2. Father Heart of God

So first, I just want to welcome all of you here and say thank you for coming tonight. I'm excited about this lesson you're going to. This is the second lesson in the series, the Freedom of Christ series, and it's called Father Heart. And we're going to explore tonight the wonderful, beautiful, overwhelmingly good nature of God. And I think it's going to encourage us all.

So I'd like to start with prayer, if you'll pray with me. Father God, we thank you so much just for the purity of your love and your kindness and your goodness towards your creation. God, we thank you that you are God, whose character never, ever changes. That no matter what, in any circumstance, God, no matter what we do or do not do, that you stay steadfastly sure in your kindness and your goodness of character. Father, we thank you for all the ways that you've demonstrated that in our life, and not just in our life, but in generations past and generations to come, that you will continue to manifest your glory and your goodness upon your people. And God, I pray this, uh, tonight, that in Jesus' name, um, you would come and consume each heart. And you, Father, would send your Holy Spirit in power to bring a spirit of revelation to our hearts. That we all, whether we know it or not, desperately need. Father, we bind any spirit of religion that would try, and any other voice that would come to try to hinder this word going forth deep and planting in our heart. And Lord, we call forth the kingdom fruit that you want to come from the seeds of your word that are planted tonight. And we thank you, God, we thank you that you are going to move us tonight into a greater understanding of who you are, and therefore a greater understanding of who we are in you. And Father, we give you the glory for what you've done to demonstrate, uh, your love to us. In Jesus' name, amen.

So tonight, we're going to start our discussion about Father, then Father's nature, and how good he is, and how kind he is. I think sometimes we get in places where, if especially if we grew up in religion, it's sometimes a little bit different lens for us to look at the nature and the Father heart of God. And begin to shift from a mindset of us and what we do and how important that is, although it is important for us to walk into obedience, but what's even more important is for us to begin to get our eyes on God and who he is. And the more that we begin to understand his nature, and begin to understand his heart and his character, the more and more and more we will find ourselves in a growing, burning fire and passion to obey and to enjoy him. And it won't be hard. Uh, this God that we serve is, um, is unspeakably kind. He's unspeakably good. And the Bible describes him as love. Not just one that acts loving, although he does. Not one that just demonstrates loving deeds, although he does that all the time. It's astounding to think that the description that the Bible says is, God is love. And if you think about something that is, it doesn't, it's what it is. I mean, an apple is an apple. You are you, and your characteristics, your DNA does not change. And God's DNA does not change. He is loving. He can never be anything but loving. And even if we perceive different things that happen as non-loving, all he can ever do is act loving towards his creation. And if that comes in different forms that we might perceive as unloving, it's, that is a lie. Because this God is so pure and so good that he can never act unloving. And that is good news.

So tonight, I want us to start in Genesis, where we begin to see God's love towards us. And we can see, I'm going to read Genesis 1, and I'm going to start in verse 26. And we're going to begin to see how much God was very proud of us from the very beginning. That he likes us, that he believes in us, that he's confident in us. And that this actually comes from the fact that he made us in his image. And he's very aware of his goodness. He's very aware of his excellence. And when he said, "I'm going to make these people, my precious ones, in my image," he was very confident that who he was making us to be was good. And this begins to change the very essence of many things if we get this concept and this reality and this truth deep in our heart.

So I'm going to start by telling you, you are the aim of God's affections. See, love. Remember I said God is love. And love, if you understand the nature of love, it's kind of a funny thing. If you think about when you first fell in love, or you think about how much you dream about falling in love, love does funny things, you know, for real. It makes you, it's interesting what it does. And God is the essence of love. And so when he decided to create us, he was operating out of love. And this cannot contain deep desire to express love. And his most beautiful expression of love was creating humans. It's creating you. You, every day that you exist, are an expression of God's love to himself, and to the world, and to those that he knows you're going to encounter.

So he says in this scripture, he makes a very bold declaration over you and over me and over mankind. He says, "You're very good. You're excellent." So I want to read this: "Then God said, 'Let us make human beings in our image to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.' So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. Then God blessed them and said, 'Be fruitful and multiply! Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.' Then God looked over all that he had made. He saw that it was very good."

