January 21, 2025 • 58 mins
Summary of E55
In the second half of this conversation, Jay Heck and Scott Hare explore the profound themes of sonship and adoption as depicted throughout the entirety of the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation. They discuss the journey from being orphans to becoming sons of God, emphasizing the transformative power of understanding one's identity in Christ. The conversation delves into the biblical narratives, particularly focusing on Moses and the Israelites, and how their experiences reflect the journey of faith and identity. The discussion culminates in the significance of adoption in the New Testament, highlighting God's heart for the fatherless and the invitation to be part of His family. The discussion culminates in the parable of the lost son, highlighting God's invitation to trust and embrace our identity in Him.
Takeaways
-God desires to help you discover your identity.
-The journey from orphans to sons is central to faith.
-Moses' identity transformation is key to understanding sonship.
-Sonship affects how we perceive God's power and love.
-Evil's power is derived from what we give it.
-God's heart is to defend the fatherless and the widow.
-Adoption is a major theme throughout the Bible.
-Jesus invites us to be part of God's family.
-Understanding our identity in Christ transforms our lives.
-The narrative of Israel reflects our own journey of faith.
-Adoption reflects God's love and our identity.
-Caring for orphans and widows is crucial to God's judgment.
-Understanding our identity as adopted children is transformative.
-Submission to authority is essential in our spiritual journey.
-Judgment can be a positive affirmation of belonging.
-God's love is unconditional and seeks to embrace us.
-The orphaned heart can be diagnosed through our relationships.
-The Father desires to help us discover our true identity.
-God's pursuit of us is relentless and loving.
-The parable of the lost son illustrates God's heart for us.
Chapters
00:00 The Journey from Orphans to Sons
15:52 Transformative Power of Sonship
25:13 The Heart of God: Adoption and Fatherhood
29:02 The Pain of Adoption and God's Love
32:57 Judgment and Care for the Vulnerable
36:28 Understanding Our Identity as Adopted Children
39:03 Diagnosing the Orphaned Heart
44:20 Submission and Authority in Sonship
45:41 The Father's Heart and Our Identity
49:32 God's Pursuit of Us and Our Response
52:18 The Parable of the Lost Son and Invitation to Trust
As referred to by Scott Heare, here is Jack Frost's teaching on sonship:
-Session 1 part 1 - Experiencing the Father's Embrace - https://youtu.be/qFByVMXxWMg?si=749zptY7PdYzz1-g
-Session 1 Part 2 - Experiencing the Father's Embrace - https://youtu.be/Txdxv3Syw-c?si=AtEINJ0sD8d2P6gw
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
God, like a good father, knows you better than you know yourself and wants to help youdiscover your identity in such a way that you can live it fully in this life.
He said to him that he's redeemed us to adoption.
That's his choice.
What God wants to do is say, okay, you may be the son of something else and we all servesomething.
God says, I want to adopt you away from giving all of your power and energy to that idol,that God, and bring you home.
(00:27):
And I want you to be my son, a son of love and power and joy and strength.
That's what I want you to do.
Sons, friends, welcome back to the Being Sons podcast.
(00:49):
This is part two of a two-part conversation that I'm having with a friend of mine,Scott Heare, a very gifted biblical teacher who has been taking people for many years to
the Middle East, going on site and teaching about the Bible.
And what we're going to be exploring in this part two is this golden thread of sonship andadoption that exists all through the Old Testament into the New Testament.
(01:16):
If you missed part one of this conversation, I would highly recommend that you go back andyou listen to that one first.
So we're going to pick up here and our conversation is going to begin with my memory of acocktail party that we were at for the ministry that I work under as a 501c3, where he
invited me on a tour of Israel with him.
(01:39):
So enjoy part two of this conversation with Scott Heare.
So,
Scott, would you, you have, you invited me in that cocktail party.
You said, I'm about to go to Israel and you're going to love this because the theme thatwe're going to be exploring is, I believe you said it was from orphans to sons.
(02:05):
Correct me on that.
But what was the theme?
we were going to do is we were building an experience that starts in the desert.
So it's the concept of you start as orphans in Egypt.
And you walk all the way through the biblical narratives and these kind of powerful, likebig moving points.
So you get to this place where the full sonship of your identity is revealed through thecross, through Jesus's identity, through his resurrection.
(02:30):
And so that, that journey you can take literally in archeology.
You can see kind of how that thing kind of walks itself out from.
how you understand who's God, who's in charge, what your relationship is, what youridentity is as a slave or an orphan all the way through to what it means to be a son, a
(02:50):
co-heir, a sibling with, you know, big brother, and what the inheritance looks like, notonly.
And one of the powerful things for me is not only kind of heaven to come, but also thekingdom of heaven that is here.
which was Jesus's primary sermon.
So, that's, think such a powerful thing.
(03:15):
Also just as a passing thing.
When you mentioned that when Jesus returns, he's going to be angry.
Yeah.
I think he's going to be angry at the people that probably need to be angry.
He's also going to be pretty warm to those that he's a, he loves.
it's got, I've always had this really subtle thing going on right now with the end times.
It's a fascinating thing for me to think about.
(03:37):
If somebody was hurting my daughter in the other room and I came in, the person hurting mydaughter should be greatly afraid.
Cause I'm not going to, that's going to be pretty terrifying, at least from myperspective.
but my daughter's going to be more than relieved.
So it's sort of, wonder a little bit about, I'm not sure Jesus, it's like the concept thatin Egypt, all of the plagues that that word can also be translated wonder.
(04:08):
the wonders of God.
And so I suppose it depends on what side of love you're on that something is either awonder or a plague.
And so I often kind of approach a lot of things like that.
And it comes, that comes right out of sonship.
How does the framework of sonship affect the way we see Jesus returning?
(04:29):
Hey, all right.
You know, the all time quarterbacks here, let's roll, you know, or like,
How does that come out?
So I think it's just so beautiful.
yeah, so for us, that's what we were, what we were building is it became really clear tome that, you know, the identity of Israel in Egypt is kind of orphan slaves.
(04:52):
had a relationship with God.
know that because Moses's parents' names are Hebrew.
They're faithful.
And so we know that this is kind of passing around.
But they kind of lost it all.
And we know that because when Moses meets God, Moses says kind of, are you?
And that was one of the first pieces for me.
Cause there's a really powerful picture that we learned from Ray.
(05:16):
And it was that we don't really know.
I think it's really powerful in the story, especially of Passover and the whole narrativeis that we don't know who the Pharaoh was and we don't know what the mountain was.
And I think that's pretty classic because why wouldn't there's a lot of other names in theBible?
(05:37):
Why wouldn't God include that one?
And it's like, it's because it doesn't matter.
Pharaoh doesn't matter.
And the mountain doesn't matter.
That's not what the story is about.
And because of that, that's why in Orthodox Passover storytelling, they'll never even usethe word Moses when they tell the story.
They leave him out.
(05:57):
Well, you can see the story move, but he's never mentioned because it wasn't about Moseseither.
And I think there's just such power and recognizing that it's always been about God andthat framework and that father, son, father, daughter picture is just hugely important.
So what's wild is at the time, even though we don't know, it doesn't say in the Bible.
One of the main theories is that the Pharaoh was called Ramesses the second.
(06:23):
Ramoshay is the way to say that.
And Ramoshay means he comes from the son.
Ra, son, God.
Moshe comes from, comes out of.
And so you know that Moshe is Moses.
So Ra Moshe, well, we know where Ramesses comes from.
He comes from the son God.
(06:43):
That's his identity.
Well, Moshe, he comes from what?
He doesn't know.
He doesn't know who his father is, which is why when God shows up and says, I'm the God ofyour father's, you know, and he, and he does the whole thing, that Moses is like, who?
What's your name?
Like what's your actual name?
(07:04):
Who are you?
What's your identity?
Because what he's really asking is not who are you God what he's really asking is who amI?
Because you you clearly know who you are God that this is not at issue What's that issueis that I am Moshe comes out of what we add the water thing, but that isn't in his name We
just put it in there because that's the story comes out of water.
(07:27):
It just comes out.
He comes out of nothing
So when Moses says, what's your name?
And then God gives him the big name that nobody ever says, right?
Yahweh, which is hard for me, honestly, to say out loud after being in some of theseplaces, because it's so kind of a sacred, I want to hold it in my mouth really carefully.
But that's the name that he gives Moses.
(07:47):
And what he's really saying is this is your identity.
You are my son, you are my child.
And I am your father right there, right from the beginning.
And then that totally transforms him.
So Moses walks right into Pharaoh's world with just this clear challenge of power.
(08:08):
Right.
so the clear challenge of power in that space is that if you look at all of the Pharaohsand you look at what's called a, you're familiar with the cartouche, the idea of a
cartouche system, oval looking picture in all of the different hieroglyphs.
And it's like a name.
It's interesting because sometimes people go to Egypt, they'll come back and they'll haveone that's their name on there.
(08:30):
And it's the Egyptian hieroglyphs in a cartouche.
I don't know.
always like, okay.
but, what they'll do is, you can go and you can read them and each of these has differentkinds of symbols and each of those symbols mean things.
You know, it's letters.
Well, a symbol of a staff, like a shepherd's hook is a symbol of power.
(08:53):
And so if you see one, you're like, this person is pretty in charge.
You see two, like this person is really in charge.
You see three, you're like, this person's having to tell them he's in charge.
He's not really in charge.
He's screaming, I'm in charge.
Which anytime you're telling people you're in charge of them, you're not.
So like that's, that's this picture.
It's always funny when I see these, I'm so in charge.
(09:13):
Number three hooks, you know, but so there are different, so you can see this all over theplace and it's just in all the archeology, you can, start to see it.
It's really very interesting.
So that's because even in the Egyptian world, the shepherd is the primary picture ofleadership, the ancient picture of leadership.
So that's the reason that that shepherd cook is there.
(09:33):
They don't like that.
They don't like being shepherds because shepherds is a low deal.
Well, what kind of comes along then is that you've got Ramoshe and Moshe.
Now Moshe knows who he is.
Moshe knows who his father is and Moshe is walking right into where he used to be anorphan.
And now he is a son.
That's what's happened.
And so he faces the Pharaoh and it is a power competition.
(10:00):
It is who is really in charge and Moshe knows, and the way that is going to be describedis the way that God tells him to do it.
When you get in front of Pharaoh, you'll take your staff and you'll throw it down.
Right.
This is his, Aaron is taking the staff and throwing it down.
