 It's an honor to stand up here this morning and to teach the word with you all. For those who do not know me, like Pastor Caleb said, my name is Sean. I am one of the pastors here at Radiant Church. I actually want to, I have a picture of my family. I want to introduce them as well if they want to go ahead and put that up. But my, it's my wife Natasha in the center there. Incredible, beautiful wife. She's one of the worship leaders here at Radiant. Yeah, you can go ahead and give it up for her. She's amazing, beautiful. Yes, she does sing me to sleep every single night. And it's beautiful. I'm so thankful. Then I have our seven year old boy, Jackson. He's just like his mother and he's this brilliant, amazing little man. And then we have our four year old girl, Nora. She's just like me. So we thank God that she loves Jesus because she'd probably turn into a sociopath. So we are so thankful for her. So we moved here around five, six years ago from Kansas City. And we love it here in Michigan. We've really made our home here. We love the people that we've met. We've loved the nature, the water, the summers and even these like 16 month long winners that we seem to go through. And, you know, when we moved here, it was a January and I don't think the people in Kansas City understands the seriousness of like what we go through here. And apparently there's fluid that you need to put in our 27 foot moving truck to make sure it doesn't freeze. Which it did on the side of the road as we got here and the whole engine froze over and it was a multi hour long defrosting process with the service mechanic. And by the time we got to our new home, it was covered in about 18 inches of snow. And we thought, well, it's well over midnight now. We got in super late. Let's just go ahead and get our beds out and we'll shovel an unpack in the morning. So when we pulled our mattress out, it was a gel memory phone mattress that was basically frozen like a sheet of plywood. So we had to throw it into our bedroom, shut the door, crank the heat and hopefully within an hour or two, it defrost so that we could go to sleep that night. So the next day I started asking people around here. I said, you know, is this normal for winners here? This seems pretty intense. And they said, oh, no, no, no, no, no, this isn't normal. It's normally really beautiful. It's, this is pretty abnormal. I said, oh, okay, that's good to know. Over the next five years, I experienced the exact same winters. And I realized one thing about Michigan is that you're all lying to yourself. So, so at radiant, I do a lot of operational leadership, but at the core of my heart, I love teaching the word. Now, when I was 16 years old, that's when I started as a worship leader. And I thought I was going to be a worship leader honestly until the day I died. I was gonna be 90 years old, still strumming an acoustic guitar. And the Lord challenged me in my 20s to teach. And I thought, there's no way that I could do this. The Bible, it's too difficult. It's too complex. It's not for someone like me and my brain to be able to do. But after saying yes to the Lord, I discovered the opposite. The Bible, it's rich, but it's simple. It's written for all of us in this room to understand. It's not boring. We'll never exhaust the depths and the riches of it, but it's not too difficult. It's not for someone else to discover for you. You can understand the word and when you do, there is so much more for you. So I just wanna read a short passage just before we even get started at a Deuteronomy 30. It says, for this commandment that I command you today is not too hard for you. Neither is it too far off. It is not in heaven that you should say, who will ascend to heaven for us and bring it to us that we may hear it and do it? Neither is it beyond the sea that you should say, who will go over to the sea for us and bring it to us that we may hear it and do it? But the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and it is in your heart so that you can do it. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word that gives life. We thank you for your son Jesus who gave us access to your presence and we thank you for the Holy Spirit who reveals who you are. Open up our hearts to receive your word, amen. All right, take out your Bibles. Let's open them up to John 8. So we are in our Gospel of John series and this teaching specifically is focused around one of the I am statements of Jesus. Or in John 8.58, Jesus says, before Abraham was I am. So before we get to that section, I wanna read the surrounding text together because I believe it's so vital to understand what is being addressed when Jesus says this and what is being questioned by this statement. So there's three passages we're gonna read through. You can start at John 8, verse 12 and we're gonna read through these and there's three questions that are being asked in each of these passages. So starting in verse 12, Jesus's identity of who he is is being questioned. So in verse 12, it says, Jesus spoke to them and them are these religious leaders saying, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life. So these religious leaders, the Pharisees, they said to him, you are bearing witness about yourself, your testimony is not true. So essentially what they're saying is you're the one that's giving yourself that title. No one around you is backing that statement up. So by our law, it can't be true. Our law states you have to have two witnesses to establish truth. That's essentially what they're saying with this statement. So Jesus answers them, verse 14. Well, even if I do bear witness about myself, my testimony is true for I know where I came from and where I am going. But you do not know where I come from or where I am going. You judge according to the flesh and I judge no one. Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is true for it is not I alone who judge but I and the Father who sent me. In your law, it is written that the testimony of two people is true. I am the one who bears witness about myself, number one. And the Father, number two, who sent me bears witness about me. So we see here that Jesus is, he's distancing himself from their legal requirements but still in humility and in truth. He's still demonstrating submission and his own right standing but purely based not on their legal requirements but based on his identity. So he continues, so they said to them, therefore, where is your father? Or we can translate that as who is your father? Jesus answered, you know neither me nor my father. If you knew me, you would know my father also. And these words, he spoke in the treasury as he taught in the temple but no one arrested him because his hour had not yet come. So if you like to nerd out or maybe you study the Bible for fun, this is a fun little thing to study out is when it says these words he spoke in the treasury, I encourage you to, this is a significant phrase actually. Nothing in the Bible is just out of happenstance. And so actually, if you have some time, if you run out of shows to watch and you're kind of bored at night, just to kind of study out why is that significant? Hints about a festival. So there you go, give you a free little hint. Verse 21, so he said to them again, I am going away and you will seek me and you will die in your sin. Where I'm going, you cannot come. So the Jews said, here's their next question, will he kill himself? Since he says, where I'm going, you cannot come. So basically in their own self-righteousness, they assume that if Jesus is going somewhere that they can't go, he must be going to hell because they couldn't possibly mean that he is going to be with God in heaven. They know that, well, we're going to heaven so you must be talking about you're going to hell. This is how self-righteous they are. Verse 23, he said to them, you are from below, I am from above, you are of this world, I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sin for unless you believe that I am he, you will die in your sins. So they said to him, who are you? Jesus said, just what I have been telling you from the beginning. So so far, we're in John eight, none of this is new information. All through the previous chapters, Jesus spoke so much about who he was. He told different people, different crowds, religious leaders that he was the Messiah. He told them that his father was God, that his father sent him and that he was doing the father's will. So he continues, I have much to say about you and much to judge, but he who sent me is true and I declare to the world what I have heard from him. They did not understand that he had been speaking to them about the father. So Jesus said, when you've lifted up the Son of man, you will know that I am he and I do nothing of my own authority, but I speak just as the father has taught me and he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone for I always do the things that are pleasing to them. And as he was saying these things, many believed in him. So now we're starting to transition to this new passage, this new audience. When it says many believed in him, it's these crowds that are kind of watching this initial debate between Jesus and the religious leaders. So now Jesus turns his attention, it says to the Jews in verse 31. And these are these crowds that we're saying like, yeah, this guy, like, I love what he's saying. Like, I wanna follow this guy. This is awesome. Hey, we believe you, we're on your team. So these are the people, picture these people as we're starting into this next passage because now Jesus turns his attention to them and they start to defend their own identity. So Jesus said to the Jews who believed in him, if you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples. You will know the truth and the truth will set you free. So I like to, you know, this isn't, I don't think this is too blasphemous, but I like to picture that these, Jesus is speaking to these religious leaders and the Jews are kind of like almost like hype men. They're like, yeah, this is awesome. This is so great. And Jesus turns to them and says, hey, if you know the word, the word will set, the truth will set you free. And they're kind of like, are you talking to us? Like, no, do you know who we are? Like, we're not like those guys, we're different. And so he turns to them and says this and they answer them, we're the offspring of Abraham and we've never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you can say that we will become free? And so if you think about this, if you've read any verse in the Old Testament, you'll know that there's so much irony in this statement. The Jewish people have almost always been enslaved to someone. Physically, they were slaves in Egypt, they were slaves in Canaan, and they were slaves in Babylon, and God brought physical freedom to them, to the people who were enslaved due to their own sin. Spiritually, they were enslaved to idolatry and immorality. So even though Jesus is talking about spiritual freedom here, these Jews are believing that just their physical lineage alone by saying we are offspring of Abraham, that physical lineage alone is their righteousness or their very own right standing before God. And this is what Jesus is gonna continue to challenge as they defend this identity. So Jesus answers them, truly, truly I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. So he doesn't say that anyone who's committed to sin is a slave to sin. He's talking about practicing sin. That practice word could be defined