Episode Transcript
[00:00:04] I know it's already been identified this morning. That Father's Day is a wonderful day of celebration for many and also a day of great challenge for others.
[00:00:14] And I believe that the one thing that we share in common together is that whatever our earthly experience, there's a spiritual parallel.
[00:00:24] And that spiritual parallel is that we all have a good heavenly Father. We have a great father, a good, good father.
[00:00:32] And we're gonna. We're gonna talk about him today.
[00:00:36] So we're gonna talk about him. You know, praise God for those of you who've got good earthly fathers to celebrate. I'm very grateful for a wonderful dad in my life. Just speaking to me the other day. It's been one year this week since my mom went to glory and just talking to my dad about the memories of my mum and. And he's done amazing, and he's been an amazing dad through my life. But I know that's not everybody's experience, but I know that the spiritual parallel, that the things of this world that are supposed to reveal a heavenly reality is that all of us have a great, great, great, great heavenly Father.
[00:01:11] And we're going to look at him today. We're going to look at the implications of that. And, you know, whenever we look at the scriptures, it's supposed to. Let me illustrate it this way. I remember seeing all my social media timeline some time ago. What I understand is called a kiss cam.
[00:01:27] Now, before you're worried about what this is, basically in a baseball game in America where there might be 70,000 people sat in a. In the arena that during the halftime break, I think it probably is, or prior to get. Prior to the game, the cameraman just randomly pick out couples in the crowd and broadcast them on the big screen.
[00:01:49] And the idea is that when the camera comes to them that they kiss and everybody cheers.
[00:01:56] And I remember seeing a few of these where there was one where the guy was on his phone and the wife saw that she was on the screen and she was nudging him and he was arguing with her, saying, leave me alone, I'm doing something. And thousands of people saw this argument take place. There was another one where the couple sort of caught with a camera and he goes, she's my sister. No, no.
[00:02:22] But, you know, when we look at the word of God, it's supposed to be like a camera comes upon us and it says, you are in this story.
[00:02:33] This is something for you.
[00:02:37] This is something that is not just for your knowledge, it's for your participation.
[00:02:42] And that's why Jesus said Those who have ears to hear, hear what the Spirit is saying. And in these next few moments, I want to talk about we are not orphans.
[00:02:52] We are not orphans.
[00:02:56] And we are going to look at a very well known story in the scripture just to illustrate that together. But I was reminded of a story I heard a number of years ago of a missionary that lived in relative modesty, and they were invited by some world missionary organization to attend a conference in another nation.
[00:03:17] This missionary organization, they offered to pay for their flights and to pay for their hotel.
[00:03:23] And so this missionary, very glad of the opportunity, got on their flight. They arrived at the airport, they made their way to this hotel that had been paid for for them. And they had a wonderful time on these few days with missionaries from around the world.
[00:03:36] But when it came to meal times, the missionary would go back to their room and open up their suitcase. And in their suitcase was just some small amounts of crackers that they'd brought with them from their home mission base.
[00:03:52] And at the end of the week, someone said to them, have you enjoyed this conference? They said, we've loved it. We're so grateful for the opportunity to be here.
[00:04:00] And they said, we're surprised that you've not joined us for any of the meal times.
[00:04:06] And the missionary said, well, if I can be completely honest with you, I know this is a really lovely hotel you've put me in, but I've looked at the prices in the menu of the meals and I know I would not be able to afford to eat here.
[00:04:19] To which the other missionary replied, did you not realize that all the meals were included?
[00:04:25] They're all paid for.
[00:04:27] And there are times in our Christian walk when we are sat eating crackers because we don't realize that we have something already provided for.
[00:04:37] And I meet believers that don't recognize the beauty and the wonder of having a loving Heavenly Father who is for them, not against them. And they live their lives like orphans, even though they are sons or daughters. And I pray in these next few moments that something will happen in our hearts that we will understand the joy of being alive as sons and daughters of. Of God.
[00:05:06] I realize there are many different contexts in this gathering, but I believe this truth of we have a loving Heavenly Father.
[00:05:16] I want to take you to a story that you'll be familiar with, many of you will be familiar with. It's often referred to as the Prodigal Son, but I want to address it today as the Story of the Orphan Mindset Sons.
[00:05:29] And I want you to turn with me to Luke 15:11 31 going to read from the NLT version, and the scripture will also appear on the screen as well.
