Father's Day - George Solomon

Hey guys, Pastor James Murray here, and I want to welcome you to the Abide Sydney podcast. This whole podcast is designed to help you on the journey of discipleship, and our mission is to make disciples of the people of Sydney. But maybe not from Sydney, we hope this blesses you, so sit back, relax, and enjoy this podcast. Morning Church. I hope you're well. We will not help you find another church. I'm just sorry. You don't find it yourself. There is no perfect church, but this might be the perfect church for you, but now we're joking. Someone else will help you, I won't help you, but it's good. We hope that you do take on the four-week challenge, and hopefully you will love what we love about this church as well. We were meant to step back into our series today of one John, but through my reading of a particular verse, I felt God speak to me. The Scripture was just stuck in my head, and I couldn't get it out. I knew in that moment God wanted to share, so we're going to deviate from the book of one John and go to this particular passage of Scripture. And maybe it's for you, the first time you've heard it, maybe it's a reminder, not really sure. I will confess to you that I cannot bring this Scripture justice. I cannot articulate what God wants to articulate, because it is a very simple, yet difficult passage and topic to unpack to be quite honest with you. We can easily sing songs, say, "God, I'll lay down my life," but to live it out is totally different. We can quote John 316, "That's easy," but then to know the reality of that and that resurrection power is another thing altogether. I really don't know, except for I want to be obedient to God, why he wants to bring this message. But think about it, maybe because it's not we don't know, we do know that sometimes life is painful. It's confusing. And a lot of times, it can be completely out of our control. And because of that, we can find ourselves asking questions. God, why are you allowing this? Where are you in the midst of it all? And what God says through this particular Scripture to a man called Zephaniah, who is considered to be a prophet of God, I truly believe he's still relevant to us today. And the context behind it, so you understand what he's going on, Zephaniah, the prophet, he's speaking into a nation, because the religious judges, the priests, and even some prophets have gone astray, and they've become corrupt, and the people of God have turned away from God. And God cannot hide from sin. It cannot turn a blind eye, nor ignore it does not exist. And Zephaniah's message was judgment is coming. And sometimes because of that, and if you read the Old Testament, the picture that you will get is a God that he's angry, a God that he's full of hate, a God who cares nothing about these people, but that could be furthest from the truth. In fact, if you read through Genesis carefully all the way to Revelation, what you'll see is a thread of God's love for humanity. And this in the midst of their trials and their troubles is a message that Zephaniah tries to convey to the people. Yes, God will not tolerate sin. Yes, God will not turn away from sin. But this message that he brings is not about sin, although he will have to expose the sin. And God does not expose the sin to expose us to harm, but to help us and to see that sin in itself is dangerous. And Zephaniah in the midst of their trouble shows the heart of a father. And I title this message for those who need a title, an unusual kind of love. Why is that? Because God's love for us and humanity does not even compare to the love that we have for one another. It is unusual. It is unconditional, but not like us. So Zephaniah in the midst of their turning away wants to bring a message that wouldn't hope will turn them back to God. And if Zephaniah 317, this is what the Scripture says. The Lord your God is in your midst. The mighty one will save. He will rejoice over you with gladness. He will quiet you with his what? Love. And he will rejoice over you with singing. I want you to stop for a moment and just take that in. A God who sings over us. A God who rejoices. Like I have no idea what kind of voice he has, but I'm sure it would be beautiful. And this is the message that Zephaniah brings into the people that have turned away from God. That God is still in your midst. And I will save you. I will rejoice over you. I will quiet you with my love. I will sing over you. Which brings me to a question. Because sometimes we will question God and attribute this to God. And it is this. What kind of parent would hurt their child? No love in parent would. None of us here would. But sometimes a parent has to allow some painful things to happen. Because they see or can see something that a child will never see. And it's no different with God. And maybe that's where your struggle is with God. Maybe that's where some of our struggle is with God. We cannot reconcile an all-loving God with an evil world. Can I answer the question for you? It is not God who is evil. It is us who is evil. Just like every kind of love, there is free will. We cannot force love. We cannot make people the love us. Maybe you've tried. I tried. I remember in you 4, I tried to get a girl to love me. I did everything I did. I ran fast when she was looking. She was looking. Placed sport. Wrote her letters. No response. Could not get her to love me. I was so disappointed