Names of God | Week 3 | Bill Bush | Full Service

And so speaking of fathers, I wanna start with a story that happened with my dad to kinda kinda lead us in. When I was in high school, I was I was so cool. I was on an elite bowling team. And actually, it was pretty cool. I mean, I was I was the only high schooler. Everyone else was in college.

And we would we had qualified for a big tournament. We had a ball on a Saturday morning. It was over by ASU.

And one of my friends went to ASU that was on the team. He was a a freshman. I was a junior in high school. But so he said, hey, why don't you just come spend the night at my dorm room? We could hang out, go to movie, be fun, you'll be on the campus. And then we can go together, your dad can meet us there. And I'm like, great. So we went, we did the movie thing, ended up back at his dorm room. And one thing led to another, bunch of his roommates showed up and this whole hall ended up turning into a party.

And I didn't really drink or anything, but I felt dumb and I wanted to be cool. So not only did I say, alright, I'm not only gonna drink, I'm gonna show these guys how to drink. I'm gonna drink the most. So I did. And then I threw up the most

and destroyed their room. It was awful. You know? But I got really sick. I I didn't sleep. I was up all night, and yet I had to go bowl the next morning. But here's the kicker. My dad when I told him I was gonna go do this, didn't want me to go do it. I think he already knew what might happen. He

looked at me and said, but you were supposed to mow the lawn

and finish cleaning the pool by the end of the week before the bowling tournament. If you go right Friday after school to hang out with this guy, you're not gonna get that done. And so I was talking to him a little bit, and I'm dad, gotta let me do this. It'll be fun. It's not gonna he's like and I finally said, dad, what if I do this? What if I promise you, man to man,

right after we get back from the bowling tournament, I will immediately mow the lawn and clean the pool. And he goes, put out his hand, shake on it. He looked me straight in the eye. Man to man, you're keeping your word. And I go, okay. So now, I wake up totally sick.

I feel terrible. The worst place to go when you're that kinda sick is a bowling alley, especially in the nineteen eighties. There was no law against smoking indoors at that time. So a bowling alley smelled like an ashtray filled with smoke and lots of loud noises.

And I walked in, I looked terrible, but I go, I can't let my dad know what happened. And I walk up to him, he's like, what the heck happened to you? You look terrible.

And I'm like, no, dad. It's just that we we stayed up way too late. I couldn't sleep good. Was on the floor. I just really didn't get any sleep. I I know, I don't feel the greatest, but I'll I'll be alright. He's like, really? You sure? I go, yeah. And he goes, alright. So then as I'm going, keep going to the bathroom, and comes back. And every time I'm back, has a glass of water there, he makes me drink it. That should have been clue number one. He knew what was going on. And he goes, you sure you're alright? He looked me right in the face. I go, yeah. Yeah. I'm fine. And I just kept going. He goes, okay. Because remember,

man to man, you gave me your word. When we get home, you're mowing the lawn and you're cleaning the pool. You got that. Right? I don't care how you feel. And if your mom says, man, man, you're still doing it.

And I'm like, god, fine. And I I barely made it through bowling. I'm driving back home. I'm I'm sitting there in the car not even talking. I'm basically writing my will in my head. That's how bad I feel.

And and he goes, now just remember, once we get you go right in, you change, and you get out there, and you start doing it because that's what you said you were gonna do. I'm like, but daddy goes, nope. Nope. Nope. And I was like, alright, I'm not gonna get, you know, fine. My dad had carried a healthy level of respect for him because I did look up to him, so I was like, alright, I gotta do this. And I get to do that because I don't want him to know what I really did.

So he makes me do it. I'm out there mowing, I'm feeling even worse. But about every ten or fifteen minutes he'd bring out a little cup of water and say, drink it. And he'd make me drink it, he'd alright, keep going. And he'd go back in. And I kinda go, does he know?

I go, there's no way he knows. I am I I played it off so well. There is no way he knows. So I finish,

I feel so sick, I dive into the pool, I get out, I can't even get inside. I climb into one of our chairs under our patio by the pool and I just sit there. And my dad walks out, he sits in the chair next to me, and for a few minutes, he's just admiring the work I've done. You can see the lawn, you can see the pool. He's just smiling at it like, well done. You did what you were supposed to do. You kept your word.

And and so I'm like, good. We're good. He's like, happy. I kept my word. Mission accomplished. Nothing for the worst. And then after a few minutes of nothing, he just turned to me, looked me right in the face, had this weird kinda smile. He goes, son, I'm glad we cleared that up. And then he got up and walked back inside.