I love this because it tells us something else. That God sees. God has confidence in us. So he makes us and he says, "This is good. They're going to do great. They're going to do great." And we're going to talk about that more tomorrow about his confidence in us as his creation. But what we see in the nature of God is that love begins to manifest, and it manifests in creation. He blesses us. So in this scripture, we see all kinds of things that he gave us. He gave us everything we needed. He was confident and secure that we're going to have all we need at all times because of his goodness. And he has confidence in us. He actually says in here, "You're going to rule." Now, think about these words. "You're going to rule. You're going to reign." And he says, "govern." Govern. And this is very interesting. Not so much just about us, although there's lots we'll learn when we talk about our identity about us. But look at the nature of God. This is not an angry, worried, fearful, upset, condemning God. This is a God who's steadfastly, securely knows who he is and who we are. And he's happy. He says, "We're very good."

So every single one of us, in our human heart, we have this longing, this God-hole in our heart. And this longing is for that pure love that we were made out of. And it's amazing to me all the different places we will go other than the source of love, God himself, to get that need met. We humans do. I mean, you just think about your own life, all the different places you try to go or try to find this love. And the good news is, is that nothing satisfies other than Him. The bad news is, nothing satisfies other than Him. And we really do, we'll find, we'll find places in our, we'll look at our life and we can look as far back as, as, as we can and say, "Wow, that didn't work. Well, that didn't work either." But then when we start really looking at Him, and we start really understanding His nature, and we start really understanding His heart and His purity, and we begin to taste of the goodness and the kindness and the gentleness of God, when we begin to taste, nothing, nothing else will satisfy.

I want us to look at this God, the nature, his nature, his heart. Psalm 103, starting in verse 8, says: "The Lord is compassionate and merciful, slow to get angry, filled with unfailing love. He will not constantly accuse us nor remain angry forever. He does not punish us for all our sins; he does not deal harshly with us as we deserve. For his unfailing love towards those who fear him is as great as the height of the heavens above the earth. He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west. The Lord is like a father to his children, tender and compassionate to those who fear him, for he knows how weak we are and he remembers that we are only dust."

And here we begin to see truly the very, very nature, not just of God's character, but how he deals with us. And actually, the enemy knew how powerful that was going to be. He knew that there is no greater source of love, and that there's no greater power on earth that transforms us from that old nature into the nature that we truly are in our kingdom selves. He knew this. And we can see in the garden, we're going to go to Genesis 3. In the garden, the enemy becomes, immediately comes against the power of this love from the very beginning because he's very aware. And I want us to read, we're going to start in verse, we're going to start in chapter 3, and I'm going to read down through at least verse 6. We're going to talk about how hard, from the beginning, the enemy comes against us understanding and getting a revelation of God's character and of his good intentions towards us.

So Genesis 3: "The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the Lord God had made. One day he asked the woman, 'Did God really say to you, you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?'" Here we see his native tongue is lying. "Of course, we may eat from the fruit from the trees in the garden," the woman replied. "It's only the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden that we are not allowed to eat. God said, 'You must not eat it or even touch it. If you do, you will die.'" Verse 4: "'You won't die,' the serpent replied to the woman. 'God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil.' The woman was convinced."

Here we see the beginning nature of the enemy coming against us trusting the heart of God from the very beginning. He lies and makes it seem like God is withholding, that God is not trustworthy, that He hasn't, doesn't have our best at heart. He comes against His character, saying, "You can't trust what He says. He's lying to you. Really, that's not going to happen. This is what will happen." And it's, we see right there, this from the moment that the enemy enters, um, enters the picture, that he wants us. He's after this relationship because at its core, our walk with God is all about a love relationship. And this makes the enemy mad. He actually hates it because of how much he hates God. He wants that relationship destroyed. He's perfectly fine for us to live in religion and slavery. But this thing, this enemy thing of trusting the heart of God, of knowing how loved and precious and treasured you are to Him, he hates it. And so we see it from the very beginning. He comes against it.

