WEBVTT 00:00:02.585 --> 00:00:04.972 It's always a privilege to be here. 00:00:04.972 --> 00:00:07.584 As you heard, my name is Derek. 00:00:07.584 --> 00:00:08.348 I'm one of the pastors. 00:00:08.348 --> 00:00:13.631 It's been actually almost a year since I have spoke to you from stage. 00:00:13.631 --> 00:00:16.425 I know that's wild, isn't it? 00:00:17.181 --> 00:00:23.493 But I wanted to start out this morning with just a little bit, just a few moments of what brought me to this sermon. 00:00:23.493 --> 00:00:35.709 And it began really the beginning of last year, and some of our youth have heard part of this sermon because the Lord led me to give some of this at summer camp in the beginning. 00:00:35.709 --> 00:00:40.844 Summer camp it's such a great time, but throughout this year God has been dealing with me. 00:00:40.844 --> 00:00:47.143 You guys knew that I was on sabbatical for a few months and thank you guys so much for the ability to do that. 00:00:47.143 --> 00:00:51.052 It was a great time of refreshment to my heart and my mind. 00:00:51.052 --> 00:00:57.552 It allowed me to slow down enough to hear what the Lord was speaking, and it took me quite some time. 00:00:57.552 --> 00:01:07.382 I actually didn't even hear this part of it until after the sabbatical was over and I began to hear what the Lord was trying to say to me the whole time. 00:01:07.382 --> 00:01:24.453 I believe this is probably one of the big reasons why, back in December, I kind of had a nervous breakdown, and this is something that for all of us, if we don't truly grasp the reality of this, we all can end up in the exact same location. 00:01:24.453 --> 00:01:27.843 Reality of this we all can end up in the exact same location. 00:01:27.843 --> 00:01:30.167 So I wanted to quickly tell you about how I viewed God up until this point. 00:01:30.167 --> 00:01:33.953 Now I have been a Christian my entire life and gosh. 00:01:33.953 --> 00:01:39.421 I remember there was a time at seven years old where I confessed that I was going to follow Jesus. 00:01:39.421 --> 00:01:41.966 But I remember at 12 years old I gave my life to him. 00:01:41.966 --> 00:01:48.527 I had a waterbed and I woke up feeling like I was never going to go to heaven and that was really scary. 00:01:48.527 --> 00:01:52.165 So I bowed down beside my bed and I prayed and I asked God into my life, right there. 00:01:52.165 --> 00:01:58.984 And so my whole life has really just been around God, but my view of God was much like this. 00:01:58.984 --> 00:02:02.944 I was trying to think of the best way to explain this, but I finally came up with. 00:02:03.103 --> 00:02:12.473 One Years ago I worked for a company that was an incredible company, really good to me and my wife and I had a boss and her name was Donna. 00:02:12.473 --> 00:02:15.752 She was the president of our company, rather large company. 00:02:15.752 --> 00:02:22.469 They have, I think over 10,000 apartment units in America and I was blessed to be there. 00:02:22.469 --> 00:02:30.900 It was one of those jobs that you just love to have, and I remember, through one of the hardest times in our life, donna was there and she took care of it. 00:02:30.900 --> 00:02:34.187 But now the way that I viewed God was much like I viewed Donna. 00:02:34.187 --> 00:02:36.252 She was great. 00:02:36.252 --> 00:02:38.503 I only saw her about 20 times a year. 00:02:38.503 --> 00:02:44.145 I knew that she was going to make sure my paycheck got paid and I knew that she cared about me. 00:02:44.145 --> 00:02:48.159 Okay, but that was the extent of it. 00:02:48.540 --> 00:02:59.282 So Eli died and we were in a really bad place and we were going to rent out our home because we just couldn't be in the home that our little boy was in because there was no way to get away from his room. 00:02:59.282 --> 00:03:00.764 It was right in the center of the house. 00:03:00.764 --> 00:03:06.675 So we just asked if we could rent an apartment to get out of our home. 00:03:06.675 --> 00:03:14.383 And she took it a step further and bought us a home and gave it to us rent-free the entire time that I finished working there. 00:03:14.383 --> 00:03:20.382 Again, it was such a beautiful thing to take care of us, but again, I barely ever saw her. 00:03:20.382 --> 00:03:22.806 I just knew that she cared about me right. 00:03:23.587 --> 00:03:39.913 Well, I realized that's much of how I have been viewing God, knowing that, no matter what, he was going to be there for me, knowing that he was going to always provide he was always going to take care of me. 00:03:39.913 --> 00:03:45.469 I've seen him do incredible miracles that some of you here just wish you could see. 00:03:45.469 --> 00:03:51.393 I've watched dead come to life literally in front of my face. 00:03:51.393 --> 00:03:59.867 I've watched legs grow that were never long enough to walk, with so many things the blind to see. 00:03:59.867 --> 00:04:08.611 So, yeah, I knew that God was incredible, he was an awesome God and I had no problem at all serving him. 00:04:08.611 --> 00:04:20.233 I have all the way to this point, no problem at all, just being called his servant and knowing that I am taken care of by a good God in heaven. 