SPEAKER_00: You are listening to the Gateway Franklin Church podcast.
SPEAKER_00: To learn more about Gateway Franklin Church, including our service times here in Franklin, Tennessee, visit us online at GatewayFranklin.com.
SPEAKER_00: And now, here is this week's message.
SPEAKER_01: Today marks Gateway's 1000th and first Sunday.
SPEAKER_01: 1001.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that great?
SPEAKER_01: That's um that's uh U.S.
SPEAKER_01: Open Golf Applause, is what that was.
SPEAKER_01: That was that was pretty pretty weak.
SPEAKER_01: Um I would have celebrated 1000, uh, but if you were here last week, I wasn't here.
SPEAKER_01: And um one of the greatest honors a pastor can get uh bestowed on them is for another pastor, especially a pastor in their city, who was not out of town to ask them to come preach.
SPEAKER_01: And that's where I was this past week.
SPEAKER_01: I was at Southview Church with Mark Rampula, and um I didn't do the math early enough before he invited me when I said yes because it's such a privilege.
SPEAKER_01: Mark Rampula, pastor in our city, their church is probably uh 15 years, 14, 15 years old or something like that.
SPEAKER_01: Mark is uh a gift to the body in our area.
SPEAKER_01: Mark has the unique ability of gathering lead pastors together.
SPEAKER_01: And most lead pastors don't like one another by nature.
SPEAKER_01: I can't can't tell you why that is.
SPEAKER_01: Um but he had if Mark invites me, I go.
SPEAKER_01: If Mark invites me, I know it's going to be a place where um we're gonna get some life and be able to give some life.
SPEAKER_01: So no, I wasn't here, but I was there, and I'm grateful for him and his church.
SPEAKER_01: Um what a what a great man of God.
SPEAKER_01: So for Father's Day, I have always paraded out Father's Day jokes.
SPEAKER_01: And so here are some new ones.
SPEAKER_01: One one is an old one, it's a classic.
SPEAKER_01: Uh it always has I always have to do it when I get Father.
SPEAKER_01: We'll save that one for last, though, Father.
SPEAKER_01: All right here's the first one.
SPEAKER_01: I've got it um on the screen for dramatic effect, all of them.
SPEAKER_01: What do you call bears with no ears?
SPEAKER_01: Bine o'clock liked that one better than you did.
SPEAKER_01: If you want to know how to build a boat, I know a guy.
SPEAKER_01: That that's us Jerseyans, we always know a guy.
SPEAKER_01: What word can you make shorter by adding two letters?
SPEAKER_01: Short.
SPEAKER_01: Someone knew that one.
SPEAKER_01: Please, please don't yell it out ahead of time.
SPEAKER_01: It ruins it ruins it for the rest of us, Elizabeth.
SPEAKER_01: Well, I thought this was apropos since we're we're we're trying to develop into playgrounds and parking and all that.
SPEAKER_01: What why did the chicken cross the playground?
SPEAKER_01: To get to the other slide.
SPEAKER_01: Are you good?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: All right, and and and this is the one I got I gotta use all the time.
SPEAKER_01: All right.
SPEAKER_01: So if you hear the last whoever many years I've been doing it, you'll still laugh just as loud.
SPEAKER_01: If a tree falls in the woods and a woman is not around to hear it, is the man still wrong?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thank you.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
SPEAKER_01: Connor.
SPEAKER_01: Uh you gotta be really brave as a man to laugh really loud at that one.
SPEAKER_01: When I first saw that, I gotta tell you, I mean, my we were with my in-laws, we were at a little hamburger place in Social Circle, Georgia, and the and the place is just scrolling jokes and stuff, right?
SPEAKER_01: So my father and I, father-in-law and I just happened to be looking at the screen at the same time and read that at the same pace and both laughed out loud at the same time.
SPEAKER_01: And of course, my mother-in-law and Gina had didn't see it, and so I was really happy to retell it.
SPEAKER_01: It was that it was that inspiring of a uh of a joke for me, and it didn't, neither one of them received it in the manner in which in which Jimmy and I received it.
SPEAKER_01: So um anyway.
SPEAKER_01: Uh each Mother's Day and Father's Day, I faced the same kind of what I call preaching dilemma, would be uh, do I pause whatever current series I'm in and kind of speak a direct words to to moms and dads, or do I, you know, just recognize that and then move on with the series?
SPEAKER_01: And so I was really looking forward to um to Psalm 122.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I even did Psalm 120, I did it for Southview.
SPEAKER_01: It just has made an impression on me, the idea that in my distress I called on the Lord and he answered, and the stress is a distress is a tight place, and that God is one that wants to move us to a spacious place.
SPEAKER_01: And so it had such grabbed me that I I did that message, I did that message for them.
SPEAKER_01: And then Pastor Ruth coming right behind me with Psalm 121.
SPEAKER_01: Um, I was really looking forward to 122.