Cause at this point he's not even fully, by the way, love Moses even struggles with hisown.
(10:21):
Sonship because like, I bring Aaron?
Which totally my move.
Can I bring a friend?
Cause I not so sure.
So he gets in there.
So Aaron, Aaron does that.
Right.
He's got, he's got the whole, the whole staff.
But the, what's interesting is, you know, what happens, right?
He throws the staff down and what it becomes a snake.
Remember?
And then Pharaoh has his magicians do the same thing and their staff becomes snakes.
(10:45):
But do you remember what happens next?
His snake swallows the other two.
Yeah, but that's not what it says in Scripture.
Okay.
You're right in the story, especially every cartoon or book you and I have ever read orsermons I have ever preached or anything like that.
But if you go look in the Scripture, it doesn't say the priests snakes consumed Pharaoh'ssnake or Moses's snakes.
(11:10):
What it says is Moses's staff consumes Pharaoh's staff.
So the picture there is, well, maybe the Bible just made a mistake.
Or what we're talking about isn't snakes.
What we're talking about is power.
What we're saying is that God's power in that moment consumes pharaohs.
(11:36):
And what we are, what we're about to witness is the difference between a plague and awonder.
A child of God and someone that is struggling with that.
And then.
They are saved by grace.
All of them.
Not one of them deserves it, but God comes in with power and sets them all free toestablish them as a people.
(11:59):
And those, people become the first city on a hill, the first light in the world in that,in that era of time.
After, know, obviously Adam and Eve, do Abraham and Isaac, you can do with Isaac and likeover and over and over.
But that's one of the first really big ones that you could see this huge.
unfolding of, my opinion, one of my favorite unfolding of sonship right there.
(12:21):
That once Moses knows who he is, he can walk into the center of the most scary place inthe world where he was considered a totally different identity and he can be himself and
totally transform the world as a shepherd in the face of a Pharaoh.
So that whole narrative became really compelling to me.
(12:45):
And I wanted to see, could we go physically to Egypt, put our hands on the hieroglyphs ofpower and walk out of Egypt and into the desert to be shaped in the desert as, the people
got calls us to be, because we've both talked about how salvation and this revelation ofsonship have come at different times and how we wish it would have at least somehow been
(13:12):
married together.
They do have that.
You can see them do that in the desert because what God is essentially saying now is thebig question because this is an ancient question is, is it harder to get, they're not
Israelites yet, but is it harder to get the Israelites out of Egypt or is it harder to getEgypt out of the Israelites?
(13:37):
And that I think, yeah.
So I think that's what Sunship really has been for me is it's been the desert that isworking to take Egypt out of me.
So that I understand what power is.
understand what my identity is.
And I understand that I can walk with shepherd sandals anywhere God calls me to and beeverything or be nothing.
(14:02):
Whatever I'm called to be in that space.
so walking through Moses, getting into the desert, you know, and the whole picture of thatreally, Jesus walks all the disciples back through too.
He, they walk through the desert.
get back into this picture.
They, they flow out from.
You know, and Moses eventually has his disciple, is Joshua, that goes into the land andtakes it.
(14:26):
And then that goes on and on.
And whenever they miss, in my opinion, whenever they miss sonship in the inheritance,there's trouble.
They, they grab power.
They try to do something that's sideways.
It gets really out of control.
So that's what we're doing.
(14:52):
So there is a 40-year season of Israel just having been delivered from Egypt in the desertwandering around, and that's their bad.
That's their fault.
(15:12):
But of course, God knew in advance and He used it.
What was He doing in that?
The people of Israel?
Yeah.
What was he doing in those 40 years?
Yeah, I think, I think you have an instinct on what that was, but he's raising, he'schanging them from orphans to sons and daughters.
(15:33):
They, they.
what way?
Can we, can we see it?
Can you articulate in the, um, in those 40 years?
Sure.
Or maybe the result of those 40 years, what actually happened?
The contrast between, um, the beginning and the end?
I could try, but I'd love help.
I think when you have a mind, when you've been, when you've had hundreds of years ofslavery and your parents have taught you how to be a really good slave and you tell your
(16:05):
daughter, no eye contact baby, no eye contact baby, go remember no eye contact, you know,this kind of stuff.
and keep working even if they beat you son, you can do it.
whatever it might be.
And there was different levels of slavery by the way in Egypt, but it's all the mindsetis.
that you are constantly having to fight for your position.
(16:25):
If you don't fight for yourself, nobody else will.
you have to get what you can.
it's just this constant.
I have no inheritance, whatever I get, I claim.
And so they're in that space.
They've been in that space then for hundreds of years.
And that's why when they go out into the desert immediately, they're like, well, at leastwe had food.
(16:51):
When we were back in Egypt, at least all this other kind of stuff.
and they just, they don't know how to trust, when Moses is up essentially doing thecovenant of marriage in, in many ways between Israel and God.
And then he comes down and they are, says, rising to play, when they're doing the goldencalf thing.
Well, that's like the sexual rituals inferred.
(17:14):
They're really like basically saying that Israel is committing adultery on.
The wedding night it's, it's supposed to rise to that sort of visceral, my gosh, but it'sbecause they don't understand.
They still are kept by these gods that are claiming their lives that don't have that, thatare telling them who they're not.
(17:37):
You're an orphan, nothing you can have.
That person's going to snub you.
Nobody gets you.
you're lost.
you know, you're not invited.
You're an orphan.
You're not a part of the family.
Even when they kind of pretend like they like you, they are only pretending to getsomething out of you.
you know, just all of the thoughts that for some of us wake us up at three or four in themorning and can become dangerous, truly dangerous, for the choices that we would make in
(18:10):
the places that we find ourselves very dark.
and so they're in that churn.
you look at the Pantheon of Egyptian gods, you know, they're
They're dark and they are essentially trying to tell people that they will give themsomething in receipt of something else.
And I'm not sure that those gods don't have power.
(18:33):
I'm just pretty sure it's evil, which brings me to kind of one of my understandings ofbasic framework for evil.
And that is evil has no real power except what we give it.
And it's very good.
at convincing us to give over our power to it.
And so all of those are built like that and really quickly they find themselves doingthat.
(18:57):
And he knows that when he says they can't take the land, I think in part, he can't takethe land because they're going to bring Egypt with them.
They're going to even bring it.
It's the reason that Moses can't go in is, you know, at the beginning of that whole story,remember Moses, God says this crazy thing.
He's like, Hey, bust this rock.
And water will come out and it busts the rock and water comes out and pretty amazing,Wild.
(19:24):
What's funny is there's a tradition and even some scriptural clues that tell us that theymay have decided to take that rock with them, like literally take it along, which I think
is wild.
but maybe you would because that's what you come out of in the culture and the scripture,like, or not scripture, but the culture and the gods of Egypt.
You can see that, that that would make some sense.
(19:45):
Well, then Moses is told later, right before they go into the promised land, God comes tohim and says, Hey, speak to the rock, which means don't go with Pharaoh's power and beat
the rock.
Go with my power and speak to it.
This isn't about control.
This is about relationship.
And so he goes to the rock and he's so mad at them.
(20:09):
Not only does he hit the rock, he hits it twice.
And it's right.
then that God says, there's too much Pharaoh in you.
You can't go in.
So what God forbade that generation to do, enter into the promised land, he was doing thesame thing with Moses.
(20:32):
Yeah.
Wow.
I'd never put that together.
He couldn't overcome, he couldn't overcome the understanding of power when he was angry.
And so he
By the way, then there's this really sweet thing with sonship right there because they allgo in and it says that God himself buries Moses.
(20:53):
And you're like, cool.
Yeah, that's very tender.
Yeah.
So tender.
The language there is people, if you, again, if you don't have kind of this beautifulframework we're talking about, it's weird.
It's like, and God, I don't remember the exact phrase, but you can go find it.
It's basically that God buries him.
Yeah, it's real quick.
It's just at the end, boom, that's what happens.
(21:16):
But if you have this framework, you're like, the Lord, it's basically the father himselfpersonally buried Moses, his child.
I mean, like, yeah, that's.
Ooh.
What a, what a wild day that was, you know, so, and, Joshua, Joshua has to, has to provethat he walks in it too.
(21:41):
Does he walk as a son?
Well, how are you going to attack a city Jay?
I'm not going to attack a city with a band and a bunch of parades.
That's not happening.
We're going in at night.
now everything is all about, you, it's this discovery of sonship that obedience becomes alove language that helps you see this powerful inheritance because once your identity is
(22:10):
set.
and it's always about, I mean, we're human beings, right?
We get so focused, but when you get set and that becomes your, your North star, you know,then so many things line up about identity and purpose.
It's shocking.
So yeah, it, and you you can go in and they establish, it goes on and on and on.
(22:32):
literally can move almost entirely through the Bible, like, you know, stones across thepond.
And there is never a time where sunship doesn't illuminate with tenderness and power,things that sometimes are just passing.
So even those moments that seem charged with God's anger at the Israelites having come outof Egypt, and they're making dumb mistakes that any adopted kid would make even when
(23:09):
they're embraced by a new family.
They're going to keep, if they've learned to steal, they're going to keep stealing.
If they've learned to...
hide food because they don't think they're gonna get their next meal.
They keep doing that for a long time until if, and I have some dear, dear friends whoseadopted kids never ever accepted their parents' love.
(23:36):
And so the problems and their strategies that they learned when they were young on theirown, they could not let them go.
And it ended up getting them.
into trouble, even though they had the kindest, most loving, most generous new adoptedparents.
So it's so sad when everybody around can look inside that household and think those kidsliterally have everything that they need.
(24:07):
now, but they are committing crimes in fear because they think that survival is up tothem.
And I see that
I see that so much in myself.
And I see it, you know, as you're talking about the Israelites.
So none of that caught God by surprise, you know, that they made the idol or any of thatother stuff.
(24:28):
the way that he speaks could lend us to believe that he was somehow, you know, surprisedby it.
So all of that history is love.
Even God punishing them.
disciplining them, it's all done in love for the long game in the same way that dealingwith my teenagers, I had to have the long game in mind in order to parent well in the day.
(25:00):
true.
totally agree.
So I want to read a couple of scriptures here that just illuminate
the heart of God in the Old Testament because I want to lead into the question ofadoption.
(25:21):
But there are these scriptures in the Old Testament.
I'll read them and then we can just kind of see the theme here.
Deuteronomy 10.18, He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow and loves theforeigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing.