So here we are, and we begin to see, we're going to go further in Genesis chapter 3, and we're going to talk about what happens. And let's start at seven: "At the moment their eyes were opened and they suddenly felt shame. They suddenly felt shame at their nakedness." So they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves and enter a completely pure, completely provided for, completely intimate, no division relationship. Inner sin, and it all changes. And instantly they knew what God never wanted them to know, the evil side.

So here we see where shame and fear begin to enter. And I would say that the number one attack on this love relationship when we sin is shame and fear. We ought, we begin to operate towards this Father of ours, that is good and loving and kind and forgiving and gracious. We begin to distance ourselves from Him out of shame and fear. And we're going to talk about how important it is. We see this in scripture, how important it is for us to lay those two things aside to begin to be restored to intimacy and love.

So let's, let's look at what God does. So here they've sinned, they've fallen. The enemy has come to lie to them about their God, who He is, how He feels about them. And then this is what happens. We see in the cool of the evening, this is in Genesis 3, that the Lord comes walking. And he says, "The Lord," it says in verse 9, "the Lord called to the man, 'Where are you?'" He replied, "I heard you walking in the garden, so I hid. I was afraid because I was naked."

I want you to listen to, oh, the character of God here. "Who told you that you were naked?" the Lord asked. "Have you eaten from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat?" I want us to stop right here because I think a lot of times we have a lens of this good, loving, faithful God as accusatory, condemning, a God that just assumes we're going to mess it up, we're going to do it wrong. And here we see the exact opposite in this character of God. First, he says to them, in their fear and shame, "Who lied to you? Who's lying to you? Who told you? Who told you that you're naked and ugly and shameful and that you need to be afraid?" No, I love that. "Who told you you were naked?" And then he asks the question. He does not assume. "Have you eaten from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat?" So here we see a good God. He doesn't assume and say, "Oh, I know what you did. You did this wrong." No, he, in honor and love, goes and asks, "Is this what happened?"

"The man replied, 'It was the woman you gave me who gave me the fruit, and I ate it.'" Then the Lord asked the woman, "What have you done?" Even when Adam accuses her, and he was right, she did do this, he does not assume an accusation is accurate. He asks her, "What have you done?" "The serpent deceived me," she replied, "that's why I ate it."

Look at His response. Then the Lord said to the serpent, the Lord spoke. Even knowing with this confession, the Lord spoke to her enemy first. Oh, I love this God. And he says to the enemy, "Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all the wild animals, domestic, more than all the animals, wild and domestic. You will crawl on your belly, groveling in the dust as long as you live. I, the Lord, says, will cause hostility between you and the woman, but and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel."

Now, I want to stay, there's a lot packed in that. But first, we need to understand that God knows our enemy. And every time we mess up, he knows there was an origin, either of brokenness, pain, suffering, something, or a rebellious will, a lack of trust. Father, he knows that. But I want you to see what he does. He basically rebukes the enemy first and says, "Back off, my, my children." And in the very places that you attack them, in the very places you come, I'm going to tell you what's going to happen, enemy. You are going to attack them, and they're going to crush your head. Now, what we see in this is, he says, he says this about Jesus. "You're going to strike his heel. He's going to crush your head." Right? Because Jesus is the one with that authority. And what happens is, when we come into Christ, we come into that authority. And he foresaw this. He knew it. He declared it. And so as he was declaring Jesus' victory, as he was declaring that victory of forever and always, I will operate towards my beloved in love, in grace, in honor, in restoration, because he knew he was going to deal with Jesus. He knew we would be like, like in the empowerment of, of Jesus, we would be able to crush his head.

I want you to hear this. The Father knows that we don't have to operate in shame and fear. What we get to do is operate in repentance, in coming and confession, and being restored to the Father out of His graciousness. And I want us, as we keep looking, um, in verse, this is in chapter 3, we keep going, and I want to read this part. It starts in verse 20: "Then the man Adam named his wife Eve because she would be the mother of all who live. And the Lord God made clothing from animal skin for Adam and his wife."

