The Father's Love

Amen.

Well, hey, before we jump into the message this morning, uh, do want to remind everybody about next week, because next week's big.

Next week is our 10-year anniversary celebration as a church, which is super exciting.

Um it is going to be a very, very meaningful day.

And so this is pretty rare.

We we don't we don't ever tell people like, be here, make sure you're here.

Only for very specific, specific Sundays.

I mean, we want you here every single Sunday, obviously.

We're just not like keeping track, but we uh we really want to encourage you to be here next week.

Next week, like I said, the word meaningful is the word that I'll use.

I believe every single person who's here next week is gonna leave here with something incredibly meaningful for their lives, something that they'll never forget.

Uh, and I want to encourage you to make sure you're here as we celebrate what God has done, what he's doing, what he will do.

It's just it's gonna be awesome.

It's gonna be awesome.

So be here next week.

After that, we are going to start a series on the book of Gideon, which I'm really excited about.

It's gonna be a very, very practical and challenging but in a good way series, one of those kind of propel your life forward type series.

Forward, in my opinion, is the best way to go.

It's my favorite direction.

I like to go forward, and so that's what the the Gideon series is gonna be about.

I can't wait for that.

Uh, but today I want to talk about something really foundational for us.

Next week's our 10-year anniversary, and so next week we get to reflect on what what this church, what his hands is really about.

And as my mind has been focused on that, I just can't help but thinking about some of the foundational things that God has done here, that God has made part of our DNA.

And today I want to talk about one of those things.

It's not just foundational for us as a church, as a family of people, but it's foundational for all of us individually as well.

In fact, I think it's one of the most, if not the most, foundational things that we need to know and be reminded of.

Sometimes in our in our desire to do great things, and our desire to go to new places in life, we think that the way we get there is to discover some secret, some little nuance that no one else has ever discovered.

That's what's going to propel us to where we want to be.

So maybe it's our finances.

We we want to do better financially, and maybe we're looking for the secret.

We're looking for that little thing that no one else has ever discovered.

If we can just figure out how to do this thing, then we'll be financially successful.

But in reality, what we need is to nail the fundamental stuff.

We need to be really good at things like budgeting and planning and saving and living below our means.

It's those things, it's those foundational, fundamental things that actually get us where we want to be.

Same is true of relationships.

Take a marriage, for example.

A few years ago, we did a series on marriage, and Ken Kington came and he did the entire series, and it was awesome.

But I had some friends that expressed disappointment in the series.

There were friends that I knew pretty well, and at the time their marriage was in a really difficult place, and so they were very excited about the marriage series.

But they came into it hoping that they would learn some little secret.

Some some tiny little nuance that would that would all of a sudden just make everything better.

But what Ken talked about for a month were foundational things.

Do you do you care about understanding your spouse?

Do you listen to the other person, or are you more concerned with with proving to them that you're right?

Do you do you make time to understand them and hear them and meet them where they are?

It was those types of things.

But if you go talk to anyone who's had a successful marriage for 40, 50 years and you ask them, hey, what's your secret?

The secret isn't going to be very secret.

You're going to be disappointed because they're going to say very, very foundational, fundamental things.

You know, I just decided to put this person's needs above my own.

You'll be like, well, no, yeah, but like, what's the secret?

Right?

The reality is that success in anything is far, far more tied to what's foundational than to some little nuance that very few people even recognize.

And so this morning I want us to talk about something so completely foundational to our faith, to our relationship with God.

But first, I want to talk about my son for a few minutes, if you don't mind.

I'm gonna brag on my son.

Um so I need you to humor me for a second.

Last Sunday I was gone.

I was out of town.

Elan filled in, by the way.

Elan did an incredible job last Sunday.

I love, love when Elan speaks.

If a woman speaking on stage bothers you, this is not the church for you.

So Elon just did a really, really good job last week, and I was really proud of her.

Uh, but she was gone so that I she was here so I could have this incredible experience with my son.

Uh we're big Duke basketball fans in my family, and uh no one ever cheers when I say it, and it's okay.

But but uh yeah.

And so every year, Liam and I go to Duke's kickoff event.

We go up, we drive to Duke University, we go to their big basketball kickoff event, we have some some father-son time.

It is just something we both look forward to every single year.

It's a blast.

Uh we had it we had a great time this year.

