SPEAKER_00: This podcast is a ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church, helping people know, enjoy, and glorify God.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about Grand Parkway, visit Grandparkway.org.
SPEAKER_01: Lord Jesus, we bow before you in our posture and in our hearts, because as we just sang, you and you alone are worthy.
SPEAKER_01: That's why we worship you.
SPEAKER_01: We attribute worth to your name, your attributes, your perfections, because you're perfect in all your ways.
SPEAKER_01: We who are imperfect bow before you as the only one who is perfect.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, O God in heaven, that though you are so different from us in your perfections, still you are connected to us by your grace and mercy.
SPEAKER_01: We are very, very grateful.
SPEAKER_01: You know, Lord Jesus, this is a difficult day for us, and we are so grateful that you have not abandoned us and wish to be glorified through us even during these unstable and uncertain days.
SPEAKER_01: That's our heart's desire as well.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for the community of believers meeting in some fashion around the world today.
SPEAKER_01: We pray you would be pleased with what we do here and with what our brothers and sisters are doing to attribute worth to your name around the world today.
SPEAKER_01: This we pray in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Amen, amen.
SPEAKER_01: God bless you.
SPEAKER_01: Worship team, where did they go?
SPEAKER_01: Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_01: The rapture took place.
SPEAKER_01: We've been left.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Clyde and team for magnificent, beautiful, beautiful words and worship.
SPEAKER_01: I wish we could be together face to face, as do you, but this is the way it is for now.
SPEAKER_01: I'm grateful for the invitation to be with you even under these unusual circumstances.
SPEAKER_01: I wish your pastor was here.
SPEAKER_01: Every time I've been here at Grand Parkway Baptist Church, Pastor Neil is gone.
SPEAKER_01: I'm taking it personally now.
SPEAKER_01: He's on uh much deserved sabbatical rest.
SPEAKER_01: What a great privilege to be the shepherd of this flock, but what a great burden and responsibility at the same time.
SPEAKER_01: So I know you're praying for your wonderful shepherd, under shepherd, that he would be rested during these days and come back with much, much more to offer than ever.
SPEAKER_01: So I mentioned as we prayed that these are difficult and on certain days, you, we at our church are asking all kinds of questions, like when are we going to be back together again?
SPEAKER_01: When when will normalcy take place again?
SPEAKER_01: We don't have answers.
SPEAKER_01: And though we disciples, followers of the Lord Jesus Christ are uh laden with questions without answers, we're not alone.
SPEAKER_01: I remember the Lord's first century followers, his disciples 2,000 years ago, they have had manifold questions as well.
SPEAKER_01: Here's one that you know of.
SPEAKER_01: They asked the Lord one time how to pray.
SPEAKER_01: What a good question.
SPEAKER_01: And you are familiar with his response.
SPEAKER_01: He said to them, When you pray, pray this way.
SPEAKER_01: And then he said this, perhaps the most familiar words in our faith, our Father who art in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, six measly old words, but we can stop there and feast on them because they are really, really profound words.
SPEAKER_01: They're recorded for us in Matthew chapter six as part of what's called the Sermon on the Mount.
SPEAKER_01: It was the Lord's most lengthy sermon.
SPEAKER_01: He gave it in a place called the Mount of Beatitudes.
SPEAKER_01: I was there once.
SPEAKER_01: Perhaps you've had the privilege of being there as well.
SPEAKER_01: I can imagine the Lord standing there.
SPEAKER_01: He actually wasn't on the top of the mountain.
SPEAKER_01: He stood below, and those who came to hear of the great rabbi Jesus were seated on the mountain slopes.
SPEAKER_01: And we've tested it.
SPEAKER_01: If you do that today, it has a natural ampathetic effect.
SPEAKER_01: And so, even with these wonderful devices called microphones, the Lord Jesus could be heard quite clearly by the thousands who would have been gathered there.
SPEAKER_01: And he began to teach many things, not the least of which was this.
SPEAKER_01: When you pray, pray this way.
SPEAKER_01: Six words, our Father who art in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: You see, in those words, the Lord Jesus, think about it, is inviting folks like you and I, undeserving though we may be, he's inviting us into the same relationship he has always had from eternity past with God, his father.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is God's only begotten and most beloved Son.
SPEAKER_01: You remember, of course, when the Father said of him, This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.
