Family Blessings Pt. 2 :: He Chose Us

A study through the spiritual blessings in Christ from Ephesians 1:1-14.

Visit our website
Follow us on Facebook
Follow us on Instagram

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Thanks for joining us today as you listen to a portion of the message recorded at Fine Life Church in Boulder, Colorado. If you'd like to connect with us further, you can visit us online at www.finelife.com.

SPEAKER_02 0:15

Wiping there. Um, let me just catch you up. If you weren't here last week, let me just let me catch you up on this. We are diving into a passage of scripture where this letter that Paul writes to the Ephesians is rich and robust, and arguably one of the more transformative letters in all of the New Testament. Because as he's writing to the Ephesians, he wasn't trying to write to correct them, he was writing to establish them and to build them up into what's true. And what's amazing about this particular letter is that the first three chapters, he doesn't even talk about what they should be doing or how they should be doing, whatever they're doing, or tactics or techniques or anything like that. The first three chapters, he wants to root them again, he wants to remind them again of everything that's been accomplished for them in Christ, everything, what reality actually consists of in Christ. Because until they got that, until we get that, what has actually been accomplished for us in Christ, it doesn't matter what we're doing, if it's not out of the overflow of what God has already done, then it's for not. It's based on our own works. But when we're rooted, when we are rooted and established in the blessings bestowed upon us through the Father, it awakens something in us. And this is how God roots us and grounds us in what He's doing, right? We talked a little bit about this last week. We all grew up in families, different kinds of families, with different kinds of social norms, right? And so as you grew up, you started to realize how different your family was than maybe your spouse's family or your coworkers' family or your friends. And we grew up with a certain way of relating to the world based on what our parents and what our siblings and the people closest to us told us was supposed to be normal. But then we had to learn how to adjust, right? You had to learn how to make sense of what you grew up with versus what's normal. And so what happens as we come into the kingdom, as we respond to the invitation of Christ, as we come into the family of God, God's intention is not to just use us and just give us gifts and send us out like we're employees, but it's to welcome us into his family as beloved sons and daughters. And his intention is to actually reparent us into a new family dynamic, right? So the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, the original family, they surround us in love and they say, Let me, we're gonna show you a new way to be human. We're gonna show you a new way to participate in the type of family that we had in mind. Right? And so that's the posture and the context through which we read this, Ephesians chapter 1, is through that. God is literally teaching us what's true about the family of God and then inviting us into it. Right? So let's read this together. Ephesians chapter 1, 1 through verse 14. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God to the saints who are in Ephesus and the faithful in Christ Jesus. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love, he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory. Come on, amen, amen, amen, amen. This is it right here. And so we're gonna dive into verse four here this morning. And uh kind of starting from this realization that all of us across the room, there's one thing that is true of all of us. We all love feeling special, right? We like to believe that we are totally unique from the masses, from everybody sitting next to us, from everybody in our lives, right? We long, there's a longing in our heart for distinctiveness as human creatures, to be known as originals, known for who we really are, not just carbon copies of another. But there is meaning to our existence, right? And so we live our whole life searching for ways to find that meaning, that we are unique, that we are selected, we are called out from everybody else. And see, this last week my wife showed me the example of this. She called me and she was elated. And there's lots of reasons she could be elated. Sometimes that's a good deal on something. Sometimes she saw the cutest little kitty ever. Um, and she calls me, and I'm like, I'm in a meeting. She's like, but it's a kitty, right? And so she calls me for a lot of reasons, excited about different things. In this particular case, she she got selected, she won a prize, which essentially was uh a special, a coupon, a deal at a store called Build-A-Bear. You guys familiar with this? Anyone with young kids? Build-a bear at Flat Irons Malls? You build a teddy bear for $300, right? For the price of a small HELOC, this too could be yours. Um, and so she got a deal. This particular deal, she said, you won't believe this. I got selected for a pay your own age at Build-A-Bear for our kids. And I was thinking, oh my gosh, that's amazing. Pay your own age. That's gonna be like less than 10 bucks for you know for our two youngest kids. And uh, and I was and and she was she was stoked. She's like, I won this, I won, I won this, right? And uh I was excited for you. I was like, that's just amazing, babe. And I said, I said, so how how many other people got selected? Oh, she said, oh not not many. She said, there there's only about 200,000 across the country. I said, 200,000? I'm like, that's not special. Like 200,000? It's like what are you talking about? 