trying to say.

It's like all these good things baked together.

And I want us to understand.

I really pray right now, Lord.

I I'm always joking around, but right now, seriously, I pray that you give us the ability in the next 30 seconds just to really understand the glory that's due to you.

I want to read Revelation chapter 5, verses 11 through 13.

Revelation 5:11–13

And this is an amazing encounter.

The author of this is the Apostle John.

He was one of Jesus' best friends, and late in his life, he was given essentially a vision of heaven, and he gets to see some amazing things.

And as you can imagine, he doesn't really have the language for it.

And he's trying his best to find the words to describe what he's seeing.

But he gets this image into the throne room of heaven, and he says this.

I looked again, and I heard the voices of thousands and millions of angels around the throne, and of the living beings and the elders, that language, living beings and elders.

Like I said, he's trying to find the words to describe what he's saying.

Read Revelation, you'll hear a lot about that.

He says, I hear the voices of a thousand and millions of angels, and they sang in a mighty chorus, Worthy is the Lamb who was slaughtered.

That's Jesus.

Worthy is Jesus to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing.

Now that's just me talking with a microphone.

Let's actually all read this together.

Read it with me.

We're gonna go back to worthy as the lamb.

And I just encourage all of you to say this out loud.

Worthy is the lamb who is slaughtered to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing.

And that's just a few hundred people.

Now imagine thousands.

Now imagine millions, but it's not just people, it's angels in heaven singing.

And you better understand something about angels.

Every time someone encounters an angel in scripture, it's not like this little baby with wings, you know, flying around.

Whatever angels are, they're not us.

And they freak people out.

They're powerful.

Every time someone sees an angel in the Bible, they fall down and think they're dead.

Can you imagine how inconvenient it would be to be an angel?

And God's like, go tell them what I'm trying to have you say.

And they're like, they're gonna do that thing where they fall down again.

You know, they do it every time.

See, that's just it's so inconvenient.

Oh, they fell.

You know, get back up.

Okay, here's what God wants you to know.

Angels are powerful.

They're powerful.

Our imagery of angels is often just so swayed by art that we've seen, and this angels are powerful, they're mighty.

So just picture for a moment what it's like for millions, millions of angels singing in unison, a mighty chorus.

It says a mighty chorus.

This is like an army singing a battle song.

And they're singing that worthy is the Lamb, worthy is Jesus, and He's worthy to receive all power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing.

And then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and they sang, blessing and honor, and glory and power belong to the one sitting on the throne and to the Lamb forever and ever.

That is the glory that is due to Jesus, and he's gonna share it with you.

That's powerful.

That's incredible.

That's what it says.

We are co-heirs of God's glory.

Are you an earner or an heir?

Romans says that this isn't wages earned.

This relationship with God, it's a gift given.

And church and everyone watching, it's time for us to stop thinking like earners.

It's time for us to stop approaching God like we're some hired hands.

We are his sons and his daughters, we are his heirs.

He has promised us things that we have no right to in and of ourselves.

And it's time for us to believe that that's true and to live like it.

What would it be like if you actually lived like you believed this is true?

If you actually lived like an heir, if you had that mentality.

Now it could go the wrong way and fill you with pride.

I knew someone who worked for a company and it was a family-owned company, and the company was the last name of the family.

And the son of the owner, who happened to have the same last name that was on the building, did something that was against company rules, and this person kind of complained and said, Well, I guess the rules don't apply to people of that last name.

Yes, that is true.

They don't, right?

Sometimes people get filled with pride when they're an heir.

That's not what I'm talking about.

What would it be like if you had a healthy understanding of what it means that you're an heir?

The worship team, you guys can make your way out.

We'll we'll wrap up.

I want to leave you with three thoughts.

If you really live like an heir, this is these are some things you would realize about yourself.

It would change the way you live, it would change the way you think, it would change the way you approach everything in your life.

Number one, you have nothing to prove.

