The Father Heart of God Series: Session 1 - Learning to Sit at the Father's Table

what comes into your mind when I say the word father and I'm inviting you to come with me on a journey and it's a journey of discovery discovery of the incredible love of Father God we all know that the scripture says that God is revealed in three persons the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit and it's God's intention that we would have personal relationship with each member of the Trinity and our of course I walk with God it starts at some point in our lives when God becomes more than a word to us and I'd like to share a little of my story with you tonight you know we all have a story because every one of us carries a history of God working with us of God doing things in us and you know we all respond in different ways but we all have a story one of the things I'm looking forward to in heaven is that we're going to hear everybody's story about the unique way that that Jesus invaded every human beings heart well I was raised actually grew up in Helena Montana I was raised in a very loving a very Wow it was just a very whole home and so I had I grew up with really very little pain I had kind of an Ozzie and Harriet remember the old TV special Ozzie and Harriet I had kind of a Ozzie and Harriet home life but I a father that was a great model for me I got a mom my stay-at-home mom that loved me and baked some of the best homemade bread and cookies in fact I cannot stand bakery cooking because my mom ruined me she just put the standard way way too high and so in our family one of the things that we did is we did attend church and I'm grateful that my parents did that but we attended up a mainline church that that at least to my my perception did not have a lot of life and that's I grew older and you know you hit the teenage years and you really start thinking for yourself you start kind of internalizing your own worldview well I just didn't see God in the picture in the and the people at least that I went to church with they were nice people but nobody really seemed to know God it was it which seemed to me to be something that they did on Sunday morning and then the rest of the time they acted like everyone else so by the time I cried waiting from high school I was I was really far from God I just I didn't even know that anybody did really know God personally and besides I really wasn't interested in knowing him there I had bigger and better things to pursue in life so I attended Montana State University came in to Montana State in 1969 as a freshman and of course you know I was up I was a freshman ready to take on the world ready to prove that I was a valuable person that I could kind of cut the merce mustard in terms of coming to college and and really my story of my four years of college is is the story of God breaking into my life now if you hadn't known me during those days I was I was the kind of person that if you were a Christian you would have said this you would have said I cannot picture dick short being a Christian I just cannot picture him being a Christian because I was kind of a loudmouth radical I love to debate and I love to kind of take a contrary and kind of view and so I'm I would sometimes debate what you know what little I knew about the Bible and I you know I like to shoot my mouth off so that's the kind of person that I was and you know there's people in your life that you think of them tonight and you think I can it's hard for me to picture this person becoming a Christian you know people like that don't you well I was one of those kinds of people but you know the Lord started sending people into my life people that had an authentic relationship with Jesus and it it started changing my life and I'm just going to tell one story man there's a whole secrets of things that God orchestrated in my life I'll just talk tell one of them this was the the October of my senior year of college and I was I was at a real low point in my life because I was really searching for truth and I was not finding any answers and I was frustrated with my college professors and the things that were being taught at the University they just did not intellectually satisfy my thirst for what was real and what was authentic and so this one morning and I didn't skip many classes because they they were so hard and I just did I just I'm not all that smart so I just had to make up for it by working hard so I didn't skip many classes but this one October morning I was in kind of a bit of depression and so I went into the Student Center and got a chocolate ice cream cone and I went outside in front of the mask the math physics building and so I started licking on my ice cream cone enjoying the you know the yellow leaves and the pristine blue sky and as I'm eating on my ice cream cone this young man came up to me and this this had never happened to me before no one had ever spoken to me directly about the gospel and still this young many kind of sidles up to me and he looks down at me like this and he said these words he said praise the Lord and and I have never heard I had never heard anybody say praise the Lord I guess in the church that I went to they they used other language but I thought that was odd well this young man he said can I can I sit down with you well you know I'm a cool senior so I said sure sit down so although I didn't offer him a lick of my ice cream cone he did he sat down and he pulled out this Bible that's about the size of my wallet see I thought all Bibles were big you know wait at least 25 pounds they had gold pages and in big black black letters it said Holy Bible you know those kind of