Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Good morning, Christ Church. It's good to be with you today.
[00:00:03] Yeah.
[00:00:05] All right.
[00:00:08] I am just always just thrilled and honored to be here. As Jake said, my name is Chet. If we haven't had a chance to meet, I would love to meet you and shake your hand and Happy Father's Day. Give a shout out to the dads.
[00:00:27] My dad's back there. Happy Father's Day.
[00:00:30] Honored to have a good dad.
[00:00:34] And as Jake said, we. We did break ground at West Campus, and I know many of you been asking and praying. Do we have a picture of it?
[00:00:42] Yeah, there's a little picture.
[00:00:48] That's what hopefully you'll see in about a year.
[00:00:51] Got a couple more in there.
[00:00:53] Yeah.
[00:00:55] But it's such a special moment for West Campus. But I just want to thank you, Church, because we could not do this or be there without you.
[00:01:04] West Campus started from this very room.
[00:01:08] So it's your faith, it's your sacrifice, it's your love for God that has allowed us to live out this great adventure. So thank you, Church. You are. You are awesome.
[00:01:22] And I want to show you a picture of my family, if that's okay.
[00:01:27] Yeah. There they are.
[00:01:32] I'm the guy in the middle, just to not confuse anybody. But that's Allie, my wife.
[00:01:40] And Emory is my oldest. She's 7. Abby is 5, and Teddy is 2.
[00:01:47] So those are my kiddos. And I'm gonna share some stories with you today about them.
[00:01:53] But today I want to just talk about. As we're at Father's Day, I want to talk about how great of a father God is.
[00:02:00] And I want to. I want to just sit in that today, and I want to celebrate it. I want to remember it. Maybe if we've forgotten it a little bit, I want to help us to. To see it maybe more clear than we ever have. So just before we do that, would you pray with me, Father? I thank you, Lord, that you are the great Father from whom every other father gets their name.
[00:02:25] I thank you, Lord, that you are good, that you are generous, that you are wise, that you are powerful.
[00:02:34] That, Lord, you care about the big things in our life and even things we would think you don't care about. You care.
[00:02:42] And, Father, you are unbelievably, indescribably trustworthy. And so I pray today, Lord, that our hearts could see the heavenly Father that we have and could worship you and could trust you in a deeper way.
[00:03:02] Bless us, Lord, this Father's Day, with that great gift. And I ask this in Jesus good name, Amen.
[00:03:10] Well, my daughter Abby, that you saw a picture of, she's just turned five this May. And Abby's just a really fun kid. She's got tons of energy, which most of the time is fun. Gets a little annoying late at night, but she's just full of life. She's always got some crazy idea she's trying to do.
[00:03:32] And for her birthday, typically, what we've done with our girl's birthday is we take them to Great Wolf Lodge. Anybody been to that place?
[00:03:41] And it's always a lot of fun. And my other daughter, her birthday's at the beginning of the year, in February, so we usually go there. February and then May, and it's good for the kids. Not so great for mom and dad.
[00:03:55] That place just knows how to bleed every dollar out of me. Amen. You know, they got the wands, the bubble machines, and they gotta. But worst of all is that my kids don't actually like the pool there. They like the arcade.
[00:04:11] And for about 20 bucks, you can play a game for, like, three seconds, and then you gotta renew. And so it ends up, you know, I pretty much have to give plasma to pay for that trip every year. And so this year, we're like, you know what, Abby? If you don't wanna go to Great Wolf Lodge, that's okay. In fact, there might be other great places. And we told her about this place. You. You might have heard of it. It's called Strongsville Rec Center.
[00:04:40] It has a pirate ship in it. And we really, you know, worked the pirate ship angle, and we were like, you know, that would. And Abby's like, oh, those sound so amazing. And she was like, I can't decide. And so for, like, weeks leading up to her birthday, she was. She couldn't decide. She couldn't figure out. And so we were trying to, you know, dad was for sure pulling for the pirate ship. I'm like, I don't know how much that costs, but I guarantee it's less than Great Wolf Lodge. And we were working it, and then finally one day, my wife brought a curveball into the equation. She said, you know, instead of Great Wolf Lodge, instead of the pirate ship, we'll give you a yes day.
