Andy Rodgers - What We Believe About God is the Most Important Thing About Us

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Almighty God, you welcome you. Hey there. [00:00:06] Speaker B: If you're new to Restored Church, we want to welcome you and thank you for tuning in. You're listening to a portion of our Sunday worship gathering. We believe the church is not an event, but a family you belong to, so we would love the opportunity to connect with you. If you want to learn more about our church or if we can help you in any way, please Visit our website, www.restoredtemecula.church and click on Contact. With all that said, we, we hope you enjoy the message. [00:00:34] Speaker A: If we haven't met yet, my name is Tom. I have the privilege of serving the church as the lead pastor, and I am just delighted for this morning. You'll see why in just a second. But if you're a guest, I want to welcome you. So glad that you're here with us today. Our prayer is that you would encounter God among us. That you would literally, like, experience his presence and his goodness and his faithfulness and his love in ways that actually affect your person. That you wouldn't just hear things about God, but that you would actually experience him in his presence amongst his people. That his grace would strengthen and refresh you this morning. And at the chance that there's anybody here you're not yet in Christ, My prayer is that you would encounter him in such a way that it transforms your life, that you literally hand over the leadership of your life to Jesus. Cause hear me, there's nobody like Jesus. There's nobody like Jesus. His love, his faithfulness, his grace, his mercy, his kindness, his power. Today's hopefully a masculine day. It's Father's Day, right? Like, dare I say, there's nobody more masculine than Jesus in, like, authentic heavenly power. Not worldly power, but a transcendent power. And so if you're not yet in Christ, my prayer is that you would encounter Jesus this morning, you would hand over the leadership of your life, and it would completely change and alter the trajectory of your eternity. One of the things that you'll hear me say often is there's a difference between being in Christ and being in church. And my prayer is that every single one of us would experience all the spiritual blessings, every spiritual blessing, like Paul says, of being in Christ, enjoying Him and obeying him, and operating like him in every single area of life. Really quickly, before I introduce Andy, I'm going to read a passage of scripture to you that is very important. Ephesians chapter 4 says this. Paul writes to the church in Ephesus. He says, now these are the gifts. Everybody say Gifts. How many of you like to get gifts? Anybody in the room? Raise your hand. Some of you don't like to get gifts. That's sad. I'm just gonna say it. That's really sad. Gifts are wonderful. Now, these are the gifts that Christ, that's Jesus, gave to the church. That's us. So Jesus has given gifts to the church, and he lists them. Here's what they are. The apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. So the gifts are people. All right? He gives gifts to the church that are people in those functions and in those forms and in those roles, their responsibilities. So those are gifts. The apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, the teachers. Their responsibility is to equip God's people to do his work and to build up the church. So get the picture here. God gives gifts that are people to the church, and the function of those gifts is to build up and to equip you and me. Get this. He says, this will continue until all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God's son. That's Jesus. That we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the fullness and complete standard of Christ. God's agenda in your life is to mature you, to make you more like Jesus, so that you would thrive in everything that you do and everything that you face. He continues, then we will no longer be immature like children. He wants to mature you, right? He's a good father. We won't be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth. You ever watch the news? Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way, more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church. He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. And listen to this. This is what he says. As each part of the body, that's you and me. As each part, each person does its own special work. It helps the other parts grow so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love. That's God's agenda among us. And one of the reasons why this morning is special is because we have a gift from God in the form of a man. His name is Andy Rogers. He's with us this morning. I believe he has an apostolic gift. I believe he has a shepherding, pastoring gift that God has given him. Not so that he can, you know, platform himself and make a big deal about himself, but so that he can serve and equip and help see the church matured and grow. And I've watched him, as a partner, as a brother, as a dear, close friend for 14 years now, operate in such a way that blesses the church. And so, without further ado, what you need to know about Andy is that he's the founding pastor of restored church. So the very first restored church in San Diego. Him and Jackie and their family, they courageously planted the first restored church and then have generously and. How do I say this? Sacrificially served and equipped and multiplied disciples. And now it's really beautiful. There's. Gosh, how many churches now? A lot. Several. It's really beautiful. We're part of a family of churches. And God decided to birth this family through this man and his wonderful wife Jackie. So without further ado, would you give him a big round of applause and show him some love? Andy Rogers, come over here. Love you. [00:06:05] Speaker B: Thanks, Tom. It's good to be here this morning. I'd love to pray real quick and we'll dive into our time of teaching. Father, thank you for this morning. Thank you for revealing yourself to us. It's the big thing I want to talk about this morning is who you really are. There are a lot of different ideas and beliefs about God in the world and in our homes, even in our own mind. And some of them are true and some of them aren't. But I thank you that you didn't leave us ignorant or estranged, that you move towards us and you reveal yourself to us in the person of Jesus and Holy Spirit. I pray, Lord, that you would help just reveal the nature and character of God to us in a fresh way. This morning, A.W. tozer said the most important thing about someone is what they believe about God or what they think of when they think of God. And I pray that you would change our God thoughts this morning to look more like the thoughts that Jesus had about you, Father. And we love you, Jesus. In your name we pray. Amen. All right, so this morning, my name's Andy. And getting ready for this morning's message, I was thinking, like, thinking about talking about God as father. And I was like, oh, it's too cliche, you know, too cliche. I'm cool, you know, so I never do that, you know, I would do. And then I was like, maybe I'll shock people. Do like Proverbs 31, like, you didn't see that coming. And then do Father's message on Mother's Day. But that just gets you in trouble. So instead of being a Weirdo. I felt like talking about the Father was important, but I felt like doing something a little bit even broader than that was what God wanted me to do this morning. And it's just talk about just the entire concept of what you believe about God, what you think about God at a broad level. And getting ready for this morning, I thought of a couple times where what I thought about someone led to just some funny interactions or stories I've heard. There was a man in our church named Steve who got himself into a pretty hilarious but also awkward situation because of who he thought he was