Friends episode 2

again happy father's day um and i am doing a series right now called friends we're gonna have some fun this summer um and my goal today is to show you that you're friends with your heavenly father i know sometimes messages on the father can trigger some things in people because maybe you didn't have a good dad and i just i want to empathize with that but also uh kind of break down some walls today so you can kind of maybe understand your earthly father a little bit better but more importantly your heavenly father and i said last week that jesus made this defining statement before he went to the cross he looked at his disciples and he said i have never called you slaves but i now call you friends that's so huge when you think about it and we're going to kind of walk through some of the old testament today some of those viewpoints but really i just want this message to be in the whole series just a message of freedom freedom of knowing that your friends with your heavenly father so here is a question that i've been thinking about the last few months and a friend of mine actually posed it to me and i i thought about it some more in the old testament especially there's a lot of language of fearing god we were supposed to fear god so my question is first part can you fear your father and also be friends with him second question is there's kind of this debate among especially christians is some christians say you shouldn't be friends with your kids because you're the disciplinarian you're the you know you're the authority so is it okay to be friends with your children proverbs 9 is probably the most famous verse regarding this it says the fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge of the holy one is understanding so that word this is an important word because if you read that in english we've lost some of what you know the jewish people were thinking about when they wrote this that that word in hebrew really means revere it means uh to be in awe of something or to hold something in high esteem that's very important right because when we hear the word fear that means run from something that means be afraid of something so i really wish the translations would fix this but that's what it means and the key word i want you to see is it says the fear of the lord the awe of the lord is the beginning of wisdom the beginning that's an important word the beginning now wisdom is different than intellect you can know a lot of facts and you can be very smart and you can have no wisdom you can be very stupid in your life and still be very smart when it comes to fact finding and all that other stuff so wisdom is even different uh than a certain intellect but again do i want my kids to revere me yes yes i do however what's the progression look like as they get older as a parent do you want your children to be afraid of you in their 20s 30s 40s and 50s some of you had really bad dads and just to let you know they were wounded too and they probably had bad dads and so show them some grace as well but if you're in your 30s and your 40s and you can't go sit down and have a conversation with your father something's wrong so do we need to be afraid of our father so i'm going to walk you through kind of just a couple stories with my father um when you know living in haver i don't know how they did it everywhere else uh but we had a burn barrel out in the back super eco-friendly we just burned all our garbage i literally remember watching my dad pour oil on it i don't know if you could do that now but you just burned your garbage so there was this constant threat of the burn barrel like if you did something wrong or you were going to be punished something was going into the burn barrel and i'll never forget i was in my room and my dad walks in and my dad was an intimidating dude he was about 6'4 he was the guy where like he didn't have to say a word to you he just stared at you and when you and when he stared at you you just knew something was wrong and he comes in my room and i was being just a little turd to my sister and i just kept doing and just kept doing and not only that and i know this is gross for some reason i kept peeing in the closet i didn't make it i don't know why it was just weird uh i just peed in my closet and he was fed up with it and back in the 80s like the sought after toy and now it's worth thousands of dollars by the way was the he-man castle grayskull toy it like opened up and i had all the he-man and my dad came in and he says basically i'm tired of this and he grabbed skeletor and he walked out to the burn barrel and he burned skeletor in the burn barrel i was afraid of that burn barrel and i was afraid of my dad i was afraid you know that's the old saying right wait till your father comes home looking back i was way more terrified of my mother but that was like the threat right being afraid when dad comes home then i was in high school and i was still under his house i was still under his leadership and i made a big mistake and i had just gotten my driver's license and my father i literally had just gotten my license he took away my truck for six months years later when i was a freshman in college i did the exact same thing and i after i got caught i walked in and i just handed him the keys and he looked at me and he said you're a man now and you have to live with the consequences of your actions he didn't punish me a couple years after that right before my father died we went on this great hunting trip um over by harlow town uh anyone know where 2dot is 2. montana it was right around that area we had this amazing day we both shot elk and uh we're driving back and it