Pictures of a fathers heart
Part 1
Opening Song: When God Ran by Phillips, Craig and Dean
Opening:
1. Chance encounter- Paga- 6293 פָּגַע [paga` /paw•gah
While at my place of business the other day, I had one of those moments when the Spirit of God, steps out of the ordinary and into our life in a big way.
I had just been a Laura Detwiler (Schrock) wedding and to a fellowship meal following the church service Sunday. Having experienced shunning, etc. and wondering why, when the Spirit of God broke in and explained why.
2. He began to show me why they could not accept and love as they should.
They have a large hole in their hearts, having not experienced the accepting love of an earthly father and mother.
3. He then challenged me with the concept that Living Word Comm. Church will be the one of the vehicles that he use to bring healing to the body.
Love served three (3) ways
A. Three (3) different classes of love in the Hellenistic (Greek world of Jesus day)
1. Agape (ah-gah-pay), the principal Greek word used for ‘love’ in the NT.
Of the three words for love in the Hellenistic world, it was the least common.
2. Eros- Greek Erōs, sexual love- relating to, or arousing sexual feelings
probably where we get the word arousal
3. Phílos; friendship love, friendly
4. Although their meanings could vary according to the context in which they appeared. Agape, because it was used so seldom… could be used in the NT to designate the unmerited love God shows to us.
When used of human love, it means selfless and self-giving love.
Love is simply unbelievable
A. Love will propel someone to do the unbelievable
1. One person will overcome unbelievable odds, to win the affections of the one they love.
While another will kill themselves… when they cannot have the one they
desire
2. A farewell message written in blood.
A train wreck that killed eleven and injured several others near Los Angeles in January (2005) left an indelible impression on Firefighter Captain Rosario. Hours after the rescue began, using the jaws of life device, rescuers were able to extricate a man, John Phipps, from the wreckage. That’s when Rosario saw the message.
While Phipps was pinned under debris from the crash and having trouble breathing, he wrote a message to his wife and children using his own blood. With whatever energy he could summon and a heartbreaking economy of words, he scrawled a farewell on the seat. "1 § my kids. 1 § Leslie," he printed (using a heart symbol in place of verbs). The blood ink seemed to be running out as he got to the second sentence.
The greatest force in all the world is………
A. NOT …. The United States Naval and Air Force
Its not red China
Its not the atom
B. The greatest force in all the world is the force & power of Love.
Why is this the most powerful force?
What is it about love that gives it such power- energy???
1. What makes it so dynamite – so powerful, love was first birthed inside Father God’s heart-
a. It was incubated there, there it took shape,
There inside that heart, the thought of man was formed- let us make man in our image--- let us communion and fellowship with him.
b. That powerful account in Genesis 1:26-28
"And God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them."
1. A Father’s heart seeks to create children in his own image.
2. Did you ever hear of an only girl born in the family becoming a tom boy- the image of her father?
3. I can’t count the number of times my wife has told me, my children are not me. It is IN ME ! in me to make them like me.
That’s not an evil thing, that is a glimpse of Father God’s heart showing thru in mine.
"And God blessed them: - PUT HIS HANDS OVER THEM and pronounced them blessed.
Do you know what blessed means in the Hebrew?
Blessed- 1288- kneel down, i.e., to be or go to a stance in which one is on. To speak sweet words of adoration to
Same word in "And he (Eliazer, Abrahams servant) made his camels to kneel down without the city by a well of water… (Genesis 24:11, KJV)
1. My children are blessed in my eyes, no matter what.
You may see little devils when you look at my children I see angels
This is not because I am prejudice- My heart has pronounced my children blessed.
2. A mother with her children is a beautiful picture of God’s heart with us.
I have known some children in families I was convinced if not possessed were at least under the serious influence of evil.
Yet to hear that mother speak of her children, you would have thought they were the holiest saints in the world.
Why?
Was she bias? She has pronounced them blessed.
3. Is this not the same way father God does with us?
Romans 4:18-21 is an account of how God looks at us with rose colored glasses.
Samson in Heb. 11 is also true of this
C. The power of a father’s love
In 1993, two ten-year-old boys committed a horrific crime. They led two year-old James Bulger by the band out of a London mall and threw him to his death in front of a moving train. Initially the two boys pleaded innocent. But tough interrogation exposed the flimsiness of their testimonies. They were trapped in a makeshift house of lies collapsing about them. The father of one
of the boys asked for a moment to speak with his son. The father assured his boy that, no matter what, he loved him.. He always would. The boy went back to his interrogators. In a soft voice, he said, "1 killed. James Bulger.
Jesus loves us, no matter what. Confession doesn’t earn that love. Confession, rather, is done in the full confidence that we have irrevocably received that love. Confession is coming clean and experiencing anew loves covering over.