[00:05:40] So if there's a danger of you opening up your phone and getting caught up with social media or some other distraction, then please put the phone down and just read the screen behind me.
[00:05:51] So here we go. Luke 15, verses 11 onwards.
[00:05:55] To illustrate the point further, Jesus told them this story.
[00:06:01] A man had two sons.
[00:06:03] The youngest son told his father, I want my share of your estate now, before you die.
[00:06:10] So his father agreed to divide his wealth between his sons.
[00:06:15] 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.
[00:06:25] About the time his money ran out, a great famine swept over the land and he began to starve. He persuaded a 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 looked good to him, but no one gave him anything.
[00:06:46] When he finally came to his senses, he said to himself, at home in even the hired servants have food enough to spare. But here I am, dying of hunger. I will go home to my father and say, father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son. Please take me on as a hired servant.
[00:07:12] So he returned home to his father, and while he was still a long way off, the father saw him coming.
[00:07:19] Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him.
[00:07:26] His son said to him, father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son.
[00:07:34] But his father said to the servants, quick, bring the finest robe in the house and put it on him. Get a ring for his finger and sandals for his feet, and killed the calf we have been fattening. We must celebrate with a feast, for this son of mine was dead and has now returned to life. He was lost, but now he is found.
[00:07:58] So the party began.
[00:08:01] Meanwhile, the older son, who was in the fields working.
[00:08:05] When he returned home, he heard music and dancing in the house, and he asked one of the servants what was going on.
[00:08:12] Your brother is back, he was told, and your father has killed the fattened calf. We are celebrating because of his safe return.
[00:08:22] The older brother was angry and wouldn't go in. His father begged him to come out, but he replied, all these years I've slaved for you and never once refused to do a single thing that you told me to.
[00:08:35] And in all that time, you never gave me even one young goat for a feast with my friends.
[00:08:41] Yet when this son of yours comes back after squandering your money on prostitutes, you celebrate by killing the fattened calf.
[00:08:50] His father said to him, look, dear son, you have always stayed by me and everything I have is yours.
[00:09:01] 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.
[00:09:14] Both of the sons had an orphan mindset, and both of them had a loving father.
[00:09:24] I have met believers over the years that despite having a good, good heavenly father, live with an orphan mindset. And I pray in these next few moments that the spirit of God will just liberate you, because how you understand who you are impacts how you live and how you engage with the people around you, with the world around you, and certainly with the Lord. And I want to give you some common denominators around what an orphan mindset does in our lives.
[00:09:57] First of all, in this story, we see that the young son who took his inheritance and went and squandered it, that orphans focus on resource, not relationships.
[00:10:09] He demanded his inheritance early.
[00:10:13] He essentially said, I wish you were dead, Father.
[00:10:19] I want what you can give me, not who you are.
[00:10:24] He wanted his father's resource, but he didn't want his father's affection.
[00:10:29] He sought independence, not interdependence.
[00:10:34] And I've seen over the years that people who are focused on position or on resource or on being able to get something out of others that often behind that, there is an orphan mindset. Because one of the greatest privileges that you and I have in our lives are not the things we accumulate, not the ministries that we step into, not the positions that we fill. The greatest privilege that you and I have are the relationships that we connect with.
[00:11:06] People are far more valuable than things.
[00:11:11] And yet this young son was more focused on the things than he was on the relationships.
[00:11:19] Never sacrifice relationship for things.
[00:11:23] Never sacrifice your family for your career. Never sacrifice your principle of you want something to be fair and right, and in the process of that, to lose people around you, make sure that relationships are always more important than resource.
[00:11:45] Secondly, we see in this young son that the orphans keep their distance.
[00:11:54] He squandered everything.
[00:11:57] Orphans need hits to find their identity.
[00:12:03] He used the money to buy his friends. He used the money to buy his highs. He used the money to buy something that was an experience that allowed him to get through that day. But eventually, when the resources ran out, the highs ended. The Friends dissipated and he realized that he was alone. But he was in a distant land.
[00:12:26] And orphans keep their distance.
[00:12:30] When crisis hit, he had no family network to turn to.
[00:12:35] He ended up working for. For strangers, eating pig food, living like someone who had no family identity.
[00:12:47] What a sad place for him to be at when all of the time he had a father who loved him.
[00:12:54] What a sad place to live when he had a father who wanted to be inculcated with his life.