was dark and he pulled over to this like random bar in two dot and he got us a six pack and i shared a beer with my father and we smiled and we listened to music and we talked about the hunt and we were drinking and driving i guess looking back uh but just one and it was this wonderful moment that was a beer that i gotta share with my father what changed what changed from the burn barrel to being punished to not being punished to share in a beer maturity i grew up we had a deeper relationship we had trust and my father and i had become friends we become friends and this is how i view our relationship with our heavenly father no matter what age you are when you commit your life to christ you're a baby you're a baby christian and there's this growing season as a baby christian it's all fresh and new there's there's things you think you know that you didn't know and you're learning you're literally an infant learning new things and i think there's there's this season for that where there's this this healthy this is healthy fear of god because you're so tired of messing up you're so tired of living that life that there's this this fear and this reverence of our father but i truly believe that one of the problems is is most people stay there a lot of people stay there a lot of people stay in that spot of being afraid of god afraid of their father they're afraid if they mess up then he's going to punish them they're afraid if they don't do his will then they're going to screw up their life they're afraid and so they almost keep their father at a distance like it's stuck in their mind wait until dad gets home and i think that is an unhealthy fear of god so where did this come from where did this fear language come from it's all over the old testament and so i'm going to walk through some of this stuff to lead you to a deeper place but the main goal is to show you that you can be friends with your father and that is where real maturity comes about that's where real growth comes about when you can stop being afraid of god and you can start having friendship with him so i just want you to picture something picture early man picture as far back as you can in the scriptures and there was all these different tribes there was you know they had kind of gone throughout different countries and and kind of claimed it as their own and early man they believed in many gods but imagine this this view of god this fear of god because you see that the rain comes and the rain has lightning and it makes a big boom and you know whatever god controls the rain is not to be messed with but then you see that that rain is growing your plants and you know you need those plants for food not only that then your sun comes out and you see this the plants are growing because of the sun whatever god controls that sun is not to be messed with so then you want to be blessed you want more food and so you think god now he needs in order to appease these gods in order to keep them happy let's give back some of our produce to these gods that's how everything started and it was a normal normal thing to them they kept god at a distance they were afraid of taking god off so they created this system to somehow appease this god here's one of the basically they saw god as the judge the judge he decided and you see it all even the old testament it came from the garden of uh a garden of eden the tree of knowledge it screwed everything up it screwed our view up of god and it created this religious system inside all of man that we have to earn and work or else god's ticked off we have to give god the the the right sacrifices or else we won't be blessed fast forward and they started sacrificing their own children to these gods in order to sustain the community so here's one of the biggest mistakes in my personal opinion in western theology is we've continually made god the constant judge he's always the judge as if he's he's always got the scales being tipped and we've made him the judge is god a judge yes but he's a father first he's a father first and so we we make him a father and a judge no he's a father and his judgments come from the heart of a father and jesus christ came to show us exactly who the father is you don't look any other place but jesus to see the character of this god now listen this is a startling statement in hebrews 1. again i'm just walking through this pattern so you can see where this fear of god came from in hebrews 1 it says throughout our history god has spoken to our ancestors by his prophets in many different ways the revelation this is important the revelation he gave them was only a fragment at a time building one truth upon another but to us living in these last days god now speaks to us openly in the language of a son the appointed heir of everything for through him god created the panorama of all things in all time the sun is the dazzling radiance of god's splendor the exact expression of god's true nature his mirror image he holds the universe together and expands it by the mighty power of his spoken word and this is important he accomplished for us the complete cleansing of sins and then took his seat on the highest throne at the right hand of the majestic one that's hebrew language when when someone takes a seat that means it's done that means it's finished that means it's over when you're a kid you don't really understand why your parents are doing why they're what they're doing and you misjudge your parents a lot like and let's be honest when when you when you're that age you look at your father and there were some things that you didn't agree with because you knew best you knew better than they did and sometimes you