00:04:20.233 --> 00:04:31.447 But, guys, there's much more to it than that and I have, like I said, I've lived my whole life up to this point just thinking that way. 00:04:32.088 --> 00:04:41.434 And this year, this scripture that we're going to go over today opened my eyes and it led me to another scripture that I'm going to share in just a bit. 00:04:41.434 --> 00:04:55.555 That further opened my eyes and it actually dug deep into my doctrine and theology, so much so that some of the scripture I'm going to read today, there was pieces of it that I had never filtered in the proper way. 00:04:55.555 --> 00:05:00.427 I had just looked over those words like they didn't even exist. 00:05:00.427 --> 00:05:06.269 So much so that when I read the scripture with a clear mind that I go wait, is this heresy? 00:05:06.269 --> 00:05:08.983 How can the word of God be heresy? 00:05:08.983 --> 00:05:40.387 And so I have been struggling like deep in my heart, in a good way, you know, those good struggles that we need to have, and no matter what happens in our life, no matter what age you get, we always have to be open to understand that we might just have something in the scripture wrong, and we need to have our heart and mind open to allow the Holy Spirit to show us something that he's wanting to say, because that's one of those great things about the word being alive and we can read it our whole life. 00:05:40.387 --> 00:05:51.341 I'm 42 now y'all my whole life life. 00:05:51.341 --> 00:05:52.322 I'm 42 now, y'all my whole life. 00:05:52.322 --> 00:05:54.148 And I just now got it and it moves. 00:05:54.148 --> 00:05:57.115 And I'm sure when I'm 72, I'll read it again and go what? 00:05:57.115 --> 00:05:58.358 How did I not get that for 72 years, right? 00:05:58.358 --> 00:06:03.548 So today I just wanted to start with a moment of giving you a view of where I have been. 00:06:04.810 --> 00:06:07.654 Our sermon today is Chosen for Adoption. 00:06:07.654 --> 00:06:09.485 I'm going to start with a quick story. 00:06:09.485 --> 00:06:22.187 There was a young boy In February 24th 1955, he was born to two college students that knew that they could not raise this child. 00:06:22.187 --> 00:06:28.105 They had no means, they didn't know what to do and, thank God, they chose adoption. 00:06:28.105 --> 00:06:32.031 And so they had this family set up. 00:06:32.031 --> 00:06:37.048 And right as the baby boy was born, this family decided we can't adopt this baby. 00:06:37.048 --> 00:06:39.942 So now this is the second family that says I don't want this baby. 00:06:39.942 --> 00:06:44.189 And along came Paul and Clara. 00:06:44.189 --> 00:06:51.720 Now they didn't have a whole lot, but they were two people that couldn't have children and wanted to have a baby. 00:06:51.720 --> 00:06:58.810 And the mother said look, I just wanna know, will you make sure that this young boy goes to college? 00:06:58.810 --> 00:07:05.149 And they said sure, we'll make sure, with everything we got, this young man will go to college. 00:07:05.149 --> 00:07:10.526 So they adopted him and this boy that once was. 00:07:10.526 --> 00:07:12.632 He had been looked over two times. 00:07:12.632 --> 00:07:24.471 He was adopted and adoption changed his life, because this boy grew up to create one of the largest technical powerhouses house, as we know today, is Apple Steve Jobs. 00:07:24.471 --> 00:07:32.601 Where would Steve Jobs had been if he had never been adopted? 00:07:32.601 --> 00:07:36.630 His whole life changed with adoption. 00:07:37.232 --> 00:07:47.514 And today, in Ephesians 1, paul tells us a story much like it, except this time it's about all of us, because we were orphans. 00:07:47.514 --> 00:07:53.031 So we'll start with the scripture, ephesians 1, verse 3 through 6. 00:07:53.031 --> 00:08:30.725 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, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the beloved. 00:08:30.725 --> 00:08:31.867 Let's pray. 00:08:31.867 --> 00:08:34.813 Father, we thank you so much for your word. 00:08:34.813 --> 00:08:38.144 We thank you for your spirit moving here this morning. 00:08:38.144 --> 00:08:49.686 We thank you, lord, for who you are and how you made a way for us, god, in a way that is so powerful and really inconceivable of why you would do it. 00:08:49.686 --> 00:08:57.909 But, god, we thank you, lord, for your words and we pray that this morning you would speak through me, lord, in the name of Jesus, amen. 00:08:59.011 --> 00:09:16.210 So last week Tyler did a wonderful job giving an introduction to Ephesians, and we heard him say that the theme of Ephesians is in Christ and, as a matter of fact, as I'm reading through the book, it's almost in every verse for the first 13 verses. 00:09:16.210 --> 00:09:20.067 I think there was two verses missing, some form of in Christ. 00:09:20.067 --> 00:09:23.090 We just read it in these few verses three times. 00:09:23.090 --> 00:09:45.225 It was in Christ and with Christ, in Christ, in him, those type of things over and over again throughout Ephesians and in these few verses we just heard that God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in heaven, every one of them, every available blessing in the cosmos. 00:09:45.225 --> 00:09:50.884 Everything has been given to us as a believer in Christ. 