[00:13:03] But orphans concentrate on keeping their distance.
[00:13:06] Maybe they've been injured and hurt. When you've got an orphan mindset that maybe the disappointments of life and the disappointments and the hurts of others cause you to put up some barriers and therefore not get close to people in intimacy, orphans keep their distance.
[00:13:25] Thirdly, orphan mindsets feel they have to earn everything.
[00:13:32] We read in his reflections as he was considering returning to his father's house in verse 17.
[00:13:39] Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.
[00:13:43] I am no longer worthy to be called your son.
[00:13:47] Make me like one of your hired servants.
[00:13:51] See, this is the crux of what we see. The mindset that had done into his life he really considered. Being a son was about being worthy.
[00:14:03] Being a son was all about earning favor, about earning the love and the respect of the father.
[00:14:13] As a father of three kids and a granddad of one, I want to tell you I am proud and I love my kids irrespective of whether they wash up or not.
[00:14:26] Although it would be a nice idea.
[00:14:33] You see, when there's an awful mindset in our life, we feel like we're one bad decision away from losing it, from losing the relationship.
[00:14:41] And you're not.
[00:14:43] You can mess up for the rest of your days and you would still have a loving heavenly father and you will still be a loved son or daughter.
[00:14:52] That's the gospel truth.
[00:14:54] That's the reality of the Lord that we worship. That's the reality of a loving heavenly Father. You're not one step away from failure. You haven't already gone too far. Shame is not too destructive that it can hold you from a place of favor with the Lord. You don't have to earn your way into his good books. You. You are loved because he is a loving heavenly father. You are not an orphan.
[00:15:21] You are not an orphan.
[00:15:26] See, classic orphan mindset. Thinking is, I've blown it so badly that I've lost my place in the family.
[00:15:32] Maybe I can earn my way back through performance or through service.
[00:15:37] And that's not how it works.
[00:15:40] There's only one merit that brings us into a place of being adopted into his family. And that is the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself on the cross, who paid the price for our shame. And now you are a son and a daughter of Heavenly Father.
[00:15:58] I love though that the father's response dismantled the orphan mindset.
[00:16:03] It says he ran to his son.
[00:16:06] He wasn't hiding in the back room, peering through the curtain, trying to work out how to have this awkward conversation.
[00:16:12] He wasn't counting the inheritance that he once had that his son has squandered. He wasn't thinking of a re entry plan for his son. He wasn't considering how there can be recompense. He wasn't even considering, I hope that his son has learned the lessons. He ran to his son. God the Father runs to his sons and his daughters. He comes running.
[00:16:40] And I experience and I see regularly as I travel around churches that there is often a caution in our worship. We don't understand that God comes running to us. We don't understand that we can't earn his favor. We don't understand that none of us stand with the worthiness of be able to come boldly into his presence other than the new and living way that Jesus has made through the cross of Christ.
[00:17:04] We see that he comes running to us.
[00:17:09] He ran. Fathers don't run to hired servants. They run to sons and daughters.
[00:17:17] And what did he do when he caught hold of him?
[00:17:21] Imagine the shame and the burden and the and just the absolute distraught thinking of this prodigal son as he is returning with all of these thoughts of okay, it better to be a slave and a servant in my dad's house. And he's thinking of all of this role play, of what he's going to say if his dad says this, I'm going to say this. If my dad does this, I'm going to do this. And he's role playing it all in his mind. And as he approaches suddenly he is swept off his feet by his dad at a much earlier stage than he thought because he thought he'd be knocking on the door and he thought he'd be waiting in the lobby. But his father has run to the field and he has wrapped his arms around him and he has swept him off his feet. That's what the gospel does to us, friends.
[00:18:07] The gospel sweeps us off our feet. This week we're not trying to help people to come to a place of faith and have a theological mindset of God. We, we're inviting people to be swept off their feet With a love of loves. To be swept off their feet with the reality of God loving them and healing them and restoring them and setting them free. It's the love of loves. There's no love like it in the world.
[00:18:33] And no matter how difficult a story you've had with your earthly dad, I want you to know you have an amazing heavenly father that sweeps you off your feet with his love.
[00:18:43] And what did he do? He embraced him and he kissed him.
[00:18:47] Kissing in the scripture, it's an intimacy. It's a closeness. He kissed him. There was a physical affection reserved for family.
[00:19:00] There's an affection of God that's reserved for his family.