SPEAKER_01: We'll have to wait next week because I prayed specifically.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, if there is a specific word, if you give me a specific word um around fathers, that I will preach that.
SPEAKER_01: If not, I'm not just gonna preach a generic message around Father's Day.
SPEAKER_01: And so I've that's what I believe he gave me.
SPEAKER_01: Um and it's in kind of in the same vein as I did Mother's Day.
SPEAKER_01: So it wasn't like I spoke a direct word to mothers, but I used, I used mothers in scripture to speak a word to all of us.
SPEAKER_01: This kind of will fall in a similar pattern this particular week.
SPEAKER_01: I'm into long titles these days, so here's the title today: A Father's Story and a Son's Prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Embracing God the Father through the eyes of God the Son.
SPEAKER_01: Um, there's overwhelming research indicating the impact of a healthy fatherly relationship.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it goes as far as determining success rate in schools, in school, in careers, uh, emotional stability, and there's even studies that connect it to neurological and physiological development.
SPEAKER_01: Two interesting findings in some of my research, and this might not be new, it wasn't completely new, but I still find them interesting.
SPEAKER_01: The first is that daughters who have a healthy relationship with their fathers report higher body confidence and are less likely to engage in early and risky sexual activity.
SPEAKER_01: When sons have a healthy relationship with dad, they are more likely to respect women.
SPEAKER_01: I find those two things pretty interesting.
SPEAKER_01: You won't find a study that counteracts the critical nature of the father-child relationship.
SPEAKER_01: And yet cultural wins consistently diminish the value of all things male, and in general, father specifically.
SPEAKER_01: I think Disney wrote us out of most stuff years and years and years ago as a necessity for families.
SPEAKER_01: And here's the question that I posed.
SPEAKER_01: If God's biological design necessitated both a man and a woman to produce a child, why wouldn't his family plan necessitate both father and mother to raise a whole emotionally healthy child?
SPEAKER_01: Now, with that said, I know that we have single moms here, or maybe a single mom raised you.
SPEAKER_01: And by all imaginations, they are tough as nails and have stepped into, stepped into, for whatever reason, whatever necessitated it, stepped into a role that required much more of her than what God had originally planned.
SPEAKER_01: And I believe then God then dispenses an extra measure of grace when a single mom takes on.
SPEAKER_01: But I always saw I've been around a lot of single moms in my years of ministry, and almost to a almost to a person I can recall their desire to have healthy male relationships in the lives of their son and daughter.
SPEAKER_01: But whenever you start wondering is a husband or a man necessary, I think you got to think about if it's both necessary to produce a child, both necessary to raise a child.
SPEAKER_01: Now it's no secret that father's a mother's parent differently.
SPEAKER_01: I read recently that a mother bonds with a child through conversation, and that a dad bonds through play or by activity.
SPEAKER_01: And um I just I remember just remember the times when Gina was away and I had Annie by myself.
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't often, but I remembered enough to know that when she was gone and Annie didn't want to go to school, I didn't make her.
SPEAKER_01: I remember don't feel good.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, you don't have to go.
SPEAKER_01: Let's go do something.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Let's go do something.
SPEAKER_01: Um and then um Gina was always meticulous about her hair, and I couldn't fix her hair to save my life, just long blonde hair.
SPEAKER_01: I I could I could wash it, I could, I could dry it, I could brush it, but I could not get that thing in a ponytail.
SPEAKER_01: And I remember going to Toys R Us one day looking for a mom, found one and said, Can you please fix my daughter's hair?
SPEAKER_01: I did that, I did that.
SPEAKER_01: Um but when when I'd come home for work, I would routinely ask Gina, what did you guys do today?
SPEAKER_01: And when I had Annie, and I didn't have Annie by myself a lot.
SPEAKER_01: I remember when she was little, little, and I'm going to Home Depot.
SPEAKER_01: And by the way, dads, we have a dad's depot out there.
SPEAKER_01: So, so all that stuff on the way out, we just wanted to save you a trip today.
SPEAKER_01: So there's duct tape out there, there's super glue, there's Gatorades, there's a gentleman on the way out grabbed some seeds, some grass seeds.
SPEAKER_01: So there's there's a plethora of stuff.
SPEAKER_01: Um, I encourage you to peruse it.
SPEAKER_01: But however, my wife told me that she saw most of the women picking it out for the man.
SPEAKER_01: So I don't, I don't know what I don't know if that I don't know if that ruins anything.
SPEAKER_01: So um I was on the way to home and she said, Um, well, why don't you take Annie with you?
SPEAKER_01: And I went, Why would I do that?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, she couldn't talk, she couldn't push the buggy, she couldn't carry anything.
SPEAKER_01: Right.
SPEAKER_01: So um what we do, men do, women talk.
SPEAKER_01: So she'd say, What did you guys talk about?
SPEAKER_01: And I said, Talk.
SPEAKER_01: What do you mean, talk?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, here's what we did.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what we did.
