Hey, welcome to One and All.

We're so glad that you are here.

It is Father's Day weekend, so happy Father's Day to all the dads out there.

Today we have a message from Jeff, and before we get into it, I want to encourage you to download the One and All app, so that way you can follow along on the Sermon Notes tab and bring out your Bibles as we jump into this message.

All right, let me say again, happy Father's Day.

Happy Father's Day.

I dress like this because my father would have wanted it.

Actually, my father would have wanted suit and tie.

I mean, if he is looking down from heaven, which he probably isn't, not that he's not in heaven, but that's another story, I think he would go to file a complaint with the head heavenly office and probably say, Jesus, can you get my son?

He's on the stage without a suit and tie.

That was my father.

Some of you still, you'd probably like my dad, wouldn't you?

All right, I'm in Luke chapter 22, Luke 22.

I'm going to go ahead and read it.

It'll be on the screen, Luke 22, 39.

Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives.

His disciples followed him.

And on reaching the place, he said to them, pray that you will not fall into temptation.

He withdrew about a stone's throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed.

Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me.

Yet not my will, but yours be done.

An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him.

And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly.

And his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.

When he rose from prayer and went back to the disciples, he found them asleep, exhausted from sorrow.

Why are you sleeping?

And he asked them, get up and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.

This is one of the passages that gave me the most consternation as a student in seminary.

How can God, if Jesus is God in the flesh, how is it that God could ever be in anguish or anxiety or in worry or some kind of...

of nervousness that was so intense that it brought about, as we've mentioned many times before, a medical condition called hematidrosis, which is when the anxiety is so intense and the fear is so intense that blood actually seeps into the sweat glands, and so as you sweat, it appears that you are sweating drops of blood.

So we've talked many times about what we call, theologians call the kenosis theory.

And that is that although he is 100% God and 100% man, Philippians 2 tells us when Jesus walked the planet that he set aside willingly, nobody took it from him.

He set aside some of the privileges associated with being God, omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresent.

So Jesus got hungry.

Jesus experienced much of what you and I would experience.

in humanity.

So evidently, it's not a sin to be anxious.

It has more to do with how you respond to that anxiety.

It's not a sin to be angry.

It's how you respond to the anger.

And so Jesus, as he moves toward the cross and he's in the garden praying, saw something.

that caused him to say, Father, I don't want this.

I don't want to do this.

Is it possible there's another way?

And that's unique because on every other occasion in the harmony of the gospels, you see that Jesus sought the Father's will and he received it, obeyed it without question.

And as you come to the garden, you have to wonder where is Jesus'courage in this hour?

When I was in seminary, we were forced to read a book called Fox's Book of Martyrs.

It was 482 pages of people who died in the early church and beyond, who were martyred, who were killed just because they were Christ followers, and they all died with incredible courage.

In fact, Stephen, in Acts chapter 6 and 7, was martyred, was killed, stoned to death.

And as he was stoned to death, he was so at peace, he said, Father, the same thing Jesus said, forgive them, they don't know what they're doing.

So what happened to Jesus as he gets to the garden and suddenly, although history is inundated with testimonies and records of people who faced their death with incredible courage, what is it about Jesus that is so astonishing that it presses him into the dust?

I know he said, Father, not my will, but yours be done.

But he also said, I don't want to do this.

I mean, there...

It's kind of a kind translation when we say that Jesus says, let this cup pass for me.

Jesus is basically expressing to the father that I don't like this feeling.

So evidently there's a new feeling he's experiencing that's causing him to move into the dust, to sweat drops of blood, almost as if Jesus is saying, this is not what I expected.

So what is it that Jesus saw?

that overwhelmed it to the point of death.

I mean, it can't be the pain of crucifixion.

He has seen this thousands of times and he knew it's the very reason he came into the world.

John 3, 14, just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the son of man must be lifted up.

John 12, the crowd spoke up.

We've heard from the law that the Messiah will remain forever.

So how can you say the son of man must be lifted up?

