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The Rock Family Worship Center
Taking The Church Outside The Walls
The Rock Family Worship Center
Misconception Of An Angry Father
We explore the widespread misconception of an angry Father God and how this distortion fundamentally affects our relationship with Him and others.
• The way we view the Father determines how we view Scripture and receive things from Him
• Many Christians have been taught God is furious with humanity and Jesus shields us from His anger
• This courtroom drama mindset divides the Trinity and makes God look like the problem
• Jesus didn't come to save us from an angry Father but to reveal the heart of a loving Father
• When Philip asked to see the Father, Jesus responded "Have you been with me so long and not known me?"
• God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself—they were working together, not against each other
• God's wrath is not His character but His loving opposition to what enslaves us
• The God you believe in will be the God you reflect to others
• Fear-based teaching works for control but never produces love
• Understanding the Father's true nature sets us free from striving and shame
Let the angry Father mindset fall away and believe what Jesus said: "The Father Himself loves you."
get on Facebook, sometimes in different places, and read some different stuff by, you know, tommy Miller and different ones that he's connected to, and all it seems like I always see something on there that'll catch your attention and kind of start moving you in a different direction Well, not really a different direction, just looking at it a little bit different. I want to talk to you this morning about something that we've talked about so many times. I want to talk to you this morning about something that we've talked about so many times and we brought this up, but we've never really kind of stopped and drilled down on it, and that's what I want to do this morning. But the title of it is the Misconception of an Angry Father. And when you think about this, you might say, well, you know, why get on this subject? Why does it really matter how I see Him? Because the way that I see Him, the way that I view the Father, is going to be the way that I view the Word. It's going to be the way that I receive things from Him or do not receive things from Him, and it's also going to be the way that I the idea that I have toward other people in my own life, you know. So there's a lot of misconceptions, but one of the biggest ones, I think that start people out on the wrong path a lot of times, is that there's an angry father up there that we're trying to do whatever we can do to bring peace and to get closer to him, but he's angry with us.
Speaker 1:I'm going to share a couple of verses with you right here that, if you want to write them down, we're going to probably go back and look through them. But I just went ahead and put them down at the beginning just so we can make sure we get them out and I'll go over them real quick. But some of the key texts that we're going to talk about this morning is John 3.16, which everybody knows, for God so loved the world, he gave His only Son. I'm going to stop right here with that one. We'll get into it a little bit more. John 14 and 9. If you've seen me, you've seen the Father. 2 Corinthians 5 and 19. God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself. And John 16 and 27. The Father Himself loves you. We'll touch on them in just a few minutes, but I always like to give them so you can write them down and maybe go and look at them afterwards and see what you get out of them.
Speaker 1:So let's look at the story that many of us have been told and when I say many of us, I'm not just talking about people out there in other churches, I'm talking about people right here. And I can tell you for a fact that I know you've been told this Because I preached it. It's been probably a year or so ago, but I preached on this. I used to teach a lot and I still do. I still think there's a, there's some Benefits, do I still think there's some benefits to looking at some things in the Bible through a courtroom experience? But you can also take a courtroom experience and it can develop a mindset in you that creates this right here the misconception of an angry father. So I know that this is what's been taught in other places and I know that it's been taught here as well. So I know that this is what's been taught in other places and I know that it's been taught here as well. So one thing I'm doing is I'm taking this in a new direction, hopefully to see the Father differently, but I'm also going taking a few steps back to correct some of the things that I taught before. I don't like to use the word correct To bring new revelation to something that we taught before, because I've gained a little bit more understanding on. I don't teach it quite the same way, and it's not that it was wrong, but sometimes we got to look back and say, okay, when I taught this, what concept did it bring to people? What mindset did it put people in when I said that and we'll go into it a little bit further in just a few minutes and I'll go into exactly what I taught that time and show you where it can kind of lead you in the wrong direction.
Speaker 1:So for generations, I think many Christians have been handed this version, this specific version of the gospel, and it sounds like this God is furious with humanity because of sin. His wrath is so great that he can't even look at us. We started that back on the cross and said that he couldn't even look at jesus on the cross. How many times have we heard that? That he had to turn away from Him because he could not look at Him on the cross? But the third part of that is thankfully, jesus steps in, he takes the punishment and he shields us from God's anger. I've taught that specifically right there, because I talked about people coming up and coming before God and having condemnation and having guilt and having all this stuff on them. And all of a sudden Jesus boom jumps in the way. And what's he doing? He's looking at Jesus. He's not seeing what happened to us or what was going on with us or what we may be living right now. Why? Because the advocate jumped in the way.