texting. We're texting the wrong person. So Steve was about to return home from a big Navy deployment that had been extended twice, meaning he'd been gone almost a year, from his wife. He wanted to surprise his wife Heather when he got back. And she didn't know he was being sent back a few weeks earlier than he originally had been told. And so Steve was happy when he got a text from a member of their gc, Right. Their Lord's supper, from a guy named Carlos who wanted to help him plant a surprise. So Carlos is in the group with them. And it all started when Carlos sent a text saying, I know Heather's excited to see you. Let's plan a way to surprise her. Steve and his wife Heather weren't the closest to Carlos, but he was in their group. He had a pretty nice house. He offered to host a party. He was single and had a lot of time and space to work with, so Steve accepted. Carlos, help. They text back and forth for a few days. And Steve was starting to feel a little strange about Carlos friendship with Heather. For example, Carlos texted, we often talk about how hard it is that you aren't here and how much she misses you. She's going to be so excited. It's just kind of like, man, why is this single guy who has a loose acquaintance with our family talking to my wife about how hard it is that I'm gone? And as they got closer to the big day at the surprise party, Steve texted a logistical message about the surprise party. Steve texts Carlos, I won't be in San Diego until 9pm Is that okay? And then Carlos responded, I don't think it will be hard to get Heather to stay here past 10. I mean, it's a Friday, and since you've been gone, she often hangs with me late at my house. Now, fellas, if some single guy texts you that about your wife, right? A guy you hardly knew before you left, if you texted your wife that he Often hangs out past 10. How would you respond, right? To my Gen Z kids in the room. You would crash out, right? Not millennial. Crash out and fall asleep. Gen Z crash out and flip tables. As he's just taking this in, Steve gets another message from Carlos. I think we have a slide of it. It says, I mean, she has stayed past midnight before. Crazy winky face, laughing, crying face. Whoa. Right? It's about to go down. So Steve said he pulled back to breathe. He texted another member of their gc, his GC leader named George. And he's like, hey, whose number is this in the GC group chat? And then he said he got back, said, hey, that's my wife, Maria. Why? So after all that stress, Steve realized he had not been texting the guy who might be having an affair with his wife, but one of his close church friends, Maria. He'd saved the wrong number for her, and it drastically impacted how he was engaging and interpreting what she was doing. Right. I remember another time I was with my kids and my oldest cloud was in the car. He was probably 12. But my other two were in the car. You know, one of them, I don't know, one of them gets a little nervous. And so I just said, hey. I pulled up to the front. I just want to be really clear. Windows were, you know, it wasn't too crazy, too hot out. Wasn't leaving them forever. I was going to walk into the gas station, like three steps to the door. Okay. Not even at a pump at the spot in front of the door. Okay. Do not call cps. So I walked up and one of them was a little nervous and I said, hey, look, listen. And if you open the door, there's a wall here. And you go around, there's a cashier. And it was probably like 6pm, it was just starting to get dark. And there was a young woman working as a cashier. But to help my kids realize, I just wanted to show them. So I opened the door and I said, look, I can see you. I can see you. I can see you. I can. Then I shut the door and walked out. And I'm pretty sure that woman was terrified. Another time, one of our church plants at restored la. Sorry, it's too many stories. I just love this one. And I'm only here once, you know, I remember we were. I was there for the very first ever new to restored LA dessert. So it's when we invite people to visit to the church, hear more information, kind of welcome thing. And I was there with Nicole Pham, with Brad with Sarah. And we're excited about who's coming in. And Brad and Sarah ended up. They had to deal with their kids or something. Or something's happened in the back. So me and Nick were in the front of the house. And this couple, like their 50s, comes in mid, late 50s, early 60s. They're like, hey. And we're like, hey, welcome. They're like, thank you. And we're like, so we've got a ton of different snacks. We rated Trader Joe's for you. And we go check out all these snacks. Got some drinks, you want some wine? And he's like, no, I'm okay. And so it was just kind of awkward. And I was like, hey, so how'd you find us? And he said to the question, how'd you find us? He said, good. I said, okay. And we said, hey, do you want to sit down? And his wife's like, we don't want to sit down. And she seemed kind of annoyed, like, we do not want to sit down. And I was like, okay. And then Sarah walked out and she's like, are you here for the offer up item? And they're like, yes. They were there to pick something up. Just imagine you're there for an offer up. You're like, hey, you want some wine? You want to sit down? I was like, what's wrong with this lady? She's so mean. She was terrified. So the big idea is this, is that what we believe about who someone is impacts the way that we interact with them and relate to them. If we have a false idea or a false premise about who they are, that affects how we interact with them and how we feel about how they interact with us. Which leads to what I want to talk about today. I want to talk about theology or what we believe about God. Again, it might seem like a random message on Father's Day, but understanding God as Father has to do with understanding what his character is like. God as Father is a theological proposition. It's an idea about God. And so theologians, they'll talk about the doctrine of God, like the different aspects, different teachings around what makes God distinct according to the scriptures. So I have a couple different points, but the first one is this. It's everyone's a theologian. Everyone's a theologian. I think sometimes in, in. In church, it's like, oh, you know, theologians are like seminary people or, you know, nerdy Bible people. You know, I love the Bible, but I'm no nerd. No, again, everyone theologian means that everyone has a beliefs about God. Okay? Whether they've studied theology formally or not. Whether they're an atheist, a Muslim, a godly seminary professor, or someone who recently deconstructed their faith that isn't sure what they believe anymore. They are all theologians, okay? Atheists are theologians. The statement that there is no God is a theological statement. Agnostic people who claim there's probably a God, but we can't know him. That's a theological statement about God's ability to communicate and reveal himself to people. In other words, theology isn't just for pastors, professors or scholars. It's unavoidable, right? If you've ever said something like, I don't think God's like that, you've done theology. I think God's like this, you've done theology. So the question isn't, are you a theologian or do you practice theology? The question is, are you a good theologian or a bad theologian? And how do you know? So what is theology? Theology simply means the study of God. It's kind of two words brought together from the word Theos, the Latin word for God, and Logos, Greek word for word or reason or discourse. So it's theology again. If you've ever said God is loving or I don't think God would do that, or there is no God, those are all theological statements. Mentioned this earlier. AW Tozer said, what comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. Now, that may or may not be true, that it's the most important, but it's super important. Jesus asked the church to go and make disciples. Disciple. In Greek, it's the word