SPEAKER_01: And so the Father, please be persuaded of this, is very pleased with the Son.
SPEAKER_01: And the Father loves the Son.
SPEAKER_01: And the Son is saying, And you can have the same relationship with Almighty God that I do.
SPEAKER_01: He's my Father.
SPEAKER_01: He can be yours as well.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus, God's one-of-a-kind only son, invites us into the same kind of intimacy and relationship with the Father, the very creator of the world that he has always had.
SPEAKER_01: In effect, in these uh economy of words, the Lord Jesus is saying, You know about my relationship with the Father from eternity past.
SPEAKER_01: The Father and I have been and always shall be in a very close relationship.
SPEAKER_01: God is my father, but I want you to know you can have him as your father as well.
SPEAKER_01: And so he utters these magnificent words, our father.
SPEAKER_01: And these two words, they change everything if you think about it.
SPEAKER_01: They say God is for sure our creator, but he wishes to be more.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, he desires to be our father.
SPEAKER_01: The question is, do you really desire to be his son or daughter?
SPEAKER_01: I hope the answer is yes.
SPEAKER_01: That's my greatest desire.
SPEAKER_01: Look, I want this goofy coronavirus to go away.
SPEAKER_01: I want us to meet together as a church once again.
SPEAKER_01: I want to go back to work, whatever it is.
SPEAKER_01: Those are legitimate things.
SPEAKER_01: But I hope this is your greatest desire.
SPEAKER_01: I wish to be God's son or daughter.
SPEAKER_01: Now, many of us have perhaps suffered from something we could call father hunger.
SPEAKER_01: To one extent or another, I think this is true of all of us.
SPEAKER_01: It's a kind of emptiness you can feel when your father, who, well, maybe he was there as you grew up, but he but he wasn't there.
SPEAKER_01: He was emotionally absent.
SPEAKER_01: Or maybe you grew up with the literal absence of a father.
SPEAKER_01: He wasn't there at all.
SPEAKER_01: You may have grown up in these difficult circumstances.
SPEAKER_01: You may have had a father, but one you could not count on.
SPEAKER_01: And so you may have grown with your emotional needs, those which are to be met by your father unmet.
SPEAKER_01: Well, that's father hunger.
SPEAKER_01: Those circumstances produce it.
SPEAKER_01: Many people have it, but nobody needs to leave, live without Father God.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Well, because Jesus said, You who come to God through me can have him as your father.
SPEAKER_01: He can be our father.
SPEAKER_01: Can you see why I love those two words?
SPEAKER_01: Our father.
SPEAKER_01: In Spain, uh, there was a father and son who were at odds with one another.
SPEAKER_01: They were estranged for many, many years and they couldn't be reconciled.
SPEAKER_01: The father grieved the absence of the son who separated and went somewhere.
SPEAKER_01: And the father searched for him for months, even for years, to no avail.
SPEAKER_01: And then one day, in a desperate effort to make contact with his son, the dad put an ad in a newspaper in a major city in Spain.
SPEAKER_01: Here's how the ad read Dear son, meet me in front of this newspaper office at noon on Saturday.
SPEAKER_01: All is forgiven.
SPEAKER_01: I love you, your father.
SPEAKER_01: And on that Saturday, no exaggeration, 800 boys and men showed up at the newspaper office, each looking, each longing for the forgiveness and love of the fathers, which they never had.
SPEAKER_01: So you may also have had issues with your earthly father that still yet are unresolved, but you can have a heavenly father who yearns to take you up into his arms and to forgive you and to love you.
SPEAKER_01: Nobody, nobody, I don't mean to offend your dads in any way, but nobody has had a perfect father.
SPEAKER_01: And many of us, in fact, suffer from severe father hunger, but Jesus tells us, Jesus' father tells us, I can be the dad you never had.
SPEAKER_01: I hope I'm not just speaking about me.
SPEAKER_01: I don't think I am.
SPEAKER_01: I think this applies to you as well.
SPEAKER_01: I grew up with an alcoholic father.
SPEAKER_01: If that's been your experience, life centers on the alcoholic father.
SPEAKER_01: Everyone assumes a position in light of his addiction.
SPEAKER_01: Some seek to rescue him, some to be like him, some seek to avoid him, whatever it was.