That's all he said. That's all he had to say. I'm like, he knew. He already knew. He already knew, but He made me do that anyways. And you know what He did in that moment? By bringing me the water, He cared, He wasn't trying to hurt me, He wasn't He was loving me, but He was also leading.

He was loving and he was leading me to a better place by making me do what I said I would do. He was teaching me something, he was guiding me somewhere. And the reality is I was blessed with a good dad, not perfect by any means. But some of these things, he got the big rock right.

And it helped me understand that when we look at what the title father means in the bible for God, you're gonna see that it means this big idea for today.

Our perfect father loves and leads. Our perfect father loves and leads. Good advice. I'm not trying to throw a punch to the dads in the room, but this is good dad advice too. Take with it take from it what you will. What it means is there's gotta be love and there's gotta be leadership.

And and the reality is this, for many of us, we have a distorted view of what father. Father means a triggering word. If you say dad, it triggers something else. Because we misunderstand love and leading. When we hear love, we think, let you do whatever you want and affirm you no matter what. And if I try to guide you or say, hey, I love you, but I where you're heading is the wrong way, that's hate.

And then leadership, we hear boss, control freak, it's about them. There's force, there's fear, there's all of that. So we hear those two words as problem. And then the whole idea of father we get confused on. And what I was blessed with that, I hope you can understand, I don't have a problem with these two seeming

these these these these forces these these forces that kinda, they seem opposite to us. We don't understand how they work together, that you can have this level of leadership, and what we're gonna see in a minute, this level of respect and awe

and and and looking up to, and God is the holy God of the universe. The Bible says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of all understanding. If you if you don't understand what those words mean, you hear fear, you think father, you think abuse, you think control.

Fear, it means an awe of he is the creator and God of all. And you need to give honor to who he is, period. Just like a healthy human father, the title father demands some respect. But at the same time, it also has to lead from love. And the perfect father leads, but he leads with love. He loves first, and through that love,

it makes it easier for us to surrender to his leadership. But we get confused by that. It kinda that dynamic tension is hard as we're gonna see here as as we look. And I think the reason it's so hard is culturally

when we read father, we gotta understand what biblically, what did God mean by this title, and then culturally when he heard father, what did that mean? Because when we hear it, I say we hear different things. And you know the best way is I look around culture and I think we get these distorted views of what a father is.

And and and and I and I like to look at pop culture, you know, movies, TVs, and they they kinda like, how does how are fathers represented in this stuff? And I think there's several different ways fathers are represented. The first one, I called the the mean father, like this guy.

I am your father. You know, and you think of Darth Vader. I mean, and you know when he says this, he said this after he cut his son's hand off. Remember, you look closely, he's holding out the wrong arm too. He's like, dad, I can't grab your arm with that hand, the opposite hand now. It's gone. You hot lopped it off.

But you think about it, Darth Vader had leadership. He had a plan. He wanted to guide and lead his son somewhere, but where?

He wanted him to join him in in ruling the universe through the powers of darkness, and it really wasn't even about his son. He just I need your help. It was about his plan, what he wanted to do, through force and intimidation, and he was willing to kill him if he wouldn't do it.

That's how one way they show. The next one is the mild dad, the sitcom dad. This guy. And what I mean, he wasn't always mild. But what I mean by mild is you have a good heart, in the end you mean well, you're there, but the reality is you're the dumbest one in your family. The classic sitcom,

everybody knows more than the dad. He's the gullible, kinda lovable guy, kinda there, but not really accomplishing anything. Matter of fact, it's gotten so bad that like Disney, like like the the Stranger Things, the whole premise of that series is the kids are smarter than the adults. But you end up with a sitcom dad.

Or you end up with this guy.

Where is he? They're missing. How many shows, how many movies is dad already died or dad was never there? And there's just no dad at all. It's hard to understand that. Now there are occasionally examples of good dads that love and lead, like this guy, who ironically is voiced by the same guy who's Darth Vader.

So beware of James Earl Jones, you never know what you're getting. But look, but even in these moments, especially these Disney movies, if they do,

the dad's usually missing and gone bad or not around or he was great, he died. In a movie like this, if you're watching this, buckle up. You're about to get sad because this is about what's gonna happen. He's gonna die. And if you think about that,

the way it's represented, these distortions, is probably because it's what we've all many of us have experienced.

You see, many of us have experienced some of you, when you hear father or dad, you had the mean dad, the abusive dad, the controlling dad. He forced the respect. He forced the honor because he he he it was all about him, and it was all about control. And he didn't really care about you or your future,

and and when you think of dad, you think about walking on eggshells and how today am I gonna not make him angry.

