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Safe in the Father's Heart-Part 4-God is our Father · The Father's Business Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: The Father's Business was founded by Sylvia Gunter to encourage people to a deeper relationship with God.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Elizabeth Gunter Powell.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_04: And I am Kimberly Roddy.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_04: Welcome to The Father's Business Podcast.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_04: We are so glad that you've joined us.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_02: Well, welcome everybody to this week's podcast.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_02: We are on week four of our study on Safe in the Father's Heart.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_02: I hope you're enjoying going through this study as much as I am, as it's just such a good reminder for my own heart to remember what a good, good father we have.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_02: So this week, we want to kind of focus in on some of our misconceptions about who God is as father, maybe some ways where our theology hasn't been complete.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_02: I know my mom's story, and I would say it's probably the story of a to our faith in his death, burial and resurrection.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_02: But a lot of times the focus is on Jesus came, died for us and was raised and our sins are forgiven.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_02: And now we have a relationship with him.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_02: And oftentimes we can kind of think of God as father is just the one who's in charge of the big stuff, right?
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_02: You know, even the old song, what a friend we have in Jesus.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_02: Like we don't have that same type of feel when you think of God as father.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_02: And it's really been great to revisit this chapter and just be reminded of how intimately acquainted God wants to be as our father.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_04: Sometimes it's easy to think of God as the cop waiting around the corner to bust
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_02: you.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_04: You know, we all, if we drive, we all are nervous looking around sometimes and thinking, is the cop going to be around the corner?
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_04: I know I'm speeding.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_04: I know I'm doing something wrong.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_04: I'm just waiting on him to bust me and he's going to slap a fine on me and give me a ticket and he's not going to be gracious with me.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_04: And it's just this perpetual kind of feeling of I'm doing something wrong and I deserve to be in trouble.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_04: And God's waiting to He's waiting to bust me.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_04: Sometimes I think we view God as a judge who's just going to bang that gavel down and declare a verdict against us, right?
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_04: Sometimes we think of him as like a genie in a bottle where we pray and we hope and we wish and then we wait on things to happen.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_04: I remember as a kid praying for a baby brother.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_04: I wanted a baby brother.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_04: At times it felt like maybe I should just throw a penny in the fountain at the mall, right?
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_04: To wish for a baby brother.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_04: Sometimes we're looking to God Yeah.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_04: And we all have different relationships with our earthly father.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_04: And so that affects how we interact with God, the father.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_04: It seems like Jesus had a significant relationship with God, the father.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_04: Elizabeth, why don't you talk a little bit about that?
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_04: I'm also thinking about how he called him Abba.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_04: What does that mean?
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_04: Help us understand that a little bit.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, starting off with Abba, there's not really a good English translation of it.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_02: Daddy would be close, but it's this very intimate, almost more like Dada.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_02: Like when babies are just starting to learn how to talk and they can't fully form their words.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_02: It's that most endearing place from the youngest place in our hearts.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_02: I just even love, I'm thinking about the verses in Romans where it says that his spirit testifies with our spirit.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_02: that we are the sons and daughters of God and that we cry out Abba to him from those places.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, God is so far more complex than we can imagine.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't in any way want to reduce the holiness and the otherness of him because he is.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_02: He's the God who breathed the universe into existence and keeps everyone and everything in the order that it's in.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_02: And yet he's also wanting to be that most loving, precious I mean, you just watch it.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_02: I especially love watching my friends who are becoming grandparents for the first time, especially granddads.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_02: And you watch these men just melt when they pick up their grandchild, right?
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_02: And they can't stop talking about them.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I was with one just the other day and I asked to see a picture and they're like, well, how much time do you have?
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_02: Because they had like an hour's worth of photos they wanted to show me of their grandbaby.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_02: And there's just this warmth and love and total acceptance that exudes out of them And I allowed myself to stop for a minute and just go, that's how God feels about all of us.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_02: Like he's that proud father who just wants to tell everyone, do you have an hour so I can tell you about my daughter, Kimberly?
