 Good morning! The courageous ones are here. Gideon's Army. So this morning we're gonna do two things. I'm going to give a presentation on coming home to the Father and then we're gonna have some time for you to give testimonies. And I hope that you'll want to give glory to God for what He did for you or what you received. My first book that I was pushed to write was called The Older Brother Returns. It was just about how I had discovered after 15 years of believing I was the prodigal son come home I had discovered that I was also the older brother and how I needed not just to deal with the external sins but the internal sins the sins of the heart. And that kind of laid the foundation for for unbound to come forth like 10 or 12 years later. It's just being able to understand my own heart and others. And then unbound exploded and I've written a couple children's books that float out of that. I've written Resisting the Devil, a Catholic perspective on deliverance because because unbound was a practical guide and I wrote along with my son the guidebook which is really for leaders and just developing those for those who are learning to minister to others. And and all along the way ever since I wrote Unbound there was another book in my heart and that book was about the Father. As you know the fifth key is about the Father's blessing but there was something in me that just said it's not enough. It didn't express enough of what was in me and I just felt this credible need to to write about the Father. And I didn't really I don't have another book in mind. I don't plan on writing another book so it's kind of the book ends as the Older Brother Returns and Abba's Heart. And now God might shift and give me something to write but I but to me this is the finishing word. So I'm going to speak today about Abba's Heart under the title of come home, coming home to the Father. And I believe that many of you have been doing that all week. Actually I believe you've been doing that all your life but it's a message that is is critically needed I believe in the church today. As someone surrenders to Jesus and confesses him as Lord embraces their faith the dynamic work of the Holy Spirit is released. We prayed last night about the cry of the Spirit being released in our hearts crying out Abba Father well that cry is released and a lot of people don't know how to fully release it. I believe that that work that the Holy Spirit's doing to release that cry and bring us to the Father is the is a way of understanding all the sanctifying work that he does in us to make us holy and to continue to bring us into the fullness of what it means to be children of God. And he does that by revealing the Father to us and drawing us into the Father's heart. So no matter how much you have received or how much I have received over the years a revelation of the Father I know there's always more. Every disciple goes through a season and and some of the seasons we've been through you've been through I've been through is where the Holy Spirit is emphasizing Jesus or emphasizing a relationship with the church or with his mother or the emphasis shifts and then there's seasons when he's going to emphasize what it means to be in relationship with the Father. So I want to I want to look at some of my conversion and ongoing conversion in terms of coming home to the Father. We all have a longing for home. I remember the first time I came home from college I had not been away from home for four months ever in my life and when I came home nobody was in the house and I I just kind of walked around and I just looked at I remember looking at an ashtray and it just brought memories to me and I looked at a picture on the wall and in the living room couch and I was just taking it all in. What all these things represented to me and spoke to me of is they just spoke to me of of home. It's it's those familiar things that just kind of said this is home this is the place where I belong and that's what home is it's the place where you belong it's the place where we're known it's the place where we know others it's the place where we're able to be ourselves and that's the place we find rest. Now none of us grew up in a perfect home and many of you grew up in a home that was not happy or it wasn't even safe but we're still longing for a place called home. This is how we were made. God placed us in families so that we could come to know our true identity as children of the eternal Father in whose heart is our true home. God placed us in families so we could know the Father. In Ephesians chapter 3 15 the apostle Paul tells us that every family in heaven and on earth derives its name from the Father. The very nature and meaning of the family has its source in God the Father. It was intended that the Father would be revealed to us in families but because of sin families have been can't come a place for us for many of us with a goodness of the Father has been hidden from us. So what was what was meant to reveal the Father has become because of sin a place where the Father is obscured and hidden. Saint John Paul the second said a regional sin attempts to abolish fatherhood destroying its rays which permeate the created world placing in doubt the truth about God who is love and leaving man only with a sense of master-slave relationship. The power of sin working in our midst continues to obscure the Father and to obscure our true identity as His children. Sin leaves us acting like orphans and slaves. Many of you many of you might have received ministry yesterday might have renounced an orphan spirit. I know a lot of times when I I talked to people they grew up in families of 10 12 did you ever feel like an orphan? Oh yeah I did didn't make any sense to me I remember one one girl said oh my brothers and sisters used to tell me I was adopted and and one time I went to my my my