Psalm 68, 5 and 6.
(25:43):
A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling.
God sets the lonely in families.
He leads out the prisoners with singing, but the rebellious live in his sunscorched land.
Hosea 14.3.
Assyria cannot save us.
We will not mount war horses.
We will never again say, our gods, to what our own hands have made.
(26:07):
For in you, the fatherless, find compassion.
James...
And then in light of that, in the New Testament, reflecting that same spirit that we seein these previous scriptures, James 1.27, religion that God our Father accepts as pure and
faultless as this, to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneselffrom being polluted by the world.
(26:33):
Jeremiah 29.11, for I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosperyou and not to harm you, plans to give you hope.
and a future.
I already did, yeah, father.
Yep.
So we see almost it feels like a frustrated God.
Like I can look at young men in the retreats that I do and I can look at these nine to 13year old boys and my heart wants to father them.
(27:04):
Even if they've got good fathers, if I see a need that a kid has, I love stepping in.
because I have come to recognize that God has placed a father heart in me.
It's not of me.
He put the seed inside me.
I have no explanation for why I love.
(27:27):
protecting, providing, teaching, guiding others to discover that they're loved and thatit's not all up to them.
You I love it.
So you see this heart and I'm picturing God being a frustrated God because he's looking atthem and he's like, if only they had a father, but since they don't, I'm going to meet
(27:52):
this need.
But then things change.
of course, in the story.
So there's this word adoption here, which is so loaded here.
What is adoption?
Is it a minor or a major theme?
And what happens when we are adopted?
(28:14):
And Jesus said this, I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you.
And Matthew 25, 40,
the King will reply, truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of thesebrothers and sisters of mine, you did for me." So you see Jesus actually beginning to call
these new believers, his brothers and sisters, while he's calling God the Father.
(28:38):
So Jesus is like adopting his followers as brothers and sisters in the same way that he'sinviting us to become adopted by God as Father.
So I come back to that question.
Adoption, what is it?
Is it major or minor?
And what happens when we're adopted?
(29:03):
well, it's major.
I want to say obviously, but maybe not.
it's, but I think that's where maybe some of the new covenant pictures come in for mepretty quickly.
And so it's definitely central and, to me personally to you as well, but there's somenuances and differences that people can walk through a lot of that.
(29:26):
So, first off the pain of.
children that have suffered.
At the hands of their birth parents, something that keeps them from receiving love fromadoptive parents that are built to do nothing, but that is so hard to watch.
(29:48):
it's just like really painful.
And I think that there is something to learn about how God sometimes feels with us.
And that, you've said, just the visceral, if they, if they could just receive the realitythat I love them.
And we'll provide for them and we'll be there for them and can rest and not hide or stealor any of other kinds of things.
(30:14):
think we that's that picture of us acting as orphans.
So to be adopted, I think is this picture of accepting your adoption is a picture of that,that you just kind of surfaced in my mind when you were talking about your friends.
so I think adoption for me is.
I mean, initially there's this really funny pieces where God's looking for the people thatare going to be his covenant people.
(30:40):
And, the Jewish approach to that is that essentially there's nothing in the Bible thatsays this, but there's this kind of legend that they'll put on top of it as a way of
understanding what's in the Bible by saying that God was looking around and trying tofigure out who would do this, but he was asking for people to accept him without
explaining what the deal was.
And the Jews were the first people that said, yeah.
(31:02):
I'll do that.
We're in, we're totally in.
And my Jewish friends will say, and that's why from then on the Jews always want to knowevery detail of a deal, which I think is pretty hilarious.
But the truth is like, there is an adoption in that.
There's this adoption where God comes to Israel and adopts them as his children.
(31:22):
Like there's that picture that's there and then it kind of goes on and on and on.
but when it comes to what you're talking about, and that is this picture for, well,
To back up, first off, when you start talking about orphans, widows, and foreigners, thatis in my opinion, how God actually judges nations and churches and cities.
(31:42):
People is by saying, how are you treating the orphans and the widows and the foreigners?
And if you're treating them well, then we are doing great.
Cause it's it's the concept.
Go read, don't believe me, go read.
it's all the way that that happens.
And so.
First off, what it does is it lifts up right away.
(32:03):
Any widow that you meet or know, pay attention.
Any orphan that you meet or know, pay attention.
Whether they are like orphans by nature of losing their parents, they are orphans becausetheir parents have died when they are older.
Sometimes that happens.
People have that experience or they're just spiritually in an orphan place.
(32:24):
How we're engaging and talking and loving and trying to
reveal and help that person understand kind of who they are and God is a huge deal.
And foreigners too.
I'll just stick that in there.
I'm always fascinated to say, God says like the Israelites were foreigners, strangers in astrange land.
And so it's an incredible imperative for them to make sure that they're taking care ofstrangers in a strange land and that we're judged for that.
(32:48):
think that's fascinating.
And I know that's politically interesting right now, but it's also ancient.
So as we get into like.
picturing orphans than in the New Testament.
That becomes a really different thing.
Those of us, especially that are not Jewish, because all the disciples are Jewish.
(33:08):
Every author except one in the Bible is Jewish and that's Luke.
Everything is Jewish all the time.
And so this adoption piece really starts to be incredibly important when this story ofJesus goes out into Rome, Greece, and the rest of the world, and eventually to us.
is that we get adopted into this family, which becomes incredibly controversial for thosethat were part of what would be considered the original family.
(33:35):
You can see that happening with Paul all over the place.
He's like, no, they have full rights.
That's Jesus's deal.
He's bringing everybody in as full sons and daughters, which is beautiful to think thatthere's this, I mean, the misunderstanding and the arguments, that's whatever.
We do that over the color of carpet in a church, but what's interesting there is it'sraising the issue.
(33:56):
So that God can say for sure, no, you are a full son and daughter with full rights.
You have absolute home here.
Right.
And that's what we're all after as human beings is trying to find home.
So adoption becomes the bridge, the process, the understanding, the mechanism, thewhatever mysterious reality that helps us to realize our actual identity is as adopted
(34:23):
sons and daughters.
We belong here.
have inheritance here.
Our identity is that's our dad.
And, and he claimed us.
I have a friend, James King, who got a ton of kids.
think last time I talked to him, was seven, but you know, they're always having kids.
So I'm not really sure.
I haven't talked to him in several years and, he's probably turning over right now, buthe, he says, taught me several things.
(34:50):
One of them was judgment was not always bad.
And I said, what do you mean?
He said, well, let me tell you what happens.
I think about half of his children are adopted.
And he said, I get to go on the day that they become our children and the judge gives aruling.
He judges that that child is mine and I am grateful for that judgment.
(35:11):
And I'm like, Ooh, I never thought about that.
But the power for him though, as he says, there's this moment because his name's JamesKing that that child, he'll be standing with the child in the courtroom.
The judge will say.
will make the judgment that that is now his son.
And so he'll lean down and he'll say, now you're a king every time.
(35:34):
And I just love that.
And there's something about that that taught me it's not just that you're a son.
This is about inheritance.
This is about who you are when you walk in a room and how you walk in a room.
And so God is going to spend some time with us in the desert or
on a retreat or for me and my truck over and over and over, at the time teaching us whatadoption really looks like and that he doesn't see the difference between the natural born
(36:07):
or whatever you want to say and an adopted child at all.
So yeah, Israel's adopted it's over and over and over.
And so we are too, I'm grateful for him.
(36:28):
I'm going to read some of God's words in the New Testament about adoption and then justlet you finish our conversation up here by...
responding.
2 Corinthians 6 18.
I will be a father to you and you will be my sons and daughters says the Lord Almighty.
(36:53):
Galatians 4, 4 through 8.
But when the set time had fully come, God sent his son, born of a woman, born under thelaw, to redeem those under the law that we might receive adoption to sonship.
Because you are his sons, God sent the spirit of his son into our hearts.
the spirit who calls out Abba, Father.
(37:15):
So you're no longer a slave, but God's child.
And since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.
Romans 8.
For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God.
The Spirit you receive does not make you slave so that you live again in fear.
Rather, the Spirit you receive brought about your adoption to sonship, and by Him,
(37:39):
we cry, Abba, Father.
The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirits that we are God's children.
Now if we are children, then we are heirs, heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, ifindeed we share in His sufferings in order that we might also share in His glory.
1 John 3, 1.
See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children ofGod, and that is what we are.
(38:05):
The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know Him.
And there's many more scriptures, of course, but those are some of the most prominent.
So with just a couple of minutes left here in our time, which I so appreciate, Scott,would you just share with us as a teacher and what you have learned, maybe that you have
(38:30):
not yet shared about this invitation and how core it is to those of us who are listeningto begin accepting
and searching out this extra salvific, if that's the right word to say, this identity thatyou discovered.
(38:55):
How much time should we devote to that and what would be your counsel in searching thatout?
You ask very small, easy questions, Gosh.
I think if I was going to start by saying the things that were important, at least in myexperience with this whole concept, and then really finish with how important I think it
(39:20):
is by walking through a little bit of those scripture references you just made, would say,the things that helped me diagnose my orphaned heart.
Because that's sometimes is the question is, do I have an orphan heart?
and one of the ways that, I think we all do at some point, I think that's part of what weget saved from, but it just takes some of us a little longer to understand it or whatever
(39:47):
that is over time.
it's the pro it's sanctification, right?
It's walking out our own salvation.
But, one of the big questions for me was how does leadership think about you?
What does leadership think about you?
And does leadership think I can trust this person and give them responsibility or doesleadership think I can give him some things, but not a lot.
(40:14):
And when I started thinking about what leadership thought about me, I realized that I wasthe second one.
I was in some ways a very passionate, maybe talented young pastor.
Who thought he should be in charge of everything?
And because of that, I was, I couldn't be trusted with inheritance.
(40:39):
I had an orphaned heart and you can't trust an orphan with inheritance.
You have to give inheritance to a son.
And that's why I had never found the opportunities or the positions that I felt like Ideserved was because rightfully.
Although they might not have put it in sonship language, the leadership over me could seethat my immaturity meant that if I had an inheritance earlier, would have been a problem.
(41:07):
Which made me go back by the way, and went through a process of deep repentance, bothpersonally with the leadership over me and about everybody that I had ever seen.
I went through about six months of that and the repentance process out of an orphan heartfor me was one of the most important journeys.
Very powerful.
The second was about authority, authority when it comes to, Sunship totally changed forme.