SPEAKER_01: So there's this balance that fathers and mothers bring into this um relationship.
SPEAKER_01: Um, my relationship with my father was then built around doing.
SPEAKER_01: Um, my dad and I did things.
SPEAKER_01: Well, we really didn't do things, we did his thing.
SPEAKER_01: All right.
SPEAKER_01: So you've heard me talk a lot about the service station.
SPEAKER_01: I remember one particular day.
SPEAKER_01: So my role at the service station mainly was pumping gas.
SPEAKER_01: So in the summer, Monday through Friday, my hours were 6:30 to 5 and any night shift that came open.
SPEAKER_01: And um, and I learned to be good with people literally by pumping gas in a small town.
SPEAKER_01: But on Saturday is what I longed for.
SPEAKER_01: Saturday I worked 8 to 2.
SPEAKER_01: Saturday, my main role wasn't pumping gas.
SPEAKER_01: It was in one of the bays of our station.
SPEAKER_01: So we had two bays.
SPEAKER_01: I would be in one bay, and dad would be in another bay.
SPEAKER_01: So I would do the stuff that was quick turnaround.
SPEAKER_01: So I would fix tires, sell tires, replace tires, batteries, I would change oil.
SPEAKER_01: I would can replace most any part if you didn't have to take a part off to get to that part.
SPEAKER_01: Because that's that then it's mechanic work.
SPEAKER_01: Dad, dad did the stuff that made money.
SPEAKER_01: So dad did the tune-ups, dad did the brake jobs, dad did the mufflers, he would do um uh replacing the parts that I couldn't get to.
SPEAKER_01: On occasion, I would ask dad for help, and he would come over with such I mean, he was so helpful.
SPEAKER_01: He'd come over, he'd teach me, and then sometimes he'd ask me for help.
SPEAKER_01: My help generally was my hands were smaller to meet reach the back part of engines to get the plugs that his arms couldn't reach to.
SPEAKER_01: And I remember on this particular Saturday, I felt his joy.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, he we didn't sit down from eight to two, and he was just beaming.
SPEAKER_01: Now, one, our our labor sheet was really long.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, so we made we made good money that day.
SPEAKER_01: I remember that.
SPEAKER_01: And that always made my dad happy.
SPEAKER_01: Um and but I remember that he just loved being there with me.
SPEAKER_01: I'm reminded, Eric, and and so that's a that's a that's a human story.
SPEAKER_01: So on a spiritual note, um, Eric Little was a Scot on the Great Britain's Olympic team, 1924.
SPEAKER_01: You can go watch the movie later on today.
SPEAKER_01: It's an old movie from 1981 called Chariots of Fire.
SPEAKER_01: Eric was a believer.
SPEAKER_01: Um and he was going to do mission work in China right after graduation from Cambridge.
SPEAKER_01: His sister did not like the fact that Eric was considering running in the Olympics and delaying his move to China.
SPEAKER_01: She felt like he was putting God, he was putting God behind running behind God and his calling.
SPEAKER_01: And in a really, really um emotional piece of the movie, he turns to his sister and he says, When I run, I feel God's joy.
SPEAKER_01: It's really an amazing statement of a relationship between a father and a son, and the son operating and how his dad created him.
SPEAKER_01: Turns out his specialty was the 200.
SPEAKER_01: They were running the 200 on a Sunday.
SPEAKER_01: He refused to run.
SPEAKER_01: He didn't run.
SPEAKER_01: He ran the next day, he ran the 400, which is a completely different kind of race, and that's why he ran it like he was running a 200 and smashes records and comes home with the gold.
SPEAKER_01: There, there is there is a it's a lot, again, the first line of Josh Baldwin's son song.
SPEAKER_01: I know who I am because I know who you are.
SPEAKER_01: So my contention today is the more we know, the more we know of God the Father, the more truth we know of God the Father, the more we can embrace God as Father.
SPEAKER_01: All right, and that's where we want, that's where I want to, that's where I want to take you today.
SPEAKER_01: We all, most of us deal with something that's been labeled the father wound.
SPEAKER_01: And um, and I don't, I don't, look, I'm a dad.
SPEAKER_01: I I know where I've caused my daughter pain.
SPEAKER_01: I know that.
SPEAKER_01: But when you but you when but the enemy wants to leverage every opportunity he can to drive wedges between sons and daughters and fathers.
SPEAKER_01: And so whether or not it was neglect of a father or a misunderstanding of a father, or in my case, my my dad was emotionally distant.
SPEAKER_01: My dad could not have a my dad could not have a serious intimate conversation with me at all.
SPEAKER_01: And it was years and years where I realized that he never had any relationship with his father and mother.
SPEAKER_01: None.
SPEAKER_01: And so because of that, he just wasn't, he wasn't equipped to do that.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I I'm not excusing any of us for that.
SPEAKER_01: What I'm saying is then the enemy can take that and he can cause wounds inside of us because here's what happens.