Speaker 1:Now that's saying that don't sound bad, that don't. I mean that most of us will say, well, that's what happened. Okay, we understand what jesus done. But it can also provide a context right there that says that jesus ain't good, that god's not looking at me, that God's not loving me, that he's only loving Jesus. And if it hadn't been for that, then I'm kind of back here in the background. Does that make sense? I can look at it in a way that Jesus did what he did on the cross. He brought us forgiveness. He brought us forgiveness of sin. He brought us all these things redemption and all these things on the cross. But I can also hide behind the cross and think that God never sees me, that it's always and only about Jesus.
Speaker 1:Some people would get mad about me saying that, because they would tell me straight up it is all about Jesus. Well, if it's all about Jesus, what are we doing here? He's already done what he was supposed to do. Why are we still here? Why is this earth still here? It's more than just what Jesus done. It's what he done for me and for you, so that now we can go on and do what we're called to do and be who we're called to be on this earth. So we've got to get this mindset again. It don't sound bad when you say it well, it's all about Jesus. But when can we move past that and say you know, it's about me too, it's about about Jesus. But when can we move past that and say you know, it's about me too, it's about every single one of you too?
Speaker 1:That version, it sounds real heroic for Jesus. He jumps in, he saves the day, he takes everything upon Him. So it sounds real heroic. But it sounds really devastating for the Father, because it makes God look like the problem. It paints him as an angry judge who needs to be pacified before he can even consider loving you. I'm going to slow down here because I want you to kind of think about that picture that he wants you.
Speaker 1:We have developed this mindset that had Jesus not done what he done, then the Father could not love us. Think about that just a minute. If Jesus had not done what he done, then the Father could not love you. That's the mindset that we've developed out of this. That's tough to say that, because we know where that's coming from. We know that we always say because of what Jesus done, he was the bridge for humanity to come back to the Father. But now we have to see ourselves differently. We can't just say it was only about the cross and hide behind it.
Speaker 1:If this is the picture that people carry in their heart, you know no wonder it's so hard to sometimes draw close to Him. Who wants to be intimate with someone that they secretly believe despises them? How intimate are you going to get with a father who you think is just angry at you? You're not going to build an intimate relationship with an angry father. The intimacy comes when I can get past that and see that he loves me. Yes, he loves what Jesus done.
Speaker 1:Jesus took it, but it wasn't just about that. Now he loves me. That's why I read those verses John 16, 27. The father himself loves you. That's why I read those verses John 16, 27. The Father Himself loves you. That's what the Word said. He loves you. But here's the truth I want to see today.
Speaker 1:Jesus didn't come to save us from an angry Father. That wasn't what it was about. He came to reveal the heart of a loving father. And sometimes we get this thing. Our mindset is a little bit different and all we see is, because of what Christ done on the cross, that he came and he saved us from the wrath of God. How many times have we heard sermons preached on that that he came and saved us from the wrath of God? How many times have we heard sermons preached on that? That he came and saved us from the wrath and the anger of God? But what he really did is he come to reveal a Father who loves you. He come to reveal a Father who chose you before the foundation of the world. But if we're going to get this and we're going to understand this, I think we first need to ask ourselves where did this angry God picture come from? We talk about it all the time, we preach about it, we listen to other people preach about it, but have we ever just stopped and said where did this concept even begin? And I've told you a little bit already about where it began.
Speaker 1:The legal metaphors that we use so much when we look at it from a courtroom perspective Because over time the gospel got reduced down to like a courtroom drama and that's kind of what it's become. Think about this God the judge, humanity the criminal and Jesus the defense attorney. I'm using that one there because that's exactly the way I preached it, exactly the way I preached it. It don't take away from the fact that Jesus is our advocate. Okay, so I'm not saying those things. That's why I said I'm not saying the things that I preached was totally wrong.