mom about it and she said I had eight other kids you think I'd adopt you but it was like these these scenes of insecurity and then we're just spoken and it's like it's just like it's another way of saying I don't know why but I just don't belong I just don't feel like I belong everybody else seems to belong I don't belong or everybody else seems to connect with dad but I don't spirit of fatherlessness so the enemy is always trying to rob us of our relationship and the potential for intimacy with God the father so even though many people who we have encountered many people that have encountered Jesus and had a great powerful encounter with the Holy Spirit like we did last night and yet the father remains distant and hidden and sometimes there's a fear of the father he's the judge of the Old Testament he's waiting to catch me in my sin and to punish me for any little thing and and maybe close the door of heaven to me I had one nationally known Catholic leader say to me I'm okay with Jesus but the father he scares me we may look to Jesus and and press into him for for mercy and love and forgiveness but like like we just keep pushing the father back or or we've never allowed the father himself to come close to us now on the other hand there's others that perceive the father in the way that they want him to be this twisted idea of the father that is based on maybe how their father was or some imaginary person where the father is just he's my daddy and he will do whatever I want him to do and if he doesn't do what I want him to do I'll be mad at him and I'll give him a piece of my mind and so there's this faith is the grace filled response to revelation what is the revelation of the father that we're responding to or is it not revelation just imagination it's a deep longing in all of us to know the father in fact the very spirit of God is working in us now crying out for us to know the father but sometimes sometimes he remains distant to some of us and sometimes sometimes just saying the word father gets stuck in our throat or we say father but it has no significance no meaning oh we say you know we pray in the liturgy to the father and we pray the our father and yet there's no personal connection for it now speaking to some of you I'm in one way I'm speaking to you as those that are proclaiming this message and and the people in the pews need to hear this message but I'm also speaking to you as like in relationship to the father there's always more because that's the work of Jesus within us to bring us to the father a question we can ask ourselves or I would like to ask you is can we find freedom apart from a relationship with the father can we find freedom apart from a relationship with the father now I know that God's grace works wonders with in your heart no matter what the obstacle and he can in a real way bring incredible freedom but there's another answer to that question which is no we can't because of who we really are so let me let me just in John chapter 8 verse 32 Jesus said to those that believed in him this is to those who believed in him if you continue in my word you truly be my disciples and you know the truth and the truth will make you free all truth sets us free but there is a hierarchy of truth and the greatest truth that reveals man to himself is the father son and Holy Spirit in this if this verse is quoted out of context we missed the deep deeper meaning of what Jesus is saying the deeper point that he's trying to make because in verse 27 before he set broke this these words he said it says they did not understand that he spoke to them about the father he was speaking about the father and then he says if you continue in my word you will know the truth and the truth will make you free they could not see they did not understand we are his children that's who we are it's the freedom of the sons and daughters of God in 1 John 3 1 it says see the love the father has lavished on us that we should be called the children of God and that is what we are he is a good father who loves to care for his children in Matthew 7 9 to 11 it says if you then though you are evil know how to good give give good gifts to your children how much more will the father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him he is a good father but many have been deceived actually all of us have been deceived in the garden we have we had intimacy with the father and we walked with him in the cool of the day and just remember remember you were in Adam you we walked with him in the cool of the day and he entrusted everything to us and we trusted him and then the tempter came along with the fundamental lie that still grips us today the fundamental lie is God is not a good father and he can't be trusted we swallowed that lie through sin and it made a home in our fallen nature and we have been bound by a twisted perception of God ever since Jesus came to break the power of that lie to set it straight to reveal the father and to be himself the pathway the way home to the father's heart we're told in 1 and John 1 18 no one has ever seen God the only son who is in the bosom of the father he has made him known another translation says referring to the son who is in closest relationship with the father so Jesus who is in the bosom of the father he is the one that is making the father known and we can grow up calling God father and thinking of him in terms of father but if you want to know him there's only one way to know him and that's to know him through the son who comes from the bosom of the father is in closest relationship with the father who is the very son of the father who makes him known and the good news is that he's going to continue to make him known John 17 25 and 26 righteous father Jesus says righteous father the world does not know you but I know you and these that you have sent me I have made you known to