SPEAKER_01: When we carry a wound like that, it impacts our next, the next generation.
SPEAKER_01: It will have an impact.
SPEAKER_01: Um, it impacts how we engage with God the Father.
SPEAKER_01: And so those those things have a ripple effect.
SPEAKER_01: That's why the enemy wants to, he wants to subvert those ultimately until we get to the place where you know it impacts um when it impacts our worship.
SPEAKER_01: Um identity is everything.
SPEAKER_01: And so because the word identity can be somewhat of an elusive concept, I defined it this way: identity is what we believe about ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: Your identity is what you believe about yourselves.
SPEAKER_01: So, in that case, that makes be that makes my identity a learned behavior.
SPEAKER_01: And if I can learn a behavior, what else can I do?
SPEAKER_01: I can unlearn a behavior.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so if my identity is a learned behavior, and your identity has been impacted negatively, you can unlearn that, and you can unlearn that as you learn more about your heavenly father.
SPEAKER_01: Now, we've all been impacted by this, so let me but so let me give you some good news.
SPEAKER_01: You aren't alone in living with a broken identity.
SPEAKER_01: See, the the enemy wants to isolate you.
SPEAKER_01: And let me say something to the men real quickly, um, just because this is my experience, okay?
SPEAKER_01: So I talk a lot about my relationship with dad.
SPEAKER_01: When I before, years and years ago, I didn't say a word about it.
SPEAKER_01: But the more I would talk about it in circles with men, the more I learned how common it was.
SPEAKER_01: And when I learned how common it was, I learned the healing that was available when I shared that with other men.
SPEAKER_01: See, what from the very beginning, what the enemy wanted to do is isolate us out of our sin.
SPEAKER_01: When Adam and Eve sin, they hide.
SPEAKER_01: The beauty of God, right?
SPEAKER_01: He comes after us.
SPEAKER_01: Demonstrated there in the garden.
SPEAKER_01: So, so if the enemy can isolate you, then he most likely can end up, if he's not defeating you, you will you know what I'm saying about feeling defeated.
SPEAKER_01: So you're not alone in that broken identity.
SPEAKER_01: Second is sin, ours and others, is the source of all broken identities.
SPEAKER_01: It's always going to be the source, my sin or their sin.
SPEAKER_01: But since sin is the source, sin has an answer.
SPEAKER_01: And God is our identity redeemer.
SPEAKER_01: I love pegging it to sin for that reason, because sin has an answer.
SPEAKER_01: Lies keep broken identities broken, truth sets us free.
SPEAKER_01: This is to me one of the strong points when Jesus says that he's the way.
SPEAKER_01: The way I wrote it today was Jesus is the way maker, truth teller, and life giver.
SPEAKER_01: And identity wounds are the real and they're painful, but their scars tell a great story.
SPEAKER_01: Because the scars point us to God as our identity healer.
SPEAKER_01: So here's my statement today.
SPEAKER_01: The more truth we have about God our Father, the more we move towards Him, the more we embrace Him, the more we're shaped by His character, and the more whole we become.
SPEAKER_01: Now, said all that to get to this place.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is our best source of Father information.
SPEAKER_01: So four times in the book of John, John 5, John 8, John 12, and John 14, Jesus says the equivalent of this.
SPEAKER_01: The words I speak to you are initiated by my father.
SPEAKER_01: They're authorized by my father.
SPEAKER_01: I don't think I put this up there, so don't you won't see it.
SPEAKER_01: The words I speak are initiate from my father, they're authorized by my father, they're a description of what I see my father doing.
SPEAKER_01: They've been taught to me by the father.
SPEAKER_01: When you've seen me, you've seen the father.
SPEAKER_01: All right, so John 5, you can write those down.
SPEAKER_01: 5, 8, 12, 14, you'll read all of what I just said.
SPEAKER_01: So that being the case, then, our best information about God the Father is going to come from God the Son.
SPEAKER_01: All right, good logic there, right?
SPEAKER_01: All right, so there's two things.
SPEAKER_01: Um there's a story that we know as the prodigal son story, and I contend in light of this message that's not titled real well.
SPEAKER_01: I think it's better a father's story.
SPEAKER_01: Although the prodigal son, and I'll read it, but although the prodigal son plays obviously a prominent, a prominent role, he doesn't pay the lead, he's not the lead character.
SPEAKER_01: The second is when Jesus is asked to the disciples ask Jesus to teach them how to pray.
SPEAKER_01: We know that is the Lord's prayer.
SPEAKER_01: I'm calling it a son's prayer.
SPEAKER_01: We generally read it to how am I supposed to pray?
SPEAKER_01: I don't think that that's wrong.
SPEAKER_01: I think there's another ring to it.
SPEAKER_01: I think Jesus is telling us who we're praying to.
SPEAKER_01: Not just what to pray.
SPEAKER_01: I think he's telling us who to pray to.