00:09:50.884 --> 00:09:55.273 The decision was made before the earth was ever even hung in orbit. 00:09:55.273 --> 00:10:02.113 The father, the son and the Holy spirit made that decision way before they even hung the earth. 00:10:02.113 --> 00:10:14.895 He did this so that we could be holy and blameless before the father and it was his plan, through adoption, that we would become his very own family. 00:10:14.895 --> 00:10:20.649 Now, before you guys think that I'm just looking over this scripture, this scripture is very deep. 00:10:20.649 --> 00:10:24.695 These three verses we could go over for a few weeks, maybe even more. 00:10:25.135 --> 00:10:41.835 There's a huge word right before adoption, called predestined, and this morning predestined could be a sermon all of its own and I don't have time enough to go through both of them this morning, so I didn't want to just overlook it and just bypass it, give this scripture any disservice. 00:10:41.835 --> 00:10:47.865 But today I felt like the Lord was really focused on adoption, and so that's where we're going. 00:10:47.865 --> 00:10:55.807 The adoption word here used is and I'm going to probably butcher this a few different times huiothosia. 00:10:55.807 --> 00:11:01.201 I believe huiothosia is the word that he used. 00:11:01.201 --> 00:11:03.648 This word is only used in the Bible three times. 00:11:03.648 --> 00:11:08.464 Paul used it in three of his letters Ephesians, romans and Galatians. 00:11:08.464 --> 00:11:12.551 It means placing as a son. 00:11:12.551 --> 00:11:19.929 He probably used this specific term because he was talking to the Gentiles and the Jews. 00:11:19.929 --> 00:11:37.769 The Jews would have seen a different view of this and the Gentiles would seen another view of it, so that to the Jew it would recall God's chosen people from the very beginning, the inheritance that was through Abraham, back to that point, into the Gentile enrollment. 00:11:37.769 --> 00:11:47.333 It would recall the legal adoption, much like we call it today, a change, change of legal status, a full family membership. 00:11:47.333 --> 00:12:04.211 It would have wrapped everything up in one and it allowed Paul to say God's eternal decision culminates in placing believers in the father's household, a corporate, covenantal refamilying that carries legal standing and inheritance. 00:12:05.413 --> 00:12:33.264 As I said a few moments ago, it has always been God's plan for family, for family, sons and daughters, not just creations sons and daughters that would share his home, share everything he has share, all of his abilities, before the foundations of the world. 00:12:33.264 --> 00:12:37.941 He made all of this because he didn't want us to just be a creation. 00:12:37.941 --> 00:12:40.905 He had created plenty before that. 00:12:40.905 --> 00:12:42.849 We don't know of all of it. 00:12:42.849 --> 00:12:51.445 He had created angels and different servants, but he had never created a human. 00:12:51.445 --> 00:12:57.455 And the reason was it's because he wanted to create his family. 00:12:57.455 --> 00:13:04.243 We were made in his image for this purpose. 00:13:04.243 --> 00:13:07.346 And here's that other scripture I was telling you about that. 00:13:07.365 --> 00:13:11.908 I went to and I read and I'd never caught four words and I'm going to read them to you. 00:13:11.908 --> 00:13:16.753 You'll probably catch them and some of you may not, so hopefully this is going to help out this morning. 00:13:16.753 --> 00:13:22.537 But in Genesis, chapter 1, verses 26 and 27. 00:13:22.537 --> 00:13:33.225 Then God said let us First notation of Father, son and the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. 00:13:33.225 --> 00:13:38.956 Let us make human beings in our image to be like us. 00:13:38.956 --> 00:13:43.561 I had never gotten those four words. 00:13:43.561 --> 00:13:53.888 They will rain over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on earth, small animals that scurry along the ground. 00:13:54.009 --> 00:14:00.633 So God created human beings in his own image, in the image of God. 00:14:00.633 --> 00:14:03.514 He created them male and female. 00:14:03.514 --> 00:14:06.177 He created them Three times. 00:14:06.177 --> 00:14:08.899 We hear that he created them male and female. 00:14:08.899 --> 00:14:09.639 He created them Three times. 00:14:09.639 --> 00:14:10.440 We hear that he created them. 00:14:10.440 --> 00:14:14.376 God did not create us like the animals. 00:14:14.376 --> 00:14:19.402 He did not create us like any other creature or any other thing. 00:14:19.402 --> 00:14:24.806 He created us in his image, carrying his traits and his abilities. 00:14:24.806 --> 00:14:26.947 You love this morning. 00:14:26.947 --> 00:14:29.570 I love this morning because he loves. 00:14:29.570 --> 00:14:34.774 We're given the ability to reason because he does. 00:14:34.774 --> 00:14:37.515 What other creature does that? 00:14:37.515 --> 00:14:38.537 None other. 00:14:38.537 --> 00:14:48.662 We're able to be kind because he's kind. 00:14:48.662 --> 00:14:51.466 We're able to look out and like, take care of something in a just a powerful way, because he does that. 00:14:51.466 --> 00:14:58.565 All the things that you look at that are so unique to a human, it's because that's like God. 00:14:58.565 --> 00:15:01.668 We're in his image. 