Speaker 1:But I'm beginning to look now and say what concept are we grabbing on to? That is making it harder and harder for us to see the Father as a loving Father instead of just as an angry Father. The problem with this picture of a courtroom drama right here is it misrepresents the Father, it divides the Trinity and it reduces salvation to basically a legal transaction. That's it, but it's more than that. God is not our adversary. We're not fighting against God and Jesus jumped in and saved the day. That's the wrong concept. We're not fighting against the Father. He's our loving Father. Salvation is not just escaping punishment. It's about being fully restored, fully reconciled and fully embraced by who, by him, brought back into relationship. That relationship that was that was tore up in the garden has been fully restored, not just the relationship with Jesus, because Him and the Father is one, so there was never any division between them. The restoration of the relationship was between the Father and us, and that's been restored. He's not angry at us anymore.
Speaker 1:And this may sound weird to you guys Because we don't hear that teaching that much. Now if you go to other churches you might. You know, if you visit other churches some. But here it may sound weird to you. You might be saying I don't never hear anybody say that Because we don't teach that. But I'm telling you it is a message that is taught out there almost always, that he is angry and we are trying to appease Him in some way so that we can make it to heaven. That's where the works things come in. Why? Because if he's angry at me and I'm trying to appease him and I'm trying to fix things with him, so I feel like I always got to do something and I'm always working and striving to what Get closer to him, to appease him, to make him happy so that he's no longer angry at me, so that one day I can stand before him and he looks at me and says well done, my good and faithful servant. That's what the teaching in today's society has taught us to do. It's works-based. I'm always trying to do something. The other thing where we get this from, aside from the legal metaphors, is just western theology, especially if you look back and you study church history and you look back in the 1500s of the way it was taught.
Speaker 1:Theologians emphasize penal substitution. I'm not going to get into this. We'll get into this a little bit more later. Some of y'all have heard a lot of excuse me, a lot of Tommy's teachings and you know that he, tommy Miller, taught a lot on penal substitution and the difference in what it means and what it don't mean and stuff like that. But when you look at that and you ask yourself you've got to understand what. What are we talking about? When we're talking about penal substitution, what does that really mean? And it's the idea that jesus took the wrath of god so that you wouldn't have to. I mean, in a nutshell. There's a lot more to it, but if you break it down and just summarize it, it means that Jesus took it the wrath of God. He jumped in the way, he took all of that so that you wouldn't have to. He was the substitute. He was the substitute for you. That language, when it was taught for so long in the 1500s, that language stuck and that language got traditionally passed down century after century after century. And now we're still teaching this today. Our wording, our language may have changed a little bit, but we're still teaching this.
Speaker 1:And I was looking at something earlier and I want to share a little bit of it with you Again. I'm not going to go deep into penal substitution, but I want you to see that when we hear these words, we don't hear those two words put together that much in the church. Penal substitution, but the idea of it is what we teach and if you understand what it is, you will see that this is what is taught in the church. But here's the thing penal substitution is not the gospel. We want to teach the gospel. You know, we can stand up here, and I can stand up here today, and I can tell you that it's not the gospel and it would be real easy for you to say, well, that's just your opinion. You know, you've got to get down there and get in this word and understand what some of this stuff is that we're talking about, so that you don't just hear it as my opinion, but you start to see it as truth because it's what the word says. So I got thinking about it and researching it.
Speaker 1:Why penal substitution is not the gospel Number one? It's really too small, I think about. It's really small. It Now think about it. It's really small. It shrinks the good news down to a legal loophole. Jesus took the punishment, so you don't have to. Plain and simple, that's the way we look at it. But the gospel is much bigger than that. It's about reconciliation, it's about adoption, it's about new creation. It's about union. It's about adoption. It's about new creation. It's about union with the Father. There's so many things that's related to this that penal substitution leaves out. It just basically says you messed up, you were the problem. Jesus jumped in the way, he took it and you're saved. Now You're good, nothing else you have to do. Jesus, done it for you.
Speaker 1:It also distorts God's character. Penal substitution suggests that God's default posture is wrath, but the gospel tells me he's love. How many times do we hear people say, yes, he's a loving God, but he's also a God of justice? And that's when they all said that's their way to bring wrath back in. Yes, he's loving, but he's also just. Yes, there's scripture to support that.
Speaker 1:But you've got to understand what that justice is. That justice, if you look it up in the Greek, is not what we look at as justice. Listen, if you break in my house and you steal everything from me, I'm going to be expecting justice. And when you go to court, I'm going to be there saying get him, get him, give him everything you can give him To me. That's what we look at as justice. You paid for what you did. Okay, that's not the justice it's talking about in the Bible when it says he's the God of justice. But we've got to understand the difference in that.