[00:05:21] Yeah. I was like, that's a terrible idea.
[00:05:29] Married people. Do you ever sometimes look and you're like, is this the same person I married? What? How did. Where did we go? What happened here? No, we cannot do a yes day. That's gonna be even worse than Great Wolf Lodge.
[00:05:45] And I'm happy to report to you, church, that we Had a great day at the pirate ship in Strongsville Rock. Yeah, it all God is good. God is good.
[00:06:00] But you know, when you think about a yes day, I want you to hear today. Cause we're gonna look at a passage that Jesus teaches to us. And he's gonna say to us ultimately that God has given you and I not just a yes day, but a yes life.
[00:06:20] Now that's gonna sound hard to believe, and we're gonna have to unpack exactly what that means and what but today I want you to see that our Heavenly Father is so good that he looks at you and me with a heart that says, yes.
[00:06:40] He looks at us. He says, I don't want you to think that in this relationship you have to twist my arm. I don't want you to think in this relationship that I am stingy or going to hold back the best from you. But we are gonna see that Jesus is gonna show us that our Heavenly Father looks at us and says, I will give you a perpetual yes. Now let me show this to you. It's in Matthew, chapter seven.
[00:07:07] And we're gonna begin at verse seven. And here's what Jesus says. Now this is written in the most famous sermon of all time. It's called the Sermon on the Mountain. Jesus is in the middle of it, and here's what he says. Verse 7.
[00:07:23] Ask and it will be given to you.
[00:07:27] Seek and you will find.
[00:07:31] Knock and it will be open to you.
[00:07:35] For everyone who asks receives.
[00:07:39] And the one who seeks finds.
[00:07:42] And to the one who knocks, it will be opened. Do you hear the yes in that?
[00:07:48] Jesus is saying, ask, seek and knock, and God will answer.
[00:07:54] God will bring what is lost and make it found. And God will open doors. Verse 9. He says, or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone?
[00:08:07] Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent.
[00:08:12] If you, then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father, who is in heaven, give good gifts to those who ask him?
[00:08:27] Those are powerful words, Church. What is Jesus saying? He's saying, our Heavenly Father wants to give you a yes.
[00:08:36] He wants us to understand that at the heart of our relationship with him is a Father who gives good gifts, is a Father who needs only to be asked for those answers to come and those doors to be open and those things that feel lost to be found.
[00:08:59] Now, as we think about this, I think that Jesus is showing us several important things about life and about ourselves and about our God. And I Think that the first thing that, that he's showing us here that we can't miss is that in life we hit our limits pretty quick.
[00:09:18] In other words, if you think about this teaching, what Jesus is showing us is that you are gonna run into walls in life.
[00:09:27] You're gonna have things that you need answered.
[00:09:32] You're gonna have things that are lost, that need found that you can't figure out, that you don't know the way. And you're gonna need doors that you can't open that someone else has.
[00:09:45] And in this life, each one of us are going to experience things we can't figure out on our own. You ever been there? Church? I know this is such a godly group of people, you got it all squared away figured out. But if anyone is coming into this room and you feel the weight of life, you feel the frustration of life, you feel like you're hitting a brick wall in life, then Jesus is speaking to you and he's saying, yeah, that's what happens. There are real problems and real issues and we can't do it or figure it out on our own.
[00:10:25] And I believe that to be true. How about you?
[00:10:29] I also know that sometimes those issues aren't actually outside of me.
[00:10:34] Sometimes they're inside of me. And that's a problem too.
[00:10:39] I just recently was just kind of in like a little funk. You ever get in a funk and you're just like, and you know you're in it. And I was in this funk and it was kind of like a funk that was maybe marked by anger. Like just everything was irritating me.