You know, Duke's basketball team is preseason number one, and you know, I mean that's not a big deal because it's preseason, but you know, if it just means if you root for another team, they're they're less than than that, but that's okay.

Um we were so excited to be there.

Liam got his face painted like always.

We go, there's face painting.

It was very like brave heart-like, you know, very intense.

He loved it.

Except that he wanted to eat ice cream, and so by the end of the night, there was like this giant circle around his mouth that the paint was gone and the ice cream was kind of blue, but it didn't start blue, but whatever.

Um he caught a ratida on Pokemon Go in Cameron Indoor Stadium.

That's a big deal.

Not many people have caught a Pokemon on Pokemon Go in a historic sports venue.

I think that was that was fun.

But the best part of the whole thing was was the game.

They actually scrimmaged themselves at this thing, so Duke won and Duke lost at the same time.

It was bittersweet.

Um but but it was so much fun because Liam is at a point now where he actually gets basketball.

In the past, we've gone to stuff like this, and he's just been excited to be with me and to be, you know, at something I'm excited about.

And he's kind of liked it, but now he really gets basketball.

And so he he was into it.

He had the roster pulled up and he's looking at all the players, and we're talking about it because my my son, my son loves basketball.

I've I've it's like this is a big success to me because I worked so hard for this to happen.

But here's the thing: not only does my son like basketball, but I'm just gonna say this.

My boy can play basketball.

I know I'm biased.

I know it's impossible for me to be objective about my son.

I can try my best and I'm his dad, so obviously, you know, obviously I'm I'm looking at him through very, very, very rose-tinted glasses.

I get that, but I'm just saying that if you have a first grader playing in the Cherokee Youth League, uh, you just better watch out, okay?

Because my boy can play.

He's on a team for the first time ever.

And, you know, we've been playing in the yard for for years, but this is the first time he's playing with other kids his age.

And you know, we'll see how it goes.

I'm trying not to get ahead of myself and start sending out scouting videos to colleges and things like that.

But so far, it's been pretty cool.

There have been moments so far where he's done things, and I've just been like, wow, that's that's pretty advanced for a first grader.

In fact, my dad was my coach for a long time.

My dad was at his first practice, and there were a few moments where where Liam did stuff, and I kind of looked at my dad, and my dad looked at me.

We're like, Yeah.

In fact, I asked my dad at one point, I said, Hey, I was a pretty good player, but could I could I do that in first grade?

And my dad just looked at me and said, No, you couldn't.

And so I'm I'm just saying, like, my son can play.

He's kind of always been like that.

Even from a very young age, Liam just he would do things with basketball, and we would kind of go, huh, that's not that's not normal.

I have a video to show you when he was uh less than two years old.

This is Liam playing basketball at less than two, okay?

And uh he's a year and a half old, and we would we would hang out in the yard.

This is actually, he would pound his chest when he makes a shot, very, very, you know, head swagger.

But he would just get this ball and just one after another.

This video is not cut, it's not, it's just he just makes shot after shot after shot, and he'd be into it.

We'd watch him, and he would stand outside for an hour, and he would just shoot and just make baskets.

And I'm sitting there, this is a year and a half old kid, right?

And I thought, this is our first child, so I thought, well, hey, maybe all kids a year and a half old can do that.

And my daughter is a year and a half old, and we got her a little basketball hoop.

Has not been the same so far.

It's okay.

I just I like to beam on my boy a little bit.

I like to brag on my son, and and again, I know I'm biased.

I know it is impossible for me to be objective when talking about my son, and I know that none of you care nearly as much as I do.

Um, no, no, you don't, because he's you know he's my boy.

I'm not saying that in a bad way.

It's my son.

If you cared as much as I did, that'd be weird.

I just I like to brag on my son.

And I know that may seem completely and totally like a rabbit trail and me just being indulgent, maybe it is a little bit, but uh it's it's not as far off target as it might seem because this morning I want to talk about the Father's love.

That's the foundational thing I want to focus on today.

I want to talk about God the Father's love.

Now, just some clarity, you know, some of us are in different places and our understanding of God, it can get kind of confusing because when we say God, we almost always mean God the Father.

But but God is more than just God the Father.

When we say God, what we really, what we really mean is God the Father, Jesus the Son, the Holy Spirit, right?

That's this whole concept we have called the Trinity.

That word's not in the Bible, that's just our word that we've come up with to explain how three unique entities can be one God.

Sometimes that can trip us up.

We can be like, how is that possible?