So Jesus was saying this again and again.

Matthew 26, as you know, the Passover is two days away and a son of man will be handed over to be crucified.

He would have passed through Jerusalem hundreds of times, and the streets of Jerusalem were always lined with people, criminals who were crucified by the Romans as a demonstration of what happens when you go against Rome.

And what is it?

It's kind of mind-boggling.

What is it that came upon him so quickly that it pushed him into full-on panic attack?

and then as you start to understand what was going on here, you realize that none of his followers will ever face a death like this.

No one has ever or will face a death like that.

No human being ever.

Now, stay with me just for a moment.

What are the words that got Jesus killed?

You find them in Matthew 26 all throughout the Gospels.

He kept saying, God is my Father and I am his Son.

God is my Father, I am his Son.

In chapter 26 of the book of Matthew, verse 65, then the high priest tore his clothes.

This is what you do when you're so angry you can't hardly stand it.

He has spoken blasphemy.

Why do we need any more witnesses?

Look now, you have heard the blasphemy.

What do you think?

He's worthy of death, they answered.

Jesus knew exactly what he was saying and the high priest knew exactly what Jesus was saying and they wanted to kill him.

He goes around constantly saying, God is my father.

and I am his son.

And he's not saying God has many sons and many daughters.

I am his one and only son, with a capital S.

Francis Schaeffer, one of the most noted theologian philosophers, he says that, you know, even though Scripture starts with the words, in the beginning, you'll see that in Genesis, in the beginning, God created, in John 1, what?

In the beginning, the Word was God, the Word was with God, the Word became flesh.

even though the Bible starts with in the beginning, there was something before the beginning, something pre-existed creation.

What is it that pre-existed creation?

In John 17, verse 25, Jesus says, Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.

So you know what pre-existed creation?

Before the beginning.

there was a real son loving, adoring, and praising, and enjoying a real father.

Now, you and I just kind of take a glance at that, but what that means, fathers and sons, and we're not talking about mothers and daughters.

You already had your time.

This is fatherhood, although it will apply across the board.

This means that fatherhood is at the core of the universe.

Fatherhood is at the core of the universe.

One of the Savior's first recorded words in the Bible when Mary and Joseph scolded him for scaring the wits out of them after getting separated for a few days.

He said, I must be in my father's house and about my father's business.

This is a mind blowing reality because what it tells us is the universe is not a dark, empty, impersonal place.

At the core of the universe is this overwhelmingly warm relational personal place where there is deep intimacy between the Father and the Son.

Now, that helps us understand what Jesus is facing in the garden.

In Jesus'humanity, in that moment, he is experiencing two things that you and I will never experience, and he is experiencing something that is intense.

Now, keep going.

One of the things that we often forget about sin is even though you and I are judiciously okay with God, legally we are forgiven of our sin because of the work of Jesus on the cross.

And still, can we still not have that feeling of separation and alienation from him?

And the greater the sin and disobedience in your life, the greater the gap of feeling between you and God.

So that's why you and I fluctuate in our feeling and emotions and whether we feel close to God or separated from Him, especially in seasons in our life, we just refuse to do the right thing.

Remember what David said after sin with Bathsheba?

David knew better than to commit adultery.

He knew better than to have Uriah killed on the front lines just so he could take his wife.

And yet he says in Psalm 32, Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered, When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.

Day and night, your hand was heavy on me.

My strength was sad as in the heat of summer.

So there is a depression and an alienation and a real frustration that occurs in our lives when we are alienated from God.

But very few people in the human race ever put together the fact, the reason I feel this way is because of the rebellion and disobedience and the lack of the pursuit of purity in my life.

Alternatively, then wouldn't the opposite be true?

Wouldn't it also be true that the greater absence of sin...

then the greater feeling of closeness to God.

Now, legally, we are close with God, but even subjectively, there's a part of us that knows that we are walking with Jesus.

Our kids know they are walking with Jesus or they're not.