[00:10:57] Everyone was irritating me and I knew it. And you know, when it's everybody that's the problem, you can always know that you're actually the problem. Amen. Cause it's like the law of probability says there's gotta at least be one in there. It can't be. But when you're at that point, you know, and I was sitting in this funk and I was like, yes, I know I'm irritable. I know I'm angry. I know I'm loathing in self pity, I know I'm the problem. But I still couldn't get out of it.
[00:11:27] I still just felt stuck.
[00:11:30] And what Jesus is showing us is that we should not be surprised that life is gonna throw all kinds of challenges our way that we can't figure out.
[00:11:43] We shouldn't be surprised that in each of our hearts there are gonna be questions that we don't have answers to, things we can't find on our own and doors we can't open.
[00:11:56] And believe it or not, the problem is not actually that there are problems.
[00:12:02] The problem is what we do when those moments come you with me.
[00:12:07] And Jesus says, there is, there is a path.
[00:12:12] And the path is this.
[00:12:14] Ask, seek and knock.
[00:12:18] Yes. You cannot do this life alone, and you're not meant to.
[00:12:26] You cannot figure it all out. You cannot be all things and you're not meant to.
[00:12:32] It's meant to be a life where we are deepening our relationship with our Heavenly Father and leaning on him in deeper and deeper ways. And so Jesus says, you're gonna hit these walls, but there is a path. Now the author James, who was the half brother of Jesus, he echoes this teaching of Jesus and he says these words in the book of James. He writes this. He says, you desire and do not have, so you murder. You murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask.
[00:13:12] He goes on, you ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions.
[00:13:19] Now these verses are showing us the two pitfalls that we can fall into as we try to understand this right? Jesus says, look, there's doors you need open. Here's the way you ask, you seek and you knock. And James says, listen, here's the first problem that you're going to encounter in this, is that you're not going to ask.
[00:13:46] You're gonna try and do it on your own. You're gonna try and figure it out.
[00:13:51] A couple years ago, I read this book called.
[00:13:55] It was by Jonathan Haidt. What's it called? The Anxious Generation. Yeah, slipped my mind.
[00:14:01] And it's a book all about the impact of social media on especially teenagers. And basically the book argues that no one's gonna be surprised by this, but it's not good for their mental health.
[00:14:15] Anyone shocked by that?
[00:14:17] And if we can realize it's not good for their mental health, it's not good for adults mental health either. Amen.
[00:14:27] And kind of one. And I was thinking about this, and I was thinking about this passage, and if you think about it today, so much of how we understand God in life and what to do, we're constantly being discipled by our screens and sometimes we don't even realize that we're constantly being discipled, for better or worse, by the algorithm that we're connected to.
[00:14:55] And I was just thinking about this and I've been off social media for a little bit. I still have my MySpace page, but the other ones I got, I'M just waiting for that return. It's coming.
[00:15:06] But I was thinking about. I was like, what, you know, what was the message that I would like sort of always be getting?
[00:15:14] And, you know, in my feed, I was like, you know, there's like, these savages that were diet, exercise, working out all the time. I had all these, like, home project ones. I had some, you know, faith and spiritual ones.
[00:15:29] And like, I was kind of thinking, like, what's the constant message of all this? And sort of when I was thinking about it, it was like, hey, you've gotta. You've gotta do all these. You gotta raise your own, you know, cows, slaughter them, make phenomenal meals for your family. You gotta work out and wake up at like 2am and run 10 miles. And then you gotta make sure to be have some time for God. And then you gotta plan these incredible experiences and vacations with your family. And then you gotta go in your backyard and you gotta do projects and make it look like Disney World. And you gotta do this all on a really tight budget. And the whole message is basically, you gotta be all things and do all things.
[00:16:14] And guess what, Church? We can't be all things and do all things.