200,000, you get selected from it for anything, and so it didn't take much for her to feel the, you know, just to feel the chosenness of the moment. You know, for me, I I got to spoil it just for a second here and just remind her of it's the same type of thing. You get an email that you've been selected for the car, right? And you know that it's not true, right? I mean, it's just a thing, it's getting sent out. And so I love this story though, because all through life, we navigate our life looking for moments of distinction, looking for moments of chosenness. And we do this from a young age, right? Um, from the moment that you were trying to be picked for the dodgeball team in school. Uh, for the moment that you were trying to, you know, win the science fair project, the science fair you know contest in front of the whole school, where you know, we want to be picked for promotion. We want to be picked to stand out from the rest for an achievement, for a talent, for a skill, you know, for something that we're acknowledged outside of the rest. And maybe some of you have that, remember that feeling, that childhood feeling of like, has anybody ever here experienced that like the last to be picked thing? Right? Like, I'm gonna be the first to raise my hand. You guys don't need to raise your hand if you don't want to, but I'll raise my hand. And not only that, I experience even the one thing worse than the last to be picked. And that is when you get you're the you're the last man standing, and both team captains look at you and they don't even pick you, they just walk away. Like, okay, right? So I I've experienced that too. Not even the last to be picked, just like, okay, and then just walk away, right? And so I don't even know what team I'm on at that point in time. So it's like the bot, it's like that's like the worst, like the epitome of a childhood fear. Not just to be the last to be picked, but to be totally unacknowledged, right? Unknown. But all through life, there's moments like this that create these distinctions that that we're looking for to either validate something, to affirm something, right? To remind us of who we are. And so the search for approval, for significance, for recognition. It's something born in us, and it's not a bad thing. This is what we have to remember. The desire for approval, the desire to be known, the desire to be seen for who we really are, to be looked in the eyes and called out by name and to be known. That's actually not a bad desire. It's actually a God-given desire, but it's meant to be fulfilled in the Father. Right? So it's not about not looking for approval, it's about knowing where to look for approval. And that's the calling. And this is part of what Paul is wanting to establish the church in as he is uh encouraging them, he's building them up the faith. He he starts out saying, listen, blessed be the Father in the Lord Jesus Christ, who's blessed us in Christ with spiritual blessings. And then as we look at the spiritual blessings in chapter one, this is one of the first that we we come across, that he chose us in him. He chose us in him before the foundations of the world, that we might be holy and blameless in him. That we might be holy and blameless before him. And so as as God is reparenting us, this is one of the things he wants to, he has to reintroduce us to as we come into Christ, because this isn't something that we experience all the time. But in the new family of Jesus, this is the starting point. Chosenness is the starting point in the new family of Jesus. He says, You can't do anything out here until I establish you in your chosenness. I establish you in my delight and my desire for you. And so we know about this particular passage, it's there's an individual component to this, but in this particular passage, this is talking about a much broader thing. He chose us, not just us as individuals, but us as a people. And this this is a reference back to Abrahamic promises of old, right? That God would promise Abraham nations. That I'm gonna bless you and your descendants, so that what? So that you can be a blessing, right? I've set you apart. In Deuteronomy 7, verse 6, he reiterates this. He says, For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession. Out of all the peoples who were on the face of the earth, it was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, but you were the fewest of all the peoples. But it is because the Lord loves you and he's keeping the oath that he swore to your father. Isn't this beautiful? That he comes back to his people and says, Listen, I'm not choosing you because you're great. You're really not. I mean, it's kind of an insult, not insult, you know, it's like one of those compliment sandwiches kind of thing. He says, Listen, I'm not choosing you because you're great in number. You're not better than anybody else. It's just that I love you. And for me, you're a treasured possession. And this is a theme that, you know, as as God called Adam and Eve to be a first family, walking in authority and power in fellowship with the Father and Son and the Spirit, they they they lost that. That was surrendered over to sin, right? And so they lost that capacity, they lost that vocation. It's in the garden. And as God would try to establish this through his people, the children of Israel. Again, we see that they would, it was a hit or miss, right? They had some good days and some bad days, mostly bad days, from what we can see. But then God had