SPEAKER_00: This podcast is brought to you by Grand Parkway Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_00: Helping people to know, enjoy, and glorify God.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about Grand Parkway, visit GrandParkway.org.
SPEAKER_01: Father God, you um you are all the things that we have sung about this morning.
SPEAKER_01: You're the Waymaker.
SPEAKER_01: God, you're the chainbreaker.
SPEAKER_01: God, you're the hand taker.
SPEAKER_01: Father, you're the Lord of Lord, you're the King of Kings.
SPEAKER_01: And God, we don't want to take that for granted.
SPEAKER_01: That we can come, we can call on you, we can cry to you, we can trust in you.
SPEAKER_01: We can come and we can sing things that are true about you.
SPEAKER_01: We can open your word and grow closer to you.
SPEAKER_01: So, church, just just take a moment and just let that sink in this morning.
SPEAKER_01: That the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the Waymaker, the Chainbreaker.
SPEAKER_01: He's our God, He's our Father, He's our Savior.
SPEAKER_01: He is present with us.
SPEAKER_01: God, for this, we're thankful.
SPEAKER_01: We ask you to speak as we're listening.
SPEAKER_01: Praise things your name.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: If you haven't already, you can grab a seat.
SPEAKER_01: And if you haven't already, if you feel comfortable, you can remove your mask.
SPEAKER_01: I forgot that in the first service.
SPEAKER_01: And then folks that I think wanted to take their mask off were uh hyperventilating.
SPEAKER_01: So I'll try not to do that again.
SPEAKER_01: Um if I have not had the pleasure of meeting you, my name is Wade Collier.
SPEAKER_01: I am uh a member here at Grand Parkway.
SPEAKER_01: Also uh had the pleasure of uh serving as one of your um lay pastors, and from time to time I'm given the honor and the opportunity to come up here and open God's word with you.
SPEAKER_01: Um it's been a while since way before COVID and quarantine.
SPEAKER_01: And um, how many of you guys are tired of hearing the new normal?
SPEAKER_01: Raise your hand.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, man.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, it's not normal.
SPEAKER_01: All right, got that out of the way.
SPEAKER_01: So anyway, um, if you would, would you turn with me in your Bibles to John chapter 14?
SPEAKER_01: John chapter 14.
SPEAKER_01: And in case you think you stepped through a time warp and believe that we're back in the two-year span that it took us to get through the book of John the first time, fear not.
SPEAKER_01: We are still going through the book of Daniel as a church.
SPEAKER_01: Um, but this morning we're taking a break and looking back at John 14.
SPEAKER_01: And also don't worry, I did my due diligence and I looked back um a decade ago when we were in John 14.
SPEAKER_01: I think it was actually April of last year when Neil was in uh John 14.
SPEAKER_01: I wanted to make sure I wasn't gonna do a bad rerun of Neil's sermon from then.
SPEAKER_01: Um so we're looking at uh at something in a new way this morning.
SPEAKER_01: And so while you're finding John 14, um, as a way of reminder of what we're gonna read this morning, right before we pick up in John 14, 1, what's happening in John 13 is they are in the what's what's the upper room, and what's happening is what's called the upper room discourse.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus has washed the disciples' feet.
SPEAKER_01: Um, he's given them a new commandment, a new commandment to love one another as he has loved them.
SPEAKER_01: And then what happens, what leads us into where we're gonna be this morning is Peter asks the first of several of what have to be at least slightly frustrating questions of Jesus that the disciples ask.
SPEAKER_01: As he lays out the kingdom in front of them, then they continue to ask these questions.
SPEAKER_01: And so this is this is no different in in John chapter 13, verse 33, Jesus says, Little children, yet a little while while I'm with you, you will seek me.
SPEAKER_01: And just as I said to the Jews, so now I say to you, where I'm going, you cannot come.
SPEAKER_01: And if you were to move three verses down, you see Peter asking the question, Lord, where where are you going?
SPEAKER_01: Where are you going?
SPEAKER_01: Now, full disclosure, I often find myself making apologies for Peter.
SPEAKER_01: Um, Peter has an amazing ability to know what both of his sandals taste like on regular occurrence.
SPEAKER_01: Um and even Jesus, his answer implies that he realizes that Peter is asking a question because he wants to accompany Jesus wherever he's going.
SPEAKER_01: He wants to be with Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And Peter's statement was undoubtedly in this question, it was this expression, whether indirect or direct, it was this expression of his affection that he has for Jesus, right?
SPEAKER_01: And it's made from good intentions.
SPEAKER_01: Um but this morning, as we walk into this and we look at these questions that are asked, um, as we are looking at a new way to set the trajectory in our relationship with God, I'm struck by how uh D.A.
SPEAKER_01: Carson, I know Marcy brought up D.A Carson earlier this morning.
SPEAKER_01: I'm struck how D.A.
SPEAKER_01: Carson addresses Peter's question here.
SPEAKER_01: Um in John chapter 13, he says this sadly, Peter's good intentions in a secure room after a good food are far less attractive in a darkened garden with a hostile mob.
SPEAKER_01: What he's making reference to is Peter is making these grand proclamations of, I want to follow you everywhere and I'll never deny you.
SPEAKER_01: And then just a few short hours later, as he's faced with threat for his faith in Christ, he backs down.
SPEAKER_01: And it's a little harsh, it's a little harsh from D.A.
SPEAKER_01: Carson, right?
SPEAKER_01: He goes on to say, at this point in his pilgrimage, Peter's intentions and self-assessment vastly outstrip his strength.
SPEAKER_01: Um the reason, the reason I read this and the reason I was reminded of this is as we approach this relationship we have with God, right?
