Sounds Like A Plan VIII, For Knowing Your Heavenly Father

Take your outline out of your North Way Notes, please. And let's get into the message for today. This is the seventh message in our series. It sounds like a plan, and we're going to talk about God's plan for knowing Him. We come to know Him as we know our Heavenly Father. Let me pray with you as we prepare. Lord Jesus, I ask for the grace now to focus on Your Word and for all of us to let our hearts be softened as we listen to what You have said that has lasted through the ages, Lord, and will last on into eternity. And I pray most of all for a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. Help us to see Jesus and to see the Father, that we might know You as You really are. Our lives might be changed as a result. Amen. By the way, up there, the numbers that you see on the right and left of the screen, folks ask me, what do those numbers stand for? It's not the number of minutes left in the service. It's not the last three digits of a car that left their lights on on the license plate. It's simply a number that's been assigned to a little one that isn't cooperating with the nursery people. They don't put the number up unless it's really serious. That number's been up for about 20 minutes. Either that child has basically run the nursery, or the parent maybe is just saying, you know what, I don't care. So if your baby's number 713, we won't look. Just go ahead and slip out now. And if someone in the back, one of the ushers, want to check with the nursery people and turn that off in case it's taken care of. I want to mention as we begin, friends, most of you, actually probably a lot of you don't know this, but this week was an unusually difficult week for our family. After three years of valiantly struggling against ovarian cancer, my daughter Amy lost her mom in love, Kay D'Ambrosio, this week on Wednesday night. Kay was a wonderful believer. She was an inspirational person, a teaching nurse up at the Shriners Hospital in Erie, Pennsylvania. And she was at peace with the Lord when she died. And she died with her husband and her two sons and her Amy with her. And her premature death at age 56, along with the very sudden death of Steve Westerman about 10 days ago, when Steve at age 42 died of a heart attack, has just given me pause to be reminded once again that our ways are not God's ways. We just don't know, do we, why things happen when they do. And a lot of people presume that they're going to have 70 or 80 years and then they'll figure out what to do with God. And near the end they're going to need some kind of transitional plan and they'll come to grips with God. And I want you to know, if you're here today and that's sort of in your posture, I want to plead with you to get right with God today. At least take a step in that direction. Don't presume. None of us know. None of us know when our days will be up. And that is why we hold forth, you see, that's why we hold forth the word of truth. That's why we present the gospel week by week here at North Way. Because I know, just as in the first service, there were a handful of people that came to Christ. So in this service, some of you today will come to peace with God. And your eternal destiny will be settled because of a decision that God will enable you to make today. God has given us a plan to know him. It's in this book and I want to talk about it. Because, think about it, we all sort of formulate how we perceive God from real small age. As a small child, who do you think God is for the most part? Mom and dad, right? I mean, that's the only God you really know because they seem to control everything, like when you eat and when you drink and when you sleep and all that kind of stuff. And then as you go on, you have more and more inputs. We learn from people in the churches that we go to, the Sunday school classes, the CCDs, maybe a priest or a pastor was a model for you. Maybe it was somebody on television. God help you if that was the case or whatever. Maybe it was some politically correct kind of impression that someone passed on to you about what God is like. But if you have a misconception of God, you may live your entire life and miss the most important thing about life, and that is to know him. You can live with guilt and fear, depression, doubt, and in many cases, just indifference. I can't tell you how many people I meet who sort of don't settle the God thing in their teens or early 20s and get on into their 50s and 60s and still haven't come to terms with it. Because they use those years, you know, the 20s, 30s, 40 years, the hard working years, so to speak, to really focus on making their mark in the business world and they put God in the back burner. And I just pray that for some of you today, what God's going to allow you to hear will stir your heart to want to know him. Because if you don't know God, you've missed the most important thing about life. Sadly, thousands of people have an inaccurate picture of God because they have formulated it from inaccurate sources. Now, a couple perceptive people are thinking right now, how do you know yours is accurate and theirs is wrong? Sounds kind of judgmental to me, Pastor Dave. Well, I'm just submitting to you that most people that I talk to who have this sort of skewed vision of what God is like, they say, I think God is like this or God is like that. I say, well, where do you get that? And they usually tell me, well, you know, I saw a program on TV or on Barnes & Noble one day, I picked up a book written by a guy who had a near-death experience and he seemed to think God was this light source and I think that's kind of good. And I say, you know what? Do you remember the guy's name? No. Oh. I just want to say, I submit to you, this book is the source of truth. Thy word is truth. I just want to say, if you're not in this book, if you're not studying it, if you haven't formulated what your view of God is like from this book, then you're missing the only reliable source in all the world for knowing God. Now, I know that most of you know this, but here's the thing, most of you, every one of you is going to interact with someone this week who doesn't know this. And I want to challenge you. Be a little more bold and ask people, why do you believe that about God? And you'll be surprised when you don't back down, when they say, well, that's just what I think. When you say, well, why do you think that? You'll find that people don't, they have a very shallow basis of their understanding. I challenge them to get into this book a little bit with you, to find out what God is really like. You know, Jesus came and he made an incredible statement. His followers are going along with him near the end of his ministry, three years into it, and they said, Lord, show us the Father and we'll be satisfied. And Jesus said what? Have you been with me this long? And you don't know. If you have, look at the top of your outline, if you have seen me, you have seen the Father. Now, right there, dear ones, is one of the most incredible statements