to re-establish what he originally intended for his family in Christ, that as we would come into Christ, that everything that was promised to the children of Israel would be inherited through Jews and Greek and Gentiles alike in Christ, right? That the family he was wishing to establish would actually be made possible in Christ, which is why which is why even Peter rifts on this in 1 Peter chapter 2. This is the Passion Translation, he says, You are God's chosen treasures, priests who are kings, a spiritual nation set apart as God's devoted ones. He called you out of darkness to experience his marvelous light. And now he claims you as his very own. He did this so that you would broadcast his glorious wonders throughout the world. Isn't that awesome? So God, he sets us apart. He sets us apart as a tribe, as a people, as a as a remnant, not just to say, hey, we are, we've got it, we've got the goods. You all wish you were in this. You know, it's not a thing of arrogance and elitism. Please hear that. God does not bring others to himself so that they can categorically set themselves apart from everybody else as better than, but to the praise of his glorious grace that we could extend the love and the mercy and the grace of God into all the world. See, that's what he does. He sets apart his treasured possessions so that we could extend everything he meant for us into the uttermost parts of the world. That's part of his plan, that's part of what it means to be a part of the family, not just a family into ourselves, but to pick up once again the vocation and the high call of extending the purposes of God to all who are lost and broken in need of hope. Come on, that's us. That's the calling, it's the calling of the family of God. But it does start with a family paradigm. Right? And I'm convinced, I'm convinced that the church, the the church of the future, especially in the North America, in the Western world, that the our strength will only be determined by the quality of love that we'll be able to embrace and to embody and extend. That God wants to strip away anything else we've trusted in so that we can embody the chosen his chosenness and then extend it out to those who need it. And I believe that he is wanting to reestablish that in a powerful way for the day that we live in. We live in a day like no other. And I'm telling you, this paradigm is gonna be a key for us moving forward. And he is he is he's committed, he's committed to sealing this in each and every one of our hearts. You guys believe that? And so he chooses us, and that's a good message to be reminded of that we're chosen because as as as good Western consumers, we're pretty convinced that we design our lives by choosing what we want. Right? Most of our days are defined by what we choose and how we choose and the quality of what we choose, right? And it even leaks into the church when you start thinking about this. We talk about man accepting Jesus in my heart. Okay, God, I accepted you into my heart. Right? Okay, come on in, right? Where God, um, you know, we in we invite you here. God, you can, you know, we're gonna make space for you, we're gonna make room for you, right? And so sometimes this can even creep in, like as if we're the ones choosing God. Do you understand? Do you understand this? Even Jesus said this to his disciples in John 15. He said, Listen, you did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide. Can we just remind ourselves that we're not inviting God into our thing, that we're joining him in what he's already accomplished for all of time? That we're just showing up to his party. Like the table's already been set. We're showing up, we're not doing God any favors by choosing him. Now, our hearts respond, yes, there's a choosing that happens in our hearts. We we do invite him in, we do surrender to him, we do joyfully make room in our hearts. But the basis of what we're doing here is not us convincing God to come do anything for us or us doing any favors for God. It's us showing up to something that's been in place long before we ever showed up. And long before long after we leave. That God is up to something, he's redeeming for himself a family. And we get to rest today that before I even had the chance to choose him, he already said yes to me. And he said yes to you. He said yes to us. There was a yes in his heart. That's the good news right there. There was a yes in his heart. Before the foundations of the world. And think about that. Before the foundations of the world. Now, there's a few ways we can read that. Now, obviously, we know that God knows the beginning from the end. But let that not steal the punch for you a little bit, okay? Because he knows the beginning from the end, but I do believe that sometimes in thinking that, we we think that, all right, God already knows everything, I'll ever decide and whether I choose him or not choose him. And so it just is what it is, and everything is just kind of a passive moving through life because God's already got the whole thing mapped out. No, I I believe that there's another there's another nuance through which we can read this phrase that God chose us before he ever knew if we would reciprocate that choosing. Now, just take take a moment across the room. I want you to think this last I want, I want you to think about what was the last big decision that you made in your life? Okay? Think about it. What was the last big decision that you made in your life? No, it could have been, you know, getting married, it could have been buying a house, it could have been school. All right, think about that. I'm gonna actually have you