as repeated, continuous, and intentional sin. So it's a very like I am continually the habit of doing this, but the sin that he's specifically talking about here is unbelief. So Jesus is making it clear the type of slavery and the type of freedom that he's referring to. So he continues, the slave does not remain in the house forever, the son remains forever. You have to think in this time slaves, they were sold and transferred at will. They didn't have any control over their identity or where they belonged, but a son could never be anything other than a son. So if the son sets you free, you will be free indeed. Now Jesus says this here, I know that you are offspring of Abraham, yet you seek to kill me because my words find no place in you. 38, I speak of what I have seen with my father and you do what you have heard from your father. So we start to shift language from offspring and lineage to now father and child relationship. So he agrees that yes, I know you come from this physical lineage of Abraham, but it begins to strike at the root of assurance by challenging that Abraham is not their real father. So they answered him, maybe you didn't understand us. We said that Abraham is our father. So they must think like this guy, we said he was smart and awesome, but I don't think he's all there right now. So Jesus said to them, if you were Abraham's children, now this is different when he said, I know you're the offspring. Here he says, well, if you were his children, you would be doing the works Abraham did. So Jesus begins to draw the line between how they're defining identity. He agrees that they're the physical offspring, that they carry his blood and his genes, but that doesn't mean that they are his children. So they're not following the ways of Abraham, who Abraham showed faith and trust and belief. So children, they follow and they imitate where orphans, they reject and they isolate. He continues, but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what your father Abraham did. You're doing the works your father did. So he's slowly peeling back that onion. He's like, if you were Abraham's children, you would do what he does, but you don't. You're rejecting truth. So you're embracing deception and you're seeking to kill me. You're embracing this murderous spirit. Abraham didn't do that, your father does that. So now they're starting to kind of think, they're starting to rise up in anger and they're starting to get defensive. And they said, well, we weren't born of sexual immorality. They're kind of jabbing at Jesus like, you were born of it, but we weren't. You have to think, Jesus has probably told them that I come from my father in heaven, but they know that he has a father on earth, Joseph. So you're like, well, you're the one that's got two dads, we don't. We have one father, even God. So they begin to appeal to someone higher than Abraham. They're starting to pull out every card they have to try to win this righteousness argument with Jesus. Jesus says to them, well, okay, if God was your father, you would love me because I came from him and I am here. I didn't come of my own accord. He's the one that sent me. So he's using the same argument. He's not changing things up. And he continues, why do you not understand what I say? It's because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father, the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. So Jesus, it's like, I think of it as like, he's peeling back that onion and then he takes his fist and just smashes the onion. He's like, see, this is who you are. This is your identity. He was a murderer from the beginning. He does not stand in the truth because there's no truth in him. And when he lies, he speaks about his own character for he is a liar and the father of lies. So this is heavy stuff, but he's not saying that they're the physical offspring of the devil. He's saying earlier that if you practice sin, you are a slave to sin. That's who you follow. Roman six backs this up. It says that we are slaves to what we obey. Whatever we practice and obey and say yes to, that's what we become a slave to. We're either slaves of sin or slaves of righteousness. They are following and imitating the way of lawlessness which leads to death. He continues in verse 45. Because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? Whoever is of God hears the word of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God. It's a little bunny trail here and trying to stick to my notes because man, I love stories in bunny trails. So I typically teach for two hours when I teach classes and I know I have 35 minutes. So I am like really like hyper focused in. So when it says whoever is of God hears the words of God and if you do not hear them, you are not of God. This statement should give you confidence. Your sin, your shame, your weakness and your brokenness, it does not hinder God's word and the power of his word in your life. Only your identity hinders that. And so if you are of God, you will hear the word of God. And if you don't hear it, then maybe you are not of God and that's what you challenge yourself in. That word here though, it's not just I'm hearing a voice that here means to listen and to obey. So it says that if you are of God, you will hear the word of God. It means that if you are of God, you will listen to it and you will obey it. So the grace that comes to walk it out actually comes with that identity. All right, bunny trail closed. So now we're entering into our final section here. We're landing the plane. Jesus has challenged them after his own identity has been questioned of who he is and who his father is. Now they start to defend who they think they are and who their father is. But Jesus then reveals their identity as you are following