That's why we get defensive when somebody points something out to us that resembles the reality we're not walking with God.

When somebody calls us on the carpet, hey, I don't like the language you're using.

I don't like your lackadaisical approach to worship.

I don't like your commitment or lack of it to Christ.

I don't like the fact that you look totally different Monday to Saturday than you do on Sunday, which would be different for this group.

Jesus then...

is the only perfect human being to have ever lived that would have never felt any kind of gap between him and the Father.

There's no sin in his life.

He would have had infinite fellowship and relationship with God in a way that you and I never will until we get to heaven.

And the reason there's this perfect unity within the diversity of the Trinity is because there's no sin barriers So it's constant community.

It's cost of support.

Think about it.

If you and I are friends Then if I betray you there's a gap and all sin is basically cosmic treason It's the betrayal of a good and loving God And so for Jesus, he's never experienced that.

And it's so good.

You know, even with our wives, we have a close relationship, but still there's a distance.

I've mentioned many times that as deep as my love is for my wife, and it's deep, there are times that I'll wake up in the middle of the night and I'll roam the halls of the house, and I know that something is missing.

But the thing that is missing is all of us are looking for that unconditional love where there's no barrier between us and the other entity.

Jesus is the only one that's ever had that.

And so, as he experiences the love and the joy of the Father in ways that we never know, now he comes to the garden, he takes his first step to the cross, and guess what?

He turns to God, and God is not there.

He turns to the Father, and the Father turns his face away.

That's what causes the anxiety in Jesus.

Pat Morley is a great writer of books relating to the spirituality and growth of men.

And a story that I like to tell is a story that had a great impact on me.

It was about four fishermen who went to Alaska and they were so excited about their trip and they're going to fish for salmon.

And if you've ever been up in Alaska in the months of June, July, and August, they are, I mean, my goodness, there's salmon, red salmon everywhere.

and they hire a pontoon, a plane, kind of between a boat and a flying machine, and they fly out into an isolated place, and they go fishing, and they fill the airplane up with all the fish that they had caught.

But while they were fishing, they had not noticed that one of the pontoons had filled with water.

And so as they took off, the plane, because it wasn't balanced, veered off to the right and crashed down into the waters.

the four men lived but now they're in the middle they're a long way from shore and they're all swimming in these icy cold Alaskan waters for their lives two of the men strong swimmers against the current began to swim and the other two was actually a man by the name of dr.

Phil Littleford and his 12 year old son mark and they looked back and they saw dr.

Littleford and his son and his son was just not strong enough to swim it and the father stayed with the son as both drowned and died.

Now, imagine this scene.

What would Dr.

Littleford's son, how would Dr.

Littleford's son respond if he reached out his hand for his father's help and his father ignored him?

Wouldn't that be the greatest betrayal of all?

I mean, that would be worse than the death of drowning itself, to know that your father is there and he abandons you.

The saints of the past, the reason they died with such courage is because they died with God's presence.

Jesus is about to die with God's abandonment.

And as soon as he moves into the garden to pray, he gets a foretaste of what's about to happen on the cross.

And he turns to the Father and the Father turns his face away.

Bill Lane's commentary on Mark goes like this, the dreadful sorrow and anxiety out of which the prayer for the passing of the cup springs is not an expression of fear before a dark destiny nor a shrinking from the prospect of physical suffering.

it is rather the horror of one who lives wholly for the Father, who came to be with the Father for an interlude before his betrayal, but found hell rather than heaven opened before him.

Now, you're saying, oh man, that's, I never thought of it that way.

But Pastor Jeff, I love you and everything, but what's this have to do with Father's Day?

Listen to me, sons of the house.

I know that there are fathers and fathers that will be, but I'm talking to you right now, not as a father, but as a son of the house.

I'm talking to you as a spiritual son, a son of the living God.

And I want to remind you that when Jesus went into the garden, he staggered.

He staggered because his father turned his face in a way.

But sons, have we not staggered most of our lives?

Because fatherhood...

fatherhood at the core of the universe, but the problem is our fathers are flawed.

