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cool, let's start.
tonight i just wanna talk about the Father and kind of give a grid for what the Father
is all about
and your identity because of that
and so the main things I wanna talk about is who the Father is and what God's intention
and plan for human kind was from eternity past, the good news of the gospel, and your
identity and how that affects you personally.
and so the Father has had kind of a bad PR team the last 500 years or so, you know?
How many of you guys have heard the gospel in a way that sounds like Jesus is saving
us from the Father?
Right? It's kind of like Jesus is your asbestos suit that kind of saves you from the Father's
hot fiery wrath. Right?
So today we just wanna talk about the Father and His goodness and from before time began,
before the world was even made, before the foundation of the world, before the fall of
Adam, before sin even entered the picture, God was a community. He was a family.
Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He wasn't a God "out there" that was just by himself like
some lonely old miser, but He's God with us. And from before the world even began we see
a Father, Son, and Holy Spirit loving one another in the midst of a family.
And this is what we've been called to, is children. God's sons and daughters on planet
Earth. And so God's plan for humanity was that we would know relationally, that we would
fully experience the same relationship that the Father and Son have with one another by
the Holy Spirit, that we've been brought into that same relationship.
That we'd be able to know and experience that same depth of intimacy you would expect the
Father and the Son to have. And the Spirit. Knowing one another perfectly, enjoying one
another. That same exact relationship, that same depth of intimacy is the intimacy that
you start off in, right now.
And so the Father kind of been... the way the gospel has been presented... I'll give
you guys the way a lot of you guys have heard it.
It's kind of like: God was in the Garden and he was hanging out with a bunch of naked vegetarians
and everything was 'a.o.k'
And it was God and it was man and his wife and they were just having a good old time
and everything was perfect and peachy and all of a sudden, right when things were just
going good, the serpent came along and he told Adam and Eve to eat the apple, then they
ate the apple, right?
But then God got really mad. And God was angry, really angry. Fuming angry. He was so mad,
he was like, "what the heck?" You at my apple!
And so God was so pissed that His apple got eaten, he was so angry at mankind, that someone
had to die.
And it was either gonna be Adam and Eve or somebody else. So, the way we've heard salvation... It's kind of like Jesus is coming
to save us from his angry Father that's kind of upset. For the most part its a father who's
distant and angry and dissapointed and ready to beat up those who ate his apple, or sinned
or fell short in some way.
I mean everyone's heard the verse, "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God."
And so, what we see is kind all of a sudden Jesus comes in at the knick of time, right
when the Father was just about to crush us, His wrath got so hot, He was so angry about
the apple, He was so mad that He wasn't chillin' in the garden with a bunch of naked vegetarians
any longer.
He was so angry and upset that he had to kill somebody! And so just when He was about to
kill us Jesus stepped in the way and was like, "NO FATHER, DON'T KILL THEM, KILL ME INSTEAD!"
And then God goes, "Well, I really wanted to crush those sinners today, but Jesus, I'll
crush you instead."
-- END SCENE --
And so that's kind of the gospel story that we've inherited from the last few hundred
years of Protestantism. It's a god "out there" who's angry at sin, angry at sinners, angry
at you. And 'that god' needs to be appeased by bloodshed.
You know, 'cause any good god, any good person, right? When someone offends you, you have
to kill somebody right before you can forgive them, right?
I mean? That's what goodness looks like, right? LOL.
And so, this is the kind of 'good news' that's not very good news at all, that we've inherited
over the years. And the gospel that Paul preached, the gospel that Jesus came and revealed is
very very very very very very very very different than the model we've inherited from a few
hundred years of Western thought.
And the good news is not that Jesus came to save us from his Father. The Father didn't
need to be conditioned into loving you. The Father didn't need to be bought through blood.
The Father didn't need to have His mind changed about you. But Jesus came to change your mind
about the Father.
You see the cross was not to appease God's wrath, the cross was to appease you. You see,
this is what I found so interesting, is over time we've heard of a god who is blood thirsty
and angry, and the only way he can forgive is if he murders his own Son.
This is the Protestant view called 'Penal Substitution. But Jesus Christ came and said
this...
This is the other story that we've heard, that I've just shared...
Now this is the story, HISTORY, the gospel, is literally, Jesus came to a people 2000
years ago who had cornered the market on God. The had the Scriptures, they had the Temple,
they had been God's inclusive people. They were in his "clique" They thought they had
YAHWEH all figured out. The had him marketed. They knew everyone else was excluded... they
were included.
They knew everyone else was damned and they were special. They knew that God was for them
and against everyone else.
They had the Scriptures, they had the Temple, they had the Sacrifices, they had the history,
they had the 10 commandments. They had all of this great history. And Jesus came not
to affirm all of their preconceived notions about God, but Jesus came, actually, to destroy
all of their preconceived notions about God.
Jesus came to a people who thought they knew God and He made these radical statements...
He didn't say, "Hey, btw, I love all of your writings, really great, like, nice job getting
to know my Dad, you guys are on the right track"
But He came and said, listen, no one, not one of you knows God. No one has seen God.
And people were going, "What do you mean no one has seen God? Like Moses saw God, David
saw God. What do you mean? We have the Scriptures, we have the Prophets, we have all this stuff"
He says, no one has seen God. He says no one knows the Father. No one knows my Father besides
me. So Jesus drew the line in the sand and it was only him.
He was the only one that had the revelation that he was coming to convey.
And he said, "No one knows the Father except me and no one knows me except the Father.
Philip goes, "Ok, then show us the Father, Jesus!"
He says, "What do you mean, 'show us the Father'" If you've seen me you've seen the Father.
You see Jesus did not come to appease the Father, he came to reveal the Father.
Hebrews 1: In times past God spoke through the prophets and the fathers in parts and
shadows, but in these last days he has spoken to us through his Son.
And He is the perfect radiance of the Father.
Colossians 2:9-10 The fullness of God (Father, Son, Holy Spirit, dwell bodily in Christ and
you have received of that fullness.
Jesus Christ came and revealed the mystery, Paul says in Colossians 1: This mystery was
hidden in ages past and has now been revealed, and that mystery is Christ in you, the hope
of glory.
So, today we're not just talking about Jesus as a historical man. He's not just another
mentor or tutor or spiritual guru that kind of shows you the path to emulate... like Buddha
or Muhammad or Gandhi or Oprah.
Jesus doesn't just give us a pattern to follow. But he shows us our true selves.