Bibles that's what I all thought I thought all Bibles were like that I didn't know they made little Bibles like this so this young man pulls out this Bible and he starts reading scripture to me this is weird and any read from these very strange sounding books books like Ephesians I don't think I've ever heard of Ephesians so you read a little bit to me and then he then he read Thessalonians and I wasn't sure if you were supposed to eat those like academia nuts or what but like what but this guy is into it and he's so excited about what he's reading and so he was too gone on for about 15 minutes reading scripture and and he kept telling me you need to get saved I had no idea what that meant and so after about 15 minutes of this he suddenly got up and he said praise the Lord and he walked away and I never saw that man again that was a one-time event but you know that was a divine appointment and although I'm sure that young man walked away thinking boy Lord that guy that I just talked to he is lost and you know I was lost so as this young man is talking to me this laser beam of light enters my heart and it was a ray of hope that Jesus was really what I had been searching for because see the mainline church that I grew up in kind of clothed Jesus in a wrapper that I couldn't appreciate it was a wrapper that I couldn't relate with and so as a teenager I kind of just threw the baby out with the bathwater and I just thought wow religion is boring and irrelevant well Jesus sent that young man there that day to me and and what penetrated my heart was this this this this this thought that maybe Jesus was what I had been searching for and so that that started my search and it my search actually culminated six months later at at a where I had a profound divine encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ and it happened at a rock and roll concert of all places the college ministry that I later came to pastor they sponsored a concert by a band a man named Barry McGuire now Barry McGuire was a famous guy when I was just a teenager he was uh he was really the first rock and roll singer to get banned from the radio can you imagine anything getting banned from the radio well in 1965 Barry McGuire sang this song called Eva destruction and apparently the FCC thought it was some kind of communist radical song and so they issued this edict they said you can't play this song it's bad for our kids and so of course we went out and bought all the records you know this is pre CD days you know as the old platters that you could use as frisbees you know we went out and all bought the record because we we wanted to hear what this forbidden music was so Barry McGuire's he had a special place in my heart I appreciated his music I could really relate with what he stood for okay now fast-forward seven years I'm on campus and suddenly I see these posters on campus and it's Barry McGuire in concert and I'm thinking well I'm not going to miss this and so I ended up because I did some work with the campus entertainment committee that brought rock and roll acts to the campus I was involved in that and so because of that I had some connections so I ended up being the sound man for the concert and I got to get in free and you know kind of working all the angles and the neat thing when you do sound is you get to meet the performers and it was kind of cool meeting different famous people at least they were famous in the 70s and I remember with all the people that I met in the 70s I was really disillusioned by the kind of people they were you know I relate I really thought the Beatles were right you know all you need is love but then they broke up so apparently they didn't have what it takes and I just saw a lot of corruption Alice a lotta greed and my idealism was was was very quickly vanishing but you know I when I was introduced to Barry McGuire he shook my hand and in and and for about three or four minutes he asked me questions and I felt that he was interested in me as a person he wasn't just this famous rock star which he was but for those few minutes he asked me questions says what's your name while my name is dick he says dick what are you doing I says well I'm graduating and engineering in in about two months is what are you going to do with your life this is I don't have a clue and and there was such kindness in in his countenance and and I can't tell you what an impression that made upon me so we got the sound check and everything was all ready and at seven o'clock he came to the microphone and in his gravelly voice spring breaking foot stomping style he began to sing and this is the first song he's saying he's sang a song that went I don't know what you're here to do but I'm here to praise the Lord and I thought no what album is that on because I had all of Barry's records I never heard that album before well see without me knowing it in 1970 Barry had become a Christian he had given his life over to Jesus and now instead of singing about the Eeva destruction he's singing about the Lord Jesus Christ and so for two hours Barry in his world-class professional way he's a world-class performer but he sang these incredible songs he told stories and woven into all of it was how Jesus had changed his life and as I was sitting in the audience sitting you know doing dollars that was the sound mint but I was as I was there at the concert something happened and that and that's that I met Jesus and this Jesus the I heard about in church and and I you know I thought the Bible was a good book and I'm you know I got Jesus is cool you know but I didn't know him but at that concert I had a revelation of Jesus and it was it was so