the ways of the devil and that's who your father is. So now these believing Jews who were kind of hype men of them, oh yeah, we love you, this is great. They rise in defense and now it's just kind of all shifted around and they answer him, are we not right in saying that you're a Samaritan and that you have a demon? So now look how these like turntables have turned now and these believing Jews are now saying that you're a Samaritan which is essentially this non-Jew half-breed and your demon possessed. So they went from really loving him to now just hating him. Jesus answers, I don't have a demon but I honor my father and you're dishonoring me. Yet I don't seek my own glory. There's one who seeks it and he is the judge. Truly I say to you, if anyone keeps my word he will never see death. So the Jews say to him, now we know you have a demon because we know that Abraham died and we know the prophets died but you're saying that if we keep your word that no one will die. Are you greater than our father Abraham? Are you greater than the prophets that came before us? Who do you make yourself out to be? Or we can say, who do you think you are? Jesus answers, he doesn't defend himself. He says, if I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It's my father who glorifies me of whom you were said earlier, he's our God but you have not known him. You don't know the father, I know him. Because if I were to say to you that I do not know him I'd be a liar like you are lying. But I do know him and I keep his word. Your father Abraham, he rejoiced in his faith and his obedience and his joy. He rejoiced that he would see the day of my coming. He saw and he was glad. So then the Jews, they just kind of throw everything at him. You are not even 50 years old. How have you seen Abraham? Basically, this is physically impossible and they're completely blinded to the truth that's being said to them. So Jesus says, verse 58, truly, truly I say to you before Abraham was I am. So here it is, this is the I am statement like the I am statement. When he says before Abraham was, he's talking about his pre-existence. I existed before Abraham. When he says before Abraham was I am, Jesus is referencing Exodus three. Moses asks in Exodus three, what is your name? Talking to God. God replies, I am who I am. So this is not just a small statement. He's claiming his divinity as God. So what was their reply? Verse 59, they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple. So they understood the power and truth of this claim and they rejected it as blasphemy, embracing deception and in a murderous rage. Okay, we're getting to our intro now. That was a lot of scripture, but I believe it's important to understand before we just say before Abraham was I am, what is Jesus talking about? There's a whole lot of stuff in that like thousands of verses we just read. Testimony, judgment, salvation, authority, freedom, sin, obedience, glory, but there's one important underlying current in my opinion, which is sonship and identity. There's a key question that they asked Jesus in verse 19. They say, who is your father? So much is tied up in that question and the answer to that question. In ancient times, who your father was meant way more than it does now. It was the core of who you are. It was the core of your identity and it was most likely what you were going to do for the rest of your life because you followed the ways of your father. He said in verse 14, I know where I came from and I know where I am going. Earlier in John 17, he says, my father is working and I am working. So Jesus wasn't some just singular anomaly that just arrives on scene to disrupt the status quo. He was actually following the ways of his father. So why is this important for us right now? Well, we live today in a society of fatherlessness. There's over 18 million or about 25% of children that are growing up in the homes of just America that do not have a father. Now we're not even talking about fathers in the home that are abusive or fathers in the home that are distant. Today, culture has distilled the concept of fatherhood to primarily genetics in a last name. For most of us, the question of who is your father can bring up pain, anger, apathy or just a shutting down of the heart and this divinely designed relationship that was created by God the father has been broken and children's rebel and fathers abandoned. And we have to ask ourselves, does this cultural and personal view of a father distort the way that we view God as a father or have we let society and our own unforgiveness place a filter over our eyes and over our hearts? Now today I wanna talk about this filter. When you come before the father, whether it be in prayer or worship or maybe even this morning as you're sitting here in church, how does he look at you? How do you perceive the way he sees you and thinks about you? What do you believe about him and what he says about us? The enemy, the deceiver, he wants you to see a father who is harsh, who's demanding, who's never satisfied with your efforts and he's frustrated with the rate of your spiritual growth. Now this filter, it affects how we see him, how we approach him and how we see ourselves. If we think God is annoyed with us, then we are gonna hide away from him just like Abinav did in the garden. We're gonna hide in shame and eventually with that constant shame, we're gonna grow tired of trying to please him. When we think our father has abandoned us, then we're gonna rebel from that sonship, just like orphans when I said that earlier, they rebel and they reject. We live like spiritual orphans. It's hard to realize that we're even viewing from this filter, let alone knowing how to correct this filter. It colors every idea and thought that you have