11-3-04

Isa 26:3  People with their minds set on you, you keep completely whole, Steady on their feet, because they keep at it and don't quit.

·        We don't have answers to everything.

 

III. Our Father

 

Mat 22:37-40  Jesus said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.  (38)  This is the first and great commandment.  (39)  And the second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  (40)  On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.

·        The great commission is born out of the great commandment.  Without the second commandement the first is meaningless and without the first the second is impossible.

 

1Jo 4:20  If anyone says, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar. For if he does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?

 

·        Phileo: "Represents tender affection. It is an unselfish love, ready to serve."

 

·        Love prompted by sense and emotion.  Means to love in the sense of being friendly, to delight in or long for, and to love to do or do with pleasure.

 

·        Agape: "It expresses the deep and constant love and interest of a perfect Being towards entirely unworthy objects, producing and fostering a reverential love in them towards the Giver, and a practical love towards those who are partakers of the same, and a desire to help others to seek the Giver."

 

·        The definition of Phileo and Agape from Vines Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words.

 

1. Fathers provide the source of personal identity.

 

1Jo 3:1  Behold what manner of love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God. Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.

·         When we come to the Father we discover who we are because we know whose we are.

 

2. Father provides a home.

 

3. Fathers provide security.

Joh 10:29  My Father who gave them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to pluck them out of My Father's hand.

 

4. Fathers provide training

 

Heb 12:7-11  God is educating you; that's why you must never drop out. He's treating you as dear children. This trouble you're in isn't punishment; it's training,  (8)  the normal experience of children. Only irresponsible parents leave children to fend for themselves. Would you prefer an irresponsible God?  (9)  We respect our own parents for training and not spoiling us, so why not embrace God's training so we can truly live?  (10)  While we were children, our parents did what seemed best to them. But God is doing what is best for us, training us to live God's holy best.  (11)  At the time, discipline isn't much fun. It always feels like it's going against the grain. Later, of course, it pays off handsomely, for it's the well-trained who find themselves mature in their relationship with God.  -From the Message

 

• A parent who cares shows disciple.
• For willful disobedience, child receives a spanking.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

IV. The Father's Pursuit of His Lost Children

 

1. Created as image bearers

 

Perfect reflections, perfectly reflecting their Creator.

 

Gen 1:26  And God said, Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the heavens, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over all the creepers creeping on the earth.

• We bear God’s image.  Then we have dominion over all creatures.

 

Gen 2:18  And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.

• First time God said that something wasn’t good.

 

• Must fall asleep in God’s arms and allow God to wake the person up for the individual God wants them to be with.

 

• The great commission began with Adam and Eve to make image bearers that would fill the earth.

 

 

• God made us upright beings so that we can look up to HIM.

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

Pre-Fall

 

The Careforce Mirror – Allan and Helen Myer

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. The image is distorted

 

Post-fall

1Co 15:45-49  And so it is written, "The first man, Adam, became a living soul," the last Adam was a life-giving Spirit.  (46)  But not the spiritual first, but the natural; afterward the spiritual.  (47)  The first man was out of earth, earthy; the second Man was the Lord from Heaven.  (48)  Such the earthy man, such also the earthy ones. And such the heavenly Man, such also the heavenly ones.  (49)  And according as we bore the image of the earthy man, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man.

 

• Jehovah witnesses believe that Jesus was a created being.  This proves them wrong.

 

3. We are called to live as image bearers

 

Two important truths from Pandy the baby doll.

 

Truth #1 – We are all rag dolls.

·        Flawed, wounded, broken and bent.

 

Truth #2 – We are God’s rag dolls

·        He knows all about our raggedness, and he loves us anyhow.  Our raggedness is no longer the most important thing about us.

 

Raggedness is not your identity.

Raggedness is not your destiny.

We may be unlovely, but we are not unloved.

 

V. Healing For the Mother Wound

 

·        “We cannot and will not rest until our hearts find their rest in God.” –Augustine

 

1. Reasons we struggle to sit at his feet

 

1.1  Our culture values ‘doing’ over ‘being’.

·        “We cease to be the bride of Christ, instead we often run around like manic bridesmaids, racing around to do much for Him, while ceasing to be with Him.”

 

1.2  The impact of how we were parented

·        Because our parents were not perfect our intimacy with God has been affected in one way or another.

·        The mother’s touch brings healing and strength to the children.

·        God was meant to come to us through our parents.

·        Mom’s give a sense of being. Dad’s give a sense of identity.

 

2. The mother wound and its causes

·        A mother wound is any wounding, pain or negative effects in your life, which relates to what you did or didn’t experience through your mother.  It can be intentional but more often than not it is unintentional.

 

2.1  Deprivation or lack of mothering, which leads to a sense of abandonment.

a)      Mother physically absent

b)      Mother emotional absent

 

2.2  Pain and abuse caused by the mother.

·        Most mothers did the best with what they had, but because of the nature of our society and because of the needs in their own lives they sometimes unwittingly caused pain or problems.

·        What the mother thinks and experiences during pregnancy, the womb can carry these things over to the baby.

 

2.3  Failure to protect the child

 

2.4  Engulfment

• Over mothered or smothering by the mother.  Fear in mother’s life and unmet needs in the mother’s life.

 

3. Results of abandonment

 

3.1  Separation anxiety

• No sense of being separate from the mother. Mother was every where.

 

3.2  Abandonment depression

• Constant state of isolation bc they are going to leave anyway.

 

3.3  Deprivation neurosis

• Compulsive need to touch bc wasn’t shown appropriate affection from the mother.

 

4. God is the source of all being

·        God wants to meet us in our abandonment, fear and anxiety. He wants to release us from these deep inner wounds and touch us with His love.

 

Act 17:28  For in Him we live and move and have our being, as also certain of your own poets have said, For we are also His offspring.

 

Isa 49:15  Can a woman forget her suckling child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yes, they may forget, yet I will not forget you.

 

 

·        Look at creation. The quartz crystal vibrates 9 billion times per second. So God can listen to every Christian at the same time.