SPEAKER_01: This vertical relationship that we have with God, it can oftentimes be defined with good intentions, right?
SPEAKER_01: But sometimes our self-assessment of our understanding of yes, I understand what God wants from me, I understand what's available, sometimes our assessment of that, our assessment of understanding of what God wants to be in this relationship, let me say that again, of what God wants to be in the relationship, not what we want Him to be, but what God wants to be in the relationship, these begin to outstrip our comprehension of things, just like D.A.
SPEAKER_01: Carson talks about Peter.
SPEAKER_01: Or said more plainly, we miss how much greater and deeper and more dependent this relationship really can be.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: So let's read uh John chapter 14, beginning in verse 1.
SPEAKER_01: Let's read this together and let's explore this glorious potential of a deeper, greater, and more dependent relationship.
SPEAKER_01: Says this beginning in verse 1 Let not your hearts be troubled.
SPEAKER_01: Believe in God, believe also in me.
SPEAKER_01: In my father's house are many rooms.
SPEAKER_01: If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?
SPEAKER_01: And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and I will take you to myself.
SPEAKER_01: That where I am, you may be also, and you know the way to where I am going.
SPEAKER_01: And Thomas said to him, Lord, we do not know where you're going.
SPEAKER_01: How can we know the way?
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus said to him, I am the way and the truth and the life.
SPEAKER_01: No one comes to the Father except through me.
SPEAKER_01: If you had known me, you would have known my Father also.
SPEAKER_01: From now on, you do know him and you have seen him.
SPEAKER_01: This is the word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Um, in the first service, or after the first service, rather, um, I had a few um uh friendly suggestions from the congregation.
SPEAKER_01: One was to slow down.
SPEAKER_01: So now you guys are gonna have a much slower version.
SPEAKER_01: Um, the other one was apparently when I pulled um my mask off, my beard went seven different directions.
SPEAKER_01: So am I looking all right?
SPEAKER_01: We're on the live stream this service, is that correct?
SPEAKER_01: So I want to make sure that things on point.
SPEAKER_01: I'm good?
SPEAKER_01: All right.
SPEAKER_01: Um so this morning, uh, through these seven verses, we're gonna explore um the definition and the depths of being fathered by God.
SPEAKER_01: If you're a note taker, um, that's that's the title of the sermon this morning is being fathered by God.
SPEAKER_01: Um let's let's begin to define what being fathered by God means.
SPEAKER_01: Um, you don't have to turn there, these this will be uh on the screens behind me.
SPEAKER_01: In David's Psalm of 145, um, beginning in verse one, he says this.
SPEAKER_01: He says, I will extol you, my God and king.
SPEAKER_01: Bless your name forever and ever.
SPEAKER_01: Every day I will bless you and praise your name forever and ever.
SPEAKER_01: Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable.
SPEAKER_01: Um, later in the 1600s, there was something, uh, a proclamation, a document, whatever you want to call it, that was written called the Westminster Catechism.
SPEAKER_01: And it takes Psalm 145 as one of its primary inspirations, and it says this about being fathered by God.
SPEAKER_01: It says, Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.
SPEAKER_01: It's my belief that one of the most pivotal pathways, if we were to say, How do I get there?
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: I know Neil um sent this out in the email on Saturday, the tomorrow email of it's man's chief end to glorify God, and we should relate to God as Jesus does, which is as Father.
SPEAKER_01: So how do we get there?
SPEAKER_01: It's my belief that one of the most pivotal ways to glorifying God and enjoying Him forever is to allow ourselves to say, God, what does it look like for you to be my father?
SPEAKER_01: What does it look like for this relationship to be based on you being my father?
SPEAKER_01: Um and some of us, when we hear that, that immediately resonates because we say, Man, if I was to define my relationship with God, it would be that.
SPEAKER_01: It would, it would be based on the fact that He's my father.
SPEAKER_01: There's other of there's others of us in this room that would say, That's it's kind of weird.
SPEAKER_01: I don't really get that.
SPEAKER_01: I don't get how a creator God who's up there, I don't understand how that could be a father.
SPEAKER_01: And so I don't really have handles for that.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm also aware that there's some of us in this room, or some of you in this room, that might have some unresolved wounds as it pertains to your earthly father, earthly authority figures.
SPEAKER_01: And so when the guy with the long beard starts getting really passionate and starts talking about God being father, you're like, I don't know, man.
SPEAKER_01: The example of a father I've had doesn't really paint a good picture of God the Creator being father, right?
SPEAKER_01: And and so wherever we land on that, um, here's what I know in the midst of all of that is that we all have the need to grow and deeper in our understanding of the ability to relate to God as Father.
SPEAKER_01: And hear this.
SPEAKER_01: If you don't hear anything else this morning, please hear this.
SPEAKER_01: The deeper that you are willing to get this, the deeper that you are willing to embrace this relationship of God as Father, the more you will cling to it, the more you will understand the character of God.
SPEAKER_01: So, so so within with through that lens, let's look back at verse one again.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm gonna, I didn't warn the first service, and I thought, I think they were thinking, dude, are you just gonna preach one verse for the entire sermon?
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: But for 92% of it, I am.
SPEAKER_01: All right, so the first verse is this it says, Let not your hearts be troubled.
SPEAKER_01: Believe in God, believe also in me.
SPEAKER_01: There is a whole lot going on in 13 words and two sentences right here.
SPEAKER_01: Um, but these 13 words of these two sentences are gonna shape and set the trajectory of where we're headed this morning.
SPEAKER_01: And here's what I mean.