real you guys it was almost like a 3d color vision I mean is that's how real it was and all of a sudden I'm standing there and Jesus is there and in my mind's eye Jesus looked at me and he he pointed at me and he just said dick pointing at me is a dick follow me and and I and I said yes sir and all of the futility and emptiness that I had experienced in college in in my search for truth all of that vanished in that very moment and I think I was filled with the Holy Spirit I had such a power encounter with God but I didn't know about this stuff but I was changed and the sound table where I was running sound was actually just stage left and when Barry finished the concert and he walked down the stairs he walked up to the sound table and you know he did he gave me a hug and in those days I was not into hugging guys at all you know girls okay guys no way you know and he gave me this bear hug and and you know I met the father's love in that moment there was there was a spiritual impartation and so the first the journey and and the relationship with God starts with Jesus doesn't it and so at some point and some of us come as a process you know some of us come cataclysmic me like I did but it's just important that we come to a personal relationship with Jesus well once we meet Jesus there's more the second member of the Trinity that I met was the Holy Spirit now what when I met Jesus not only did I meet the Savior but you know I met this incredible group of students on campus that were passionately in love with Jesus they were not at all like the religious people that I'd grown up with I mean these people they loved Jesus and they weren't afraid to tell people about it on campus and it seemed like they were always getting in trouble with the school newspaper because they were pre Ching and they were doing this and doing that and people they would they were causing a lot of controversy and so these people immediately welcomed me into their family and so they started inviting me to meetings and I remember this one whole meeting that took place on Friday night and they started taking me and and a group of about 40 students would pack into this living room and there we would start singing and we start worshiping and the presence of the Lord would come and you know what I do I would start crying so I can cried in years and you know what the Holy Spirit was doing the Holy Spirit was was releasing years of pain that I had pressed down into my life see you know that kids don't know how to deal with pain their kids are survivors aren't they and what do kids do they just stuff it all they don't stuff it down and many times as adults we do the same thing we just we just stuff our pain and so as a result we're just walking time bombs you know our pressure cookers ready for the thing to pop and what would happen is I would get into the presence of the Lord and this flood of tears would come and it wasn't that I was sad I mean I was filled with this incredible joy but it's like Jesus was just kind of like a pop up you know is just pushing pain out and I remember I was mortified I was so embarrassed because I thought what are all these people gonna think you know they're gonna look over and say get it under control emotional idiot but you know none of them ever did that they would look over at me with such compassion and sometimes they'd say just come over by me and they pray for me lay a hand on my shoulder and when they look at me they didn't communicate you know quit crying in this service you idiot but but they looked at me like you know we've been there too it's okay just let Jesus do what he was doing and so I that was a tremendous time of emotional healing for me well one of the things that I noticed about this group of people is that as they'd worship that they would speak in other languages and I thought well you know Bozeman is an academic town you know and we have College people here and I this is what I really thought was going on I really thought that people were speaking in German French Spanish in a town you know Baz Luhrmann's academia that's what it must be and but you know how it is when you're the new kid in the group you hate to be the dumb one you know what's going on you know don't you uh you know I don't like to be the dumb one so I didn't ask many questions but I would be curious because I hear these people would speak in these languages and I was just it didn't weird me out but I was just curious about it so finally I got the courage up to ask one of my friends and I said I said what is going on said why are these people speaking in these other languages and he told me he says well dick he said that's called the baptism and the Holy Spirit why I never heard that phrase I knew baptism as an infant I knew about that but I didn't ever hear the term baptism in the Holy Spirit and so he saw this puzzled look on my face and he said well well dick it's in the book of Acts and I said is that in the Bible I mean I was such a Bible illiterate he said yeah dick you know it's in it's the though that the fifth book of the New Testament you know where the New Testament yeah I think so I got a good news for modern man book okay that's it all right go to the book of Acts so he explained to me said dick this is a biblical experience and he said these people did not go to class to learn languages and I said you're kidding he said and he said no he said the Holy Spirit gave them a language I thought boy they're never taught this in my church that men this is the most incredible thing I've ever earned so I said why said well how much the cost to take this class oh it doesn't cost anything it's a free gift from Jesus