[00:19:08] And his son was about to get his babbling speech out about I'm not worthy, and the dad just cut him off mid sentence.
[00:19:18] No therapeutic listening to his son and let him confess all his sins. He just cut him off.
[00:19:24] You might come running to the altar with your repentance and your long list of things that you know you need to put right with God. And God just comes and he hugs you and. And he embraces you and he kisses you and he cuts you off and he says, you are loved.
[00:19:41] What a God.
[00:19:42] What a savior. What a father.
[00:19:46] Happy Father's Day, God.
[00:19:50] You are our heavenly Father.
[00:19:55] Don't give me any of this. Make me a hired servant.
[00:19:58] Don't give me any of this. I'm going to make it up to you. Don't give me any of this. I'm going to spend the next 10 years making. Making up for all the failures of my past. You are loved.
[00:20:09] You are embraced. You are kissed by the Father.
[00:20:14] And immediately he restored his son's identity. Immediately he gave him a robe.
[00:20:23] Dignity wrapped around him, around the mess and the dirt of the pigsty, on his clothes. He puts the best robe around him. He says, you are now dignified. You're my son. I'm covering over your shame. I'm covering over your sin.
[00:20:39] He places a ring upon his hand. That's authority.
[00:20:43] This is the signet ring of the family. This is the identification that you are now carrying. The authority of a family.
[00:20:51] Oh, but I can't do that because I blew it once. Look at the way I wasted and the way I embarrassed the family. No, no, no. Here's the ring on your finger. The authority of God is a gift that's given to his sons and his daughters by a loving heavenly Father.
[00:21:06] Don't give me any of this. Make me a hired servant. You're not coming back as a servant. You're not coming back as someone who's going to earn their way, you're coming back as a dignified, covered, robed, ring on your finger, servant of the most high God and the lover of your soul, says that you're his son and his daughter.
[00:21:27] He places sandals on his feet.
[00:21:30] Sandals were the sign that he wasn't a slave, wasn't a servant.
[00:21:37] He was a son.
[00:21:40] And so he's kitted out with all of the physical reminders of who he is.
[00:21:47] It's never gone, but he's just been reminded of it.
[00:21:54] And the father threw a celebration.
[00:22:01] The son probably needed years of therapy to try to work out his shame and his misdemeanors and the mess he'd made.
[00:22:13] And yet the father immediately just says, no, this is who you are.
[00:22:22] And the celebration was the reminder that the father wasn't just making this as a private statement.
[00:22:32] This was a public acknowledgment that this is my son.
[00:22:39] But the youngest son wasn't the only person in this story who had an orphan mindset.
[00:22:45] Because we read the older brother also had an orphan mindset.
[00:22:50] We read that he had spent years working to earn his father's favor.
[00:22:59] We read that he hadn't enjoyed his inheritance or his relationship with his father. At least the younger son enjoyed his inheritance.
[00:23:12] The older brother did neither.
[00:23:18] His relationship with his father didn't seem to be very intimate. He seemed to have geography.
[00:23:23] He seemed to be within the circles of the home, but not with the intimacy of a son.
[00:23:32] He was bitter.
[00:23:34] He was resentful.
[00:23:37] See, I find that when you don't know who you are, when you don't understand the identity that you carry in your life, when you live with an orphan mindset, it's very easy to play the comparison game with other people and begin to build up bitterness and resentment about what they have and what you don't have, and about what's fair and what's unfair. Those people who know they are sons and daughters, they. They don't play that game. They just know that they are loved.
[00:24:04] And that supersedes everything else.
[00:24:08] He called his brother, he said to his dad, this son of yours, not this brother of mine, this son of yours.
[00:24:19] See, orphan thinking impacts how we see each other.
[00:24:24] We are a family.
[00:24:27] Every time there's a breakdown of relationships in church life, and you look throughout history, often at the heart of it, there's something of an identity that's taking place.
[00:24:38] There's something of a denial of the beauty and the wonder of being sons and daughters of God. And where good reconciliation takes place. It often has at its roots an understanding of we are his sons and daughters, brothers and sisters.
[00:24:56] The older brother focused on performance.
[00:24:59] He said, I've never disobeyed.
[00:25:02] His performance was more important than his relationship.
[00:25:05] Orphans compare their value based on performance.
[00:25:10] But John 14:18 Jesus says these words, no, I will not abandon you as orphans.