(41:35):
And one of the last things that Jack Frost told, talked to me or talk to me, he wastalking on a CD.
he signed a bunch of people, but it was to be, he said, as he came along and he said, so,what is it?
Who are you to, if you go to a church or to any kind of organization, who are you there toserve?
(41:55):
was Christ centered organization.
Who are you there to serve?
So I'm driving.
don't say it out loud, but what I think is I'm there to serve God.
And he said, if you think you're there to serve God, you're wrong.
I pulled it over the truck because I had bought so deep into sonship.
was like, well, here's where he goes on his charismatic crazy and we go in differentdirections.
(42:17):
You know, I'm like, pop, pop, pop in my head.
And he says, and he pulls over and he says, we are called to submit.
to the spiritual authorities in our life.
They are appointed and anointed.
And if you have come into as a staff member, as a pastor, you've accepted that you are apart of this community, accepted that job, then you are submitted to that authority.
(42:41):
What if they're doing wrong things?
Well, it's not about spiritual abuse.
If there's spiritual abusing, then of course you leave.
But if we're talking about differences of opinion or whatever it might be, then your jobis to submit.
And I was like,
And as an American born out of revolution, as a Texan born out of revolution, you know, asjust, don't know, whatever it is, the idea of submission is incredibly difficult for me
(43:06):
personally right now.
And yet when I realized that submission wasn't about gravel, which is what evil in thedark will try to tell you, but submission is about lifting up.
Submission is getting up under someone and lifting them up.
So in this case.
You are the spiritual authority between the two of us.
(43:26):
So my job, my work, my goal, my joy is to get up under you and lift up what it is that youfeel God calling you to lead and share in this podcast.
That's, and it's the, it's, it's the way that it flows.
When things flow that way, there's this powerful alignment.
(43:47):
When there is no submission and there's like, should know better and remember and all thisother stuff.
That's when you get what toxic church looks like.
if there is not an understanding of sonship in the core leadership of a church, it's verydifficult to be healthy.
and we were able to, to find some versions of that several times in churches that I get toserve.
(44:08):
And when that happens, my gosh, it, it's, it's the thing you think you're called to do.
So those two things is, how does leadership think of you?
And part of it is submission.
How do you understand submission?
You know, getting up under the leader that you're there.
If you can't submit to the leader, you see how can you submit to the one that you don't isa picture biblically.
(44:31):
And it's not, but that's a big picture of it.
And so those are two things that are hard.
but they're important.
so you can think of how does your pastor think of you if they think of you at all, youknow, if, we're involved in that.
structure piece.
(44:52):
I think we should be, that's my take, but I'm I'm a local church guy by the way, so headsup.
yeah.
So, but now just the way that you rolled that out, I'll be a father to you.
You know, it's just the picture of that.
God says, I want to be a father to you.
That's God's part.
That's what he wants to do is to love, care for, and raise.
(45:13):
That God, like a good father, knows you better than you know yourself and wants to helpyou discover your identity in such a way that you can live it fully in this life.
that he's, he set time that he's redeemed us to adoption.
That that's his choice.
What God wants to do is say, okay, you may be the son of something else and we all servesomething, right?
Decide what you serve.
You serve porn, you serve alcohol, you serve money, you serve control, fame, power, blah,blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever it might be that we are all dealing with.
(45:41):
God says, I want to adopt you away from giving all of your power and energy to that idol,that God and bring you home.
And I want you to be my son, a son of love and power and joy and strength.
That's what I want you to do.
I want you to use the word Abba.
said that twice, two different scriptures say Abba.
Abba is still what you hear in Jerusalem when children are running behind their dad andthey need him to slow down.
(46:02):
It's, it's Abba Abba.
You hear it all the time.
And it's those dads that turn around and scoop them up that you're like, okay.
There it is.
You know, we think of Abba as this weird word, but then it is culturally, but in thosespaces, it's the word for daddy.
It's just dad, Hey dad, you know, and it's a very endearing space and that you're nolonger a slave.
(46:23):
Like, can you imagine, you know, a good healthy father saying, well, now that you're aslave son, it makes no sense at all.
You know, it's like, it's this come here.
Like, wait a minute, what's going on?
Let me protect you for a minute from the world.
Let's you and I take time out.
and reset what's going on.
You know, let's, walk this through.
I think God is willing to do that.
(46:45):
And that I don't, I don't fully understand the choice of that except that he is loveitself.
And so there's edges of that, that I just don't fully get yet.
He chooses to engage us fully in all of our brokenness.
You know, he came for us while we were yet sinners.
(47:06):
We're all kind of a broken thing.
Because he loved the whole world.
like, and I have to be careful because sometimes I do this when I preach, I'm like, theworld says this and the Bible says this.
I'm like, oh God loved the whole world.
How do I deal with that?
You know, this, this love is bigger than I'm imagining.
So it becomes really powerful because that framework of, oh, they just don't know they'readopted children yet.
(47:29):
That person that I disagree with and really dislike, she doesn't know.
She doesn't know who she is.
I didn't know either.
Right.
So I have this kind of draw to that the spirit of God, that we are children of God.
And then also the spirit testifies with our spirit.
Those two pictures are.
(47:49):
This is a miracle at the level of resurrection is to understand sonship and to integrateit into your heart.
And that is massive, but that's God's primary business.
That's what he wants to do.
He's like, that's what I want to do.
I want to get.
Sonship into you so that you could become or daughter ship which I we didn't talk aboutbecause we both have daughters like how I'm Crucial that is just for as an aside for
(48:15):
daughters Daughters deal with identity issues sometimes more in with more difficulty thansons To set your daughter free by being a deeply loving father Is the key we know it, you
know what we can see it and
It may be as or if not more important, but it's at least a little different how one way orthe other, but that God's spirit is testifying to your spirit.
(48:42):
So here's what's really happening, Jane, you've done beautifully to touch this over andover in our conversation today is to pray like right now, let the spirit do this right
now.
Like if you're feeling that pull to be drawn in as a son to the father, then flow that.
Why not explore that?
Everything by the way, is going to get in your ear and tell you why you shouldn't do that.
(49:02):
But all those things.
Just as you go, ask yourself if the things that are telling you that you shouldn't do it,are those things working in your life?
Are those things life-giving in your life?
And you will find out absolutely they are not over and over and over, which is such apowerful thing.
And then, you know, what, great love for the children of God.
(49:23):
Great love is this overwhelming encompassing more profound than the air we breathe.
The heartbeat that each heartbeat we get is a gift.
Each breath that we take is a gift and it's the father that gives it to us and hiseagerness for us to discover his full love and inheritance is palpable.
(49:47):
The closer that you get to it and the story of God constantly, we have this whole ideathat we found Jesus.
Well, yeah, because he's been chasing us.
Like I really believe God is after us just wildly in love with us.
Like you would be or her I would be if our children wandered off.
mean, what would you not do to find your child and bring them to safety and care?
(50:13):
You know, how is it that, you know, we get so intense about our kids.
I just think God's exactly like that.
If not more, because he understands the stakes and is he willing to.
You know, think of the worst of the worst.
Yeah.
God's chasing them too.
And I'll tell you, if you want to know how hardcore, in my opinion, this gets, it sayswhen Jesus asks Peter, who do people say that I am?
(50:37):
And he blesses Peter.
And then he tells him, and the gates of hell will not prevail against this.
Right?
Well, the gates on a city is the weakest place.
That's the part that you attack.
So all of a sudden, what we're talking about, that's the church attacking the gates ofhell.
And the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
(50:58):
And as the church, we've insulated ourselves as the body of Christ, we've insulatedourselves, protected ourselves, and we pretend like we're orphans and we don't take on the
inheritance that we've been given to chase down into every corner of hell in the worldthat we know and into the actual gates.
That's where we're supposed to go.
It says the gates of hell will not prevail against the church.
(51:21):
And I'm like, yep, that's who we are.
That's what it means to be a son or a daughter is to be able to go into the darkest placeswith a love and bring light into the dark.
And that transforms you, your family, the way you see the Bible, the way you drink coffee,the way you drive to work.
(51:42):
Um, and it just unfolds with profound power.
And I'm so grateful that you discovered it.
And I'm so grateful that I did too.
And I've just been moved to be able to share.
just a little time with you about it this morning.
I'd love for you to pray.
Sure.
And to just put a little bookend on the end of this conversation for those of you who arelistening, our brothers out there who are curious, who are searching for home.
(52:18):
Jesus tells what I believe is maybe the most, to me, the most helpful parable of the lostson.
And it's really not about either of the sons, the older or the younger son.
It's really about the father, because neither of those sons knew their father as he trulywas.
Their father had a heart that was yet undiscovered, and they had to go on a journey forit.
(52:43):
So the disruptive end of that parable is that
God in His loving way approaches both of His sons and in the way that they neededaddresses the deepest questions on their hearts.
And we don't know because the story does not reveal whether those sons responded well toit or not.
(53:06):
They could well have rejected their father's invitation.
The younger son who came back and got all the clothes on him, did he become a spoiledbrat?
Did he end up leaving again or did he truly believe what the Father was communicating tohim?
And then when the older son came and complained about the lack of generosity on hisfather's part, the Father said, everything I have is yours and always has been.
(53:36):
So there is an invitation for us which God opens up fully and says, please.
Trust me, take what I have for you.
So in light of that, I want to thank all of you for joining my good friend Scott, Hara andI as we walk a mile on the road to sonship, exploring exactly what this is and to be able
(54:01):
to appreciate sonship as this brilliant color from the beginning of scripture to the endas opposed to a black and white thread.
So Scott, would you pray for us?
I'd love to.
Again, I'm grateful to have been here.
And I'll say just as for our brothers that are out there looking for some tangible, can Igo do something to do some discovery?
(54:23):
I would say for a, as Jay has, for us to be open to the spirit, bear witness to our spiriton sonship.
then read John 14 over and over and over again.
And if you want to take a highlighter and highlight every time, every time the word fathercomes up, and it's, it's a powerful thing to do.
So.
(54:44):
Grateful again, let's pray.
Turn to God, Father, just so grateful for who you are, who you say I am and how you soconstantly, not only remind me of that in my heart and my mind and my prayer life, but in
my life.
(55:05):
Help me to rest that into my identity and not strive forward.
into some imagined way of being.
Help me to hear you call, to do what you're doing, to join in, to know that all I reallyneed to be is included in your work.
(55:27):
That you do welcome me, you love me, you empower me, you give me gifts.