well I thought whoa this is good so my friend said dick I want you to go home and I want you to study the book of Acts for yourself so I did that and so for two weeks I read the book of Acts again and again and again and you know all good all good college students have yellow highlighters right and so you always yellow highlight the important things and my friend said this he said as you're reading the book of Acts Dyck underlined when yellow every place where the Holy Spirit and the work of the Holy Spirit is mentioned so I did that and after two weeks guess what I had a yellow book of Acts because the whole book is about the Holy Spirit and see faith comes by hearing hearing by the Word of God and I became convinced that the baptism in the Holy Spirit and the gift of speaking in tongues was biblical the Apostles had it and better yet I realized I could have it too so I went to another one of those Friday night meetings and I went with great faith and so but they started singing the first song we were worshipping and I prayed a prayer except I prayed it silently so nobody in that room heard the prayer and I said Jesus just like it says in the book I want to be baptized in the Holy Spirit and no more had I prayed that prayer silently than the young man leading the meeting he put his guitar down and he came over to me and he laid his hands on me and he said these words Lord dick wants to be baptized in the Holy Spirit I thought who told him I mean you guys it was such a god moment it was supernatural because the Holy Spirit was telling him go pray for dick right now and and so he prayed for me for a little while and I didn't speak in tongues right at that moment but later on in the meeting we were we put someone in the middle for you know you know what hot seat prayer is you know where you put someone in the middle of everybody prays ok we were praying for this young man and so the leader said now I want all of you to pray hard we want to see this man set free so I'm praying I mean her seating and suddenly I'm not speaking in English and I'm not speaking in the little teeny bit of Spanish that I knew but I was speaking in the language of the Spirit and it was so amazing to me because as I spoke it wasn't just baby noises it wasn't just kind of a baby but you know some funny little noises but I mean this was a this head head was a language with syllables with articulation and I remember I would say a sentence and then I did a kind of snicker because it's like I can't believe I'm doing this how can my tongue even say that and then I then I'd say a few more words and I can't believe this is so out of my paradigm you know and it was a confirmation to me that this truly is a god thing because I knew I couldn't make up a language that way I am just not smart enough and I was I was speaking this incredibly beautiful language so though that was assigned to me like whoa this really is a god thing now the second thing that happened was that as soon as I receive my prayer language and was baptized in the Holy Spirit I had the revelation that there was a spirit world see I grew up in the 50s and the 60s very scientifically minded and all of my experience taught told me that there was nothing supernatural and I didn't believe in the supernatural realm I thought the science and technology could explain everything that's what I was pretty much taught in school and so I didn't even think there was a supernatural if you would have told me dick there's a house over there and it's haunted I would have said yeah right and if we do enough scientific inquiry I can tell you why you think the house is haunted that was my worldview but the moment when I was baptized in the Holy Spirit it's like God opened my eyes and all of a sudden I go whoa there is a whole world here I'd been on the planet for 22 years and I was totally oblivious to it see the baptism in the Holy Spirit and our relationship with the Holy Spirit enables us to discern things in the spirit realm Christianity is a spirit realm religion and we as disciples are anointed to walk in the power of the Holy Spirit and so when we when we become intimately acquainted with the Holy Spirit then Jesus begins to use us personally with acts of power and and he he wants to use you to display his power to a disbelieving world the third member of the Trinity is the father and that's what we're going to talk about during our time this weekend John chapter one verses one through five you know as I began to read the Gospels for the first time and you guys it was so amazing to me to read the Bible for the first time because I really was a Bible illiterate but to read the scripture and have the words of Jesus speak to me so deeply and it was such an amazing experience I fell in love with the scripture and the first for the first year of my Christian life I could not put the Bible down I didn't want to read anything else I was consumed because I was to know what the Word of God says and I made this observation I realized that you know John is different than Matthew Mark and Luke and you've made that observation haven't you John is unique because in the Gospel of John we see the intimate relationship that Jesus has with the Father so let's look at John chapter 1 verses 1 through 5 Jesus says in the beginning was the word and the Word was with God and the Word was God he was with God in the beginning through him all things were made without him nothing was made that has been made in him was life and that life was the light of men say the word life see Christianity you guys we have a corner on the market there's a lot of religion in the world you see Buddhist flags even around Bozeman