How is that not multiple gods?

How can three unique, distinct but not separate persons be one God?

But it's all over the Bible.

In fact, in Genesis chapter 1, verse 26, it says, Let God's, then God said, God, not the gods, let then God said, Let us make human beings in our image to be like us.

Genesis 1:26

So right there we have one God, but he's speaking in like a plural way.

Let us make human beings in in our shape, right?

To be like us.

So the way I like to think about it is actually by thinking about ourselves, because if God exists as this one God, but with three distinct persons that make him up, then we should reflect that if we're made in his image, right?

And we actually do.

Because every single person here has a body, and your body is you.

And you have a mind and your mind is you, and you have a spirit, and your spirit is you.

All of those aspects of you make you you, and if you take one of those away, you're not you.

It's so interesting because there are times where where your body might want something, and your mind wants something different.

You're at war with yourself, but you're not nuts.

It's okay, you're not crazy.

When my alarm clock goes off in the morning, my mind will say, Justin, get out of bed, it's time to start the day.

But sometimes my body says no.

And I just stay there a little bit longer.

See, God's like that.

It's Father, Son, Holy Spirit, one God, just like you have mind, body, spirit, one person, we actually reflect God in that way.

Except, unlike us, God's not arguing with himself all the time.

He's in harmony with himself.

But it gets confusing for us because when we say God, we almost always mean God the Father.

That's that's what we mean usually when we say God.

So when someone says, Oh, you know, I'm I'm just hoping God, God, God, God, they're almost always specifically talking about the Father.

And I hope that cleared something up for you.

Maybe you're more confused than when you arrived.

I'm sorry if that's the case.

Uh just stick with it.

God will he'll fill in the details.

But but this morning I want us to specifically, specifically focus on God the Father, on that one personality of the Trinity.

I want us to focus even more specifically on God the Father's love.

His love for you personally.

I pray that everything that we talk about today that you internalize in a personal way, that you would walk out of here understanding the degree to which God the Father loves you.

Because if we miss this, and if we drift away from this foundational thing, we we really miss we miss it all.

See, when it comes to God the Father, there's really two extremes, and most of us find ourselves on one side of this spectrum or another, or at least somewhere in between.

Over here, we have this idea of God being a distant, demanding ruler.

Distant, demanding ruler.

But then way over here, we have God being a loving, forgiving Father.

And we all exist in terms of our concept of God and how we relate to God somewhere on this line.

Maybe we're right here, maybe we're way over here, maybe we're kind of moving back and forth.

That's how life tends to work.

Different experiences cause us to have a difficult time seeing God as who He is sometimes.

Now, just so you know, all of religion lives right here.

All of religion lives here, seeing God as a distant, demanding ruler.

And so, religion, no matter what the religion is called, no matter what the religion calls God, religion becomes obsessed with are you doing enough good and are you doing good enough?

That's how you relate to God.

If God is a distant, demanding ruler, the only hope you have is to do well enough to please him, or at the very least, well enough to keep him from being too angry with you.

This is the way that almost all of humanity, for all history, has approached God.

And so when you approach God that way, it's all about performance.

Are you doing the the right things?

Are you doing enough of the right things?

Are you avoiding the wrong things?

It becomes this performance-based view of God, and depending on how you're doing right now, you either feel good about your relationship with God or you feel pretty bad about it.

You feel like maybe he's on the verge of being done with you.

Religion loves this distant, demanding ruler idea of God.

And so religion is very formal with God, religion is very standoffish with God.

You know, you don't really approach God.

If you do, you make sure that you approach him in the exact perfect way, because man, if you approach him the wrong way, the distant demanding ruler is going to be upset with you.

And then way over here, we've got this loving, forgiving father God.

And with this God, love is a gift given.

It's not a wage that we earn with our performance.

This concept of God sees God as a God who is so tender, so patient, so caring, so compassionate that it is almost impossible to even fathom him being done with you or over you.

And so, which is it?

Which which concept of God is right?

Is it the distant demanding ruler?

Is it the loving, forgiving father, or is it somewhere in between?

And I'll just let you know my personal opinion, and I don't even think it's a question.

He is the loving, forgiving father.

And what I want us to understand this morning is most of us will nod our heads and say, yes, yes, of course he is.

But but do we live that out?

Is that how we approach him day in and day out?

Do we really believe it?

We might we might know it in our hearts, but sometimes our mind is playing catch up.