00:15:01.668 --> 00:15:06.596 So we weren't made just as some random creation. 00:15:06.596 --> 00:15:17.769 Why would God take time to create something that looked so much like him, that could act like him and all of that? 00:15:17.769 --> 00:15:21.610 Why would he do that if it wasn't a purpose? 00:15:23.600 --> 00:15:30.369 And if we take it just a little bit further, another scripture that I picked up now we're all the way in Genesis, chapter one. 00:15:30.369 --> 00:15:38.690 Now let's go all the way to Revelation, chapter three, and it's in the letter to Laodicea, when Jesus is in division. 00:15:38.690 --> 00:15:51.067 And Jesus said to one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne as I conquered, and sat down with my father on his throne. 00:15:51.067 --> 00:16:00.684 From the beginning to the end, we see throughout scripture, if we look at it properly, that we were created as family. 00:16:00.684 --> 00:16:09.053 As family, we were supposed to be always with him in the garden. 00:16:09.053 --> 00:16:12.422 We were there with him, walking with him. 00:16:12.422 --> 00:16:37.182 We don't know how long that happened before we made a mistake, but we walked with him and daily he came and he hung out with us and he spent time with us and he would have walked and talked, which meant that we had to be like him so that we'd understand, because this is the family that he was making. 00:16:37.903 --> 00:16:55.149 The human story was always about God creating us to be with him in family, and that's what we see throughout the entire Bible, and we see this adoption word, adoption. 00:16:55.149 --> 00:16:56.630 Well, what happened? 00:16:56.630 --> 00:17:00.267 We, of course, failed in the garden because God had him. 00:17:00.267 --> 00:17:03.860 People ask all the time why did he even allow us to make a decision like that? 00:17:03.860 --> 00:17:09.926 Well, because if he didn't let you have a decision, if you were going to follow him, if you were going to be obedient, then you were forced to love him. 00:17:09.926 --> 00:17:16.087 He didn't want that, so we made a bad decision. 00:17:18.641 --> 00:17:22.571 And Jesus, this was God's plan as well. 00:17:22.571 --> 00:17:25.166 He's going to come and he's going to get us. 00:17:25.166 --> 00:17:28.287 He's going to ransom his family. 00:17:28.287 --> 00:17:50.864 He's going to get us all back and bring us back in community with God, now, jesus being the only begotten son begotten there meaning unique, chosen son of God, the one that is godly, that is the son of God, the one that is God, the son. 00:17:50.864 --> 00:17:58.380 It's just so much that comes from that, because he is the one that made the way for all of this. 00:17:58.380 --> 00:18:05.240 This is why we continue to hear in Ephesians in Christ, everything that we're talking about is because we're in Christ. 00:18:05.240 --> 00:18:11.381 None of this is available by us, none of this is available by your doings or my doings. 00:18:11.381 --> 00:18:24.356 So, knowing all of this, in Christ, we're loved before we did anything, before anything, and we see this because here's the truth. 00:18:24.430 --> 00:18:30.752 If I'm really thinking of this properly, I know that God doesn't treat one child different than another. 00:18:30.752 --> 00:18:38.813 And he sends Jesus down to the earth and Jesus gets baptized, and what's the first thing that happens? 00:18:38.813 --> 00:18:41.219 We hear God's voice come from heaven. 00:18:41.219 --> 00:18:43.143 This is my son. 00:18:43.143 --> 00:18:45.251 I love him. 00:18:45.251 --> 00:18:47.115 This is my son, whom I love. 00:18:47.115 --> 00:18:48.378 With him. 00:18:48.378 --> 00:18:50.242 I am well pleased. 00:18:52.030 --> 00:18:56.843 I don't know if you guys knew this, but Jesus had done no miracles at this point. 00:18:56.843 --> 00:19:06.334 He hadn't walked on water, he hadn't turned, you know, gotten more wine, he hadn't fed the 5,000. 00:19:06.334 --> 00:19:09.941 He had done nothing at all. 00:19:09.941 --> 00:19:17.035 But God showed Jesus and everyone around him right then what his identity was. 00:19:17.035 --> 00:19:19.619 This is my son. 00:19:19.619 --> 00:19:47.244 Nothing's going to change that and I'm well pleased with him and I believe that the Lord's wanting us to hear that as well today, that before we do anything at all, when we give our lives to Jesus, when we get saved and we're ransomed to the family of God, then we are sons and daughters before we do anything at all. 00:19:47.244 --> 00:19:54.753 Daughters, before we do anything at all, you're already his son and his daughter. 00:19:54.753 --> 00:19:56.217 You don't have to earn it, you don't have to do anything. 00:19:56.217 --> 00:20:01.651 Your identity doesn't come from what you do or what you try to do in a good way. 00:20:01.651 --> 00:20:08.734 It's not about how much I can do over here and be nice or this, that. 00:20:08.734 --> 00:20:11.736 No, he loves us, no matter what. 00:20:11.996 --> 00:20:17.739 Immediately, it has been given to us through Jesus Christ, been adopted. 00:20:17.739 --> 00:20:18.920 It's a gift. 00:20:18.920 --> 00:20:29.924 Anyone who's adopted into a home it's a gift, because the adopted person doesn't get to say I want that family over there and that family has to do something. 