there's a lot of a there's a llama 'kz tuff there's all kinds of animistic religions there's all kinds of that but you know Christianity is the only source of life because Jesus alone is life religion has no light verse 5 says the light shines in the darkness but the darkness has not understood it drop down to verse 9 the true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world so yeah that's what happened to me the light of the gospel invaded my life and it exposed my darkness and it irreversibly changed my life we have some graduates that are missionaries in Albania and Albania for about 30 years was was under a tight-fisted dictator that proclaimed Albania as the first atheistic nation on the planet and it was they persecuted Christians they literally rolled priests in barrels into the sea they publicly executed you if you had a Bible and it was 30 years of brutality and so all Christianity was was forced way way underground well after 30 years as God began to work and as the iron curtain came down in 1989 as God began to work in Eastern Europe suddenly Albania opened up to the gospel and they had had the gospel for 30 years and Albania experienced a tremendous revival and one of our graduates there was was really strategically used in that revival and I got to go to Albania in 1993 and to teach on the father heart of God and as I met these wonderful Albanian believers that had just recently come to the Lord as they described their conversion experience its we would normally say well I met Jesus or I got saved here's what they would say they would say when the light came to me I loved it and that's what John is saying here see the light the the light that gives light to every man is coming into the world verse 10 he was in the world and although the world was made through him the world did not recognize him there's some pain in that verse isn't there verse 11 and he came to that which was his own but his own did not receive him so even the Jewish people the very sons of Abraham they didn't recognize Jesus but look at verse 12 now this is a verse you should highlight in your Bible because this represents the greatest offer that's ever been made to a human being and it says this yet to all who received him to those who believed in his name he gave the right to become children of God you see we've been given a right to become something and say father has destiny for every person every one of us made in His image God has a destiny and and by being born again we're divinely grafted into his family and we start this process of discovering what what did God design us for what did he destined me for and that's the hope the whole principle of growing in Christ is we begin to discover our destiny verse 13 says children not born of natural descent nor of human decision or a husband's will but of God see this divine action births us into this new family this place of sonship and the journey that we're on is a journey of discovering the father's unique individual destiny that he has for every one of us see in order for us to discover this we must understand what it means to be the father's son to be the father's daughter and we begin to experience Kingdom partnership where he's the senior partner we're the junior partner and we begin to navigate and understand the father's purpose fort through us throughout life look at verse 14 so the word became human and lived here on earth among us he was full of unfailing love and faithfulness we have seen his glory the glory of the one and only son of the father see God's purpose in sending Jesus was that the Eternal Word became a living person and the kingdom of God walked around on Monday morning on planet Earth and see the father said I want my glory to reveal be revealed on planet Earth and and the father initially did that through his son the Lord Jesus Christ but you guys it doesn't end there our calling as sons and daughters our job assignment is the same is that you know we are God's neon sign and wherever we are we are to emanate the love the character and the integrity of the Father and that's what we're called to grow in so that wherever we are we are his representative and he is using us just like that young man that came to me and that was a divine appointment wasn't it see he was led by the Holy Spirit that was a strategic part of God's work in my life and although he doesn't know have a clue to this day that that act of obedience brought obedience or brought fruit in my life I know it and some day in heaven I'm going to give him a big hug and say brother thank you for coming and sharing the gospel with me it worked and we're both going to rejoice together I have a friend Todd Ho brick and Todd worked with me on staff for about five years and this one time he was asked to be a part of a spiritual discussion group on campus and so Todd was asked to represent the Christian viewpoint and so he worked with five or six other people and they did this public forum and Tod represented the Christian view very well well through this interaction one of the panelists was was a man named Joe and so you know how you know how many know God puts us together with people see God strategically works behind the scenes and it's not my chance you're with the people that you're with God has placed you there because you're you're his neon sign you're there to demonstrate and to show the reality of the Father's love and so Tod through this acquaintance um you know just met this man and you know he just kind of tucked him in his heart and prayed for him well a couple of weeks later he was in the video Rodeo store and he was there to rent a video for his children so while