thought they were kind of corny sometimes you thought they were prudes you know all kinds of stuff but you had this view of your father and then you grow up and you have some kids and you pay some taxes and you realize why dad was mad on vacation sometimes what you realize is you've kind of misjudged your parents you you didn't have the full picture of what it was like to be a dad you didn't have the full picture of what it was like to be a parent and so i think we can all admit we misjudged our parents sometimes we misjudged them we were in the same house it doesn't mean that we we didn't understand them a little bit but we didn't understand the whole thing and so that verse is important because what it's saying is the old testament was truth upon truth it was fragments at a time meaning those guys and gals only lived so long so they learned you know whatever they did about god and then they passed it on and then they learned a little bit more and what he's talking about here is a lens your lens gets bigger when you get older because you understand what it's like to be a parent and it was the same way in the old testament it started with these little truths and they built and they built and they built and they built so there is a progression of the old testament and understanding god and it is solidified in the person of jesus everything led to christ jesus is the lens in which we read the bible through now he is the lens in which we see the father and one of the issues is is sometimes we take some of these passages and we take them to jesus we need to take jesus to those passages because they were building on one another they were fragments at a time again let me give you a quick example because it is important i'm not putting down the old testament i'm just saying they saw things kind of through a veil and they thought god was an angry deity who needed to be appeased because that's what what's what that was around them that's what every culture was doing think about even a couple hundred years ago if you read like what they were using for medicine they thought one of the cures for disease was you cut your veins open and you bleed you would bam i imagine how many people bled out doing that but they thought they were kind of releasing the demons now to us that's primitive but to them that made sense and if you they've been doing surgeries for a long time what was their solution to a surgery here's a stick bite on it and so they had these herbs they had these medicines i think some are still true but they were just trying stuff and so we looked back at that and we think it was kind of primitive but it was important because without them trying those things we wouldn't be here today so it grows and it grows and it grows so now praise jesus in 2021 we can go to sleep when we have surgery and did you know that the inventor who found out anesthesia was a christian and he got it from the garden of eden when god put adam to sleep that's how it was invented and so again we can look back at some of these things and they are primitive but we grow on them and that is these views of god but now we have the full revelation in jesus christ so that language of a son is incredibly important jesus is god's language in john 5 jesus said this i speak to you in eternal truth the son is unable to do anything from himself or through his own initiative i only do the works that i see the father doing for the son does the same works as his father because the father loves his son so much he always reveals to him everything that he is about to do i'm going to keep driving this home jesus is the perfect image of who god is famous theologian carl bart was in a one of his classes and a student said to him do you believe god speaks through other religions or just christianity and bart with the great reply said i don't think god speaks through any religion including christianity he speaks through his son he's refining it that's that's what all the old testament led to it all led to his son jesus christ so let me give you again let me just keep driving this home because this has to do with a fear of god and we can read some of these passages in the old testament and miss what the the full truth is again these guys like moses abraham all them they were polytheists they believed in many gods and you even see throughout the old testament some of the jews were still holding on to those gods yahweh was the biggest god he was the you know he was like the chief of gods but they still believed in these other gods and so that's important because when you see abraham god comes to him he meets him right where he's at abraham was surrounded by cultures who were sacrificing their own children and so then god's trying to break that and he's like okay well we'll use a goat instead right use a goat instead he's meeting these little kids these early jews were baby believers they were infant believers go to moses moses he saves the israelites out of egypt and then he gives them the law so this is important that god made a covenant with abraham before the rules why is that important because if we view god as a constant judge it's just do this do this do that we miss him as a father they were saved before he gave them the rules incredibly important to remember so when you read in the old testament all these sacrifices all these sacrifices that they were doing when you actually kind of read in the hebrew it wasn't so they were forgiven of their sins it was because they already were forgiven of their sins and they were doing these sacrifices as a reminder that their god had saved them and also when you see a bloody lamb sitting on this this you know counter