with that. But sometimes that's what we try and do. We try and make someone love us. God is no different. He will not make you. He will not force you. Love him into relationship with him. He will not do it. So I raised the question, what kind of parent could harm a child? I did. I've actually lost my child. What's in the shopping center? That's another story. But in the eyes of my daughter, the story that I'm about to tell you is she thought exactly that. Can I put the picture up? Can you put the picture up on my daughter, please? It's the same daughter, 14 months old. No different. They're not twins. This is my daughter, Taylor. I'm not going to go into details. But there was a particular evening that an accident occurred and we had to rush her into emergency hospital. We took her in and while we were waiting for the surgeon to come to assess her and then ultimately perform surgery on her, we had nurses in there trying to administer a need all. And then they do the craziest thing. They say, hey, can you hold your daughter down while we stick her with a needle? A 14 month old, I've never seen so strong in my life. She was struggling and they tried and yes, because she moved, maybe they didn't get it in, but I also believe they looked like at the time they were trainees. So they stuck her in again, didn't go in, they stuck her in again, it didn't go in by this time I was angry. I wanted to get that needle and stick them with it and make it. I want you to know how it feels. That was me as a parent. I was hopeless and helpless in that situation, but they asked me to hold her down. And you know, you can talk to one another through your eyes. You know that, right? A woman can tell a husband so many things with just one look. Hey, all the men laugh because you know it's true. And in that moment, my daughter was speaking to me, not verbally, but through her eyes. And I want you to put this picture up for me, please Bailey. It's a bit wider this time, no suntan. But can you see her eyes? I knew in that moment exactly what she was saying. Why are you holding me down? And that picture does not do it justice. I was, I was like almost on top of her holding her down. This picture does not do it justice. Why are you allowing these people to hurt me? Why are they sticking needles into my arm? I could see it through her eyes. And that was her perspective. That was her reality. Why are you doing this? Why are you hurting me? She couldn't see what I could see. She couldn't understand what I under what I was understanding in that moment. That that needle that me holding her down was not punished. No, no. It was part of the process to help her. And I know in that moment, we kind of quite pain with love and health and wholeness. We don't get that. All we know is pain in that moment. And what looked like harm from her perspective was actually love from mine. I had to hold it down. And from that pain arises questions. I think we've all asked. Question about God's love. Because sometimes it will make no sense. And the pain is real. And in the middle of it, you'll find yourself asking God, why is this happening? Why are you allowing this? Are you the God of pain? Have you ever asked this question, why me? Why not someone else? Like I would rather, in that moment, that's how desperate we become. But what in the midst of our pain, God was actually holding us together for a greater outcome and a greater purpose. And we needed, in that moment, to go through the process, what if God was holding us? And we didn't know why or understood it. You know, when you read through the Bible and for some reason, it comes to some big surprise to us that many, if not all of God's chosen people and people that believed in Him, went through a pain process. I mean, I'd love to say, you, it's not in the Bible, but it's not there. It's not a walk in the park. It's not a life without trouble and free from pain. It's just not there. But it's not God who's inflicted on us with the pain, no, it's sin itself that does it to us. And we do it to one another. It's out of our control and a man who loved God and God loved him dearly. And he gave his life for it. In fact, he said to him, you will go and preach the gospel for me across all the nations. I thought, cool, not me, the apostle Paul. But you know what's amazing? Have you ever noticed God does not fill in the blanks? Does not give you the blueprint to life? Does not give you the details? Man, if he had given Paul the details to his life, maybe Paul would have gone, whoa, you got the wrong person. Because let me give you an insight to Paul's life. Five different times the Jewish leaders gave me 39 lashes. One more lash. They considered the person to be dead just so you understand it. Three times I was beaten with rod, three times I was shipwrecked. I spent a whole night day adrift at sea. I faced dangers from rivers and robbers. I faced dangers from my own people. That would have been painful. I faced danger in the cities, in the deserts and on the seas. I faced danger from men who claim to be believers. But they were not ever been there. Oh, not my brother. Injured many sleepless nights, I've been hungry and thirsty and I've gone without food. I have shivered in the cold without enough clothing to keep me warm. I don't think any one of us can compare our lives to Paul's. And then he says something. He says, people look at me and see the scum of the