February 18, 2024 • 42 mins
In this enlightening series we explore the dynamic relationships that make up our lives, starting with the most pivotal one - our relationship with God the Father. Before extending our focus to other relationships such as marriages or friendships, we present the notion that strengthening our bond with our Divine Father is the cornerstone for improving all other relationships. To succeed in every aspect of life, you must first align your relationship with the Father. Throughout this journey, we delve deeper into the concept of the Father’s love, our relationship with Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, and how these spiritual bonds profoundly impact our worldly relationships and our wider community.
Our inaugural session is predominantly about our relationship with our Heavenly Father. Through numerous scriptures, we invite you to contemplate His greatness and unconditional love toward us all and to enjoy a personal encounter with Him. No matter what our experiences have been with earthly fathers, we must not parallel them with our relationship with our Father in Heaven. Despite histories of broken families or disappointing paternal relationships, solace is found in knowing that our Heavenly Father is perfect. Embark on this journey with us to fortify your spiritual relationship and enhance your relationships on earth.
This podcast conveys the transformative power, healing attributes, and spiritual nourishment of living a Jesus-centered life. We share our conviction about Jesus as the sole path to salvation and discuss our personal encounters with Him, which have strengthened our faith. By echoing the Father's qualities, Jesus introduces us to the most profound love, protection, and essence of belonging, prompting us to love and serve God above all else.
Explore the true comfort, grace, and hope derived from faith in Jesus and discover the merits of being a part of God's family. Gain insight into your position within God's grand plan while basking in the assurance of being loved and cared for as His children. Listen to the narrative of our faith-evolving journey and experience the sense of peace and exhilaration that comes with serving under God. Learn to approach God with childlike faith, internalize His teachings, and observe them manifest in your life. Answer the call, join the faith's army and embark on this life-changing journey.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Have you had a good week? Good. We're coming into a new series this month.
We want to talk about relationships.
And I thought, okay, relationships. Normally when I say, oh,
we're going to have a series on relationships, you start talking about marriages and blah, blah, blah.
But no, I thought the first thing I want to talk about is relationship with the father.
Because I think if you get your relationship with your father right,
(00:23):
then you can get everything right.
And then next week I've asked the big Tibernator to come and share about relationship with Jesus.
Are you excited about that? Yeah, we're going to let him loose.
And then the third week, we're going to talk about relationship with the Holy
Spirit, how the Holy Spirit's a person you can have a relationship with. Amen.
(00:43):
And then the fourth week we're going to have, we're going to talk about relationship
with each other and how that affects our community.
So that's kind of the plan moving forward, just so you know,
that's the big broad brushstroke.
Today, I want to talk about relationship with our Father, our Father who art in heaven.
Hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
(01:07):
Give us today your daily bread, our daily bread, Lord, and forgive us.
Forgive us for all our trespasses as we forgive others.
You forgive us and we give you all the glory, all the honor as you sit there,
Lord, on the throne, Lord, of the mighty hand of God. We love you, Lord.
We love you, Father, Dad, Papa, Dada, whatever you want to call him.
(01:31):
We love you, Dad, in Jesus' name. Amen?
So my sermon today is called Dad's Army.
Dad's Army. Do you know you're Dad's Army? You are Dad's Army.
I believe, I can see prophetically what God's doing. He is bringing people together
into an army of God for these last days.
(01:58):
He's bringing people together. I believe this church specifically,
he's bringing people who are passionate about revival, passionate about souls,
passionate about healing and the supernatural.
And we are going to have a revival in this church. which it's a no-brainer.
We're already cracking open into a whole new level of hunger.
(02:23):
And I believe as we hunger for God, we will experience him in a greater measure.
But you know, the Father, the Father represents so many things to us, right?
And what we can't do is compare our Father in in heaven with our father on earth,
because when we start to do that, we are so short of what we're supposed to be seeing.
(02:49):
Our father in heaven is perfect.
That he is perfection. He is God. He's the God of the universe.
He spoke the universe into being. He is God.
Nobody can come up against him. I mean, he is the creator of the universe.
He's a father and he loves us so much.
(03:09):
He knew that we would go our own way. He knew we would disobey him like most children.
He knew that we'd be rebellious and he already had a plan to send his son as a a sacrifice.
So God so loved the world, he gave his one and only son.
So the first perspective I want you to see is how much the father loves you
(03:33):
to give up his one and only son, Jesus.
Can you imagine giving up one of your children as a sacrifice so that somebody else could be saved?
Somebody else could be saved. Can you imagine paying that kind of price?
That's the father's love for you. And I want to start with this main scripture
in 1 John 3 verse 1 and 3. Read with me, if you will.
(03:58):
How great is the love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called
children of God. And that is what we are.
Say, that is what I am. What are you?
A child of God. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.
(04:19):
Dear friends, now we are children of God. And what will be has not been known.
But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him.
For we shall see him as he is. Everyone
who has this hope in him purifies himself just as he is pure. pure.
(04:43):
See, when you're in your father's presence, when you know the father and how
holy he actually is, it just wants you to, it makes you want to be holy yourself.
It makes you want to clean up your act. You know, we can't do that in our own
strength. We can't be holy, but by his grace, we can be holy.
You know, his grace is sufficient for us. Like I said, in our weakness,
(05:03):
his strength is made perfect.
We can't be pure. We can't be holy in our own strength. Oh my goodness,
right? If you try and do that, like who's ever tried to give up chocolate?
Who's ever tried to do something by pure will?
You know, you last about, I don't know, a week, two weeks max, right?
And then you falter because it's in your own strength. But when God's grace
is there, it's an enabling power to do something.
(05:26):
And that is what we're after. We acknowledge that we can do nothing without
him. We acknowledge that we need God in our lives.
God's presence can be felt. The Father's presence can be felt.
It can be experienced. It can be encountered.
But you need the right perspective when you come to your father.
(05:49):
When you come to your father, you're coming to a loving father.
When you come to your father, you're coming to a father that gave up everything
for you. He gave up Jesus for you.
He loves you that much. Do you know it says that the father knows every single hair on your head?
Do you know that the father knows when one sparrow falls?
Are you not worth more than many sparrows, says the scriptures?
(06:13):
One sparrow falls and the
father knows that's his eye of detail he knows
every single hair he knows every thought before it's even
a word on your tongue he is in the detail he's in the big broad brushstrokes
of saving the world amen yes and amen but he is into you he is into you he thinks
(06:34):
you're great he thinks you're wonderful he thinks you're he thinks you're he
thinks you're funny sometimes he thinks you're hilarious.
You can have a private joke with the father, right? You can have a joke with
God. He's not there with a big stick.
Some people have had a really bad relationship with their father. I acknowledge that.
(06:55):
But you cannot compare Father God with your father because your father is just
another human being who has failings and weak spots like all of us. Amen.
My dad abandoned me when I was 12 years old and just came into my room one day
and said, yeah, me and your sister are leaving.
(07:18):
And my sister was one year older than me and we were super tight, best friends.
And he said, me and your sister are leaving. I said, where are you going?
And he said, no, no, we're moving out. And I said, what do you mean?
Like, it was such a shock. I said, what do you mean?
And he said, no, no, we've got a whole new house. We've set it up.
We're moving out today and you can help us move out, but you're not coming.
(07:40):
And I'm like, what do you mean I'm not coming?
He said, no, you have to stay here with your mother. Me and your sister are
moving out. My mom was really abusive.
She had a brain hemorrhage when I was like five years old and she never recovered.
She was really abusive. She was addicted to alcohol and pills and she was pretty
crazy. And she used to beat my dad up.
(08:00):
My dad was abused by my mother.
My mother was violent. and so my dad never wanted to come home.
He would spend all his time out and then he started another relationship with
another woman and he would never come home.
But he did used to take me diving on weekends and so I'd see him on the weekends.
But one day he just sprung this on me. He said, I'm leaving.
(08:23):
So I helped them move out that day and I was quite confused and broken,
but I was left behind to tell my mum that they'd gone because I said,
does mum know? And he said, know, you're going to have to tell her.