Or maybe you had the mild dad. He was there, you know he was a good man. He loved you in his heart, but he never led. He never helped you. He was just kinda there. Or maybe you never knew your dad. Or maybe he abandoned you. He's missing. Or maybe you did have a good dad, but he's died.

You see, that affects us in our view for God. You realize they've done study after study, and what they've done is they've done studies where they brought people in and only asked them two questions. Describe God to us. When you think of God, what do you think about?

And you know what they get? They get answers like, he's the angry man in the sky that all he wants to do is judge. Or he's the loving, you know, crunchy, hippie Jesus that doesn't judge anything and just wants to love you and do whatever you want. He's basically like your eighth grade art teacher was.

If you're an art teacher, I just offended you. Sorry. But you know what you're like.

Sorry again. Sorry again. Last service, one of the guys said he was watching out here and he said there was a a wife that tapped her husband laughing, so apparently he's an art teacher and he didn't smile the whole time. So let me phrase it this way, you're an art maybe it was just my eighth grade arts teacher. Okay?

But that's the dad you had.

They would describe God that way. Or they describe him as I don't think he's there. I don't I don't believe in God. Or if he is, he doesn't care about me because I don't see him. Then then you know what the second question they'd ask? Describe your dad to us. And you know what was scary accurate?

Is how often the description of their actual father is how we describe God. We subconsciously, instinctively form a view of God by the way we see our father. That's why God created the role of father in the home, of mother, different roles, equal before God, the image of God, male and female,

all of that, and single moms, you do your best, but you can't be a dad. Flip's true too, single dads, you do your best, you'll never be a mom. God made it different, and God's that perfect father, but the problem is we we kind of subconsciously

gravitate. Like some of you that you're believers and when you really think of that, that's maybe why you struggle with always that legalistic side of like, oh my gosh, I failed God, and you're always afraid of the punishment of God when you blow it. You live your faith out in fear.

And usually that fear says you yell at everyone else because when you feel fearful about the rules, you like to yell at everybody else about the rules. Or you grew up with with with the the the sitcom

dad and you see God is like, all he does is love. So when you come here, you don't care about the rules. You're like, alright. Why are you telling me that God doesn't think I should live that way? God loves me. Don't judge.

And you know what the truth is? Is is both of those you know they say like rules without relationship equals rebellion. If you just see God as the rules, as the angry God, you're gonna eventually go, I'm done with this. But guess what? Relationship rule relationship without rules brings chaos.

So if you think of God as he just loves you no matter what, that's chaos. That's the same in in actual parenting. Apply this. And here's the problem. Chaos and rebellion in a 13 year old looks exactly the same. Rebellion is I'm done with this. There's no love here. It's just control.

Chaos is I'm looking for some boundaries. I need leadership. And so that sometimes we view God that way and both of those extremes are bad.

And and that's what you see in in in the church today. You have these hyper legalistic that you may have all the rules down right, but man, you don't wanna point people to Jesus by loving them like Jesus. It's not about God's love, it's about God's wrath all the time.

And then there's the other side that says basically, you can believe and do whatever you want, just know that Jesus loves you. That's not love.

Or some of you, there was no dad, and no matter how many times you come to church, you always have that fear that does God actually care about you? Is he here?

So what are we supposed to do about that? Well, let's look scripturally

at what it means for God to be father. What does that role mean? There's two words used in the New Testament. Don't usually do this little teaching moment here. There's two words in the New Testament father. One's in the Greek, one's transliterated word that's Aramaic.

And the first one is is is is pater, not pater because God's not a hater. But that was dumb. Sorry. Dad jokes, man. It's Father's Day. You have to laugh at them. No. Pater. And here's what's finished. That's the one that if it's when you see it says father,

anytime you see it pronounced father, that sounds kinda formal. You think of, like, this formal kinda name. But here's what it literally means. Nourisher, protector, upholder. You see the love and the leadership there? He's a nourisher. He cares for you. He knows what's best. He will protect you and take care of you, but he's also upholder. The word for upholder means he makes it happen,

and he is the one that's in authority. He's the leader. He goes first. And you know what's cool is when God leads and and loves,

loves and leads, he leads with love. It says we can love God because he first loved us. See, he showed us love first. See, if you think of God as the mean God, the angry God, the God you have to appease, you think the job of coming to church is, I gotta do the good things, and then God will love me. I live for his love. You might have had an earthly father that you said you had to keep working and living for his love. No. This means the opposite. We live from his love.

You start knowing how much he loves you. And when you realize that he's the nourisher and the protector, you will then honor the upholder. There's the second word, Abba. Not Abba the band, Abba.