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_02: Because she's awesome.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_02: We've got to be able to hold both those intention that he is holy and worthy of our worship.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_02: And we can't even look upon him without being changed.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_02: But at the same time, he is this intimate, loving daddy.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_02: And as we were doing the research for this book, I kind of knew it, but I didn't fully understand it, just how much Jesus talks about his father.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_02: In all the common scriptures, even John 3.16, we focus on the fact that Jesus came to save us from our sins.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_02: But the first part of that verse is, for God so loved the world that he sent his son.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_02: He didn't say he sent the Messiah.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_02: He didn't say he sent Jesus.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_02: He sent his son.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_02: And so from the very beginning of the core of our theology, one of the first verses you you learn as a Christian, you're hearing that relationship between father and son.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_02: Even another one that it kind of struck me because you've heard it all along.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_02: John 14, 6 says, I am the way, the truth and the light.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_02: And we know that's Jesus talking.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_02: But the second half of that verse is just as important, which is no one comes to the father except through me.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_02: And it's kind of Jesus throughout his mission teaching us how to pray.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_02: He's like, when you pray, pray this way.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_02: Our father, he kept trying to point people back to the father and the relationship that he had with his father.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_02: So yes, we're saved from our sins so that we will be in eternity with God.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_02: We're saved so that our sins are wiped clean, but it's so much more than just that salvation issue.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_02: At the real heart of it is this relationship with the father.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_02: This was a key turning point in my mom's journey.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_02: I know It's in the book and chapters that we're going over, but it's also, I've heard her share with me so many times about what a life changing pivot it was for her when she figured out that she wasn't just saved from her sins so that she could do good deeds to honor God.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_02: You know, that's a very, a very duty bound place that she had lived in.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, she has felt like she has been needing to be responsible and taking care of people all of her life.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean, honestly, part of that is from her story, even Even when her dad was in the home, he wasn't really present.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_02: So she felt this super responsibility to help take care of her mom and help take care of her younger brother.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_02: And so she's always had this feeling of, if I just do more, if I just work harder, if I just, if I achieve more, then my earthly dad is going to take notice of me.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_02: And she brought that into her relationship with her heavenly father.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I, Also, honestly, the church that she was in at the time, it was because Jesus saved you from your sin.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_02: You better be about the business of the kingdom because, you know, you don't deserve it.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_02: None of us do, obviously.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_02: But let's work really hard to show him how much we appreciate it.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_03: And
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_02: so it was a big turning point in her relationship as she got probably into her 30s when she realized God likes me just because of who I am, not because of what I do.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_03: And
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_02: God wants to have a relationship with me as his daughter, not as his servant, not as his hard worker, but he just truly delights in me as a daughter and wants me to feel the love that God has for me as he is my father and I am his child.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_04: That's probably something that a lot of us, if not all of us struggle with is feeling like we have to perform.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, we live in a society that says you have to perform, right?
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_04: In order to get paid, in order to get accolades, in order to get references, referrals, all the things, right?
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_02: And
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_04: so it's easy to translate that into our spiritual life and to put that on God.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_04: But I think scripture shows us so much more of who God our Father is.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_04: And I love the one line on page 31 in the book that says discovering who God is for me as father changed my life that's a that's a deep sentiment when we can recognize that the father's love towards us and the father's view of us and and all that he has done for us and in spite of us for his all that Jesus did for his father and all that the father did through Jesus on our behalf all of that is speaking Yeah.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_04: And a lot of us don't have that.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_04: And sometimes we don't have that.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_04: it's out of abuse and harm and neglect and maliciousness.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_04: And a lot of times it's just out of wounds and out of brokenness and out of just sad places where we don't have security.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_04: And so it's hard to trust that and know that the God, the father is different.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I also think Kimberly sometimes is even saying God loves us.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_02: It's really hard for us to understand what his version of love means.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_02: Because I mean, all we're experiencing in this world is a human form of love And while that might be great and there might be some beautiful pictures in that, that's still not perfect love.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, God is love.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_02: He doesn't just love us.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_02: He is love.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I love that verse in 1 John 3, 1 that says, see what great love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called children of God.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_02: And that is what we are.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_02: And I even love that word lavish because it's like it's over the top, like more abundant, more than you could possibly even receive.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_02: That's how much he loves us.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_02: But I mean, love is also a word that gets thrown around.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_02: I love Chick-fil-A.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_02: I love Krispy Kreme.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_02: going to even fully understand what that feels like.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_02: But as much as we can on this earth, I think we need to be grasping for, God, would you show me how much you love me?