them and I will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them that I myself might be in them and I will continue to make you known the spiritual life is I mean you have much more wisdom about the spiritual life than I do but I just understand it from this perspective in a simple way Jesus is making the father known and is revealing my heart and exposing my heart so I can receive the love of the father through the son this is his commitment to you as you go forth from here and and some of you have to stand on what you renounced say yeah I'm not gonna let that in again I'm making my stand I'm gonna stand on it but every one of us needs to have that confidence the father is going to continue Jesus is going to continue to make the father known to me and what it means to be free and what it means to be a son Pope Benedict the 16th wrote this Jesus's communion with the father is the true center of his personality without it we cannot understand him at all and it is from this center that he makes himself present to us today if we're holding back from the father I can't relate to the father my father was this I it just I can't make that leap God's not demanding you to make a leap you can't make but if you just cut it off and say Jesus Mary Holy Spirit that's enough for me we're cutting ourselves off from Jesus you want to be a disciple of Jesus you want to live like Jesus you need to live in relationship to the father he only did with the father he saw the father doing he only said what the father was saying and and it's in this dynamic that we have been invited to enter in it's the only way to really understand Jesus but enter into this relationship with the father Pope Benedict says we can't understand him at all because it's at from this center that he makes himself known to us and still today Jesus said if a man loves me he will keep my word and my father will love him and we will come to him and make our home with him the father and the son have made their home in us and invites us to make our home in him so the question is how is it that the father can be remain hidden especially from those of us who have embraced our baptism have received them well we're going to give you two reasons one reason is how the father has been misrepresented to us we carry father wounds and mother wounds and we need to be set free from those bondages because they twist our idea our understanding of our loving heavenly father the need to know the father is universal as a matter of fact the my passion to write Abba's heart whom which i wrote with my son Matt which is glorious that a father and son would write a book together and but my passion is because we were teaching about the father's blessing in countries throughout the world and in many places it was the father's blessing there was everything they never heard anything about it they never heard anything like it they never had any idea of the true love and compassion of the father it's true in this country but it's universal because the spirit of god is within us working to draw us into intimacy with the father and there's going to be times in your life maybe it's now maybe it's next maybe it's next month but there's going to be times in your life you're going to you realize there's an absence and the father is drawing near and he wants you to draw near to him the second reason is knowing the father through the son is a lifelong process John's gospel is a special gift perhaps 30 years after the synoptic gospels were spread widely there was another gospel that needed to be written one that came out of the experience of the youngest disciple living life longer than all the others as John grew spiritually and in his understanding and his reflection he had married the mother of Jesus under his care to guide him they together had time to reflect to remember to share together about the intimacy Jesus had with the father and how he was inviting them into the relationship so when you read the gospel of John think about John's heart just inviting you in to this relationship with the father a real moment was when Thomas and Philip asked Jesus to show him the way to the father so I kind of picture it this way Jesus is is is saying I'm going to go prepare a place for you I'm going to go ahead of you and you know the way that I'm going and I imagine the disciples speaking to each other he says saying there he goes again he's talking he keeps talking about the father do you see the father do you see I don't see him Jesus sees him I don't know what he's talking about now he's going he's going to go away and he's going to prepare a place for us in the father's house and there's going to be many rooms there I don't know what he's talking about so Thomas who represents what part of our personality says Lord we don't know where you're going show us the way give me directions tell me what to do Jesus says to him I am the way the truth in the life no one comes to the father but through me if you'd know me you would have known my father also henceforth you would know you know him and have seen him imagine Thomas with that answer I just asked he's going someplace I just want directions so then you have Philip from another part of our personality and from who we are he he cries out for all of us and he says he said Lord show us the father and then we'll be satisfied John gave us that prayer it's yours Lord show us the father and then we'll be satisfied may the may God give us a hunger may he even frustrate us like Thomas and Philip so that we cry out from a deeper place in our heart to receive what God wants to give us so now I'm going to share a little bit about my personal journey of how that frustration came in and his response two years after I encountered the Lord I I was baptized in the spirit in 1970 and two years later I was in this dry place wondering where where Jesus was