Are they not?

You're flawed as a father, are you not?

And we were raised by flawed dads.

I'll never understand why there are four Vines boys, two of us see our dad as the perfect father with no flaws, well with little, the other two feel that they have been wounded by the same dad.

How is that possible?

How do two of my brothers live with a father wound and the other two live thinking father was the greatest thing ever?

And the reason is, is that there's no way a father can be all things to all sons because all sons need something different.

The father is the father out of his own personality and temperament, but it may not be consistent with the personality and temperament of his sons.

I've experienced that with my children.

my son Delaney and my daughter Sian are night and day.

I can relate to Sian because she's just like me, but I've had to work really hard to understand my son.

He is totally different, totally different.

Laid back so much so that he's almost horizontal.

Nothing bothers him, comfortable in his own skin.

He's the same when he's happy as when he's sad, so I can't read him.

I'm easily read.

My wife tells me this all the time.

You think you're so smart, Jeff.

People know exactly what you're thinking.

You can read you like a cheap novel.

And she's right.

But I can't read my son so there have been times when I don't know what to do and he's not going to speak either.

He's quiet.

So he's not going to tell me.

And that's frustrating.

So, where the evil one is concerned, he most definitely recognizes the power of fatherhood and the reality that fatherhood is the core of the universe.

So he knows perhaps one of the most effective ways to destroy humanity and to destroy culture is to wound the very relationship that's at the core of the universe between father and son.

to destroy the relationship and set in motion generational curses that destroy entire families and entire cultures.

Do you read any stat today by Christian, non-Christian, wherever you want to read it, there is little to no disagreement on the impact of bad or absent fathers.

It significantly increases poverty four times, four times more likely when there's an estrangement between father and son.

Infant mortality increases twice as likely, and drug and alcohol abuse increases to such a degree nobody can really tell me the percentage.

It's significant.

Most of us sons go through our lives and stagger because our fathers are imperfect.

And in fact, we often demand things from our dads that they're incapable of giving.

And here's why.

Now stay with me.

Here's why.

Because we have an innate sense that there's another father and he's perfect.

So think about that.

I mean, I'm a dad, and God has placed in the heart of man eternity.

We read that in Ecclesiastes 3.11.

He has made everything beautiful in its time.

He has also said eternity in the human heart, yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

So we're told that every son has within his heart, and daughter, but it's not your Sunday.

That was Mother's Day.

Every son has within his heart that there is a good, good father who's perfect.

but he can't quite find him.

And so he turns to his earthly dad every once in a while.

And sometimes, now, obviously, there are some dads that are better than others, but no matter how good dad is, he's still flawed.

And so sometimes a son will turn to his father and he'll feel abandonment, even though that's not the intention.

There's a great book, and it became a film called Blue Like Jazz.

And one of the characters ruefully observes that God has a major PR problem in referring to himself as a father because of the raw deal so many have gotten from their dads.

Listen to me, sons of the house.

Father wounds are real, but so is God.

Father wounds are real.

but so is God.

Some of you had horrible fathers.

Some of you had average fathers.

Some of you had really good fathers.

But where do they fit on the spectrum?

The father wounds are real, but so is God.

And I'm asking you to consider that the failures of our fathers, as hurtful as they were, actually offer evidence that fatherhood is indeed profound.

That there is a father who rather than wounds you, takes all your wounds on himself so that those wounds become the very thing that saved you.

You hear me?

So that there is a father rather than who wounds you, takes all the wounds you've gotten in your life on himself, and those wounds are turned around and end up becoming the very thing that saves you.

That the wounds of your father lead you to the reality of the existence of a great welcoming father who's placed a desire in you as a son of the house, the ultimate father who wants to have a deep, loving relationship with you.

And no matter where your father is on the scale, part of fatherhood is to drive you toward the ultimate father who will never turn his back on you.

I'm so sorry for your great loss and the pain it's caused.

I am, but sons of the house, listen to me now.