And I was like, what? It was so confusing. And then I stayed and I told mum
and mum lost the plot, of course, and got really angry.
(08:45):
And after a couple of years, my mum had nobody to take her violence out on except for me.
And so it got transferred to me. And then I was in this situation,
whereas if I didn't leave my mum, I knew that maybe I may not be here to tell you the story.
So I rang up my dad and I said, dad, dad, I've got to come to you now.
(09:06):
Like, I've got to go. I've got to leave mom. It broke my heart in a million
pieces because I love my mom.
And I know she's broken. She was so broken.
And anyway, I had to leave and go and stay with my dad. And he had this new
wife with four kids and it was an absolute disaster.
And she didn't like us because we were just a complication, me and my sister.
(09:28):
And it was just, it was a nightmare, my family. But you know,
I can't compare my father with my father in heaven.
And my father was, he was kind.
He was a pushover, but he was kind and he was short. That's where I got that from.
He was short. He was kind. He had a big laugh.
(09:48):
He had a big jovial laugh. We'd get chucked out of restaurants for laughing
too loud. I've still got that.
And he was a good man to the best of his ability, but he was beaten up by my mum.
And, you know, he was living with insanity there, and so my sister.
But it was just a big journey with me. I've got a very broken family.
Many of us have really broken families.
(10:10):
But I cannot compare my father in heaven with my earthly father.
And I know, and my dad got saved by the skin of his teeth. I led him to the
Lord just before he died.
You know basically he just he just did not
acknowledge god his whole life and once we
were out and i said dad just just just in case like if
(10:31):
you did want to invite jesus into your life like would
you know how and he said and he
couldn't speak at the time he'd had strokes and stuff and he just nodded his
head and he went no like that and i said
i said well dad i got excited at that
prospect i thought dad dad dad if he
is so do you want me to tell you how to do that i can can tell you
how and he just looked at me and he went and I
(10:54):
went wrong response and I
was dying and I was like holy spirit help me how do
I reach my dad and knowing that this could be the last time I see him how can
I lead him to you and then I and then I'm there and I'm like swimming around
for answers just god help me father help me and then it just came out of my
(11:16):
mouth and I went dad dad, would you do it for me?
And he went, because he couldn't talk. And I was like, did you see that God?
Did you see that mustard seed?
Did you see that? Because you know what, that's enough for God.
That's enough. That little acknowledgement, that little yes, that's enough.
Even though my dad couldn't talk and say the sinner's prayer and invite Jesus
(11:38):
in, that was enough, his heart to move to say, yeah, actually, I will believe for you.
I believe God God saved my dad in that moment and I had great peace when he passed away.
But, you know, I know there's worse stories than my story with fathers, abusive fathers.
There's so many different fathers, but our Father in heaven is absolutely perfect. Amen.
(12:02):
And I wanted to say that through faith in Jesus.
The father's son, we gain access to the father. That's how we gain access to
the father. It's through Jesus.
Let's have a look at this powerful scripture in John 14, verse six and seven.
One of my favorite scriptures in the whole Bible is this scripture.
This scripture will annihilate any enemy.
(12:23):
This scripture will annihilate every kind of demon that pokes that little head up.
I'll tell tell you, Jesus answered, I am the way, the truth and the life.
And no one comes to the father except through me.
Amen. That is such a powerful scripture. He's the way where he's the,
(12:46):
Jesus is the way to what? The destination.
What's the destination? The father, the father's the the destination.
That's where we've all got to get to.
And Jesus is the way to the Father.
So, you know, we can't just, yeah, we love Jesus, but we have to know our Father.
(13:07):
We have to know, we have to know that it's that, like Andrew was saying,
it's three in one, the deity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are all God, all God.
And we only can come to the Father Father, except through Jesus.
And do you know what? The world will try everything to circumnavigate that truth. Everything.
(13:30):
They will try everything. I got so excited because my youngest son, Lockie.
He came to me and said, mum, I'm doing a Bible study. And I nearly fell off
my chair. I was like, what?
Anyway, he's listening to this. I said, who is it? Let me check it out.
Anyway, he's going down a wrong path.
He's listening to this strange mystic guy who's trying to get Jesus off the throne.
(13:53):
You know, because that's what I'm looking for. When I'm looking for anything,
I'm looking for an acknowledgement that Jesus is the way, the truth and the
life and no one comes to the the father except through him.
And if there's nothing about that, then I'm not having anything about it.
I'm not wanting anything to
do with it unless you can say Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.
No one comes to the father except through him. Jesus is the only way.
(14:14):
Yep. Do I believe that? Am I narrow-minded? Yes.
Yes, I'm narrow-minded about that. You can call me a narrow-minded Christian.
You can call me a small thing. You can call me whatever, but I will not back
down from acknowledging that Jesus is the only way to the Father. He is a pure sacrifice.
He went to the cross to die for our sins. He paid the most pricely cost to have
(14:37):
given us this free gift of salvation.
You can praise him for that anytime you want.
You know, I met Jesus when I was 29 years old in New York City and had a powerful encounter.
When I got saved, though, So I would have to say my first encounter,
by acknowledging that Jesus was the way, the truth, and the life,
(15:03):
it opened up to the destination.
And I found myself at the destination where my Father in heaven and me had an encounter.
And I realized in a millisecond, millisecond, that my Father had seen everything
in my life, everything, every detail, every sin, every mistake,
(15:25):
everything, and still loved me.
It blew my mind. I thought, God, you've seen everything and you still love me.
That's right. He says in the Word of God, it says when you were still powerless,
that's when Christ died for you.
When you're at your worst, you can come to the Father through Jesus,
through faith in Jesus, and he'll accept you. It was amazing.
(15:46):
And it was just it was just open my eyes to how God, the Father has seen your
whole life, every single thing.
And he still offers you his beautiful son, Jesus. He still says,
come into my house, come to my table. Amen.
It was amazing. And after my salvation, I found out that Jesus was a healer,
(16:07):
Andrew, a healer. Fancy that.
Anyway, I read this little book on healing and it said, if you pray in the name
of Jesus, you'll be healed.
And for you who don't know me here today, I had a diving accident off the 10
meter platform when I was 14 years old.
I used to be a diver, represented Australia, and I was right into it.
Training every day. And I had this accident that smashed my spine,
(16:30):
neck and hips out of place.
And so I was in chronic pain for 15 years, drug addicted, crazy,
heartbroken, messed up, just nuts, right?
And met Jesus, found out that he's a healer and invited Jesus into my life to heal me.
And I remember that it took two and a half hours of Jesus reconstructing my
(16:54):
spine, my neck, my hips. I mean, God moved my bones.
So I believe in miracles.
I believe that if God can move my bones, then he can heal your diseases.
I believe because I felt it. I felt the power of God inside of my body.
I felt my vertebrae and my spine realigning with the thumbs of Jesus around my vertebrae.
(17:17):
I've, I've, I've, I've experienced Jesus moving.
Massaging knots out of my back so incredibly miraculously.
I mean, he straightened my neck, grew my hip out back into joint,
and he was in control of my body for two and a half hours.
And me and Jesus are having this incredible wild ride of this miracle for two
(17:39):
and a half hours, wave after wave of joy, when he reconstructed my spine.
And then at the end of it, there was this little hairpin adjustment adjustment
in my coccyx down, right down low.
And it was such a small movement, such a small healing after all the big moves we'd done.
I thought, oh, it's finished.
(18:02):
It was like God signing off and it was the final detail.
And then what happened was that the personality in the room had been Jesus for
two and a half hours, me and Jesus in this miracle together.
And then all of of a sudden, the whole room changed and the whole atmosphere
(18:24):
changed and a different personality walked into that room. And it was the father.
And I remember it so clearly. I mean, I was born again for about three months at this stage.
And I remember the personality being so different from from Jesus to the Father.
(18:44):
Even though they're the same, the Father walked into the room. It was holy.
It was holy. It took my breath away.
It was so holy. And I was in reverence.
And I literally, he asked me a question without any words at all. He asked me a question.