SPEAKER_01: And so as I grew up as a little kid, my dad's alcoholism, I don't think he meant this, but it happened, robbed me of childhood.
SPEAKER_01: I was a child chronologically, but I wasn't able to count on my dad for guidance, safety, provision, or protection because he was consumed, you see, with his own alcoholism.
SPEAKER_01: Don't think I'm stuck on this.
SPEAKER_01: I have forgiven my father many, many years ago and experienced the freedom that you get from forgiveness.
SPEAKER_01: But I remember early on, I didn't diagnose it this way.
SPEAKER_01: I remember early on, I guess you could say, suffering from father hunger.
SPEAKER_01: Again, my dad was there, but not there.
SPEAKER_01: And when I came to know the Lord Jesus as my Savior, I found salvation not just from the penalty of sin, and that surely would be enough, wouldn't it?
SPEAKER_01: What a great blessing.
SPEAKER_01: But I found salvation also from father hunger.
SPEAKER_01: I got redemption from the absence of a dad, and I find I found out through Jesus the Son, I could have the perfect dead I never had.
SPEAKER_01: And this is not wishful thinking.
SPEAKER_01: These are the words of Jesus Himself when he says, pray this way, our Father.
SPEAKER_01: You see, in those two words, uh the Lord Jesus said to those who have believed on him, when you approach God, do so as if he is your Father.
SPEAKER_01: Now, folks, that's that's pretty revolutionary if you think about it, because religious formality essentially says, keep your distance.
SPEAKER_01: Religious formality essentially says you have to fulfill certain prerequisites in order for you to sort of approach Almighty God, great transcendent deity.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus says, Oh no, get rid of all formality.
SPEAKER_01: You can come, sloppy as you are, and you can come and you can climb onto the lap of your heavenly father.
SPEAKER_01: I've made that means of approach to you.
SPEAKER_01: When I was a young boy, uh I grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and uh I'm from a Jewish background, and uh I had just had my bar mitzvah.
SPEAKER_01: That's what happens when you're 13.
SPEAKER_01: It's kind of a rite of passage.
SPEAKER_01: And we were visiting my grandparents on this particular Saturday or Shabbat, that's the Sabbath.
SPEAKER_01: And uh I did not go to the synagogue on this occasion.
SPEAKER_01: I went outside my grandparents' home and I had a little ball and I was throwing it against the stoop.
SPEAKER_01: I had a baseball glove, you know, you throw it against the stoop.
SPEAKER_01: That's how you play baseball in New York.
SPEAKER_01: And as the ball bounced, you catch it.
SPEAKER_01: If it bounces one time, that's a single, two times it's a double.
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, I'm having a good time.
SPEAKER_01: I'm just a little kid.
SPEAKER_01: And the rabbi from the synagogue, right next to the apartment building in which my grandparents lived, he came to me and he said, Young, young brat, uh, he said, What is your name?
SPEAKER_01: And I said, Stuart.
SPEAKER_01: He said, No, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_01: What is your Hebrew name?
SPEAKER_01: Shepsal Chaim, I told him.
SPEAKER_01: He said, Are you bar mitzvah?
SPEAKER_01: Meaning, have you had a bar mitzvah?
SPEAKER_01: I said, Yes, Rabbi, which meant I was over 13.
SPEAKER_01: He said, Come into the synagogue.
SPEAKER_01: We need you to make a minion.
SPEAKER_01: A minion means a quorum, because in Judaism, you have to have a quorum of 10 men.
SPEAKER_01: A man is someone over the age of 13 for ceremonial purposes.
SPEAKER_01: You have to have 10 men before there can be a service.
SPEAKER_01: The congregation cannot worship and approach God.
SPEAKER_01: It's illegal, say the rabbis, until you can satisfy, don't you see, this man-made religious prerequisite.
SPEAKER_01: You cannot approach God until you got 10 guys over the age of 13.
SPEAKER_01: Well, let me tell you, on my way here today from Pearland, Texas, there was only me in the car.
SPEAKER_01: There weren't nine other guys.
SPEAKER_01: And I was talking to Almighty God just in my car.
SPEAKER_01: I had no special religious vestments on.
SPEAKER_01: There was no incense.
SPEAKER_01: There was no crowd.
SPEAKER_01: It was just me.
SPEAKER_01: I had no special fancy words of any kind.