I love this. It's such a foreshadowing of what he does with Jesus. So in order for him to cover them in their shame, he sees that they're shameful and fearful. And what he does is, he kills an enemy, an innocent animal, so that he can come to them and cover their shame and guilt and fear and cause them to be able to operate again in love towards the Father. And I love this because it's such a picture of what's going to happen with Jesus later. That innocent slain lamb, and the blood that covers us and takes away our sin and removes our shame and our guilt. Was there consequences to sin? Absolutely, there was. And is there consequences to our sin now? Yes. I'm not at all negating the consequence of sin. We want to choose righteousness. We want to obey the Father. We want the magnitude of the, of, of what fell when sin entered. I don't know that we'll ever know until we're fully restored. But this good God, he can redeem it all. And I want you to see what His heart behind those consequences were.

So basically, he says in verse 22, chapter 3: "Then the Lord God said, 'Look, the human beings have become like us, knowing both good and evil. What if they reach out, take fruit from the tree of life, and eat it, then they will live forever?'" So God knew if they eat of this tree of life, this is where they're going to be stuck in this state. They're going to be in this state forever. So in order to protect them, so that he could begin the redemptive plan of Christ's coming and restoring our righteousness and restoring our relation, us to in our relationship with Him, he does this. It says, "So the Lord banished them from the Garden of Eden and sent Adam out to cultivate the ground from which he had been made. After sending them out, the Lord God stationed mighty cherubim to the east of the Garden of Eden, and he placed a flaming sword that flashed back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life."

And, and I just want us to see, even in our consequences, the heart of the Lord is redemptive. It is protective. It is good. It is moving us to this restored place of righteousness and wholeness in Christ. So here we see that in our sin, our tendency, like Adam and Eve, is when we sin, our tendency is to move away from God. Our tendency, tendency is to hide. It's to cover. It's to not bring sin into the light, not with God, and not with others. And much like, we're not all so different from Adam. We like to blame. We like the blame game. We like to look and see why everyone else might be the reason for our inappropriate, rebellious, ungodly, non-kingdom responses. And here we, here we see that our very best, our very best is just to come to this good, gracious, loving God and say, "Yup, I did that. Yup, I was deceived. Yup, I, and I need you. And would you, would you come? And can I give this to you? And you cover me?" And we see that that is His heart.

Okay, so I want to just take a moment and think back to the first time you can remember anything good that happened in your life. Think back as far as you need to go to the first time you felt what I would describe the goodness of God. Anything happy? Any time in your life that you felt important or special or beautiful or valued, successful? I just want you to sit in that memory for a minute. And after you've pulled that memory up, I want you to get in touch with the fact that that place, that manifested expression of God's heart and goodness towards you, that is where He wants us to live. In Him. He wants us to be that confident, that secure, that knowing that He, that we are valuable, that we are important, that He loves us deeply. And He wants us to live to go back there as often as we need to. Um, because out of that place, and I don't think we go back often enough. I'm just, I'm telling you the truth. I don't think we go to that place of going back to where God has manifested His goodness in our life. There's so much negative. There's so many lies and accusations that the enemy brings against the character of God. And if we will run, I don't just mean, you know, kind of here and there, if we will run back to those moments, and He tells us in scripture over and over to the Israelites, "Remember, remember, remember My goodness." And if we will go back to those, to those core moments in our life that we all do have, because God manifests them all the time, then we will begin to be more and more confident. We will begin to be more and more joyful and able, I believe, to manifest that goodness towards others.

So let's talk about love again. When we go back to the topic of love, one of the things that we can do in looking at love is we can test the fruit. If love is real and true, you don't want someone that just tells you they love you. You don't, a spouse that just says they love you but they don't act like it. You don't want friendships. You don't want. So who would want a God that just says, "Oh, I'm love," and, "Oh, I love you," but doesn't manifest the evidence of this amazing, incredible love? But the good news is, we have a God in His goodness that not only has, but continually delights in manifesting in our lives His goodness, His character, His heart. So how do we know? When you have relationships, you can begin to test the fruit. If someone really loves you. And when we look at scripture, we look at this God, the cross is the ultimate expression of the Father's heart towards us. I call it the exclamation mark of God's character. And here we see that in the character of God, He withholds nothing. He withholds nothing to make sure that we understand, can visibly see, can experientially know this love. And in this love, He gave us Jesus.