(19:05):
And the question that I understood without any words was, will you give me your
whole life? and I just said, yes, Lord.
Like, you're going to say yes to a God who can move your bones.
Like, you're going to say yes to a God who just took over your body and healed
you. And I said, yes, Lord, you can have my whole life.
But the holiness, the holiness of the Father took my breath away.
(19:33):
And I think sometimes, church, we lose the reverence. We lose the reverence
of the Father, the mighty God, the creator of all the earth.
And we can lose focus on just how holy, powerful he actually is in our lives,
how he sees you, cares for you.
(19:53):
What does a father do? A father protects you.
A father knows you. A father protects you. A father knows every hair on your head.
He knows what you're going to do before you're going to do it. Amen. He's a provider.
He's your provider. Your father provides for you. He protects you.
He stands up for you. He's got your back. Your dad is the best dad you could ever have.
(20:16):
And you've got that father because of Jesus. Because what Jesus did on the cross,
you have a relationship with the father.
You can praise Jesus for that. That's incredible, right?
Because of what Jesus did, we can have a relationship with the Father.
Without Jesus, we have no relationship with the Father.
Let's acknowledge that. Without Jesus going to the cross, we have no relationship with the Father.
(20:39):
We have no way of standing before the throne of God. We have nothing on us. We're too filthy.
We're too sinful. We can't do it. We can't stand there.
We can stand there because the blood of Jesus, we can take the blood of Jesus
into the courtroom room.
And we can say to every demon in hell, we can stand boldly before the throne
of grace because of what Jesus did.
(21:00):
Yet you can praise him. You can stand on your seat.
You can shout for joy. I mean, it's pretty amazing that Jesus did this for us.
Incredible, right? Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Let's have a look at Hebrews 1, verse 1 and 2. In the past, God spoke to our
forefathers through the prophets at many times and in many various ways.
(21:21):
But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his son, whom he appointed heir
of all things and through whom he made the universe.
The son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being,
sustaining all things by his powerful word.
(21:42):
After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty in heaven.
Amen. What a scripture.
God used to speak through the prophets many various ways. You know,
the Old Testament's full of it.
But in the New Testament, God speaks to us.
(22:05):
The Father speaks to us through his Son.
The way of communication to us is through Jesus.
Amen? Through his sacrifice. And John 17 verse 6 says,
I have revealed to you the, I have, sorry, I have revealed you,
You, Jesus says, I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours.
(22:28):
You gave them to me and they have obeyed your word.
You were given to Jesus. You were given to Jesus by the Father. Isn't that cool?
You belong to Jesus by the Father.
The Father gave you. Otherwise, you couldn't have been born again,
saved and set free and have a future in heaven. You couldn't do it without the
(22:52):
Father's will. It was a Father's choice.
He said, I'll give Nicky Morton to Jesus. I'll give Andrew Morton to Jesus.
Praise God for that. Amen. Praise God.
Right. Praise God he gave us to Jesus. Jesus came to demonstrate his Father.
He came to earth to demonstrate his Father.
(23:13):
Not to tell the Jewish people about the Father, but to demonstrate him.
So when we look at Jesus, we see the Father. What did Jesus do?
He went around healing the sick, raising the dead, proclaiming the good news, the kingdom's coming.
That's what Jesus did. Jesus went around. He didn't, you know,
I mean, Jesus would have just been, he was just walking.
People were trying to kill him. People were trying to lock him up.
(23:35):
I mean, he just, coolest guy on earth.
Knew his authority. When you know the Father, you know your authority.
When you know your Father, you know your identity as a son of God,
as a daughter of God. My dad.
My dad gave me the mic.
(23:55):
I didn't go and get it. He gave it to me. My dad, my father in heaven gave you a gift.
He gave you your gift to use for his service.
Amen? Fit for service. He made you fit for service.
He made you. He's got a whole big kingdom, our Father, a massive kingdom.
(24:17):
And we can look at our church here and think that's all. There's a massive kingdom.
And, you know, Jesus loves his church. He loves all the weird churches,
all the churches that are not quite making it.
He loves every church. He loves the big mega church, even though they make some mistakes, whatever.
We all make mistakes, right? No church is perfect.
(24:40):
And Jesus loves his church. He's working on the bride right now.
He's working to purify the bride. He wants to come back for a pure bride.
When I'm talking about purification from the Father came for purification, Jesus came to purify us.
It's a necessary work. if Jesus is
to come back the second time he's coming back for a pure bride he's coming
(25:04):
back for dad's army amen he's
coming back and the father's work
is is what we're about we're about doing the father Jesus was about doing the
father's work he often referenced to it Matthew 11 27 to 30 all things have
been committed to me by my father no one knows the son except the,
(25:28):
And no one knows the Father except the Son, and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. Verse 2.
(25:51):
The scripture, it talks about, you know, a burden, a yoke.
That's talking about work. It's talking about effort. It's talking about,
you know, service for God.
I want to tell you today that the service that God wants us to encounter and
be involved in is, it should be easy.
It should be full of his grace. It should be grace upon us to do his work.
(26:14):
And if it's anything else, if there's any any striving, if there's any performance, it's got to go.
It's got to go. You've got to ask yourself your question. Ask yourself,
where's the motivation in your heart?
If it's motivated by pleasing your father, then you're in good stead.
But if you go into pleasing because you have to, then you've gone into religion.
(26:35):
But when you can come out by grace and know, you know what, God,
I'm so imperfect, but I'll serve you to the best of my ability if you grace
me and empower me, then I want to be part of this great last day's dad's army.
I want to be part of what you're going to do in this earth, Lord.
Count me in. I know I'm imperfect.
I know I've got like big issues or whatever, but God, I just want to enlist
(26:58):
in dad's army because I just want to bring souls into heaven and I want to actually
step on the enemy's head in these last days and say, do you know what?
I've got the blood of Jesus all over me, devil. I don't have to be perfect.
I just have to be available and God's going to use me.
Amen. Do you believe that? Come on, give the Lord some praise.
(27:19):
Knowing your father cements your identity, cements it, knowing him.
You know, you're a son or daughter and I hope you know, church,
that you're not just an army but you're a family.
You know, you're a family of an army and an army of a family.
You're both. You're a family and an army. me.
(27:39):
You know, when you're part of a family, God's family, you belong.
You have a sense of belonging.
Hey, we saved a seat for you.
Saved a seat for you at the table. There's a seat for you at God's table,
his banquet table. There's a seat for everybody.
There's a seat for people that don't even know him yet. Can you see it?
(28:00):
Can you feel it in the world today?
All those lost and broken souls out there, all those ones that don't know him,
can't see him, trying to live their lives, trying to have relationships like
when I was little with my broken family out there, not even knowing Jesus,
trying to just like fumble through life.
If you don't know Jesus, I'm telling you, it's hard. But when you know Jesus, you've got hope.
(28:21):
When you know Jesus, you've got grace upon you. When you know Jesus,
there's a destination of your father available, right?
And all those people out there that are just fumbling through,
honestly, I'm so grateful I met Jesus at 29 years old and I've been following him ever since. Amen.
And so number two, when you know your father, you know that you're part of his home.
(28:43):
Home. Do you know you have a mansion waiting for you? Isn't that cool? Who wants a mansion?
Oh, I love a mansion. That'd be cool. But you have a home.
Jesus said, I have prepared a place for you and I will come back and get you, right?
I've prepared a place for every single person. Isn't it good to know that you
are part, you have a home in heaven, right?
What does that look like? I have no idea. It'll be wild. It'll be incredible.
(29:05):
It says there's no tears, no pain, no sickness,
greatness just joy can you imagine just joy and
peace just joy and peace and everybody just worshiping god incredible angels
everywhere going glory glory glory like everybody praising the father all around
the throne of god angels everywhere beings heavenly beings everywhere it'll
(29:25):
be crazy it'll be just whoa you know like a far cry to what we see here today.
Far cry to what we, to what we experience. Amen.
You can have great hope that one day there'll be no pain, no striving, no struggle.