SPEAKER_01: First, Jesus tells them not to be troubled in this command, commandment.
SPEAKER_01: He says, do not be troubled.
SPEAKER_01: I believe that Jesus not only knew that they were troubled because he's God and he knows all things, but also I believe Jesus being fully God and fully man, remember that, that he recognized the feeling in his friends that he himself was feeling.
SPEAKER_01: What do I mean?
SPEAKER_01: Remember, this is this is the night in the upper room.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus will be arrested, he will be put on trial, he will be crucified.
SPEAKER_01: Fully God, fully man, he has troubled himself.
SPEAKER_01: We know that.
SPEAKER_01: He stays up at night, he prays, he says, God, if it's possible, let this cup pass from me, right?
SPEAKER_01: He is troubled.
SPEAKER_01: He's troubled because of what lay before him.
SPEAKER_01: The eleven that he is speaking to, they're troubled because they didn't understand what lay before him.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is saying these things that they are having a hard time wrapping their mind around.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus just told them that he was going to leave them, the same eleven that had left everything they knew to follow him, right?
SPEAKER_01: And now he's saying, I'm going and you can't follow.
SPEAKER_01: So Jesus says, Let not your hearts be troubled.
SPEAKER_01: Believe in God, believe also in me.
SPEAKER_01: When I say that this sets the stage for understanding what it means to be fathered by God, here's what I mean.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is telling the eleven who are just staring at him and looking for direction.
SPEAKER_01: He's telling them to trust in him the very same way that they trust in God.
SPEAKER_01: The theologians are split, I'm not one, but I'm not a theologian, I might be split, but I'm not a theologian.
SPEAKER_01: Theologians are split on are all or are all the disciples convinced that he's a son of God at this point?
SPEAKER_01: Or some of them are are they there?
SPEAKER_01: Have they not arrived?
SPEAKER_01: Which, whichever, whichever place you land, Jesus is telling the eleven to trust him in the same way they trust God, and that by doing so, it would begin to extinguish their troubled heart, right?
SPEAKER_01: Why is this a big deal?
SPEAKER_01: I am so glad you asked.
SPEAKER_01: One, he is reassuring them that he in fact is God.
SPEAKER_01: He is looking at them and he is saying, I'm God, right?
SPEAKER_01: It's a big deal.
SPEAKER_01: And in the confirmation that he is God, he is telling the disciples, and he's telling us this morning that everything that the disciples have been following the last three years, remember, these are the guys that laid everything down to follow Jesus, right?
SPEAKER_01: They laid it all down and we're all in.
SPEAKER_01: There's he is telling them that all these things that you've been following in me, they're also available to you with God the Father.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna say that again so that can maybe sink in a little bit.
SPEAKER_01: All those things that we love about Jesus, all those things that we get passionate when we talk about Jesus, those are the same things that are available with God the Father.
SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_01: The two people?
SPEAKER_01: Yes?
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: All those things, and this is what Jesus is telling him.
SPEAKER_01: He's saying everything that caused people to flock in the thousands upon thousands to hear Jesus do and say is available in the Father, right?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus, Jesus isn't the cool teacher who gets you to stand on your desk and quote Walt Whitman and then God's in the hallway angry, right?
SPEAKER_01: They're not too different, right?
SPEAKER_01: God the Father is dangerous and he's overwhelming, but he's also good and pure and righteous.
SPEAKER_01: God's holiness both separates but also bridges this enormous moral gulf between the creator and the created.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna do this a lot this morning, right?
SPEAKER_01: God's goodness bridges this gap, right?
SPEAKER_01: A gap that oftentimes we create.
SPEAKER_01: Now there's sin, and there's implications of that.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not ignoring that, but I'm saying this gap that we create because we want to treat God the Father different than we treat Jesus the Son, right?
SPEAKER_01: The second implication of this verse, which is our first point this morning, is this is this.
SPEAKER_01: If we want to relate to God as Father, we need to relate to his lordship, right?
SPEAKER_01: Sounds great.
SPEAKER_01: What does that mean?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is saying that his lordship, the father's lordship, is what it's gonna give us relief.
SPEAKER_01: It's what's, I'm sorry, let me say that again.
SPEAKER_01: It's what's going to give the disciples relief in their troubled posture.
SPEAKER_01: Said differently, the father's lordship ensures it's all gonna be okay.
SPEAKER_01: I would go as far as to say there's a lot of people in this room this morning, and there's a lot of people that are joining us online that need to hear it's all gonna be okay.
SPEAKER_01: If you trust in God, it's all gonna be okay.
SPEAKER_01: So, what is this lordship that's all gonna make it okay?
SPEAKER_01: The theologian Richard Lynz defines it this way.
SPEAKER_01: This is gonna be on the screens behind me.
SPEAKER_01: It's a lot of big words, but trust me, it's worth it.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's just me.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe they're big words for me.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: The lordship of God points at the myriad of ways that God exercises his power and authority over creation and across human history.
SPEAKER_01: The sovereignty of God carries the connotation not only that God's power is without limit, therefore, having access to him in this relationship is without limit, but that he has all proper authority to exercise that power as he sees fit.
SPEAKER_01: It is a reminder to us that God is the creator who calls everything into being by his word, and who has also called the dead to life by the same word.
SPEAKER_01: He is the Lord of heaven and earth.
SPEAKER_01: He is the beginning and the end, he is the Lord of lords and the king of kings.
SPEAKER_01: That's our Father, right?
SPEAKER_01: That's our Father who we have this unvetted as Christians relationship with.