he's in the store you know looking for an appropriate video for his children Joe comes into the store except Joe has this white patch over his eye you know one of these medical patches and Todd knew right away like oh you know that's not it's not good so Todd went up and says Joe how you doing it Joe says I'm not doing good at all he says this eyepatch he says the doctor says I've got this eye infection and they don't know what it is and I'm concerned that I might lose my sight and so as as Todd is standing there he hears the Holy Spirit speak quietly to him and the Holy Spirit says Todd yes Lord I want you to pray for the man right here in the video library yes right here and and you know what Todd did he waffled he didn't do it he mumbled some words to Joe and said well Joe I'll be praying for you and so he went and his wife Kathleen was in another part of the video store and but he still felt the finger of the Lord was on him he just couldn't get away from this the Lord is saying go pray for him go pray for him so he tells his wife Kathleen says Kathleen I'm just God I just feel the Lord's telling me to go pray for my friend Joe Joe man and so Kathleen being a good wife she puts a an elbow in his gut and says well dummy go pray go obey that's what you tell us to do so she gave him a little boot in the pants you know it so Todd went and found Joe and the other part of the a star and and when he came up to Joe and said Joe can I pray for you Joe kind of gave the deer-in-the-headlight oh no are you gonna embarrass him he kind of starts backing away and Todd sensing his discomfort he said Joe nobody nobody'll even know I'm not here to embarrass you can I pray for you and Joe kind of wet yeah okay make it quick and so Todd just laid his hand on his shoulder and said Jesus will you heal his eye amen that was all the prayer so Todd got his video and went home well a couple weeks later he's at the Safeway store and he's just ready to check out with his groceries and suddenly he hears this commotion from the other side of the store and a man is is yelling and he's saying there's the healer there's the healer there's the man that healed me in Todd sleeking where's the healer what's going on here and it was Joe man and Joe came up and God healed his eye it was a supernatural manifestation of the power of God and you know what that opened Joe's heart to the gospel right and Joe ended up giving his life to the Lord and the following year Todd performed his wedding ceremony you see that's what it's all about carrying the love of the Father and being available do you know that people watch you there's people in your world that watch you because they're searching for something everybody's searching for something at some level and you don't know it but there's people that are watching it and your life see is being a witness even if you don't realize it I a friend of mine sent me a card and it said this the word did not become a philosophy a theory or a concept to be discussed debated or pondered but the word became a person to be passionately followed and joyed and loved I love that you know ultimately Christianity is not a religion but it's a person to be passionately followed author Robert Frost says this about sonship he says one mark of the spirit-filled Christian is his desire to relate his life to the purpose of his Heavenly Father for this hour in history there is an awareness of divine destiny which constrains us to be about our father's business see what happens as we begin to know the father's love as I begin to catch a glimpse of the incredible love that he has for every human being what what happens then is I realize that the father has a job assignment for me see the father has business for me to accomplish and your business is different than my business our job assignment is uniquely tailored it's designed out of who he's designed us to be and you see there are certain people that I could never reach with the gospel but you can and there's other people that you could never reach but I can and the Holy Spirit works behind the scenes as the as the strategic planner and he puts like Todd in the videostar on that particular day because Jesus said I want to do a healing because I want this young man named Joe to come to me and Todd was simply the vessel he's a son that's walking in obedience to the Father now Psalms 23 is David's probably most famous Psalm and I want to draw one verse from Psalms 23 it Psalms 23 and verse 5 and this is where David said this you prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies you anoint my head with oil my cup overflows now I believe this is more than David just waxing poetic but I believe David see David cultivated an intimate relationship with the Lord he spent time with God he prayed he meditated on the Old Testament scripture and through that process God began to speak to him and that's why I love the Psalms because the Psalms really are David's memoirs aren't they and they're their reflections that God began to teach him truths about his eternal nature and and one one day God gave David this this unique revelation and he said now David I've got a table for you a table yeah and it's in the presence of your enemies but table is for you and it could would you have faith to believe that there's a table that's set for you see there's a the father has a unique table that is set for you in fact say this after me you prepare a table before me see there's a table and my friends on that table it contains everything that you need to fulfill your destiny and be the person that God has called you to be there's provision for loneliness you know one of the issues that human