We praise God for all the ones that have gone before us. You know,
it says there's a great cloud of witnesses cheering us on from heaven.
(29:47):
I think they are cheering us on with such, for such a time as this.
They're saying, come on church, it's your turn now. You're part of dad's army.
Come on, we've had our time. You know, Catherine Coolman's been before.
Or she's worked in miracles.
She's done all that. You know, Reinhard Bonnke, he's up there with Jesus.
Amazing. He brought like 100 million people to Christ. You know,
(30:07):
he's been before. Who's the next Reinhard Bonnke in this congregation?
Who's the next Catherine Kuhlman in this congregation? Who are you?
Who are you? You're a daughter or a son of the Most High God.
Is anything impossible?
Check your calling. Check what belongs to you. Check your inheritance.
Have you checked your inheritance?
(30:28):
Checked it out lately what belongs to you i'll
tell you where it's written in the words of the bible that's written that's
your whole inheritance right there have you checked it out what belongs to me
i don't i believe we don't even know what belongs to us the authority jesus
said i give you all authority to go into the world to trample on serpents to
trample on snakes do you believe you could raise the dead.
(30:52):
I do. I'm going to. I nearly have.
Amen. Number three, knowing the father is knowing security.
Your security comes from him. You see fame, success. Success won't bring you security.
In fact, it'll make you more insecure.
The more successful people are, the more insecure they are. It's wild.
(31:16):
They go after it. They go after money. They go after to cars.
They go after things thinking, I'm going to get my security out of this.
But it actually makes you more insecure because you think, what am I going to do if I lose it all?
Your security comes from knowing who you are in your father's house, in your father's home.
Your security is provided by the father. Have a look at John 10 verse 29.
(31:39):
My father who has given them to me is greater than all. No one can snatch them
out of my father's hand. hand.
I and the Father are one.
Do you know no one can snatch you out of the Father's hand? No one can snatch
you out of the Father's hand.
You've been chosen. You've been created.
(32:01):
You are his son or daughter. Isn't that incredible? You're in the Father's.
That scripture tells me you're in the Father's hand.
To be snatched out of the Father's hand means that you're in the Father's hand.
That's a good place to be, in the Father's hand. Amen.
I remember when I left my abusive marriage and God said, I will hold your hand.
(32:24):
That word gave me the security and the safety of knowing I could step out and
be okay because I reasoned if I have God's hand, I'll be okay.
And even though I couldn't physically touch it, that was a promise that God spoke into my heart.
And then I saw it in the Bible as well, that he has taken me by my right hand
(32:48):
and that gave me the confidence to not be fearful. form.
And the same goes for you. He says, I have taken you by your right hand.
Like a father, imagine this, a father and a little boy or a little girl,
and you've got the father's hand. And that's your place of security.
And that's your place knowing that nobody can take you out from your father. Nobody.
(33:15):
Amen. Number four, knowing the
father is our motivation for serving in
dad's army it's our motivation for serving
knowing him because if we know him we want to do his
business and his business is people that's his
business his people is all his business is all
about his kids all about saving as many people possible through the sacrifice
(33:39):
of his son boom boom shake the room full stop that's what it's about what does
the father want heaven full full of his kids at the banquet table,
having a huge party, hashtag get on the party bus,
because he's going to the party.
Amen. We want to know in this church, number one, we're going somewhere.
(34:04):
And number two, it's going to be fun. Boom.
Everything we do, we should go through those two sieves.
Is it going to be fun? And are we going somewhere? where?
Amen. Because if you can't answer those two questions, then you're just not
going to have fun in this church because we're going to, we're about fun. Amen.
We're about to not take ourselves seriously so much. And we're going after the
(34:28):
power of God and we're going to get soul saved and we're going to see miraculous things.
And we're going to do incredible things at the end of the year with a big,
big white temporary structure.
And it rhymes with bent.
And Sarah's laughing. And this church, honestly, I feel has a unique calling.
(34:51):
We're a unique army. We're Dad's army. And I want you to feel secure here.
I want you to know you have a home here. There's a seat here for you.
There's a place here for you.
There's no cliquey groups here. We're for each other. Father,
we acknowledge that we all have gaping holes, right? That we're all a work in progress.
(35:14):
We have our L plates on and that's not for loser.
That's for learner, right? We have our L plates on. And do you know what?
I pray I always have my L plates on.
I pray that I come to the Father like a little child.
And that's what I pray. Linny, would you come and pray some keys?
Yeah, pray some keys. That's a good way to play the keyboard. Pray it. Pray it. Amen.
(35:38):
And I pray that we could come to the Father today like a little child.
And that is what he says about his kids. He says, if you come to me like a little
child, I want your faith to be like a little child.
Let's have a look at how we approach the Father with our faith,
with our requests, with our prayers.
Let's have a look. Let's check our motivations. Do we actually accept his word,
(36:05):
receive his word like a child? would.
Because if my dad, you know, dads have great authority.
If my dad said it, he'll do it. If my dad said it, he's going to do it.
And so what did God say about your life? He's going to do it.
His word is everything.
(36:25):
You know, back in the day, people were known by their name, Their fathers,
you know, it was Williamson or Thompson.
You were the son of someone.
You were the daughter of someone. And back in the olden days,
that's how you were. You know what?
If your house had a good reputation and you were a Thompson,
(36:50):
a Thompson, the son of Tom, they would look at the reputation of your family.
Music.
And they'd go oh they'd make judgments about you oh well yeah we can trust them
you know I was talking last week I think or the week before I can't remember about,
the way they used to do business by word and a handshake and your word was enough.
(37:17):
Music.
So the reputation of your home, the reputation of your family was everything.
Oh, they come from a good family.
Well, they come from a bad family. Don't touch them. Don't go near them.
(37:38):
They come from a bad family. They come from a good family.
Music.
Church, you come from a good family.
Church, your father has got the best reputation.
He is the reputation. He is your reputation.
You know, you can have confidence approaching your father boldly because of Jesus.
(38:03):
And so I want you to focus on this week who your father is to you and bring
your father front and center.
Bring him front and center and say thank you for Jesus, your son,
because otherwise I couldn't even face you.
I couldn't even come into your presence. And John 8, 27-29 says this. I'll finish on this.
(38:29):
They did not understand that he was telling them about his father.
So Jesus said, When you've lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that
I am the one I claim to be and that I do nothing on my own, but speak just what
the Father has taught me.
The one who sent me is with me.
(38:51):
He has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him.
So let us be a church that wants to please our Father. Let us be a church that knows our Father.
You can know your Father in your head, or you can know him in your heart.
And so right across this room, I'm going to pray for anybody...
(39:14):
Music.
Heart because God looks at the heart. Faith belongs in the heart.
Faith is believing in the heart and confessing with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord.
(39:36):
And once you can do that, that's how you come to the Father.
He is the way, the truth, and the life. So how do you come to the Father? You come by faith.
You come by believing in Jesus. Once you believe in Jesus, you can come. The veil is torn.
And there's this incredible thing called eternal life that comes into your heart.
And so if you're here today and you've never prayed that prayer,
Jesus come into my life. We're going to pray this all together, church.
(40:00):
And so if you're here and you've never prayed it in your heart of hearts to
let Jesus come into your heart, we're going to do it all together.
And it could be the first time for you or you're coming back today,
but let's pray this out loud because I would not want anybody to miss out on knowing your father.
Music.
So say these words after me, church. Say, Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
(40:25):
Thank you for Jesus. I receive him as my saviour, my healer, my deliverer.
I believe he is the son of God.
And I believe today I'm saved by grace through faith in him.
(40:50):
Music.
In Jesus' name, amen. Holy Spirit, come.
(41:12):
Lord, I just pray for anybody here, right here, right now, that prayed that
prayer for the first time.
Lord, I pray for a revelation of who the Father is, a revelation of who Jesus
is, that we would know the Father in our heart of hearts, not in our heads,
but in our heart, Lord, that we would know the Father, God.
And we thank you for Jesus once again. And we praise your holy name.