I would ask right now that for our friends that are listening to this, that feel thatorphaned heart that you show up.
that you do so in a way that is clear, that is simple and home building, and that youstrike those things that are keeping their hearts from beating down, and that you would
(56:03):
welcome them in as you have me and my friend Jay and built us up.
And would you build up a community of men and women?
that understand what it means to truly be yours.
We ask all this in Jesus' holy and precious name.
Amen.
(56:41):
people learn any more about you or maybe even look into joining you on a journey toIsrael?
Yeah, when you were talking about learning, what I would say is Shiloh Place Ministrieshas got some really cool core concepts.
The book that Jack Frost did is not as good as a recording.
There's an old recording that's better, but there's a How You Understand God and all thesekind of little things.
(57:04):
And I think it's still out there.
I haven't been on there for a while, so that's really good.
A lot of your teaching, think, is core to this, the scriptural stuff we're talking about.
As far as me, that's honestly the least interesting part of this conversation, but I willsay we'll probably build a couple of Israel tours in 2026.
People are welcome.
I build them through communities.
(57:26):
I don't really build them individually because I feel like they're all about discipleship.
If Being Sons is an interested crowd, if there's a crowd of folks from Being Sons thatwants to be a part of collecting together and building one, I would be privileged to do
that.
Usually there's two, sometimes three groups that'll be pulled together.
We don't do anything more than about 40 people, one bus, one community, one conversation.
(57:46):
And so we build all that out that way.
As far as the rest of the world of things of me, you know, you can find things out, but Iwould, I'm,
probably more built for a conversation than I am a list of resources.
Fantastic.
You're a good friend, a good man, and a good son, Scott.
(58:10):
Thanks for bringing the weight and the power of who you are to benefit us.
We appreciate it.
Humble to be here.
All right, sons.
Until next time.
God, like a good father, knows you better than you know yourself and wants to help youdiscover your identity in such a way that you can live it fully in this life.
He said to him that he's redeemed us to adoption.
That's his choice.
What God wants to do is say, okay, you may be the son of something else and we all servesomething.
God says, I want to adopt you away from giving all of your power and energy to that idol,that God, and bring you home.
(00:27):
And I want you to be my son, a son of love and power and joy and strength.
That's what I want you to do.
Sons, friends, welcome back to the Being Sons podcast.
(00:49):
This is part two of a two-part conversation that I'm having with a friend of mine,Scott Heare, a very gifted biblical teacher who has been taking people for many years to
the Middle East, going on site and teaching about the Bible.
And what we're going to be exploring in this part two is this golden thread of sonship andadoption that exists all through the Old Testament into the New Testament.
(01:16):
If you missed part one of this conversation, I would highly recommend that you go back andyou listen to that one first.
So we're going to pick up here and our conversation is going to begin with my memory of acocktail party that we were at for the ministry that I work under as a 501c3, where he
invited me on a tour of Israel with him.
(01:39):
So enjoy part two of this conversation with Scott Heare.
So,
Scott, would you, you have, you invited me in that cocktail party.
You said, I'm about to go to Israel and you're going to love this because the theme thatwe're going to be exploring is, I believe you said it was from orphans to sons.
(02:05):
Correct me on that.
But what was the theme?
we were going to do is we were building an experience that starts in the desert.
So it's the concept of you start as orphans in Egypt.
And you walk all the way through the biblical narratives and these kind of powerful, likebig moving points.
So you get to this place where the full sonship of your identity is revealed through thecross, through Jesus's identity, through his resurrection.
(02:30):
And so that, that journey you can take literally in archeology.
You can see kind of how that thing kind of walks itself out from.
how you understand who's God, who's in charge, what your relationship is, what youridentity is as a slave or an orphan all the way through to what it means to be a son, a
(02:50):
co-heir, a sibling with, you know, big brother, and what the inheritance looks like, notonly.
And one of the powerful things for me is not only kind of heaven to come, but also thekingdom of heaven that is here.
which was Jesus's primary sermon.
So, that's, think such a powerful thing.
(03:15):
Also just as a passing thing.
When you mentioned that when Jesus returns, he's going to be angry.
Yeah.
I think he's going to be angry at the people that probably need to be angry.
He's also going to be pretty warm to those that he's a, he loves.
it's got, I've always had this really subtle thing going on right now with the end times.
It's a fascinating thing for me to think about.
(03:37):
If somebody was hurting my daughter in the other room and I came in, the person hurting mydaughter should be greatly afraid.
Cause I'm not going to, that's going to be pretty terrifying, at least from myperspective.
but my daughter's going to be more than relieved.
So it's sort of, wonder a little bit about, I'm not sure Jesus, it's like the concept thatin Egypt, all of the plagues that that word can also be translated wonder.
(04:08):
the wonders of God.
And so I suppose it depends on what side of love you're on that something is either awonder or a plague.
And so I often kind of approach a lot of things like that.
And it comes, that comes right out of sonship.
How does the framework of sonship affect the way we see Jesus returning?
(04:29):
Hey, all right.
You know, the all time quarterbacks here, let's roll, you know, or like,
How does that come out?
So I think it's just so beautiful.
yeah, so for us, that's what we were, what we were building is it became really clear tome that, you know, the identity of Israel in Egypt is kind of orphan slaves.
(04:52):
had a relationship with God.
know that because Moses's parents' names are Hebrew.
They're faithful.
And so we know that this is kind of passing around.
But they kind of lost it all.
And we know that because when Moses meets God, Moses says kind of, are you?
And that was one of the first pieces for me.
Cause there's a really powerful picture that we learned from Ray.
(05:16):
And it was that we don't really know.
I think it's really powerful in the story, especially of Passover and the whole narrativeis that we don't know who the Pharaoh was and we don't know what the mountain was.
And I think that's pretty classic because why wouldn't there's a lot of other names in theBible?
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Why wouldn't God include that one?
And it's like, it's because it doesn't matter.
Pharaoh doesn't matter.
And the mountain doesn't matter.
That's not what the story is about.
And because of that, that's why in Orthodox Passover storytelling, they'll never even usethe word Moses when they tell the story.
They leave him out.
(05:57):
Well, you can see the story move, but he's never mentioned because it wasn't about Moseseither.
And I think there's just such power and recognizing that it's always been about God andthat framework and that father, son, father, daughter picture is just hugely important.
So what's wild is at the time, even though we don't know, it doesn't say in the Bible.
One of the main theories is that the Pharaoh was called Ramesses the second.
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Ramoshay is the way to say that.
And Ramoshay means he comes from the son.
Ra, son, God.
Moshe comes from, comes out of.
And so you know that Moshe is Moses.
So Ra Moshe, well, we know where Ramesses comes from.
He comes from the son God.
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That's his identity.
Well, Moshe, he comes from what?
He doesn't know.
He doesn't know who his father is, which is why when God shows up and says, I'm the God ofyour father's, you know, and he, and he does the whole thing, that Moses is like, who?
What's your name?
Like what's your actual name?
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Who are you?
What's your identity?
Because what he's really asking is not who are you God what he's really asking is who amI?
Because you you clearly know who you are God that this is not at issue What's that issueis that I am Moshe comes out of what we add the water thing, but that isn't in his name We
just put it in there because that's the story comes out of water.
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It just comes out.
He comes out of nothing
So when Moses says, what's your name?
And then God gives him the big name that nobody ever says, right?
Yahweh, which is hard for me, honestly, to say out loud after being in some of theseplaces, because it's so kind of a sacred, I want to hold it in my mouth really carefully.
But that's the name that he gives Moses.
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And what he's really saying is this is your identity.
You are my son, you are my child.
And I am your father right there, right from the beginning.
And then that totally transforms him.
So Moses walks right into Pharaoh's world with just this clear challenge of power.
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Right.
so the clear challenge of power in that space is that if you look at all of the Pharaohsand you look at what's called a, you're familiar with the cartouche, the idea of a
cartouche system, oval looking picture in all of the different hieroglyphs.
And it's like a name.
It's interesting because sometimes people go to Egypt, they'll come back and they'll haveone that's their name on there.
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And it's the Egyptian hieroglyphs in a cartouche.
I don't know.
always like, okay.
but, what they'll do is, you can go and you can read them and each of these has differentkinds of symbols and each of those symbols mean things.
You know, it's letters.
Well, a symbol of a staff, like a shepherd's hook is a symbol of power.
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And so if you see one, you're like, this person is pretty in charge.
You see two, like this person is really in charge.
You see three, you're like, this person's having to tell them he's in charge.
He's not really in charge.
He's screaming, I'm in charge.
Which anytime you're telling people you're in charge of them, you're not.
So like that's, that's this picture.
It's always funny when I see these, I'm so in charge.
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Number three hooks, you know, but so there are different, so you can see this all over theplace and it's just in all the archeology, you can, start to see it.
It's really very interesting.
So that's because even in the Egyptian world, the shepherd is the primary picture ofleadership, the ancient picture of leadership.
So that's the reason that that shepherd cook is there.
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They don't like that.
They don't like being shepherds because shepherds is a low deal.
Well, what kind of comes along then is that you've got Ramoshe and Moshe.
Now Moshe knows who he is.
Moshe knows who his father is and Moshe is walking right into where he used to be anorphan.
And now he is a son.
That's what's happened.
And so he faces the Pharaoh and it is a power competition.
(10:00):
It is who is really in charge and Moshe knows, and the way that is going to be describedis the way that God tells him to do it.
When you get in front of Pharaoh, you'll take your staff and you'll throw it down.
Right.
This is his, Aaron is taking the staff and throwing it down.
Cause at this point he's not even fully, by the way, love Moses even struggles with hisown.
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Sonship because like, I bring Aaron?
Which totally my move.
Can I bring a friend?
Cause I not so sure.
So he gets in there.
So Aaron, Aaron does that.
Right.
He's got, he's got the whole, the whole staff.
But the, what's interesting is, you know, what happens, right?
He throws the staff down and what it becomes a snake.
Remember?
And then Pharaoh has his magicians do the same thing and their staff becomes snakes.
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But do you remember what happens next?
His snake swallows the other two.
Yeah, but that's not what it says in Scripture.
Okay.
You're right in the story, especially every cartoon or book you and I have ever read orsermons I have ever preached or anything like that.
But if you go look in the Scripture, it doesn't say the priests snakes consumed Pharaoh'ssnake or Moses's snakes.
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What it says is Moses's staff consumes Pharaoh's staff.
So the picture there is, well, maybe the Bible just made a mistake.