[00:16:19] And I think that whether we realize it or not, we're constantly being sold that and what the Bible says is actually the way forward is to recognize our inner poverty and to recognize, no, I can't. I don't have all the answers. I can't be all the things.
[00:16:38] I need God's help every single day. And if you're like me, Church, if you're like me, it's so easy to just go about your life and to fall into the ditch that James is talking about and says you have not because you ask not.
[00:16:55] And that we go forward, but we forget to say, God, can you help me?
[00:17:02] God, can you lead me? God, can you show me? God, can you direct my path? Now, the second danger, James says, is we have not because we ask not. But he says, but sometimes we ask, but we're asking for things that aren't actually good for us.
[00:17:22] So when you read these words of Jesus, some of us might read these and might be like, you know what? I'm a little skeptical of these because I've asked for things from God and I didn't get them.
[00:17:34] Every Clevelander knows, knows this. We have asked God for a respectable football team.
[00:17:41] Amen.
[00:17:43] We meant for generations.
[00:17:48] That's just because the Lord has cursed us. No, I'm just kidding.
[00:17:51] Just kidding. Kind of. But we all know that this Tension. And this is where we have to wrestle with these verses a little bit.
[00:18:04] But notice that Jesus puts us all in the context of a good father and the child father relationship.
[00:18:14] And he says, yes, ask, seek and find. And then he says, a good father doesn't bait and switch their kids. A good father gives good gifts to their kid. Now here's what every father knows.
[00:18:27] Sometimes you have to override your kids desires with the wisdom they don't have. But you do you with me.
[00:18:37] And a good father knows that sometimes the yes now will ruin the yes that they actually want most.
[00:18:48] And they have to be wise and guide and direct.
[00:18:53] There has been a little duck family in our backyard.
[00:18:57] Like they're super cute and you know, little duck babies. Y' all hate ducks in here. No one's excited about that.
[00:19:06] They're really cute. If I had a picture, I'd show you. But they kind of walk through and we've been feeding them a little bit. Turns out ducks seem to really like apples.
[00:19:15] I've tried like a lot of different things, but anyway.
[00:19:19] And at first my daughter Abby, she's like, I want to capture these and bring them in the house.
[00:19:27] And I'm like, I know they're cute and I'm fond of them too, but absolutely not, you know, not what you think it's going to be. It's not going to work out.
[00:19:35] And then the other day she was at our neighbor's birthday party and they have this trampoline. And of course there were 85 kids on the trampoline.
[00:19:43] And the ducks started walking through their yard. And my daughter Abby got terrified of them all of a sudden and she ran under the trampoline to hide with the 85 kids.
[00:19:55] And I was like, abby, come out from there.
[00:19:58] And she didn't want to. She wanted to say. I'm like, no, listen, you don't need to worry about the ducks. They're not gonna hurt you. But that 12 year old's foot coming down, that will get. And I had to. I had to. You know, I didn't have time to explain it all, but I just had to call her out.
[00:20:18] Now here's what that means for you and me. Our Father is wise.
[00:20:23] And there are some things that we ask for and it makes sense to us and it feels safe and it feels right and it feels good.
[00:20:32] But we have to allow the reality that his fatherly wisdom can override it.
[00:20:40] And we have to trust his heart.
[00:20:43] When we can't discern his ways, we have to trust who Jesus says he Is and shows he is. When what we ask for and what we get isn't what we were hoping for. You with me on this.
[00:21:00] And James says, you have to recognize that. You have to see that that's part of the deal and we have to accept it. But here's the other thing. But Jesus says, ask, seek and knock.
[00:21:14] He says, be persistent, keep coming, keep going, that. God loves that. My kids ask me for stuff all the time. Church, they asked me questions, you know, why are the geese out there? What do you think their friends are wearing today?
[00:21:33] What are we gonna do today? Can I have a snack? No. Can I have one? I just told you, no. But can I still, though, can I have a different one? It's just. It's never ending. Any parents with me on this? You know what I'm talking about? And do you ever get to the point where you're like, you know what?