in your mind and in your heart. Think about it this way as like you are wearing like those big yellow safety glasses that you would do if you're doing some work and you have them on and you can function in everyday life, you can do things, you can drive cars, walk your dog, but everything has this yellow hue to it. It literally colors and filters everything you take in. Now we all have a filter, we all believe this orphan mentality to some degree. Now it may only be 1% but that 1% is a poison and it'll seep in and it'll corrupt our mindset of how you answer the question, who is your father? Now you might think, well, I mean, I'm doing pretty good. 1% is not that bad, right? Well, let's think about it this way. Now I like to think that I'm actually a pretty decent cook. So let's say I come to you and I have this fresh baked tray of delicious brownies and I use just the greatest chocolates from around the world and it's a gooey center and it's crisp edges and I don't put nuts in there cause I'm not a maniac and I give you these brownies with a spoon and I might have offended a few of you just now and I say, hey, you right here, these brownies are all yours. You can have all of it, there's some ice cream in the fridge if you want as well, just a small FYI though. This morning I was mixing the batter, my window was open, a bird flew in and it pooped in the batter. Now I think I got almost all of it out but there still might be just a little tiny bit of bird poop in that batter but the rest of the brownies delicious. Now ask yourself, would you eat those brownies? Some of you would and you're disgusting. But that 1% of bird poop permeates through the entire brownie batter and it corrupts the final product. This is how aggressively and intentionally we need to picture the filter that we have of how we view the father. So how do we correct this filter? Well, step one was the hard one. That's what we just talked about. It's recognizing and revealing that we have a filter. Step two though, I gotta tell you is really easy. We just say what the Bible says over ourself. We're gonna read scripture, we're gonna repeat that scripture over us and then we're gonna remember it. So I wanna take some time just to look at some scripture. We're gonna specifically look at some scripture about the father and how the father views us. So we're gonna start song Solomon verse two, our chapter two. It says, let me see your works and let me hear of your great accomplishments. Though your voice to me is very tiring and you're very disappointing. Actually, no, it doesn't say that, does it? It says, let me see your face and let me hear your voice for it's sweet and your face is lovely. Song Solomon two though, I think it says his banner over me is my performance. Actually doesn't say that, it actually says your banner over me is love. Zephaniah three says he will tolerate me. Actually says he will rejoice over me with singing. Jeremiah 31, I have loved you with a conditional love. Depends on how you act today. Actually it says I have loved you with an everlasting love. Song 139, how annoyed are you with me? How little do you think about me? It actually says how precious are your thoughts? How vast is the sum of them? So we see over and over that the truth in scripture is that God loves you. He's not annoyed by you. He's not bored with you and he is not angry with you. So we're gonna look at some more scripture here. I love reading scripture. We've already seen that. We've read half the Bible so far this morning. So it's great. Exodus 33, Moses says to the Lord, please show me your glory. So how do we define glory? We might look at it as power, his might. God show me something that's gonna blow me away. So what does God say to Moses? He says, I will make all my goodness pass before you. I will proclaim my name. I will be gracious and I will show mercy. So Exodus 34 is when God finally passes before him and does he proclaim how awesome, how powerful, how mighty is he? No, what he says is I am the Lord, a God merciful, a God gracious, I'm slow to anger and I'm a bounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. This is who he is. Psalm 51, it doesn't say that I need your sacrifice. I need your works and accomplishments. I need you to prove yourself to me. What it says here in Psalm 51 is I don't delight in a sacrifice. I am not pleased with burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. This broken and contrite heart, I will not despise. My favorite scripture here, Matthew 7. I love this chapter here. Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be open to you. For the everyone who asks receives and the one who seeks finds and the one who knocks it will be opened. For which one of you, if his son asks for a bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask? We can go on and on reading scripture about the truth of who God is and the father and our identity as him as our sons and daughters. It is crucial for us to not only know this in our mind but to believe it in our heart. The reason is because as we've read earlier with the religious leaders we could actually have a believing mind but an atheistic heart. We could have a mind that thinks it's adopted but the heart of an orphan. So I wanna sit on this mindset just for a second of the father-child relationship. So I mentioned earlier that I have a son who's seven, he's actually sitting here in the front row with us and he's this brilliant boy. He's funny, he's smart. He has every fact memorized about every animal in the world and can remember every detail and he's this amazing, funny kid but he's still a seven-year-old child and I can't expect him to be perfect, flawless or have no weakness. He can't operate at that level yet. He lacks the maturity and the