You have nothing to prove to anyone.

Because the one whose opinion really counts approves of you.

You've got nothing to prove.

Think about how much regret you have in your life that's the direct result of insecurity that you carried and then tried to make up for.

Most of my worst decisions have been made from a place of insecurity where I felt like I had something to prove.

I have to prove something to this person.

I have to prove that I'm smart enough, talented enough, you know, a good enough leader.

I gotta prove that I know God's word enough, that I'm I'm spirit-filled, or whatever the words might be in church.

When I was in high school and junior high, I had to prove that I was cool enough, that I was, you know, tough enough, rebellious enough, you name it.

Think about how many of the decisions that you've made from a place of insecurity you trying to prove something to yourself or to someone else have led you to regret.

You have nothing to prove because you're not an earner, you're an heir.

And the God of the universe, the king of all that we sang about earlier today, he approves of you.

He approves of you.

You got nothing to prove.

Number two, you have nothing to fear.

You have nothing to fear.

Couldn't be more clear in scripture.

Romans 8 31.

What shall we say about such wonderful things as these?

If God is for us, who can ever be against us?

God is for you because you're his heir.

He's crazy about you, he's got your back, he's with you.

Scripture says he goes before us and he's behind us.

He's all around us, he protects us.

That doesn't mean that we don't find ourselves in difficult situations, but it means that when we do, we have to be like David, who wrote in the Psalms, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.

You've got nothing to fear because you're an heir.

You're not an earner, you're not expendable, you're an heir.

You have nothing to fear.

And number three, you have nothing to hide.

You've got nothing to hide.

You have no need to keep anything from God, to hold anything back out of some type of shame.

And we see that in the story of the prodigal, that younger brother who runs away before he comes back to the father and is embraced.

He he almost feels like he can't do it.

Father, he's gonna be so ashamed of me, he's gonna be so disappointed in me.

So sometimes we we have this timidity that's the result of shame.

I see this happen all the time in church.

I've known people, by the way, that that have been involved here for years and then I just don't see him anymore.

And I've bumped into them, I'm like, hey, where have you been?

And they're like, Oh, I had I went through a divorce and I just I don't know, I didn't want to come in and be judged.

And look, if you're new to his hands, you you're not gonna be judged here.

I'm the pastor, I had a 15-year-long addiction to pornography, and I'm not judged here.

So the the reality is this is not a place of judgment.

See, I don't have to hide those things, I don't have to hide the worst things about my life because I know who the father is.

And even as a pastor, I want you to hear this, it's not your opinion of me that counts.

I love you all, but your opinion of me is not what gives me value.

I have a father, he's the God of the universe.

Maybe you've met him.

He thinks really highly of me.

Not because of my performance, but because of who he says I am.

He says, You're my son.

And he looks at you and he says the same thing.

You're his daughter, you're his son.

He cares about you.

So you've got nothing to hide.

You you never have to hold anything back from him.

Sometimes we go through struggles and difficult times and we have failures, and you know what, we all fail, we all fall short.

Sure.

But we are the sons and daughters of God, and we can't let shame make us timid and cause us to pull away from God.

That's the weird thing about shame.

You know, when we sin, it's often us that pulls away from God.

We think it's God pulling away from us.

No, look at the story of Adam and Eve in scripture.

The very first story of people messing up, they messed up, they hid from God.

God didn't hide from them, they hid from Him.

Hebrews chapter 4, verse 16 says, Now let us come boldly to the throne.

Hebrews 4:16

Let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God, where we will receive his mercy, we'll find grace and help when we need it most.

How are we supposed to come to the throne?

Boldly.

You know, it's funny, I have an office here at the church, and when people make an appointment with me, they'll they'll knock.

Or even the the other employees here at the church will kind of peek in.

Madison just comes in, but that's Madison.

I've known him since he was in sixth grade, but most everybody knocks.

I'm just teasing.

