The Son, Part 3

Today on Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. Listen to me, your father, your heavenly dad could not love you more than he does right at this moment. If you had been perfect all your life, he wouldn't love you more.

If your life has been a series of mistakes, he doesn't love you any less. His acceptance of you is a gift that all you must do is receive because Jesus paid it all. Welcome to Summit Life with pastor, author, and theologian J.D.

Greer. I'm your host, Molly Vidovich. We all know that fathers play an important role in normal family development, but we also know not everyone has been lucky enough to have a loving, supportive father here on earth. So today pastor J.D. is digging into Isaiah chapter nine to remind us that at some point in time, hopefully very soon, God will restore this relationship through his son Jesus. It's the conclusion of our series called Foretold. And if you missed any of the previous messages, you can listen to them at jdgreer.com.

But also be sure to stay tuned until the end of the program today for a very special offer available for this week only. Now here's J.D. in today's message titled The Son. Maybe your dad walked out on you. 40% of children in America live in fatherless homes. Or maybe he never left, but he was just never there.

He was always working. He never spent time with you or came to your games. Here's what happens. Children interpret the absence of their dad as a kind of personal rejection. You felt you weren't important to him because you weren't good enough. This produces an incredible sadness in the kid that he doesn't quite understand. This sadness is accompanied by a fear of aloneness, and a lot of times this mixture of sadness and fear as the kid grows up starts to express itself as anger. In the absence of a father figure, young men try to define their masculinity in some other way.

Rebellion, sexual prowess, bragging about athletics, violence and gang activity. Other guys who grew up without a present father figure become overachievers trying to become the man that their father never was. Some girls who grow up in fatherless homes become very loose sexually because they crave the attention of a man that they never got from their father. Do you know what percentage, get this, of female pornography models, Playboy, porn movies, you know what percentage of them were sexually abused as young girls? 90%. 90%. Some of you guys, next time you're looking at porn, why don't you think about that? You can think, I wonder if it was her father or her uncle or her grandfather who first took her virginity. 90%, that is what drove them into that, that craving. I'm not saying that it's excusable, I'm just telling you.

It has tragic and huge impact on people. Again, they apply this, people apply this absent father figure feeling to God. You don't want to know God because inwardly you feel like He'll just leave you. You can't really open up to Him because you're not good enough. You might begrudgingly obey Him but He's not somebody to depend on and build your life on.

You might do what you got to do so you feel like you won't go to hell but you won't entrust your whole life to Him. When I was doing my PhD studies, I discovered the most incredible thing. Of all the famous atheists, almost all the famous atheists of the past century, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Bertrand Russell, Madeleine Murray O'Hare, Friedrich Nietzsche, Albert Camus, all of them had one thing in common, the absence of a father in their childhood. And that anger and resentment expressed itself toward God and colored how they looked at God. Fathers were to be a ray of the sun to us. Ephesians 3.14 says that all earthly fathering is patterned after the heavenly father.

C.S. Lewis' famous example was that fathers were to be to us like a ray of the sun that shined on our face, that we look back up along the ray and look back at the source from which it comes. We were to feel in our fathers the love and acceptance and security of our earthly fathers and that was to be our training wills to teach us to love and relate to God our Father.

For many of you, however, your father has been more of a cloud than a ray, a cloud that obstructs your view of God rather than a ray that leads you to him. The greatest failure, I believe, of mankind has been the failure of fathering. And if the world is to be corrected and set aright, it will have to be through the restoration of fatherhood. So here in Isaiah 9, we see a description of the Messiah that ought to screen salvation to us. He will be called the everlasting, the perfect father. He would be the father that we've always longed for.

He would teach us men to become God-like fathers again. The last verse of the Old Testament, you know what it talks about? The last book of the Old Testament, Malachi, Malachi, last verse, chapter 4, verse 6, it's a prophecy. This is how the whole Old Testament ends. It is a prophecy about the Messiah and it says this, He, the Messiah, will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children back to their fathers. He would restore fatherhood to us.

So let me show you. Jesus, the everlasting father, rather than being never satisfied, Poulter's first category, Jesus accepts you fully as you are. The Messiah's salvation was not that if you could be good enough for long enough, then He would save you. Jesus' salvation was an announcement of His acceptance of us based on the work that He would do for us.

