Episode Transcript
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Derrick Overholt (00:02):
It's always a
privilege to be here.
As you heard, my name is Derek.
I'm one of the pastors.
It's been actually almost ayear since I have spoke to you
from stage.
I know that's wild, isn't it?
But I wanted to start out thismorning with just a little bit,
just a few moments of whatbrought me to this sermon.
(00:23):
And it began really thebeginning of last year, and some
of our youth have heard part ofthis sermon because the Lord
led me to give some of this atsummer camp in the beginning.
Summer camp it's such a greattime, but throughout this year
God has been dealing with me.
You guys knew that I was onsabbatical for a few months and
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thank you guys so much for theability to do that.
It was a great time ofrefreshment to my heart and my
mind.
It allowed me to slow downenough to hear what the Lord was
speaking, and it took me quitesome time.
I actually didn't even hearthis part of it until after the
sabbatical was over and I beganto hear what the Lord was trying
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to say to me the whole time.
I believe this is probably oneof the big reasons why, back in
December, I kind of had anervous breakdown, and this is
something that for all of us, ifwe don't truly grasp the
reality of this, we all can endup in the exact same location.
Reality of this we all can endup in the exact same location.
(01:27):
So I wanted to quickly tell youabout how I viewed God up until
this point.
Now I have been a Christian myentire life and gosh.
I remember there was a time atseven years old where I
confessed that I was going tofollow Jesus.
But I remember at 12 years oldI gave my life to him.
I had a waterbed and I woke upfeeling like I was never going
to go to heaven and that wasreally scary.
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So I bowed down beside my bedand I prayed and I asked God
into my life, right there.
And so my whole life has reallyjust been around God, but my
view of God was much like this.
I was trying to think of thebest way to explain this, but I
finally came up with.
One Years ago I worked for acompany that was an incredible
company, really good to me andmy wife and I had a boss and her
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name was Donna.
She was the president of ourcompany, rather large company.
They have, I think over 10,000apartment units in America and I
was blessed to be there.
It was one of those jobs thatyou just love to have, and I
remember, through one of thehardest times in our life, donna
was there and she took care ofit.
But now the way that I viewedGod was much like I viewed Donna
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.
She was great.
I only saw her about 20 times ayear.
I knew that she was going tomake sure my paycheck got paid
and I knew that she cared aboutme.
Okay, but that was the extentof it.
So Eli died and we were in areally bad place and we were
going to rent out our homebecause we just couldn't be in
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the home that our little boy wasin because there was no way to
get away from his room.
It was right in the center ofthe house.
So we just asked if we couldrent an apartment to get out of
our home.
And she took it a step furtherand bought us a home and gave it
to us rent-free the entire timethat I finished working there.
Again, it was such a beautifulthing to take care of us, but
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again, I barely ever saw her.
I just knew that she caredabout me right.
Well, I realized that's much ofhow I have been viewing God,
knowing that, no matter what, hewas going to be there for me,
knowing that he was going toalways provide he was always
going to take care of me.
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I've seen him do incrediblemiracles that some of you here
just wish you could see.
I've watched dead come to lifeliterally in front of my face.
I've watched legs grow thatwere never long enough to walk,
with so many things the blind tosee.
So, yeah, I knew that God wasincredible, he was an awesome
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God and I had no problem at allserving him.
I have all the way to thispoint, no problem at all, just
being called his servant andknowing that I am taken care of
by a good God in heaven.
But, guys, there's much more toit than that and I have, like I
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said, I've lived my whole lifeup to this point just thinking
that way.
And this year, this scripturethat we're going to go over
today opened my eyes and it ledme to another scripture that I'm
going to share in just a bit.
That further opened my eyes andit actually dug deep into my
doctrine and theology, so muchso that some of the scripture
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I'm going to read today, therewas pieces of it that I had
never filtered in the proper way.
I had just looked over thosewords like they didn't even
exist.
So much so that when I read thescripture with a clear mind
that I go wait, is this heresy?
How can the word of God beheresy?
And so I have been strugglinglike deep in my heart, in a good
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way, you know, those goodstruggles that we need to have,
and no matter what happens inour life, no matter what age you
get, we always have to be opento understand that we might just
have something in the scripturewrong, and we need to have our
heart and mind open to allow theHoly Spirit to show us
something that he's wanting tosay, because that's one of those
great things about the wordbeing alive and we can read it
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our whole life.
I'm 42 now y'all my whole lifelife.