00:20:29.924 --> 00:20:43.217 It is a gift from the one adopting to the child and that is what God has done for you and I In Christ. 00:20:43.217 --> 00:20:53.638 We have the ability to be adopted In Jesus' blood, the adoption papers, and it's signed once and forever. 00:20:53.638 --> 00:20:58.819 So we see that even in Jesus's own words, we want to. 00:20:59.170 --> 00:21:11.101 I was even thinking about this adoption part and because then I was looking at it and I said, well then Jesus is our brother, that's another one of those things that was really hard for me to grasp. 00:21:11.101 --> 00:21:15.980 I almost couldn't say it for the first month of thinking about this. 00:21:15.980 --> 00:21:18.257 I've been thinking about this scripture for quite some time. 00:21:18.257 --> 00:21:25.180 But he said in his own words he called many times. 00:21:25.180 --> 00:21:27.585 He called us brothers and sisters. 00:21:29.269 --> 00:21:37.762 Jesus did with the disciples, and then God showed us just even more how much that he has adopted us. 00:21:37.762 --> 00:21:49.394 When the spirit that was inside of Jesus, that walked him through everything and then raised him from the dead on the day of Pentecost, god said now that's yours and he puts it in us. 00:21:49.394 --> 00:22:13.136 Now, to prove to you guys that you're part of my family, I'm going to give you my very own spirit to dwell inside of you, just like Jesus, because you're made in my image and you were destined to look like us, to be like us. 00:22:13.136 --> 00:22:16.518 You're destined for that in Christ. 00:22:16.518 --> 00:22:17.981 It's all in him. 00:22:17.981 --> 00:22:24.242 Again, none of this is possible without being in Christ. 00:22:24.242 --> 00:22:39.381 Our standing in this world we were talking earlier and was it Scott or Kelly was talking about we're not going against flesh and blood here, but of principalities and demons and the dark world. 00:22:39.381 --> 00:22:49.969 We, because of all of this, have a higher standing in the spiritual world than all of them, than all of them, than all of them. 00:22:49.969 --> 00:22:56.536 God, the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, us we're in the same household. 00:22:56.536 --> 00:23:00.097 That's the adoption we're talking about. 00:23:01.391 --> 00:23:09.019 I was thinking this morning about stories that we hear of you know people getting beat up and things like that, and then big brother comes in and takes care of the problem. 00:23:09.019 --> 00:23:18.055 That's our family household and it's like I feel like when I pray sometimes it's like devil. 00:23:18.055 --> 00:23:20.856 You just wait Until my brother hears about this. 00:23:20.856 --> 00:23:24.019 You just wait until my dad hears about this. 00:23:24.019 --> 00:23:27.955 Let's see what happens when he comes and takes care of this situation. 00:23:27.955 --> 00:23:39.073 And all of this was ideas I've never thought about in 42 years, and so my identity. 00:23:39.073 --> 00:23:51.342 For all of this time has been a servant of the most high God and I've been totally all right with that and I would have died and been completely fine with that. 00:23:51.342 --> 00:24:15.642 But, man, how much I was missing when I finally got the thought I am that much a son, that Jesus is my big brother, that came and rescued me back to the Father, that God put on me the same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead. 00:24:15.642 --> 00:24:25.680 That identity of an adopted person I had never grasped. 00:24:25.680 --> 00:24:34.337 And this morning I felt like I'm supposed to share this because I feel like some of us here are in the same boat. 00:24:37.163 --> 00:24:43.242 Here's the thing the devil will always attack our identity first. 00:24:43.242 --> 00:24:46.796 Why does he do this? 00:24:46.796 --> 00:24:51.115 Satan was a created being, nothing like God. 00:24:51.115 --> 00:24:55.160 Mad that he wasn't chosen to be a part of the family. 00:24:55.160 --> 00:25:13.480 Mad because he couldn't be like God, he couldn't have the Holy Spirit, he couldn't be called sons and daughters, he couldn't, in the end, in Revelation, sit on the throne with God invited up. 00:25:13.480 --> 00:25:26.758 The devil was so mad when he saw what God was creating this family and what they had been given, what we have been given. 00:25:26.758 --> 00:25:35.999 So he wants to attack your identity first, because if he can attack our identity as sons and daughters of the most high God. 00:25:35.999 --> 00:25:38.063 We won't know what power we have. 00:25:38.063 --> 00:25:45.362 And so here we are and we have family problems. 00:25:45.362 --> 00:25:55.939 Well, he wants to destroy the family, because that's how God created it all to be Mother, father, children. 00:25:57.122 --> 00:26:03.256 All of it was a plan that God made to give the perfect picture of what it's going to be like forever. 00:26:03.256 --> 00:26:06.810 Guys, we're not just going to be floating on clouds for eternity. 00:26:06.810 --> 00:26:07.412 Jesus is going to come back. 00:26:07.412 --> 00:26:07.832 He's going to get us. 00:26:07.832 --> 00:26:09.315 We're going to go up, not just going to be floating on clouds for eternity. 