SPEAKER_01: So um, so we're gonna do both stories, and if you're new with us, since I didn't preach last week, I always get extra time the week I'm back, um, especially at the 11 o'clock service.
SPEAKER_01: All right, Luke 15.
SPEAKER_01: So this is a story, and I want um Jesus continued.
SPEAKER_01: There was a man, so continued.
SPEAKER_01: So there's three stories that start Luke 15, all about lost things.
SPEAKER_01: Starts with a lost sheep, moves to a lost coin, and it goes a lost son.
SPEAKER_01: All right, that's why it says Jesus continued.
SPEAKER_01: There was a man who had taught who had two sons.
SPEAKER_01: The younger one said to his father, Father, give me my share of the estate.
SPEAKER_01: So he divided his property between them.
SPEAKER_01: Not long after that the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country, and there squandered his wealth in wild living.
SPEAKER_01: After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in the whole country, and he began to be in need.
SPEAKER_01: So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country who sent him to his fields to feed pigs.
SPEAKER_01: He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.
SPEAKER_01: When he came to his senses, he said, How many of my father's hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death.
SPEAKER_01: I will set out and go back to my father and say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.
SPEAKER_01: I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.
SPEAKER_01: Make me like one of your hired servants.
SPEAKER_01: So he worked out his speech before he left.
SPEAKER_01: So he got up and went to his father.
SPEAKER_01: That is that is the rising action of the story.
SPEAKER_01: It's not quite the apex.
SPEAKER_01: But while he was still A long way off, his father saw him, and he was filled with compassion for him.
SPEAKER_01: He ran to his son, threw his arms around him, and kissed him.
SPEAKER_01: There's the climax of the story.
SPEAKER_01: The son said to him, Father, I've sinned against heaven and against you, and I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.
SPEAKER_01: But the father said to his servants, Quick, bring the best robe, put it on him, put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet, bring the fattened calf and kill it.
SPEAKER_01: Let's have a feast and celebrate.
SPEAKER_01: For this son of mine was dead and is alive again.
SPEAKER_01: He was lost and is found.
SPEAKER_01: So they began to celebrate.
SPEAKER_01: Now that's a jaw-dropping story for us, but it would have been people would have fallen over in the first century, as Jesus tells the story.
SPEAKER_01: They would have fallen over.
SPEAKER_01: The very thought of a son going to his father ahead of time and saying, Give me what you owe me.
SPEAKER_01: Give me what you owe me was counting the father as dead.
SPEAKER_01: Even more so that the father complies.
SPEAKER_01: We don't hear about the father being angry.
SPEAKER_01: And when it says it took a time before him to get his stuff together and leave, how long did it take for the father to come up with enough cash to give his son half of his estate?
SPEAKER_01: But the dad knows in the story that having a son is different than holding on to a son.
SPEAKER_01: In order to have the son, he let go of the son.
SPEAKER_01: So the part of the story most people would recognize and know is the son spent everything he had antithetical to his father's character and his upbringing.
SPEAKER_01: Everything.
SPEAKER_01: We don't know how long it takes, but we do know he's empty.
SPEAKER_01: And he ends up taking a job that no respecting Jewish man would have taken.
SPEAKER_01: So he goes from a person that was an heir to a farm to a person feeding the pigs at somebody else's farm.
SPEAKER_01: And then it occurs to him, when he's hungry, that his dad was generous and kind.
SPEAKER_01: He thinks that, hey, even my dad's servants are living better than I'm living right now.
SPEAKER_01: And the apex of the story here, the the climax, well, apex, it's just underneath it, is it says when he got up, when Jesus tells the story, the words he uses there is a reflection of repentance.
SPEAKER_01: It was repentance.
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't like the guy did a financial calculation and realized he was better off at home.
SPEAKER_01: He did an overarching assessment and said, I had it better off as a son than I do now.
SPEAKER_01: And even though he won't take me as a son anymore, he'll I can at least go back as a servant.
SPEAKER_01: The climax of the story is that the father sees the son far off.
SPEAKER_01: So here's what this tells me.
SPEAKER_01: There wasn't a day that the dad wasn't looking for his son.
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't an arbitrary passing.
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't running his ranch, just glancing out down the lane.
SPEAKER_01: He would have looked intently every opportunity he had.
SPEAKER_01: And the scripture says that when he sees his son afar off, he has compassion on him.
SPEAKER_01: This is kind of an amazing thing, right?
SPEAKER_01: Because that far off, I don't think he smells his son.
SPEAKER_01: And I would have thought that there's no indication that the kid went home, packed stuff because he didn't have stuff to pack, got cleaned up, took a shower, got you know, and headed on a journey.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe.
SPEAKER_01: I mean that it's a story.
SPEAKER_01: It's open-ended, right?
SPEAKER_01: So before the father could see that he was hadn't eaten in a while, before the father could uh smell him, he's filled with compassion.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because he knows what the son left and there wasn't going to be anything that can match what he left.