and he seemed far away and I was laboring and I was facing discouragement and and I went through an inner healing and I experienced forgiveness of of my father and and a restoration in the family and so that was really the beginning and opening in in my heart and and then I was staying with some people and and this this man was over at the house and he was talking about God and they were into theology and he was talking about God and he just kept saying he just kept referring to God as father over and over again he said father this father that father this and I'm there thinking I don't know if he knows Jesus I mean this spirit is the spirit of Jesus I think he's just talking about the father and I don't think he knows this Jesus and then this thought crossed my mind the father's second best and as soon as that thought came through my mind I realized oh something is wrong here I knew that wasn't true but that was what was coming out of my heart was a protest because I didn't know the father he was talking about something I didn't know exposed my heart and that's when I went off and and received ministry and and and that's when I I was led to through an inner healing model I was basically led to forgive my father and the forgiveness wasn't so much based on bad memories because I was that was all blocked out I just didn't have them I loved honored my father but it was what wasn't given what wasn't there the absence to not being there needed to be resolved but it needed to be exposed before it could be dealt with my father had long since passed away but the Lord began to just restore my love and my sense of belonging through that time of forgiveness but there's a number of other points I'd like to share with you on my journey back to the father I remember one good Friday my eyes being opened I was meditating on the crucifixion of Jesus and we were reading about his suffering and it was pierced for our transgressions and I could clearly see behind the crucified Christ I could clearly see the father's broken heart and now when I and since that time I see the father all the time behind the son or through the son another significant thing that happened was my first born son I had my son was born my first born and when I became a father I realized that I didn't know how to be a father but I figured it this way I said if I could only learn to be a son then I would know how to be a father and so I pressed in to wanting to live as a son of the eternal father and it's I think it's the same for you how am I to be a father to my parishioners be a son press in to your sonship press in the relationship with the father and then your spiritual children will experience his fatherly love come through you because we're all inadequate we can only give what we received 1986 I was delivered of a spirit of rejection that opened up whole new levels of trust and confidence many years after that I went on this personal silent retreat I just borrowed somebody's shore house I went down there to be by myself to be with the Lord it was my my pain and my desolation that led me there wasn't getting any better I just felt really alone I wanted to go home I was talking to God but he was silent then I went for a walk on the beach and I began to talk to God again but this time it went deeper I was alone on the beach it was late fall and I expressed my deepest needs to God and I said I basically said this God I don't understand why it is so hard and I said this out loud why am I so empty where are you and then as I began to speak the concerns and the words changed and I spoke from the memories of my dad my father died more than 20 years earlier and it's actually his death led to my conversion but now on the beach I found myself saying I don't understand dad why you weren't there for me as a boy and I don't I don't know why I didn't know you and as I spoke these kinds of things tears came to my eyes tears that I didn't shed at the funeral or after emotions that I was unaware of were coming up and I began to grieve the loss of my father at a new level because I faced it in relationship to my own heart you know when a parent dies it's like whatever you were missing it seems like it's final as long as they're alive you think well maybe I can get it maybe I'll get that thing that I've always wanted even if I don't know what that thing is and then they die and it's like it's done and we need to grieve we need to grieve the loss of what wasn't said wasn't spoken wasn't happened so I was grieving his loss and as I expressed my pain I began to say dad would you forgive me for all the years of rebellion and I repented for withdrawing my heart and for my selfishness making it so hard for him to love me or to reach me and then I spoke forgiveness and I found peace and then I sensed the heavenly father's presence and in my mind as you know I get pictures a lot so in my mind I had this this image of my father who he loved the ocean I just had a picture of him walking out into the sea he wasn't he was like almost walking on the water but it's like floating kind of just out there and as he as he left he was waving and then he went like this and I knew what he was saying I knew what it meant and then we've come to the completion of this chapter and you're gonna do it I'm proud of you I'm with you I'd leave you with the lord or different impressions that came to me so years later as I understood and began to understand the father's blessing and we pray in the fifth key is the father's blessing I was receiving the father's blessing this is a memory of my father saying and communicating that which which had been lacking God has encounters for all of us because the heavenly father wants to break in and he wants to fill the empty place wherever you did not receive the words of affirmation your father didn't bless you didn't say words maybe didn't bless your