You have one of two choices.

Daughters of the house, let me throw you in here too.

you got one of two choices.

You can live as a victim for the rest of your life and you can weep over your father wound for the rest of your days, complaining and wallowing in what you did not get from your dad.

I'm not belittling it.

I am not.

I am not.

I know it's real and I know it goes down deep.

But if you don't, if you don't, move forward, and if you don't refuse the victim kind of mentality, then the enemy will keep the dagger in, and he'll twist it with every opportunity that arises.

Sons of the house, you either get the choice to be a victim, or you can let your pain drive you to the ultimate dad.

who you know is real, and who will never, never turn his face away.

Michael and I have awesome privilege of going to Africa.

We try to go at least once a year.

This year I couldn't.

Michael just got back.

But I don't think there will ever be an event that will have the impact on me in Africa as the Rwandan genocide.

And every time we go, I think, except for the last time, we always go to the genocide memorial to remind ourselves.

But what's amazing about Rwanda today is it's, man, it's amazing.

It's streets are clean.

There's a real unity in the country.

Foreign investors have come back in and the country doesn't look anything like it did just a few years ago.

and it experienced a genocide where a million Tutsis were slaughtered by the Hutu tribe with machetes.

But the president came in and decided the only way forward, the only way the country could be healed is not retribution.

They could line everybody up and slaughter the ones who were part of the slaughtering.

What would that do?

Create more tension, more war.

So what he decided to do is employ the reconciliation commission whereby you would be held accountable.

But if you were willing to sit across the table and confess your sin to the family that you slaughtered, you would be held to the children who were left behind.

If you were willing to confess, you would be sentenced, but you wouldn't be killed, and you would serve out that sentence with dignity, and when it was over, you would come back into the community.

It worked so well that people actually forgave one another, and now you have a functioning, healthy society.

I don't know of any story where we apply retribution or say you wounded me and I'm never going to forget it that brings healing to anybody, to any culture or any individual.

My Father's Day gift to you is first, don't become addicted to the wounds of the Father.

Don't become addicted to your Father wounds.

the father wound is is not a social construct people who don't suffer from it are probably as fortunate as they are rare but don't wallow in it there are entire ministries throughout the United States that deal with the father wound and I am glad it is bringing healing to a lot of men but if you're not careful you can become addicted you can trade one addiction for another you can say okay I've been I've been drinking too much.

I've been developing these coping mechanisms in my life so that I can forget the wounds of the past.

You can do that.

or you can turn and you can say, okay, I'm going to try to deal with it by doing this.

But the problem is if this becomes an addiction like that, then you're still just engaging in another coping mechanism.

And the coping mechanism sometimes is wah, wah, wah.

I'm sorry, that's the best technical word I could come up with.

that you're always wallowing in the past.

You know, I just did an interview with my buddy Frank Sontag, and he's with Kingdom Men Gathering. And he said, you know, my concern is that men all over the U.S.

are going to these boot camps, but here's the thing about boot camp.

You're supposed to go to boot camp and then go out into the army.

You're not supposed to make a living out of going to the boot camp.

And so be careful, be very careful.

Remember, there are two kingdoms in operation on the cross.

The father's love for us is the final victory.

He takes what is meant for evil and uses it for good.

Let me go back and say it again.

The father wound, I'm sorry.

I know it's deeper than I can probably imagine.

but it won't do you any good at all to wallow in it and become addicted to talking about it day after day after day.

The only thing that's ever going to heal you is to release it and to trust that God will take even that and bring a miracle.

As a matter of fact, one of the things that I began to see as a pattern of some of the men who have deep relationships with God.

There's a pattern of prolific writers who write about the fatherhood of God and have a deep relationship with God.

And you know what the pattern is?

They're estranged from their dads.

It's almost like if you struggle with your father growing up, that God hones in and says, okay, you're ripe for the taking here.

I am going to show you the fatherhood of God and you're going to see it like no one else because I'm the only father you got.

C.S.

