Sermon transcript:Thank you. Thank you so much Chris and band. And if you're not familiar with that song it is by Grammy Award winning artists Eric Clapton, very famous over 20 years ago wrote tears of heaven, he wrote that song almost 20 years ago as well. And reason I liked that song is it really helps us to set the stage for what we're going to talk about today. And, you know, artists like Eric Clapton, or even Bob Dylan and others, like them who are brilliant in and of their own right, you know, they're not necessarily writing a Christian message. But what they're doing is they're writing out of their own experience, as they understand themselves in predominantly a western world. And so for Eric Clapton, he very much lost a child outside of a window when he was very young, and maybe you know that story. And then he never grew up with his father. And so as he's expressing this, we can see multiple meanings. He uses biblical imagery here, restore my soul, again, the foundations of my feet of clay, it's grief over the loss of a father's love, or technically, maybe never having it. It's the idea of a joy between fathers and their children, it's longing for a perfect relationship with your daddy. We've talked about this in the last two weeks that we've been very honest that as we have dealt with a series like fatherhood, that we've opened up some wounds, even if you and I had a good dad, maybe he's not here anymore, or you still see his deficiencies, which is true of all earthly dad's wine, because they're human, and they're sinners. This is the third in our series. And maybe you're thinking you didn't have to open me up very much. I was already bleeding out, I came into church with knowing that there were fatherhood issues on the front of my mind, in my heart, maybe your relationship is fractured, it's strained, you see very much the space, the distance between yourself and your earthly father, and maybe you're starting to see it with your heavenly Father as well. I want to come back to that idea of relationship. Because that's really what we're thinking about today. Even with setting the stage with a song like looking into someone's eyes, we understand that that's a highly relational thing that we're doing as we interact with each other in our communities and in our homes. But before I get there, I want to say something about imagination, and memories, we all have an imagination, we all have memories, think about it memories, good bad, whether you look back at them with regret, or you look at your memories fondly. They're there you understand sort of what a memory is imagination, though, it can be used both for empathy, or it can be used for inspiration of what you hoped or thought. Or maybe it should or could have been. What do I mean by that? Well, you and I use imagination with empathy all the time. Because if someone tells you maybe about their horrendous past, and you're sitting across from them, and you're looking in their eyes, and you're maybe holding their hand, you may be have never experienced that yourself, maybe to that degree, maybe they're telling you something that is really, really hard and even vulnerable on their part maybe of past abuse, or just a horrendous accident or something that caused them to have some sort of PTSD. Maybe you didn't go through that in the exact same way. But because we're humans, and because we have all the range of emotions at our disposal in our heart, and we've experienced all the range of emotions, being human, even if we haven't had that exact same experience, we can imagine it right. And you've maybe done this when you've sat across from somebody. I mean, I, I can't imagine how awful that might have felt. But I don't know if you've ever thought about this in terms of the other way, which is using imagination that can lead you to inspiration lead you to inspiration, like a song like Eric Clapton wrote or just lead you to inspiration in terms of imagining your life different. You already sort of heard some of that may be in our facilities prayer, but it's just this whole idea that, that you can you and I, even if we didn't have good dads, we can imagine what a good dad is like, so that you can be something for someone that maybe necessarily wasn't there for you like you and I, even if it's never occurred for you, you can imagine what it's like for a father to pick up their children and to love them and tell them that he's proud of them or professionally. I don't know if this occurred when you were growing up in your career, but you might have thought, Man, I wish I had a mentor or a friend or a coach or a counselor who entered into my life at certain points in my adolescence and helped me Early on in my career, so you can do that for someone else, you and I understand that we can imagine how they're feeling because we knew how we felt when we were that age. And so therefore we enter into situations and bring the best that we can have or muster. Even if someone didn't do it for us, right. I mean, I can do this. So imagination isn't just sort of bad things are bad memories or things working to the past. But it can be something that we can use for inspiration, and for even laying out how we hope our lives will be. Because here's the deal, history and past are not determinative. This is so important. I mean, all of really Christian truth is sort of this whole idea that we're redeemed, and he saved us from something and he set us on a rock. But I just want you to think about that for a minute. Because so many of us feel trapped in patterns of destruction. And I just want you and I to hear that, that, that history and past is not determinative for ill, it's not determinative for good either. I mean, many people maybe come from good stock