you get to see what your sin did to the world our sin hurts our brothers and sisters our sin hurts this planet and so the sacrifices were in place from all generations and it was a a yearly reminder of their salvation but look at what hebrews 10 goes on to say the old system of living under the law presented us with only a faint shadow a crude outline of the reality of the wonderful blessings to come even with its steady stream of sacrifices offered year after year there still was nothing that could make our hearts perfect before god for if animal sacrifices could once and for all eliminate sin they would have ceased to be offered and the worshipers would have clean consciences instead once was not enough so by the repetitive sacrifices year after year the worshipers were continually reminded of their sins with their hearts still impure for what power does the blood of bulls and goats have to remove sins guilt this is important because the author of hebrews is saying that system never worked that system of being afraid of god and having to appease god through sacrifice never did anything and may i say christians who still live in this fear of god in this works in this religion and trying to prove something and god's going to burn them to the ground that does not help your walk with jesus and it does not help your pure heart and it does not help you see friendship with god we're still doing it thousands of years later over and over and over it says yahweh says i am not like other gods i am not like other gods and i believe what he was doing there is he was meeting them right there where they were at right there in that culture but he was trying to bring them forward and say you can do all the sacrifices you want but that's what molech wants that's what baal wants that's what these false gods want i am not like other gods as truth grew one upon another they started to see this failure in the system of religion psalm 40 says it's not sacrifices that really move your heart burnt offerings sin offerings those aren't what bring you joy but when you open my ears and speak to me i become your willing servant your prisoner of love for life so again even in the old testament they just started seeing that like this isn't working this isn't working and it came from a good heart we want to fear god we want to honor god so we get blessed and he's like it wasn't working so here's a key verse to the progression of the old testament in jeremiah it says this is what the lord of armies the god of israel says add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices and eat flesh now listen to this for i did not speak to your fathers or command them on the day i brought them out of the land of egypt concerning bert offerings and sacrifices that's interesting where did they get that idea from every other culture around them was doing sacrifices he says i didn't talk to your fathers about this you made this up but this is what i commanded them saying obey my voice and i will be your god and you will be my people and you shall walk entirely in the way which i command you that sounds like friendship that sounds like friendship so that i it may go well for you yet they did not obey or incline their ear but walked by their own advice and in the stubbornness of their evil hearts they went backwards and not forwards do you see what he's saying here he's saying y'all wanted religion i wanted fellowship and i kept wanting this and wanting this and you didn't want it so fine have your sacrifices you can keep doing it here's some more rules how's that going here's some more sacrifices here's another festival how's that going but the interesting part is what he's saying is that view of god that he needs to be appeased that he's this angry deity that is going backwards not forwards and they they came out of egypt where they saw the egyptians trying to appease these gods and he's like why do you keep trying to go back there the progression the progression the progression so let's go back to the my original question is there a season for a healthy fear for your kids and their parents absolutely because you don't want them to die you want them to do well there is a season of healthy fear but is that real relationship would you rather have your kids fear you or would you rather be friends with your children george mcdonald says this god does nothing as a judge that he wouldn't do as a father and i will accept nothing in the description of god that i would find abhorrent in a man if you see a father constantly i saw this dad on easton's team just lace into his son just berate him berate him berate him in front of all these people it just i wanted to get up and slug the guy in the face it was beyond correction and so if you see a heavenly uh an earthly father just tearing into their kid is that how we think our father is is that a good dad so jesus came to show us exactly who god is so what'd he show us i agree with dietrich bonhoeffer that you can't just read jesus's words you have to watch his life his life showed what his words meant and we see this scene where jesus is warning the people he's very serious as a father warns his children jesus has the heart of god and the father and he is warning his children he's saying there's you're going to be persecuted for following me and the sad part is he was saying it's going to be members of your own household because they were jewish and he said these these jewish people are stuck in this religion they're stuck in this sacrifice system and when you're going to follow me members of your own household are going to turn against you they're going to kick you out son's going to turn parents