SPEAKER_01: I remember saying, Father, it would really be great if you could help me find my way to that church.
SPEAKER_01: I was praying really profound things like that.
SPEAKER_01: And I was just talking.
SPEAKER_01: And as things came to mind, I was just talking with my father, and I just realized Jesus didn't just set me free from sin, he set me free from undue religious formality, which didn't grant me access to him, and in fact, erected, it erected a barrier.
SPEAKER_01: See, our Father.
SPEAKER_01: And so religion has prerequisites for approaching God, but Jesus in essence said, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_01: You who wish to come to God can do so through me.
SPEAKER_01: And you can come just as you are, and you can say, Father, I'm here.
SPEAKER_01: Let's talk.
SPEAKER_01: You don't need a minion, you don't need a quorum to do that.
SPEAKER_01: When Jesus uttered these magnificent words, when he said, Pray this way, our Father, he told those of us who have accepted him that when we approach Almighty God, when we seek to connect with the creator of the world, we can do so not as adversaries or strangers, we can do so as sons and daughters.
SPEAKER_01: And so he in essence said, Come to God, not as if he is a tyrant or a stranger, come to God as if he's your father.
SPEAKER_01: Can you take a look at this scene, this slide, which will be put up?
SPEAKER_01: There you go.
SPEAKER_01: Um it's a conference room scene.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know the people there, but it's a kind of a typical conference room scene.
SPEAKER_01: You're not invited to it, apparently.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, nor I.
SPEAKER_01: It would be entirely inappropriate for you and I to just barge into this conference room and make our presence known.
SPEAKER_01: But if these very serious-minded people uh had children, and their children happened to push open the doors to the conference room, barge in and make their way over to their respective parents, they would be permitted to do so.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, my guess is these very serious-minded people engaged in some formal decision-making process.
SPEAKER_01: My guess is they would stop.
SPEAKER_01: Suddenly, they'd have smiles on their faces, they would be filled with the light.
SPEAKER_01: And I just love that whole image.
SPEAKER_01: That's how it is with you and I.
SPEAKER_01: Now in Christ Jesus, we can charge into the throne room of grace.
SPEAKER_01: It's characterized by grace, and we can find grace to help in time of need.
SPEAKER_01: How dare we do it?
SPEAKER_01: What are you talking about?
SPEAKER_01: How dare we do it?
SPEAKER_01: I'm a son.
SPEAKER_01: You are sons and daughters of Almighty God, and this is the privilege we have now to be able to approach God as our Father.
SPEAKER_01: Now, in the day in which Jesus spoke some 2,000 years ago, it was uh the Jewish religious custom always to address God in light of his sovereignty and his holiness and his bigness, but uh not in light of his daddiness.
SPEAKER_01: Now, God is all those things.
SPEAKER_01: He is sovereign, he is transcendent.
SPEAKER_01: He's not our co-pilot, perish the thought.
SPEAKER_01: Good night.
SPEAKER_01: He's he's the creator.
SPEAKER_01: I understand all that, but when you come to him through Jesus, you approach him not just in light of his transcendence, you approach him in light of what we call his imminence.
SPEAKER_01: That means God is with us.
SPEAKER_01: Not just in light of his bigness, but in light of his daddiness.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I'm telling you, I've been in the ministry for a lot of years, and that's a tough thing for a lot of us to do.
SPEAKER_01: It's hard for us to think of God, Almighty God, as being this way, so approachable.
SPEAKER_01: And so I'm invoking the words of the Apostle Paul here.
SPEAKER_01: I think what he had to say could really help us.
SPEAKER_01: It's in Romans chapter 8, verse 15.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what Paul said you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received it's a new spirit.
SPEAKER_01: It's a spirit of adoption.
SPEAKER_01: It's a spirit characterized not by fear, but by adoption as sons or daughters, by which we cry out, Abba, Father.
SPEAKER_01: Now, Paul here is speaking to believers, to followers of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: He tells them, at one time their relationship to God was like that of slave to master, but that's no longer the case.
SPEAKER_01: All that has changed when we have accepted Christ.
SPEAKER_01: At that point, we received an entirely new spirit, one not characterized as a spirit of slavery leading to fear, oh no, a spirit of adoption.
SPEAKER_01: Now I'll tell you why that word is so significant.