I'm 42 now, y'all my whole life.
And I just now got it and itmoves.
And I'm sure when I'm 72, I'llread it again and go what?
How did I not get that for 72years, right?
So today I just wanted to startwith a moment of giving you a
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view of where I have been.
Our sermon today is Chosen forAdoption.
I'm going to start with a quickstory.
There was a young boy InFebruary 24th 1955, he was born
to two college students thatknew that they could not raise
this child.
They had no means, they didn'tknow what to do and, thank God,
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they chose adoption.
And so they had this family setup.
And right as the baby boy wasborn, this family decided we
can't adopt this baby.
So now this is the secondfamily that says I don't want
this baby.
And along came Paul and Clara.
Now they didn't have a wholelot, but they were two people
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that couldn't have children andwanted to have a baby.
And the mother said look, Ijust wanna know, will you make
sure that this young boy goes tocollege?
And they said sure, we'll makesure, with everything we got,
this young man will go tocollege.
So they adopted him and thisboy that once was.
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He had been looked over twotimes.
He was adopted and adoptionchanged his life, because this
boy grew up to create one of thelargest technical powerhouses
house, as we know today, isApple Steve Jobs.
Where would Steve Jobs had beenif he had never been adopted?
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His whole life changed withadoption.
And today, in Ephesians 1, paultells us a story much like it,
except this time it's about allof us, because we were orphans.
So we'll start with thescripture, ephesians 1, verse 3
through 6.
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Blessed be the God and Fatherof our Lord, jesus Christ, who
has blessed us in Christ withevery spiritual blessing in the
heavenly places, even as hechose us in him before the
foundation of the world, to thepraise of his glorious grace,
with which he has blessed us inthe beloved.
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Let's pray.
Father, we thank you so muchfor your word.
We thank you for your spiritmoving here this morning.
We thank you, lord, for who youare and how you made a way for
us, god, in a way that is sopowerful and really
inconceivable of why you woulddo it.
But, god, we thank you, lord,for your words and we pray that
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this morning you would speakthrough me, lord, in the name of
Jesus, amen.
So last week Tyler did awonderful job giving an
introduction to Ephesians, andwe heard him say that the theme
of Ephesians is in Christ and,as a matter of fact, as I'm
reading through the book, it'salmost in every verse for the
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first 13 verses.
I think there was two versesmissing, some form of in Christ.
We just read it in these fewverses three times.
It was in Christ and withChrist, in Christ, in him, those
type of things over and overagain throughout Ephesians and
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in these few verses we justheard that God has blessed us
with every spiritual blessing inheaven, every one of them,
every available blessing in thecosmos.
Everything has been given to usas a believer in Christ.
The decision was made beforethe earth was ever even hung in
orbit.
The father, the son and theHoly spirit made that decision
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way before they even hung theearth.
He did this so that we could beholy and blameless before the
father and it was his plan,through adoption, that we would
become his very own family.
Now, before you guys think thatI'm just looking over this
scripture, this scripture isvery deep.
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These three verses we could goover for a few weeks, maybe even
more.
There's a huge word right beforeadoption, called predestined,
and this morning predestinedcould be a sermon all of its own
and I don't have time enough togo through both of them this
morning, so I didn't want tojust overlook it and just bypass
it, give this scripture anydisservice.
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But today I felt like the Lordwas really focused on adoption,
and so that's where we're going.
The adoption word here used isand I'm going to probably
butcher this a few differenttimes huiothosia.
I believe huiothosia is theword that he used.
This word is only used in theBible three times.
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Paul used it in three of hisletters Ephesians, romans and
Galatians.
It means placing as a son.
He probably used this specificterm because he was talking to
the Gentiles and the Jews.
The Jews would have seen adifferent view of this and the
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Gentiles would seen another viewof it, so that to the Jew it
would recall God's chosen peoplefrom the very beginning, the
inheritance that was throughAbraham, back to that point,
into the Gentile enrollment.
It would recall the legaladoption, much like we call it
today, a change, change of legalstatus, a full family
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membership.
It would have wrappedeverything up in one and it
allowed Paul to say God'seternal decision culminates in
placing believers in thefather's household, a corporate,
covenantal refamilying thatcarries legal standing and
inheritance.
As I said a few moments ago, ithas always been God's plan for
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family, for family, sons anddaughters, not just creations
sons and daughters that wouldshare his home, share everything
he has share, all of hisabilities, before the
foundations of the world.