Or what we're talking about isn't snakes.
What we're talking about is power.
What we're saying is that God's power in that moment consumes pharaohs.
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And what we are, what we're about to witness is the difference between a plague and awonder.
A child of God and someone that is struggling with that.
And then.
They are saved by grace.
All of them.
Not one of them deserves it, but God comes in with power and sets them all free toestablish them as a people.
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And those, people become the first city on a hill, the first light in the world in that,in that era of time.
After, know, obviously Adam and Eve, do Abraham and Isaac, you can do with Isaac and likeover and over and over.
But that's one of the first really big ones that you could see this huge.
unfolding of, my opinion, one of my favorite unfolding of sonship right there.
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That once Moses knows who he is, he can walk into the center of the most scary place inthe world where he was considered a totally different identity and he can be himself and
totally transform the world as a shepherd in the face of a Pharaoh.
So that whole narrative became really compelling to me.
(12:45):
And I wanted to see, could we go physically to Egypt, put our hands on the hieroglyphs ofpower and walk out of Egypt and into the desert to be shaped in the desert as, the people
got calls us to be, because we've both talked about how salvation and this revelation ofsonship have come at different times and how we wish it would have at least somehow been
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married together.
They do have that.
You can see them do that in the desert because what God is essentially saying now is thebig question because this is an ancient question is, is it harder to get, they're not
Israelites yet, but is it harder to get the Israelites out of Egypt or is it harder to getEgypt out of the Israelites?
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And that I think, yeah.
So I think that's what Sunship really has been for me is it's been the desert that isworking to take Egypt out of me.
So that I understand what power is.
understand what my identity is.
And I understand that I can walk with shepherd sandals anywhere God calls me to and beeverything or be nothing.
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Whatever I'm called to be in that space.
so walking through Moses, getting into the desert, you know, and the whole picture of thatreally, Jesus walks all the disciples back through too.
He, they walk through the desert.
get back into this picture.
They, they flow out from.
You know, and Moses eventually has his disciple, is Joshua, that goes into the land andtakes it.
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And then that goes on and on.
And whenever they miss, in my opinion, whenever they miss sonship in the inheritance,there's trouble.
They, they grab power.
They try to do something that's sideways.
It gets really out of control.
So that's what we're doing.
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So there is a 40-year season of Israel just having been delivered from Egypt in the desertwandering around, and that's their bad.
That's their fault.
(15:12):
But of course, God knew in advance and He used it.
What was He doing in that?
The people of Israel?
Yeah.
What was he doing in those 40 years?
Yeah, I think, I think you have an instinct on what that was, but he's raising, he'schanging them from orphans to sons and daughters.
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They, they.
what way?
Can we, can we see it?
Can you articulate in the, um, in those 40 years?
Sure.
Or maybe the result of those 40 years, what actually happened?
The contrast between, um, the beginning and the end?
I could try, but I'd love help.
I think when you have a mind, when you've been, when you've had hundreds of years ofslavery and your parents have taught you how to be a really good slave and you tell your
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daughter, no eye contact baby, no eye contact baby, go remember no eye contact, you know,this kind of stuff.
and keep working even if they beat you son, you can do it.
whatever it might be.
And there was different levels of slavery by the way in Egypt, but it's all the mindsetis.
that you are constantly having to fight for your position.
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If you don't fight for yourself, nobody else will.
you have to get what you can.
it's just this constant.
I have no inheritance, whatever I get, I claim.
And so they're in that space.
They've been in that space then for hundreds of years.
And that's why when they go out into the desert immediately, they're like, well, at leastwe had food.
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When we were back in Egypt, at least all this other kind of stuff.
and they just, they don't know how to trust, when Moses is up essentially doing thecovenant of marriage in, in many ways between Israel and God.
And then he comes down and they are, says, rising to play, when they're doing the goldencalf thing.
Well, that's like the sexual rituals inferred.
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They're really like basically saying that Israel is committing adultery on.
The wedding night it's, it's supposed to rise to that sort of visceral, my gosh, but it'sbecause they don't understand.
They still are kept by these gods that are claiming their lives that don't have that, thatare telling them who they're not.
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You're an orphan, nothing you can have.
That person's going to snub you.
Nobody gets you.
you're lost.
you know, you're not invited.
You're an orphan.
You're not a part of the family.
Even when they kind of pretend like they like you, they are only pretending to getsomething out of you.
you know, just all of the thoughts that for some of us wake us up at three or four in themorning and can become dangerous, truly dangerous, for the choices that we would make in
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the places that we find ourselves very dark.
and so they're in that churn.
you look at the Pantheon of Egyptian gods, you know, they're
They're dark and they are essentially trying to tell people that they will give themsomething in receipt of something else.
And I'm not sure that those gods don't have power.
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I'm just pretty sure it's evil, which brings me to kind of one of my understandings ofbasic framework for evil.
And that is evil has no real power except what we give it.
And it's very good.
at convincing us to give over our power to it.
And so all of those are built like that and really quickly they find themselves doingthat.
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And he knows that when he says they can't take the land, I think in part, he can't takethe land because they're going to bring Egypt with them.
They're going to even bring it.
It's the reason that Moses can't go in is, you know, at the beginning of that whole story,remember Moses, God says this crazy thing.
He's like, Hey, bust this rock.
And water will come out and it busts the rock and water comes out and pretty amazing,Wild.
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What's funny is there's a tradition and even some scriptural clues that tell us that theymay have decided to take that rock with them, like literally take it along, which I think
is wild.
but maybe you would because that's what you come out of in the culture and the scripture,like, or not scripture, but the culture and the gods of Egypt.
You can see that, that that would make some sense.
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Well, then Moses is told later, right before they go into the promised land, God comes tohim and says, Hey, speak to the rock, which means don't go with Pharaoh's power and beat
the rock.
Go with my power and speak to it.
This isn't about control.
This is about relationship.
And so he goes to the rock and he's so mad at them.
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Not only does he hit the rock, he hits it twice.
And it's right.
then that God says, there's too much Pharaoh in you.
You can't go in.
So what God forbade that generation to do, enter into the promised land, he was doing thesame thing with Moses.
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Yeah.
Wow.
I'd never put that together.
He couldn't overcome, he couldn't overcome the understanding of power when he was angry.
And so he
By the way, then there's this really sweet thing with sonship right there because they allgo in and it says that God himself buries Moses.
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And you're like, cool.
Yeah, that's very tender.
Yeah.
So tender.
The language there is people, if you, again, if you don't have kind of this beautifulframework we're talking about, it's weird.
It's like, and God, I don't remember the exact phrase, but you can go find it.
It's basically that God buries him.
Yeah, it's real quick.
It's just at the end, boom, that's what happens.
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But if you have this framework, you're like, the Lord, it's basically the father himselfpersonally buried Moses, his child.
I mean, like, yeah, that's.
Ooh.
What a, what a wild day that was, you know, so, and, Joshua, Joshua has to, has to provethat he walks in it too.
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Does he walk as a son?
Well, how are you going to attack a city Jay?
I'm not going to attack a city with a band and a bunch of parades.
That's not happening.
We're going in at night.
now everything is all about, you, it's this discovery of sonship that obedience becomes alove language that helps you see this powerful inheritance because once your identity is
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set.
and it's always about, I mean, we're human beings, right?
We get so focused, but when you get set and that becomes your, your North star, you know,then so many things line up about identity and purpose.
It's shocking.
So yeah, it, and you you can go in and they establish, it goes on and on and on.
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literally can move almost entirely through the Bible, like, you know, stones across thepond.
And there is never a time where sunship doesn't illuminate with tenderness and power,things that sometimes are just passing.
So even those moments that seem charged with God's anger at the Israelites having come outof Egypt, and they're making dumb mistakes that any adopted kid would make even when
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they're embraced by a new family.
They're going to keep, if they've learned to steal, they're going to keep stealing.
If they've learned to...
hide food because they don't think they're gonna get their next meal.
They keep doing that for a long time until if, and I have some dear, dear friends whoseadopted kids never ever accepted their parents' love.
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And so the problems and their strategies that they learned when they were young on theirown, they could not let them go.
And it ended up getting them.
into trouble, even though they had the kindest, most loving, most generous new adoptedparents.
So it's so sad when everybody around can look inside that household and think those kidsliterally have everything that they need.
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now, but they are committing crimes in fear because they think that survival is up tothem.
And I see that
I see that so much in myself.
And I see it, you know, as you're talking about the Israelites.
So none of that caught God by surprise, you know, that they made the idol or any of thatother stuff.
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the way that he speaks could lend us to believe that he was somehow, you know, surprisedby it.
So all of that history is love.
Even God punishing them.
disciplining them, it's all done in love for the long game in the same way that dealingwith my teenagers, I had to have the long game in mind in order to parent well in the day.
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true.
totally agree.
So I want to read a couple of scriptures here that just illuminate
the heart of God in the Old Testament because I want to lead into the question ofadoption.
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But there are these scriptures in the Old Testament.
I'll read them and then we can just kind of see the theme here.
Deuteronomy 10.18, He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow and loves theforeigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing.
Psalm 68, 5 and 6.
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A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling.
God sets the lonely in families.
He leads out the prisoners with singing, but the rebellious live in his sunscorched land.
Hosea 14.3.
Assyria cannot save us.
We will not mount war horses.
We will never again say, our gods, to what our own hands have made.
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For in you, the fatherless, find compassion.
James...
And then in light of that, in the New Testament, reflecting that same spirit that we seein these previous scriptures, James 1.27, religion that God our Father accepts as pure and
faultless as this, to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneselffrom being polluted by the world.
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Jeremiah 29.11, for I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosperyou and not to harm you, plans to give you hope.
and a future.
I already did, yeah, father.
Yep.
So we see almost it feels like a frustrated God.
Like I can look at young men in the retreats that I do and I can look at these nine to 13year old boys and my heart wants to father them.
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Even if they've got good fathers, if I see a need that a kid has, I love stepping in.
because I have come to recognize that God has placed a father heart in me.
It's not of me.
He put the seed inside me.
I have no explanation for why I love.
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protecting, providing, teaching, guiding others to discover that they're loved and thatit's not all up to them.
You I love it.
So you see this heart and I'm picturing God being a frustrated God because he's looking atthem and he's like, if only they had a father, but since they don't, I'm going to meet
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this need.
But then things change.
of course, in the story.
So there's this word adoption here, which is so loaded here.