And we don't actually operate like that, we don't actually approach God like that.

If we look at our prayer life, if we look at just how we think about God, how we analyze ourselves, do we live really believing that God, when it comes to us, is a loving, forgiving father?

It can be difficult to live here because there are some objections that might come up.

Number one, we might say, hey, I've read the Bible.

God does some pretty intense things throughout the Bible, especially for focusing on the Old Testament.

God does some pretty intense things to uh to make sure people are lining up with what he wants them to do.

That doesn't seem like a loving, forgiving father, that seems a little bit closer to the distant, demanding ruler.

And there's a lot of things at play there.

Number one, we're not God, we don't see things from God's perspective, so sometimes he does things that don't make sense to us.

Number two, and this kind of gets theological, that was a different era of humanity, that was a different set of rules, a different covenant, is what the Bible describes.

That was the covenant of law, we're under the covenant of grace because of Jesus.

But I think, I think more importantly, we just have the perspective of children, which which is which is good in a lot of ways, but we have sometimes the perspective of like teenage children who don't see discipline as love ever.

Anyone ever raised a teenager?

Okay, so I have yet to raise a teenager.

My oldest is six years old, going on seven, but I've been around a lot of teenagers, and just let me say, if you're a teenager, I love you.

I worked with high school students and junior high students for over 10 years.

I I any chance I get on a Wednesday night, I go check out what's happening in the high school, and it's awesome.

So I I love teenagers, but having been a teenager once, it's very difficult in that state of mind to see any discipline is love.

Right?

And so if you've raised a teenager, maybe there was a moment where you said, uh, yeah, you're not hanging out with that person anymore.

Dating that person, no, that's not gonna happen.

And does the teenager look at you and say, you know, I'm really upset right now.

Don't understand your perspective, but I know that you love me, and I know that you're ultimately doing what's best for me, and one day I'm gonna thank you for this.

No.

No, the teenager is literally like, you're horrible.

I hate you, you're ruining my life, you're just you're mean, you're evil, you enjoy making my life terrible.

That's the perspective.

We have to learn how to overcome that.

When we're in that state of mind, we don't see discipline as love.

But discipline, real discipline, is love.

In Hebrews chapter 12, starting in verse 5.

Hebrews 12 · chapter mention

The author wrote, And have you forgotten the encouraging words God spoke to you as his children?

He said, My child, don't make light of the Lord's discipline, and don't give up when he corrects you.

For the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes each one of each one he accepts as his child.

As you endure this divine discipline, remember that God is treating you as his own children.

Whoever heard of a child who is never disciplined by its father?

If God doesn't discipline you as he does all of his children, it means that you are illegitimate and you are not really his children at all.

Since we respected our earthly fathers who disciplined us, shouldn't we submit even more to the discipline of the father of our spirits and live forever?

For our earthly fathers disciplined us for a few years, doing the best they knew how, but God's discipline is always good for us, so that we might share in his holiness.

No discipline is enjoyable while it's happening.

It's painful.

But afterward there will be a peaceful harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way.

This is letting us know that discipline is love.

Real discipline, right discipline is love.

If I if I refuse to discipline my children, it just shows that I don't love them.

In fact, what it really means is I don't love them as much as I love me because I'm not willing to do something that might make them not like me as much right now.

But real discipline is love.

When you read the Bible, read it with that filter in mind.

Even the Old Testament, God's not in a bad mood.

The Old Testament is like God as a father saying over and over again, hey, please do this.

I'm making it very clear what I'd like you to do.

If you do this and this and this, it won't work.

And then people do it anyway, and God says, Please, I'm gonna give you a warning, please don't make me discipline you, and then they do it anyway, and he gives them another warning and another warning, and eventually he disciplines them, and everyone's like, What the heck, God?

Why have you done this to us?

And he's like, Are you serious?

I love you so much, but you drive me nuts sometimes.

That's called being a parent.

Discipline is love.

So sometimes we we might look at the discipline we see in the Bible, and it makes us kind of go to this, oh, he must be a distant, demanding ruler.

No, no, no, he's he's not.

He's a loving, forgiving father, because even when you discipline your children, you you forgive them.

In fact, I the number of times I've had to discipline my kids, and honestly, I'm not angry, I'm actually laughing.

I'm I'm trying not to laugh as I discipline them because they've done something, and I'm sitting there going, I oh, I can't let them do this, but it's it's kind of funny, you know?