He would live the life that we were supposed to live and die the death that we deserve to die in our place so that if we would just accept it, we would be immediately and fully forgiven and accepted. This is seen in that fairly famous story where the woman caught in adultery is brought to Jesus. Even people that didn't grow up in church are usually familiar with this. The woman caught in the very act of adultery gets dragged up to Jesus and they want to stone her and they say, Jesus, what should we do? And Jesus says, let him that is without sin among you cast the first stone and one by one they all drop their stones and they leave and Jesus looks at her and says, where are your accusers?

I see, Lord, there are none. Then remember the statement, neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more. I've told you that the phrasing of how He said that to her is extremely counterintuitive.

We always reverse those. We always say, go and sin no more and then I won't condemn you. Jesus said to her, I don't condemn you, therefore go and sin no more. In other words, my acceptance of you comes first and then because of my acceptance you will change. It's not change in order to be saved but change because you have been saved. Listen to me, your father, your heavenly dad could not love you more than he does right at this moment. If you had been perfect all your life, he wouldn't love you more. If your life has been a series of mistakes, he doesn't love you any less. His acceptance of you is a gift that all you must do is receive because Jesus paid it all. He fully accepts you, you just believe it and receive it.

Some of you say, why? I don't feel this acceptance. I don't feel that down deep.

Your feelings don't change reality. God has said this is the case and to be saved simply means that you believe him. That means if you feel abandoned it's because you're projecting your own feelings unto God but God doesn't define himself by your feelings. God is what he is and you adjust your feelings to reflect the reality that is him. Your second thing, Jesus is not a time bomb but here's an exact quote, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, Psalm 103 8.

Abounding means consistent, means he doesn't blow up. Yes, there are times that he disciplines us and times that he allows painful things to happen to us but when he does it is never to take out vengeance on us because Christ has already taken out all the vengeance for us. It's not because he's having a bad day and we've irritated him. When he allows discipline into our lives he does it solely for our good. This is what Hebrews 12 10 says. It says even that sometimes our earthly fathers they discipline us and they do it because they're in a bad mood or we irritate him. He says but God always disciplines us for our good.

David, King David understood this. That's why he made a statement Psalm 23 6, surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life. The Apostle Paul said the same thing this way in a verse a lot of Christians know but very few of them actually believe. Paul said I know that God is working together all things for good in my life. That's Paul's way of saying surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life.

Can you say that? Can you say that you have the assurance that in everything that happens to you God's goodness, God's mercy, his good and loving plan for you are controlling the situation. Some of you are bitterly disappointed at something in life and right now whether you've ever acknowledged it or not your anger is against God because you don't trust him and it may go back to some pattern that you learn where you couldn't trust your own father. I'm telling you this would change your life if you actually believed in it.

God had a plan that was controlling the situation and you could trust him. If you just knew that it would change your perspective on your marriage, change your perspective on your problems. I heard about one married couple who was having major marital problems. They go to a marriage counselor seeking help. Within six months their marriage was significantly better.

The husband couldn't figure out what in the world he's like I don't really remember anything brilliant that you said to us. The counselor said well when you know that somebody loves you and is for you then you're halfway home. Believing that God loves you and is for you and you are halfway to healing because God uses that hope to begin to change you.

Here's your third thing. Jesus is not emotionally distant. He's emotionally engaged. Paul said it this way. Romans 5 5 God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. In us pouring out love over us. It doesn't get more intimate than that. Here's another verse on this I find amazing if not a little embarrassing. I'll show you what I mean. Zephaniah 3 17 the Lord your God is in your midst.

Again that's close. A mighty one who will save. He will rejoice over you with gladness. He will quiet you by his love. He will exult over you with loud singing.

Here's it's a little embarrassing because that just almost feels a little too intimate to me. I mean just imagine if your dad walked in here and just started to rejoice over you with loud singing and dancing. This is my son.

I'm so proud of him. I'd be like dad awesome but later Jesus is not absent. Jesus is ever present. Hebrews 13 5 I will never leave you or forsake you.

Never. Romans 5 a but God shows his love for us and that while we are still sinners Christ died for us. A lot of kids because their dad was absent interpreted that absence as a former rejection. Jesus is exactly the opposite. When we actually did deserve to be rejected it was then Christ died for us.

Or look at this one. Isaiah 49 15 could a woman forget her nursing child that she have no compassion on the son of her womb? Mothers don't forget their children.