or had good opportunities and yet found themselves squandering their opportunity. It's about relationship. It really is. It really is about relationship relationship with God and others. The great reformers, when they were thinking about Christianity, they would talk about the idea that if you want to truly know things, and how you are to conduct yourself, know thy God, and know thyself, but how do we know God? And how do we know ourselves? That is done in community, we don't, we don't live the Christian faith, isolated, we're here gathered, but hopefully, we also are scattered in our community. We may gather in a sponsored Bible study a group here, but we have other groups that were a part of both personally and professionally, whether they're explicitly Christian or just people who are coming together for Goodwill for common cause a common purpose. But rest assure we are meant ie we are designed to have a good relationship with our Heavenly Father. I think we're learning that if nothing else in this series, this has not been a series where we've beat up on dads or we've, you know, just talked about any sort of, you know, maybe the deadbeat pneus of it all, no, we are meant to see in the issue of fatherhood, that you and I are designed to have a good relationship with our Heavenly Father, when it is fractured, when it is absent, when it is distance, distant, it throws everything off. And it keeps us from being all that we were meant to be as sons and daughters of the King of our father. I mean, that's, that's what we want. We want that intimacy, we want that relationship. We all crave it. And we talked about this the first week, even if we're sort of staunchly, like, No, I've done what I've done, or I've accomplished what I've accomplished, I don't need my dad that in and of itself is a statement about our current state. And so what ends up happening is if we're so thrown off by our fractured or hard or distant relationship with our dad, we never get around to imagining what it's like to crawl up in our father's lap. Or look into our father's eyes, because we don't even want to go there. We're not even thinking about that relationship. We're just thinking about the rules, the rules that we're trying to live by, or that we know we've broken, we sort of maybe oftentimes think about our relationship with God, like, Okay, did I lie this week that I cheat this week that I still didn't get angry? Did I act unloving? Did I didn't do anything stupid, okay, took that away, the next time I talk to God, I need to let him know. I'm sorry. Then we're surprised when our lives not just our very lives are not working, not growing in our relationship with God and certainly not growing in godliness. Because we're not dealing with the fact that we've broken a relationship, we've broken a relationship, we not just done wrong about something that we feel guilty about, and that we maybe got caught with even if our own contents condemned US for it. Here's what I mean. Think about this in terms of a relationship you have with someone who you're close to probably in your home, maybe it's a spouse, or a brother or sister or a roommate. So think about some of your closest relationships. Let's say you do something stupid, you yell at them, you don't tell them the whole truth, or you know, whatever. And so you sin against them. And then later on when you're at the office that day, or when you're on your way to work or you're on your way to school, you give him a call. And you say hey, listen, I'msorry. I yelled at you or, you know, I, I feel bad. I I'm sorry that I did. And maybe even you might say, I sinned against you in that way. You might even go so far as to ask for forgiveness. And that's fine. That's a start. And that's where the moments of reconciliation begin to occur, but the damage has been done. Right? That's why if you do something really hurtful to someone you love, they will often express themselves and men that that hurt my heart like that, that cut me to the core. Why? Because you and I, when we've done that to someone we have a relationship with here on Earth, we've created a wound, you and I just haven't gotten angry or said something stupid or done something stupid, what have we done in that relationship? You and I have fractured that relationship, we've created a distance, even if it was very small. And now that needs to be healed. And yes, acknowledgement and saying you're sorry, is the beginning of restoration of that relationship. But you and I will know that that's not the whole thing. And people are gun shy and act certain ways around us. Because, you know, the whole idea of, you know, fool me once Fool me twice kind of thing. And you might say, well, no way. I've, I've said that kind of thing to them many times, or I've done that kind of thing to them many times, and they seem fine. Well, no, what's happened there is that they've hardened their heart, right, they've come to expect it from you, that sort of sinning against them, that sort of coming at them in that way. And so what they've done is that they've hardened their heart towards you and those kinds of actions. And it can work both ways. You can also harden your heart to where you don't even feel guilty about doing that certain thing to them. Now, you might be sitting there thinking, Wait a second, I didn't realize my sin was creating such relational damage with my father in heaven and others. And I just want to start off by saying that's okay, this morning, because guess what, there's a story in the Bible of someone who it took a while for them to come to that realization as well. And I want to open up with a story that may be famous, you may know about it, but maybe we'll read it in new light this morning, as we understand