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_02: Would you speak to me through your word, through a song, or however you want to speak to me?
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_02: Would you speak to me how much you love me?
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_02: And then give me the ability to believe that it's true.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_02: Because I think that's part of my story is I think God has been saying he loves me and he's crazy about me for a long, long time.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_02: And sometimes I can believe that and receive it.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_02: And other times I'm thinking everything I didn't do well enough and, you know, the shame, the condemnation, the whatever.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, yeah, you're just saying that you don't really mean it, you know?
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_02: You love me, whatever.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's really letting that sink down into the deepest parts of you that we are those children that we, we can run up to him and he will pick us up and scoop us up in his arms and be delighted that we're there.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_04: You know, I had a friend say to me the other day, She was reflecting on the phrase, God loves me, God loves her.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_04: And she said as a kid, it was really hard to understand just what you're talking about, to understand that God loved her because she thought love was something different because of what she'd experienced.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_04: And so that's exactly what you're talking about.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_04: It's not just God loves us.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_04: It's that he is love and that he lavishes that on us and that Ephesians talks about long before he laid the foundations of the earth, he had us in mind.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_04: He decided to adopt us into his family through Jesus.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_04: And you think about how God doesn't do anything halfway.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_04: He's intentional.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_04: Kimberly, think about just
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_02: creation.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I mean...
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_02: how many different species of animals and birds and trees like when he when he went about creating this world he didn't have to make zebras like i mean there's giraffes even like there's so much beauty in nature that he didn't have to but that is that lavishness of him and i know something that sometimes makes people a little jumping myself included because it's not my favorite creature but there are 40 000 different types of spiders and it's like, really God, did we need 40,000 different types of spiders?
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_02: Like what?
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, a thousand would have been plenty for me, but when he's breathing things into creation, he's not just like, okay, there'll be one type of spider and one type of bird and one type of bear.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_02: Like, We have hummingbird feeders outside our window and just watching even the different breeds of hummingbirds that are coming to eat our feeder.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_02: It's like they're so intricately made.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_02: And if he cares that much about those things, how much more so does he care about the people that he chose to send his son to earth to die for so that he could be reconnected with them in relationship?
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's that abundance, right, that we talk about.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_04: It's the abundance of God that lavishes on us.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_04: And it reminds Yeah.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_02: He is cheered and he beams with exceeding joy and takes pleasure in your presence.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_02: He has engraved a place for himself in you, and there he quietly rests in his love and affection for you.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_02: He
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_04: cannot contain himself at the thought of you, and with the greatest of joy spins around wildly in anticipation over you.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_04: I hope you can let that sink
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_02: down in a deep place of you that we can come to fully understand that God is not angry.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_02: He is not distant, but he is the kindest person you will ever know.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, think of the kindest interaction you've ever had with a human and multiply it by a million and you might be getting close to the kindness of God.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_02: And he is looking and longing for you.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_02: He is wanting to delight in you.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I just, as we were reading through that, Kimberly, I was thinking recently I had a chance to drive from where I am up to your house.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_02: And the closer I got to where you were, I was getting text messages from you about everything you were doing to get everything prepared for our arrival.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_02: You know, there's a lot.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_02: We could sit here and talk about God.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_02: God together, Kimberly, for a long, long time and try to find words to describe him.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_02: But I think we should just spend some time proclaiming from scripture who our father is.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's impossible to truly understand the fullness of who God is and of his love for us.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_04: In Ephesians 3, 17 through 19, Paul prays that all believers would be rooted and established in love and that they would have the power together with all God's people to grasp how wide and long and high and deep his love is.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_04: So here is a a picture or portrait of who our heavenly father is.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_04: Your father is perfectly faithful.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_04: Deuteronomy 31.8 says, the Lord himself goes before you and will be with you.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_04: He will never leave you nor forsake you.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_04: Do not be afraid.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_04: Do not be discouraged.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_04: Your
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_02: father is a generous provider.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_02: Matthew 7, 11 says, If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him?