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He made all of this because hedidn't want us to just be a
creation.
He had created plenty beforethat.
We don't know of all of it.
He had created angels anddifferent servants, but he had
never created a human.
And the reason was it's becausehe wanted to create his family.
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We were made in his image forthis purpose.
And here's that other scriptureI was telling you about that.
I went to and I read and I'dnever caught four words and I'm
going to read them to you.
You'll probably catch them andsome of you may not, so
hopefully this is going to helpout this morning.
But in Genesis, chapter 1,verses 26 and 27.
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Then God said let us Firstnotation of Father, son and the
Holy Spirit in the Old Testament.
Let us make human beings in ourimage to be like us.
I had never gotten those fourwords.
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They will rain over the fish inthe sea, the birds in the sky,
the livestock, all the wildanimals on earth, small animals
that scurry along the ground.
So God created human beings inhis own image, in the image of
God.
He created them male and female.
He created them Three times.
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We hear that he created themmale and female.
He created them Three times.
We hear that he created them.
God did not create us like theanimals.
He did not create us like anyother creature or any other
thing.
He created us in his image,carrying his traits and his
abilities.
You love this morning.
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I love this morning because heloves.
We're given the ability toreason because he does.
What other creature does that?
None other.
We're able to be kind becausehe's kind.
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We're able to look out and like, take care of something in a
just a powerful way, because hedoes that.
All the things that you look atthat are so unique to a human,
it's because that's like God.
We're in his image.
So we weren't made just as somerandom creation.
Why would God take time tocreate something that looked so
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much like him, that could actlike him and all of that?
Why would he do that if itwasn't a purpose?
And if we take it just a littlebit further, another scripture
that I picked up now we're allthe way in Genesis, chapter one.
Now let's go all the way toRevelation, chapter three, and
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it's in the letter to Laodicea,when Jesus is in division.
And Jesus said to one whoconquers, I will grant him to
sit with me on my throne as Iconquered, and sat down with my
father on his throne.
From the beginning to the end,we see throughout scripture, if
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we look at it properly, that wewere created as family.
As family, we were supposed tobe always with him in the garden
.
We were there with him, walkingwith him.
We don't know how long thathappened before we made a
mistake, but we walked with himand daily he came and he hung
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out with us and he spent timewith us and he would have walked
and talked, which meant that wehad to be like him so that we'd
understand, because this is thefamily that he was making.
The human story was always aboutGod creating us to be with him
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in family, and that's what wesee throughout the entire Bible,
and we see this adoption word,adoption.
Well, what happened?
We, of course, failed in thegarden because God had him.
People ask all the time why didhe even allow us to make a
decision like that?
Well, because if he didn't letyou have a decision, if you were
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going to follow him, if youwere going to be obedient, then
you were forced to love him.
He didn't want that, so we madea bad decision.
And Jesus, this was God's planas well.
He's going to come and he'sgoing to get us.
He's going to ransom his family.
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He's going to get us all backand bring us back in community
with God, now, jesus being theonly begotten son begotten there
meaning unique, chosen son ofGod, the one that is godly, that
is the son of God, the one thatis God, the son.
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It's just so much that comesfrom that, because he is the one
that made the way for all ofthis.
This is why we continue to hearin Ephesians in Christ,
everything that we're talkingabout is because we're in Christ
.
None of this is available by us, none of this is available by
your doings or my doings.
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So, knowing all of this, inChrist, we're loved before we
did anything, before anything,and we see this because here's
the truth.
If I'm really thinking of thisproperly, I know that God
doesn't treat one childdifferent than another.
And he sends Jesus down to theearth and Jesus gets baptized,
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and what's the first thing thathappens?
We hear God's voice come fromheaven.
This is my son.
I love him.
This is my son, whom I love.
With him.
I am well pleased.
I don't know if you guys knewthis, but Jesus had done no
miracles at this point.
He hadn't walked on water, hehadn't turned, you know, gotten
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more wine, he hadn't fed the5,000.
He had done nothing at all.
But God showed Jesus andeveryone around him right then
what his identity was.
This is my son.
Nothing's going to change thatand I'm well pleased with him
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and I believe that the Lord'swanting us to hear that as well
today, that before we doanything at all, when we give
our lives to Jesus, when we getsaved and we're ransomed to the
family of God, then we are sonsand daughters before we do
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anything at all.
Daughters, before we doanything at all, you're already
his son and his daughter.
You don't have to earn it, youdon't have to do anything.