SPEAKER_01: Earlier I mentioned that verse one was a command: this let not your hearts be troubled, believe in God, believe also in me.
SPEAKER_01: When we, when you and I relate to the Father's Lordship, we submit to him, right?
SPEAKER_01: It's a commandment.
SPEAKER_01: We submit to him.
SPEAKER_01: We submit to him knowing that he knows what is right.
SPEAKER_01: We know that he makes promises and that he keeps them every single time.
SPEAKER_01: And by always keeping those promises, this is what God is telling us this morning.
SPEAKER_01: He's telling us that you don't have to treat me like someone who doesn't come through.
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to treat me like someone who said, Oh, you know, two weeks ago that promise sounded like a good idea.
SPEAKER_01: Because some of us have a problem believing that God always comes through.
SPEAKER_01: Because we've had a lot of people not come through, right?
SPEAKER_01: That's not God.
SPEAKER_01: That's not his lordship.
SPEAKER_01: That's not what he's asking us to submit to.
SPEAKER_01: God so seriously takes keeping his promises, and vice versa, by the way, that he equates the commandments to an expression of his love.
SPEAKER_01: Look, if you have your Bibles open, look down at verse 15.
SPEAKER_01: He says this if you love me, you'll keep my commandments.
SPEAKER_01: That's heavy, right?
SPEAKER_01: If you love me, you'll keep my commandments.
SPEAKER_01: In light of that, if verse one is a commandment, look back.
SPEAKER_01: Let not your hearts be troubled.
SPEAKER_01: Believe in God, believe also in me.
SPEAKER_01: So in this statement, Jesus is saying this.
SPEAKER_01: He's saying, I'm acknowledging that you're hurting.
SPEAKER_01: I am.
SPEAKER_01: But I'm also saying that the relief for your hurt is to obey this command.
SPEAKER_01: Believe in God, believe in his lordship.
SPEAKER_01: And hear this there is a plan at work.
SPEAKER_01: There is a plan at work in the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_01: So in the midst of hurt or anxiety, depression, hopelessness, or fill in the blank for whatever can have its foot on your neck in this season of life right now.
SPEAKER_01: If we can begin to relate to our Father based on his lordship, based on his control, right?
SPEAKER_01: His power and authority over creation, over all of it, it will begin to bring things into perspective.
SPEAKER_01: I believe this comes through making this a habit of creating spiritual muscle memory, right?
SPEAKER_01: Of when we just feel overwhelmed by a number of things, or just, man, insurmountable, or just mundane, right?
SPEAKER_01: The mundane is just, God, is this what?
SPEAKER_01: Is this what I'm called to?
SPEAKER_01: Another day of going to H E B?
SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, H E B is glorious, but another, have you ever been to a city without H E B?
SPEAKER_01: That is a forsaken land, by the way.
SPEAKER_01: That H E B tortillas?
SPEAKER_01: Uh H E B family.
SPEAKER_01: I see you back there.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, all right.
SPEAKER_01: Um, where was I?
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: Um so if we can begin to just say, in the midst of all of this, God, you are in control.
SPEAKER_01: When I am overwhelmed with a troubled heart, like the disciples, that you go, yeah, this is the worst.
SPEAKER_01: This is the worst.
SPEAKER_01: I've never felt this low, I've never felt this bad.
SPEAKER_01: But you know what?
SPEAKER_01: I have a father I can call on, I have his lordship that I can call on because I have a relationship with him, and I can call on this, and over everything that is weighing me down, like a hundred albatrosses hanging around my neck, right?
SPEAKER_01: I get I get wrecked by anxiety.
SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm talking wrecked by anxiety, like a punch in the nose.
SPEAKER_01: Has anybody ever been punched in the nose before?
SPEAKER_01: Some of y'all are lying.
SPEAKER_01: I know so many.
SPEAKER_01: That is the worst.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it affects your whole body, right?
SPEAKER_01: And when I'm um either in counseling myself or I've counseled other people and we're talking about anxiety, I'm like, when I I don't know about you, but when I have anxiety, oftentimes it feels like I've been punched in the nose physically, like emotionally and physiologically, right?
SPEAKER_01: And and and it's the worst.
SPEAKER_01: Um, and and I can begin to what I call drifting out to sea, right?
SPEAKER_01: And here's here's a picture of what I mean by drifting out to sea.
SPEAKER_01: Back when I was in high school and college, I was an idiot.
SPEAKER_01: Um still an idiot now, I'm just not in high school or college, but um anytime, pretty much any time a tropical storm would roll into the coast, um, my buddies and I would jump in a truck, surfboards, and go surf the tropical storm, right?
SPEAKER_01: And let me disfill any um illusions you have that I might be a good surfer.
SPEAKER_01: I'm a horrible surfer.
SPEAKER_01: All right.
SPEAKER_01: I have friends that are good surfers.
SPEAKER_01: I just really liked hanging out with my friends, and I didn't have a mortgage or a wife or kids or a minivan, and so I could just go jump out in the ocean, right?
SPEAKER_01: So if you've ever been at the beach when a tropical storm or anything like that rolls in, um, what happens right there in that immediate surf is it gets super churned up and it is hard to get past even the first sandbar, if not the second one, where you really want to be.
SPEAKER_01: So, those of you who are from this part of Texas or spent any time here know that before the epitome of highway robbery that is called um the pleasure pier.
SPEAKER_01: Um, and if you have children, you know what I mean by highway robbery.
SPEAKER_01: Um before that was there, there was a hotel called the flagship hotel built in the 60s, right?
SPEAKER_01: And it was there and kind of in and out based on storms, and you could go to the inn and you could fish, and there was an angry, angry woman from Vietnam who really, really took the rule of it being illegal to jump off the end of the pier seriously, right?