[00:21:52] Just do whatever you want. Just don't ask me another question. Anybody?
[00:21:59] Amen.
[00:22:05] Yeah, let's just sit in that for a minute here.
[00:22:10] Felt really good to say that.
[00:22:15] But here's what I love about Jesus. He says, you know what? Your father actually delights when you perpetually come to him.
[00:22:25] It doesn't annoy him.
[00:22:28] It's not off putting. He's actually inviting us to do that. Now what Jesus is showing us is that there's something that God loves about persistence, about just our willingness to just trust him and to keep coming and to take one baby step forward and at a time. God loves that.
[00:22:53] There's a great missionary named William Carey, and he said this. He said, if God's done anything in my life, he said, it's because I am a plodder. Plod. P, L, O D. Isn't that a great word? Plod. And here's what he means is he means that I just show up every day and I take one little step forward in the right direction.
[00:23:19] And in some ways I hear Jesus saying that. He says, keep asking, God. I've been praying for this thing for 10 years.
[00:23:27] Keep praying, God. I've been asking you this for my whole life.
[00:23:32] Keep asking, keep seeking, keep going to him. God delights in that. And I think that it grows our souls in ways that are so incredibly healthy.
[00:23:47] I love the idea of plotting. I think so many times we give God these big moments occasionally, but plotting is giving him small moments all the time.
[00:24:01] And I believe that we will see God work more powerfully through our lives through a long obedience in the same direction.
[00:24:13] Just one step at a time.
[00:24:16] I'M plotting my way through the Bible.
[00:24:20] Read a little bit every day.
[00:24:22] Heavens aren't always opened. Every day the Holy Spirit doesn't descend like a dove, I just plod my way. I read a little bit and a little bit and a little bit. And then over time, I realize God is shaping and changing me.
[00:24:38] Some days you come to church and your heart is full and you're like man. It's like the presence of God was right in front of me. And then maybe sometimes not so much, but you plod. You just keep coming and keep serving and keep seeking him and keep pursuing Him. And over time, don't underestimate how much God can change our lives through that.
[00:25:04] We want the big things, we want the moments, we want the mountaintop experiences.
[00:25:10] But it's often just going back to that same old road again and again and again that God works so powerfully. And Jesus is saying, pray and pray persistently. Keep asking, and you will begin to see the Father's heart. Now, I think if I was to just paint a bullseye on this passage, I think what Jesus is really trying to lead us to, because again, this is in the context of the Sermon on the Mount. And if you read all the things that Jesus has taught before this, he's taught about the dangers of hypocrisy, the dangers of a judgmental spirit, the dangers of just living our life filled with anxiety, the dangers of materialism, you know, always wanting more stuff and thinking that that's going to be the key to our lives. And he talks through all these things that I think, if we're honest, we can see sometimes at work in the human soul.
[00:26:13] And ultimately, what I think Jesus is showing us in this passage is that if we can learn to pray not just for the things that we want, but for the things that God wants for us, we will experience the beauty of His Father's heart.
[00:26:37] Here's what I mean. At the end of the day, what God wants more for you and me is a bigger soul, is a healthier soul, is one that is more richly connected to him.
[00:26:52] And so many times we're praying for all these other things and longing for all these other things. And there's a place for all of that. And God is insanely generous. But I think if we're gonna paint a bullseye on this passage, I think what Jesus is showing us is that ultimately when you seek and ask, you say, God, make me more who you want me to be, you will always get a yes to that.
[00:27:19] God, God, make my soul more loving.
[00:27:25] You will always get an answer to that. God, give me more self control. Anybody.
[00:27:31] You'll get a yes to that. God, give me more humility.
[00:27:35] Be careful, that's a dangerous one. But you'll get a yes.
[00:27:39] God, make me more gentle.