what it's like to have a relationship with the God and Father of the universe. This is Jesus. He's telling this parable, this story, and he's illustrating what point further the whole point of lostness and what lostness is like and what it does to you. Jesus told them this story, man had two sons. The younger son told his father, I want my share of your estate now before you die. So his father agreed to divide his wealth between his sons. A few days later, this younger son packed all his belongings and moved to a distant land. And there he wasted all his money in wild living. About that time his money ran out, a great famine swept over the land and he began to starve. He persuaded the local farmer to hire him, and the man sent him into the fields to feed the pigs. The young man became so hungry that even the pods he was feeding the pigs look good to him. But no one gave him anything. When he finally came to his senses, he said to himself, at home, even the heart servants have food enough to spare and here I am dying of hunger. So I will go home to my father and say, father, I've sinned against what I've sinned against heaven. He will, He believes in brings into his own broken relationship, that he has severed something with above the Almighty, the celestial place of the universe, Heaven and not only has he sinned against heaven, he sinned against his father, and I'm no longer worthy of being called your son. Please take me on as a hired servant. So he returned home to his father, and while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming filled with love and compassion. He ran to his son embraced him and kissed him. His son said to him, he repeats this phrase, Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you and I no longer worthy of being called your son. But his father said to the servants, quack, bring the finest robe in the house and put it on him. Get a ring for his finger and sandals for his feet and kill the calf. We have been fattening. We must celebrate with a feast for this son of mine was dead, and now has returned to life. He was lost, but now he is found so the Party began. Meanwhile, the older son was in the fields working when he returned home hear music and dancing in the house and he asked one of the servants, what was going on? Your brother is back he was told and your father has killed the fattened calf. We are celebrating because of his safe return. The older brother was angry and wouldn't go in. His father came out and begged him but he replied, all these years I slaved for you and never once refused to do a single thing you told me and in all that time, you never gave me even one young goat for feast with my friends. Yet when the son of yours comes back, after squandering your money on prostitutes you celebrate by killing the fatted calf. His father said to him, Look, your son you have always stayed with me and everything I have is yours. We had to celebrate this happy day for your brother was dead and has come back to life. He was lost, but now he is found. So many good rich things I want us to see In this passage, I just want to highlight a couple of things. Several ways we could go in this passage. I'm not naive that many of y'all know this story. You may have even heard sermons or had teaching about this story around the room. But have you ever thought about it in terms of this intimate relationship between the Father and the Son, both sons, and we're going to talk about the second son at the end, but this idea that how does it start out? It starts out with a son, who literally tells his father, I want to sever my relationship with you, you have not done anything wrong, you're still alive on this earth. But I really wish you were dead. And so I can't really say that. So I'll just say it like this, give me my half of my inheritance now, like you're not gone yet the way that would work back then, as you would have waited until and then it would have been passed on to you. And so the Father, in His love and compassion, I said, Okay, I'll give it to you give me your half. And what does he do with that, and he doesn't do it wisely. He doesn't invest. He doesn't. He doesn't do what he's supposed to do with it. It says very clearly, even though he's a son of his father, he goes and does a lot of stupid things with it. And it takes him a while. Listen, it takes him a while to come to his senses. We don't get the idea that it was like 24 hours away from home and then like, oh, yeah, I think I need to, I think I need to go home. Now. He goes ahead and squanders all the money he had on loose living on buying frivolous things on sinning against God and sinning against his family in his good name. So he does it so often, so hard and so long, that eventually he thinks I'm done. I'm done. I'm no longer, I'm no longer son of my father, maybe, just maybe, if I'm repentant, he might, my daddy, he just might make me like one of his heart servers, because they're doing better than I'm doing. That's the situation here. The other situation that's going on is you have a father. And you have a father who is not looking at his son, through the eyes of what he has or hasn't done. There's just, there's just love. There's just compassion. There's just mercy. There's just understanding, there's just this desire to pick him up to see him again, to love him again, in spite of whatever he's done. So the so the big fracturing came from the son, but the father is out. And what is he doing? Is he just sitting in his recliner is he going about his work as he goes on about his business? In this story, and again, this is where imagination really helps us. Because we can maybe even fill in the gaps. Because I think it's able to do that sometimes you can able to take liberty