What is adoption?
Is it a minor or a major theme?
And what happens when we are adopted?
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And Jesus said this, I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you.
And Matthew 25, 40,
the King will reply, truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of thesebrothers and sisters of mine, you did for me." So you see Jesus actually beginning to call
these new believers, his brothers and sisters, while he's calling God the Father.
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So Jesus is like adopting his followers as brothers and sisters in the same way that he'sinviting us to become adopted by God as Father.
So I come back to that question.
Adoption, what is it?
Is it major or minor?
And what happens when we're adopted?
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well, it's major.
I want to say obviously, but maybe not.
it's, but I think that's where maybe some of the new covenant pictures come in for mepretty quickly.
And so it's definitely central and, to me personally to you as well, but there's somenuances and differences that people can walk through a lot of that.
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So, first off the pain of.
children that have suffered.
At the hands of their birth parents, something that keeps them from receiving love fromadoptive parents that are built to do nothing, but that is so hard to watch.
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it's just like really painful.
And I think that there is something to learn about how God sometimes feels with us.
And that, you've said, just the visceral, if they, if they could just receive the realitythat I love them.
And we'll provide for them and we'll be there for them and can rest and not hide or stealor any of other kinds of things.
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think we that's that picture of us acting as orphans.
So to be adopted, I think is this picture of accepting your adoption is a picture of that,that you just kind of surfaced in my mind when you were talking about your friends.
so I think adoption for me is.
I mean, initially there's this really funny pieces where God's looking for the people thatare going to be his covenant people.
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And, the Jewish approach to that is that essentially there's nothing in the Bible thatsays this, but there's this kind of legend that they'll put on top of it as a way of
understanding what's in the Bible by saying that God was looking around and trying tofigure out who would do this, but he was asking for people to accept him without
explaining what the deal was.
And the Jews were the first people that said, yeah.
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I'll do that.
We're in, we're totally in.
And my Jewish friends will say, and that's why from then on the Jews always want to knowevery detail of a deal, which I think is pretty hilarious.
But the truth is like, there is an adoption in that.
There's this adoption where God comes to Israel and adopts them as his children.
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Like there's that picture that's there and then it kind of goes on and on and on.
but when it comes to what you're talking about, and that is this picture for, well,
To back up, first off, when you start talking about orphans, widows, and foreigners, thatis in my opinion, how God actually judges nations and churches and cities.
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People is by saying, how are you treating the orphans and the widows and the foreigners?
And if you're treating them well, then we are doing great.
Cause it's it's the concept.
Go read, don't believe me, go read.
it's all the way that that happens.
And so.
First off, what it does is it lifts up right away.
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Any widow that you meet or know, pay attention.
Any orphan that you meet or know, pay attention.
Whether they are like orphans by nature of losing their parents, they are orphans becausetheir parents have died when they are older.
Sometimes that happens.
People have that experience or they're just spiritually in an orphan place.
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How we're engaging and talking and loving and trying to
reveal and help that person understand kind of who they are and God is a huge deal.
And foreigners too.
I'll just stick that in there.
I'm always fascinated to say, God says like the Israelites were foreigners, strangers in astrange land.
And so it's an incredible imperative for them to make sure that they're taking care ofstrangers in a strange land and that we're judged for that.
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think that's fascinating.
And I know that's politically interesting right now, but it's also ancient.
So as we get into like.
picturing orphans than in the New Testament.
That becomes a really different thing.
Those of us, especially that are not Jewish, because all the disciples are Jewish.
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Every author except one in the Bible is Jewish and that's Luke.
Everything is Jewish all the time.
And so this adoption piece really starts to be incredibly important when this story ofJesus goes out into Rome, Greece, and the rest of the world, and eventually to us.
is that we get adopted into this family, which becomes incredibly controversial for thosethat were part of what would be considered the original family.
(33:35):
You can see that happening with Paul all over the place.
He's like, no, they have full rights.
That's Jesus's deal.
He's bringing everybody in as full sons and daughters, which is beautiful to think thatthere's this, I mean, the misunderstanding and the arguments, that's whatever.
We do that over the color of carpet in a church, but what's interesting there is it'sraising the issue.
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So that God can say for sure, no, you are a full son and daughter with full rights.
You have absolute home here.
Right.
And that's what we're all after as human beings is trying to find home.
So adoption becomes the bridge, the process, the understanding, the mechanism, thewhatever mysterious reality that helps us to realize our actual identity is as adopted
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sons and daughters.
We belong here.
have inheritance here.
Our identity is that's our dad.
And, and he claimed us.
I have a friend, James King, who got a ton of kids.
think last time I talked to him, was seven, but you know, they're always having kids.
So I'm not really sure.
I haven't talked to him in several years and, he's probably turning over right now, buthe, he says, taught me several things.
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One of them was judgment was not always bad.
And I said, what do you mean?
He said, well, let me tell you what happens.
I think about half of his children are adopted.
And he said, I get to go on the day that they become our children and the judge gives aruling.
He judges that that child is mine and I am grateful for that judgment.
(35:11):
And I'm like, Ooh, I never thought about that.
But the power for him though, as he says, there's this moment because his name's JamesKing that that child, he'll be standing with the child in the courtroom.
The judge will say.
will make the judgment that that is now his son.
And so he'll lean down and he'll say, now you're a king every time.
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And I just love that.
And there's something about that that taught me it's not just that you're a son.
This is about inheritance.
This is about who you are when you walk in a room and how you walk in a room.
And so God is going to spend some time with us in the desert or
on a retreat or for me and my truck over and over and over, at the time teaching us whatadoption really looks like and that he doesn't see the difference between the natural born
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or whatever you want to say and an adopted child at all.
So yeah, Israel's adopted it's over and over and over.
And so we are too, I'm grateful for him.
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I'm going to read some of God's words in the New Testament about adoption and then justlet you finish our conversation up here by...
responding.
2 Corinthians 6 18.
I will be a father to you and you will be my sons and daughters says the Lord Almighty.
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Galatians 4, 4 through 8.
But when the set time had fully come, God sent his son, born of a woman, born under thelaw, to redeem those under the law that we might receive adoption to sonship.
Because you are his sons, God sent the spirit of his son into our hearts.
the spirit who calls out Abba, Father.
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So you're no longer a slave, but God's child.
And since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.
Romans 8.
For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God.
The Spirit you receive does not make you slave so that you live again in fear.
Rather, the Spirit you receive brought about your adoption to sonship, and by Him,
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we cry, Abba, Father.
The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirits that we are God's children.
Now if we are children, then we are heirs, heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, ifindeed we share in His sufferings in order that we might also share in His glory.
1 John 3, 1.
See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children ofGod, and that is what we are.
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The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know Him.
And there's many more scriptures, of course, but those are some of the most prominent.
So with just a couple of minutes left here in our time, which I so appreciate, Scott,would you just share with us as a teacher and what you have learned, maybe that you have
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not yet shared about this invitation and how core it is to those of us who are listeningto begin accepting
and searching out this extra salvific, if that's the right word to say, this identity thatyou discovered.
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How much time should we devote to that and what would be your counsel in searching thatout?
You ask very small, easy questions, Gosh.
I think if I was going to start by saying the things that were important, at least in myexperience with this whole concept, and then really finish with how important I think it
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is by walking through a little bit of those scripture references you just made, would say,the things that helped me diagnose my orphaned heart.
Because that's sometimes is the question is, do I have an orphan heart?
and one of the ways that, I think we all do at some point, I think that's part of what weget saved from, but it just takes some of us a little longer to understand it or whatever
(39:47):
that is over time.
it's the pro it's sanctification, right?
It's walking out our own salvation.
But, one of the big questions for me was how does leadership think about you?
What does leadership think about you?
And does leadership think I can trust this person and give them responsibility or doesleadership think I can give him some things, but not a lot.
(40:14):
And when I started thinking about what leadership thought about me, I realized that I wasthe second one.
I was in some ways a very passionate, maybe talented young pastor.
Who thought he should be in charge of everything?
And because of that, I was, I couldn't be trusted with inheritance.
(40:39):
I had an orphaned heart and you can't trust an orphan with inheritance.
You have to give inheritance to a son.
And that's why I had never found the opportunities or the positions that I felt like Ideserved was because rightfully.
Although they might not have put it in sonship language, the leadership over me could seethat my immaturity meant that if I had an inheritance earlier, would have been a problem.
(41:07):
Which made me go back by the way, and went through a process of deep repentance, bothpersonally with the leadership over me and about everybody that I had ever seen.
I went through about six months of that and the repentance process out of an orphan heartfor me was one of the most important journeys.
Very powerful.
The second was about authority, authority when it comes to, Sunship totally changed forme.
(41:35):
And one of the last things that Jack Frost told, talked to me or talk to me, he wastalking on a CD.
he signed a bunch of people, but it was to be, he said, as he came along and he said, so,what is it?
Who are you to, if you go to a church or to any kind of organization, who are you there toserve?
(41:55):
was Christ centered organization.
Who are you there to serve?
So I'm driving.
don't say it out loud, but what I think is I'm there to serve God.
And he said, if you think you're there to serve God, you're wrong.
I pulled it over the truck because I had bought so deep into sonship.
was like, well, here's where he goes on his charismatic crazy and we go in differentdirections.
(42:17):
You know, I'm like, pop, pop, pop in my head.
And he says, and he pulls over and he says, we are called to submit.
to the spiritual authorities in our life.
They are appointed and anointed.
And if you have come into as a staff member, as a pastor, you've accepted that you are apart of this community, accepted that job, then you are submitted to that authority.
(42:41):
What if they're doing wrong things?
Well, it's not about spiritual abuse.
If there's spiritual abusing, then of course you leave.
But if we're talking about differences of opinion or whatever it might be, then your jobis to submit.
And I was like,
And as an American born out of revolution, as a Texan born out of revolution, you know, asjust, don't know, whatever it is, the idea of submission is incredibly difficult for me
(43:06):
personally right now.
And yet when I realized that submission wasn't about gravel, which is what evil in thedark will try to tell you, but submission is about lifting up.
Submission is getting up under someone and lifting them up.
So in this case.
You are the spiritual authority between the two of us.
(43:26):
So my job, my work, my goal, my joy is to get up under you and lift up what it is that youfeel God calling you to lead and share in this podcast.
That's, and it's the, it's, it's the way that it flows.
When things flow that way, there's this powerful alignment.
(43:47):
When there is no submission and there's like, should know better and remember and all thisother stuff.