00:26:09.315 --> 00:26:10.297 Jesus is going to come back. 00:26:10.297 --> 00:26:10.978 He's going to get us. 00:26:10.978 --> 00:26:11.959 We're going to go up. 00:26:11.959 --> 00:26:13.301 He's going to renew the earth. 00:26:13.301 --> 00:26:22.494 We're going to come back down and be with him and we're going to live here for eternity with our father, god, forever. 00:26:22.515 --> 00:26:25.400 And the devil won't ever get to enjoy any of that. 00:26:25.400 --> 00:26:27.403 That's why he's attacking your identity. 00:26:27.403 --> 00:26:35.575 That's why he's attacking your identity. 00:26:35.575 --> 00:26:36.498 That's why he's attacking your family. 00:26:36.498 --> 00:26:38.584 That's why he's attacking all of it, because if he can attack that, you are just powerless. 00:26:38.604 --> 00:26:40.690 So he attacks families, and we've seen it, and it's grown so much over the last 80 years. 00:26:40.690 --> 00:26:54.511 It started in so many different ways, but we have feminism, that kicked in and it showed women that they don't need men, they don't need anything to do with them. 00:26:54.511 --> 00:27:01.571 And so I don't know if you guys knew, but I did a little research this week and found out that before feminism movement, marriage rates of divorce was 20%. 00:27:01.571 --> 00:27:09.122 When it kicked in, after 20 years, it was 40% because men were no longer needed. 00:27:09.122 --> 00:27:19.515 And we see that all the way up to today, where it's grown so much more, where now men aren't even men anymore, man's not even needed in a family. 00:27:19.515 --> 00:27:26.422 And so families are just getting ripped apart more and more and more, to where now the divorce rate's like 55%. 00:27:26.422 --> 00:27:30.260 It's just tore apart because the devil knows. 00:27:30.592 --> 00:27:37.460 If he can attack the identity of a family and rip it apart, then they won't realize who they're supposed to be in God. 00:27:37.460 --> 00:27:45.601 And he's taking it even a step further now with genders, the simplest thing that one could know about oneself. 00:27:45.601 --> 00:27:57.480 Honestly, to think that I would be confused about the simplest thing in the entire universe, that would really mess up my identity. 00:27:57.480 --> 00:28:03.480 And if I didn't even know, it's almost like saying well, are you a human or not? 00:28:03.480 --> 00:28:12.101 And there are now those as well think they're dogs and cats and stuff, then God must have really messed up. 00:28:12.101 --> 00:28:21.140 So then, if God messed up that bad in my identity, then I really am just a worthless pile of clay sitting here. 00:28:21.140 --> 00:28:22.082 I'm useless. 00:28:23.290 --> 00:28:24.835 You see what the devil's doing? 00:28:24.835 --> 00:28:33.112 To destroy the family unit, because he knows that's what God wants, that's his plan. 00:28:33.112 --> 00:28:35.855 Is that so? 00:28:35.855 --> 00:28:41.505 When our identity continues to be taken down, it makes us weaker. 00:28:41.505 --> 00:28:49.443 And we saw that the first thing that the devil did when Jesus just heard from God. 00:28:49.443 --> 00:28:52.640 God told him this is my son, in whom I'm well pleased. 00:28:53.470 --> 00:29:05.818 Jesus went straight into the desert for 40 days of temptation and the devil came at him and said if you really are the son of God, then you turn these stones into bread. 00:29:05.818 --> 00:29:08.919 Prove that you can provide for yourself. 00:29:08.919 --> 00:29:10.976 Do it right now. 00:29:10.976 --> 00:29:14.259 He's attacking Jesus's identity. 00:29:14.259 --> 00:29:19.857 If you really are the son of God, then you jump off that temple. 00:29:19.857 --> 00:29:22.055 You know the angels will grab you. 00:29:22.055 --> 00:29:33.241 Prove you're important and if you really are the son of God, then you bow down and receive all these kingdoms right now. 00:29:33.241 --> 00:29:37.921 Take control without following through with obedience. 00:29:40.030 --> 00:30:00.982 He's trying to destroy what Jesus is doing, because if he can attack the family, if he can confuse gender, if he can distort God's plan, then he can continue to whisper to every one of us that we're not enough, that we're not worthy, that God won't take care of you, so why would you follow him? 00:30:00.982 --> 00:30:07.134 We don't have to prove ourself. 00:30:07.134 --> 00:30:11.434 We don't have to. 00:30:11.434 --> 00:30:17.009 The deeds that we do, they're great, but they're not going to get you to heaven. 00:30:17.009 --> 00:30:20.564 Here's the truth, guys. 00:30:20.564 --> 00:30:21.151 We do. 00:30:21.151 --> 00:30:28.917 We want to be holy because our dad's holy, not because there's a rule book that says we should do this, this, this, this and this. 00:30:28.917 --> 00:30:32.595 No, no, this is what our dad looks like. 00:30:32.595 --> 00:30:33.759 I want to be like dad. 00:30:33.759 --> 00:30:37.213 My dad doesn't lie. 00:30:37.213 --> 00:30:38.257 I'm going to do that. 00:30:38.257 --> 00:30:39.279 I don't want to lie. 00:30:40.089 --> 00:30:41.355 Tyler talked about it a few weeks ago. 00:30:41.355 --> 00:30:46.219 He said there's certain things that the lines do, and all the kids know what those things are. 00:30:46.219 --> 00:30:50.113 If you're a line, this is what you do Well, and all the kids know what those things are. 00:30:50.113 --> 00:30:50.977 If you're aligned, this is what you do Well. 00:30:50.977 --> 00:30:52.702 If you're part of the family of God, this is just what we do. 00:30:52.702 --> 00:30:55.755 We're gonna live a holy life. 00:30:55.755 --> 00:31:00.098 We're gonna uphold what God says is right. 