earth, filth of the earth. People look at me and say that. Not God? Not God. Not God. People look at me and see filth of the earth. He didn't believe it. They were saying it. Listen, and above all of this, I need a holiday. It doesn't say that. I need to find a five star result. Nope, don't say that. Above all of this, I have the daily burden of a concern for all my churches. Wow. Paul, like, what was it, Paul? Let's go on. He doesn't stop there. Two Corinthians, we get more of his life and he starts to unpack it. Two Corinthians says this, we are hard pressed on every side yet not crushed. Perplexed. In other words, I got no idea. But I'm in despair, not in despair. Persecuted and not forsaken struck down, but I have not destroyed. He goes on. And he, you know what he says? He says, and I remember the death of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I carry it, he says. I carry it. And if you keep on reading, and sometimes we've got to just keep on reading to find Paul, like, how, like, what, and we do, we find something that Paul says, I think, brings this all together. And how did you endure, what you endured? Two Corinthians, 514 says this. And for the love of Christ, compels us. For the love of Christ compels us. Now I failed English at school. But when I hear that word, compel, I think, propel, push, force, go forward. But it's actually not that. When I looked it up, according to the Bible, the word compel carries the idea of pressing, constraining, and holding down. Christ loves surrounded Paul so completely that it became the controlling force of his life. Did you hear that? It was love. God's love was the glue to Paul's life. I don't know if you had goosebumps. And I've had hairs on his back coming up. He just believed it. My daughter couldn't see what I could see. She couldn't understand what I was understanding in that moment. Maybe you're going through it. Maybe you will go through it. And then that question will arise. Does God really love me? Zephaniah says yes. Paul says yes. But that brings us maybe to another question. And it is this. Because sometimes we take the Father that we grew up with. And we interpret it as the God that we serve. In fact, we've had the privilege of sitting down with people, couples, entering into marriage and that. And what you will hear most of is that the idea of family and Father, the ones that they grew up in, the family and the Father that they grew up with, now is a picture in their own relationship. What they believe was normal back then has become normal now in that relationship, although it could have been distorted. But we take that picture of our Father. And we think, hmm, do I really believe God is a God of love? The world is asking the question, how can you reconcile evil with a loving God? They just look around, people, free will. I've already explained it. I don't know what kind of Father you had. Maybe you had one that loved you and protected you and had a great upbringing. Or maybe you didn't have a father at all. Do you know, in fact, that when we would go into prison ministry, what we found out is that most of the men and women, in fact, they would say 90% were incarcerated, had come out of a dysfunctional family or a Father weren't. Maybe it wasn't abuse. Maybe it was just a word that your Father spoke over you, that wound you still carry. Maybe it was a word that they didn't speak over you. I'm proud of you. I love you. Maybe it wasn't like my Father. The one that was visible but never present. I saw him. I could reach out to him. But in a moment, he was gone. Maybe, I don't know what kind of Father you had. And I don't know what you think of the Heavenly Father. For me, I could not reconcile God when I came to Christianity because of the Father that I was witnessing and I watched. A Father that took us to no sporting events, no school events, no holidays. I don't even have a picture of my family. Like, I can't even give you a picture. He's my family with my Father and this is where I can't do that. And that's okay because you know what? Maybe that's the life he grew up with as well. Maybe he never had the Father. And that's okay. I see it now but I never saw it back then. And how could I? And without realizing it, we take that Father, the experiences we had in comparison to the Heavenly Father. Zeff and I was trying to tell us, no, no, no, no, no, God's not your earthly Father. Your earthly Father may have failed you but your Heavenly Father never will. And what I noticed when I studied this, I never saw anywhere in the Bible that referred or used the word dad. It doesn't say that the closest we can get is Abba Father, a term of endearment, one that speaks of an intimate, loving relationship with one another, but no dad. See, a dad can bring a child into the world, but a Father shapes the child into who they should become. A dad can give you a name and even some money, but a father will help you understand who you are. Or they should, we have a God, a father in heaven, who is not distant, but is very present. He's not standing somewhere in heaven with lightning bolts ready to strike you dead if you do something wrong. He doesn't just tolerate us. No, he loves us. And we need to know, Zephaniah is trying to get us in and saying, "Hey, no matter what you walk through, no matter what you are involved in, that God is in your midst. He's in the middle, he's in the near, he's in the present, and