They don't leave them in the car when they go somewhere. He says but you know they may forget yet I will never forget you behold I have engraved you on the palms of my hands. My wife has a little necklace that has a little thing that represents each of our children and on it is engraved their names.

God's like I ain't nothing. I tattooed you. Like I know a guy with a tattoo of his children.

I tattooed you on the palms of my hands so that everywhere I looked I saw you. We crave this. We yearn for this type of father. The reason for that is because we were created by God for it and your fathers who were supposed to be at the ray of the sun to you for many of you were a cloud. And many of you hear this you say well yeah that's exactly that's why I can't understand God my dad was too screwed up.

Of course you can understand God. How do you know that your dad's screwed up? Because you inwardly you have a sense of what the real heavenly father was supposed to be like. That's how you knew he was screwed up.

That's why you're angry at him because you knew there was something that he wasn't doing. David said Psalm 27 10 for my father and my mother forsaken me but the Lord will take me in. Judge your earthly father by your heavenly one and not your heavenly father by your earthly one.

I don't know some of you respond back to that because I talk to you and you're like yeah. You have a hard time with that too because I feel like God has let me down. Where was God when I was being abused, overlooked, treated unfairly?

Where was where was the justice in that? I understand that and I don't have an easy answer for you other than to tell you that God demonstrated his commitment to you when he took your sin and he died for you on the cross and I know that you can't understand everything that happens in your life but let me just ask you that you use the cross as an example. God never looked like, think about it, it never looked like God was more out of control than at the cross. It never looked like evil was having its way more than at the cross but it was at that precise moment that God was working his plan.

That's what's happening with you. You may not be able to see it but you can trust the character of the God who suffered on the cross for you. He is always in loving control of your life. He always has been.

He always will be. Jesus is the everlasting father. Does that not thrill your heart?

Does that not overwhelm you with awe? You say well okay, all right, this is a great talk on fathering but why are you talking about it in terms of prophecy? Why is this a key prophecy? Why is it in the Old Testament? God knew that a key component of our salvation would be the restoring of fatherhood to us and this is something that God had to give us from heaven, not something we could do for ourselves and so God prophesied, he foretold that he would do it for us. You see, the whole theme of the Old Testament, the whole point of prophecy is that what we most need in terms of our salvation is not something we can work out for ourselves. It has to come from above.

It is a gift. The whole message of the Bible is that what we need comes from heaven and we should wait for it and believe it when he comes. Let me show you something real quick about the context of Isaiah 9. If you've got your Bible, look at it. Isaiah 9 starts out by saying, nevertheless the people walking in darkness have seen a great light. What comes before that nevertheless?

I got a hundred bucks says you've never looked and actually figured out what the nevertheless is transitioning between. Well look back, one verse, because you know in the original way this was written there was no break between chapter 8 and chapter 9, it was just one text. One verse, 822, talking about the situation that Israel was in, the Bible says, they Israel will look to the earth and behold only distress and darkness and the gloom of anguish and they will be thrust into thick darkness.

Nevertheless, the people walking in darkness have seen a great light because unto us a son is given. The theme of the whole Bible from cover to cover is that what we need to be saved is something that only God can give, not something we can give to ourselves. You want to hear one of the most dominant important themes of the whole Bible, I'd say this is one of the top two, only God can save. I was recently asked at a trial log, I was at it like a three-way debate at UNC with a Jewish guy and a Muslim guy, if only people who knew Jesus would go to heaven.

In front of a Chapel Hill crowd, that's not really an easy question to answer, I'll throw that out to you. The way I answered it was this, I was like you know as I read the Bible there's one theme that dominates from cover to cover and that is only God can save. If you believe that you can save yourself through religion, you believe you can save yourself by lifting yourself up by your bootstraps, you will never get to heaven. But if you will receive the salvation that God has offered in Christ, then you can be saved whoever you are. So yes, I believe that only through Jesus can somebody go to heaven because only God can save. I look to the earth, Isaiah 8, only anguish and darkness.

Nevertheless, the people who sit in darkness have seen a great light because a son is given from heaven. You can't save yourself but God is willing and able. So look to him, for God's sake look to him. Are you scared to stand before God?

Are you scared to die? Look to God. Is your family in disarray? Look to God.

Are you overwhelmed by addiction? Look to God. You sit in darkness but unto you a son is given. Have you really messed up your children?

Have you been messed up by your father? Look to the heavens, the everlasting father, the wonderful counselor will help you. You just come to him, you receive the gift.