I just have to.

One time I disciplined Liam when he was young.

I think I told the story a long time ago.

Uh, but uh at the time I was as a first-time parent, I'm trying to figure out how to discipline you know my kids, and I know we all have different different ideas of what's good and what's not.

Um, was anyone spanked growing up?

Anybody?

Okay, me too, not a ton.

Um, and so it's one of those things that we don't do often.

We we hold out for really needy moments.

And and again, if that's not how you do things, I'm not saying you should, but one time I was spanking Liam, and uh and he turned around.

This is probably four years ago, three years ago, and he turned around and he said, That hurt.

And I was like, That's the point of this.

And he said, Well, God is mad at you.

And he goes, but I want you to know, and this has really happened.

He said, He has healed me.

And if you spank me again, he will heal me again.

Right?

It's just nuts, right?

So when I discipline my son, you know, sometimes as a human being, I might be a little upset.

God's much better of a father as I am or anyone is, but but so much of the time I've already forgiven him.

I'm not even mad.

I just have to do it because it's it's the only way he'll learn.

And sometimes the holdup people have of moving away from the distant, demanding father concept of God isn't because maybe of his discipline, it's because of reverence.

There's this idea we have in our minds that says, oh man, I gotta be careful with how I approach God because, you know, I mean, he's God, right?

I mean, he is a king.

He is the king of kings, he is the Lord of lords, he is ruler of of all the earth, of the heavens, of every single thing.

The Bible says that one day every knee will bow, every tongue will confess.

Is he not the king?

And and sometimes in that concept of him being the king of everything, we say, ooh, then I should probably make sure that I I at least have some of this demanding ruler concept of God hold true.

Maybe I see him as a loving, forgiving father, but I'm just gonna hang here because I mean he's still the king.

And yes, technically that's true, but what What I want to help us understand this morning is that anytime we do that, we're forgetting one very important thing.

We are not the subjects of God, we are the children of God.

Now, is the child of a king technically still under the authority of that king?

Yes.

Is the child of a king technically, technically still the subject of a king?

Sure.

But does the child of a king have to live life with the mindset of the subject of the king?

No.

No.

In fact, if you saw the child of a king, the son or the daughter of a king, acting like all the other subjects, you would look at them and say, What are you doing?

You're the kid of the king.

You're the child of the king.

You need to enjoy some of the perks that come along with that.

The Bible makes it so clear to us, so clear, that we are God's children.

In Ephesians chapter 1, verse 5, the Bible says, God decided in advance, this is talking about before he even created the earth, to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ.

Ephesians 1:5

This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.

Romans 8, 15 through 17 says, You have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves.

You're not subjects.

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

Now we call him Abba Father.

That word Abba, that was the informal word for father.

That was the word you would have heard little children yelling on the streets as they ran up to their dads.

That's daddy.

Now we call him daddy.

For his spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are what?

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.

Think about that.

That says, together with Jesus, we are heirs.

Some translations will say co-heirs.

That means that God has elevated you in his family to such a position that you are, in his eyes, co-with Jesus.

He sees you on the same level.

It's crazy.

But if we're to share his glory, we must also share his suffering, reminding us that even being the child of the king doesn't mean life is easy.

We are the children of God.

And the children of God don't have to approach God the way everybody else does.

Because they're the children.

You know, if you were the subject of a king, you would have to approach the king very gingerly.

If you go to the throne room, you'd probably have, number one, have to make an appointment, wait a long time, knock on that door, or however that worked, and then when it was opened for you, you would walk slowly to the king, you would bow down before the king, you would say, Your majesty, your greatness, if it pleases you, may I please make a request, and then the king might let you know that you're allowed or not, or whatever.

But is that the way the child of a king approaches a king?

No.

Hebrews chapter 4, verse 6 says, Let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God.

Hebrews 4:6

There we will receive his mercy and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.

Come boldly to the throne of God.

The subjects of a distant demanding ruler cannot come boldly.

They have to come timidly, but the children of a king, well, they can come boldly.

They can throw those doors open, they can run up, they can interrupt whatever's going on in the king's day, they can jump in the king's lap, and they can ask that king for whatever they want.

They can ask for a pony, and the king's gonna give it to them because they're the kids of the king.

When we start to try to categorize God, when we start to say, well, hey, you know, technically he is the king, and I want to make sure I give him a proper due, yeah, that's all true, but but you're forgetting who you are when you think that way.