[00:27:42] You'll get a yes because when your soul and my soul is aligned with God's desires, something beautiful and transforming happens. So I wonder, and this is my challenge to you today, would you just pick one thing and ask God to make your soul bigger in this way?
[00:28:07] I love the great apostle Paul. He has this list in Galatians. It's called the fruits of the Spirit. And it's love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and self control. I think that's all of them. You can Google it if I miss one. But these are qualities of soul that God desires for each and every one of us. And I want to encourage you to pick one of those and to ask, to seek and knock. Say, God, work in my soul in this way and see what happens. I don't think you'll regret it. And lastly, Jesus says this. He says, listen, when you go to God and when you seek him, he will not bamboozle you.
[00:29:00] He will not bait and switch you. Which of his sons ask him for bread will give him a stone.
[00:29:10] Dad, I'm hungry. I want some breakfast.
[00:29:13] Okay, here's a bunch of rocks.
[00:29:17] Jesus says, look, you're a knucklehead sometimes and you won't even do that. You with me? He says, you think your heavenly Father, if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent?
[00:29:31] If you, then who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven, give good gifts to those who ask him? What is Jesus showing us? Number one Church. God is incredibly generous.
[00:29:48] He has a yes heart for you today.
[00:29:51] He is incredibly generous.
[00:29:54] And the more that we go to him, the more clear that will become. God will not bait and switch you. Here's what I find in my heart. If I'm honest, sometimes I have a little fear of that.
[00:30:07] Sometimes there's something wrong in me. That's like if I fully trust him, will. Will he lead me in the right way?
[00:30:19] Now, nothing in my experience would show me anything different than he absolutely will. But there is a brokenness in the human heart that sometimes, says man, if I trust God, will he bait and switch me? And Jesus says, no, no, no, he won't bait and switch you. He will give good gifts to you.
[00:30:43] And how many know that's true today?
[00:30:45] How Many have seen the generous heart of God in their lives.
[00:30:51] I know I have. And today I just want to remind you of that.
[00:30:54] Because how much different would our lives look if we believe this at a deeper way?
[00:31:01] How much quicker would we go to him?
[00:31:06] How much would we persist in those times when, man. When life is hard and it's not going well and we don't know what to do?
[00:31:15] How much more would we just drill down on prayer, not give up on it?
[00:31:20] How much more would we just keep seeking and say, no, I'm just going to keep asking. I'm going to do what Jesus said because his heart is so good Now, Jesus said God treats his kids this way.
[00:31:35] And here's what I love about this. He doesn't say he treats his good kids this way.
[00:31:43] Sometimes with my kids, I'll say, well, listen, you can have ice cream if you get your act together, if you quit complaining, if you eat your dinner, if you stop punching your sister.
[00:31:56] Amen. Then you can have this good gift. But here's what I love about God. He gives it to his children. How do you become God's child?
[00:32:08] You don't earn your way into it.
[00:32:10] The Gospel of John says that those who believe in Jesus Christ become children of God.
[00:32:19] It's a gift from him, it's a mercy from him.
[00:32:24] And it comes by realizing that God treats us this way.
[00:32:29] Because Jesus Christ, he got the stone, he got the scorpion, he got the cross.
[00:32:38] So you and I get the yes.
[00:32:41] So that we get the blessing, so that we get the goodness of God's heart.
[00:32:47] And today, I just want to end. And I just want to remind you about this story in Luke 15.
[00:32:53] And Jesus talks about two sons. So here he's talking about a father. But in Luke 15, he talks about two sons.
[00:33:00] And the one son is a younger son. And he has a father that's wealthy, and he demands his inheritance and he disrespects his father. And he's a terrible son. And he runs off and he does all these terrible things, waste it all. And then in a moment of just being at the end of his rope, he decides to come back home.
[00:33:25] And in Luke 15, the son's coming back home.
[00:33:30] And it says as he's approaching, the father sees him from a distance.
[00:33:37] And if you've never read that story before, you're like, this kid's gonna get it.