00:31:00.098 --> 00:31:07.075 Our dad in heaven created the world to work in a specific way and we don't wanna mess that up. 00:31:07.075 --> 00:31:08.336 We're gonna work with God. 00:31:08.336 --> 00:31:20.397 We're gonna work with dad because that's the way he created it, and when we realize that our identity as adopted children to the most high God is that he's dad. 00:31:20.951 --> 00:31:24.509 We see it in the scripture in Romans 8, 15,. 00:31:24.509 --> 00:31:25.992 That same word adoption. 00:31:25.992 --> 00:31:26.574 Paul used it again. 00:31:26.574 --> 00:31:27.375 He said you have not received a spirit. 00:31:27.375 --> 00:31:27.856 Romans 8, 15,. 00:31:27.856 --> 00:31:30.663 That same word euthysia, adoption Paul used it again. 00:31:30.663 --> 00:31:34.450 He said you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. 00:31:34.450 --> 00:31:41.136 Instead, you received God's spirit when he adopted you, that same word as his own children. 00:31:41.136 --> 00:31:45.253 Now we call him Abba. 00:31:45.253 --> 00:31:49.306 To us that would be daddy, papa. 00:31:49.306 --> 00:31:53.964 It's a very intimate word that you would call your father. 00:31:53.964 --> 00:32:04.084 It means that you have a relationship with that man and he's not just your birth guy, he's got a relationship with you. 00:32:04.084 --> 00:32:10.902 And so Paul's reminding us over and over, not just there, but all the way through. 00:32:10.902 --> 00:32:17.061 And Jesus himself kept saying the father, the father, brothers, I'm taking you to the father, brothers, I'm taking you to the father. 00:32:17.061 --> 00:32:18.659 That's us. 00:32:18.659 --> 00:32:25.007 Brothers, sisters, we're going to the father who's adopted us. 00:32:25.007 --> 00:32:28.023 Dad, abba, papa. 00:32:28.023 --> 00:32:34.819 He loves us, he's there for us, he will guide us. 00:32:35.694 --> 00:32:41.285 Now I know there's so many people in the room that have not had good dads. 00:32:41.285 --> 00:32:44.836 You don't know what this looks like Me myself. 00:32:44.836 --> 00:32:46.503 I mean, my dad's a good dad. 00:32:46.503 --> 00:32:47.920 He just never was around. 00:32:47.920 --> 00:33:00.048 So I realized this year that I've lived for many years with daddy issues that I didn't recognize until this year because my dad just wasn't around. 00:33:00.048 --> 00:33:05.125 Wonderful guy, I love him to death, always kind, but he just wasn't around. 00:33:05.125 --> 00:33:13.788 So I guess that's probably what started to make some of the way my vision was for family that yeah, he's a good dad. 00:33:13.788 --> 00:33:17.894 He's way off over there, you know. 00:33:17.974 --> 00:33:18.435 But that's the thing. 00:33:18.435 --> 00:33:27.150 A lot of the ways that we live and the things that we walk through and deal with in our lives shape how we view our father in heaven. 00:33:27.150 --> 00:34:07.607 So that's so important, dads, for you to be the dad that you're called to be, to man up when you need to for our children, because when we continually show them a weak dad that's not around, that's never there, then we're showing them when they hear father, as in theology, that he's a far off, distant dad that's never here and close by, and it may take them until they're 42 to get that picture, but our father, our dad in heaven, our Abba, will always be kind. 00:34:07.607 --> 00:34:11.159 He has always been, he's always present with us. 00:34:11.159 --> 00:34:13.695 He has never given up on you. 00:34:13.695 --> 00:34:18.005 He delights in you, and Paul's not the only one who saw it. 00:34:18.005 --> 00:34:20.148 John saw it in John 1, 3, 1. 00:34:20.148 --> 00:34:27.317 See how much, see how very much our father loves us, that he calls us his children, because that's what we are. 00:34:27.317 --> 00:34:30.302 It changes our identity. 00:34:30.302 --> 00:34:36.197 Adoption changes our identity. 00:34:36.217 --> 00:34:36.777 This morning. 00:34:36.777 --> 00:34:52.675 Some of you know my daughter, allie, and you know my son, zeke, and if you were to see them in a crowd of people and you knew me but you had never met them I bet you could figure out which ones was mine. 00:34:52.675 --> 00:34:56.369 Why is that? 00:34:56.369 --> 00:35:10.635 Because they want to be like dad in some ways and things rub off and them living in my household, things that I do rub off on them and they start doing them. 00:35:10.635 --> 00:35:16.699 You can hear my son talk and just hear my voice pretty much, because he's just as redneck as I am. 00:35:16.699 --> 00:35:21.505 You can see actions and movements and all of that from my children. 00:35:21.505 --> 00:35:28.503 Guys, that's what will happen to us when we go in dad's house. 