potentially he's always been with you in the past, if we never knew it." Is there a life or a promise of a life without troubles and without trust? No, it's nowhere there. There is no promise. There is no such thing. But there is a promise throughout the entire Bible that your God is in the midst. And what will He do in the midst? He will quiet you with His love. Quiet carries the idea of being still, being brought to peace, even in the midst of trouble. You might not have a vision, a dream. It could be a friend texting you. It could be one that says something to you. This is how God works through people. You know, there's a beautiful picture of this quiet in you with His love. And there's many pictures, but there's one in particular with Jesus in the boat. We're very familiar with it when the storms come. He's in the boat with fishermen, so they knew the waters, but in this particular storm, they jumped out of their skin. They were so afraid that they were saying, "Do you not care that we're about to drown and we're about to die?" And what does Jesus do? He rebukes the storm and says, "Peace be still." Jesus calmed the storm. Yes, but listen, He brought peace into the middle of their panic. But even in this, there's a truth. God might not calm your storm. You might have to walk through it, but the promise is that He will give you the peace in the midst of it. And that's the truth of the gospel. Zephaniah says, "He will rejoice over you with singing." When you come to God, when you give your life to God, He sings over you. Singing is not some one-off action. It's ongoing. It's a beautiful picture. When the Jewish people heard this, this is what they would have heard. They would have heard a scripture from Isaiah that says this, "As the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall God rejoice over you." It's a picture of a wedding. And because Jesus is Middle Eastern, I don't know if you've ever been to a Lebanese wedding, but we don't celebrate the groom. We celebrate the bride. I don't know why. So to all you men, I apologize. But when we have a wedding, and my last daughter's wedding, she was the center of attention. We would get her and we would do these big claps. That's copyright. That's only us. We clap like that. We do. We dance. We do the whole thing for her. We get her, put on our shoulders. We celebrate the whole night. Like, that's the image that they would have to God. But that's not the image that we have. We have an image of this stoic God that sits up, so far away, in heaven, so cold and distant. No, that's a lie that we've been fed in our lives. This is why you're sitting here today because you have some form of belief in God that loves you. But I wonder if you see yourself like that sometimes, or do you see yourself sometimes like what the people were trying to label Paul? I'm just, I'm a nobody. I'm a nobody. I'm like, how many times do we speak to ourselves? I'm not good enough. I'm not there. I'm not there. Your worth is not determined by the people who show you or don't show you love, because that will fluctuate. Your future doesn't have to be determined by your father's failures. It doesn't. Let me tell you what Psalm 139 says about you before you were even born. It says this that he knew you in your mother's womb. Before you were born, before any mistake that you made, before the decision, the choices that you would make, it says he knew you, and you were fearfully and wonderfully made. How many of us wake up with that thought in our heads? I'm fearfully wonderfully made. Wow. You can flex on that. Like seriously, get up every morning and start do it. Well, I think you'll have a different mindset. He says, you're fearfully and wonderfully made. How precious are your thoughts towards me or God? How great is the sum of them? If I should count them, which he can't, they would be more than number than all the sin. And when I awake, I'm still, you're still with me. And then you report, David's other letters, oh God, where are you? I'm struggling. I'm like I'm sick in my bed. Like what's going on in life? But he always has a way of saying, but I know you're still with me. I don't know what you think about your wife or your husband or a relationship that you're in. I don't think it's like what God thinks. All the number in the sand, that's not like a second spare that you're not thinking about that someone. No, no, no, he says he does. Listen to what I, a W. Tozer says this, says this. God's love is not fragile. God's love has no beginning, can have no end because God has no beginning, has no end. Human love starts, stops, shifts and breaks. God's love eternal and changing, not depending on the wordiness of the one being love. It had nothing to do with us and everything to do with him. She couldn't see why I was holding her, but I was holding her in the midst of her pain. I was holding her in the midst of her trouble. In the midst of her trial, she did not see that. She did not know that and how could she and how could we? Listen to what Isaiah says, for my thoughts are not your thoughts, my ways are not your ways. My thoughts are not your thoughts. My ways are not your ways. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, or my ways higher than yours, and my thoughts higher than your thoughts. Zephaniah reminds us of God's love in the midst that he's holding us, but what Isaiah is saying that in the midst of it, you won't understand it all. I'm going to close with this. Zephaniah is trying to tell you that God sings over you, rejoices over you. Have you ever heard this scripture? When a sinner repents and comes to God, the angels rejoice in heaven. You know, that's not true. It's actually not what it says. Jesus says when one sinner repents and comes to him, in the presence of the angels, they're rejoicing. Who's in the presence of the angels? This is a whole thing that I don't want to open up a can of worms, but I think God's rejoicing. I think God's singing, and in the presence of other people that already there, I think they're all going, yeah, like this is, they're just shouting out. This is rejoicing because the angels for the first time have seen God's grace, God's favor on humanity. They've never understood it because they're not redeemed creatures. So they see something they've never seen. They don't understand it. Like I think one of them would go, hey, let's just wipe them out. So if you want a reason to why God doesn't act towards evil, because every one of us would have to be wiped out, because one of us is good. So when you say, hey, hey, God, why don't you just get rid of evil? Okay, cool. You're included. I need to get rid of you too. It's true. God's not evil. He has to just barely, and he does, but listen, there is a God who sings, but there's a God who runs. If I heard that one, Luke 15, the prodigal son, you know it. The God who runs, the father who runs. It's a picture of a heavenly father and a humanity that is lost. Let me read you the scripture. A certain man had two sons, and the younger one said to him, Father, give me the portion or what is entitled to me, the goods that come to me. So he divided them, gave them to both sons. A few days later, the young son left, became a citizen of another country. See, he thought leaving the father's house, he would find freedom, but he didn't. His life got worse. Maybe he didn't know that the father was actually holding him all this time. Maybe we think we're better off without God, and it's not until we step outside of God. My goodness, my life has fallen apart. It's not what it was. We don't see the hand of God in everything, but the heart is there. He didn't know. He said, and then he eventually thanked God. He comes to his senses, and sometimes people will have to come to rock bottom, to come to their senses. He says, I'll arise. I'll go to my father, and I will say to him, Father, I've sinned against you, and I've sinned against heaven. I'm no longer listening, worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your higher servants. But when he was still afar off, the father saw him. I don't know if the father was sitting out there every day on the balcony, like watching him, like how was it coincidental? You just walked out that day and saw him. But maybe, maybe, maybe he was waiting because, yes, he was about to run through him, but maybe he knew someone else was going to run through him. Maybe he thought if I don't get there first, someone else will get there first. Because in Jewish tradition, in that kind of a community, they had known about the prodigal son. They had known that he took his father's money, and that he left him. To take your father's money is to consider the father dead. You have nothing to to do with me and I want nothing to do with you, right? We don't get an inherent to someone passes away. This is his thinking and these Jewish elders are thinking, oh my goodness man, you're going to get it when you come back, right? That's what we do out children. Wait till you get home, poof, like so the elders would have known about, they wouldn't know about this prodigal son and there's a Jewish tradition called Kazaza and all the elders would come and they would run towards the prodigal son. So you betcha, imagine that, imagine the picture, the father's running, whoever's father's going to get there, I'm going to put my money on God. He's running. I mean he's lifted, listen to lift your gown up and to run, firstly that was dishonoring. You just don't do it. That was a shame to be able to do that and to go to someone who was considered unclean. No, you were meant to excommunicate them and get them out of the life. No, but the father's doing the opposite, he's running to him. As he's running, the group of elders are running and they're probably shouting, I don't know. Kazaza, Kazaza, and they get, they want to get to the son first before the father and then they'll go and then they'll break this over him. Kazaza, in other words, what has happened to this jar, I pray it happens to you. As this jar broke, I pray it breaks you for what you did to the father, Kazaza means to cut off. Think about it for a moment, is this not symbolic of Jesus going to the cross and covering us and protecting us from the sin that was to come to us, that we, because if we did not accept him, that we would be cut off forever, and sin would be hurled at us, but no, but the father runs and he covers him and he protects him and he kisses him and he weeps over him. This is the heart of our Father God. He's protecting you. He protects us from Kazaza. The Scripture says that Jesus came into the world to reconcile us back to the father. Jesus doesn't say, hey, what'd you do with the money? Where'd you go? Who'd you spend it? Who's with you? Tell me. I want to know. Don't come in there. No, he doesn't do that. He says, you're