beings face is loneliness how many of you know you can be married and be lonely it's true how many of you know getting married doesn't necessarily cure loneliness marriage provides companionship it's a wonderful relationship but see there's a core inside of us there's a place that that's called the the God shaped void blase Pascal coined that phrase in the 1700s there's a God shaped void in us that that nothing else can fill and when our souls don't rest see until we find fellowship with the Living God and see there is provision for our loneliness needs at the father's table about anxieties man we all face anxieties Zoe probably one of the most important decisions we face in life is marriage you know and we you know when we're single we want to marry the right person right then it's good to marry the right person don't marry outside the will of God it's dangerous it's destructive and then when you're married there's provision to learn to be married successfully you know the father wants you to have a healthy home it's not gonna be perfect but it'll be healthy and you can have healthy children and you can have a gratifying sense of fellowship within your marriage see the provision for that is on the father's table how about aging you know you know what many of us have parents that are aging right and maybe are nearing the end of their journey there's grace for that and they'll be Grace when I get to that age I remember my dad my dad is really my hero in life because I couldn't asked for a more perfect father my dad was that perfect blend of love and justice truth and righteousness and I have always deeply admired my dad and you know when I became a believer it was so easy for me to understand the father's love because I had such an outstanding father it's just I'm eternally grateful to my dad well my dad in is it is later years he contracted Alzheimer's and and you know to show how much the father cares for us I had had a dream for a long time and my dad and I had talked about this we had talked about going to the Grand Canyon you know and so we had said well maybe next year and maybe next year well the years started ticking by in one morning while I was just having my prayer time with the Lord the Holy Spirit spoke to me and all these spirits said Jackie ha Lord said remember that trip to the Grand Canyon I said yeah I remember and the Lord said you better do it before your dad gets too old not that you know that's right so that morning I called my dad and I said dad you know remember we've been talking about going to the Grand Canyon he said yeah I said let's do it next September my dad kind well I'm two business know dad we've been really thinking about this a long time and said you know what he agreed to it and so I got to take my nine-year-old son David was nine years old the time and we got to spend a whole week with Grandpa just me and my dad and my son and we got to fly through the Grand Canyon we toured southern Utah and it was it's a precious memory that I have of my dad and it's a precious memory that my son has of his grandpa and it was right after that that my dad's show started showing signs of this ugly disease called Alzheimer's and I watched my dad just in a few brief years ceased to be the man that I'd known and admired all of my life November one weekend when I went and visited him and I tried to get up and visit him as often as I could I remember walking into into into the house my dad was sitting there and I walked up and said hi dad how you doing and with a blank look on his face he looked at me and he said now who are you and I realized he my dad my dad was losing touch with reality and I found grace at the father's table see I found provision and I was able to spend a lot of time with my dad his last year if I gave every Friday I drove up a hundred miles to Helena and I got to be with him and I treasure those moments and see I found grace at the father's table and when my dad died it was really the ultimate victory because my dad is born again and my dad knows Jesus and and now he's up in heaven and you know what there's no Alzheimer's up there and there's no aging there's no disabilities and he's probably in charge of some work project and up in heaven he's probably in the balcony you know cheering them cheering me on see I found grace for that at the father's table about raising children when you're a parent takes a lot of grace to raise kids doesn't it is there a career see what about the uncertain economy that we have about enduring a job that's boring and hard about my your marriage will you know will my marriage last there's a lot of brokenness in the world today and a lot of us have seen failures the failures of our parents in their marriage and we wonder what's going to happen to my life there's addictions all kinds of addictions things that are very difficult for us to control to overcome but they come they'll be overcome as we learn to sit at the father's table and then there's your your minister you're calling see there's this call and into whatever God has placed in your heart he provides supernaturally for you to attain to that I want you to give up your small ambitions do you know the best that you can think of is small peanuts compared to what God has for you I mean God's plans dwarfed our little peanut miniature plans the see I have to I have to clear the plate of my ambitions if I'm going to capture God's vision and see he has a vision for he wants you to he wants you to reach people he has people strategically that he wants you to reach sitting at the father's table gives us tremendous purpose and significance this uh there's a dear friend of mine her name