(41:34):
And Lord, we just pray that we would come in 2024, we would come and approach
you like a small childhood, with childlike faith.
We would actually believe what you said.
We will actually read what you said.
We will read it, we will believe it, and we will apply it to our lives.
(41:59):
And i thank you lord that you are consecrating
us and sanctifying us so that
we would be pure in your eyes lord that we would be purified by your spirit
and that when you come back jesus you would count us in as your army we want
(42:20):
to be dad's army we want to be that for you lord Lord,
because we love you in Jesus' name.
And everybody said, amen. Come on, give him some mighty praise.
Say, thank you, Jesus. I can come boldly before my father. Amen. So good, so good.
We're going to sing a song to finish. But next week, don't miss out on the Tibernator
(42:44):
bringing a word about our relationship with Jesus, the social terrorist.
I'm letting him loose. I'm a bit scared. but I'm going to bring a helmet,
I think, and an umbrella.
Have you had a good week? Good. We're coming into a new series this month.
We want to talk about relationships.
And I thought, okay, relationships. Normally when I say, oh,
we're going to have a series on relationships, you start talking about marriages and blah, blah, blah.
But no, I thought the first thing I want to talk about is relationship with the father.
Because I think if you get your relationship with your father right,
(00:23):
then you can get everything right.
And then next week I've asked the big Tibernator to come and share about relationship with Jesus.
Are you excited about that? Yeah, we're going to let him loose.
And then the third week, we're going to talk about relationship with the Holy
Spirit, how the Holy Spirit's a person you can have a relationship with. Amen.
(00:43):
And then the fourth week we're going to have, we're going to talk about relationship
with each other and how that affects our community.
So that's kind of the plan moving forward, just so you know,
that's the big broad brushstroke.
Today, I want to talk about relationship with our Father, our Father who art in heaven.
Hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
(01:07):
Give us today your daily bread, our daily bread, Lord, and forgive us.
Forgive us for all our trespasses as we forgive others.
You forgive us and we give you all the glory, all the honor as you sit there,
Lord, on the throne, Lord, of the mighty hand of God. We love you, Lord.
We love you, Father, Dad, Papa, Dada, whatever you want to call him.
(01:31):
We love you, Dad, in Jesus' name. Amen?
So my sermon today is called Dad's Army.
Dad's Army. Do you know you're Dad's Army? You are Dad's Army.
I believe, I can see prophetically what God's doing. He is bringing people together
into an army of God for these last days.
(01:58):
He's bringing people together. I believe this church specifically,
he's bringing people who are passionate about revival, passionate about souls,
passionate about healing and the supernatural.
And we are going to have a revival in this church. which it's a no-brainer.
We're already cracking open into a whole new level of hunger.
(02:23):
And I believe as we hunger for God, we will experience him in a greater measure.
But you know, the Father, the Father represents so many things to us, right?
And what we can't do is compare our Father in in heaven with our father on earth,
because when we start to do that, we are so short of what we're supposed to be seeing.
(02:49):
Our father in heaven is perfect.
That he is perfection. He is God. He's the God of the universe.
He spoke the universe into being. He is God.
Nobody can come up against him. I mean, he is the creator of the universe.
He's a father and he loves us so much.
(03:09):
He knew that we would go our own way. He knew we would disobey him like most children.
He knew that we'd be rebellious and he already had a plan to send his son as a a sacrifice.
So God so loved the world, he gave his one and only son.
So the first perspective I want you to see is how much the father loves you
(03:33):
to give up his one and only son, Jesus.
Can you imagine giving up one of your children as a sacrifice so that somebody else could be saved?
Somebody else could be saved. Can you imagine paying that kind of price?
That's the father's love for you. And I want to start with this main scripture
in 1 John 3 verse 1 and 3. Read with me, if you will.
(03:58):
How great is the love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called
children of God. And that is what we are.
Say, that is what I am. What are you?
A child of God. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.
(04:19):
Dear friends, now we are children of God. And what will be has not been known.
But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him.
For we shall see him as he is. Everyone
who has this hope in him purifies himself just as he is pure. pure.
(04:43):
See, when you're in your father's presence, when you know the father and how
holy he actually is, it just wants you to, it makes you want to be holy yourself.
It makes you want to clean up your act. You know, we can't do that in our own
strength. We can't be holy, but by his grace, we can be holy.
You know, his grace is sufficient for us. Like I said, in our weakness,
(05:03):
his strength is made perfect.
We can't be pure. We can't be holy in our own strength. Oh my goodness,
right? If you try and do that, like who's ever tried to give up chocolate?
Who's ever tried to do something by pure will?
You know, you last about, I don't know, a week, two weeks max, right?
And then you falter because it's in your own strength. But when God's grace
is there, it's an enabling power to do something.
(05:26):
And that is what we're after. We acknowledge that we can do nothing without
him. We acknowledge that we need God in our lives.
God's presence can be felt. The Father's presence can be felt.
It can be experienced. It can be encountered.
But you need the right perspective when you come to your father.
(05:49):
When you come to your father, you're coming to a loving father.
When you come to your father, you're coming to a father that gave up everything
for you. He gave up Jesus for you.
He loves you that much. Do you know it says that the father knows every single hair on your head?
Do you know that the father knows when one sparrow falls?
Are you not worth more than many sparrows, says the scriptures?
(06:13):
One sparrow falls and the
father knows that's his eye of detail he knows
every single hair he knows every thought before it's even
a word on your tongue he is in the detail he's in the big broad brushstrokes
of saving the world amen yes and amen but he is into you he is into you he thinks
(06:34):
you're great he thinks you're wonderful he thinks you're he thinks you're he
thinks you're funny sometimes he thinks you're hilarious.
You can have a private joke with the father, right? You can have a joke with
God. He's not there with a big stick.
Some people have had a really bad relationship with their father. I acknowledge that.
(06:55):
But you cannot compare Father God with your father because your father is just
another human being who has failings and weak spots like all of us. Amen.
My dad abandoned me when I was 12 years old and just came into my room one day
and said, yeah, me and your sister are leaving.
(07:18):
And my sister was one year older than me and we were super tight, best friends.
And he said, me and your sister are leaving. I said, where are you going?
And he said, no, no, we're moving out. And I said, what do you mean?
Like, it was such a shock. I said, what do you mean?
And he said, no, no, we've got a whole new house. We've set it up.
We're moving out today and you can help us move out, but you're not coming.
(07:40):
And I'm like, what do you mean I'm not coming?
He said, no, you have to stay here with your mother. Me and your sister are
moving out. My mom was really abusive.
She had a brain hemorrhage when I was like five years old and she never recovered.
She was really abusive. She was addicted to alcohol and pills and she was pretty
crazy. And she used to beat my dad up.
(08:00):
My dad was abused by my mother.
My mother was violent. and so my dad never wanted to come home.
He would spend all his time out and then he started another relationship with
another woman and he would never come home.
But he did used to take me diving on weekends and so I'd see him on the weekends.
But one day he just sprung this on me. He said, I'm leaving.
(08:23):
So I helped them move out that day and I was quite confused and broken,
but I was left behind to tell my mum that they'd gone because I said,
does mum know? And he said, know, you're going to have to tell her.
And I was like, what? It was so confusing. And then I stayed and I told mum
and mum lost the plot, of course, and got really angry.
(08:45):
And after a couple of years, my mum had nobody to take her violence out on except for me.
And so it got transferred to me. And then I was in this situation,
whereas if I didn't leave my mum, I knew that maybe I may not be here to tell you the story.
So I rang up my dad and I said, dad, dad, I've got to come to you now.
(09:06):
Like, I've got to go. I've got to leave mom. It broke my heart in a million
pieces because I love my mom.
And I know she's broken. She was so broken.
And anyway, I had to leave and go and stay with my dad. And he had this new
wife with four kids and it was an absolute disaster.
And she didn't like us because we were just a complication, me and my sister.
(09:28):
And it was just, it was a nightmare, my family. But you know,
I can't compare my father with my father in heaven.
And my father was, he was kind.