SPEAKER_01: And so I'm not saying that we jumped off the pier.
SPEAKER_01: A couple dozen times, but I am saying that we had it perfected on how to distract one of us, would distract her, and then the other ones would jump off before she could call the cops.
SPEAKER_01: Don't do that, children.
SPEAKER_01: Um, anyway, so one time in particular, we're out, and um, I mentioned I'm not good, and I try to get on a wave, and I just completely just get annihilated, and then all of a sudden I look up once I'm coming up out of the water, and I am being pulled not only by the waves, but by a current into those pylons of the pier.
SPEAKER_01: And so I jump on my board and I just paddle, paddle, paddle, paddle, and I'm scared to death.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not afraid to tell you that, right?
SPEAKER_01: And I'm paddling like I'm paddling for my life, which I probably was, and I finally get out of that current and I am free, and I just lay down on my board.
SPEAKER_01: But then there's also a rip tide and there's also a rip current.
SPEAKER_01: Look those up, they do two different things.
SPEAKER_01: I get caught by the other one and it starts pulling me right over to the jetties.
SPEAKER_01: And I am gassed at this point, and I can no longer paddle against that.
SPEAKER_01: And I am trying, but I got nothing left, and I am getting closer and closer.
SPEAKER_01: And at the point where I am about from here to the media booth back there, I just resigned myself to this is how I'm gonna die, right?
SPEAKER_01: I guess it's kind of cool, except it's Galveston.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: My mother-in-law is from Galveston.
SPEAKER_01: Hi.
SPEAKER_01: Um but I'm I'm crying out, I'm probably crying, have no idea what to do, no one's around to help me.
SPEAKER_01: There's flags everywhere that say, hey, idiot, if you're in the water, you're on your own.
SPEAKER_01: And then out of nowhere, um, some giant waves come and just throw me onto the beach.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm about five feet from imminent death on the jetty rocks.
SPEAKER_01: And I just lay there and I'm just with with no responsibility of how I was relieved, right?
SPEAKER_01: So when I say, and I'm trying to explain to someone, man, the feeling of being out at sea, that's that's what it feels like.
SPEAKER_01: It's just this this hopelessness.
SPEAKER_01: And the reason I I share that is I think as Jesus is looking at the disciples and it says that he sees that they're troubled, I think they feel like they're drifting off with no hope, right?
SPEAKER_01: Oftentimes for me, I can't speak for you, I can't speak for the disciples, but oftentimes for me, not always, but oftentimes it happens because I forget to relate to my father based on his lordship.
SPEAKER_01: I forget to relate to him based on his dominion over all things, including my thoughts, my emotions, my physiology, an election, a world that is just constantly crying to be king of kings of your life.
SPEAKER_01: In the midst of all of that, sometimes I'll forget to say, God, you've got dominion over it all.
SPEAKER_01: Let not your hearts be troubled, but believe in God, believe also in me, right?
SPEAKER_01: So let's keep reading.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 2.
SPEAKER_01: I told you.
SPEAKER_01: A lot of the sermon, one verse.
SPEAKER_01: In my father's house are many rooms.
SPEAKER_01: If it were not so, would I have told you that I go and prepare a place for you?
SPEAKER_01: And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself.
SPEAKER_01: Where I am, you may also be, or you may be also, and you know the way to where I am going.
SPEAKER_01: Thomas said to him, Lord, we we don't know where you're going.
SPEAKER_01: How can we know the way?
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through me.
SPEAKER_01: If you had known me, you would have known my Father also.
SPEAKER_01: From now on, you do know him and you have seen him.
SPEAKER_01: There's a lot being said here.
SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of different directions to go here as far as we talk as far as um God's return and God going to prepare a place.
SPEAKER_01: But but for the sake of brevity, amen.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: I want to draw our attention to the last two verses.
SPEAKER_01: All right.
SPEAKER_01: First, verse six.
SPEAKER_01: Thomas asked how they could know the way, and Jesus responds.
SPEAKER_01: He says, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
SPEAKER_01: Thomas, no one comes to the Father except through me.
SPEAKER_01: This first aspect that we talked about was God's Lordship.
SPEAKER_01: The second aspect of God's character, which allows us to relate to him as Father, is relating to his accessibility.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, Mary, you got a good arm?
SPEAKER_01: Will you throw me that water right there?
SPEAKER_01: Come on.
SPEAKER_01: Oh.
SPEAKER_01: Who wanted her to throw it?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: We can relate to his accessibility.
SPEAKER_01: At first glance, you might look at verse six and you think, wait, Jesus is saying, no one, he literally says, no one can get to the Father except through me.
SPEAKER_01: How is that accessible?
SPEAKER_01: You have to flip it.
SPEAKER_01: It's accessible because it couldn't be more straightforward access to the Father.
SPEAKER_01: Couldn't be, right?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus isn't saying he's one of the ways to the Father, right?
SPEAKER_01: He's not saying that he's part of a multi-level marketing pyramid that will eventually lead you to God, right?
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: He says, I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life.
SPEAKER_01: God the Father, hear this.
SPEAKER_01: God the Father so desires a relationship with you that he makes the path to the relationship.
SPEAKER_01: Hear that again.
SPEAKER_01: He so desires a relationship with you that he creates the path.
SPEAKER_01: This is abundantly clear in verse 6.
SPEAKER_01: And I want us to understand the lengths that God is willing to go to accomplish this relationship.
SPEAKER_01: If you have your Bible open to John 14, put your finger there.