with text when you see that the spirit and the attitude of what was going on here. We can imagine as the sun came back into town, into the village or whatever, that there was already Oh, look who's back. He's back. He's back. I didn't look that good. He wasn't cleaned up. He wasn't showered. He wasn't neat. He was dirty. He had obviously ran out of money. He looked rough. You guys have seen it. You've had friends and family members who look rough. Look again, as Sharon No, I look like you things haven't been going your way in a while. So that has to occur. According to verse 20. It says that while he was still a long way off, the father saw him coming. Now again, since this whole idea. Many of us even though we consider ourselves maybe pretty good people, we would have waited on the porch. Like we're gonna, we're gonna let that awkward walk, keep coming right? We will let him eat a little bit of crow we would have let him sort of feel the judgment, the penance that he would need to have, after already being the one who severed the relationship. Isthat what the father did? No. It says that while he was still a long way off, and again, we understand that culturally, you wouldn't have Daddy's taking off sprinting, what that would have taken when you think about in the Scriptures when it says they girded up their loins. It's just that idea they would have to he would have had to pick up that long what you see and even Middle Eastern attire today. Oftentimes he would had to pick that up and he would have had to take off running so while he was still way off, his father saw him coming, filled with love and compassion. So what's what's the heart of the Father here? Just this is his heart, just just beating with love and compassion, because that's how our Heavenly Father's he ran to his son ran, embraced him and kissed him. And then of course, the son repeats what he had already said that he had in his heart. He now repeats it this whole time. Did you know that he understood that his sin was a fracturing of the relationship between heaven? Right, so between Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the Trinity, the triune, God, and also, of course, his dad. Now this is why we why we began this series. And the way we're continuing to weave this series is it is about worship Life Church, it is about our relationship and our worship of our Father in heaven. And one of the things that we're all trying to do is we're all trying to lean in to what God has for us individually, family wise, and corporately as a church. But one of the things that we have to recognize is that when we mess up when we sin, it not only creates damage among each other, but it has created a fracturing, a severing a distance between us and our Father in heaven. That's why if you look to places like First Peter, when he's talking about husbands living with their wives and understanding why he says, so that your prayers may not be hindered, because we've all been there, we've all felt it, when we've had our sin that we want to hang on to that our prayers. It's like they don't even go up because they're not because we're not acknowledging whatever that is in the room. And if you think this is just, oh, we got this from just one small story. No, this has been a theme throughout Scripture into the old into the New Testament, I want to tell you again, about a story that you may be familiar with in the book of Genesis. And the book of Genesis has a lot of things recorded but one of the main characters in the book of Genesis scouting Joseph, if you know the story of Joseph, yes, he was a favor by his father. And that creates issues as well, that's a sermon for another day. But what ends up happening is, of course, he sold into slavery in Egypt. And as he's in Egypt, because God has his hand on Joseph, he begins to be prospered, he begins to be blessed, even in the midst of really, really horrendous situations. That's why don't buy into the lie that you and I have to change our situation or change our family in order to achieve what God has for us, thrive where you are planted. That's really the Christian idea here. And Joseph thrived as a servant as a slave of Potiphar. So we're going to pick that up here in Genesis 39, in verse six, so Potiphar gave Joseph complete administrative responsibility over everything he owned. This is as a slight with Joseph there, he didn't worry about a thing except for what kind of food to eat. We've all been there. We've all had those kinds of leaders. We've had those kinds of people under us that we don't have to worry about a thing. Joseph was very handsome, and a well built young man, and part of his wife soon began to look at him. lustfully come and sleep with me. She says she demanded. But Joseph refused. Look, he told her, my master, trust me with everything in his entire household. No one here has more authority than I do. He has held back nothing from me except you because you are his wife. How can I do such a wicked thing and what it would be a great sin against who? against God? Again, we often think of our lives as man, I messed up, I messed up with my wife, I broke the rule. You're not supposed to get angry, you're not supposed to, you know, beat people or you're not supposed to, you know, whatever. Or, you know, I've, I've done this, I've done that. And we think even among church, okay, yeah, I've got to give some penance of some sins and some Sam's, I'm sorry, or whatever. And it's like, know that, yes, that needs to occur. But more than anything, do you and I realize that we've created a distance and fracturing between our Father who is in heaven, unless you think it's just in Genesis, it's just in the most probably one of the most famous stories that Jesus ever told, we