Your identity doesn't come fromwhat you do or what you try to
do in a good way.
It's not about how much I cando over here and be nice or this
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, that.
No, he loves us, no matter what.
Immediately, it has been givento us through Jesus Christ, been
adopted.
It's a gift.
Anyone who's adopted into ahome it's a gift, because the
adopted person doesn't get tosay I want that family over
there and that family has to dosomething.
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It is a gift from the oneadopting to the child and that
is what God has done for you andI In Christ.
We have the ability to beadopted In Jesus' blood, the
adoption papers, and it's signedonce and forever.
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So we see that even in Jesus'sown words, we want to.
I was even thinking about thisadoption part and because then I
was looking at it and I said,well then Jesus is our brother,
that's another one of thosethings that was really hard for
me to grasp.
I almost couldn't say it forthe first month of thinking
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about this.
I've been thinking about thisscripture for quite some time.
But he said in his own words hecalled many times.
He called us brothers andsisters.
Jesus did with the disciples,and then God showed us just even
more how much that he hasadopted us.
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When the spirit that was insideof Jesus, that walked him
through everything and thenraised him from the dead on the
day of Pentecost, god said nowthat's yours and he puts it in
us.
Now, to prove to you guys thatyou're part of my family, I'm
going to give you my very ownspirit to dwell inside of you,
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just like Jesus, because you'remade in my image and you were
destined to look like us, to belike us.
You're destined for that inChrist.
It's all in him.
Again, none of this is possiblewithout being in Christ.
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Our standing in this world wewere talking earlier and was it
Scott or Kelly was talking aboutwe're not going against flesh
and blood here, but ofprincipalities and demons and
the dark world.
We, because of all of this,have a higher standing in the
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spiritual world than all of them, than all of them, than all of
them.
God, the Father, the Son, theHoly Spirit, us we're in the
same household.
That's the adoption we'retalking about.
I was thinking this morningabout stories that we hear of
you know people getting beat upand things like that, and then
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big brother comes in and takescare of the problem.
That's our family household andit's like I feel like when I
pray sometimes it's like devil.
You just wait Until my brotherhears about this.
You just wait until my dadhears about this.
Let's see what happens when hecomes and takes care of this
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situation.
And all of this was ideas I'venever thought about in 42 years,
and so my identity.
For all of this time has been aservant of the most high God
and I've been totally all rightwith that and I would have died
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and been completely fine withthat.
But, man, how much I wasmissing when I finally got the
thought I am that much a son,that Jesus is my big brother,
that came and rescued me back tothe Father, that God put on me
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the same spirit that raisedJesus from the dead.
That identity of an adoptedperson I had never grasped.
And this morning I felt likeI'm supposed to share this
because I feel like some of ushere are in the same boat.
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Here's the thing the devil willalways attack our identity first
.
Why does he do this?
Satan was a created being,nothing like God.
Mad that he wasn't chosen to bea part of the family.
Mad because he couldn't be likeGod, he couldn't have the Holy
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Spirit, he couldn't be calledsons and daughters, he couldn't,
in the end, in Revelation, siton the throne with God invited
up.
The devil was so mad when hesaw what God was creating this
family and what they had beengiven, what we have been given.
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So he wants to attack youridentity first, because if he
can attack our identity as sonsand daughters of the most high
God.
We won't know what power wehave.
And so here we are and we havefamily problems.
Well, he wants to destroy thefamily, because that's how God
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created it all to be Mother,father, children.
All of it was a plan that Godmade to give the perfect picture
of what it's going to be likeforever.
Guys, we're not just going tobe floating on clouds for
eternity.
Jesus is going to come back.
He's going to get us.
We're going to go up, not justgoing to be floating on clouds
for eternity.
Jesus is going to come back.
He's going to get us.
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We're going to go up.
He's going to renew the earth.
We're going to come back downand be with him and we're going
to live here for eternity withour father, god, forever.
And the devil won't ever get toenjoy any of that.
That's why he's attacking youridentity.
That's why he's attacking youridentity.
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That's why he's attacking yourfamily.
That's why he's attacking allof it, because if he can attack
that, you are just powerless.
So he attacks families, andwe've seen it, and it's grown so
much over the last 80 years.
It started in so many differentways, but we have feminism,
that kicked in and it showedwomen that they don't need men,
they don't need anything to dowith them.
And so I don't know if you guysknew, but I did a little
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research this week and found outthat before feminism movement,
marriage rates of divorce was20%.