SPEAKER_01: In Roman law, at the time when Paul wrote what he did, there was a whole body of law with reference to the procedure of adoption.
SPEAKER_01: And if someone was to be adopted, the adopted person, the old life of the adopted person upon adoption was entirely canceled out and changed.
SPEAKER_01: So if for some reason that one to be adopted somehow, he, she or his or her family incurred any indebtedness, the adopting one, father or mother, was responsible for satisfying all of the debts previously incurred and associated with the child to be adopted.
SPEAKER_01: He, the child, was now regarded as an entirely new person, entering into an entirely new lifestyle with nothing in his or her past any longer counting against him.
SPEAKER_01: Do you realize that's exactly what's happened to you and I as Christians?
SPEAKER_01: We've been adopted by God our Father to such an extent that he has canceled out all debts to him incurred by us, the debt of sin.
SPEAKER_01: All debts to him have been entirely canceled out.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, we can do what Paul exhorts us to do.
SPEAKER_01: We can approach him not with a spirit of fear, but with a spirit of adoption.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, Paul says the result of our adoption is that we cry out, Abba Father.
SPEAKER_01: That's a big word, Abba.
SPEAKER_01: It means dear father or papa or daddy.
SPEAKER_01: So if you're a Christian, you can cry out, as Paul says, to your father, to Abba, to your dear father, with all your urgency and all of your deeply felt personal needs, and you could expect an audience with him like never before.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I hope this grabs you and not just me.
SPEAKER_01: As a Jewish guy, this really grabs me, and I'll tell you why.
SPEAKER_01: We Jewish people would never think we would be permitted to refer to God as Abba.
SPEAKER_01: If you're in around Jewish people today or you go to Israel in a crowded situation, you can hear little kids cry out, Abba, Abba, Daddy, Daddy.
SPEAKER_01: But we would never dare to refer to Almighty God that way.
SPEAKER_01: We can call our fathers Abba, but not the Heavenly Father, Almighty God.
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus said, Yeah, but that's how I refer to him.
SPEAKER_01: And that's how you can refer to him, our Father.
SPEAKER_01: Folks, that that is revolutionary.
SPEAKER_01: But let me get just a little uh psychological here, if you will permit me.
SPEAKER_01: If you're finding it hard.
SPEAKER_01: Hard to think of God this way.
SPEAKER_01: My dear father, my papa, my daddy.
SPEAKER_01: It could be uh because you have had unhappy experiences with your earthly father.
SPEAKER_01: Right or wrong, we are prone to conform Heavenly Father to the image of our earthly father.
SPEAKER_01: This just happens again.
SPEAKER_01: You don't do it deliberately, it just sort of happens, but you got to work on it.
SPEAKER_01: And so if your earthly father was distant, I'm telling you, you may be prone to think your heavenly father is distant.
SPEAKER_01: If your earthly father was demanding, you may be prone to think your heavenly father is demanding.
SPEAKER_01: If your earthly father deserted you, you may be prone to think at some point your heavenly father is going to desert you.
SPEAKER_01: I do a lot of counseling in our church, and over all the years in which I've been in the ministry, I've counseled with a number of folks who doubt their salvation, and they've come, they're very quite disturbed about this, and it's understandable.
SPEAKER_01: And they've come one at a time to speak about this.
SPEAKER_01: I doubt my salvation.
SPEAKER_01: I don't believe I'm saved.
SPEAKER_01: Of course, that tells me they are, because there's never been an unsaved person in the history of humankind who gives a lick about whether they're saved or not.
SPEAKER_01: You see, that's what happens when you're unregenerated.
SPEAKER_01: You're not bothered about it at all.
SPEAKER_01: So that's actually the struggle with having assurance of salvation.
SPEAKER_01: That's actually the evidence of salvation.
SPEAKER_01: But I'm telling you, this is just my experience.
SPEAKER_01: Yours may be different.
SPEAKER_01: In all the years of uh of ministry, I've never ever encountered one person who has doubted his or her salvation who's struggling with the matter from a theological point of view.
SPEAKER_01: Never, never.
SPEAKER_01: They know as many verses on assurance of salvation as as I could offer them.
SPEAKER_01: It's an emotional struggle.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: It could be that their dad, their earthly dad, distanced himself from them was very demanding.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you came home, you had a report card with four A's and one B, and all he saw was the B.