methetes. It just means learner or student. So we need to learn how to follow Jesus. But part of that means is we need to learn to see God. If we're trying to become like Jesus, we need to learn to see God the way that Jesus saw God. There's a book called the Good and Beautiful God. And the subtitle of the book, I love it, it says, falling in God with the love that Jesus knows. Part of learning to believe in the God that Jesus taught about and revealed as opposed to the God that makes sense to us based on our experiences, opinions or viewpoints. We need to be discipled to see God accurately. So my third point is this is what you believe about God impacts how you live for better or for worse. What you believe about God impacts how you live for better or for worse. And to see this clearly, turn your Bibles to Genesis, chapter three. So Genesis 3 comes after Genesis 1 and 2, which is all about how God created the heavens of the earth and how he created humanity in his image. He made them with dignity and agency, and he made them for relationship, and he made them creative, and he made them with inherent value and worth, and he puts them in the world. And he says, man, go and fill the world. You know, be fruitful and multiply. Bring order and beauty to everything that's in this world. Reveal who I am to creation. And then things start out really good. Adam and Eve have a good relationship with each other, and they have a good relationship with God. But in chapter three, things take a turn for the worse. Genesis 3, verse one, it says now, the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, did God really say you can't eat from any tree in the garden? The woman said to the serpent, we may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden, but about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, you must not eat it or touch it or you will die. No, you will certainly not die. The serpent said to the woman, in fact, God knows that when you eat it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. And something I just want you to catch is, yes, there's a temptation, yes, there's doing bad behavior, but breaking the rule and the bad behavior are all bound up in believing a lie about God's heart and character. Instead of the generous God who made everything available to Adam and Eve except for this one tree, the serpent presents Yahweh like, kind of like a shy, withholding God not going to give you anything. The serpent didn't just question God's words, He does twist them, but really he's questioning God's heart. He's saying, God's holding out on you. He made Eve believe that God or that she needs to take control and get what she deserved. And by the way, all throughout the scriptures, this is what leads us into sin most of the time. There's a man named Avram, Avraham, I'm fancy. It's Abraham in Hebrew. And he is a man, and he's called. And he's told, you're gonna have a son, and it's gonna lead to many nations, and he's a hundred. And that doesn't seem like, you know, I don't know what my sex life would be like at 100. But he didn't have a lot of faith for that. And he has to wait and at that time to be a Patriarch was like the greatest thing you could be. And also to have kids was like a financial reality. You know, you didn't have retirement, you had a lot of kids who worked with you. And then, you know, God says he's going to do this. And then he at some point takes matters into his own hands and sleeps with the hand servant and younger woman and named Hagar. And it goes real bad. She has a baby. It's not what God wanted. There's a ton of conflict and oppression and awful stuff that happens. But I want you to catch like Adam and Eve walked with God and this was tempting Abraham. This is really big. Abraham heard God clearly about what God was calling him to. So you can even hear God clearly about what he's calling you to do. But you can then take matters in your own hands. So God called me supernaturally, but I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna make it happen in my flesh. Some of you, God's, you feel very strongly God's called you to a certain type of ministry. Or you want to be married and you're not married yet, or you're wanting to have kids, or you want to buy a home. You have like some dream that you have this sense that God has called you to something thing and you have this deep desire to see it happen. And then it comes down to, am I going to trust him through that process? And so he takes matters into his own hands. And Peter Gazera calls this birthing an ishmael. It's the idea. Poor ishmael too. What a rough phrase for him. But it's this idea of like doing things God never asked you to do in the name of God. Pastors do this all the time in churches. I need my church to be as big as possible. Why? Because I want it to be big. But how's that going to work? What about your staff? Are you guys well? Yeah, the staff will be fine. It just needs to happen right? Bigger, faster, stronger, no matter what it takes. And it might not be the right season for that. Does that make sense? Even something that looks good, like church, just like Abraham there. And so it's so easy to want to take matters into our own hands. And again, the massive lie about God's character embedded in what the serpent asked Eve is God's not good. He's not enough. And you've got to do what you need to do to really live. We also see this in Jesus temptation. In the desert, Jesus tempted three times. But at the heart of the temptations was a lie about Who God is, Is he going to provide for you? Is he going to feed you? Right. Is he going to honor you? Is he gonna take care of you? Does he care about you? Now, if Satan lied to Jesus about God's character to try to end salvation for us, it's probably the best play he has to run, I like to say. You know, in the NFL, defensive coordinators, offensive coordinators like to say their best play. They don't want to put their best plays on film. They want to hold them for the playoffs. There's no bigger game for Satan than tempting Jesus. Right? Getting you to lose your temper. He likes that. Getting Jesus to sin. He really wants that. So this is probably the best play he has. And so that means it's probably gonna work on us. Cause he's been watching thousands of years of game tape of humanity. And he knows very. My kids asked me recently, like, does Satan know our thoughts? I was like, I honestly don't know if he knows our thoughts, but he has enough data on people and us. He's like, he has like an AI situation. Like, it's not. He's not in there, but he has a lot of. He's quite the learning model going on, going. People typically do this. So with all that game tape, this is what he comes up with. And it's the one that he started with. So this will probably work on you. In other words, so what you believe about God has a massive impact on how you live and how you walk in freedom and joy and the fruit of the spirit and become like Jesus and have abundant life and awesome relationships. Like, all this stuff starts with what we believe about God. Different false views of God. You may view God as like an angry, abusive, or absent parent. Talk about that in a second. But if you do, that will affect the way that you relate to God and relate to other people. Lately, I think for millennials, Jesus is like the life coach, therapist. Right? Right. Like there's nothing he can't invalidate. Right? Right. You're working out your pain. Those people are evil. They are from the pit of hell. You're just on a journey. Right? So it's like, man, when I do stuff, I've got quite the buffer. But when they do stuff, they're really bad. Kind of undermine Jesus Lordship, you crucify holiness. Like, he never wants you to be uncomfortable. Right. He said, take up your cross, but really he meant, don't take up your cross. You know, just really good hermeneutics. It's really complex. You have to go to seminary to understand third one's Holy Spirit as an emotional vibe king. Emotional vibe