And a lot of you heard that. Isn't that the way you probably heard messages? He's daddy god. Right? It's daddy. It's so personal. It's so intimate. You've been mistaught. That's our culture imprinting a meaning onto it. Yes. Abba is Abba is Abba is what little Aramaic kids would yell to their dads.

And so but it doesn't mean that, oh, daddy, god, daddy. It literally means, father, I will obey you. That's what the word means, and it really is is that it's intimacy with obedience. The intimacy, the love is what brings the obedience,

and it is really trying to capture the idea of with little kids, when they run kinda like how Jesus said you need to have the faith of a child. When he said that, that doesn't mean act like a child. It doesn't mean immature like a child. It means like when a child

believes in something. When they care, they go all in. And that's why Abba means something a little more intimate, because it is like they run, daddy, daddy. Like they they they just run to you and embrace you. That's what that means. It doesn't mean this childlike, childish kinda it's a faith like a child,

but it still is saying the same thing. Both words mean the same thing. Love and lead. That's what he does. And our job is to be loved and to surrender to the lead.

But if you take out lead or take out love, you got the distorted view of what a father is. Because most of us had a father, many of us had a father that was missing one or both of those characteristics. And so it really means this idea of loving and leadership, but it starts with his love. It's intimacy and obedience.

It's familial. It's a real deep relationship of care and love and nourishment with awe. Means he is the God of all, but he personally cares about you and he loves you. That's why I wanted to talk about this on Father's Day because what a better day to learn that even if you had no father on earth or a terrible one,

you don't have to cringe every time it's Father's Day. You can celebrate that you have the perfect heavenly father who loves and leads no matter what. Amen? So

what am I supposed to do with this? How does this work? One practical application of what you can do to start embracing this. How do you get into how do I start to trust? How do I start to be this way? And it's like it's like any old regular relationship. You need to talk to your dad.

That's what prayer is. You need to talk to him. You need to have conversations with him. That's how you get close. If your dad's just from afar, you can believe whatever you want, but if you're not involved, if you don't have that empathy, see, listening to God is in his word. Talking to him is prayer,

and we need to talk to him. And what's interesting is I wanna show you how that works. We're gonna go to this passage that you know is the Lord's prayer. Many of you know. Many of you were taught in if you grew up in certain types of churches, they taught you just to recite it. Kinda like the Gettysburg Address. Like somehow it's some magic incantation.

It's not. It's an outline. It's a it's a outline of here's what you need to be talking to your dad about. It's a great outline. And you know what's crazy about it? You know where he says it, where Jesus teaches us this prayer? Is right in the middle of the greatest dad speech ever, the sermon on the mount.

It's the longest sermon recorded from Jesus, And really, it's about God. What Jesus is is he's taking all the old testament, the rules, kinda the ways we should live, and he's applying it through relationship. Father is used over 14 times in this. It's really about

your father is speaking to you. It's literally a this is what our family is like. He's not just giving you a list, obey the list, godly. It's not a business transaction. The whole sermon is in the context like a dad giving a dad talk.

And and and and he's talking to us. He's like, hey, you know how it's been said this? It's been said this. If you're my child. In other words, dad's, hey, in our family, this is how we live. In our family, this is what we value. In our family, this is what's important.

And right in the middle of it, he stops and goes, you know what? You gotta talk to dad about this. You gotta come talk to me about these things. We have to have a conversation because this is a relationship. It's not just a set of rules. It's a family talk.

And so I wanna walk us through and show you how, even in this outline of how he says what to pray about, it involves love, and it involves accepting love, understanding the love, and it involves surrendering to the leadership. It's about life. It's about how to live out this relationship with God being one of his children.

And so it starts off here when he stops and he goes in verse five of chapter six. He goes, when you pray, don't be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly on street corners and in synagogues where everyone can see them. Like if you're gonna have a talk with your dad, why would you do it in public?

The only reason is to show off or be or to be safe. I either wanna be safe, I wanna be around other people. I'm not talking about I'm not going there alone. I want mom around. I want every or you wanna show off. I wanna put dad in his place. I'm sick and tired of the way he's acting.

And that's kinda what the it's not really about the relationship if you're doing it in front of everybody else. That's what he's saying. It's about you. It's about something else. I tell you the truth. That's all the reward they'll ever get.

But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your father in private. Then your father who sees everything will reward you. You're going to the father, the perfect father who already knows everything. He's already wise. Go have a private conversation with him.