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_04: Your father is loving and compassionate.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_04: In John 17, 23, Jesus is speaking to his father and he says, You have loved them even as you have loved me.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_04: Psalm 103, 13 says, As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_02: fear him.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_02: Your father is forgiving and accepting.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_02: Psalm 103.12 says, As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_04: Your father is a patient teacher.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_04: Isaiah 30.20-21 Your eyes will behold your teacher.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_04: Your ears will hear a word behind you.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_04: This is the way.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_04: Walk in it whenever you turn to the right or to the left.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_02: Your father is an understanding counselor.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_02: Isaiah 9.6 says he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_04: Your father is a wise communicator.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_04: James 1.5 says, Your
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_02: father gives good gifts.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_02: James 1.17 says, Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_04: Your Father is attentive to your needs.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_04: Matthew 6.26 says, Look at the birds of the air.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_04: They do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_04: Are you not much more valuable than they?
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_02: Your Father is strong.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_02: yet personal.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_02: Isaiah 40, 26 says, he who brings out the starry host one by one and calls forth each of them by name because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_02: And Matthew 10, 30, and even the very hairs of your head are all numbered.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_02: And God is this and so much more.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_02: He's more wonderful than we can comprehend.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_02: He's there even if it doesn't feel like it.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_02: And he's there even when we feel like we've so screwed up that we think he should leave.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_02: Our father is love, pure love, and he does not change.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_04: There are over 225 verses that talk about God as our father,
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_03: which
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_04: is pretty amazing.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_04: He calls us his children and he gives us an invitation to enjoy him as our Abba, to return his love and to love others more.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_04: He's inviting us on a new journey of trust, intimacy, and satisfaction in his Father's heart as we understand it more.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_04: So as we close out this episode, one of our board members, who is a loving father and grandfather, our friend Richard, is going to speak a blessing of identity over us.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: Blessing of Identity Be blessed to know your identity as your Father's beloved son or daughter.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: Those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: Be blessed with fully realizing the life-changing truth of the Spirit living in you so that you can know you are the beloved of your Father and He is yours.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: Be blessed with His exquisite fathering and receive it as His special child.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: Be blessed to know His Spirit speaking to you that you are a delight to Him.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus grew in wisdom and stature.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: and in favor with God and man.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: Your father wants to bless you with growth that is mental, spiritual, emotional, and relational.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: Receive from your father the love and acceptance you have been seeking.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: Your father's heart is passionate for your full identity as his child based purely on relationship, not performance.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: Be blessed as he calls you to fully live as the son or daughter you are.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: You do not have to work for it.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: You can't earn that relationship.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: Be blessed with perfect love that casts out fear that you aren't enough or you don't have what it takes.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: Be blessed to know without doubt that your father is extending his favor toward you.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: This is the time of your father's favor.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: a time to receive His gift to you of security in His house.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: Be blessed with knowing this new grace place with your Heavenly Father.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: He wants you to receive it.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: Be blessed as He calls you to life, nurture, and enlargement.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: Be blessed with a rich goldmine of identity and legitimacy from which to live confidently and purposefully in God's design of you and His purposes for you.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: Be blessed to be released into the full rights of your true identity and legitimacy in your Father.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: I want to thank you for listening to the Father's Business Podcast.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_02: Check us out at thefathersbusiness.com or follow us at The Father's Biz on Instagram and Facebook.