Madison knocks too.

My kids, they don't knock.

The door just flies open, you know.

Even at home, Megan and I sometimes we try to have 10-15 minutes alone.

We just try to go in our bedroom and just decompress.

And they're they're like offended that the door is closed.

You know?

They don't knock gently, it's like they just shake the handle and they're like, This isn't working.

Why is this not working?

Then it's just pound, pound, pound, pound, pound.

That's the way heirs think.

They think they have a right to our attention, and you know what they do?

You have a right, a God-given right to his attention.

He listens to you, you have his ear.

You don't have to timidly approach him, you don't have to say, Ah, but you know, I haven't I haven't gone to church very much this year.

And I mean, you know, like they have online now, and so sometimes I say I'm gonna watch it online.

I really don't watch it online.

I just kind of like skim through it, whatever, but God, I haven't I haven't been doing what you've I just I need you, but I don't know if I no! That's not how you approach God.

You just barge in, and He's like, Yes! It's you, it's my son, it's my daughter, my heir.

Come here, tell me what you need, tell me how I can help you.

That's the love he has for you.

You have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear, you have nothing to prove because you're not an earner, you're an heir, and if you don't know Jesus, let me add one more.

You've got nothing to lose.

Look around at the world, no one knows what they're doing, no one has any idea, everyone's clueless.

Even our government leaders are like, I don't know, you know.

This year has taught me, oh, they're just bless their hearts, they're trying, but they're clueless.

So, what else can you put your faith into?

You've got nothing to lose.

You put your faith in Jesus, He will not let you down.

He won't lie to you, He won't tell you something's easier than it is.

He's really honest.

He will be there for you every step of the way because when you give your life to him, you are no longer an earner, you are an heir.

I want to encourage you if you haven't made that decision to do it right now.

Even if you're watching from home, do it right now.

You just pray in your heart, you say, Jesus, I'm yours.

I believe.

I don't want to be an earner.

I'm tired of trying to win your approval.

I recognize that you love me, I just want to accept it.

And those of you that have accepted it in the past, but you've let that earner mentality seep back in.

No, be done with that today.

You're an heir.

This is not wages earned, it's a gift given.

And I would encourage you and challenge you that if you haven't stepped forward and received that and accepted that and embraced that yet, you do that.

One of the ways that we do that is something called baptism.

And right now we've got some people getting baptized.

All right?

Now, I uh I want to ask you today that stick around after baptism.

So I've got a few quick things I want to talk to you about before we we head out.

But right now I want us to transition to some amazing people who are gonna go all in with Jesus, give their whole hearts to him.

And Daniel, you guys can make your way out, go ahead and get in the tank.

Let's hear it, by the way, for Daniel and for uh for Kara and for Jericho.

Daniel's about to lead them in baptism, but I want to pray real quick as we go into that.

Father God, I want to thank you so much for this morning.

Lord, I need it this morning.

I need to remember who I am in your eyes.

I'm not an earner.

I'm not a worker, I'm not an employee.

I'm a son.

I'm a son.

Spirit, I pray right now that you would speak directly to the hearts of every person in this room, every person that's watching.

That we would hear you speak to us and tell us who you are.

Ladies, he's saying to you, You're my daughter.

He adores you.

He adores you.

You bring tears to his eyes because he's so in love with you.

He thinks you're beautiful.

He thinks you're precious, he thinks you're delicate, he thinks you're lovely.

Amen.

He says you're my son.

I think I'm proud of you.

I think you're strong.

I think you're capable.

I think you're powerful.

To all of this, he says you're my ears.

Everything I have is yours.

And one day you're gonna step into his kingdom, and there's gonna be a feast thrown in your honor because of who you are in his eyes.

Jesus, thank you so much for winning that for us, for earning what we couldn't earn so that we could inherit something that we have no right to otherwise.

Thank you so much, Jesus.

We love you.

It's in your name we pray.

Amen.