Just talk to your dad. Whenever I'd get frustrated, my mom would always come to me and go, you need to go talk to your dad. But the time she sees me is just go talk to your dad. Run to your father.

He goes, when you pray, says another thing, don't pray this way either. Don't babble on and on as the gentiles do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again. Don't be like them. That's funny. Everyone else prayed. They thought it was a game. It was a system. Hey, if I if I ask enough, I'll wear God down.

And he's saying, don't do that. I don't work that way. I'm the leader and who loves.

And and and you need to honor and remember me. And just repeating something doesn't trick me or fool me. It's like you think, and sometimes we think God is the one I just need to keep asking, keep asking. Maybe he already knows everything. He already knows what you need. So why are you repeating? It's like you want something and you're actually trying to make it into a game.

This is something my dad was bad at. I told you. I looked up to him a lot, but he was not perfect. My mom was good at this. If you went to my mom and asked her for something, she would give you the answer. She was always sweet about it, but she didn't change her mind. Like if you went to her, mom, can I have $20? No.

Why not? Well, first of all, why do you need it? Second of all, what do you do with your last money? You don't really spend your money well and you're old enough, why don't you have a part time job or something? Or if you really want $20, I can give you three jobs you can do around you. You can earn it. Ugh. I just want the money right now. Sorry.

And you would keep asking her, she goes, sorry. Sweetie, we're not gonna do it. You want a brownie though? I made brownies. So here's the problem. She was super sweet, so my sister always went to her and never got anywhere.

The reason she wouldn't go to my dad is my dad, if you went to him and caught him off guard, he could be grumpy.

He he was a sergeant. And sometimes sergeant Bush came out and the mission was like, you walk, hey, dad, I need $20. Why why are you dropping that on me now? Why do you need $20? I wanna go to the movie with my friends. Well, why why didn't you think about that why didn't you think about the other day? Why didn't you think about it when you could ask me if you wanted to you could clean out the garage, wanna give you 20%. Why don't you just get a job? And he'd be sometimes a little bit snippy about it. But I learned,

mom, you're never getting anywhere. You'll get a brownie and that's it. But if I went to dad and actually babbled on and on and egged him on, I'd get him to be really mad at me.

And and he'd be like, hey, just leave this and he would snap at me. And then I would stop and go, dad, know what, I'm sorry. You're right. I I bother you. It's just my friends and I, you know, we've been working so hard on the project. You know, we got all a's again.

And you know, with baseball and the practice, I've been really working hard on that. And and I'd say all the things he loves that I do, and I'd say, I just thought you're right. I'm sorry. I'll leave you alone. And then I back off.

So I know what this is talking about because it worked on my dad because he wasn't the perfect father. So he'd come back later and feel really guilty that he bit my head off. He had me $20. He goes, don't tell your mom. Alright.

And I'd leave and my mom would grab me, you know what, I agree with your dad in principle but that was kind of mean and you have been working so hard. Here's $20. But don't tell your dad. I guarantee you, I will not tell dad. And I'd stroll out of the house for $40. My

dad would fall for that. Our perfect heavenly father says that's not how this works. That's manipulation. It's not gonna work. And eventually it didn't work for me either because at one point my mom and dad actually talked. That wasn't a fun conversation.

So he's saying don't pray that way because that's not a real conversation. Here's how you talk to your dad. He said pray like this. Our father in heaven may your name be kept holy. He starts with honor, the honor, the respect of look to who God is, he's holy, he's in heaven, he's perfect, he's holy, he's all powerful.

It's not a tremble before him, it's more of a respect and remember who you're really talking to. He's the one that made you.

He's the one that created everything. He's the one that knows. He's the one with all the ultimate wisdom. Set your heart right before God. Instead of babbling about what you want, remember who he is. And then that leads to the second part of the prayer is start with what he wants

from you and for you. Like start with, he goes, may your kingdom come soon,

may your will be done on earth as it is heaven. It's so funny how many times people pray that. You're like, yeah, may your will be done because it is definitely not being done out there. Look at all that. And you automatically go to everyone else except yourself. Remember, he said, this is a one on one with your dad.

Why would you be worried about what everybody else is doing in a one on one with your dad? When he says, may your will be done on earth as in heaven, he's meaning talk about God's will for you personally.

I've never sat with my dad when he said, hey, son, here's where I think you need to be looking at. This is the wise thing to do. This is where you need to be. And I said, yeah, dad, you know what? I wanna talk. Ricky's not doing that.

Your friend Ricky? Yeah. He's not doing it, man. What's up? He's like, Ricky's not my kid. So what he's saying is remember who God is and then focus your heart on what does God want for your life.

What does he want?