king, Right? This is just feelings, right? Holy Spirit, right? Like, man, the Spirit was in that place. How do we know? And sometimes I wanna go, I think we know. Cause the drummer was good this week, right? How do we know? Cause I just. I feel like I want it. You're like, cool. That is bad. If we all just did whatever we feel like, it would be chaos out there, okay? Serial killers, Hitler. We can go on and on. A lot of people did what they want. They felt in their heart, you know, I just got a vibe about, you know, I was talking to a college student recently, and he had met a girl. And within a week, he's like. I told her, like, I think we should be together. And I was like, how do you know? He's like, I just. This feels right. And, you know. And I had to tell him, okay, just because you feel something, man, you don't have to say it within the first week, Right? But that's what a lot. If we're honest, that's what we still do, right? But. But that's not. The Holy Spirit leads us into truth. He doesn't just, you know, have us have an emotional experience. Let me respond, by the way. Emotional Black King, by the way. Doing whatever feels good. And again, a lot of this has moved us. A lot of younger millennials, Gen Z kind of, you know, TikTok stuff. There's a lot of, like, occult stuff is trending again, like, Gen Z right now on paper. And if you're Gen Z here, I'm not saying this is you, but if it is with a preview. But there's a lot of. There's a spiritual hunger right now, and a lot of it is being pursued outside of the church and outside of Jesus. And so what do you do with that hunger? You start looking, you start dabbling. And I mean, like, in our old neighborhood in San Diego, we have, like, multiple tarot card shops, which feels to me like a red ocean as a business. I'm like, how many of these survive, right? Like, I think if you go out in Shark Tank with a tarot card shop, like Mark Cuban's, like, get out of here, dude. And they're like, I'm going to curse you. And it's like, okay, that's fair. Take the money and leave, please. But again, that's happening. And so this is. The Catholic Church has experienced a 700 to 1000% increase in requests for exorcism in the last three years. This is Something's happening. So just going, oh, this feels good or it just feels spiritual. I like it. If it's not rooted in Jesus, it's not great. This is one Holy Spirit. There's a professor at Notre Dame and he coined the term and he says for about the last 25 years, if you were to ask the average American, the average, not all, but the average American what their beliefs about God are, they would be this. It's called moralistic therapeutic deism, okay? Moralistic therapeutic deism. And it describes a common, it's common but shallow religious beliefs that many American have. So moralistic God wants you to be good. God wants you to be good, okay? Now here's the catch. It's therapeutic, okay? So he wants you to be good, but he wants you to feel good. What they found is his rules are doing good things that are easy for you to do. Okay, Sounds just like Jesus right now. Again, I love therapy. I've talked to several of you in this room to go to therapy. I do trauma care work with people. I have a ton of clinical training. I love therapy. But therapeutic culture is bad. Matter of fact, a lot of therapists are saying therapeutic culture is bad. And therapy culture is when you take some things that could be good in a therapy setting and you apply them to all of life or you take things you learn in therapy and you over apply them, right? So it's like if this is everything, it's nothing. I don't know if you've ever heard of the term concept creep, right? So for example, you have situations where people are overusing. Trauma is a very real thing. And a lot of my training is in trauma. I think it's a big deal. And a lot of times people who are, who seem to be, have all the symptoms of significant trauma actually downplay it. And I found a lot of people who just, and this is the concept creep. They just are having. They just, life's hard, you know, if they're uncomfortable, like I think that was traumatic, you know, and you're like, no, that was a long line at in n out, okay? My nervous system, just when I realized there wasn't sauce in the bag, I just, in my childhood I didn't have candy when I wanted it. And you know, and so it gets a little goofy. Okay, so trauma's very serious here. So again, it's just a constant, you know, boundaries go from healthy, God given limitations that just say, listen, I'm a finite human. I can't be everywhere, I can't do everything. I have limited Mental capacity, emotional capacity, money, time, energy. So I can only do this and I have to prioritize the things God has called me to, first and foremost, like him, my family. And then as I have margin, I go out. So boundaries are good, but boundaries often just mean I cut off people that make me uncomfortable. How do you do church? If anyone who makes you uncomfortable can't be in your life, how do you do any kind of relationship, right? And so therapeutic culture, what it does is again, is it kind of universalize or globalizes? It takes something and it makes it mean everything, which is actually bad for people. Legitimate trauma. Because if trauma's everything, it's nothing. If everyone's a narcissist, then no one is. But the idea of the therapeutic is this, Is that the. So moralistic Therapeutic, therapeutic. The self is central, right? So your personal feelings, fulfillment and self expression are the highest goods right? Now, with a good Christian therapist, it's not bad because they're there to serve you. So it's like, hey, what's going on in your life? That's very specific. But if you make everyone else around you adapt to you, like they're your therapist, you're weird, right? You're a terrible hang. You're awful at dinner parties, right? Like everything's about you and people talking to you about how you are and how you feel, and you can't really ever get around to other people. So self is central, emotions authoritative. Okay? So. And again, emotions are good. The best analogy for emotions are like gauges on a car. Emotions are a gift from God. Clearly, Jesus expressed a lot of emotion. David in the Psalms expresses emotion. Emotions are not good or bad, you know, so you can be angry for a good reason, you can be happy for an evil reason. They're morally neutral. They're like gauges on a car. They're just telling you something. Something's going on to slow down, right? So some people are like, man, I'm not really an emotions person. That's like saying, I'm not really a gauges guy. I drive my car, the lights flash. And some people are like that. You've met these people, right? Like, yeah, the light's always on. Jackie and I rented a car in Hawaii a few months ago, and we rented it from Craigslist, which was crazy. Like, it was the. I've done some wild things in my life. I've been to some shady places. I've been into, you know, wild places. Internationally, developing nations. And the guy goes, hey, it's going to be parked in the lot. There's a few lights on. I turn it on, like nine lights are on. Check engine, battery. And anyways, it ended up being a great car with all these lights on, right? But a lot of the time I had another friend though, in high school and he had a girlfriend that he thought was very pretty and he had three pictures of her on his car gauges. And we ran out of car in that Honda Civic three times. He's like, I don't know if I've got gas, but I've got love, you know? He's like, I read a book, a therapist that I run on love. And I was like, but this car runs on gas. You know what I mean? He didn't read books in high school. Don't worry, that was a joke. But so people go, oh yeah, I don't really, I don't get into my emotions though. They happen to you. So either you engage them in a healthy way, it's again, it's a way for God to get your attention. When I'm really sad, that tells me something's going on with me. When I'm really