When it kicked in, after 20years, it was 40% because men
were no longer needed.
And we see that all the way upto today, where it's grown so
much more, where now men aren'teven men anymore, man's not even
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needed in a family.
And so families are justgetting ripped apart more and
more and more, to where now thedivorce rate's like 55%.
It's just tore apart becausethe devil knows.
If he can attack the identity ofa family and rip it apart, then
they won't realize who they'resupposed to be in God.
And he's taking it even a stepfurther now with genders, the
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simplest thing that one couldknow about oneself.
Honestly, to think that I wouldbe confused about the simplest
thing in the entire universe,that would really mess up my
identity.
And if I didn't even know, it'salmost like saying well, are
you a human or not?
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And there are now those as wellthink they're dogs and cats and
stuff, then God must havereally messed up.
So then, if God messed up thatbad in my identity, then I
really am just a worthless pileof clay sitting here.
I'm useless.
You see what the devil's doing?
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To destroy the family unit,because he knows that's what God
wants, that's his plan.
Is that so?
When our identity continues tobe taken down, it makes us
weaker.
And we saw that the first thingthat the devil did when Jesus
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just heard from God.
God told him this is my son, inwhom I'm well pleased.
Jesus went straight into thedesert for 40 days of temptation
and the devil came at him andsaid if you really are the son
of God, then you turn thesestones into bread.
Prove that you can provide foryourself.
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Do it right now.
He's attacking Jesus's identity.
If you really are the son ofGod, then you jump off that
temple.
You know the angels will grabyou.
Prove you're important and ifyou really are the son of God,
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then you bow down and receiveall these kingdoms right now.
Take control without followingthrough with obedience.
He's trying to destroy whatJesus is doing, because if he
can attack the family, if he canconfuse gender, if he can
distort God's plan, then he cancontinue to whisper to every one
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of us that we're not enough,that we're not worthy, that God
won't take care of you, so whywould you follow him?
We don't have to prove ourself.
We don't have to.
The deeds that we do, they'regreat, but they're not going to
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get you to heaven.
Here's the truth, guys.
We do.
We want to be holy because ourdad's holy, not because there's
a rule book that says we shoulddo this, this, this, this and
this.
No, no, this is what our dadlooks like.
I want to be like dad.
My dad doesn't lie.
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I'm going to do that.
I don't want to lie.
Tyler talked about it a fewweeks ago.
He said there's certain thingsthat the lines do, and all the
kids know what those things are.
If you're a line, this is whatyou do Well, and all the kids
know what those things are.
If you're aligned, this is whatyou do Well.
If you're part of the family ofGod, this is just what we do.
We're gonna live a holy life.
We're gonna uphold what Godsays is right.
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Our dad in heaven created theworld to work in a specific way
and we don't wanna mess that up.
We're gonna work with God.
We're gonna work with dadbecause that's the way he
created it, and when we realizethat our identity as adopted
children to the most high God isthat he's dad.
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We see it in the scripture inRomans 8, 15,.
That same word adoption.
Paul used it again.
He said you have not received aspirit.
Romans 8, 15,.
That same word euthysia,adoption Paul used it again.
He said you have not received aspirit that makes you fearful
slaves.
Instead, you received God'sspirit when he adopted you, that
same word as his own children.
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Now we call him Abba.
To us that would be daddy, papa.
It's a very intimate word thatyou would call your father.
It means that you have arelationship with that man and
he's not just your birth guy,he's got a relationship with you
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.
And so Paul's reminding us overand over, not just there, but
all the way through.
And Jesus himself kept sayingthe father, the father, brothers
, I'm taking you to the father,brothers, I'm taking you to the
father.
That's us.
Brothers, sisters, we're goingto the father who's adopted us.
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Dad, abba, papa.
He loves us, he's there for us,he will guide us.
Now I know there's so manypeople in the room that have not
had good dads.
You don't know what this lookslike Me myself.
I mean, my dad's a good dad.
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He just never was around.
So I realized this year thatI've lived for many years with
daddy issues that I didn'trecognize until this year
because my dad just wasn'taround.
Wonderful guy, I love him todeath, always kind, but he just
wasn't around.
So I guess that's probably whatstarted to make some of the way
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my vision was for family thatyeah, he's a good dad.
He's way off over there, youknow.
But that's the thing.
A lot of the ways that we liveand the things that we walk
through and deal with in ourlives shape how we view our
father in heaven.