in it's a serious warning but again his warnings are coming from the heart of a father and what i hear when i read this now is he's given his people the dab talk i know you got a lot of friends out there and some of those friends are going to make very poor decisions but you have to come home to me that's the dad talk are you going to listen to your friends are you going to listen to the kids at school or are you going to listen to me and in matthew 10 he's serious he says don't be in fear of those who can kill only the body but not your soul fear only god who is able to destroy both soul and body in gehenna the burn barrel out back now i did a whole series on hell broke down the different views of hell go listen to it i don't have time to explain all of it now but i'll just touch up on it gehenna was the garbage dump outside of jerusalem and jesus spent his entire ministry warning the jews that if you pick up the sword against rome you're gonna die and they threw all these jews dead bodies into this garbage dump and it was constantly on fire and uh that was that's really what he's referencing here but again he's warning these his children as a father he's saying don't listen to them they are headed for destruction listen to me because watch the watch the the shift in his tone this is a weird passage don't fear them fear dad the very next verse he says you can buy two sparrows for only a copper coin yet not even one sparrow falls from its nest without the knowledge of your father aren't you worth much more to god than many sparrows so don't worry for your father cares deeply about even the smallest detail of your life that is such a weird shift right i think the key verse is fear god who can do this he didn't say he will he goes he can how i view this is the dad talk or especially the mom talk i brought you into this world and i can take you out he's speaking from the heart of a father but he's not warning his people to be afraid of their father it was to be afraid of men he was challenging how afraid we are of men how afraid we are of other humans and now you're watching in our culture you say the wrong thing canceled you have some facebook posts from 2006 cancelled you joined the wrong group canceled you don't stick up for the right thing cancel you don't join the mob cancelled we are living in a time where the fear of men is driving people to do some really bad things and join some bad causes and so this is a father talking he's saying do not fear men and then he makes this switch and he's like doesn't your father love you more than the birds my wife loves birds i think she loves them more than me at this point i'm not really sure but that's the father's heart that's what jesus is showing us this fear of the father is a reverence and an awe for the father there's another scene in matthew 23 again he's warning them the romans are going to wipe you out if you want to do an insurrection against rome they're going to kill you and he does these woes he says woe to you woe to you woe to you that's a serious passage but right after he gets done warning them listen to what he says o jerusalem jerusalem you are the city that murders your prophets you are the city that stones the very messengers who were sent to deliver you so many times i have longed to gather a wayward people as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings but you were too stubborn to let me and now it's too late since your city will be left in ruins do you see the father's heart there he actually showed a mother's heart too as a hen gathers her chicks under her wing this is the father's heart and he's weeping and he's crying over his city so this isn't these these fear tactics that he's using isn't a manipulation tactic because that's not love you don't manipulate people into love this is the father's heart a father who wants to not only be your father but he also wants to be your friend being a parent will wreck you it will absolutely wreck you now you know what god feels like with billions and billions and billions of children he's got the father's heart these aren't these warnings to just freak you out it's because he's drawing you back to himself this is a big verse for me when i look at jesus because again they viewed god as the destroyer again who wouldn't right you see hale coming down you see earthquakes who wouldn't but jesus makes it very clear who his father is he says in john 10 a thief has only one thing in mind he wants to steal slaughter and destroy but i have come to give ev give you everything in abundance more than you expect life in its fullest until you overflow jesus is not the destroyer he's the healer in this world there are troubles and there is devastation jesus is the healer and this is so important because if you're going to live in a state where you're constantly fear of dad and he's this angry deity that needs to be appeased and he's just waiting for to throw you in the burn barrel then you're going to think when things happen in your life or bad things go wrong or finances go wrong whatever it is it's your daddy who's upset with you in one week we had both our cars in the shop and our lawnmower broke why and i can tell you years ago if something like that happened i would have thought what am i doing wrong why is dad mad at me now i say father can i have 50 000 for a new car it's a different switch that's an old testament mindset of blessings and curses here's my final example and i'm going to bring it home in matthew 11 jesus says this he says but what what shall i compare this generation it is like children sitting in the marketplace who call out to other children we played the flute for you and