Now, as a parent, I have four boys. You can't get any closer to my heart than my child, honestly. I would, I would rather something happen to me than happen to my child. And the goodness of God, where He says, "I'm going to, I'm going to make sure that they know. I'm going to give the very best. I'm going to give the most important, the over-the-top, most valued thing I have. I'm going to give to them so that they know their value and their worth and my heart towards them." And I just want us to remember that when the enemy comes, and he does come to sift, to accuse the character, to, to accuse the heart of God towards us, that all we have to do is look at the manifested gift of Jesus Christ on the cross and be reminded again of the goodness and the heart of this God.

I also love this because He, at the cross, sealed our complete victory over the enemy. He also sealed the complete destruction of this one that comes to invade the intimacy of our relationship with God. And we see it. We see the manifested power of God come on Jesus and destroy the power of the devil. And He says, basically, to the enemy at that point, "Oh no, I do have the last say. These are my beloved children. You will not and cannot keep them from me forever." And through Christ, and because of the gift of Christ, He restored us. He gave us the way to be restored back to intimacy. As we choose Jesus, we choose the complete restoration of that loving relationship. No fear, no shame, no condemnation, absolute ability to receive, to enjoy, to delight in, experientially know this love again. And to be so full in it that we give it away, that it really, truly does become how we live with others, so that that love is made known to the world. I love that.

So let's look at this because there is a battle going on. And this battle does not quit because of how much the enemy hates God. We're His target. He hates us because we are the most beloved thing to God's heart. And in this, we begin to see that one of the things the enemy does is cause us to view God through our circumstances and experiences. And he loves to do that. He loves to create all kinds of circumstances, all kinds of things negative that happen to attack, to accuse, to blame. He'll cause anything for us to begin to see with a lens, God's character, different than it is, and His heart towards us. His tactics haven't changed. He, he started in the beginning this way, and he continues to this day.

So we, I call it the great lens switch. We will have to make a choice in this life. We will either see and determine God's character through our circumstances, or we will see and determine our circumstances and trials and experiences through God's word and character. And we have this choice. And one produces death and division and separation and isolation and loneliness and apartness from this God. And one brings us victoriously through, just like Christ, into the fullness of intimacy and hope and power and, and actually overcoming power that begins to demonstrate in those very places where the enemy has attacked, or will trials, or have come, or where circumstances are less than the fullness of the kingdom of God. And we, right there, because we know our God, and because we know His character, we can stay in all kinds of suffering for long periods of time, and still in those places manifest the reality of the goodness and the heart and the character of God. And the world is longing. The world is thirsty and hungry for this kind of love. Every soul on the planet is hungry for this kind of love. And as we draw near, as we push through shame and fear, as we push through all of that accusation and condemnation of the enemy towards the character and heart of God, as we, the beloved, begin to take our stand and say, "We know our God." And we see the circumstances, just like Jesus at the cross. It was His greatest declaration of the heart and character of God. It's when Jesus, right there on the cross, it looks like in the natural that the enemy is winning. And actually, he is the manifested reality of all of our sin, all of our brokenness, on Him. And Jesus looks with His mouth and declares to the heavens, to His God, "I see what this looks like in the natural, but my spirit says, 'Into Your hands, the confession of my mouth, into Your hands I commit my spirit.'" Is basically like Him saying, "No matter what, even in this, I trust You. I declare You are good. And I declare there's nowhere else I'd rather be than with You." And our relationship hole in one.

So He says, "No matter what, remember, I want to be with You, Father. Into Your hands I commit my spirit." And I, I want the grace of knowing God at that level, trusting God's character, and God's heart that much, that whatever comes in this life, I will be the living declaration that I know the goodness of this God. Because then the world will begin to see, "What is this love? What is this joy? What is this peace?" It is our relationship with this beloved of God.