Lewis, does that surprise you?

Prolific writer.

No one illustrated in detail the depth of God's love better than C.S.

Lewis.

And J.R.R.

Tolkien, Lord of the Rings.

No one wrote more effectively about God's battle as a father for his sons and daughters'hearts on planet Earth than J.R.R.

Tolkien, and yet estranged from his father.

I know if you're skeptic, you say, wait a minute, Jeff, are you suggesting that I thank God for the wounds from my father?

No.

Are you suggesting I pray that I have a bad relationship with my father so I can better understand God?

No.

I am compelling you to allow God to do what he does best, take a disadvantage.

Turn it into an advantage and use it for your good and his glory.

Allow your father wounds to drive you to the ultimate dad.

Recognize that your estrangement from your father and the feelings associated with it are just another testimony to the fact that you know in your heart things are not the way they're supposed to be.

and you yearn for your earthly father because your heavenly father is a present reality, fathers, sons of the house, if you play the role of victim where your father is concerned, you will perpetuate the wound and pass it down to your children and for generations to come.

Please don't think for a moment that I am belittling your pain.

Please don't do that.

Pastor Jeff doesn't take what happened to me.

Yes, I do.

But I don't know of any other option.

I don't know of any other thing that works.

Jesus said, part of my ministry, I came to set the captives free.

And you're captive.

to the wounds of your father, and you've spent your whole life trying to replace it with some other addiction that numbs the pain or takes your mind, time, and attention away from it.

You're never gonna get better until you give it to God.

Now you say, wait a minute, how can I give that to God?

Here's the second part of the sermon.

And my gift to Father's Day is a shorter sermon.

That's my gift to you dads.

Okay, see, amen, praise God.

I'm with you, brother.

here's how you do it.

Immerse yourself instead into the wounds of the son.

Now look at Jesus'response after the garden experience.

Matthew 26, put your sword back in its place.

Jesus said to him, for all who draw the sword will die by the sword.

Do you think I cannot call on my father?

Wow, and he will at once put at my disposal more than 12 legions of angels.

So Jesus said, Jesus is still employing his free will.

At any point, he can tell the Father, I don't want to do this.

Do you realize that?

Now, he would be in disobedience, but at any time.

Remember, Jesus said later on in Isaiah 53.

No, it's not Isaiah 53.

I'm trying to think of where it would be.

But there's some point in the Scripture, which I'll get to in a moment, where Jesus says, nobody takes my life from me.

I lay it down willingly.

Right?

I'll get to that in a moment.

It'll hit me.

And then in chapter 26, verse 62, then the high priest stood and said to Jesus, are you not going to answer?

What's the testimony that these men are bringing against you?

But Jesus remained silent.

The high priest said to him, I charge you under oath by the living God.

Tell us if you're a Messiah, the son of God.

And Jesus simply said, you have said so.

But I say to all of you from now on, you will see the son of man sitting at the right hand of the mighty one and coming on the clouds of heaven.

And then Matthew 27, he was accused by the chief priests and the elders, but he gave no answer.

Pilate even said, don't you hear the testimony they're bringing against you?

But Jesus made no reply, not even do a single charge.

Do you know why?

Do you know why suddenly after the garden, he has poise, peace, and perseverance in the midst of all this now?

Because now he knows this is the will of the Father and the will of the Father is more important to him than his own pain and suffering.

Isaiah 53 prophesied this hundreds of years.

He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth.

He was led like a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before its shearers is silent.

So he did not open his mouth.

Notice Jesus is realistic.

He's emotionally honest.

He's not putting on the happy face.

He says to the father, I don't want this.

Is there another way?

is there another way?

But in the end, listen now, there's trust and obedience and he says, not my will but yours be done.

Until you are truly convinced that the heart of God was broken by the father wounds you received.

but is intent on taking those and shaping and molding you into a person you never thought you could become.

You will hold on to it and you will chase addiction after addiction trying to numb the pain.

Jesus totally trusts the will of the Father.

You know what?