is Agnes Heiser Agnes passed away a few years ago and Agnes was one of our great prayer supporters this woman knew how to pray she knew God and every fall she would invite the whole college fellowship out so 70 or 80 or 90 college students would all pile into their hay wagons and you know we go on a hayride you know what a hayride is you know stuff hey down each other's pants and down your neck you just get all full a hey we do that for a couple hours and then we'd come back to her house and she had this great big living room and her sons you know they pull the hay wagons and then we'd all get all the hay out of our shirts and stuff and then we'd go in and she would cook this all these homemade cinnamon rolls she raised 13 kids and she baked bread every day or you know a couple every couple of days a week you know 50 pounds of flour a week to feed that little tribe of 15 and so she'll she cook mounds of cinnamon rolls they had a dairy so we had real chaat chocolate and all the trimmings and so all the students we would fill our plates with all these goodies and we'd all pack into her living room and she would sit in her favorite little rocking chair at the corner of the room and Agnes would tell stories she would tell stories miraculous healings that she signed her family and the provision and the acts of God and for 90 minutes our students would just sit there with their mouths open as this as this precious elderly grandmother in the Lord inspired our faith and when just before Agnes died we had a missionary at our church and and after the service I was talking with Agnes and Agnes said these words to me she said dick I love missionary services and I said boy I do too and she said I don't think that there's a nation on the planet that I haven't either prayed for or given money to missionaries I thought what this woman understands the kingdom of God and then what she said next floored me because she said and dick I expect that when I get to heaven there's going to be people from all of those nations that are going to be there because I gave and I prayed I went hallelujah Agnes understood what destiny is all about see Agnes lived in gallant and gateway Montana and I don't think she got out of the state of Montana more than a couple of times in all of her seventy years of living but she had a worldwide ministry because she understood that the father's destiny for her was to pray and to give and believe God for great things Psalms 34 and verse 8 says o taste and see that the Lord is good I'd like you to close your eyes with me I want you to close your eyes and I want you to picture a table and on that table is everything that you need and it's not just physical food it is that but it's the financial provision you need it's the emotional provision that you need it's the grace that you need right now in your life for the difficulty that you're facing or the spiritual battle that you're in as you're praying for others to come to know the Lord and some of you here are praying for Nations there's some of you in this room that pray for the Islamic world regularly and you you for years you've prayed God move by your spirit among the Muslims and God has heard those prayers and see there's provision at the father's table for that and as you're sitting at the father's table I want you to see that you're sitting in a chair and your name is embossed on the headrest think of one of those beautiful beautiful velvet back Victorian chairs and see in the headrest your name is written because you belong at the father's table and you know and as you look across the table and it is if the as the father is standing on the other side of the table what is his expression is is he smiling or is he frowning perhaps he's angry or perhaps it's a blank expression you don't know what he's communicating it's kind of like a poker face you say our ability to receive is directly proportional to our perception of the father's love which determines our ability to sit at his table now I want you to give the Lord permission this weekend would you give him permission to put his finger on any wrong concepts that you have of him would you just say yes Lord I'm willing I am willing for you to go through my whole house closets drawers wherever you want to go Lord I am opening my house up to you because what Jesus wants to come he wants to come to those places where we've been disappointed he wants to come to those pockets of pain and hurt because he wants to reveal his love to you and he wants to remove all obstacles that keep you from having a vital vibrant intimate relationship with your heavenly Father father's the kindest person in the universe there's no one better than he is he's the wisest is the most loving he wants you to know him in a far far deeper way hallelujah so Lord we we just give you permission to do a thorough housecleaning of our hearts this weekend we give you permission to put your finger on any wrong concepts that we have of you we give you permission to touch pockets of pain and we basically are just are opening our hearts to you and to allow the wonderful surgical hand of the Lord Jesus Christ to come and cut away those places that are rotten that are painful that are bruised that are hard and replace it with a loving revelation of yourself so we ask you to do that and we believe that you will in the mighty name of Jesus amen amen

Channel: Chi Alpha

Views: 13,451

Rating: 4.7837839 out of 5

Keywords: Chi Alpha, Chi Alpha Campus Ministries, Chi Alpha Christian Fellowship, Campus Ministry, The Father Heart Of God

Id: I9UasATJgfo

Length: 48min 45sec (2925 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 23 2015