happy, when I'm really angry. But they're gauges. But on the other end of the spectrum, you can ignore emotions, but you can also make them like in charge. So again, a phrase that's been really helpful to me is they're gauges, not gods. Okay? So just like it's foolish to ignore that you're on E and you're like, and you run over, sorry. You run out of gas on the side of the road. It's also foolish to go, it says, I'm gonna run out of gas. I've gotta run out of gas, right? Like the light's on the smoke. Pound the gas, right? Because I'm angry, I have to flip out and do awful things. It's like, no, I can slow down, figure out what's going on. But in the therapeutic, the self essential emotions are authoritative. Suffering is seen as a problem to be eliminated completely. Now don't get me wrong, I love comfort, okay? If they're. I love it. I love it too much. I love a warm shower, I love a hot meal. I love a breeze, you know, I love it. Yeah, we can go on and on. You do too, right? I don't love suffering, okay? I'm not like signing up for suffering. But there is no such thing as a life in a fallen world where suffering doesn't touch us. New data is coming out. That part of why younger millennials and Gen Z are experiencing so Much depression and anxiety is because we've actually given them this expectation through a huge emphasis on mental health, that you can have basically a happy, all the time existence. When the average person's emotions swing about 130 times a day when they've studied it, and most of the time it's somewhere. It's always, it's not, I feel great or terrible. It's am I basically. It's basically fine. And so if you have this view of God, that he wants you to be good, you are the center of the universe. That however you feel, dictates how he is or she is, or they are or whatever. And that suffering is supposed to be eliminated. You're gonna have a very specific relationship with God. He's never gonna call you to hard things. You'll never forgive anyone, right? And then the last thing is deism. Deism is that God created the world and then he kind of left it. Like he created. He's like, people call it an absentee landlord. So he created. So he's not really involved. So that'll affect your prayer life if you're like, yeah, God doesn't really care about this. I'm not expecting to see God move in my day to day life. I'm not expecting an ongoing relationship with Him. So moralistic, therapeutic deism. And so. So what we believe about God affects us deeply. And so last big point, and then we'll close. What keeps us from seeing God clearly? What keeps us from seeing God clearly? And there's multiple factors. The first one's the enemy's lies, which we already talked about in Genesis 3, the demonic realm, the kingdom of darkness. Loves to tell us God can't be trusted. He's not good, he's holding out on you, or you deserve this, or after you deserved it, how could you, right? A phrase that does get overused is gaslighting. That's another one of them. But Satan is the ultimate gaslighter. He's like, dude, you got. You deserve this, bro. You deserve this, right? And then you do it. And he's like, how could you? No one will ever love you. With a straight face. Like, he is a father of sociopaths and lies. The second thing is our wounds. Our wounds. God created parents to show us what he is like, to give us a imperfect picture. Just like marriage shows us what Jesus relationship can look like with the church. Imperfectly but consistently. Parents were supposed to be a faithful but not perfect representation of what God is like. But since the fall, many of us have experienced things like abuse or abandonment, or you were manipulated by your parents, you were used to meet their needs, you were neglected, you were betrayed. And often in our pain at a young age, the enemy comes in and he whispers into our ear, your father abandons the family. Well, you're the type of little boy that gets abandoned and he wants you to take that message away from the situation. Or you caused this abuse. Or if you were just, you know better, your parents would have got divorced or whatever it is. But we take those on and we start to assume things about ourself, but also about God. How could God let this happen to you? There's a book I read recently I really enjoyed. It's called Landscapes of the Soul by a guy named Jeff Holeclaw. And basically he talks about how our relationship with our parents helps sometimes. It helps us see how we relate to God. So it's not how God is. God's the same. But the way that we assume he is, the way that we're prone to believe he is, is tied to often how we viewed our parental relationships. And he talks about these four landscapes, and one of them is called the jungle. And. And if this is you, this is what it sounds like in relationships with people. You deeply want closeness, but you fear losing it. So you constantly seek reassurance. You feel uneasy with distance. Kind of classic people pleaser, right? Like someone texts you and they're like, good morning. You're like, I wonder what they're trying to say. Are they mad at me? There's no exclamation point, right? To save time, you have an anxious attachment. If anytime someone does a thumbs up to a text bubble, you feel nervous, that's you. But where it comes from, in all seriousness, it comes from parents who are really inconsistent. So they were nice, they weren't abusive, but they were workaholics or distracted or had other people. They had a million kids, but they were just really busy. And so you were always aware, even when you got their attention, you always felt like you could lose it at any second. And so there's this idea of the jungle. A jungle is dense, it's loud, it's overgrown, it's full of hidden threats. But you're kind of always on edge. Like, man, are they going to leave? Is their gaze going to move on? And our view of God, the view of God it often creates, is that God is experienced as loving but uninterested, right? And there's usually the sense that you must constantly work to earn or secure God's closeness. You're not quite sure, if you have it. So very performance based approach to your faith. You're like, okay, I'll get attention if I'm awesome. Forget the trophies or whatever. The second one's the desert. That's avoidant attachment. If this is you, you prize independence and self reliance. You like emotional distance, right? When people at church are like, hey, we should get lunch, you're like, yeah, that would be really good. Next in two years. I have an availability at 1pm, right? You're like, I don't want to get involved. I want people getting involved with me and I want to get involved with them. So I don't want their help to move or you know, I don't want their. I don't want to help them move, but I don't want them to help me move. So it's fair, right where it comes from. The style usually develops when a caregiver constantly dismisses or rejects the child's desire to connect. So like, get out of here. I don't want to connect with you, I don't want to spend time with you if you're sad. I don't really care about that. Get over it. It's your fault. And they begin to learn to self stew. Basically they learn like I can't trust my parents to be there for me when I need them. And it's more painful to try to get their help. So I just learned to take care of me. The symbolism is a desert. A desert. So again, it's dry, it's empty, it's lonely. You survive by needing nothing. And if this is your view of God again, you might have this idea almost like a deist. God is experienced as real but distant. Right. And because of emotional pain, typically people avoid attachments. They don't want to get too close emotionally. It's the same thing here. So it could be kind of a deist or you become a Christian. But you're more of like, you know, kind of the classic God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Bible, right? Like God is a God to study and obey, not a God to connect with. Right. Functionally. And so they're really