SPEAKER_01: It'll be on the screen as well.
SPEAKER_01: Flip over into John 3 and look at verse 16 and 17.
SPEAKER_01: It says this for God so loved the world that he gave his only son.
SPEAKER_01: He gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
SPEAKER_01: For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
SPEAKER_01: Oklahoma City, his name is Sam Storms.
SPEAKER_01: And he's got uh several books, I don't know, 20-something books, but he has one book um called The Singing God.
SPEAKER_01: Highly recommend this book.
SPEAKER_01: It's called The Singing God, and it explores um the immeasurable love.
SPEAKER_01: I think I took this from the back of his book, but it explores the immeasurable love for his children, and I I highly, highly recommend it.
SPEAKER_01: Um he says this about God's desire to be accessible to us.
SPEAKER_01: This will be on the screen as well.
SPEAKER_01: He says this the love of God, then, is the source or cause of the atoning work of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: This is this is big.
SPEAKER_01: God does not love people because Christ died for them.
SPEAKER_01: Christ died for them because God loved them.
SPEAKER_01: The death of the Savior is not to be conceived as restoring in people something on the basis of which we might win the merit of God's love.
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: The sacrifice of Christ does not procure God's affection, as if it were necessary through his sufferings, to extract love from an otherwise stern, unwilling, reluctant deity.
SPEAKER_01: Remember, he's not the mean principle.
SPEAKER_01: On the contrary, God's love compels the death of Christ and is supremely manifested therein.
SPEAKER_01: In a word, the saving love of God is giving.
SPEAKER_01: Remember, he gave us a path.
SPEAKER_01: For God so loved the world that he gave his son.
SPEAKER_01: If you're struggling, or maybe this is a new way to think about this, um look at these three verses.
SPEAKER_01: These are just three.
SPEAKER_01: There's just three examples of many that we find throughout the scriptures that just begin to underline and shape our understanding of a Father God who is so desiring a relationship with us that he is giving, giving his son.
SPEAKER_01: He is giving us a path.
SPEAKER_01: Galatians 2.20 says this: I have been crucified with Christ.
SPEAKER_01: It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.
SPEAKER_01: And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.
SPEAKER_01: Ephesians 5 says this.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore be imitators of God as beloved children, and walk in love as Christ loved and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God given.
SPEAKER_01: First John 4.
SPEAKER_01: In this, the love of God was made manifest among us.
SPEAKER_01: That God sent his only son into the world that we might live through him.
SPEAKER_01: In this is love, that we have loved God, but he loved us and he sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins.
SPEAKER_01: He gave his son over to be sacrificed for our sins, to give us access to him, to this relationship that we cannot miss.
SPEAKER_01: The third and last path to relating to God as your father is found in verse 7.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus says this.
SPEAKER_01: From now on, you do know him and you have seen him.
SPEAKER_01: I was trying to find a way to make this last point like not clunky and seem real cool for the outline that would go up on YouTube or whatever, but I couldn't find any personification or alliteration.
SPEAKER_01: So this is it.
SPEAKER_01: This is our last point.
SPEAKER_01: Here's how we relate to God as Father.
SPEAKER_01: We relate to God's desire to be known by you.
SPEAKER_01: So let me explain because it came out clunky, right?
SPEAKER_01: Yes, God wants us to know his desire, but he wants us to know his desire for us to be, for us to know him.
SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_01: Or did I stumble over my words again?
SPEAKER_01: God wants us to know him, right?
SPEAKER_01: Here's what I mean by that.
SPEAKER_01: Um in preparing for today, uh knowing a few several weeks out, I guess, what I was gonna be preaching on, I I started reading um a Bible reading plan.
SPEAKER_01: Um there's there's I don't know if you how many of you guys are familiar with the you version of the Bible app.
SPEAKER_01: It's desktop and app.
SPEAKER_01: I feel like I'm doing book recommendations, like I'm Oprah up here.
SPEAKER_01: Um, but there uh there's uh an app for it, it's just Bible.com, and they have this thing called the U version.
SPEAKER_01: And you can go, and if man, if you've been looking for a way of I really want to begin to build a spiritual discipline or some muscle memory of reading God's word and um that becoming part of my day, I cannot recommend it more highly.
SPEAKER_01: And so you just go to Bible.org and you go to the top, if you're on your desktop and you click on the top left, or Bible.com, sorry, and you click on the top left.
SPEAKER_01: Um, there's all these reading plans.
SPEAKER_01: And so I went and looked today just to make sure I was representing it well.
SPEAKER_01: And these are just a couple that stuck out to me this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Um, it said this uh there was one reading plan that was called Finding Rest.
SPEAKER_01: There was a reading plan called How to Love People You Disagree With.
SPEAKER_01: I haven't read that one yet.
SPEAKER_01: Uh being intentional in your marriage.
SPEAKER_01: What is the Bible and why does it matter?
SPEAKER_01: Um I just went and there's all these types, I mean, there are literally hundreds of reading plans.
SPEAKER_01: So if if you're looking for a way to jump in and start reading and start deepening your relationship with the Lord that way, I highly recommend it.
SPEAKER_01: So anyway, um I've been doing this reading plan within that, and it's called uh being fathered by God.
SPEAKER_01: And so in reading that, there were several things that stuck out to me, um, really great.
SPEAKER_01: Um, but one of the things that that's hung with me, and I think it was in the second day of a two-week reading plan, and I haven't been able to shake it, was there was they did a study that reveals a large number of most 30 to 50 somethings, um sons and daughters, they don't really know their father's story, their earthly father's story.