[00:25:20] I will come to you.
[00:25:23] And just for these next few moments, I want to just give you an insight into who your loving heavenly Father really is.
[00:25:32] He's a loving father.
[00:25:35] 1 John 3:1 says, See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God, and that is who we are. Come on, why don't you say that after me? That is who we are.
[00:25:51] Come on, let the spotlight of that camera come upon you now and let his kisses touch you.
[00:25:57] Let the Father of all fathers come and touch you with that truth.
[00:26:04] This is who we are.
[00:26:07] He's a loving father. He's a providing father.
[00:26:11] Matthew 6:26 says, look at the birds of the air.
[00:26:15] They do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them.
[00:26:23] Are you not much more valuable than they?
[00:26:28] He's a providing God.
[00:26:32] You know, often part of the identity crisis that we feel when we live with a mindset of an orphan is that we worry where everything's going to come from because we've had lack and because we've experienced lack in our life and we don't feel we've got that provision around us and we feel alone.
[00:26:52] We make some decisions about our relationship with the things that we have.
[00:26:57] Maybe we hold back generosity because we now move into preservation mode and we store and we stock up because we fear we may not have enough.
[00:27:07] See, when we get a true revelation that we are not orphans and that he is our provider, it releases something in us.
[00:27:18] Often our response to how we are in generosity with the resources that God's given us is often a response to the revelation in our heart about we are loved and provided for and cared for by our loving Father.
[00:27:32] And I pray that there will be a new revelation in your life of just the provision of the Lord, of your Father who watches over you.
[00:27:43] He is a loving father, a providing father, but he's also a protecting Father.
[00:27:49] Psalm 91:4 says, he will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge.
[00:27:57] His faithfulness will be your shield and your rampart in these very volatile days that we're living in today.
[00:28:06] None of us particularly feel that the institutions of this world are able to fully protect us, protect our physical safety, protect our national safety, protect our financial security.
[00:28:17] There's such volatility around in the world today. But the people of God, we look to our heavenly Father and if we don't, then the institutions of this world will be shown for what they are, which are weak and vulnerable.
[00:28:34] But our Father in heaven, he is our protector.
[00:28:42] He is also a correcting father.
[00:28:47] This might feel less positive in the mix of everything else, but you try telling that to a 2 year old who's about to wander into the middle of the road that a protecting father is a bad thing.
[00:28:59] You try telling that to somebody who is about to put their hands in a fire and the parents run across and grab their hand and stop them doing what they wanted to do.
[00:29:13] You tell me that a protective father is a bad thing.
[00:29:17] Now of course there can be abuses of protection, there can be manipulation, but that's not what we're talking of here. We're talking about a Father who loves us so much, exactly as we are, but he loves us too much to allow us to stay with the immaturity that exists in our lives.
[00:29:35] And he's there to help us.
[00:29:38] And the challenge for us today is in a world where we've been cultured by the doctrines of this world, we've been cultured by the society that we've emerged in, that you have been brought up, I have been brought up in a world that has made us in God's image.
[00:29:58] We are the all important ones.
[00:30:02] Society has removed God and it has placed mankind at the center. We try to make ourselves like God.
[00:30:13] And so when someone stands in your way, when someone says something that you don't like, when someone challenges you or me, we don't like that because it eats away at the flesh of the indoctrination of this world.
[00:30:29] But the Bible says that all of us need discipline, all of us need correcting.
[00:30:36] And in fact, one of the merits of the scripture, it says, all scripture is God breathed. It's all useful for teaching. Amen. We receive that for rebuking.
[00:30:47] Can we just scrub that bit out? Can we get some tippe on that bit? Can we just ignore that that bit exists?
[00:30:53] No, because God wouldn't be loving you enough if he did not rebuke us, if he did not teach us and correct us and reproaches.
[00:31:06] The wonderful thing is that he doesn't do so with anger.
[00:31:12] He does so with wisdom. He reproaches, he gently nudges us, he provokes us to go forward. In him.
[00:31:21] So he's a loving father, a providing father, a protecting father, and a correcting father.
[00:31:28] He's also a forgiving Father.
[00:31:32] Psalm 103 says, As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him.
[00:31:40] He's also a guiding Father. Isaiah 30, whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, this is the way. Walk in it.