[00:33:43] And you're kind of a little bit glad about that because you're like, he deserves it.
[00:33:49] I mean, what a disrespectful son.
[00:33:54] But what we see in Luke 15 is that is not at all what happens.
[00:34:00] The Father runs to him and embraces him.
[00:34:06] The Father doesn't lecture him, he celebrates over him.
[00:34:11] The Father, Father doesn't shame him, he clothes him.
[00:34:17] The Father doesn't make some kind of restitution plan, he throws an extravagant dinner.
[00:34:25] And it's just unbelievable. Now what is Jesus telling us? Here's what he's telling us.
[00:34:30] God loves us even when we are lousy sons.
[00:34:35] And I find a lot of comfort in that.
[00:34:38] That these, these good gifts and this, yes, it's not for you when you get it right, it's for us all the time.
[00:34:50] Not to be abused, but to be understood.
[00:34:53] Because sometimes when you are at your worst moment and when you fail in the biggest way, you will see his heart shine with the brightest light.
[00:35:05] And maybe some of us today, I just want to remind you, he loves you.
[00:35:12] You can go to him. You don't have to run from him.
[00:35:16] That even when we are lousy sons, and we all are, at some point we can go to him and we can still find a yes, we can still find his help.
[00:35:29] We can still find his love.
[00:35:31] And in that same story, there's another son. He's the older one, and he sees all this happen and he gets real resentful about it all.
[00:35:40] And he throws a little temper tantrum and stomps his foot. And he has this whole attitude towards the Father, says, man, I don't like all this.
[00:35:51] And the Father looks to him and he says, listen, son, you've been with me the whole time. He didn't run off, he didn't waste all this. He's been working hard, he's been showing up, he's been grinding it out. He says, look, you've been with me the whole time. But he says, and all that is mine is yours.
[00:36:10] But today we had to celebrate. For your son was lost, your brother was lost, and now he's come home and the parable ends.
[00:36:19] But for some of us today, we've grown an attitude towards God.
[00:36:29] And for some of us today, maybe we've looked at what's happened or what hasn't happened, and there's been this unhealthy thing in our heart where we look to our Heavenly Father, we're like, you know what? I feel gypped.
[00:36:41] I feel like.
[00:36:43] Like you give good gifts to others.
[00:36:47] But I feel left out. I feel overlooked.
[00:36:51] I feel under blessed.
[00:36:55] And we need to take a moment today if that's in our heart and we need to repent.
[00:37:01] We need to say, lord, I am so sorry. You have been nothing but a generous and good father.
[00:37:10] You gave your only son to me. You gave a gift I could never ask for, I could never earn, I could never deserve, and you gave it freely to me. How could I ever pop an attitude with you?
[00:37:26] And some of us, we just need to remind our souls about this Father that Jesus is showing us.
[00:37:34] And we need to humble ourselves and say, lord, I celebrate you, I delight in you, I trust you and I honor you. Let's pray.
[00:37:44] Lord, I thank you that you are a good father in the most profound sense.
[00:37:53] I thank you for all the good fathers in this room. And I thank you that those qualities that exist in them come ultimately from you.
[00:38:03] And I pray we could hear Jesus words.
[00:38:07] I pray we could see the yes that you have for us.
[00:38:13] I pray where life is hard and we have questions, but we don't have answers, we feel lost, things in our life feel lost and doors feel shut.
[00:38:28] I pray, Lord, we could bring that all to you with confidence in your wisdom and your goodness and in your power.
[00:38:38] Father, where maybe today we've felt like we've been a lousy son and we've lost our way. Help us to come back home and help us just to be overwhelmed by your fatherly love. Help see Jesus Christ as the one who's opened the door for us.
[00:38:58] And Lord, where maybe an unhealthy attitude has grown in our heart, pray we'd confess that to you, you would forgive us, and you would shift it to what is true.
[00:39:12] Bless these good people, Lord. In Jesus name, amen.