He was a pushover, but he was kind and he was short. That's where I got that from.
He was short. He was kind. He had a big laugh.
(09:48):
He had a big jovial laugh. We'd get chucked out of restaurants for laughing
too loud. I've still got that.
And he was a good man to the best of his ability, but he was beaten up by my mum.
And, you know, he was living with insanity there, and so my sister.
But it was just a big journey with me. I've got a very broken family.
Many of us have really broken families.
(10:10):
But I cannot compare my father in heaven with my earthly father.
And I know, and my dad got saved by the skin of his teeth. I led him to the
Lord just before he died.
You know basically he just he just did not
acknowledge god his whole life and once we
were out and i said dad just just just in case like if
(10:31):
you did want to invite jesus into your life like would
you know how and he said and he
couldn't speak at the time he'd had strokes and stuff and he just nodded his
head and he went no like that and i said
i said well dad i got excited at that
prospect i thought dad dad dad if he
is so do you want me to tell you how to do that i can can tell you
how and he just looked at me and he went and I
(10:54):
went wrong response and I
was dying and I was like holy spirit help me how do
I reach my dad and knowing that this could be the last time I see him how can
I lead him to you and then I and then I'm there and I'm like swimming around
for answers just god help me father help me and then it just came out of my
(11:16):
mouth and I went dad dad, would you do it for me?
And he went, because he couldn't talk. And I was like, did you see that God?
Did you see that mustard seed?
Did you see that? Because you know what, that's enough for God.
That's enough. That little acknowledgement, that little yes, that's enough.
Even though my dad couldn't talk and say the sinner's prayer and invite Jesus
(11:38):
in, that was enough, his heart to move to say, yeah, actually, I will believe for you.
I believe God God saved my dad in that moment and I had great peace when he passed away.
But, you know, I know there's worse stories than my story with fathers, abusive fathers.
There's so many different fathers, but our Father in heaven is absolutely perfect. Amen.
(12:02):
And I wanted to say that through faith in Jesus.
The father's son, we gain access to the father. That's how we gain access to
the father. It's through Jesus.
Let's have a look at this powerful scripture in John 14, verse six and seven.
One of my favorite scriptures in the whole Bible is this scripture.
This scripture will annihilate any enemy.
(12:23):
This scripture will annihilate every kind of demon that pokes that little head up.
I'll tell tell you, Jesus answered, I am the way, the truth and the life.
And no one comes to the father except through me.
Amen. That is such a powerful scripture. He's the way where he's the,
(12:46):
Jesus is the way to what? The destination.
What's the destination? The father, the father's the the destination.
That's where we've all got to get to.
And Jesus is the way to the Father.
So, you know, we can't just, yeah, we love Jesus, but we have to know our Father.
(13:07):
We have to know, we have to know that it's that, like Andrew was saying,
it's three in one, the deity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are all God, all God.
And we only can come to the Father Father, except through Jesus.
And do you know what? The world will try everything to circumnavigate that truth. Everything.
(13:30):
They will try everything. I got so excited because my youngest son, Lockie.
He came to me and said, mum, I'm doing a Bible study. And I nearly fell off
my chair. I was like, what?
Anyway, he's listening to this. I said, who is it? Let me check it out.
Anyway, he's going down a wrong path.
He's listening to this strange mystic guy who's trying to get Jesus off the throne.
(13:53):
You know, because that's what I'm looking for. When I'm looking for anything,
I'm looking for an acknowledgement that Jesus is the way, the truth and the
life and no one comes to the the father except through him.
And if there's nothing about that, then I'm not having anything about it.
I'm not wanting anything to
do with it unless you can say Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.
No one comes to the father except through him. Jesus is the only way.
(14:14):
Yep. Do I believe that? Am I narrow-minded? Yes.
Yes, I'm narrow-minded about that. You can call me a narrow-minded Christian.
You can call me a small thing. You can call me whatever, but I will not back
down from acknowledging that Jesus is the only way to the Father. He is a pure sacrifice.
He went to the cross to die for our sins. He paid the most pricely cost to have
(14:37):
given us this free gift of salvation.
You can praise him for that anytime you want.
You know, I met Jesus when I was 29 years old in New York City and had a powerful encounter.
When I got saved, though, So I would have to say my first encounter,
by acknowledging that Jesus was the way, the truth, and the life,
(15:03):
it opened up to the destination.
And I found myself at the destination where my Father in heaven and me had an encounter.
And I realized in a millisecond, millisecond, that my Father had seen everything
in my life, everything, every detail, every sin, every mistake,
(15:25):
everything, and still loved me.
It blew my mind. I thought, God, you've seen everything and you still love me.
That's right. He says in the Word of God, it says when you were still powerless,
that's when Christ died for you.
When you're at your worst, you can come to the Father through Jesus,
through faith in Jesus, and he'll accept you. It was amazing.
(15:46):
And it was just it was just open my eyes to how God, the Father has seen your
whole life, every single thing.
And he still offers you his beautiful son, Jesus. He still says,
come into my house, come to my table. Amen.
It was amazing. And after my salvation, I found out that Jesus was a healer,
(16:07):
Andrew, a healer. Fancy that.
Anyway, I read this little book on healing and it said, if you pray in the name
of Jesus, you'll be healed.
And for you who don't know me here today, I had a diving accident off the 10
meter platform when I was 14 years old.
I used to be a diver, represented Australia, and I was right into it.
Training every day. And I had this accident that smashed my spine,
(16:30):
neck and hips out of place.
And so I was in chronic pain for 15 years, drug addicted, crazy,
heartbroken, messed up, just nuts, right?
And met Jesus, found out that he's a healer and invited Jesus into my life to heal me.
And I remember that it took two and a half hours of Jesus reconstructing my
(16:54):
spine, my neck, my hips. I mean, God moved my bones.
So I believe in miracles.
I believe that if God can move my bones, then he can heal your diseases.
I believe because I felt it. I felt the power of God inside of my body.
I felt my vertebrae and my spine realigning with the thumbs of Jesus around my vertebrae.
(17:17):
I've, I've, I've, I've experienced Jesus moving.
Massaging knots out of my back so incredibly miraculously.
I mean, he straightened my neck, grew my hip out back into joint,
and he was in control of my body for two and a half hours.
And me and Jesus are having this incredible wild ride of this miracle for two
(17:39):
and a half hours, wave after wave of joy, when he reconstructed my spine.
And then at the end of it, there was this little hairpin adjustment adjustment
in my coccyx down, right down low.
And it was such a small movement, such a small healing after all the big moves we'd done.
I thought, oh, it's finished.
(18:02):
It was like God signing off and it was the final detail.
And then what happened was that the personality in the room had been Jesus for
two and a half hours, me and Jesus in this miracle together.
And then all of of a sudden, the whole room changed and the whole atmosphere
(18:24):
changed and a different personality walked into that room. And it was the father.
And I remember it so clearly. I mean, I was born again for about three months at this stage.
And I remember the personality being so different from from Jesus to the Father.
(18:44):
Even though they're the same, the Father walked into the room. It was holy.
It was holy. It took my breath away.
It was so holy. And I was in reverence.
And I literally, he asked me a question without any words at all. He asked me a question.
(19:05):
And the question that I understood without any words was, will you give me your
whole life? and I just said, yes, Lord.
Like, you're going to say yes to a God who can move your bones.
Like, you're going to say yes to a God who just took over your body and healed
you. And I said, yes, Lord, you can have my whole life.
But the holiness, the holiness of the Father took my breath away.
(19:33):
And I think sometimes, church, we lose the reverence. We lose the reverence
of the Father, the mighty God, the creator of all the earth.
And we can lose focus on just how holy, powerful he actually is in our lives,
how he sees you, cares for you.
(19:53):
What does a father do? A father protects you.
A father knows you. A father protects you. A father knows every hair on your head.
He knows what you're going to do before you're going to do it. Amen. He's a provider.
He's your provider. Your father provides for you. He protects you.
He stands up for you. He's got your back. Your dad is the best dad you could ever have.