So that's so important, dads,for you to be the dad that
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you're called to be, to man upwhen you need to for our
children, because when wecontinually show them a weak dad
that's not around, that's neverthere, then we're showing them
when they hear father, as intheology, that he's a far off,
distant dad that's never hereand close by, and it may take
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them until they're 42 to getthat picture, but our father,
our dad in heaven, our Abba,will always be kind.
He has always been, he's alwayspresent with us.
He has never given up on you.
He delights in you, and Paul'snot the only one who saw it.
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John saw it in John 1, 3, 1.
See how much, see how very muchour father loves us, that he
calls us his children, becausethat's what we are.
It changes our identity.
Adoption changes our identity.
This morning.
Some of you know my daughter,allie, and you know my son, zeke
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, and if you were to see them ina crowd of people and you knew
me but you had never met them Ibet you could figure out which
ones was mine.
Why is that?
Because they want to be likedad in some ways and things rub
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off and them living in myhousehold, things that I do rub
off on them and they start doingthem.
You can hear my son talk andjust hear my voice pretty much,
because he's just as redneck asI am.
You can see actions andmovements and all of that from
my children.
Guys, that's what will happento us when we go in dad's house.
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We hang out with dad, we allowdad's traits to move us to start
being what we do.
We become holy because dad'sholy, people in the world start
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seeing God in us, because welook like God, because we look
like dad.
People start noticing adifference in us because we're
starting to look like our dad.
We speak up, we do thingsbecause that's what dad wants.
Today we are no longer orphans.
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Some of us this morning might bejust as I have been for the
longest time still seeing myselfas just a servant, an orphan
that was picked up, been takencare of really good, but he's
just an orphan still on theoutside.
That's not who we are.
So today I just want to do alittle exercise.
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If everybody would close youreyes for a moment.
I'm not going to ask you toraise your hand or nothing, but
I just want you to close youreyes and I want you to think
about God.
If you were to see God's faceright now, if you picture his
face, you're standing in frontof him.
It's the end of time.
What's his face look like rightnow?
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Is he frowning at you?
Is he frowning at you?
Is there an angry look on hisface?
Is there disappointment?
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Do you see him smiling at you?
You can open your eyes.
If you saw anything other thanpure joy on his face.
You probably still see yourselfas an orphan because you don't
see yourself the way God seesyou Because we are in Christ,
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covered by the blood of God'samazing son, adopted full
adoption in Christ.
God sees us through him, sohe's pleased with you, he's
proud of you, he's proud to callyou his child.
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Now there's sometimes my kidsdo things that I'm not so proud
of their actions.
But, guys, there will benothing ever that Zeke or Allie
will do that.
I will not be proud to callthem my children.
Nothing, I won't be proud oftheir actions, but I'll always
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be proud to call them mychildren.
That's how much God loves us.
That's the same thing.
I believe that God gives uschildren to show us how much he
loves us.
Today, if you have a child andyou know just how much you give
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for them, times that by about ahundred, and that's your God,
that's your dad, who's adoptedyou in to his home With
inheritance to all that.
He has All, even his very ownspirit, placed into you and I.
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Now we are not forgotten, we'renot rejected.
We are not forgotten.
We're not rejected.
We're not just a worker.
We're chosen, we're loved,we're adopted Into the kingdom
of the most high.
God.
Father, we just thank you somuch For the truth found in your
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word.
God, we thank you that youdidn't just leave us as orphans.
God, there was so many waysthat you could have come and
rescued us.
There was so many ways whereyou could have saved us and gave
us a way to do this, this, thisand this to earn it.
You could have come and savedus but just kept us outside with
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the dogs eating slop.
But, god, you did much morethan we could ever imagine when
you adopted us and you signedthose adoption papers with the
blood of your most holy son andmade a way for us to come into
your home.
And, god, we know that foreverwe will sit with you in your
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house as your family.
So, god, now we pray that you'dwork each and every one of us.
God, you know I've been prayingabout this and I need it.
I need to understand who I amin your family.
It I need to understand who Iam in your family and I pray
that for each and every personhere, lord, that the identity of
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us being your sons anddaughters would get down deep in
our soul and change our livesforever, because there's nothing
in this world that can comeagainst God and his son, and now
we are one of those your sonand your daughters.
Nothing can come against us.
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Nothing of this dark world canconquer us.
Because we are in Christ and wehave victory, because you give
us victory and we pray thatyou'll help us to see.
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Our identity is in you.
In the name of Jesus, amen.