SPEAKER_01: You could do better.
SPEAKER_01: And so you get this idea that that's how your heavenly father is.
SPEAKER_01: He's got a, you know, a clipboard and he's got a long gray beard and a wrinkled brow, and he's just grading you each step of the way, and you're not getting good grades, you know, that kind of deal.
SPEAKER_01: So most of the people who struggle with the issue of the certainty of salvation, almost in all cases, have had difficulties with their earthly father.
SPEAKER_01: Once they realize, I'll tell you what they're doing, they're conforming Heavenly Father to the image of their earthly father.
SPEAKER_01: We're not allowed to do that.
SPEAKER_01: He's categorically different.
SPEAKER_01: Once they allow themselves to be reparented by the perfect dead they never had, they don't struggle with the matter of salvation again.
SPEAKER_01: There was a study done, interesting study some years ago, of 50 famous atheists, those who deny the existence of God.
SPEAKER_01: Fifty famous atheists, very diverse, different folks, but they had one thing in common, and it was this.
SPEAKER_01: Every one of them reported that they hated their dads.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that interesting?
SPEAKER_01: Each denied the existence of heavenly dad, each had contempt for earthly dad.
SPEAKER_01: I wonder if there's a connection.
SPEAKER_01: Well, uh, if you've had a bad experience with your earthly father, it's gonna be a bit of a challenge, I understand this, for you to be comfortable in approaching your uh heavenly father, but that's exactly the challenge you have to face.
SPEAKER_01: And if you're a Christian, and that's that's exactly who God is to you, he is now.
SPEAKER_01: Abba Father, the Lord Jesus authenticated it.
SPEAKER_01: He said, This is how you could approach him.
SPEAKER_01: He's the perfect dad you or I never had.
SPEAKER_01: He's the perfect dad nobody has ever had.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, he's been raising kids for thousands of years last time I checked.
SPEAKER_01: He's really good at it, and and he loves being a dad.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: He'll never leave you, he'll never forget you, he will never exploit you, abuse you, take advantage of you, he will never neglect you.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, his desire when once you have come to him through his only begotten son, Jesus, is to make you a son or a daughter who begins to look more and more like him.
SPEAKER_01: God and son.
SPEAKER_01: God and daughter.
SPEAKER_01: Why is he so willing to enter into such close association with us as father to child?
SPEAKER_01: Well, he he's not ashamed of us.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, he wants people to see the connection between he and I, and ultimately to say, Oh, you're beginning to look a lot more like your dad.
unknown: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: But there's a problem with all that which I have just said, and it's this: Jesus said, Our Father, and then he said this, who art in heaven?
SPEAKER_01: Ah, now therein lies the rub, who art in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: That's a problem.
SPEAKER_01: God is in heaven, we are still here on earth, and therefore, how do we access this God, this great beyond, who's there and not here?
SPEAKER_01: Where's the bridge between me and this God who says he desires to be my father?
SPEAKER_01: How do we find him?
SPEAKER_01: How do we make our way to him?
SPEAKER_01: Well, people better than us have tried over the centuries, smart people have tried to get to God in intellectual, philosophical ways.
SPEAKER_01: Religious people, all kinds of religions, have tried to get to God, and that's what religion is.
SPEAKER_01: Every religion, whatever ism it is, is man's attempt to work his or her way up to God, but they have all fallen short of the objective because neither human smarts nor human efforts can bridge the gap and get us to God.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
SPEAKER_01: And so, what then is the way?
SPEAKER_01: Well, Jesus said in John 14, 6, you know about this, but it bears repeating, I am the definite article, not a way amongst others.
SPEAKER_01: No, no, I'm the way and the truth and the life.
SPEAKER_01: And this is a pretty absolute statement.
SPEAKER_01: No one comes to the Father but through me.
SPEAKER_01: Don't you see?
SPEAKER_01: The Creator is so intent on becoming our father that he made a way for this to happen.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is the way.
SPEAKER_01: And so, though God is for sure the creator of all, do you realize he's not the father of all?
SPEAKER_01: Though everyone has a creator, not everyone has the creator as his or her father.
SPEAKER_01: But we have been told this very statement.
SPEAKER_01: It's in John chapter 1, verse 12.
SPEAKER_01: To those who believed in Jesus' name, he gave the right to become children of God.