SPEAKER_01: Because there wasn't any other opportunity to have a dad like that dad.
SPEAKER_01: And then the restorative action, we find him kissing him.
SPEAKER_01: This was a relational restorative action, very intimate.
SPEAKER_01: It's always very intimate a kiss, right?
SPEAKER_01: Think about a kiss between a father and a son, which is pretty staggering.
SPEAKER_01: So here's a kiss.
SPEAKER_01: And then the kiss was personal.
SPEAKER_01: The robe and the ring and the sandals, the celebration, that was public.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't have a vote.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't get the the ranch hands and the other brother around and saying, Hey, what do you think, guys?
SPEAKER_01: Shouldn't should we bring him back?
SPEAKER_01: There's no vote.
SPEAKER_01: No one gets a vote.
SPEAKER_01: No comparison here.
SPEAKER_01: The son make the father makes a unilateral decision.
SPEAKER_01: That's my son.
SPEAKER_01: And I want him back.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm gonna let all of you know he's in back in the same spot he was when he left.
SPEAKER_01: He's wearing the same ring, he's wearing the robe, he's wearing the sandals, and we're gonna celebrate the fact that he didn't leave and in and stick it to all of us.
SPEAKER_01: He is now alive.
SPEAKER_01: So I call it a father story because Jesus is telling the story to give us this indication of who is this person that's our father.
SPEAKER_01: The person that we have as a father in God is one filled with compassion.
SPEAKER_01: One, you can say that his great love was he received him back, and I'd say, yeah, but an equal amount of love was letting his son go.
SPEAKER_01: How hard is that for a loving father to say, I know you're gonna run your cart in a ditch.
SPEAKER_01: But if it's gonna take you going in a ditch to get back to me, then I'll let you go in a ditch.
SPEAKER_01: We have a compassionate father.
SPEAKER_01: He could have woven into the story how mad the father was, how that made the father look in the eyes of everyone else in town, not included in the story.
SPEAKER_01: The compassion, the restorative nature of the father.
SPEAKER_01: The more you know about truly who God the Father is and how the lies that the enemy weaves and the stories that you may have heard, the more that story, a son's story about a father, the more you get that woven into your spirit, the more humble you are towards the father, the more grateful you are towards the father.
SPEAKER_01: The more you say, Yeah, I know he loves me, but when you're forgiven all of that, it's not I know my father loves me, it's I feel my father loves me.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's a father story.
SPEAKER_01: Let's get to the son's prayer.
SPEAKER_01: So, like I said, we teach it, we learn it in a manner that says this is how we should pray.
SPEAKER_01: But we know that the intent here, what Jesus wasn't teaching them to repeat a prayer, he was teaching them how to approach the Father.
SPEAKER_01: But I think he's also teaching us who the Father is that we approach.
SPEAKER_01: All right, so it's it's in Luke 11, it's also in Matthew 6.
SPEAKER_01: Uh I'm gonna do mainly Luke 11.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna weave in a little Matthew 6.
SPEAKER_01: Luke 11, he it's a little, it's a little short winded.
SPEAKER_01: So let me tell you why, let me tell you the connection piece here.
SPEAKER_01: When you know who you are, you walk taller where you are.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: When you are relationally secure with the Heavenly Father, what you face on a daily basis, you face in a different manner.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: If you're insecure about it, if you feel like he's distant, disengaged, without the means, then you live life differently.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: So when we when we're when we're in relationship with the Father and we understand his whole, compassionate, forgiving, loving, restorative nature, then I can lead, I can live life differently.
SPEAKER_01: And I think Jesus is telling us how do we engage with God regularly in this prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: So he begins, our Father, okay, again, a reminder of who he is, hallowed be your name.
SPEAKER_01: I think he's teaching us that God the Father is revereworthy.
SPEAKER_01: Revere worthy, that the character of God our Father is more immense than we can measure.
SPEAKER_01: Again, you've heard me say, I don't want to worship someone that's not aship someone that's not smarter than I am.
SPEAKER_01: And it generally raises some eyebrows when I say that.
SPEAKER_01: But one of the things the enemy wants us to do is to remove the polish off of God, to diminish who he is in our sight.
SPEAKER_01: That's the only way false worship works, is if we don't believe that God our Father is revere-worthy, that he is at the top, there's no one, nothing above him.
SPEAKER_01: And so the beginning prayer is a reminder that the person we're calling Father, there is no one above him and no one else that remotely measures up to you worshiping him.
SPEAKER_01: He is someone worthy of worship.
SPEAKER_01: The second thing I think he teaches us about God is that God the Father is trustworthy with our present and our future.
SPEAKER_01: When he says, your kingdom come, and then Matthew adds, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: Now, what does it take to pray that prayer?
SPEAKER_01: Any any people that enjoy controlling your world in here?
SPEAKER_01: Any?
SPEAKER_01: Any at all?