you did not dance we sang a song of morning and you did not mourn for john came neither john the baptist came neither eating or drinking and they say he has a demon the son of man came eating and drinking and they say behold a gluttonous man and a heavy drinker a friend of tax collectors and sinners notice a friend and yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds notice he calls all of them children these older pharisees who thought they were the most mature they had all the right theology they thought they were closest to god he said you're all just a bunch of kids and you're a bunch of kids squabbling with each other you're a bunch of kids judging each other notice what he says there he says look i sent you john the baptist he was the most religious guy there was he took a nazarite vow which means he didn't drink alcohol he ate bugs he wore camel's fur and he brought the he brought the repentance message and you call them a heretic and a demon so then i come and i eat and drink with sinners i want to be friends with you guys and you call me a drunk and a heretic what's jesus saying what do you guys want what do you want we tried religion for 6 000 years that didn't work so now we're trying grace and you don't want that what do you want how about friendship how about friendship jesus is the perfect image of father god and he was eating and drinking with sinners because he was their friends two thousand years later his children are still fighting with each other we have 22 000 denominations in christianity why because we know best 22 000. because his kids can't get along because his kids are fighting about this his kids are fighting about that i've been reading a lot of early church history and i i wanted to know what the shift was when did the church kind of lose its power oh look how cute that kid is oh my gosh he's so darling so i wanted to know like where was the shift because when you read the early church fathers they they discussed theology they bantered about theology they made creeds but they got along and then rome took over the church and the church and the state started mingling and politics got involved and empire and all this stuff got confused and one man writes about this because you know why they were you know why the early christians got along because they had no choice they were running for their lives in persecution they were being fed to the lions so some of these things we fight about now they were like what you think you got problems listen to what one historian writes he says having no more heathens to fight they began fighting each other they became dogmatists fundamentalists and they lost the knowledge of god of righteousness and love and peace that divine logos and theology as a whole receded farther and farther aloft into abysmal heights as it became a mere dreary system of dead scientific terms having no practical bearing on their hearts and lives basically the relationship got taken out of it it became about facts it became about who's right whose theology was correct and he just said y'all a bunch of children fighting jesus wants us to be friends when friendship leaves the body of christ is when division happens is there a good reverence and awe for god absolutely but there's an unhealthy fear of god too and friendship has power friendship has unity friendship is growth so where am i at with all this am i afraid of god anymore no i'm not i am never afraid of my father do i revere him am i in awe of him more and more every day i'm finding myself just thinking random things are beautiful now that i never did before i literally cried over a flower the other day i'm like what is happening to me i used to run these things over with my trike any sunset catches my eye now and i don't know about you have you ever had this moment where you feel incredibly small it's like the universe goes and you just feel small that happens to me more and more and more but it's different because the fear has gone this new reverence has taken over and you know why now i praise him now i talk about him because i'm proud of him i'm proud of my dad what better moment is it when a kid says they're proud of their father i caught easton i got eastern a few weeks ago he was talking to one of his buddies and he's like my dad can bench 550 pounds and i was like yeah i didn't even correct him i'm like truth upon truth he was like proud of me man now i can't match 550 pounds but i didn't correct him because i still want him to think i'm boss and i'm strong and don't mess with that right but he'll know eventually that i won't the other thing i saw i heard him talking to someone else it was so great our dear friends the vreelands uh there's he's an officer here in town and they were both marines we just love them so much and uh i was i was going through some stuff and i just needed a break and he and they invited me to their house and i stayed the night of their house and uh they kind of live i'm not going to tell you where they'll shoot you don't go near their property but it's somewhere it's somewhere out there amazing place just an amazing place look over this valley and it just it was really just great and we shot guns together we shot guns just a little stress reliever and uh i was remember telling my wife this i didn't even know he was really listening but when i got back and i was like yeah i hit the target more than mr vreeland and he was a marine and you know who hid it more was his wife she beat both of us and easton heard that and i heard him talking to his buddy he's like yeah my dad outshot a marine but mrs vreeland outshot my dad he was just so proud right like he was just so proud