SPEAKER_01: You can be much more than God's creature, you can be God's child, and he can be much more than your creator, he can be your father.
SPEAKER_01: Our father who art, and I really like these words, in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: Our dad is simply out of this world.
SPEAKER_01: Everyone wants a dad they can brag on.
SPEAKER_01: From his vantage point, he doesn't miss a beat.
SPEAKER_01: Why go through life alone?
SPEAKER_01: You know what this pandemic is doing in isolation from one another?
SPEAKER_01: Um, people's depression is being accentuated.
SPEAKER_01: It's not caused by the virus, it's being aggravated by it.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because most of us have nothing to do but think.
SPEAKER_01: We're not distracted by the things in life that normally do like one another.
SPEAKER_01: We're just alone.
SPEAKER_01: And that reflective reflection time, it's only good up to a certain extent.
SPEAKER_01: After a while, you get so introspective.
SPEAKER_01: The longer you think about your stuff, I'm telling you, folks, the more depressed you're gonna get.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says this the mindset on the flesh is death, the mindset on the spirit is life and peace.
SPEAKER_01: And so, and so many, many people today are realizing I am lonely.
SPEAKER_01: I am alone.
SPEAKER_01: This solitary existence is suffocating to me.
SPEAKER_01: But one of the things I'm praying is not just that the coronavirus would pass, but that God would use it to help people just like that to realize, but I don't have to live the solitary life.
SPEAKER_01: I don't have to do life alone.
SPEAKER_01: It's not about religion, it's about the establishment of a personal relationship with a God who wishes to be Heavenly Father through Jesus, his only begotten Son.
SPEAKER_01: Wouldn't it be great to have a God you knew was pulling for you, cheering you on in the race of life?
SPEAKER_01: I read a poem some years ago by a man named D.
SPEAKER_01: H.
SPEAKER_01: Groberg.
SPEAKER_01: It's called The Race.
SPEAKER_01: I want, as we end, I want to read it to you.
SPEAKER_01: It's fairly lengthy, but I think you'll get something out of it.
SPEAKER_01: It's about uh a dad on the sidelines.
SPEAKER_01: There's a race, and his son is a participant in the race, and the son wants to win the race.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't quite happen that way, but the dad is there to cheer him on.
SPEAKER_01: Would you, as I read this to you, would you put yourself in the picture?
SPEAKER_01: You're the son or the daughter running the race of life.
SPEAKER_01: Think about it.
SPEAKER_01: A children's race, young boys, young men, how I remember it well.
SPEAKER_01: Excitement, sure, but also fear, it wasn't hard to tell.
SPEAKER_01: They all lined up so full of hope, each thought to win that race, or tie for first, or if not that, at least take second place.
SPEAKER_01: And fathers watched from off the side, each cheering for his son, and each boy hoped to show his dad that he would be the one.
SPEAKER_01: The whistle blew and off they went.
SPEAKER_01: Young hearts and hopes of fire to win and be the hero there was each young boy's desire.
SPEAKER_01: And one boy in particular, whose dad was in the crowd, was running near the lead and thought, my dad will be so proud.
SPEAKER_01: But as they speeded down the field and across a shallow dip, the little boy who thought to win lost his step and slipped.
SPEAKER_01: Trying hard to catch himself, his hands flew out to brace.
SPEAKER_01: Amid the laughter of the crowd, he fell flat on his face.
SPEAKER_01: So down he fell, and with him hope.
SPEAKER_01: He couldn't win it now.
SPEAKER_01: Embarrassed, sad, he only wished to disappear somehow.
SPEAKER_01: But as he fell, his dad stood up and showed his anxious face, which to the boy so clearly said, Get up and win the race.
SPEAKER_01: He quickly rose, no damage done, behind a bit, that's all, and ran with all his mind and might to make up for his fall.
SPEAKER_01: So anxious to restore himself, to catch up and to win, his mind went faster than his legs.
SPEAKER_01: He slipped and fell again.
SPEAKER_01: He wished then he had quit before, with only one disgrace.
SPEAKER_01: I'm hopeless as a runner now.
SPEAKER_01: I shouldn't even try to race.
SPEAKER_01: But in the laughing crowd, he searched and found his father's face, that steady look which said again, get up and win the race.