SPEAKER_01: The hands go up slowly.
SPEAKER_01: The longer I wait, the more I see them above the back of the seats, right?
SPEAKER_01: So we all fall into this category.
SPEAKER_01: Um, I remember in college, I would go into my advisor.
SPEAKER_01: The advisor was supposed to help you map out your journey to finish in four years.
SPEAKER_01: I remember going into my advisor with it mapped out.
SPEAKER_01: Because my mom and dad made something very, very, very, very clear.
SPEAKER_01: You get eight semesters.
SPEAKER_01: You don't, that's it.
SPEAKER_01: You get eight.
SPEAKER_01: And so I didn't want to leave my fate in somebody else's hands that was seeing 50 more people behind me.
SPEAKER_01: You know what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_01: So, what does it take for us to actually surrender our future to somebody and mean it?
SPEAKER_01: So Jesus is teaching us that God, God is sufficient for us to place what we want behind what He wants, because what He wants is always going to be better for us than what we want.
SPEAKER_01: That our plans for ourselves, what while they may be great plans, they are short-sighted.
SPEAKER_01: Because we can only see what we see now.
SPEAKER_01: But God our Father sees it all.
SPEAKER_01: And so going to the Father with our will is not a problem.
SPEAKER_01: Having that discussion is not an issue.
SPEAKER_01: I I believe, in fact, he wants it with you.
SPEAKER_01: Come tell me what you're dreaming.
SPEAKER_01: Come tell me what you're looking for.
SPEAKER_01: Come, come tell me what I think he wants it.
SPEAKER_01: And I think there's times he says, get after it.
SPEAKER_01: Hi fi, we're teaching Brooks right now.
SPEAKER_01: He's my grandson.
SPEAKER_01: Hi fi.
SPEAKER_01: And he starts way back here.
SPEAKER_01: Big high-fi, Bob.
SPEAKER_01: Big high.
SPEAKER_01: I think there's times God just loved it.
SPEAKER_01: Big get after it.
SPEAKER_01: And there are times he's gonna say, Yeah, that's not a bad plan.
SPEAKER_01: You want to hear mine?
SPEAKER_01: You wanna hear my plan?
SPEAKER_01: But look, if you don't trust God as someone, gosh, that he has a better plan, then you're gonna have to keep chasing your own tail.
SPEAKER_01: Until you figure out that's just circles.
SPEAKER_01: That God the Father can be trusted with your life.
SPEAKER_01: Boy, it's a it's a how many times you just spit over that?
SPEAKER_01: Your will be done, your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven, right?
SPEAKER_01: It's no, it's it's us acknowledging and recognizing that God can be, he is a trustworthy father with our future.
SPEAKER_01: See, the the tight place message for me, what has been really stirring me about one Psalm 120, is that we serve a God who wants to bring us into spacious places.
SPEAKER_01: So if that's his destination for me, the tight place I'm in is not the last place I'll be in.
SPEAKER_01: But if I only trust me and my ability to discern how to get out of that tight place, I'm gonna always feel lost in that.
SPEAKER_01: I'm only gonna feel on top of the world when I think I'm on the top of the world.
SPEAKER_01: And our top of the world is is is never ever quite really actually on top.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the third.
SPEAKER_01: God the Father is our provider.
SPEAKER_01: Our provider.
SPEAKER_01: Give us each day our daily bread.
SPEAKER_01: Do you know that God is intricately involved in providing for our daily needs?
SPEAKER_01: All right, how many have a job?
SPEAKER_01: When we have a job, we tend have a tendency to think that this is what we do, that we provide.
SPEAKER_01: But your job is a holy partnership with Christ.
SPEAKER_01: That with that partnership and his placement of you and his wiring of you, he is providing for you your daily bread.
SPEAKER_01: I'm a hustler, I've always been a hustler.
SPEAKER_01: Greedy, hustle, get after it, don't wait, run through the wall.
SPEAKER_01: That that's my makeup.
SPEAKER_01: And if you're like that, those are some really good feelings when you can make something happen.
SPEAKER_01: Until you run into that wall that actually doesn't move.
SPEAKER_01: And when you are your source of provision and that wall doesn't move, you are lost with what to do.
SPEAKER_01: But if you believe that you are in holy partnership with Christ in your employment, then he is the lead generator.
SPEAKER_01: He is the closer.
SPEAKER_01: He is the creative mind to the solution that no one can figure out.
SPEAKER_01: He is the person that provides for you.
SPEAKER_01: You are in complete partnership with him.
SPEAKER_01: And when you see him as your daily provider, you do not work in the same manner in which you work.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, when when when your father is a person who creates something out of nothing, like he's a hustler.
SPEAKER_01: I think he loves it in all of us.
SPEAKER_01: But I think it saddens him when we get lost in that and make one of the two two one of two mistakes.
SPEAKER_01: Man, aren't we something?
SPEAKER_01: Man, aren't we some?