So I want you to take just a minute, and now we're going to do a little time of reflection and ministry. Reflect on a time when you were able to connect with the Father heart of God. How did He meet you? Was it in rescuing you? Was it connecting to His comfort? Have you heard, ever heard, have you ever heard Him speak His affirmation, His affection, or encouragement to you? How did connecting to God's Father heart infuse strength or courage or hope into your heart? God, I want to thank You for the times that You allow us to feel that. And for some of us, those times may be hard to find. It may be hard to remember when times are hard or circumstances are difficult. Are you able to approach God as Father? This can be difficult if you didn't have a loving, nurturing father or home life. It can be, it can feel very awkward or fearful to approach God as Father. But here is a question that continually is before us: Are you willing to let Father God meet your need? Are you willing to vulnerably open your heart to this good God to say, "I'm afraid. I don't trust You yet, but I'm willing to give You my needs, and I'm willing to begin to open my heart for You to meet them in Your goodness and in Your love"?

And let's talk about when times are good. Are you able to hear God's affirming voice and receive it when He blesses you and honors you? See, sometimes we can come to Him as when we really mess up. And we, or sometimes we can't. Or sometimes we can come to Him and when it's really hard, and we don't have anywhere else to go. But what about when He brings you into victorious places? What about when He puts you in front of people and begins to say, "This one's mine. Look at, look at her. Look at him. I'm so proud of them." That can be a little harder. But I am still telling you, in true intimate relationship, you will get more and more comfortable with God beginning to honor you and validate you and show you off. Think about your own kids. It's a big deal when they begin to get honored. How do you feel? How do you feel? How do you feel when your kids get honored? It blesses you. You're joyful. You're excited. You're like, "Yes! People see the beauty and the value in them. People see how amazing they are." And they are. That's the Father heart of God. And I believe this, He wants His children to begin to experience that part of His goodness and His heart.

What about this? What do you tend to do when sin is revealed? Is your tendency to run to God in full assurance, or are you fearful of how God will respond to you in your brokenness, as if He doesn't already know it? This is a very important question because if we continue to hide in our shame and our fear, we will never have the freedom and, um, the fullness of the grace that Jesus bought at His highest price for us. And we want, we want to be able to come running before that throne of grace in full confidence. When we sin, we want to be able to come to a good, loving, kind, non-judgmental, very merciful God who washes us off, picks us up, restores us, and says, "Let's get going again in intimate relationship." And this, when we are able to do this, and we are able to begin to testify of the goodness of God in these places, this is when the lost in the world begin to get hungry. Because we all sin. We all fall short. It's just that not all of us get to know the goodness of a safe place, a safe God, a good Father who bestows His love and His cleansing and actually brings us into the fullness of who He created us to be.

So if you'll pray with me. God, I just pray right now for, for some, it will be a, a birthed capacity to begin to receive Your love. And so, Lord, I just speak that out right now over those of us in this room. Father, and I speak it out, Lord, for any who will hear the testimony, God, of who You are. I just speak a birthed capacity from heaven to begin to receive the love of God in its depth and its breadth and its purity and its delight and its overwhelmingness. Lord, I speak a new capacity in us. And Lord, for those of us that have walked with You, Lord, and we've tasted and seen, I, I just speak an increased capacity to receive Your love. An increased confidence, God, in Your grace. An increased ability, God, to have You speak encouragement and life and truth. I speak an increased capacity, God, for the fullness of all that You see, all that Your love wants to come in and birth and bring alive in us that we don't even know is there. And Father, I pray, my prayer, God, is that every one of us will begin to so walk in Your goodness and so walk in Your love that it literally consumes how we think, how we behave, um, how, how we respond in relationships, how we act towards others. Because I truly believe that is what Jesus died for. He died that the restoration of that love relationship can be with every human. And God, I just, I bless You, Jesus, that You made a way. And Father, I thank You that You, that we will spend our life with You wooing us and loving us again with Your good Father heart. And Lord, it is my prayer, it's my deepest prayer, that as we live in that love, Father, that our lives will be that just declaration of a love relationship returned upon You. That our life will be what, what declares that we love You with all of our heart. In Jesus' name, amen.