So it starts with who he is. It starts with with with centering your attention on what's the path of wisdom.

But then it goes, give us today the food we need. Now you're talking needs. What do I need to accomplish what God's made me for? I guarantee if you start with who God is and what God's will is, when you start getting to your prayer requests list,

if you start with who God is in your life, put him in the proper position, and then talk to him about what he's asked us to be as believers, if you start there, it changes your list. You know why? You'll actually start talking about needs, not greets.

When you go straight to greets and you ask over and over again, he's not gonna give you something over over again, just keep asking. And you might be asking for something and he says, I know that sounds nice, but that's not what you need.

If you ask for God for what you need to do his will, you will get it every single time because he's the perfect father. He will give you what you need.

Don't your kids ask you for things all the time that you don't give them because you know that may sound great, but you don't need that right now. Some of the biggest mistakes many of us have made as parents is when you gave a kid something they really wanted that you knew they didn't need.

And sometimes when you do that too often, down the road, you realize I just created an entitled spoiled child, and now that's haunting me. Don't try to do the same thing in reverse with God. When you focus on his love, who he really is and what his will for you is,

now you're honest. Well if that's what you want me to do God, then I'm gonna need this. If you really want me to honor you with my money, don't I'm broke. If I honor you, you're gonna have to help take care of my food, my needs.

That's a real conversation. If your dad says, mean, but dad how am I supposed to do that? Mean, alright, well let's talk about that, what can we do?

And then he goes from that right into the super relational, because then he says, and forgive us our sins as we have forgiven those who sin against us. So now it goes to the sin, because you know what, if you start talking about his will and your need,

your need usually related to his will is like, I need to serve, I need to give, I need to share my faith. And there's always if I'm sinning, if I'm ignoring God's will in my life, I've done something with that money instead of what honoring him. I've got myself into debt. I'm spending time on too many things, so I can't serve.

I'm gonna have to talk about that and be honest and go, God,

you're gonna have to help me because I got myself into debt now. I don't know how to give. And then he's willing. He's willing, I'll help you with it. But you gotta own it. You gotta look at it. You gotta look at your life in light to his word and his awesomeness, his holiness, and his plan. You have to set that down next to what you're doing and just own it.

And then he'll own it with you. He'll help take care of it because he loves us. But you have to get real. It's a real conversation with your dad. And then when we ask for forgiveness, he then says, I care about your other relationships.

And when you see that I love you and you can bring that problem and you can bring the sin, even bring the like, I know I haven't been able to honor you in this. I know I haven't been because I've done this, I've done that, or I made this mistake, or I horribly messed this up.

Or maybe some of you as dads, you feel like I've been a bad father, and you go to God and it's like it's okay. I love you, I forgive you, I'll help you. But you gotta turn back to me. You gotta turn into the wisdom. And you know what, when you learn my grace,

it's like I said in first John it says, we love because he first loved us. We can love God back only after he loved us, but it says we can love When we understand the love of God has for us, we can start embracing that for others. In other words,

understanding that kind of relationship, that kind of a comfort can enable us to go forgive others in our life. We can find healing

in the other broken relationships. And this is a critical point because I brought up fathers here and some of you in this room, many of you, probably one of the most distorted messed up relationship you have where you've been hurt is by your father.

And if you understand God's love for you as a perfect father, you can forgive him. But I gotta say this, you probably just got triggered. I'll say it again because I don't know if you were here last time. This is one of my soapboxes. Forgiveness and reconciliation are not the same thing.

Forgiveness takes one. Reconciliation takes two. When I say forgive that father that wasn't there for you that abandoned you, forgive that father that abused you, forgive that father that was like a nice guy but he didn't really help you out already, Forgive that father. I'm not saying run back into a relationship with him. Most of you have never worked because that person doesn't care or maybe they're already dead.

But you can let it go from your end because you know what, you have a perfect father who loves you and forgives you already. You have the best and you need to forgive so you can get past it.

Thing I've done whenever I had to forgive someone that I know it's not gonna reconcile because they don't care, but it's bothering me, it hurts me all the it holds me back, it triggers me all the time, I write it down in a letter. I forgive you. It might be two sentences. And then I light it on fire.

Done. Try that. Try that with any relationship where someone has hurt you and there's no Now some of you might have an in, there might be an opportunity. The relationship is in a weird strain, you could try the way of forgiveness. But if it's so distorted they're not even seeking it or they're not even alive,

it down, light it on fire, throw it in the trash. Let yourself off the hook. That's that kind of prayer that he's talking about. That's the kind of conversations you have with God. And here's the problem, when you try to do that,

it brings fear. It brings worry. You're worried about, I don't know if I have the strength. There's a spiritual enemy out there that wants to attack you and say you can't do this and lie. Some of you can lie to you. There is no way I can trust God this way. There's no way. And that's so that's the last thing he says to pray about.