into like doctrine or serving. A lot of times they'll be doing, you know, social justice work or missionary work or it's like I'm doing really sacrificial hard roles, I'm serving, doing the right thing thing for him, but I'm not going to connect with him personally. The third one is the war zone. This is the disorganized or fearful attachment. And if this is you you crave both closeness and you fear it. This is a hard place to be. You don't really trust yourself in relationships. You don't trust the other person. And where this comes from is typically in really traumatic, abusive environments. So the parent abuses you, but then is the person you have to turn to to feel better. And it's really confusing if you grew up in this environment because you want to be close to them. But it's unpredictable, it's erratic. And you're kind of put into this double bind as a kid where you're like, my dad is scary, My mom is scary, but also, I need my mom to get through life. She hits me and screams at me, but then I have to ask her to give me a ride to school. And so I have to depend on. And so the symbolism here is like a civil war, right? Think about a civil war war zone. People that used to be friends or even family all of a sudden become armed enemies, right? Danger comes from the very places you'd look to for safety. So when people move towards you, you're not sure if you should run towards them for help or to shoot at them. You don't know what's going on. And the view of God it creates is kind of this war zone. God is that God feels unsafe and unpredictable. So you also. You swing back and forth between pursuing him, running away from him, wanting to really grow in your faith, and then wanting to just kind of numb yourself and avoid that stuff. And then the last one's the pasture. This is secure attachment. Think Psalm 23, the pasture. You're comfortable with both closeness and relationships with other humans. You're comfortable with both closeness and independence. And you generally trust that people will be there for you. And it matters. And because you know your parents will be there when it matters, it gives you the freedom to explore, right? Like Daniel Tiger. Grown ups come back, right? If they actually believe that that's secure attachment, they're like, you know what? They'll be back. So I don't need to be afraid right when they leave. Or I can go off to explore because I know I have a safe. I know I have a home to go Back to. Luke 15. And so this develops because the child learns consistently that their parents are consistent. They're not up and down and erratic. They're loving, They're. They're caring, they're wise. They can be depended on. They want. They know their parents want to be close to them. And again, the symbolism here is just the pasture. The pasture is under a shepherd's care. It's green, it's nourished, it's protected. It also has boundaries, but there's a lot of room, freedom to roam. Olivia and I were in Hawaii last week at a nonprofit that does discipleship with students and puts on camps for underprivileged kids. In Hawaii. Actually, the guy right here, Noah, that was next to us, he raised his hand. You want to just give him money or a high five? Or, or, or if you have a student that's graduating high school that would be interested in a gap year, it's like a three month program. Really, really cool. But we were there and they have a farm and, and there's sheep. And it's like. It is funny. We were driving up. I learned a lot about like the Bible just being there because sheep are so afraid. Like, I've seen sheep before in Ireland and they just kind of look at you. I think I've always thought sheep are like llamas. They just look at you, you know, like Napoleon Dynamite, like, eat your food, Tina or whatever. They're kind of like sassy. That's different than sheep. So we were there and we were there with one of Olivia's friends and her dad and the girls were like, we did a farm tour and it's a huge farm and they filmed part of Jurassic park one there. It's like huge. And so we're driving up in this little mini tractor thing and. And they said, hey, can we get closer? And the guy driving it was like, they're going to run away. And they're like, come on. So he drove up, they ran away. And then her and Audrey go, okay, Will, what if we walk up quiet. Can we walk over? He's like, you can. They're probably going to run away. And so it's again, it's two 11 year old girls, 10 year old girl, and they're like. And then one sheep looks, boom, gone. There's takeoff. But man, I'm off topic. Sorry, but the big idea. Oh, sorry. I was just thinking how vulnerable, how kind of insulting it is that we get called sheep if we think we're more than we are. They are afraid, they are weak and they need to be led and protected. So to be in the pasture is, you know that there's walls, there's fences around you that keep you safe. In that case, you know, for raptors and stuff. Jurassic park, you've got boundaries and fences. You've got a shepherd that can see you. I can see you. Who's looking over your life sovereignly and so you can step out in faith and take risks because you know there's a safety net of God's grace and his affection and protection. Does that make sense? You're not like, I have to take care of me, so I'm never going to step out in faith. The last place we find lies about God is in the world. The world's propaganda. To save time, I'll just say this. We are the most message to era in human history. 120 years ago, people saw like two advertisements maybe a day. Now we see now if you watch YouTube videos, there is a, there are ads in the YouTube video before the ad break that YouTube does. You've got, you've got your ads on ads on ads on ads, right? I think it's hundreds of times a day the average person's advertised to now. And so there are so many messages. And the messages are not just by our product. It's selling you a way of life. Or algorithms are literally warping people's minds to view life in a really specific way that if they just got out of the algorithm they'd see like, this is kind of crazy, right? But what is the world? John Mark Comer describes the world this way in his book Live Not Lies. He says the world in the Bible is a society where lust is redefined as love. Marriage is not a covenant of lifelong fidelity, but a contract for personal fulfillment. Divorce is an act of courage and authenticity rather than the breaking of vows. The objectification of women's sexuality through porn or prostitution is female empowerment. Greed is responsibility to shareholders. Gross injustice towards factory workers in the developing world is viewed as opportunity. Environmental degradation is progress. Infanticide and abortion is reproductive justice. And then he goes on to say that the world, literally, it's calling good bad and bad good. And there's so much of that in our culture. Like the stuff that makes people angry is actually good. And the stuff that people think is awesome is evil according to biblical teaching. And then lastly, just our sinful desires. We sometimes we want God, we want God to co sign. We don't want God to be the king of kings if we're honest sometimes. Right? It's off the top too. Yeah, it's good. It was the spirit. If it was weird, it was me. If it was good, it was him. Right? Like we, we, we don't. James says, if you ask for wisdom, God is generous. He loves to give wise wisdom. If we're not double minded. And double minded in Greek means you've already made up your mind, you're not really asking for wisdom again, you want affirmation. You want a cosine. You don't want wisdom. So we want a God who affirms us, not confronts us. Again, that therapeutic Deism. We want a God that's like, yeah, that's awesome. Romans, chapter one. Let's see. Yeah. Romans, chapter 1, verse 18 says, the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all godlessness and wickedness of people who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen being understood from what has been made