(20:16):
And you've got that father because of Jesus. Because what Jesus did on the cross,
you have a relationship with the father.
You can praise Jesus for that. That's incredible, right?
Because of what Jesus did, we can have a relationship with the Father.
Without Jesus, we have no relationship with the Father.
Let's acknowledge that. Without Jesus going to the cross, we have no relationship with the Father.
(20:39):
We have no way of standing before the throne of God. We have nothing on us. We're too filthy.
We're too sinful. We can't do it. We can't stand there.
We can stand there because the blood of Jesus, we can take the blood of Jesus
into the courtroom room.
And we can say to every demon in hell, we can stand boldly before the throne
of grace because of what Jesus did.
(21:00):
Yet you can praise him. You can stand on your seat.
You can shout for joy. I mean, it's pretty amazing that Jesus did this for us.
Incredible, right? Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Let's have a look at Hebrews 1, verse 1 and 2. In the past, God spoke to our
forefathers through the prophets at many times and in many various ways.
(21:21):
But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his son, whom he appointed heir
of all things and through whom he made the universe.
The son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being,
sustaining all things by his powerful word.
(21:42):
After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty in heaven.
Amen. What a scripture.
God used to speak through the prophets many various ways. You know,
the Old Testament's full of it.
But in the New Testament, God speaks to us.
(22:05):
The Father speaks to us through his Son.
The way of communication to us is through Jesus.
Amen? Through his sacrifice. And John 17 verse 6 says,
I have revealed to you the, I have, sorry, I have revealed you,
You, Jesus says, I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours.
(22:28):
You gave them to me and they have obeyed your word.
You were given to Jesus. You were given to Jesus by the Father. Isn't that cool?
You belong to Jesus by the Father.
The Father gave you. Otherwise, you couldn't have been born again,
saved and set free and have a future in heaven. You couldn't do it without the
(22:52):
Father's will. It was a Father's choice.
He said, I'll give Nicky Morton to Jesus. I'll give Andrew Morton to Jesus.
Praise God for that. Amen. Praise God.
Right. Praise God he gave us to Jesus. Jesus came to demonstrate his Father.
He came to earth to demonstrate his Father.
(23:13):
Not to tell the Jewish people about the Father, but to demonstrate him.
So when we look at Jesus, we see the Father. What did Jesus do?
He went around healing the sick, raising the dead, proclaiming the good news, the kingdom's coming.
That's what Jesus did. Jesus went around. He didn't, you know,
I mean, Jesus would have just been, he was just walking.
People were trying to kill him. People were trying to lock him up.
(23:35):
I mean, he just, coolest guy on earth.
Knew his authority. When you know the Father, you know your authority.
When you know your Father, you know your identity as a son of God,
as a daughter of God. My dad.
My dad gave me the mic.
(23:55):
I didn't go and get it. He gave it to me. My dad, my father in heaven gave you a gift.
He gave you your gift to use for his service.
Amen? Fit for service. He made you fit for service.
He made you. He's got a whole big kingdom, our Father, a massive kingdom.
(24:17):
And we can look at our church here and think that's all. There's a massive kingdom.
And, you know, Jesus loves his church. He loves all the weird churches,
all the churches that are not quite making it.
He loves every church. He loves the big mega church, even though they make some mistakes, whatever.
We all make mistakes, right? No church is perfect.
(24:40):
And Jesus loves his church. He's working on the bride right now.
He's working to purify the bride. He wants to come back for a pure bride.
When I'm talking about purification from the Father came for purification, Jesus came to purify us.
It's a necessary work. if Jesus is
to come back the second time he's coming back for a pure bride he's coming
(25:04):
back for dad's army amen he's
coming back and the father's work
is is what we're about we're about doing the father Jesus was about doing the
father's work he often referenced to it Matthew 11 27 to 30 all things have
been committed to me by my father no one knows the son except the,
(25:28):
And no one knows the Father except the Son, and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. Verse 2.
(25:51):
The scripture, it talks about, you know, a burden, a yoke.
That's talking about work. It's talking about effort. It's talking about,
you know, service for God.
I want to tell you today that the service that God wants us to encounter and
be involved in is, it should be easy.
It should be full of his grace. It should be grace upon us to do his work.
(26:14):
And if it's anything else, if there's any any striving, if there's any performance, it's got to go.
It's got to go. You've got to ask yourself your question. Ask yourself,
where's the motivation in your heart?
If it's motivated by pleasing your father, then you're in good stead.
But if you go into pleasing because you have to, then you've gone into religion.
(26:35):
But when you can come out by grace and know, you know what, God,
I'm so imperfect, but I'll serve you to the best of my ability if you grace
me and empower me, then I want to be part of this great last day's dad's army.
I want to be part of what you're going to do in this earth, Lord.
Count me in. I know I'm imperfect.
I know I've got like big issues or whatever, but God, I just want to enlist
(26:58):
in dad's army because I just want to bring souls into heaven and I want to actually
step on the enemy's head in these last days and say, do you know what?
I've got the blood of Jesus all over me, devil. I don't have to be perfect.
I just have to be available and God's going to use me.
Amen. Do you believe that? Come on, give the Lord some praise.
(27:19):
Knowing your father cements your identity, cements it, knowing him.
You know, you're a son or daughter and I hope you know, church,
that you're not just an army but you're a family.
You know, you're a family of an army and an army of a family.
You're both. You're a family and an army. me.
(27:39):
You know, when you're part of a family, God's family, you belong.
You have a sense of belonging.
Hey, we saved a seat for you.
Saved a seat for you at the table. There's a seat for you at God's table,
his banquet table. There's a seat for everybody.
There's a seat for people that don't even know him yet. Can you see it?
(28:00):
Can you feel it in the world today?
All those lost and broken souls out there, all those ones that don't know him,
can't see him, trying to live their lives, trying to have relationships like
when I was little with my broken family out there, not even knowing Jesus,
trying to just like fumble through life.
If you don't know Jesus, I'm telling you, it's hard. But when you know Jesus, you've got hope.
(28:21):
When you know Jesus, you've got grace upon you. When you know Jesus,
there's a destination of your father available, right?
And all those people out there that are just fumbling through,
honestly, I'm so grateful I met Jesus at 29 years old and I've been following him ever since. Amen.
And so number two, when you know your father, you know that you're part of his home.
(28:43):
Home. Do you know you have a mansion waiting for you? Isn't that cool? Who wants a mansion?
Oh, I love a mansion. That'd be cool. But you have a home.
Jesus said, I have prepared a place for you and I will come back and get you, right?
I've prepared a place for every single person. Isn't it good to know that you
are part, you have a home in heaven, right?
What does that look like? I have no idea. It'll be wild. It'll be incredible.
(29:05):
It says there's no tears, no pain, no sickness,
greatness just joy can you imagine just joy and
peace just joy and peace and everybody just worshiping god incredible angels
everywhere going glory glory glory like everybody praising the father all around
the throne of god angels everywhere beings heavenly beings everywhere it'll
(29:25):
be crazy it'll be just whoa you know like a far cry to what we see here today.
Far cry to what we, to what we experience. Amen.
You can have great hope that one day there'll be no pain, no striving, no struggle.
We praise God for all the ones that have gone before us. You know,
it says there's a great cloud of witnesses cheering us on from heaven.
(29:47):
I think they are cheering us on with such, for such a time as this.
They're saying, come on church, it's your turn now. You're part of dad's army.
Come on, we've had our time. You know, Catherine Coolman's been before.
Or she's worked in miracles.
She's done all that. You know, Reinhard Bonnke, he's up there with Jesus.
Amazing. He brought like 100 million people to Christ. You know,
(30:07):
he's been before. Who's the next Reinhard Bonnke in this congregation?
Who's the next Catherine Kuhlman in this congregation? Who are you?
Who are you? You're a daughter or a son of the Most High God.
Is anything impossible?
Check your calling. Check what belongs to you. Check your inheritance.
Have you checked your inheritance?