And don't let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one. He's saying, don't let us don't let me fall for the lies, God. Protect me. Bring me that protector, father, Abba. Bring me the protector, that will let me not fall for the lies. Give me the strength. Give me the courage.

Give me the ability. That's a isn't that the type of stuff, dads, in this room that you wish those are the things you like to talk to your sons and daughters about?

Don't you wanna give them wisdom and guidance and talk them through the real tough things and get them to take the good path instead of the wrong path? And then when they struggle, you want them to come to you and be honest and tell you where they blew it so you can say forgive them and go, but hey, if you're willing to turn back, let's look at it this way. And when they're scared, you wanna say what my dad said to me. You just gotta have courage, son. And I go, but I can't have courage. I'm afraid. And he goes, son, you don't understand how courage works.

If you wanna do something scary without any fear, that's not courage. That's stupidity. That's naivety. Courage is you are terrified to take that step, but you take it anyways. And what God the perfect father is saying is, I will not only take it with you, I'll lead the way for you. But you need to talk to him.

You need to be real. You need to have an honest conversation with him. Because you know what? Jesus even modeled this for us the night before he was crucified. He's God, but he also took on the nature and the body of a man. So the night before, as God, he knew exactly what was coming.

As a man, he knew he's gonna feel it just like you and I do. All of it. Physically, emotionally, spiritually. He was gonna feel the strain of all of our sin. And he talked

to God like a son talking to his dad. And look what he said. Abba father. He put them both together. The ultimate in in in intimacy. Abba, father, he cried out. Everything is possible for you. This is when he's sweating blood, by the way. He is so stressed out.

He goes, everything is possible for you. Where did he start his prayer with? Who is God, the father? Even though he is co equal, he still started by showing the respect to the father. He submitted. He's showing us when he became a man how to do it.

And he he says, everything is possible. But then look, here's where the man side of him. Here's where the struggle. Please take this cup of suffering away from me. So if that kind of conversation with God, if that kind of openness with God is is a sin, then Jesus was a sinner.

He honestly shared as a man, this is gonna be hard. This is scary. This is tough. This is overwhelming. But then look how he finished it. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine. He trusted. And he got up and he did it. Right there, he just honored the way he asked us to pray.

You know why he knew he had to get up and do that? Because if he doesn't do that, we can't call God our father. We can't be his child. It's only through what he did. Jesus loved us first and leads us like our perfect father does, and we need to respond to that.

And if we don't talk to him, if we don't learn to do what he's like, stop and talk to your dad. You're not going to get to the level of relationship to really be crying out, Abba Father. You're going to make it a game.

You're going make it a, I don't want to make him mad at me or I expect him to just give me what I want because he's a lovey guy or I just I'm gonna be done with this, or I'm gonna think he doesn't really care about me because you're all confused.

You know that conversation I had with my dad? Here's the part, I shared what he said. The reality is I never talked to him. I never confessed in that moment. I thought, all I did was keep my word. I thought the lesson he was trying to teach me was just keep my word.

And I go, I got away with it even though he knew because when he said that he knew. But he's not doing anything to me other than what I already promised to do. I got off easy. I didn't wanna tell him what really happened. Just in case he didn't know and I misread the situation, I thought that'll get me into more trouble.

So I'm not gonna say anything. Lesson learned, keep your word.

Then a couple months later, I finally felt convicted. I waited like two months because I thought maybe the statute of limitations had happened, he's not gonna that long time ago, don't worry about it. I just thought I'd be safe, but I said, dad, you know that time? He goes, yeah, remember that.

I paused because I'm like, where is this gonna go? I said, I am I kinda lied. I didn't tell you the whole story. I wasn't really honest. He goes, really? What do you mean? He goes, I totally partied, I got so drunk, I was so sick, I was just bad, it was terrible. And he goes, I knew. I knew the whole time.

Why do you think I kept making you drink water? Suspected. And he goes, and why do you think I said I'm glad we cleared that up? I strongly suspected. But I wasn't sure and I didn't wanna disappoint, I didn't wanna be in trouble. He said, Son, why do you think I made you mow the lawn and clean the pool after that happened?

Just keep my word. Well that's part of it, but that's not the real lesson I was trying to show you. He said, what? He goes, I'm glad you talked to me. He had patience. He waited for me to come to him. He was patient. He reeled me And he said, you know my story. You know that alcohol ruined my professional baseball career?