share that with somebody around you here in a second. I want to think I want you to think about what is the last, the last consequential, like kind of big decision that you made. All right? Do you guys guys got something? Okay. Find somebody around you real quick. You can move around if you need to. I'm just gonna get you up, interact just for a second, okay? Share with them that one thing. All right, what was the last big decision that you made? All right? So share with them just wherever you are. You can get up, it's okay, you can talk. You can talk in church. Okay. All right, we're good. You don't need to show your testimony. We're good. We're alright. We're gonna break out into ministry. Just over our last decision. No, this is good. So you guys got you guys shared something, maybe something that felt like a big decision. Doesn't have to be, doesn't it just has to be big for you, right? Alright, no, shout out of just a couple things you guys heard. Job? Vacation? School? What was that? Moving countries. Three of you. Moving countries. There's a lot of moving happening. What else? Cars, okay. That's a good one. That's a big decision. What is that? College. Schools. Okay, sports. My sons are saying sports. Those are big decisions. Now, I want you to think about those decisions and think about the amount of time you put into those decisions and you are choosing. For some of you, some of these decisions are years in the making. And and the research, I mean, imagine buying a house without make doing any research. Imagine seeing a picture online and saying, alright, that's it. Yes, buy now, right? I don't know if you can do that online. Buy now. Um, imagine just choosing a school. You find the first website or whatever, and like, I like this one, right? And it's literally a 30-second decision, right? Imagine moving or doing anything like that, buying a car. What like with within these consequential decisions, how long did you take choosing? This is a typically a labor some process. Specifically for us who are expert choosers, as we've already talked about, living in the part of the country, part of the world that we live in and the time we live in, we are basically professional choosers. Professional decision makers. We know how to read read our consumer reports and and read the blog reviews and all the stuff and everything we're doing. Because why? We want to make the best possible decision with the least possible percentage or opportunity for failure, right? We want this to go as well as possible. And I I want you to think about this in the context of the choosing of God, that God, there's something even before he knew anything about what we would decide or how we would respond to him. Yes, he knows the beginning from the end, but there's still this human agency that he has given us as part of what makes us human, is this relationship with him, that we have the ability to say yes or no to what he what he wants us to do, right? And so think about it in this particular context, that God, even before the foundations of the world, within him, there was already a decision made before you breathed your first breath. Now, the closest example I have to this is within my own family. My sons are down front here. I love my kids. I loved welcoming all of them into my home. My middle son Asher was really special. We call him our chosen one because we got to welcome him into our family through adoption. And his birth parents, Gabby and Chris, are just amazing, amazing people. And we got to welcome him in. And it's been, I love Asher. I love you, buddy. You're so special. You're special to me, you're special to this church. But I remember when the opportunity came up and God stirred in our heart. Like we, you know, God stirred this desire to bring in another child into our family. We we felt um Megan and I both felt this overwhelming yes in our heart. You know, and this goes for any of our kids, biological or adopted, right? Even before you meet them, there's something that stirs in your heart. Right? And there's an there's there's prayers that are being prayed, and there's paperwork that's being filled out, and there's financing that has to be sorted through. And there's a length of time and waiting, and there's baby rooms that have to be made, and this process is laborsome, and it's all there, and it's crazy because we knew nothing about any of our kids before they showed up. Isn't that wild? But inside of your heart, everything in you said, yes, yes, yes, yes, this could go terribly wrong, but yes. I'm gonna have some really terrible things, but yes. I'm gonna be frustrated and at the end of myself, but yes, because I'm also gonna be full of joy, and there's gonna be the legacy that's passed on, inheritance that's passed on, and and no, I don't get to control everything with my kids. I don't get to tell them, even if I try to tell them, I try to tell them what to do. They don't have to listen to me, right? Forever. Listen, guys, you need to listen, all right? No, my my boys are awesome, but but but what I love about parenting is that I that it's the entire thing is a giant risk. The entire thing is a giant risk. Because you pour your love out to them, biological or adopted, you pour your love out to them, and they have to choose, they get to choose to reciprocate that love. But in the heart of the father, the decision was made long before we breathed our first breath, he knew us, our origin was in the heart of the father, right? And he said yes. And so even before the foundations of the world were laid, we were his preference. We were his first option, we were plan A. You were