You may not be forgetting who God is in the sense that he is great and he is mighty and he is over everything, but you're forgetting who you are.

You're forgetting that you're more than just a person, some subject, some thing that God has made to worship him.

You forget that the purpose that you were made for was not to worship God, was not even to love God, but you were created to be loved by God.

That's your purpose.

Definitely worthy of golf claps, I agree.

So, you know, we we struggle sometimes.

We struggle to resist the pull because because maybe you've even gotten here at places in your life and you're comfortable calling God daddy and you're comfortable, you know, approaching him that way, and you know you're forgiven for everything, and you know that you're just absolutely loved, but religion has its pull and life has its pull, and you just find yourself sometimes drifting back over here a little bit.

And you start you start living your life trying to perform for God.

You start striving to please God.

When you strive to please God, it means you get away from doing what God has asked you to do, and you start trying to do what you think will impress God.

I've lived most of my life, if not all of it, as a striver.

Just doing everything I can to impress whoever I want to impress.

And it's exhausting.

And I've done that with God and I've I've just striven.

I've just got, oh God, I'll do this and I'll do this and I'll do this and this, and half the stuff I'm saying I'll do, God's never asked me to do, He's never called me to do.

I just think I better do this to impress that distant, demanding ruler that I sometimes think God is.

And see, when we adopt this understanding of God, the Father, number one, we we externalize it, and we become demanding, and we become performance-based, and we start expecting the people around us to be the same, and we start to become critical of everyone around us because the way that we see God completely and totally determines the way we see ourselves.

Why?

Because we're made in God's image.

You are made in the image of God.

So the way that you see God will completely and totally determine the way you see yourself.

Because you were made to be like him.

That's what he said.

So if you see God as this demanding ruler, you will become a demanding person, but you'll not just become demanding externally, you'll become demanding internally.

And you'll live at you'll live at war with yourself because you'll never measure up to your own standards.

You will live your life beating yourself up because you're not doing well enough to please God and you know it.

You live your whole life and you'll you'll look at all your mistakes, you'll look at all your failures, you'll you'll start pulling out this measuring stick and you'll start going, hey, how far away from the the target am I?

And it doesn't take very long to discover how far away you actually are.

And so you develop this self-hatred.

You start to see yourself as something or someone to be loathed.

And you just naturally kind of believe that God is disappointed in you, that he's so frustrated with you.

But you gotta understand that that's not the case.

The Bible says that Jesus gives us the clearest picture of God.

In the book of Hebrews, it says Jesus is the exact representation of God, so he's like this mirror image of God.

And if you want to know what God is like, look at Jesus.

Just look at Jesus and you see God as he is.

You know, religion works so hard to make our approach to God formal, and Jesus works so hard to help us have a much more informal approach to God.

You see it in John chapter 15.

John 15 · chapter mention

Jesus is talking to his friends, and he says, I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn't confide in his slaves.

Now you're my friends, since I've told you everything the Father told me.

This is Jesus, our big brother, who's brought us into the family of God, saying, You're friends.

This is Jesus.

He's helping us.

This is Jesus pulling us not into a more formal, more, more heavy, more burdensome approach to God, but a lighter, freer, more informal understanding of God.

That's what Jesus does.

He gives us this clear picture of God.

Just look at how God the Father spoke to Jesus.

We have a few moments in Scripture where we actually get to hear God the Father speak directly to Jesus.

One is when Jesus got baptized, and God the Father spoke, so people actually got to hear God the Father speak, not to his people, but to his son.

And he said, This is my dearly loved Son.

He brings me great joy.

The word we translate dearly loved could also be translated as favorite, and it could also be translated as beloved.

But the point is, he makes it clear, I love you.

There's another moment called the transfiguration, where Jesus takes some of his followers up a mountain and he literally transforms in front of them into what he really is, not a man, but God, and they're blown away.

And again, God the Father speaks, and here's what he says this time: this is my dearly loved son.

Same exact word that we could say, this is my favorite, this is my beloved, this is my dearly loved son.

And then he tells the disciples, do what he says.

In other words, I trust him.

I believe in him.

Both examples, God makes it so clear, this is my dearly loved son.

What I want to ask this morning, as we close, as we wrap up, is do you believe that you are the dearly loved son or daughter of God?

Do you understand this morning that just like I beamed over my son, God beams over you?