SPEAKER_01: They don't really know what his childhood was like, they don't really know um if he's a believer, how he came to be a believer.
SPEAKER_01: There's just there's just a lot of why is my dad this way that's never disclosed, either because they haven't taken the time to ask or their father hasn't taken time to tell them, right?
SPEAKER_01: And I think the reason that that that stung that stuck with me was um if if we put that on to God, where God is saying, I want you to know me, but yet we're not reciprocating and saying, Well, God, I want I want to know you too.
SPEAKER_01: You've provided this path, you've provided this lordship I can call on, but I'm not really doing my part to know him, then the odds of an unsettled heart falling and then arriving at a disoriented view of God are a hundred percent.
SPEAKER_01: You can have all the theology right and still have the father wrong.
SPEAKER_01: Like memorizing facts for a history exam, you can pass the test but still not love the characters, enjoy the story, or engage in the drama.
SPEAKER_01: But it doesn't have to be that way.
SPEAKER_01: If you'd known me, you would have known my father.
SPEAKER_01: From now on, you do know him and you have seen him.
SPEAKER_01: John, who uh John who who wrote the gospel, who wrote this gospel that we're reading, he he also um wrote first, second, third John.
SPEAKER_01: And um, he uses this interesting wordplay of known.
SPEAKER_01: It looks kind of weird there if you look at it right.
SPEAKER_01: It should be, is it no, but it's it's known there.
SPEAKER_01: And then he kind of interchanges um these synonyms of known and seen.
SPEAKER_01: He says, if you had known me, you would have known my father also, but now on you do know him and you have seen him.
SPEAKER_01: And he does it again two more times in 1 John.
SPEAKER_01: And as we close, I want us to look at these up on the screen.
SPEAKER_01: This is 1 John chapter 2, verse 3 through 6.
SPEAKER_01: He says, This, and by this we know that we have come to know him if we keep his commandments.
SPEAKER_01: Whoever says, I know him, but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
SPEAKER_01: But whoever keeps his word in him, truly the love of God is perfected.
SPEAKER_01: By this we may know that we are in him.
SPEAKER_01: Whoever says he abides in him may walk in the same way in which he walked.
SPEAKER_01: And in the next chapter he says, This, Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet happened.
SPEAKER_01: But we know that when we with when he appears, we shall be like him because we shall see him.
SPEAKER_01: So now we know him, we see him.
SPEAKER_01: They're they're meaning the same thing.
SPEAKER_01: And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.
SPEAKER_01: What Jesus is communicating here is really, really important.
SPEAKER_01: Is since the eleven had come to know Jesus, who since they had come to really know who he is, what he's telling them, what he's telling us is if you know Jesus, you know the Father.
SPEAKER_01: If you know Jesus, these things that you love about Jesus, you love them about the Father too.
SPEAKER_01: You might not know how to relate to him in the same way you relate to Jesus, but we need to be done with that, church.
SPEAKER_01: We need to move into a place where we are being fathered by God.
SPEAKER_01: Because if we're not, you're missing it.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna tell you from my my experience, if you're not, you're missing it.
SPEAKER_01: And the reason that we don't do this sometimes is we separate the two.
SPEAKER_01: We separate God from Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe Jesus is relatable, but God is ominous.
SPEAKER_01: We believe that.
SPEAKER_01: Or Jesus is love and God is wrath.
SPEAKER_01: We have to know that God, our Father, didn't create us to be in an estranged relationship with us, right?
SPEAKER_01: He didn't create the world and humanity and then send it spinning and go, oh, I'm gonna be mad at them for the rest of the world.
SPEAKER_01: That's not what God did, right?
SPEAKER_01: Let's close with Paul's words.
SPEAKER_01: This is uh Paul coming into Athens.
SPEAKER_01: Um it's gonna be on the screen.
SPEAKER_01: This is Acts chapter 17.
SPEAKER_01: He comes into Athens, and as he's coming into Athens earlier before this, he sees the statue that is literally named the God Nobody Knows.
SPEAKER_01: Paul sees it and he's gonna address it.
SPEAKER_01: This is the message translation, um, because if I don't work the message in at least one time, Wade Burgess won't let me preach again.
SPEAKER_01: Um He says this in Acts chapter 17, verse 24.
SPEAKER_01: It says, The God who made the world and everything in it, this master of sky and land, he doesn't live in custom-made shrines or need the human race to run errands for him, as if he couldn't take care of himself.
SPEAKER_01: He makes the creatures.
SPEAKER_01: The creatures don't make him.
SPEAKER_01: Starting from scratch, he made the entire human race and made the earth hospitable with plenty of time and space for living.
SPEAKER_01: Hear this?
SPEAKER_01: So we can seek after God.
SPEAKER_01: Not just grope around in the dark, but actually find him.
SPEAKER_01: God doesn't play hide and seek with us, he's not remote, he's near.
SPEAKER_01: We live and we move in him, we can't get away from him.
SPEAKER_01: One of your poets said it well.
SPEAKER_01: We're the God created.
SPEAKER_01: Well, if we're the God created, it doesn't make a lot of sense to think, excuse me, we could hire a sculptor to chisel a god out of stone for it, and it does it.
SPEAKER_01: We have got to stop trying to create God in our own image.
SPEAKER_01: And just listen to what he says about himself, and that is, I'm your father.
SPEAKER_01: Call on my lordship.
SPEAKER_01: Follow the way I've made because I'm accessible, I'm accessible.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_01: As we close this morning, Clyde's gonna come and he's he's gonna play over us, and um, this is what the invitation looks like this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Um collect your thoughts.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe have a conversation with you and God and say, What God, what has what has my name on it this morning?