(30:28):
Checked it out lately what belongs to you i'll
tell you where it's written in the words of the bible that's written that's
your whole inheritance right there have you checked it out what belongs to me
i don't i believe we don't even know what belongs to us the authority jesus
said i give you all authority to go into the world to trample on serpents to
trample on snakes do you believe you could raise the dead.
(30:52):
I do. I'm going to. I nearly have.
Amen. Number three, knowing the father is knowing security.
Your security comes from him. You see fame, success. Success won't bring you security.
In fact, it'll make you more insecure.
The more successful people are, the more insecure they are. It's wild.
(31:16):
They go after it. They go after money. They go after to cars.
They go after things thinking, I'm going to get my security out of this.
But it actually makes you more insecure because you think, what am I going to do if I lose it all?
Your security comes from knowing who you are in your father's house, in your father's home.
Your security is provided by the father. Have a look at John 10 verse 29.
(31:39):
My father who has given them to me is greater than all. No one can snatch them
out of my father's hand. hand.
I and the Father are one.
Do you know no one can snatch you out of the Father's hand? No one can snatch
you out of the Father's hand.
You've been chosen. You've been created.
(32:01):
You are his son or daughter. Isn't that incredible? You're in the Father's.
That scripture tells me you're in the Father's hand.
To be snatched out of the Father's hand means that you're in the Father's hand.
That's a good place to be, in the Father's hand. Amen.
I remember when I left my abusive marriage and God said, I will hold your hand.
(32:24):
That word gave me the security and the safety of knowing I could step out and
be okay because I reasoned if I have God's hand, I'll be okay.
And even though I couldn't physically touch it, that was a promise that God spoke into my heart.
And then I saw it in the Bible as well, that he has taken me by my right hand
(32:48):
and that gave me the confidence to not be fearful. form.
And the same goes for you. He says, I have taken you by your right hand.
Like a father, imagine this, a father and a little boy or a little girl,
and you've got the father's hand. And that's your place of security.
And that's your place knowing that nobody can take you out from your father. Nobody.
(33:15):
Amen. Number four, knowing the
father is our motivation for serving in
dad's army it's our motivation for serving
knowing him because if we know him we want to do his
business and his business is people that's his
business his people is all his business is all
about his kids all about saving as many people possible through the sacrifice
(33:39):
of his son boom boom shake the room full stop that's what it's about what does
the father want heaven full full of his kids at the banquet table,
having a huge party, hashtag get on the party bus,
because he's going to the party.
Amen. We want to know in this church, number one, we're going somewhere.
(34:04):
And number two, it's going to be fun. Boom.
Everything we do, we should go through those two sieves.
Is it going to be fun? And are we going somewhere? where?
Amen. Because if you can't answer those two questions, then you're just not
going to have fun in this church because we're going to, we're about fun. Amen.
We're about to not take ourselves seriously so much. And we're going after the
(34:28):
power of God and we're going to get soul saved and we're going to see miraculous things.
And we're going to do incredible things at the end of the year with a big,
big white temporary structure.
And it rhymes with bent.
And Sarah's laughing. And this church, honestly, I feel has a unique calling.
(34:51):
We're a unique army. We're Dad's army. And I want you to feel secure here.
I want you to know you have a home here. There's a seat here for you.
There's a place here for you.
There's no cliquey groups here. We're for each other. Father,
we acknowledge that we all have gaping holes, right? That we're all a work in progress.
(35:14):
We have our L plates on and that's not for loser.
That's for learner, right? We have our L plates on. And do you know what?
I pray I always have my L plates on.
I pray that I come to the Father like a little child.
And that's what I pray. Linny, would you come and pray some keys?
Yeah, pray some keys. That's a good way to play the keyboard. Pray it. Pray it. Amen.
(35:38):
And I pray that we could come to the Father today like a little child.
And that is what he says about his kids. He says, if you come to me like a little
child, I want your faith to be like a little child.
Let's have a look at how we approach the Father with our faith,
with our requests, with our prayers.
Let's have a look. Let's check our motivations. Do we actually accept his word,
(36:05):
receive his word like a child? would.
Because if my dad, you know, dads have great authority.
If my dad said it, he'll do it. If my dad said it, he's going to do it.
And so what did God say about your life? He's going to do it.
His word is everything.
(36:25):
You know, back in the day, people were known by their name, Their fathers,
you know, it was Williamson or Thompson.
You were the son of someone.
You were the daughter of someone. And back in the olden days,
that's how you were. You know what?
If your house had a good reputation and you were a Thompson,
(36:50):
a Thompson, the son of Tom, they would look at the reputation of your family.
Music.
And they'd go oh they'd make judgments about you oh well yeah we can trust them
you know I was talking last week I think or the week before I can't remember about,
the way they used to do business by word and a handshake and your word was enough.
(37:17):
Music.
So the reputation of your home, the reputation of your family was everything.
Oh, they come from a good family.
Well, they come from a bad family. Don't touch them. Don't go near them.
(37:38):
They come from a bad family. They come from a good family.
Music.
Church, you come from a good family.
Church, your father has got the best reputation.
He is the reputation. He is your reputation.
You know, you can have confidence approaching your father boldly because of Jesus.
(38:03):
And so I want you to focus on this week who your father is to you and bring
your father front and center.
Bring him front and center and say thank you for Jesus, your son,
because otherwise I couldn't even face you.
I couldn't even come into your presence. And John 8, 27-29 says this. I'll finish on this.
(38:29):
They did not understand that he was telling them about his father.
So Jesus said, When you've lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that
I am the one I claim to be and that I do nothing on my own, but speak just what
the Father has taught me.
The one who sent me is with me.
(38:51):
He has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him.
So let us be a church that wants to please our Father. Let us be a church that knows our Father.
You can know your Father in your head, or you can know him in your heart.
And so right across this room, I'm going to pray for anybody...
(39:14):
Music.
Heart because God looks at the heart. Faith belongs in the heart.
Faith is believing in the heart and confessing with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord.
(39:36):
And once you can do that, that's how you come to the Father.
He is the way, the truth, and the life. So how do you come to the Father? You come by faith.
You come by believing in Jesus. Once you believe in Jesus, you can come. The veil is torn.
And there's this incredible thing called eternal life that comes into your heart.
And so if you're here today and you've never prayed that prayer,
Jesus come into my life. We're going to pray this all together, church.
(40:00):
And so if you're here and you've never prayed it in your heart of hearts to
let Jesus come into your heart, we're going to do it all together.
And it could be the first time for you or you're coming back today,
but let's pray this out loud because I would not want anybody to miss out on knowing your father.
Music.
So say these words after me, church. Say, Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
(40:25):
Thank you for Jesus. I receive him as my saviour, my healer, my deliverer.
I believe he is the son of God.
And I believe today I'm saved by grace through faith in him.
(40:50):
Music.
In Jesus' name, amen. Holy Spirit, come.
(41:12):
Lord, I just pray for anybody here, right here, right now, that prayed that
prayer for the first time.
Lord, I pray for a revelation of who the Father is, a revelation of who Jesus
is, that we would know the Father in our heart of hearts, not in our heads,
but in our heart, Lord, that we would know the Father, God.
And we thank you for Jesus once again. And we praise your holy name.
(41:34):
And Lord, we just pray that we would come in 2024, we would come and approach
you like a small childhood, with childlike faith.
We would actually believe what you said.
We will actually read what you said.
We will read it, we will believe it, and we will apply it to our lives.
(41:59):
And i thank you lord that you are consecrating
us and sanctifying us so that
we would be pure in your eyes lord that we would be purified by your spirit
and that when you come back jesus you would count us in as your army we want
(42:20):
to be dad's army we want to be that for you lord Lord,
because we love you in Jesus' name.
And everybody said, amen. Come on, give him some mighty praise.
Say, thank you, Jesus. I can come boldly before my father. Amen. So good, so good.
We're going to sing a song to finish. But next week, don't miss out on the Tibernator
(42:44):
bringing a word about our relationship with Jesus, the social terrorist.
I'm letting him loose. I'm a bit scared. but I'm going to bring a helmet,
I think, and an umbrella.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.