so that people are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him. But their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. It says although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of God for images made to look like a mortal human being. Verse 25 says, they exchanged the truth about God for a lie. Okay, Exchange the truth about God for a lie. This happens all the time when people approach scripture or life. We. We go, I. I know something's probably wrong, but I don't want to know. When I was a young lad in high school, there was a very kind of middle mid, as the kids would say. R and B song by Marwan. It's called I don't want to know if you're playing me, keep it on the low because my heart can't take it anymore. Right? There's this guy whose girlfriend was cheating on him, but he didn't. He just. He's like, I know, but I don't want to know. That is us. Paul is saying, like, we know the truth, but we act like we don't know the truth. And so many of the things that people debate about, even in our culture, deep down, they know, they know. This doesn't make sense, right? And so Tim Keller says that many of us, we want. If you've ever remember the movie the Stepford Wives, it's like these robot women. Spoiler alert. It's like 40 years old, but there was these men who had these, like, robot alien wives that they could control, basically. And so they're not real women that you're having a real relationship with. And he says, we want to Stepford God that we can control and program to do what we want. And so for some of you, you may go, my relationship with God hasn't been like Very close or my relationship with God. My faith is boring. A lot of times it's boring because you never listen to him. You never have to step out in faith, you know, again. And oftentimes God reveals small things before big things. If you're faithful little, you'd be faithful with much. So he's got big adventure for you. But if he can't count on you to do this, how's he going to count on you to do this? I remember a pastor I used to love listening to. He got saved during the Jesus People movement. He was radical, and he was like, you know, countercultural. Got saved out of the hippies and stuff. And he's like, lord, I'll do anything you want. I will sell everything I have. And if, like, you heard him say, God say, mike, just stop smoking marijuana. He said, lord, I will do like Hosea. I will marry a promiscuous, ugly woman if you want me to, to reveal your love to the world. I'll marry an ugly woman to show you people how much you love. It's insane. And he goes, just. Just stop smoking marijuana. And he was like, I will go to. He said, he prayed, I will go to Vietnam during the war as a missionary to both sides. Just stop smoking marijuana. [00:50:56] Speaker A: Right? [00:50:56] Speaker B: So. So there's this thing that God has told us that we need to deal with. We don't want to deal with it. And it's like, I'm not going to give you much more revelation. Like, you're. You don't really want to follow me. You want to do your own thing. And so sometimes repentance and starting with what you do know leads to a journey into so many more possibilities in relationship with God. I'm not trying to be funny or exaggerate. Like, tithing, like just giving generously might not sound like the coolest thing. It's hard to do. But you start doing that, you have to trust God in different ways, and it just creates a ton of different faith for a ton of different things. So I don't know what he's calling you to, but God, if Keller says if God, if you have a God who never disagrees with you, it's a figment of your imagination. Okay? Which leads to my last point. Our beliefs about God must be shaped by Jesus and his word. Okay? Exodus 34, 6, 7 describes God told us who he is. Says he is compassionate and slow to anger. He is holy, yet gracious. But here's the big thing I want to leave you with is that Jesus himself, himself is the Clearest revelation of God. In John 14:9, Jesus said to him, have I been among you all this time and you don't know me? Philip, the one who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, show us the Father? Jesus isn't a piece of God's character. He is the full picture. Michael Reeves, in his incredible book, Delighting in the Trinity, he says this. He says there is in fact. And what he's getting at, I'll say this, what he's getting at is a lot of us go like, Jesus is like, really nice, but God the Father is a maniac. And the Holy Spirit's kind of like an awkward drunk uncle or whatever. And he goes, listen, Jesus reveals the heart of God, what's true of the character of the Spirit and the character of the Father. Again, they are distinct persons. The Trinity is a mystery. And if you want to understand it, all you need to do is email Tom Loke, your pastor. So I just want to be clear. They're not one person, they're three persons, but they have the same heart and character. So Michael Reeve says this. He says there is in fact, no God behind the back of Jesus. No act of God other than the act of Jesus. No God but the God we see and meet in him. Jesus Christ is the open heart of God. The very love and life of God poured out to redeem humankind. The mighty hand and power of God stretched out to heal and save sinners. All things are in God's hands, but the hands of God in the hands of Jesus, in life and in death are the same. Let us then be rid. This is very British. Let us then be rid of that horrid, sly idea that behind Jesus, the friend of sinners, there is some more sinister divine being. One thinner on compassion and grace. There cannot be. Jesus is the Word. He is one with His Father. He is the radiance, glow and glory of His Father. If God is like Jesus, then though I am sinful, like the dying thief, I can dare to cry, remember me and know he will respond. Though I am often so spiritually weak and leprous, I can call out to him, for I know just what he is like toward the weak and the sick. In him we see the true meaning of the love, the power, the wisdom, the justice and the majesty of God. And so, again, if you want to know what God is like, look at Jesus. Look at Jesus. Tenderness and authority and holiness and compassion. Which means the Word should be our lens, not our assumptions. So read the Gospels and see God. I would encourage you. I actually was going to read all of Psalm 103 over you, and then Scott did it, which saved me time, which, as you can know, I need help with. And so how do we move forward? I just want to close with this. In Galatians, we need to replace false narratives. Okay, but you don't just do that through study. Okay? Believing a lie intentionally is also a sin. It's something we need to confess and renounce. And so we need to slow down and identify what. What do we really believe about God? I encourage you to do that. Like, write out, like, what do I actually believe about God? My kids school recently, they had to write, like, their own statement of faith and then, like, prove it with scripture. Don't even do it with scripture. Just write out what you actually believe. Your functional statement of faith based on how you live your life, you know, and then come to the Word. But we have to replace false narratives. But to close, Galatians4.6 really stood out to me. I know it's Father's Day. Galatians 4:6. Paul writes, and because you are sons, God has sent the spirit of his son into our hearts, crying, abba, Father. Okay, now, this verse is not just saying you're allowed to call God father. It's saying, the spirit of Jesus now lives in us, and it causes us to cry out to the Father. Again, the word abba, abba in Aramaic, it means kind of like dad. Some people say it means daddy. It's not quite daddy, but it's warm and loved. The best thing I could think of in the middle was, I just traveled with Olivia for a week. She's my road dog. We're out there for a week, and when she laughs, she goes, dad, right? So it's like, I know I'm loved. I know I'm, like, being silly and pushing