Here's what it looks like. Salvation. What we say around in Christianity if you're not from around these parts, what salvation means is that you simply receive the offer that Jesus gave to you to save you.

He's done all the work that's necessary. It's a gift. You just receive it. It is a relationship with Jesus. When you do that, you ought to be actively a part of one of his communities.

That's a church. You become a part of the church where you learn to know him more, where he begins to work out your salvation in you and begins to bring and apply the healing in parts of your life. There's no accident that you were here. The fact that you were here is evidence that God, your father, is searching after you and seeking you. You may have never known it was him, but he's got you here.

He has an interest in your life and he is calling to you. Many of you, many of you at our church, all of our campuses, I hear this all the time, you lack the assurance, we call it the assurance of salvation, knowing that you're one of God's children. In fact, this is what really deserves me because a lot of times people think that you can't know. They're like, well, I'm doing my best, but I hope. What kind of father would want his child to be in that situation?

When my children are struggling, when they're scared, that is the last thing I want them wondering is whether or not their daddy loves them. I think I told you this a while back, but when my daughter, she loves to swim. She's like a little fish. We signed her up for swimming and she was quite good.

She got in the pool and the first match was their practice match. Your mark, set, go, and it blew the whistle. She took off in turbo speed and she left the closest competitor 20 yards behind her. I was like, that's genetics.

No other explanation for that genetics. Next, the real meat that came up, it was a bigger deal, had all the flags out, look out the gun and on your mark, set, they shot that gun. Everybody started yelling and clapping. I thought this is just going to be embarrassing because she's going to humiliate all these kids. She jumps in the water because of all the commotion and the gun going off. She jumped in the water and she just froze. It's like she forgot everything and she started just to sink under the water and she was really fighting to stay up. At that moment as I'm watching her and she's full of self-doubt and she's full of fear, what I wanted to do is just look down and put my face down the water and just say, I'm right here. I love you. I love you whether or not you swim this or not.

I'm here. If you're going to drown, I will jump in and rescue you. You don't have to be afraid. I don't want her when she's struggling to be afraid and to wonder if I love her.

It's at that point she most needs to know that I do love her. You can be sure of your salvation even if you struggle because God your heavenly father wants you to know. When somebody says they don't know if they're saved that is a sign to me that they don't understand salvation.

Salvation is that Jesus paid it all and you just receive it. You receive it and when you receive it you know that he has given it to you and you know that that he is your father. Nothing can separate you from his love. If you've never received Jesus, I'm wanting to end our series foretold with that invitation for you to receive Christ, to receive the son that was given and just to trust him.

The greatest gift ever from a father who loves you unconditionally. You've heard us say it many times before, there is nothing you can do to make God love you more and there is nothing you can do to make him love you less. All you have to do is receive that love. Thank you for joining us for the conclusion of the teaching series called Foretold. If you've missed any of the previous messages in this series you can catch up online free of charge at jdgrier.com. As God has blessed you this past year through the teaching of this ministry, will you consider extending that gift to someone else by donating today? Your support right now at the end of the year is critical in helping us continue this ministry here in the coming months and we'd love to have you partner with us. As our way of saying thanks for your support, we'll get you a copy of our exclusive resource the 2022 Summit Life Planner.

It is a great tool for busy students, parents, businessmen and women, anyone really. You can keep track of your deadlines, create to-do lists and throughout the planner you'll find Bible verses to remind you of what you're learning on the program. We're even including a year-long Bible reading plan to help you grow deeper in the gospel throughout the year. So ask for a copy of the 2022 Summit Life Day Planner when you give a one-time generous gift today at the suggested amount of $35 or more.

Call 866-335-5220 or give online at jdgrier.com. And for this week only, we have a very special opportunity for you. We talk a lot about gospel partners here on the show because they're so important to the health of summit life. When you become a regular monthly giver called a gospel partner this week, we'll also send you a signed copy of Pastor JD's new book on prayer titled Just Ask. That's in addition to the 2022 Summit Life Planner. Did you know that when you give monthly, all of our Bible-based resources will be sent to you automatically?

That's just another way that we like to say thanks for your regular giving. You can learn more about becoming a gospel partner at jdgrier.com. I'm Molly Vitevich. Thank you so much for joining us.

And don't miss out tomorrow when we will learn more about the meaning behind the popular Christmas carol, Go Tell It on the Mountain. We'll see you right here Wednesday on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.