discipline to respond in loving obedience. So on the flip side I don't just allow him to stay though in that place of immaturity but I and just wait for him to finally mature enough before connecting with him or finally approving of him. So what do I do? I look at these two sides and I have to decide I meet him where he is. I work with what he has and what he knows as a seven-year-old boy. He doesn't have the years of experience or mistakes that he's learned that like his father does. He doesn't have years of relationship with the Lord like his father does. I can't expect the same decisions from him that I would expect for myself and when I correct him he only has a limited scope and I have to help him and only what he understands. But I don't just stay in that place though. I have to take it one step further. So as a father through my experience and through my life in the Lord I see him for what he can become and I see him years from now in full maturity. So I call him forward. I coach him knowing that he's not gonna stay where he is forever but that does not mean that when he grows that he'll be more accepted or more loved. So this leads us to this next phase of answering the question who is your father? If we have an incorrect view of God then we most likely have an incorrect view of ourselves. If we see God as this angry taskmaster and not as a loving father then we're not gonna view ourselves as sons and daughters but as orphans and slaves. This assurance of God enjoying us is one of the primary emotional needs of all humans. We could have this right view of God but if we don't see ourselves rightly it could be just as damaging. That 1% could be just as toxic. So we all here even 1% tend to view ourselves through a filter of our negative emotions. We might measure our success by our failures. We might measure our maturity by our own sin or measure our acceptance by our reputation. We will focus primarily on the negative swirl of our depression, our addiction, our shame, our anger, our fear. The enemy like we mentioned earlier he wants to drive you away from the Lord by making you feel like you're too broken or too weak. That your sin is too great and it defines the whole of who you are and that you need to hide from the father in shame and he doesn't wanna hear your voice. We need to replace that distorted filter. Now we need to replace it with a filter of the lens of grace and the lens of the cross. Why is that? Well, this is how God looks at us. God views us through this lens. So why should we do anything different? When he looks down at you right now no matter how you feel he sees the blood of Jesus covering you and your weakness. He sees what Jesus did on the cross and that moment defines your identity. Now just because that's how God sees us your mind is not yet renewed. It hasn't caught up yet and you're still living like you're an orphan. You may be uncertain of where you stand. You're not sure if God delights in you or if he actually enjoys you. Conceptionally, technically I know he does. Yeah, I know God loves me but do you feel the power of it in your heart? Now I have two sisters who were adopted from the foster system and the eldest one she came from a very broken home. She wasn't guaranteed a meal. She didn't own a toothbrush. She was surviving day by day. I remember the court day where the judge declared her a child in a new home with a new family and it was instant and it was final and it was complete. She was officially a daughter and a family that loved her. But even though she heard this truth and she conceptually knew it in her mind that does not mean that she believed it. She still struggled with abandonment. She struggled with orphan mentality and she still felt unworthy of love. She had to war against the accusation and choose to believe the truth that she was a daughter and a family who loved her. Think about it, if someone's been tied up as a prisoner for years and years and you just cut them free, they don't just immediately return to normal life. There's trauma that has to be healed. There's even new muscle memory that has to be relearned. But here is the good news. God is not put off by that. This is what he wanted from the beginning, communion. He created Eden to commune with us. Jesus died on the cross for a purified bride and the Holy Spirit gives us strength and grace and freedom so that we can walk in that new identity. So let's recap here. The question that I asked you all this morning is who is your father? Now the answer to that is who do you follow? How you answer that question will be determined by the filter that is over your eyes and over your heart. Is it a filter of an orphan spirit or is it a filter of grace through the cross? So three steps, how do we correct this filter? So step one is hard. You recognize and reveal. There's a mindset, a filter. Step two, it's the scripture part. We read, we repeat and we remember every single day. So step three is what we're gonna do now, prayer. We renounce the old and we receive the new. All of this should push us to prayer. This confidence in our identity, it produces relationship. Hebrews four, it says, let us with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in our time of need. Ephesians continues in chapter three in whom we have boldness and access so that we can approach him with confidence through our faith and identity in him. So how do you do this? Well, you take those small chunks of scripture and you bring them to the Father in prayer and you say, I struggle with this. Even 1% I struggle here. And it's hard for me to believe this, help me. Here is my heart, Lord. And allow the Father to dismantle every lie that is formed in your heart. You renounce the old and let him speak truth over you and we receive the new.