Speaker 1:So what this does penal substitution distorts the image of the Father. Jesus said the Father Himself loves you in John 16 and 27. See, the cross is not about changing God's heart, it's about revealing it. He loves us. He loves you so much that he sent His Son, allowed His Son to go to the cross for us, with us, as us. An angry father who's out for revenge would not do that. So it really changes the character and really changes the character and distorts the character of the Father.
Speaker 1:Only other thing I want to talk about right here on this part is it portrays the Father as an angry judge and Jesus as a loving Savior, as if they were on opposite sides. Think about that just a minute. Angry Father who's out to get humanity? Jesus, over here is the Savior who's going up against the Father to stop the wrath that the Father wants to send down. I would say they're against each other. They're fighting different battles right there. God's out to get you. Jesus is out to save you.
Speaker 1:That's a messed up concept to have when the Bible tells us that they are one. He said you've seen me, you've seen the Father. I only do what I've seen the Father? Do I only say what I've seen the Father? Do I only say what I've heard the Father say? But yet penal substitution divides us. We're going to get into that later on. It might be a couple months from now, but we're going to dig down into this Because there's so much stuff there that gives us a messed up, distorted mindset of the gospel and of the Father.
Speaker 1:The last thing is it fails the love test. Penal substitution fails the love test. 1 John, 4 and 18 says Perfect love casts out fear. Period. Perfect love casts out fear. Penal substitution often produces fear. Period Perfect love casts out fear. Penal substitution often produces fear.
Speaker 1:God wanted to punish me, but he punished Jesus instead. Okay, he was all about punishment. He needed to punish somebody. Luckily, jesus jumped in the way and kept me from being punished. That's what we're teaching people. But the true gospel produces freedom. We love because he first loved us. That's why you don't show love to somebody who's out to get you. You don't want to get intimate with somebody who's on to get you. You don't want to get intimate with somebody who's on a revenge tour for you. Penal substitution is not the gospel. The gospel is not about wrath. It's not about God somehow having to be persuaded. Think about this. Jesus jumps in, he saves the day and it's almost like he persuades the Father to love us. He has to persuade Him. Now, father, they're good enough. Now, father, you can love on them. And I just picture God sitting back and saying I've loved them the whole time. I chose them Before the foundation of the world. I chose them. See, this is about a loving God in Christ rescuing us, reconciling us, restoring us, not angry with us, and we've got to be able to see that.
Speaker 1:That fear that I was talking about a while ago, that fear, where does it come from? It started out as control. Again, I know I say this a lot, but sometimes you just got to go back and study church history and listen. It's not hard. I know that sounds like, oh my god, I don't want to go back and study all that stuff. Listen, go in there and just type in give me a summary of church history. It'll give you a brief summary of it and then you can go as deep as you want to in that, but it'll just give you a brief summary of what happened through the years. That has put us where we are today. We didn't just wake up here. There's things that happened through the years that led us to believe what we believe, to teach what we teach, to have the misconceptions that we.
Speaker 1:Fear was always used as a form of control. Sadly, fear has been used in religion to control people for centuries. Preaching an angry God keeps people afraid, but fear-based obedience never produces love. It works for what it's supposed to do to control people. It works to fill up an altar. It works to get people to attend revival. That's why we can look at all these old-time pastors who preached all this stuff, fear-based stuff and you might say, well man, they had thousands in their audience. Yes, they did, it worked. They were very successful at what they were doing. But look where we're at today because of it. Look at the mindset that we have today because of it.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of things that were taught and I mentioned it the other day people like Billy Graham. There's not a person around that would say anything negative about Billy Graham. He was the father of evangelism, had millions and millions supposedly come to the Lord through his ministry, through his teaching. But I'm telling you, his teaching was rough. It was tough. Most of it was not good news. I'm not bashing Billy Graham Now don't get mad at me. I'm just telling you, go back and listen to one of Billy Graham's, some of his messages. It was fear-based. It was all these things that we're saying that we don't want to bring to people because it pushes them back. That's what it was. But he lived in a different time than what we are living in today, and fear-based was taught back then. We talked about this on Wednesday night. There was a reason that it worked in the years that he was teaching this and preaching it like this.