priesthood maybe held back in your choice maybe there's a whole host of things that sometimes we carry that we just need to bring to the Lord we need to forgive renounce the lies and say father I need to hear from you I need your blessing I need your words I need to hear your whispers and I'm going to trust in your whispers and I'm going to trust it that I can hear your voice and receive it and maybe you'll get a brother or sister to pray with you and speak the father's blessing over you and and those words can penetrate your heart and change everything because you know the lack that you've been living under was just a lie was just a deception of the enemy it was just a small story not the bigger eternal story of which Jesus has broken out of it into your story to bring you home to the father so now for me and I think I might have mentioned this but the three titles for Jesus that are most significant for me as he was introduced as Savior and Lord and Son for me the Son always meant when I read the Son of God I said oh he's God that means Jesus is God that's true but from now from now the Son means the Son has made his home in me he dwells in me and I have an ongoing relationship with a father as I identify with the Son so I'm just going to take a few minutes now to reflect on the heart of the father and the place of star I'm just going to talk about the product of the two sons and then his final words to us Jesus tells us of a father who lost his two sons one is an open rebellion and the other is withdrawing his heart one ran off rejected him basically saying you are dead to me the other focused on fulfilling his outward duty he was doing what he was supposed to do but he abandoned his father through resentment judgment and bitterness Jesus reveals in this parable the broken heart of God the father pleading for his children to return he runs out to the product when the product turns to him he goes to his the older brother who's heart is heart and he pleads him to enter into the celebration I cannot imagine the pain of losing a child I have four sons and 14 grandchildren and from time to time I minister to people who's who's lost a child to death suicide drugs you read in the paper about children that are kidnapped disappeared stolen just stolen never to come home perhaps you've experienced it in your life in your family life or perhaps you've experienced it through people that are close to you in your parish and you you've seen this incredible agony sometimes children's minds are twisted through drugs or mental illness and the memory of their love has been robbed of your love for them a parent's love for them and and the parent becomes the object of their wrath and their hatred and they blame their parent for all the the suffering and and you've been unjustly blamed for every problem in people's lives but the more you can perceive that the more you can understand the father the father see the eternal father lost his children in the garden they were stolen kidnapped and he will do anything to get them back they were sentenced to death and he will take their death sentence on himself through his son he will suffer their pain pay the greatest ransom ever paid for their release when they come home he will heal their hearts and restore their memory of his goodness he will give them hearts of flesh and he will put a new spirit in them that cries out to him for intimacy and affection Abba father this is the father's heart towards us yet we saw it differently this is the father standing in the garden as we were sent away to live out the the consequences of our choice but when humanity left the garden of his delight they lost sight of his goodness the human perception of God was twisted not based on revelation but based on our inability to understand his love and the evil that has befallen us so how do we interpret that where is God we carry this fear that that God has abandoned us we're alone God has left us he doesn't care even if we know the Lord we're tempted to blame God for the evil that comes into the world against us every day we're tempted to blame him or to be angry with him or judge him or shake our fists at him we do not understand how good how good God could allow such suffering and I know every one of you have answered that question with a good theological answer but somehow it doesn't always reach our own hearts much less someone else's we just don't understand him from here we're all participating in this spiritual battle to believe the trust Psalm 13 captures this for us how long Lord will you forget me forever how long will you hide your face from me how long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart how long will my enemies triumph over me and then the psalm ends with but I trust in your unfailing love my heart rejoices in your salvation I will sing the Lord's praises for he has been good to me both sides struggle within us how long oh Lord but I trust in your love it's the spiritual battle Jesus revealed the depth and the pain of the human heart when he identified with our sins and our separation from God and he cried out on our behalf he cried out for all humanity when he said my God my God why have you abandoned me that's the human condition apart from salvation that's the only thing that's at the core of our fear and Jesus took it when he took our sins he understood our basic deception and how twisted our understanding of God is my God my God why have you abandoned me yet we're the ones that abandoned him Jesus knows our fear and the issue settled Jesus surrendered to death and the father's faithfulness is demonstrated forever for us in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead it's settled and the movie the passion of the Christ there's a teardrop that falls from heaven at the moment of the moment Jesus died this is an image of the father's love for the son it's