back on you. I know I belong. But it's not like father shame, father. Right, But. But. But it's. It's someone who has the confidence of a child who knows they're securely loved, that they have a place to belong. Abba centers on the Father's tender love for us, that God is not a cold, distant judge or scorekeeper. He's the father who welcomes us home always. When Jesus says, come to me if you're. You're. You're weak and tired, and I'll give you rest for your soul and greed, that's an ongoing imperative. You can keep coming to him because he has the heart of Abba. Abba says, keep coming home a Lot of times a picture of repentance I love is as I live my life and I start to notice I'm kind of in a bad place or a weird place. You know, it's been a day or two days or. And I go. It's been so helpful to me lately. Just really like I can always just go back home. Like I got lost again. And he loves to welcome me back home. And so Abba kills the places we go to for identity and belonging. It says that say things like, I am what I accomplish, I am what people think I am my failures. I am only safe if I have power or I perform or I control the situation or my relationships. The father Abba says, you're mine, you're loved, you have nothing to hide. So Paul says, that's the kind of dad you have in heaven. And I just want to. I know today's can be a tough day, but I just want you to pastorally I just want to say to you, it's been said before, I did not make this up, but it is really helpful to not judge your heavenly father by what your earthly father was like, but to use your heavenly father to see, okay, here's some gaps, but here's also what God is filling in. So you have a perfect father, whether you're always aware of that or not. And then the other word I want to highlight in Galatians 4 is cried. Cry is not like crying like father, you know, it's crying out. It's what blind Bartimaeus did when Jesus walked by and he said it's the same word in Greek. He said he cried out, son of David, have mercy on me. Like yelling. Think of a parent when their kid runs in the streets or a kid when they're afraid. It's like, I need to get your attention. It's saying, the spirit wants you to know. He's screaming it. He wants you to know that you have an Abba, that you have that the king of the universe is your dad. Meaning you're never on your own in this world. You are never an orphan, you're never truly on your own. If you're in Jesus, there is wisdom available to you and provision available to you. And he doesn't always give us what he wants, but he'll give you what you need. And he really is working things out for you in ways that we don't always understand. But he's not leaving you. And so as we close, I just have a few questions for. You can write these down, think about them as we Move into whatever's gonna happen next. Next I'll hand over to Tom. But will you open yourself up to God in a fresh way? Will you open yourself to him and go, where are we at in our relationship? And will you get honest about your assumptions to actually confess God, I believe this about you. Is that true? Or why do I believe this about you? And when you let go of false narratives as the Spirit leads, if something doesn't align with the character of Jesus or his word, even if it's hard to believe, because sometimes we've been through a lot of pain, it's hard to believe that God is good, but he still, even though we've been in pain, that doesn't change that he is good. It's something that we learn to trust and move into. And he does renew and restore so many things, even in this life, but definitely in the age to come. And so, yeah, I'll pray and I'll hand over Holy Spirit. I just ask that you would cry out in the hearts of men and women in this room today who really wonder about the father's goodness, his character, his love. I remember I had a friend who told me a story. He was adopted. And I remember he found his adoption papers in his dad's office. And he saw how much time and intentionality and how much money was spent just so that his dad could get to be his father when he was just a baby and didn't even know his dad. And I remember him saying, you know, as incredible as it was to read about how the work that my dad did to become my father, it was nothing compared to sitting on his lap or being thrown in the air, being thrown in the air and caught again or playing catch with him. And Lord, for those in the room who just have head knowledge about God being Father, would you reveal it to them in their hearts? Would you cry out beyond the barriers that struggle to receive that message? Would they know God is abba? Increasingly, in the days and weeks and months and years to come, in Jesus name. [01:01:32] Speaker A: Outstanding, Andrew. Thank you. Will you guys stand with me if you're able? Mike, will you put those questions back up on the screen for us? Will you guys play for us, please? Are they up there? Great. All right, we're gonna do something a little bit different. This morning I was sitting there and I was just praying. And when those questions popped up, I felt like the Spirit said, some of us, we actually won't even give ourselves to answering those questions if we don't do it right now, because our lives are Ordered in such a way where it's so compartmentalized, where our discipleship to Jesus, because of a lot of different factors, it doesn't, hasn't seeped its way into every single area of our lives. And so we're gonna, we're gonna pray, we're gonna praise. If you're on the prayer team, would you make your way to the front, please? There's gonna be trusted men and women who would love to pray for you if God's highlighting something. But the sense that I get is I really believe that the spirit of God wants to help each one of us answer those questions. I think on Father's Day, and I know it's cheesy man, but I think on Father's Day he just wants permission to father you. And sometimes the way that good Father's Father is in a compassionate and in a patient, in a sensitive way, the spirit of God will ask you questions like this so that you can be enlightened to the reality of what's going on inside of you. The reason I had you stand is because I wanted you to change your, like your posture for a second. If you want to sit down, we're going to take, we're going to take the next seven minutes. That's not a lot of time. It's not near enough time to give these questions the justice that they deserve. But I'm going to give you seven minutes. Please, no talking. Respect the people around you. And in prayer, each one of us going before God and going, holy Spirit, like, help me to answer these questions authentically. Some of you are like, I just want to go to lunch. Tom, listen, you can, if you need to step out, by all means. If you need to bounce, I get it. But I think there's an opportunity here for you to actually experience God. And I think it's gonna happen through fathering. And so I'm just gonna pray really quickly, but you can sit down, you can stand up, you can pace, and then I'm gonna call us back together in seven minutes and we're gonna respond in prayer and we're gonna open up and praise and we're gonna open up for prayer. Okay, let me just pray over you, Father. These questions of will we open ourselves up to you? Not like a false version of you or a self contrived version of you. Will we get honest about the things that we assume about you? Will we let go of false narratives as the Spirit leads us? Spirit, that's my prayer, is that you would highlight things that we believe about you. That aren't true. And that as we recognize those things, that we would actually turn away from them, we would actually repent. We would replace that lie with the truth that is revealed in the person of Jesus. And so, spirit of God, I just pray right now that you would speak to every heart of mind, Father, as we pray. All right, you got six minutes. You can sit, you can stand, you can pace, but I want you to answer those questions in your heart.