not my servant, you're my son, you're my son. Always was, always will be. Why don't we stand for a moment? We always focus on the prodigal son and that's good, but there's another son in this picture that I think can represent potentially another side of humanity, another son that knew the Father, and I think if you like me, you may be done it as well, and he hears the commotion, he hears the rejoicing and the singing, and he says to one of the servants, what's going on? And the servant says, oh, your son that was lost has returned and your father's making him a feast, and he's giving him a robe and a ring, a put sandals on his feet, and you were thinking, oh, my goodness, my brothers back, but no, but the scripture says he was angry, he was enraged. Why? Well, he gives you the reason. He says, hey, Father, I went to church on Sunday. I read the Bible, I served you, I did everything that you asked me to do and you never did that for me. Have we ever compared that with God? I do all of that, but why this? And what's the Father's response? Son, not servant, not outcast, not self-righteous. Son, come into the house, come into the house. He says, no, no, I want to come into the house. Why? Because you thought someone's favor and blessing was on someone else, how could that happen to them and not to me? Like, and he says, you were always my son, you'll always be my son. Just come into the house and you refuse not to go in. Every eye closed, every headbell. You know, all we said something, worship is our response to love. It's an outward expression. Our Sunday is an outward expression of love for Christ. That's why we come Sunday, not to get into heaven. Say, hey, God, I went to church every Sunday. Look how good I was, not that. It's a response, just a response. But the greater act of worship is found in Romans 12, that we give ourselves as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable before God. And I can't tell you how to do that and live that, but I think if you read the Bible, you would know what that looks like. Yes, we're servants, but we're also sons and daughters of the most high God. Maybe we just need to stand there and go like Isaiah did. Hey, God, send me. Hey, God, what can I do? Like what Paul said, not why, but what do you want from me? What do you want from me? Maybe let's take that moment and just ask God, what do you want in this moment? How do I respond to that kind of love? And it's not to make up for it. It's not to say, oh, God, we can never make up God's love, but we can worship Him in response to that love. Why don't you take a moment? Maybe you've never experienced this love. Like me, I don't get the goosebumps and don't always hear God's voice and I read it through the scripture and God illuminates something in my mind. Sure, there's moments, but we can't experience God like that. We have to experience it through faith. And maybe your life, family, father has gone, I don't understand God and that's okay. I don't see God. That's okay. Maybe you just need to take one step of faith into the house and see the love of the Father. Maybe that's what you got to do. Maybe for those, you know, you don't live in the love of the Father. Maybe you don't see yourself loved by the Father. Maybe you just need to say, hey, God, forgive me of that. Like that's my thinking's warped, but I do want to see myself as your child. I do believe you're my father and I do believe I am your child. I don't know what it is for you. I just know, you know, like I wrote that letter to that girl trying to force her to love me, the Father's not going to do that. He's going to wait for you to respond because he's already initiated love. The Father already initiated love. So Father, every person before you right now, if they've never heard this kind of redeeming love, I pray that it would become such a reality, such a revelation to them, Lord, that they'll be overwhelmed. I may not be able to articulate it, experience it, but they would just know that this is right and this is the love of a Father. If you've never known Jesus, if you've never known that kind of love, all you have to do or at least start with God, I believe you died on a cross. I believe you resurrected. I ask you to come into my life and show me the way into everlasting. Maybe you're a Christian here for a long time and you've stopped believing God loves you. I don't know. Stop believing it. If you even have to say it to yourself and tell your own mind because we tell our mind so many awful things about ourselves, why don't we tell ourselves good things about us because God does. Lord, I just pray, you're blessing over your people. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face shine upon you. Be gracious towards you. The Lord lift up His countenance and give you peace in Jesus' name. Amen, amen. Can we have got some praise for His work? If you need prayer for anything, absolutely anything. Please come up the front. People will come and meet you and pray with you. If not, you can go. Go into the foyer mingle. Have a great week. God bless you. Well, we hope this podcast has inspired you on your journey of discipleship to Jesus. If you want to know more about our church, just go to abide.cidney. We'd love to get to know you. If not, you're from another place. Hey, why don't you share this with someone else and hopefully it helps them as they continue to follow Jesus. Have a great week.