That's when you get what toxic church looks like.
if there is not an understanding of sonship in the core leadership of a church, it's verydifficult to be healthy.
and we were able to, to find some versions of that several times in churches that I get toserve.
(44:08):
And when that happens, my gosh, it, it's, it's the thing you think you're called to do.
So those two things is, how does leadership think of you?
And part of it is submission.
How do you understand submission?
You know, getting up under the leader that you're there.
If you can't submit to the leader, you see how can you submit to the one that you don't isa picture biblically.
(44:31):
And it's not, but that's a big picture of it.
And so those are two things that are hard.
but they're important.
so you can think of how does your pastor think of you if they think of you at all, youknow, if, we're involved in that.
structure piece.
(44:52):
I think we should be, that's my take, but I'm I'm a local church guy by the way, so headsup.
yeah.
So, but now just the way that you rolled that out, I'll be a father to you.
You know, it's just the picture of that.
God says, I want to be a father to you.
That's God's part.
That's what he wants to do is to love, care for, and raise.
(45:13):
That God, like a good father, knows you better than you know yourself and wants to helpyou discover your identity in such a way that you can live it fully in this life.
that he's, he set time that he's redeemed us to adoption.
That that's his choice.
What God wants to do is say, okay, you may be the son of something else and we all servesomething, right?
Decide what you serve.
You serve porn, you serve alcohol, you serve money, you serve control, fame, power, blah,blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever it might be that we are all dealing with.
(45:41):
God says, I want to adopt you away from giving all of your power and energy to that idol,that God and bring you home.
And I want you to be my son, a son of love and power and joy and strength.
That's what I want you to do.
I want you to use the word Abba.
said that twice, two different scriptures say Abba.
Abba is still what you hear in Jerusalem when children are running behind their dad andthey need him to slow down.
(46:02):
It's, it's Abba Abba.
You hear it all the time.
And it's those dads that turn around and scoop them up that you're like, okay.
There it is.
You know, we think of Abba as this weird word, but then it is culturally, but in thosespaces, it's the word for daddy.
It's just dad, Hey dad, you know, and it's a very endearing space and that you're nolonger a slave.
(46:23):
Like, can you imagine, you know, a good healthy father saying, well, now that you're aslave son, it makes no sense at all.
You know, it's like, it's this come here.
Like, wait a minute, what's going on?
Let me protect you for a minute from the world.
Let's you and I take time out.
and reset what's going on.
You know, let's, walk this through.
I think God is willing to do that.
(46:45):
And that I don't, I don't fully understand the choice of that except that he is loveitself.
And so there's edges of that, that I just don't fully get yet.
He chooses to engage us fully in all of our brokenness.
You know, he came for us while we were yet sinners.
(47:06):
We're all kind of a broken thing.
Because he loved the whole world.
like, and I have to be careful because sometimes I do this when I preach, I'm like, theworld says this and the Bible says this.
I'm like, oh God loved the whole world.
How do I deal with that?
You know, this, this love is bigger than I'm imagining.
So it becomes really powerful because that framework of, oh, they just don't know they'readopted children yet.
(47:29):
That person that I disagree with and really dislike, she doesn't know.
She doesn't know who she is.
I didn't know either.
Right.
So I have this kind of draw to that the spirit of God, that we are children of God.
And then also the spirit testifies with our spirit.
Those two pictures are.
(47:49):
This is a miracle at the level of resurrection is to understand sonship and to integrateit into your heart.
And that is massive, but that's God's primary business.
That's what he wants to do.
He's like, that's what I want to do.
I want to get.
Sonship into you so that you could become or daughter ship which I we didn't talk aboutbecause we both have daughters like how I'm Crucial that is just for as an aside for
(48:15):
daughters Daughters deal with identity issues sometimes more in with more difficulty thansons To set your daughter free by being a deeply loving father Is the key we know it, you
know what we can see it and
It may be as or if not more important, but it's at least a little different how one way orthe other, but that God's spirit is testifying to your spirit.
(48:42):
So here's what's really happening, Jane, you've done beautifully to touch this over andover in our conversation today is to pray like right now, let the spirit do this right
now.
Like if you're feeling that pull to be drawn in as a son to the father, then flow that.
Why not explore that?
Everything by the way, is going to get in your ear and tell you why you shouldn't do that.
(49:02):
But all those things.
Just as you go, ask yourself if the things that are telling you that you shouldn't do it,are those things working in your life?
Are those things life-giving in your life?
And you will find out absolutely they are not over and over and over, which is such apowerful thing.
And then, you know, what, great love for the children of God.
(49:23):
Great love is this overwhelming encompassing more profound than the air we breathe.
The heartbeat that each heartbeat we get is a gift.
Each breath that we take is a gift and it's the father that gives it to us and hiseagerness for us to discover his full love and inheritance is palpable.
(49:47):
The closer that you get to it and the story of God constantly, we have this whole ideathat we found Jesus.
Well, yeah, because he's been chasing us.
Like I really believe God is after us just wildly in love with us.
Like you would be or her I would be if our children wandered off.
mean, what would you not do to find your child and bring them to safety and care?
(50:13):
You know, how is it that, you know, we get so intense about our kids.
I just think God's exactly like that.
If not more, because he understands the stakes and is he willing to.
You know, think of the worst of the worst.
Yeah.
God's chasing them too.
And I'll tell you, if you want to know how hardcore, in my opinion, this gets, it sayswhen Jesus asks Peter, who do people say that I am?
(50:37):
And he blesses Peter.
And then he tells him, and the gates of hell will not prevail against this.
Right?
Well, the gates on a city is the weakest place.
That's the part that you attack.
So all of a sudden, what we're talking about, that's the church attacking the gates ofhell.
And the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
(50:58):
And as the church, we've insulated ourselves as the body of Christ, we've insulatedourselves, protected ourselves, and we pretend like we're orphans and we don't take on the
inheritance that we've been given to chase down into every corner of hell in the worldthat we know and into the actual gates.
That's where we're supposed to go.
It says the gates of hell will not prevail against the church.
(51:21):
And I'm like, yep, that's who we are.
That's what it means to be a son or a daughter is to be able to go into the darkest placeswith a love and bring light into the dark.
And that transforms you, your family, the way you see the Bible, the way you drink coffee,the way you drive to work.
(51:42):
Um, and it just unfolds with profound power.
And I'm so grateful that you discovered it.
And I'm so grateful that I did too.
And I've just been moved to be able to share.
just a little time with you about it this morning.
I'd love for you to pray.
Sure.
And to just put a little bookend on the end of this conversation for those of you who arelistening, our brothers out there who are curious, who are searching for home.
(52:18):
Jesus tells what I believe is maybe the most, to me, the most helpful parable of the lostson.
And it's really not about either of the sons, the older or the younger son.
It's really about the father, because neither of those sons knew their father as he trulywas.
Their father had a heart that was yet undiscovered, and they had to go on a journey forit.
(52:43):
So the disruptive end of that parable is that
God in His loving way approaches both of His sons and in the way that they neededaddresses the deepest questions on their hearts.
And we don't know because the story does not reveal whether those sons responded well toit or not.
(53:06):
They could well have rejected their father's invitation.
The younger son who came back and got all the clothes on him, did he become a spoiledbrat?
Did he end up leaving again or did he truly believe what the Father was communicating tohim?
And then when the older son came and complained about the lack of generosity on hisfather's part, the Father said, everything I have is yours and always has been.
(53:36):
So there is an invitation for us which God opens up fully and says, please.
Trust me, take what I have for you.
So in light of that, I want to thank all of you for joining my good friend Scott, Hara andI as we walk a mile on the road to sonship, exploring exactly what this is and to be able
(54:01):
to appreciate sonship as this brilliant color from the beginning of scripture to the endas opposed to a black and white thread.
So Scott, would you pray for us?
I'd love to.
Again, I'm grateful to have been here.
And I'll say just as for our brothers that are out there looking for some tangible, can Igo do something to do some discovery?
(54:23):
I would say for a, as Jay has, for us to be open to the spirit, bear witness to our spiriton sonship.
then read John 14 over and over and over again.
And if you want to take a highlighter and highlight every time, every time the word fathercomes up, and it's, it's a powerful thing to do.
So.
(54:44):
Grateful again, let's pray.
Turn to God, Father, just so grateful for who you are, who you say I am and how you soconstantly, not only remind me of that in my heart and my mind and my prayer life, but in
my life.
(55:05):
Help me to rest that into my identity and not strive forward.
into some imagined way of being.
Help me to hear you call, to do what you're doing, to join in, to know that all I reallyneed to be is included in your work.
(55:27):
That you do welcome me, you love me, you empower me, you give me gifts.
I would ask right now that for our friends that are listening to this, that feel thatorphaned heart that you show up.
that you do so in a way that is clear, that is simple and home building, and that youstrike those things that are keeping their hearts from beating down, and that you would
(56:03):
welcome them in as you have me and my friend Jay and built us up.
And would you build up a community of men and women?
that understand what it means to truly be yours.
We ask all this in Jesus' holy and precious name.
Amen.
(56:41):
people learn any more about you or maybe even look into joining you on a journey toIsrael?
Yeah, when you were talking about learning, what I would say is Shiloh Place Ministrieshas got some really cool core concepts.
The book that Jack Frost did is not as good as a recording.
There's an old recording that's better, but there's a How You Understand God and all thesekind of little things.
(57:04):
And I think it's still out there.
I haven't been on there for a while, so that's really good.
A lot of your teaching, think, is core to this, the scriptural stuff we're talking about.
As far as me, that's honestly the least interesting part of this conversation, but I willsay we'll probably build a couple of Israel tours in 2026.
People are welcome.
I build them through communities.
(57:26):
I don't really build them individually because I feel like they're all about discipleship.
If Being Sons is an interested crowd, if there's a crowd of folks from Being Sons thatwants to be a part of collecting together and building one, I would be privileged to do
that.
Usually there's two, sometimes three groups that'll be pulled together.
We don't do anything more than about 40 people, one bus, one community, one conversation.
(57:46):
And so we build all that out that way.
As far as the rest of the world of things of me, you know, you can find things out, but Iwould, I'm,
probably more built for a conversation than I am a list of resources.
Fantastic.
You're a good friend, a good man, and a good son, Scott.
(58:10):
Thanks for bringing the weight and the power of who you are to benefit us.
We appreciate it.
Humble to be here.
All right, sons.
Until next time.
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