Just like I sat and bragged on my boy, and I said, Oh man, my boy is so, you know, he's so amazing, he's so awesome.

Uh, I know I'm biased, I know I'm not objective.

Do you understand that God is biased about you?

He's not objective when he thinks that you're he doesn't look at your life and go, well, let me take all the facts into consideration.

No, he looks at you and first and foremost, he sees his child and he loves you.

And if they have iPhones in heaven, he's bugging the angels, making them watch videos of you and pictures of you because he's so proud of you and he loves you so much.

And they're annoyed like everyone else is when they have to watch someone else's kids on a phone or on a big screen.

Right?

Do you but do you believe that this morning?

Do you live that way?

When you mess up, do you agonize over it?

Worry that this is gonna change the way God feels about you, or do you understand that you are God's favorite, that you are his beloved, that you are his dearly loved, his dearly loved daughter, his dearly loved son, not because of anything you've done, but because Jesus has elevated you to that.

Jesus has brought you into that, and now it's not about your performance.

You can't screw this up.

You you can't.

You can't do it.

But you can miss the joy that comes from living life knowing who you are by going further and further toward this understanding of God.

God is a loving, forgiving Father, and you are his child.

And he loves you, and he brags on you, and he beams about you, and one day you're gonna get to stand face to face with God, and he's not gonna read off a list of your failures, he's gonna embrace you.

He's gonna hold you, and he's gonna tell you all the amazing things he thinks about you.

I know that some of us in here have never had that kind of concept of a father.

Maybe our fathers weren't that.

That's okay.

That's okay.

God is your dad.

He's not like your dad, he's not a father-ly figure, he is your father, and he's perfect.

And we're not perfect, and so sometimes we mess up, sometimes we we do a poor job at times of of being who we're meant to be, but God never does.

God never has a bad day, he never has a bad dad moment.

And we don't have to have daddy issues with our our real daddy, because he loves us.

Do you believe that this morning?

Where are you on this spectrum?

Be here.

Run, run here, live here.

And anything, any, anything, no matter how theological, no matter how logical it sounds, no matter, no matter how learned the person is saying it, anything that would pull you from this to this, that is not from God.

So be his child.

Wrap your arms around his legs and stay there and recognize that what makes you you is that he is he is God and he's your dad and he's adopted you into his family, and he loves you, and he brags on you, and he's not objective about you, he's biased, he he loves you, he loves you, he loves you.

Do you believe that this morning?

All right.

We're gonna we're gonna wrap up with worship.

And and actually, worship team, if you wouldn't mind singing one of the songs that we already sang, um, the the I am love song, I just think that would be an appropriate way to wrap up this morning.

Um What I want to ask you to do is as we as we finish with this song is to simply simply do this.

Believe it.

And to sing it out, I am loved.

That's it.

It's so simple.

You're loved.

You know, when Herb sings a song, I think he believes it.

He's wearing a backwards hat and it's church.

So it's because it's a Braves hat and you're well, no, Braves is on the front.

At first I thought maybe you don't want everyone to see that you, because it's, you know, it's been a rough year, but it has.

But you're good.

It's got Braves on the front, too.

But just believe this, soak in this, and walk out of here today, just beaming over the fact that God's bragging on you.

He loves you.

He's that that dad who just can't stop thinking about you, talking about you, smiling over you.

He loves you.

Let's pray.

Jesus, thank you so much for today.

Thank you so much for this amazing group of people.

And thank you, Jesus, for bringing us into the family.

Father God, you love us.

And I'll be honest, God, that doesn't make a lot of sense to us.

We can think of a lot of reasons why you shouldn't love us.

But you know, God, I sit here and I think about my own three children, and I love them so much, and they are so inconvenient to me.

And I get way less sleep, and I have way less in my bank account, and I have way more to do every single day because they exist.

And I wouldn't trade a second of it.

Because I just love them so much.

I literally live to see them smile.

But God, it is hard for me sometimes to see you the same way, to really believe that you live to see me filled with joy, that you live to see my dreams fulfilled, that you live to see me made whole.

But that is exactly who you are, Lord.

And so as a church, we are declaring right now that we will live, we will live with the right understanding of you.

That we will live recognizing that you are our father, you're our daddy, and you say that we're beloved, you say that we're dearly loved, you call us your favorite, and we want to be your favorite right now.

We love you, Lord.

Amen.