also an image of the broken heart of the father when I saw that movie and I saw that teardrop this question came to my mind when did the teardrop fall did it fall when Jesus died or did it fall when Adam sinned in eternity these two moments cannot be separated the moment Adam sinned was the same moment in eternity Jesus died we cannot separate the father's pain for the suffering of his crucified son and the pain over the loss of his children they are eternally joined together we know in Colossians 1 15 that the son is the image of the invisible God and in Hebrews 1 13 it says the son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being Jesus crucified is the image of the father's broken heart when people come to you and confess their sins God's broken heart is present to be communicated Jesus did not come to condemn the world he came to save the world he was sent by the father whose heart was broken over the loss of his children but the broken heart of God is only half the picture at the same moment that his heart was broken his heart was also full of joy his heart is not like ours joy is not constrained by suffering in Luke 15 the parable of the lost coin the lost sheep and the lost son all followed by descriptions of heaven's joy celebration says there was rejoicing in the presence of of angels of the angels of God over one sinner who repents the father was rejoicing in the presence of the angels joy was spread throughout heaven when one sinner returns Jesus is revealing the father's joy and all heaven participates in it and this is the reason why Jesus endured the cross Hebrews 12 2 for the joy set before me endured the cross scorning its shame and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God for the joy set before him Jesus came to reveal the father and in a certain way you can think of it this way he came to heal the father's heart I picture Jesus saying dad I'm coming home and look who I'm look who I'm bringing with me we're going to celebrate so the next time you mess up or you're tempted to think of him as angry and judging you rejecting you condemning you withdrawing his love from you and his fatherly care think of the father of Luke 15 standing waiting longing pleading for his son's return and the joy that awaits him waits you God hates sin because it separates you from the knowledge of his goodness God's wrath is directed at sin not you we come under the wrath when we identify and don't separate from the sin but God's wrath isn't directed at you it's at your sin at the moment you turn home to God you're leaving your sin and he wants to embrace you and kiss you and restore you so let me just read this to you but while he was still a long way off his father saw him and was filled with compassion form he ran to his son threw his arms around him and kissed him the son said father I have sinned against heaven against you I'm no longer worthy to be called your son but the father said to his servants quick bring the best robe and put it on him put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet bring the cat fatted calf and kill it let's have a feast and celebrate for this son of mine was dead and is alive again he was lost and is found so they began to celebrate heaven's joy came down from heaven in their celebration the first message of the risen Lord to you after the resurrection was entrusted to Mary Magdalene we have this incredible picture of a woman's passion and God's heart Mary is at the tomb she's weeping she's uncontrollable and her grief and and she wants to find the Lord she wants to be near him she wants to touch him she wants to care for him and and uh and Jesus the picture in John's gospel is so incredible Jesus is on the way to the father he had not yet returned to the father and he's he's like this is what he's all about he's going to the father and and he hears her heart he comes back weeping so hard she doesn't recognize him till he calls her name and this is the message she gave to Mary for you do not hold on to me for I have not yet ascended to the father go instead to my brothers and tell them I am ascending to my father and your father to my god and your god what he was saying to Mary was this I'm going to my father and your father and you are part of my family you belong my father is your part father and you are part of the eternal family your home is in his heart so brothers when your mission here is over and we enter into glory you will be like me when I came home from college you'll be captivated by the many works the many signs the many many things that you hardly noticed moments when the father was whispering to you revealing himself to you throughout your life and then he's always been saying to you you are home in my heart and every grace and every moment of grace and that he's reached out to you he was saying that that this is your home this is where you belong and one day we're going to see all those moments of grace we're going to be seeing how the father reached out to us and and how we were veiled and couldn't see it because of whatever evil that surrounded us but but he was there and so would you stand and let's just ask that this would be one of those moments of grace and I'm just gonna what I want you to do is just to take a few moments within your heart just to talk to the father just talk to him about what you just heard if you don't know what to say you can just say Lord show me the father and then I'll be satisfied I'd like you to if you will I mean if you just want to stay where you're at in this space you can just sit down but if you will if you will just turn to a brother and just share a little bit about what the Lord's saying to you or what you're saying to him and then just have a brief prayer and then we will go into a break but just let's spend about three or four minutes just just responding with each other or by yourself