Speaker 1:You don't see quite as much of it being as effective today because people's got access to information they didn't have back then. Back then, billy Graham was the gospel. You didn't need a Bible. Just listen to Billy Graham and I'm just using him because he's on my mind, but there's a lot of other ones out there as well. Okay, they were very successful at what they did, not knocking that. You cannot take that away.
Speaker 1:But when you start looking at what a fear-based gospel is and what good news is and what fear-based gospel is, there's a difference. It does not work today as much as well, because more people are studying, more people are researching. More people are researching. More people are saying you know, I heard that in my entire life, but that don't make sense to me, and now they don't have to go ask somebody about it. They can get online and start researching and studying. They didn't have all these tools back then. They couldn't do this. All they had to do was listen to what a pastor was saying and if you believed he was a man of God, then you had to take what he said as the gospel. Plain and simple. A little bit different today, because we can research. So look at what the Bible says in 1 John, 4 and 18. Some of these, like I said, I'm warning you over, but I just want you to see them too.
Speaker 1:There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. There is no fear in love. There goes our fear-based theology right there. I can't scare people into a loving relationship.
Speaker 1:It's easy to look back. We all know people. We all know people who have been in fear-based relationships, and I'm talking about in the natural. They lived in fear based relationships, marriages. It wasn't hard to see there was no love in that marriage. There was fear in that marriage and there was sometimes respect that come from the fear, but there wasn't a lot of love in it. Why? Because there is no fear in love, and if it's fearful, if it's all about fear, you're not going to find a lot of love in there. It's the same way in a relationship with Christ, if I come to Him because somebody scared me to Him, how much do I really love Him? How much of a relationship do I really have? I'm not questioning nobody's relationship with God. I'm talking in general. It's hard to become intimate and close with somebody who you think has always been against you and has always been out to get you.
Speaker 1:Jesus shows us In John 14 and 9. Jesus shows us the Father's face. When Philip said show us the Father, look at what it says in John 14 and 9. Jesus said to him have I been with you so long and yet you have not known me? Let's stop right there just a minute. He said show us the Father. And this is the response Jesus gave. Have I not been with you this long and yet you still have not known me? Philip, he who has seen me has seen the Father. So how can you say show us the Father? That's a powerful verse right there.
Speaker 1:This is not talking about a God, a father and a son who's in a battle against each other. This is showing a father and son who are one, who are joined together. Every act of kindness, every healing, every tear that Jesus, every healing, every tear that Jesus ever wept, every child he ever embraced. That was not just Jesus being nice, it wasn't just Jesus being nicer than God. God's up here, out to get us. Jesus is over here hugging on us. See the separation that it causes. The mindset God's out there, out to get us. Jesus is over here hugging on us. See the separation that it causes. The mindset God's out there trying to get us. Any day now, anytime I mess up, he's going to throw a lightning bolt down and get me. Jesus is over here loving on people, two different people. This verse shows you that it's not two different people, it's one.
Speaker 1:I'm showing you this because I want you to see that we've had a wrong idea of the Father. We've been taught the Father is something totally different than what he is. So everything that Jesus done, every tear, every hug, every healing, that was not just Jesus being nicer than God, that was God himself being revealed through the Son. He was revealing himself. That's why Jesus said this to Philip. He says if you've seen me, you've seen him. I've been with you for this long. How can you ask such a dumb question? How can you ask where's the Father, when I've been here with you the whole time? That's powerful.
Speaker 1:The cross, wasn't God's anger being unleashed on Jesus? Think about how many times you've heard that story, how many times you've heard that teaching that it was so bad, jesus on the cross, that God's wrath was so bad that he had to turn away from him. He couldn't even watch. I'm sure somewhere through the years I probably taught that too. I'm sure I did, and thank God I don't see it like that now, because that was not the case, and I know what's that verse mean. Father, father, why have you forsaken me? Another sermon? But that's not what that verse is meaning. That is not what that verse means. And if we understand what that verse means, our concept of God leaving Jesus disappears. If we understand what it means. If we don't understand it, then we think that what Jesus was going through on the cross was so horrible that God Himself could not look upon it. Sometimes we just got to read these verses in context, and it makes a difference.