00:35:28.503 --> 00:35:42.554 We hang out with dad, we allow dad's traits to move us to start being what we do. 00:35:42.554 --> 00:35:58.815 We become holy because dad's holy, people in the world start seeing God in us, because we look like God, because we look like dad. 00:35:58.815 --> 00:36:07.255 People start noticing a difference in us because we're starting to look like our dad. 00:36:07.255 --> 00:36:11.980 We speak up, we do things because that's what dad wants. 00:36:11.980 --> 00:36:15.625 Today we are no longer orphans. 00:36:19.090 --> 00:36:35.264 Some of us this morning might be just as I have been for the longest time still seeing myself as just a servant, an orphan that was picked up, been taken care of really good, but he's just an orphan still on the outside. 00:36:35.264 --> 00:36:38.956 That's not who we are. 00:36:38.956 --> 00:36:43.106 So today I just want to do a little exercise. 00:36:43.106 --> 00:36:45.719 If everybody would close your eyes for a moment. 00:36:45.719 --> 00:36:51.606 I'm not going to ask you to raise your hand or nothing, but I just want you to close your eyes and I want you to think about God. 00:36:51.606 --> 00:37:00.121 If you were to see God's face right now, if you picture his face, you're standing in front of him. 00:37:00.121 --> 00:37:02.019 It's the end of time. 00:37:02.019 --> 00:37:05.342 What's his face look like right now? 00:37:05.342 --> 00:37:09.981 Is he frowning at you? 00:37:09.981 --> 00:37:17.753 Is he frowning at you? 00:37:17.753 --> 00:37:21.375 Is there an angry look on his face? 00:37:21.375 --> 00:37:26.751 Is there disappointment? 00:37:26.751 --> 00:37:32.222 Do you see him smiling at you? 00:37:32.222 --> 00:37:33.123 You can open your eyes. 00:37:33.123 --> 00:37:39.490 If you saw anything other than pure joy on his face. 00:37:40.755 --> 00:38:00.943 You probably still see yourself as an orphan because you don't see yourself the way God sees you Because we are in Christ, covered by the blood of God's amazing son, adopted full adoption in Christ. 00:38:00.943 --> 00:38:11.907 God sees us through him, so he's pleased with you, he's proud of you, he's proud to call you his child. 00:38:11.907 --> 00:38:19.083 Now there's sometimes my kids do things that I'm not so proud of their actions. 00:38:19.083 --> 00:38:28.659 But, guys, there will be nothing ever that Zeke or Allie will do that. 00:38:28.659 --> 00:38:31.043 I will not be proud to call them my children. 00:38:31.043 --> 00:38:40.168 Nothing, I won't be proud of their actions, but I'll always be proud to call them my children. 00:38:40.168 --> 00:38:43.623 That's how much God loves us. 00:38:43.623 --> 00:38:46.641 That's the same thing. 00:38:46.641 --> 00:38:52.907 I believe that God gives us children to show us how much he loves us. 00:38:55.456 --> 00:39:16.143 Today, if you have a child and you know just how much you give for them, times that by about a hundred, and that's your God, that's your dad, who's adopted you in to his home With inheritance to all that. 00:39:16.143 --> 00:39:26.724 He has All, even his very own spirit, placed into you and I. 00:39:26.724 --> 00:39:30.344 Now we are not forgotten, we're not rejected. 00:39:30.344 --> 00:39:31.335 We are not forgotten. 00:39:31.335 --> 00:39:33.240 We're not rejected. 00:39:33.240 --> 00:39:35.358 We're not just a worker. 00:39:35.358 --> 00:39:43.523 We're chosen, we're loved, we're adopted Into the kingdom of the most high. 00:39:43.563 --> 00:39:43.844 God. 00:39:43.844 --> 00:39:50.324 Father, we just thank you so much For the truth found in your word. 00:39:50.324 --> 00:39:55.137 God, we thank you that you didn't just leave us as orphans. 00:39:55.137 --> 00:39:59.248 God, there was so many ways that you could have come and rescued us. 00:39:59.248 --> 00:40:06.978 There was so many ways where you could have saved us and gave us a way to do this, this, this and this to earn it. 00:40:06.978 --> 00:40:11.788 You could have come and saved us but just kept us outside with the dogs eating slop. 00:40:11.788 --> 00:40:29.226 But, god, you did much more than we could ever imagine when you adopted us and you signed those adoption papers with the blood of your most holy son and made a way for us to come into your home. 00:40:29.226 --> 00:40:37.119 And, god, we know that forever we will sit with you in your house as your family. 00:40:37.119 --> 00:40:42.286 So, god, now we pray that you'd work each and every one of us. 00:40:43.748 --> 00:40:46.039 God, you know I've been praying about this and I need it. 00:40:46.039 --> 00:40:50.007 I need to understand who I am in your family. 00:40:50.007 --> 00:41:15.646 It I need to understand who I am in your family and I pray that for each and every person here, lord, that the identity of us being your sons and daughters would get down deep in our soul and change our lives forever, because there's nothing in this world that can come against God and his son, and now we are one of those your son and your daughters. 00:41:15.646 --> 00:41:18.302 Nothing can come against us. 00:41:18.302 --> 00:41:23.146 Nothing of this dark world can conquer us. 00:41:23.146 --> 00:41:38.708 Because we are in Christ and we have victory, because you give us victory and we pray that you'll help us to see. 00:41:38.708 --> 00:41:40.505 Our identity is in you. 00:41:40.505 --> 00:41:43.724 In the name of Jesus, amen.