can see it and one of the greatest leaders of the Old Testament and that is David as well. And the third and final star I want to show you this morning, this whole idea that our sin creates a fact of fracturing between us and God is this famous story in the book of Second Samuel about David and Bathsheba again, culturally, you've probably heard of these characters in King David. He sent Uriah the Hittite, who is married to Bathsheba to the frontlines so that he would be killed so effectively, he murdered him. He was the one that ordered the hit. And then he took Bathsheba in and slept with her. And she produced a child and he just he couldn't he couldn't cover up his sin. And so God sent Nathan the prophet, and Nathan told this story and he told the story about this rich person who had all kinds of sheep, but he went after the person who had just won. And David of course grows indignant says, We got to take care of this. We got to you know, we got to kill this man. And Nathan, of course, gives the one two punch or really just the one punch and says, You are that man. And so as soon as David hears this because he is a man, after God's own heart, it says this Right here, David confessed to Nathan, His Prophet and his friend, guess what? I have sinned against the Lord. The mini building I don't know, like, like, Isn't against Uriah and Bathsheba. And he wasn't really even thinking about God. He was thinking about himself, and he was thinking about his urges. And yes, all of that is true. But more than anything, David cuts right to the heart, that I have sinned against the Lord. That's why even when Jesus comes around on Earth, and you think about the fact that people come to him who are paralyzed, or crippled, or ruined, or big, fat centers, and what does he always say to them, some version of your sins are forgiven, and everybody around them is thinking, Jesus. I don't know if you know this, but they can't walk. Or they're blind, or someone who's a big center is touching you. I don't know if you know, I think she might be making you unclean, because she's unclean. And Jesus is always cutting straight to the heart. David, in this moment, he knows that what he did created a fracturing between him and God. Nathan replied, Yes, but the Lord has forgiven you and you won't die in sin. Nevertheless, this is huge for us. Because you have shown utter contempt for the word of the Lord. By doing this, your child will die. There are consequences for our stupidity. A lot of times what we want to do is if we can't figure out a way to cover it, once we get caught or once we come to the end of ourselves, we want to say to the Lord, Okay, Lord, I'm ready to do business with you. Okay? But listen, I don't want to pay any stupid tax, like, I just wanted to kind of all be back the way it was, Iwant you know, you and me, I want it to be all good. I want the intimacy there, or all these kinds of things. And yes, God can forgive us. Yes, your spouse or your loved one, they can forgive you. But you and I know that there are consequences to our sin, there can be restoration. But oftentimes, there are consequences. And there are repercussions. And you think, my gosh, I see myself in these stories, Pastor, so what am I supposed to do? I realized that I'm hurting, you've exposed some things in my life and the life of those around me. And I realized that not only I'm hurting that I've hurt people. And I would say that what we are to do, myself included, were to run to the Father, were to run to the Father. We're gonna sing that song in a minute. But I just want to show up an image for you real quick. This is Rembrandt's the prodigal son, Rembrandt famous painter couple 100 years ago, this is a very meaningful image. For me, personally, I had a poster of this printed out when I was in college, and it sat right above my bed all throughout college. And then when I got out of college, and I had my first ministry job where I had an office, I had it framed, and it has said in every church office that I've served that since leaving university, and why, because the image is so powerful to me. And this story in this idea is so powerful to me, and it reminds me what am I supposed to do? Because the I don't know if you know this, but even us as preachers and as communicators, we sit in our office with our Bibles in front of us, heads down, arms together, and we're like, Lord, I don't know what to do. And then as soon as I look out, I see this image, and I've looked at it for, you know, good probably 20 years now. And I see what is going on here. Well, you have a father, and you have a son who looks as pitiful as I told you he looked and of course, it is influenced by the the wardrobe of what Rembrandt may have thought it looked like then you have people looking in judging probably right? Potentially, the older brother is in the picture. But more than anything, what do you have, you have a person who realizes their only hope is to run into embrace the Father. Now, I want us to hear that really clearly. Because so many times we get done with church, we get done with a service like this, and we we see our own inadequacies, and we begin to tell ourselves, okay, I'm gonna try better. I'm gonna do harder. And we have to ask ourselves, what are the action steps though, that we need to take in order to love our father more and to receive the love of the Father more. And I want to tell you, this is the hard work of Christendom. Some of y'all been in church for a little time. Some of y'all been in church for a long time. It doesn't really matter. It never gets easier. It gets different. The challenges get different the the obstacles get different, but to move from one degree of glory to the other, whether you're 2212 or 82. It