Speaker 1:2 Corinthians 5 and 19,. We talk about this one all the time. God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. I wanted to pull this verse back up because I want you to see something here. Notice this it's not God against Jesus, it's God in Jesus. It said that God was in Christ, reconciling, bringing back into relationship, reconciling the world to Himself. The Father and the Son are working together in love. They're not working opposite of each other. The Father Himself loves you. I mentioned that verse a while ago. Jesus didn't just die to change God's heart about us. He came to change our hearts about God, to change the way we see the Father, to change the image that a lot of us have.
Speaker 1:John 3.16 Doesn't say God was so angry he killed His Son. It says God so loved the world that he gave His Son. I mean we could really preach that verse the other way, the way we teach. God was so angry with the world that he killed His Son. That could be a new verse based on our teaching, but it don't line up with Scripture. John 16 and 27,.
Speaker 1:Jesus told His disciples the Father Himself loves you. If we believe the Father is only tolerating us because Jesus covers us, we've missed the very gospel Jesus preached. Think about that a minute. If you believe that the Father is only tolerating you because Jesus covered you, then we missed the entire gospel that Jesus preached, because that's not the one he preached. It does not change the fact of what he done on the cross. This is why this is so difficult to teach, because when I make a statement like that, some people who are religious is going to turn me off. Oh, he's trying to change what Jesus did on the cross. No, I'm not. I'm trying to enlighten us more to the truth of what Jesus did on the cross, because we have narrowed it down to something so simple that it takes away from the truth, because we've simplified it so much and it's bigger than what we tell people. God loves you. He don't just tolerate you, he truly loves you. So, with all that being said, I wasn't going to get into this, but I am going to touch on it in just a minute.
Speaker 1:What about God's wrath? We can't leave out the wrath of God. We talk about it all the time. People are so quick to say, yep, he's loving, but he's just, which means he's wrathful. He's got wrath. So what about the wrath of God? Scripture speaks on God's wrath. We can't just take it out and throw it out and say it don't exist, because Scripture speaks on it. But wrath is not God's character. We have misunderstood what the wrath is. Well, how can you say that? How do you know that, because it don't line up with His character All through the Bible. It does not line up with who God is, and I'm saying the wrath that we teach does not line up, but it's there. It's there, but it's not His character, it's His loving opposition to whatever turns us away from him.
Speaker 1:Think about this. I'm trying to think of an easy way to put this. I've got so many things running through my mind right now. Think about a parent whose child is addicted to drugs. We see that a lot here in the small community. Can I tell you that parent has a wrath toward drugs. I can tell you, I've talked with parents who have a wrath toward meth in this community. Their wrath is not toward their child, it's toward the thing that's turning their child into what they were never created to be. It's not the child themselves that the wrath is toward. It's toward the thing that is turning them away.
Speaker 1:The wrath that this speaks of, the wrath of God, is not toward you and you and you and you as an individual. It's toward anything that turns you away from what God's called you to be the things that we do, the thinking that we have, all the things that lead us away from our identity in Christ. That is the wrath of God. That's what he's angry about. He's not angry at you. God's wrath is never about rejecting you. It's his furious. I love the way his furious love, his furious love against the things that enslave you, his furious love against the things that enslave you.
Speaker 1:Imagine a child trapped in a burning house, an angry bystander just walking by. You know, because fires attract people. Sometimes people stop on the side of a road to watch a house burn. Somebody's tragedy, but other people's excitement, because fires just brings people in. But imagine a house was burning and there was a child that was trapped inside that house, somebody on the outside just watching it. They may look at it and say, well, that's what he gets for playing with fire. They've got a different perspective. Playing with fire, they got a different perspective. But a loving father might die trying to get his child out, because that's a loving father. He's not holding against the child, saying well, he shouldn't be playing with those matches and being angry at him for what he done. He don't like what he done, but that's his son. He says I'll go in there and die trying to get my son out. That's a natural father.
Speaker 1:But yet we think the Heavenly Father's mad at us. Would he not treat it the same way? Would he not say I hate the drugs, let's turn them away. I hate all this other mess, let's turn them away. I'm angry about that. I'm furious about that, but I'll do anything, even send my son to the cross, to save my child.