SPEAKER_01: And I don't know if I'll ever be able to survive this.
SPEAKER_01: I think both really sadden him.
SPEAKER_01: Because he wants to be and is in holy partnership with us.
SPEAKER_01: Last two.
SPEAKER_01: God the Father is merciful.
SPEAKER_01: Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.
SPEAKER_01: I think Jesus is teaching us that God is merciful.
SPEAKER_01: Because if he's not merciful, then you don't come to him for forgiveness of sin.
SPEAKER_01: If you don't believe God to be merciful, then you try to hide all of this.
SPEAKER_01: You try to bury it, you try to push it down.
SPEAKER_01: But if he's merciful, then you confess it.
SPEAKER_01: Then you get up out of the mess and you stand up and you walk towards him.
SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, think about it.
SPEAKER_01: Adam and Eve hide.
SPEAKER_01: They hide.
SPEAKER_01: The enemy takes advantage of all of that.
SPEAKER_01: But God came after them.
SPEAKER_01: Christ comes after us.
SPEAKER_01: If you don't believe God's merciful, you will hide from him.
SPEAKER_01: If you believe God to be merciful, you will run to him.
SPEAKER_01: It's a big deal.
SPEAKER_01: And then he ends the prayer with and lead us not to temptation, but deliver us from the evil one, is Matthew's addition.
SPEAKER_01: That God the Father is a trusted leader and a powerful deliverer.
SPEAKER_01: That you can trust God in the leadership of your life, and you can trust him to deliver you when you get in over your head.
SPEAKER_01: I think that's who Jesus is telling us who we're praying to.
SPEAKER_01: Sure, he's telling us what to pray, but what to pray is an indication of who we're praying to.
SPEAKER_01: So for me to wrestle this message down, I've got to believe that some pieces of this is going to change who you are.
SPEAKER_01: And that sounds like a really bold statement, but I believe, I believe if you're dealing with uh lies or fallacies or an inadequate understanding of God the Father, it has an impact on who you are, how you live, and how you interact with people.
SPEAKER_01: Regardless of what you carry from an earthly father, when you when you connect with God as your father, it trickles down.
SPEAKER_01: It has an impact to bring where I forgave my dad so many years ago, and and when I forgave my dad and didn't hold things against my father, how our relationship changed.
SPEAKER_01: There's so many things that he wants to and can do in your in your in your earthly relationships.
SPEAKER_01: Some things can never be repaired with with your earthly father.
SPEAKER_01: Some things may never be repaired, but you can be repaired.
SPEAKER_01: But you can be whole.
SPEAKER_01: Or why else would he not?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's his choice, God the Father.
SPEAKER_01: Our Abba, our dad.
SPEAKER_01: It's it's that kind of intimate relationship he desires with you.
SPEAKER_01: So as we as we pray, you know, this is what we do at Gateway.
SPEAKER_01: We invite you, we invite you forward.
SPEAKER_01: It's not because you can't encounter God in your seat.
SPEAKER_01: Um, I just haven't said in a long time.
SPEAKER_01: I just believe movement matters.
SPEAKER_01: And so there's been times I'd stay in a seat and I'd leave and talk myself out of whatever was going on in my life spiritually.
SPEAKER_01: Times I came to the altar, I couldn't deny it.
SPEAKER_01: I'm just I'm just offering that to you.
SPEAKER_01: So over here, what we do is if you want to come and just pray by yourself, you can do that here.
SPEAKER_01: Over here, we have we have uh elders and others on our care team that are here, will hear a request from you prayer and pray for you specifically on that manner.
SPEAKER_01: You can do that here.
SPEAKER_01: We have communion available on my left and my right.
SPEAKER_01: If you'll stand, I'll pray.
SPEAKER_01: And we will end in worship and in prayer together.
SPEAKER_01: Father, I thank you for Gateway Church.
SPEAKER_01: I thank you for the men and women and families that make up this body.
SPEAKER_01: And Lord, I know you want us to be healthy.
SPEAKER_01: Healthy husbands, healthy wives, healthy sons, healthy daughters.
SPEAKER_01: You want us to be emotionally whole, spiritually whole.
SPEAKER_01: And Lord, I know there's a lot that works against that, past, present, but you are so much greater, so much more powerful.
SPEAKER_01: You are revereworthy.
SPEAKER_01: There is no one like you, which means there is, you can do things no one else can do.
SPEAKER_01: And Lord, in this moment, I boldly ask for you to do that.
SPEAKER_01: That you do something in someone's life that no one else can do.
SPEAKER_01: They've been waiting on it for so long, they've lost count, they've even given up on it.
SPEAKER_01: That you would do a healing and a wholeness today.
SPEAKER_01: We ask that in your son's name.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: I invite you to move.
SPEAKER_00: We hope you were encouraged and challenged by today's message.
SPEAKER_00: Again, to learn more about Gateway Franklin Church, find us online at gatewayfranklin.com.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining us today.