plan A. We as a people, but but the way that this solidifies in our hearts, we get to rejoice in what God is making through his family, but each one of us gets to receive this even individually as uniquely loved, special, called out by the Father. I what I love about my kids is that they're all loved very uniquely. What I they all have their special traits about them, and so I get to interact with them all differently. I believe that's how the Father thinks about us. How do you have a whole room full of chosen people and everybody feel chosen, right? It's because he knows the language of our hearts. He knows what we love, he knows what matters to us. And I believe that's how this solidifies in us the joy of being chosen by God. It's it's living in the perpetual delight of the Father's smile. From day one, realizing before we ever had a chance to screw anything up or to walk away or to disobey or any of those things, he said yes in his heart to the point where he would send his son to rescue us back into his family. It's not about us being special, as we've already said. Yes, we are special, but God chooses us sometimes for the opposite. Here's what it says, here's what Paul says to the Corinthians in chapter 1, verse 26, 1 Corinthians, he says, For you considered your calling, brothers, not many of you were wise according to the worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth, but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low. Okay, Paul, we get it. We're weak and we're foolish and we're low. He chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. So is there's this crazy reality in the family of God that we're all the apple of his eye. We are all so loved and deeply loved more than we'll ever know. And yet, it is not for the purpose of pride or arrogance, it's for the purpose of knowing how to extend that chosenness into every interaction, every relationship we have. So that's the that's the full circle part of this, right? So God, God chooses us, He picks us out, He calls us out, He's establishing for Himself a family, not just so we can walk around with the I'm special card, even though that's part of it. But it's so that we know how to extend it. And so that's really what this comes down to. How do we know that when we're how do we know when we're living in our chosenness? And I would say it this way it can be really simply defined. So everything we're talking about, I'm I'm speaking from sage and I and I can say you are chosen and heads all nod, okay, I'm chosen. Okay? How do we actually know we believe we're chosen? How do we know this is actually integrated into our our hearts and our lives? Here's the one thing do the people in your life feel chosen by you? Okay? Here's what it says John chapter 13. It's passion translation. So I give you now a new commandment. Love each other just as much as I have loved you. For when you demonstrate the same love I have for you by loving one another, everyone will know that you are my true followers. So for all of these things that we talk about, the only litmus test is it leaking out into our interactions, right? So the people in our life, our friends, our family, the people that have the closest access to us, do they feel a spirit of chosenness even in the way we relate to them? Do they feel preferred by us? Do we feel each other's preference as we're receiving the love of the Father? Can we look each other's eyes and say, man, woman? You're awesome. I remember a couple months ago I was in North Carolina spending some time with some friends, and there was uh there were several national ministry leaders, some worship leaders there that some of you guys would know. And uh I remember being in an interaction with one of them, and we were just catching up, old friends of ours, and we were catching up, and and I remember this uh this woman um when we were in conversation, I was startled by how engaged she was with what was going on in my life. Like literally, we'd be in the conversation, and I started to get a little worried how engaged she was because her eyes were just like her eyes, she was so locked in. She had her arm on mine, and she's just asking these follow-up questions, and she was so deeply locked in and present and engaged as if I was the only person on planet Earth in that particular moment. How awesome is that? And I walked away super convicted because I I realized that a lot of these conversations I'm looking across the room for who else is in the room that I want to talk to later. Or sometimes I look in these conversations for what's the quick way out, because I don't necessarily want to be here all the time or for this amount of time. I'm just gonna be honest. Can we just be honest here? That's that's what comes up for me sometimes. But when I think about what it looks like to to live in the chosenness of God, part of this vocation is when we are among each other, learning how to be, how to extend that preference through presence, through chosenness, through through because here's the thing until we are locked into the chosenness in our own heart from the Father, there is no way we can actually extend it to others. How are you going to believe that the person you're sitting next to is special and unique in the heart of God if you if you don't believe that for yourself? Being loved by God is the most important thing you can do for the world. Being established in your chosenness is one of your best gifts for the world because it actually allows you to see strangers, both friends and strangers and family alike through the through the eyes of you are an amazing carrier of the image of God. I