[00:31:54] Sure, they won't mind me saying this, but my adult kids now, adulthood is a bit of an emergence time in your life, isn't it? Where suddenly you're facing responsibilities that you were completely unaware that other people were facing for you.
[00:32:09] And so when you begin to get bills through the door and those responsibilities of things, of adulthood, it's not always a wonderful transition, is it? Because the adulthood that you wanted as a child was an adulthood that meant you could make your own decisions and do your own thing and go to bed whenever you wanted to and wake up whenever you didn't want to or whatever.
[00:32:29] And so the discovery that as well as those freedoms, there are now responsibilities that come into being an adult are quite surprising.
[00:32:39] And I know there have been a few occasions where maybe my kids, for the first time, they've bought a car and they want to know what to do with insurance, and because you've done it, you pass it on, or they want to know how you register for the council tax or something along the lines that we, as people who've lived a bit longer than they have, have some experience.
[00:33:01] What an amazing thing to know that our Heavenly Father has seen everything.
[00:33:09] And if you're looking for help and direction, you're going to the right person. If you go to Him.
[00:33:17] What an amazing joy that is. He's a guiding father. He says, this is the way.
[00:33:23] Walk in it.
[00:33:27] And our final.
[00:33:30] Our final point, which that balloon sounded the notice of the finishing line.
[00:33:39] Matthew 28:20 says this, and surely I am with you always. I used to be very jealous of Shirley.
[00:33:51] It's always with you, Shirley, even to the very end of the age.
[00:33:57] I'm glad there was another verse in case someone did think that was Shirley rather than surely.
[00:34:02] Hebrews 13 says, Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you.
[00:34:12] Church.
[00:34:15] The word of God, like a camera, stops on you.
[00:34:22] And as you see your image in the Scriptures, I want you to hear these words.
[00:34:28] You are not an orphan.
[00:34:32] You have a loving heavenly Father.
[00:34:36] You are not a slave.
[00:34:39] You don't have to earn him.
[00:34:41] He loves you.
[00:34:44] So come home don't push God away and live at a distance.
[00:34:52] Get your identity as a child of God rather than a slave of productivity.
[00:35:00] And would you allow the Father's embrace to melt your bitterness and to dissipate the isolation that you've created, which will cripple you, but he can heal you.
[00:35:15] Let's stand together, shall we?
[00:35:22] Hallelujah.
[00:35:26] Sons and daughters of God, what a wonderful moment we have now to celebrate our loving Heavenly Father.
[00:35:41] If you know you are his son, I'm not asking, do you feel it?
[00:35:47] I'm not asking how the emotions of this feel, but I'm asking whether God's word has helped you understand today that you are indeed a son or a daughter of God. Loved, embraced, kissed, valued, forgiven.
[00:36:11] Your shame has been covered. The authority of God is in your life, the shoes on your feet, because you're not a slave.
[00:36:18] Can I ask, as your acknowledgement of that, just to lift your hands to heaven and say, God, I thank you. It'd be like a little child reaching out to their dad.
[00:36:27] It's like my little grandson, when he comes running up to me and he puts his arms out, he wants me to pick him up.
[00:36:32] He's saying, I want relationship right now. I want connection.
[00:36:36] And as we lift our hands, say, God, we want to go deeper with you. We want closer relationship with you.
[00:36:47] Holy Spirit, you were promised to us as the abiding presence of our Heavenly Father.
[00:37:00] You were promised that you didn't bring a spirit of slavery, but of sonship.
[00:37:08] And I pray, Holy Spirit, that you will now break every lie that has been enacted over every life in this place, every life online, that every poor experience that we've had in this world of people who failed us and let us down, or maybe that we have failed others and let them down, that your spirit will now come and bring a bigger truth.
[00:37:33] It will be like a trump card that just comes on over that lie and it just sets us free.
[00:37:40] And I pray across this room that there would be a liberty of freedom, of sonship, of family.
[00:37:52] So in the name of Jesus, filled with the authority of God, as you are as ring wearing believers, I speak and rebuke every lie of the enemy that has infiltrated your thinking, infiltrated your actions, infiltrated your value in the name of Jesus, whatever that's come from, whatever the device and the strategy of the enemy has used.
[00:38:19] Maybe it was years of running away, maybe it was years of shame, maybe it was abused by others. But I pray in the name of Jesus that no, now a bigger revelation will come to you, and it will set you free. You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.
[00:38:37] So, sons and daughters of God, thank you for your goodness to.