I think Jesus hoped for another way.

I think he said, man, let's do this.

I mean, I want to do it, but is it possible to do this a different way?

I think for a lot of us men, we look back at our families and women, and we say, man, couldn't there have been another way?

Couldn't my family have been different?

Couldn't my father have been different?

Yeah.

but the only piece of advice I can give you that makes any sense is get up, get over it, and get going.

You say, that sounds harsh.

The only alternative is that you wallow in it.

Lean into the wounds of the son and remember, you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you.

you have a God that loves you so much he was willing to give up his own son so he doesn't lose you.

Who can take all the disadvantages of your life and turn them into an advantage and use it for your good and his glory.

And who can, what is the message of the cross for crying out loud?

The message of the cross is man meant it for evil, God turned it for good.

So can't he do the same thing in your own life?

You know Elizabeth Elliot's story?

She and Jim gave up everything and went down to South America to preach the gospel to the Aqua Indians, cannibalistic tribe.

Jim was the top of his class at Wheaton.

He could have had any job he wanted.

He could have gone into finance and been a trillionaire.

You know, he's so sharp and clever, but he felt a call to go take the gospel.

And he recruited three other brothers to go with him.

They weren't there very long, but they were trying to make contact with Aqua Indians.

And finally, one day they were able to.

And when they did, one of the Indians ran Jim through with a sword, dead.

All of that sacrifice, so young.

his wife Elizabeth, if you know the story, went back to the tribe and ended up bringing those far from God near to God.

And here's what she writes.

I dethrone God in my heart if I demand that he act in ways that satisfy my ideas of justice.

It's the same spirit that taunted Jesus.

If you are truly the son of God, then come down from the cross.

there is unbelief.

There's even rebellion in the attitude that says, God has no right to do this, but God is God.

And if he is God, he's worthy of my worship and my service, and I will find rest nowhere.

But in his will, and his will is infinitely, measurably, unspeakably beyond my largest notions of what he's up to.

One of the reasons I like to travel to New Delhi, India, with Ajay Law is because I love saris.

Do you know what a sari is?

They are so beautiful.

My goodness, you know, I've never seen an ugly Indian woman.

The saris, I think, make them so much more beautiful.

And the saris, they're rich in silver and gold threads.

They're resplendent with an array of color and they're not even made with elaborate machinery.

It's all handmade.

And do you know how they're made?

Father and son team.

So the father sits on a platform above the son, surrounded by several spools of thread and the son has only one job.

to move the shuttle back and forth at the nod of the father's head.

Now here's the thing.

The son has no idea what design is going to eventuate.

Only the father has in mind the pattern.

But he submits to the will of the father, trusting that out of all this chaos, beauty, pattern, and design will emerge.

Can I tell you something?

Those of you who had the father wounds, you're a child of the living God.

You're loved so much that he turned his back on his own son so he would not lose you.

and he's absolutely committed to completing a good work in you until the day of redemption.

Please stop running from him.

Stop numbing the father wound.

Yes, deal with it.

Go into a spiritual boot camp, but then come out of it a man.

and lead your family and lead them well.

Don't become addicted to the father wounds.

Immerse yourself in the wounds of the son.

Can I tell you something?

Do I have time?

Yeah, I do.

You know, I am almost finished, but it's Father's Day.

It's Father's Day.

I can preach as long as I want to.

I'm a boss.

I'll be untied.

My father, I talk about my dad.

Will you give me five minutes to talk about my dad?

Because I still got, all right.

So my dad, great father.

But I, you know, people are always better when they're dead than they were when they were alive.

I mean, that's just the way it is, right?

And my dad had plenty of flaws.

And I got to tell you something my dad did.

This is my Father's Day gift to you fathers.

I've gotten into your heart.

Let me make you laugh a little.

Because my father, he's an interesting man.

And two things happened in my life that kind of scarred me.

But you know, I think it didn't scar me enough because I trusted the goodwill of my dad.

But there's some times he did things I didn't understand.