have to talk to you. I have to get to know you. Now, again, I'm an introvert off the stage, right? It takes more energy for me to work a crowd than others. Like my wife loves this stuff. It's a lot more energy for me to do that as an introvert. So an introvert, any introvert center? So it's okay to be an introvert, all right? Let me just let that as a caveat. But the question is when you are entrusted with relationships and interactions, are you able to channel, to be a conduit of the blessing and the chosenness of God? To model what is true in heaven, in heavenly places, through our first family, the Father and the Son and the Spirit. Don't you love about the Father and the Son and the Spirit that they just prefer each other all day long? It almost is a little bit, it's just a little wild. I mean, you look at these interactions in the gospel. All Jesus wants to talk about is the Father. I only do what the Father's doing, I only go do what you know, say what he's saying, and you know, I do my father's business. He wants to talk about the Father, that the Father's glory may be revealed. Then he says, you know what, I gotta go because I gotta send you someone way better than me. His name is Holy Spirit, and he's going to lead you into all truth. You think it was good now? Wait till the Holy Spirit comes, right? He's got it going. And the Holy Spirit, so then the Holy Spirit shows up, and the Holy Spirit, all he wants to talk about is Jesus. The Holy Spirit shows up when Jesus is glorified, says when when Jesus is lifted up. That's when the Holy Spirit comes, right? So if you want the Holy Spirit to come in your room or in your life, it's when it's actually when Jesus is elevated in your life. And the Holy Spirit says, All right, I'll come. He doesn't come when we tell him to come, he comes and Jesus is glorified. And so the Holy Spirit comes because he invades anywhere where there's an obsession with Jesus and the Father. And the Father's the same way. All he wants to do is shove the Holy Spirit and Jesus into the spot, like because he's so proud, right? It's an amazing relationship that's going on in heaven. And that's what he's inviting us into because that's what the world needs. That's what we need, right? Are you guys are you guys here this morning? So this morning, we're gonna we are gonna end our time here. I just want to take a moment before we before we leave to rest and to absorb and soak in the blessings of Christ in this way. And some of us, you know, like that it's it's it's it's hard to intellectually just start believing. It has to be a revelation of God, it has to be a revelation of the Holy Spirit, how incredibly pointed his affection is towards you. How incredibly directed and laser focused it is on who you are. That your belovedness would actually be more than a good idea, but it would be the foundation from which you live, right? That's for for all of us, and that's the one thing that the Lord highlighted to me even in the last couple weeks, one of my first scriptures that ever that the Lord ever spoke to me was in Jeremiah chapter one. And it starts off, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. And I appointed you as a prophet to the nations, you know, and he would go on to talk about I'm gonna give you the word to speak. And who cares if you're young? He goes into all these things, and just a couple weeks ago, the Holy Spirit brought that back up in my heart. To remind me, listen, you've been chasing the second half of that, which is about what you're called to and appointed to. But what I want to remind you of is the first part that I knew you before I formed you in the womb. And so as Mark plays this morning, let's just get quiet before the father. And we're we're wrapping up here, so we'll only be here for a few more minutes, but let's just get quiet before the father. And let him reveal to us in our own language, in our hearts with words his love for us this morning. Father, we pray across the stream as we would establish us in your love, you would establish us your affection. Pray for a full embrace, Lord God, that each heart in this room, young and old men and women would feel embraced fully by the warm arms of the Father this morning. Hear the Father smile, see the Father smile, hear the Father say, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you.

SPEAKER_01 39:27

Hear him call your name. That you're not just a number to him, that you are called out by name. I love you, Karen. I love you, Sonia. I love you, Rock, I love you, Gail. I love you, Debbie. I love you, Blaze. I love you, John.

SPEAKER_02 40:11

And Father, we pray that as this love continues to permeate, God, that you would help us catch a vision for what you are wanting to do in us and in our families and in the places you positioned us, in our workplaces, God, in our neighborhoods, to extend the preference of the Father every step we take. We thank you, Lord, that you're reparenting us and showing us how you want to relate, how you want us to relate. And that I just pray that even as we leave this place this morning, that the power and the love of God would be manifest and displayed for all the world to see. That the world would know we are true disciples for the way that we love God. And we announced this morning this is a work of the Holy Spirit, not just man-made man-made-contrived decision to try to be loved, but this is an overflow of the heart of heaven through us, God, through Christ. So we receive that today. We receive that mandate from you. And listen, as we end our time here this morning, we're gonna have a ministry team up front on both sides.