You know it destroyed part of my life? It took away years because I, And it was all because I was trying to do the same thing you did. That's why I knew before you went, you were probably gonna do something knuckleheaded like that.

Because I was the same. I was in this scenario. I was playing pro ball at 16 and everyone's drinking. I wanted to show off, so I drank more. Then I went off to World War II at age 17, and not only did I drink to show off, I drank to forget the horrors I saw. And you know what? I was a good enough athlete. I came back, I could be drunk, hungover, and still go pitch a game and win.

There was no consequences. I didn't pay a price for it until I paid a price for it. And by then, it screwed my life up. And it cost me years, and it it cost a lot of issues in my life. And you know that story. And I go, what I wanted to do by making you feel sick and do that anyways, that was the safest way

I could make you feel that this is a bad way to go. And that's my job. I wanted to lead you to the right path while keeping you protected. That's my job. I would have never known the deeper love, the deeper concern, the deeper patience, and the deeper wisdom until I walked back and confessed to my death,

until I ran to my father. That's what it means for God to be called father. He is the perfect father who loves you first and through his love you should see and be willing to submit to his leadership. But it starts with the love. So if you're struggling with the will of God in your life, you're struggling with following him,

I wouldn't say, you know, buckle up buttercup and just force yourself, otherwise God's angry. I would say, what are you missing about how God loves you? What are you missing in this story? And the one thing you might be missing is you've never ran to him. You've never met him in the first place.

You see the first word of that prayer is our. A lot of us think we're all God's children because he created. The Bible's really clear. You are not a child of God until you meet Jesus. You're not. You can try to play by the rules, you can try to be a better person, you can try to do the religious thing,

but you are not in the family until you say yes to the love that Jesus had for you. The one who said, I know what the suffering is gonna be, but if I don't do it, if I don't love the world, if I don't love you in this way, by dying in our place to satisfy

why are we so worried about the holiness and righteous? Because God is holy, righteous, and he will judge sin. And so God, by Jesus dying, God is consistent with who he is. He can't just say blow off your sin. It's no big deal. He will judge it because he is holy and perfect and righteous, and you gotta know that.

And we aren't. So the only way we can be God's child is if Jesus did what he did first. And so he loved you, but you have to run to him. You have to meet him at the cross because he said, I'm the way, the truth, the life, and the only way to the father

is through me. So what I wanna do is we're gonna sing a song, run to the father. And for those of you that already know Jesus, I'm gonna ask you to just think about what do you need to run back to him for.

Where have you forgotten that he's your perfect father that not only loves you, he wants you to surrender to his leadership. Where in his will for your life are you just ignoring him or hiding from him? But before we get there, I wanna just pray. Because I think there's some people in this room, there's some people online

that that you have never ran to the cross. You've never surrendered to Jesus' love. You never said yes to Jesus. You've never become a child of God. And you it's you just need to turn to him and pray. And I wanna pray with you.

And as I pray, don't turn it in the Lord's prayer. Don't just repeat my words like a magic, you know, incantation or something like that. It's make it your own words. And all it is is you're you're confessing your sin. You're doing what this prayer you're going to your father and said, I've tried to do this on my own. I've tried to manipulate. I've tried everything else, and it's not working. I'm a sinner,

and I need you, Jesus. You you confess and and and and first and then you profess your faith in Christ. This might be your moment, and then the coolest moment is you've never done that. What a better day than on Father's Day. Every Father's Day, you can remember this is the day I became a chopper guy.

This is the day he became my father. So will you pray with me? If you're in this room or online and you're that person, you're like, I've been going to church a lot, but I've never just surrendered to the love of God through Jesus, then just pray with me. Pray something like this. Just pray. God, thank you.

Thank you that you are that perfect father who wants to lead me, but you loved me first so I can follow you. So right now, in the best way I know how, I wanna turn from my sin, turn from trying to do it my own way, turn from trying to earn your love or run from you or do my own thing or be mad at you.

Lord, I wanna turn to you right now and and and confess that I am a sinner. And in the best way I can, I put my faith in Jesus and what he did for me, that he died on the cross for me, but then he rose from the dead defeating death for me? Thank you for loving me that way. Thank you for forgiving me.

Now help me to go from here and look at your will for my life, your leadership in my life, and how that your love can affect the relationships around me. And help me to to to run to you every day, and help me to run out into this world with you as my perfect heavenly father who loves me and leads me.

Thank you. I pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.

You saw my condition at a plant from the star.

Your son for redemption, the price for my heart.

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