Speaker 1:It ain't about you individually, I mean. He's not furious, he's not angry, he's not wrathful at you. It's the things that turn you away from Him. He would do anything, just like this father that would go inside a burning house to save a child. He would do the same thing. He would do anything to save us, so much so that he put His Son on the cross, his only. That's why those words in there. You know, sometimes we think why does it got all those different words? His only forgotten Son.
Speaker 1:Would you give up your child to save another child? You ain't going to answer that because I don't want nobody. You know that's hard to say. I'm just saying think about how difficult of a decision that would be to sacrifice your child. But this is what God did in Christ. He didn't demand a sacrifice so that he could love you. He didn't say Jesus, I need you to do this, because those people are so filthy and dirty and nasty. I can't love them unless you do this. That wasn't it. He became the sacrifice because he already loved you. He did it on your behalf, not in spite of you.
Speaker 1:So why try to debunk this angry father theory? Why do we talk so much against it? Why do we try to show people that this is not real? Because our goal should be to live in the freedom of a loving father and not always worried that some God is up there out to get me every day. What happens when we let go of this angry father narrative, when we decide that that's not who he is and I don't see him that way anymore? Think about what happens in people's lives when they truly let go of that narrative. We draw near instead of hiding Shame. Shame loses its grip. I don't have to be in shame anymore. I mean, you're not hiding anything from Him anyway. You just think you are. But again you can draw near to somebody that you don't think is out to get you. We rest instead of striving. We stop trying to earn love that we already have. We reflect the Father's love to others. The God you believe in will be the God you reflect. That's powerful. The God you believe in will be the God you reflect to others. You think he's an angry Father. You're going to portray an angry Father. You're going to talk about an angry Father. It's just like last week.
Speaker 1:I asked that question or gave that, made that comment to y'all about going out for a week and just letting people see your life, just watching you. You ain't preaching to them, you're not spitting out scriptures to them, you're just letting them watch you. How would they? What opinion would they have of the Father just by watching your life? This takes it a little bit further. Now you're talking to them. What opinion would they have of the Father? By hearing you talk about the Father, we reflect the Father's love to others. The God you believe in will be the God you reflect. Keep that in mind. If you believe he is angry and condemning, you'll treat others the same way. If you believe he is love, you'll love others as you have been loved. Well, maybe they don't deserve it, or maybe you didn't deserve it, but he loved you anyway. So now that will give you an opportunity to say you know they don't deserve it either, but guess what? I'm going to love them anyway, because he loved me first.
Speaker 1:These verses make so much more sense when you start putting this together. The Gospel is not Jesus loves you but the Father is mad at you. That's not the Gospel. The Gospel is the Father Himself loves you. He did everything, through His Son, to restore us back to that relationship. Jesus didn't come to rescue you from God. He came to reveal God to you.
Speaker 1:I know we sometimes say God is a rescuer. I understand where that comes from. We all understand why we're using that word, but I think that word sometimes has turned us to a wrong mindset. When we say that Jesus has rescued us, some people we know what we're saying, but some people are taking that and saying he's rescued us from an angry father, and that's not the case. He's rescued us from hell an angry father, and that's not the case. He's rescued us from hell. Yeah, but most people believe so.
Speaker 1:When you start asking people what does he rescue you from, a lot of things come up. Where does it come from? Whatever they've been taught. Why have they been taught these different things? Because certain different pastors have a different idea of who the Father is. So, however they see, the Father is how I'm going to teach the Father. Well, we've got so many different ideas. It's not that this was wrong and this was wrong and that was right. It's just so many different teachings because of my own understanding of the Father. If he's loving, I'll teach love. If I see Him as love, I'll teach love. If I see Him as anger and condemnation, then I'll teach anger and condemnation. Which is why I was talking to somebody the other day and probably me and Ronnie talking.
Speaker 1:I said I can remember back when I first started preaching I was a youth pastor. Then, when I first started having a few opportunities to preach on Sundays, I remember one day leaving the stage and I think it might have been Pastor Don I went to him and I said Pastor Don. I said why are my messages so angry? I mean, it was like I was just, you know, just angry and I remember he shared some, like I was just angry and I remember he shared some of this stuff with me and I probably didn't understand it. I'll tell you I didn't understand it as much as I do today, but there was just something about my messages that they come off a certain way and it was almost like condemning people and beating people down and whatever. And I wasn't meaning it that way, but that's the like condemning people and beating people down and you know whatever. And I wasn't meaning it that way, but that's the way they were coming out. And now I look back and think how was I seeing the Father? How did I see Him? What was my view of Him? Because my view of Him is what I introduced to the people that had to change, to the people that had to change.