SPEAKER_01: So he jumped to try again, ten yards behind the last.
SPEAKER_01: If I'm going to gain those yards, he thought, I've got to run very fast.
SPEAKER_01: Exerting himself with everything he had, he gained eight or ten, but trying so hard to catch the lead, he slipped and fell again.
SPEAKER_01: Defeat.
SPEAKER_01: He lay there silently, a tear dropped from his eye.
SPEAKER_01: There's no sense in running anymore.
SPEAKER_01: Three strikes.
SPEAKER_01: I'm out.
SPEAKER_01: Why try?
SPEAKER_01: The will to rise had disappeared.
SPEAKER_01: All hope had fled away, so far behind, so error-prone, a loser all the way.
SPEAKER_01: I've lost, so what's the use?
SPEAKER_01: He thought.
SPEAKER_01: I'll live with my disgrace.
SPEAKER_01: But then he thought about his dad, who soon he'd have to face.
SPEAKER_01: And get up, an echo sounded low.
SPEAKER_01: Get up and take your place.
SPEAKER_01: You were not meant for failure here.
SPEAKER_01: Get up and win the race.
SPEAKER_01: With borrowed will, get up, it said.
SPEAKER_01: You haven't lost at all.
SPEAKER_01: For winning is no more than this, that you rise each time you fall.
SPEAKER_01: So up he rose once more, and with a new commit, he resolved that win or lose, at least he wouldn't quit.
SPEAKER_01: So far behind the others now, the most he'd ever been, still he gave it all he had and ran as though to win.
SPEAKER_01: Three times he'd fallen, stumbling three times he rose again.
SPEAKER_01: Too far behind to hope to win, he still ran to the end.
SPEAKER_01: They cheered the winning runner as he crossed the line first place, head high and proud and happy, no falling, no disgrace.
SPEAKER_01: But when the fallen youngster crossed the line last place, the crowd gave him the bigger cheer for finishing the race.
SPEAKER_01: And even though he came in last with head bowed low, unproud, you would have thought he'd won the race to listen to that crowd.
SPEAKER_01: And to his dad, he sadly said, I didn't do so well.
SPEAKER_01: To me, you won, his father said.
SPEAKER_01: You rose each time you fell.
SPEAKER_01: And now when things seem dark and hard and difficult to face, the memory of that little boy helps me in my race.
SPEAKER_01: For much of life is like that race with ups and downs and all.
SPEAKER_01: But what you have to do to win is rise each time you fall.
SPEAKER_01: Quit.
SPEAKER_01: Give up.
SPEAKER_01: You're beaten.
SPEAKER_01: They still shout in my face.
SPEAKER_01: But another voice speaks louder still.
SPEAKER_01: Get up and win the race.
SPEAKER_01: That's the voice of your father.
SPEAKER_01: He's not your critic, he's your cheerleader.
SPEAKER_01: That's the voice of your father.
SPEAKER_01: Even when you fall and fail in the race through sin.
SPEAKER_01: Is it Sophie?
SPEAKER_01: Sophie, a beautiful song you sang, and then your words.
SPEAKER_01: You got to preaching.
SPEAKER_01: They were so good, so helpful.
SPEAKER_01: It reminded me of this.
SPEAKER_01: Even when we fall, even in sin, our father is not saying, you've lost the race.
SPEAKER_01: He's saying, get up, you'll win the race, you'll win the race.
SPEAKER_01: Do you have a relationship with Heavenly Father like that?
SPEAKER_01: You can by accepting the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: He's the bridge between us and the Father.
SPEAKER_01: He's the only one who qualifies because as Son of Man, He takes us by the hand, and as Son of God, He holds His Father's hand.
SPEAKER_01: Only He can do that, and He can join our hands together forevermore.
SPEAKER_01: I hope you have made that decision.
SPEAKER_01: Everything else is uncertain in this day, but this much is true.
SPEAKER_01: Our Father will never leave us nor forsake us.
SPEAKER_01: And so we close with these words of prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Our Father, who art in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: Hallowed, holy, holy, holy be thy name.
SPEAKER_01: And may it be so, Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Even in this crazy, sin sick, tumultuous world, earth, just as it is in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: And this we pray to you, Heavenly Father, moved by the Holy Spirit through Jesus the Son.
SPEAKER_01: It's in his name we pray.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.