and i think that's the way we need to shift from immaturity of being afraid of god and being like oh take my worship to just i'm proud of dad i love dad i'm in awe of dad am i afraid if i mess up that he's gonna burn me no no i'm afraid i'm going to burn myself that i'm going to burn myself and that's when you look at the word wrath it's orgay and when you read wrath in the bible it just seems it's so but when you read romans 1 wrath of god is him turning you over to what you want even hurtful things but that word or gay means passionate expression of one's desire as reaching out to grasp something so even god's wrath is his love reaching out to grasp us just like any good father does here's the beauty of moving on to this kind of relationship when you're not afraid of dad anymore it's easier to introduce people to him the cosmic bait and switch man your father loves you but don't mess with dad the bible says it's the kindness of god that leads men to repentance and for years i felt like i was baiting switching people like yeah but there's a burn barrel out back and when i know my father it's just so much easier to introduce people to him just say he's good he's got you and you're his kid what a better is there better good news than that we're supposed to announce the good news what better good news is that band you can come on up i think one of the parts of the old testament too because they had this this fear and my friend paul always says the holy spirit poked its head out all the time in the old testament but because they had this fear a lot of their worship it was almost like a karma it's like you did these sacrifices so you got blessed that's not a real friendship and relationship with the father and i think one thing sometimes and i think it's from a good heart when we want to honor our dad or honor god it's almost like we see him like up there being like we're in here being like i want my credit you better give me my glory and it's almost like dad's always like this and it hit me one time when i was i was teaching my son how to swing a baseball bat and you know you're kind of behind him and you're showing him and you're showing the step and how to move his weight and you're right there and during practice i'm just constantly like you know lining him up but he does have to go out and hit himself in the game he's the one who does it he's the one who does it and when he gets a good hit do i stand on the sidelines and be like you better give me credit for that boy or am i just so glad that he did it that's the father's heart now is it nice is it awesome when he's like that's my dad man that's my dad of course i love it i love it when big six seven 260 pound dudes get drafted to the nfl and they weep like babies and they're like thank you dad thanks mom thanks for all the money you spent in aau trips thanks for all the camps that we went to thank you for feeding me so i could get so big thank you and you just see the parents weeping that's how i view dad that's how i view my dad now i'm like you've given me gifts you've given me abilities i'm the one who has to do it but thanks for training me and when it goes well i'm like thank you dad and it's that's such a different relationship than being like okay i got to give him praise so he blesses me it's just like i just want to give you praise because you're my dad i believe that my daughter is the most perfect human on the planet i don't know she is so kind and so nice and i know that's not true but she is such a gem to me [Music] but i know she's gonna screw up someday i know she's gonna mess up i know she's gonna do wrong and she's gonna find herself in a really bad spot do i when she comes home am i going to rebuke her am i going to wag my finger at her or am i going to sit down and listen as a friend i'm always my kid's father but i'm gonna move to a deeper relationship and i'm gonna be my kids friends and if me who's evil i have evil in me can think that way how much more than a god who is love and some of you need to move on some of you need to move on from afraid of dad and it's time to move on to friends with dad so i wrote this out just something that jesus put on my heart jesus is one with the father he shows us who the father really is this same jesus came on a donkey not a stallion proving he wants peace and friendship not war and destruction just as the sacrifices in the old testament pointed to forgiveness the final lamb of god does the same jesus did not come to change father's mind about you but your mind about him with outstretched hands jesus on the cross wasn't just saying do you want to be my friend he was saying you are my friend now all we do is believe this good news and we extend our hands to him we are friends with god the cross proved it now let's be better friends to each other so in this moment this last song i just want some of you to pray and i just want you to say lord i want to feel your friendship i want to have a healthy reverence for you god but i don't want to be afraid of you anymore i don't want to be afraid of you because white father wants his kids to be afraid of them he's a good father today i want you to meet the good father your friend i love that hebrews verse at the end he goes it's finished it's done it's accomplished he sat down complete forgiveness of sins so move past that and move into deep intimate friendship with god and that's my prayer for you in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit amen

Channel: Zootown Church

Views: 38

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Id: 77YZUzEjxlo

Length: 47min 47sec (2867 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 21 2021