So one day he's coming home and we boys are out on the front porch waiting on dad to arrive.

And he comes down the hill.

Some of you have heard this.

He came down the hill that comes into our driveway and we noticed he would go a little then back up and then go a little more and back up.

And he was kind of doing this on the hill.

And we're all watching.

What is he doing?

So I ran out the road and he had hit a possum and he wanted to put it out of this misery.

So he kept running over it until it died.

Of course, we're watching this and it's hard to get the will over his head.

And so he keeps hitting the body and that poor thing is suffering.

And we're out there, Dad, we thought Dad was mean.

On another occasion.

My little brother Jody had a gerbil.

Do you remember the gerbils?

And he had the cage.

My little brother Jody loved this gerbil.

And about the same time he got the gerbil, my dad got his first 45.

And so my dad had it locked up.

And my brother's gerbil got out of the cage by accident and got into the rat poison.

And so it was kind of staggering.

And I remember seeing the look on my dad's face.

It was one of sadness and elation at the same time.

Because I remember my dad saying, oh, yeah, Jody, you're gerbil.

Jody's my youngest.

Gerbil got into some rat poison.

There's a pause.

And he was trying not to smile.

He said, Jeff, go get my gun.

What?

Go get my gun.

And my father took this gerbil out in the yard.

And you know, when you shoot a gerbil with a 45, that thing went fly.

It's like a flying squirrel.

It hit the gerbil.

That thing flew up in the air like 100 yards.

And I'm looking at my dad like, and my dad's kind of smiling.

And he said, Jody, it's the best.

I had to put you.

We don't want your gerbil to suffer.

Now, my dad did those two things.

And, you know, that kind of scarred me.

Man, my dad's crazy.

but here's the thing.

I think there are oftentimes your God either does something or allow something to happen in your life that you want to look at God and say, you're crazy.

But you know what?

I think the reason I stayed with my dad is because my dad had lived such a good life, and I knew he had my best interest in mind that I knew I could trust him.

Can I tell you something?

No matter what's happened in your life, you can trust him.

You know why you can trust him?

Because he gave up his own son.

For you.

When I was growing up, when I was growing up, I used to sing this song and my brothers and I also, what I haven't told you is my brothers and I sang with my mother, we would go at the fifth Sunday singing.

Anybody remember those?

So the fifth, every month that had a fifth Sunday, we had a, you go to church and there's just all these groups singing.

And my brothers and I sang with my mom.

She played the auto harp.

Do you might know what the auto harp is?

My mother played the auto harp.

My brother played the guitar.

My other brother played the bass.

And I was kind of...

I shared the lead vocals with my mom, and one of my favorite songs to sing was, How deep the Father's love for us, how vast beyond all measure, that He should give His only Son to make a wretch His treasure.

Remember that?

How great the pain of searing loss.

The Father turns his face away as wounds which marred the chosen one bring many sons to glory.

Isn't that a great song?

Fathers.

Fathers, come home now.

Come home to the Father.

It's time to stop running around blaming God.

Come home to a father who will never, ever leave you.

Father, thank you for your goodness and mercy.

And I pray in Christ's name that somehow this Father's Day weekend, our faith and trust in you would return.

And for those who suffer such a deep father wound, suddenly they will realize that part of the reason that's so deep is because at the core of the universe is fatherhood and they know there's something different.

So in this moment, in this time, I pray that fathers and mothers who've experienced that wound would step across the line, put it behind them, and run to the arms of a father who will take a disadvantage, turn it into an advantage, and use it for our good and his glory.

In Christ's name, everybody said, amen.

We hope you enjoyed today's message.

As you were hearing it, if there was any moment where you wanted to make a decision for Jesus or just wanted to get to know more about our faith journey, I want to encourage you to go to oneandall.church.com and from there, you will have all the resources for you and you will have us to guide you along the way.

And speaking of resources, we have...

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Well, we hope you have a great rest of your week and we'll end as we always do with one hope, one life in Christ.