just takes different shapes and different forms. But it never in some ways gets easier because what we have to do at every stage of our life, is we have to lead our heart, not follow our heart. In other words, we have to do the hard work. We have to do the hard work of training ourselves in the way I have righteousness, you often hear this in terms of our culture, I remember this growing up in the 80s and 90s, every show I watched Saturday morning, or even in the evenings to, was this whole idea of following our heart or trusting our gut, and that's fine to a degree, if we've been walking with God in that area of our life, you know what I'm talking about. You can trust your gut like sozialer, our engineers, or your nurses or your doctors or your contractors, you can trust your gut on how to put that wall back together, if you're a contractor, because you've done it enough to be able to trust your gut. You've walked in that before you've had that experience before. So that's okay. I'm not saying that, of course, you are able to follow your heart and trust your gut and those kinds of things. But what about those areas of your life that you haven't yet given over to the Lord, you understand that you and I will never have whatever breakthrough you and I are looking for spiritually, physically relationally or otherwise, unless we're doing the hard work of training. It's not trying, I just want to say this so clear, because so many of us we even say this sometimes our loved ones, I'll try to do better. Don't try do. Is that a latest thing? That's hard? It's a yes, by the power of the Spirit. It's very hard. I mean, I'll be honest, he's right now, but for over 100 days, I've been meeting with a physical trainer. And so we meet together every morning, five days a week for an hour. And what he does is he helps me lift weights. And so we're at the gym, and he helps me lift weights. But you know what he says to me, every time, he says, How are you doing on eating on your diet? And I tell him, you're not going there. He's gonna die for me. And I that is an area of my life. I'm not going there yet. I like my Coca Cola. I liked my mic. And I liked my Snickers. And I let my gummy bears Okay, thank you very much. This is where your pastors at. But I said you're not going there. And then he says, How's your cardio? And I say ready for that? Yeah. He says, Well, I tell you what you've accomplished, you're a very strong, overweight man. After 100 days of being with me, I'm like, Fine, I'll take it. Because that's as far as that's, that's, that's as far as I'm, I'm allowing him to train me and guys, that's, that's a true story, those that's 100% True. I'll arm wrestle anybody, but we're not gonna go on any races right now. But that's exactly how we have to deal with our relationship with God. We're all at different spots, all different places, different things that we're trying to do and to give over to God by grace and to walk in things by grace, professionally, personally, relation and all these things. But guys don't expect there to be real change, lasting change to occur. Unless we're saying, God, I run to you, I let you have everything. Like all the crevices of my heart, and let at least let's be honest enough with ourselves. Just like I'm honest enough with my trainer five days a week, I ain't lying to him yet. And just to say, you can go in there? Or why don't we just finally say, God, you're gonna have it. I'm tired of fighting you. I'm tired of fighting you come, come, I run to you, I come to you. Your ways are higher than my ways. And so therefore, I surrender. And what you will you and I will come to realize is that we're realizing, yes, the same problem is that I'm hurting, and that I've hurt some people or put another way, we'll come to the end ourselves, and we'll realize something really basic. I'm a sinner, and I've sinned against others, and they've sinned against me. It's just like Isaiah, you remember what happened to Isaiah and Isaiah six, when he met God, he saw the Lord high lifted up, he got a vision of who God was, remember what he said? He said, I have unclean lips. And I live among a people of unclean lips. It hasn't changed, guys, if we encounter the God of the universe, Our Father who is in heaven, we will continue to see that but what we now need to do is we need to train ourselves to walk in new paths. We need to train ourselves and understand what is going to take and the work it's going to take. But God is with us. He's leading us. He's moving us to walk in godliness. It's that whole idea that Clawson says that as you and I have received Jesus Christ is Lord, church. Let's walk in him. Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for your word. I thank you for a ton of years. I just pray right now for myself and those that are listening that you help us you help us to walk in the faith that we profess, Father, I know. Because there are areas in my life I know that there's areas in everybody's life in this room that we're thinking I got I'm not ready to give yet. I'm holding on to that. At that area. That's mine. That's my little, little special thing. For there help us to realize the freedom that will come if we just run to you and that you don't have judgment for waiting for us, you don't have condemnation, you don't have whippings that you are filled with love and compassion. And if we'll just turn if we will just come to our senses if we'll just realize what we have, if we'll just imagine, even if we never had it ourselves before, just imagine what a loving father could do and would do for us. Oh, Lord, we pray. Let him be true for so many of us in this room. We ask these things in Christ's name. Amen.

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