SPEAKER_01: There's an area where I need to come to you and say, I think I've been missing it.
SPEAKER_01: So let's take a moment here and um and listen to the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Father, it's a weird thing to wrap our head around that a dangerous God also invites us into proximity.
SPEAKER_01: The word said there's things that we won't understand about you until we reach heaven.
SPEAKER_01: But God make us people who sure try.
SPEAKER_01: That's our prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, as we uh close this morning, um, we have some things going on in the life of the church we want to make you aware of.
SPEAKER_01: One of those things um you can hear more about if you will address your attention to the screens behind me.
SPEAKER_03: Hi, I'm Bart Bachmann.
SPEAKER_03: I'm Cynthia B.
SPEAKER_03: Ken.
SPEAKER_03: And we lead the Hans to Plus Ministry.
SPEAKER_02: Hands to Plus Ministry is a group of women that have come together, brought their gifts that God gave them to stove.
SPEAKER_02: A quilt, or knit, or crochet, and everybody brings one tablet or multiple tablets.
SPEAKER_03: We have a teaching ministry too, where we um, if somebody wants to learn to crochet or knit or quilt, we um we'll do it individually with them, or we'll we have um different workshops.
SPEAKER_03: It's it's just a really fun fellowship, coming together and getting to know each other and helping and learning.
SPEAKER_03: It's a learning ministry, I think.
SPEAKER_03: I get to use a skill that God has given me, my own gift, and I can take that gift and turn it into something that somebody else can have and use.
SPEAKER_03: And when I'm sewing on a baby bib or I'm making a quilt for a senior, whatever I'm doing, whatever I'm working on, I'm praying for whoever might get it.
SPEAKER_03: And I just love the fact that God's using me in that way to bless somebody with the gift I have.
SPEAKER_02: We had we made baby blankets that had uh quilts and receiving blankets and cloths and bibs and all kinds of uh handmade items in them.
SPEAKER_02: And we got a story back from Neil one day.
SPEAKER_02: And the story was that a bee had taken the baby bucket to the hospital.
SPEAKER_02: And the husband looked at the baby bucket as the mom knew mom was going through the items and said, these people don't know us, why would they do this for us?
SPEAKER_02: And Neil explained that it's because they love the church and they love doing things for these people, and this is their calling.
SPEAKER_02: So um it he he was moved by the fact that somebody was doing something for him and we didn't even know who he was.
SPEAKER_03: I think it's those kind of things that just bring joy to my heart.
SPEAKER_03: So we want to open it up to anybody.
SPEAKER_03: We just enjoy it.
SPEAKER_03: If you've got a craft that you would like to share, come and talk to us.
SPEAKER_03: We would love to have you.
SPEAKER_03: We're here from 10 to 1 on every Thursday in the Fellowship Hall.
SPEAKER_03: And if you can't stay the whole time, that's fine.
SPEAKER_03: If you can, we'd love to have you.
SPEAKER_03: We'd like to invite you to come to our workshop October 24th.
SPEAKER_03: It's a Saturday.
SPEAKER_03: From 9 to 1, we're gonna be in the fellowship hall.
SPEAKER_03: We're gonna have a beginning filter and an advanced quilting class.
SPEAKER_03: And um, there'll be more information, you can find it on the website at grandparkway.org slash events.
SPEAKER_03: So if you're interested, if you have questions, you can reach out to either Cynthia and I.
SPEAKER_03: We'd love to talk with you and just get to know you more.
SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
SPEAKER_01: That's great.
SPEAKER_01: So that's uh that's next Saturday.
SPEAKER_01: So obviously that's not too far away.
SPEAKER_01: So if you want to be a part of that, um, make sure and jump on that.
SPEAKER_01: And then also coming up uh this Tuesday night, or Tuesday night, Tuesday morning, sorry, uh 6 a.m.
SPEAKER_01: in the warehouse, which is our student ministry building on the back of the campus.
SPEAKER_01: We have our men's breakfast.
SPEAKER_01: Um, some of you guys might be thinking, man, we just spent the weekend together.
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to hang out with you again.
SPEAKER_01: Just me.
SPEAKER_01: Um, no, that's it's a great time.
SPEAKER_01: We meet right at six, we're over at seven, get you off to work.
SPEAKER_01: Um, free breakfast, great word.
SPEAKER_01: Love to have you there.
SPEAKER_01: If you've never been before, just know this is uh an incredible opportunity to get plugged in this Tuesday at the warehouse.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, do me a favor and stand to your feet.
SPEAKER_01: As you're standing on your feet, uh, let me say a couple things.
SPEAKER_01: If this is your first time with us, or maybe you've been checking us out for a while, um, and you're ready to kind of let us know that you're here.
SPEAKER_01: There's a couple ways you can do that.
SPEAKER_01: Um, and in the seat backs in front of you, there's some uh cards.
SPEAKER_01: You take a minute, sit down, jot that, jot that uh information down, and drop it in one of these boxes.
SPEAKER_01: If you're one of us and today is your day, you worship through giving, that's where you do that as well.
SPEAKER_01: Um, also at the end of the service, some pastors and elders will be available.
SPEAKER_01: Um love to meet you, love to put a name on the face, love to pray for you, um, whatever that might be.
SPEAKER_01: Um, we like to end our service with a blessing.
SPEAKER_01: So if you would, if you put your hands out like this, God doesn't play hide and seek with us.
SPEAKER_01: He's not remote, he's near.
SPEAKER_01: We live and we move in him, and we can't get away from it.
SPEAKER_01: In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, we're dismissed.