Speaker 1:So the cross was never, ever, about an angry father punishing his son. It shows us a loving father, a loving son and a spirit working together to rescue humanity, to bring us back into that relationship, into everything that we have been called to be. You can stand. I want to end with this right here. I don't usually give things at the end and say, hey, I want you to repeat this or I want you to do this. It's not about repeating anything, but I want you to hear this. I want you to take this with you today. I want you to think about this, because this is my prayer for you today, for all of us today that we can let the angry God image fall away and just truly hear what Jesus said. If you've seen me, you've seen the Father, and the Father himself loves you. Let the angry father mindset go and just believe what Jesus said.
Speaker 1:I believe understanding and teaching this. I think it sets people free. I think it sets people free to see God as he really is, not as a furious God demanding payment, but a loving Father Running into the fire to rescue His kids, just like you would do, as a father or your father would have done for you. Totally different. How are we going to present Him in the right way to people if we're still seeing Him in the wrong way? It changes everything. The way I read the Scripture changes. The way I present Scripture changes when I can have the correct understanding and view of the Father. He's not out to get you. It's not His goal to throw you down into a burning hell. He's already redeemed you. He's already restored you. He's already reconciled you. That's an amen. If y'all can't tell we're reconciled, everything we're waiting on is done, it's finished and I'm telling you finished work makes a difference in seeing these things the right way. I'm not waiting one day when I get there. It's done now and can I awaken to the truth. It makes a difference and it really does, I believe sets people free. There's people out here now that's born again. They're going to church every Sunday morning. They are Christians. Everything that we look at in South Georgia and say, oh they this, this and this, yes, they meet the criteria for all of it, but they're lost. They're lost. There's people in here the same way I'm not just talking about other churches. There's people in here the same way. When I'm saying lost, I'm just saying we don't have that true understanding that it's truly finished and who I truly am in my identity. But we have the opportunity for that.
Speaker 1:We're going to get into some of this a little bit deeper. This is really like an introduction. I've already got next week's sermon already done. This is being broke down a little bit more, and that's what we're doing. He gives an introduction. I've already got next week's sermon already done. This is being broke down a little bit more, and that's what we're doing. He gives an introduction and we'll break it down. Take one little piece of it and break it down a little bit more, because we've got to see it, we've got to understand it. If we really want to change our lives, we can change the lives of the people around us, change the community. I'll be here next week. I'll be here next week. We're going to be going deeper, so be ready, let's pray.
Speaker 1:Father, god, we thank you for this day and this word. We thank you for what you're doing in us right now, what you're doing in this ministry, the words that you're bringing forth, the revelation that you're bringing us, father. You're helping us to deconstruct so much of the old that we just didn't have a great understanding on, and You're building us back up to the truth of your Word. You're helping us and You're shaping us and You're redefining what this Scripture really means. You're bringing us back into the truth and the reality of who you really are and who we really are because of you. So we thank you for this, father.
Speaker 1:I pray for every person in this room that they'll take these Scriptures and they'll study them out and they'll get revelation. That you'll speak to them in a way that you never have before. That you'll open their eyes and their ears and their hearts up to understand things in these Scriptures that they've never seen before I don't care how many times they've read it. That You'll bring something new and something original back to them and that everything that we study, father, everything that we teach from this pulpit, will always be on our identity in Christ. It will always be the gospel, the good news.
Speaker 1:And I pray for this community, father. I know that there's people in this community right now that are lost. They're born again. They know you as their Lord and Savior, but they're lost when it comes to understanding their true identity in Christ. They're lost when it comes to understanding their purpose. They're lost when it comes to understanding what their calling is here in this community and here on this earth. I pray, father, I say it right now this door of this facility is always open and, father, I pray that you will begin to lead people to the truth, that I believe that I 100% believe that we're teaching from this pulpit. But, father, I just thank you for everything that You're doing, everything that we're teaching from this pulpit. But, father, I just thank you for everything that you're doing, everything that you're going to continue to do in the future and the growth of this ministry, not in numbers, but in wisdom. But, father, we thank you. We'll be careful to give you the praise, the honor and the glory, in the mighty name of Jesus, amen.