you'll ever hear. If you ever hear me make that statement, get me out of here. If Pastor Scott or Pastor Dave or Pastor Jeff or John or anyone else on the team or any elder comes up and says, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father, get him out of here. That is a ludicrous statement, unless it's a true statement. Jesus is saying, if you've seen me, you've seen God. So what that tells us is that, A, God is not an impersonal force somewhere. God is not whatever I can imagine him to be in my mind. God is not angry or tyrannical. Neither is he formal and distant. He's not apathetic or uncaring. He's not all just wound up in his chair. He has a personality. He can be known. He can be related to. And that's the God that we want to look at. Jesus says, you want to know what God is like? Look at me. And notice then what he says. He says, when you go to talk to God, approach him this way. Say, our Father, our Father, who art in heaven. Well, the who art is in the King James. It's not in the, I mean, but our Father in heaven. And now I want to pause right here and say, I know, and we're sensitive to the fact that some of you today have difficulty with this concept of talking about God as Father, because your earthly father has been a difficult person in your life. You have suffered some, whether by neglect or abuse, lack of communication, distance emotionally or even physically. I'm very sensitive. All I can say is I can't change that, but I just want to appeal to you. I want to say, first of all, I'm sorry for the pain that you felt, because you deserve better. But second, I want to say, don't let that keep you from knowing your heavenly Father as he really is. Jesus was very clear. We're to know him as Father. And he radically revolutionized. When he said, our Father, he changed the way of thinking of the Jews of his day. I asked this question in the first service, and those folks didn't have a clue. Let's see if you're any smarter. How many times in the Old Testament was God referred to as Father? Take a guess. Tell your neighbor, how many times do you think in the Old Testament? All right. Hey, take a wild guess. I mean, you know, what are your... Okay. If you said none, you're a little short. If you said 70, you're way over. Ten times over. It's seven. Seven times God is referred to as Father. Seven times. Jesus refers to him as Father six times in this chapter, and 150 times in the Gospels. I don't know if they impacted you like it did me, because what it said to me was, God wants us to see him in a different way than the people of the Old Testament saw him. They saw him in a ritualistic way. They saw him in a formal, distant way. Jesus, the Bible says in Hebrews 10, he came to create a new and living way to have fellowship with the Father. And that's my heart's desire for us today. And so, number one, let's look at the Bible and see what it says about knowing God as he really is. Number one, he is a caring father. And my prayer is that after this message, you'll A, be able to praise him for who he is. B, if you're a dad, you'll be able to see some of these qualities in your life. And C, if you're not a dad, maybe you're a female or maybe you're not a dad yet, that you can pray for someone who needs these qualities in their life. So number one, God is revealed as a caring father. A caring father. Now, the word compassionate is usually not the first thing you think of when you think of dad, unfortunately. But yet Psalm 104.13 says, as a father has compassion in his children, so the Lord has compassion in those who honor him. The Lord is compassionate. You know, great story in Mark 4, verse 35 and following. Jesus is in a boat with a disciple and they're crossing the Sea of Galilee. And a vicious storm rises up. And the disciples, they're frightened. They're deeply frightened. And they see Jesus sleeping in the back of this boat. And there's a whole lot in even in that little picture. Jesus is sleeping in the middle of the sea. And they turn to him and they say these words. They say, Master, do you not care that we are perishing? And I want to submit to you that those are profound. That's one of the most profound questions in human existence. Let me ask you this way. Have any of you asked the Lord this week that question? Do you not care? Do you not care that my husband and I haven't really talked much in the last two months? Do you not care that I'm getting a divorce and I can't do anything about it? Do you not care that my kids are getting more and more into drugs and less and less communicated with me? Do you not care that my physical condition is deteriorating? How many of you have asked God that question, do you not care? And we need to be certain about that. We need to be certain of what his answer would be to you. It's okay to ask the question. Sometimes he seems like he doesn't care because you don't get an instant answer. But look at the verses of the Bible. Look at the next verse. Look, 1 Peter 5-7. Cast some of your anxieties on him. Is that what it says? Cast your spiritual problems and questions on him. Is that what it says? No, it says what? Cast all of your cares. Circle the word all. All of your anxieties or cares on him. Does God care about your house payments? Yes, he does. Does he care about the braces that your kids need? Yes, he does. Does he care about your grades in school? Does he care about your loneliness? Does he care about the fact that you're undirected in your career? Yes, of course he does. Does he care about whether or not you'll be successful in your dreams? Of course he does. He knows and cares in great detail about you. And this is very important. Did you know the Bible says God knows every hair in your head? And aren't you glad that he can subtract? I know that game. No one else in here knows every hair on your head has a number. God knows that. That's amazing. Not only does he know the number, he also knows the natural color. You might be fooling a few people, but God knows exactly what that hair is supposed to be like. Now, don't misinterpret it. It doesn't mean that the world revolves around you. It doesn't mean that God created the universe for you, as if you're the center of it. But it is an important reminder of how much he cares. I have to tell you, sometimes, are you like me? In the heat of being busy, I forget how much God cares. In the heat of keeping my schedule and meeting my appointments, I forget how much he really cares. Because when he cares, look at the next verse. It means that I don't have to worry anymore. Don't worry saying, what shall we eat or what shall we wear? Your Heavenly Father knows you need these things. Let me ask you a question of you earthly dads. If your children said to you, Dad, I am really hungry and we're out of food. How would you feel if you couldn't provide some food for your kids? If you're like me, you'd feel like a failure. If my kid said to me, Dad, I don't have any clothes to wear to school. I'd feel like a failure if I couldn't provide some clothes. How much more then does our Heavenly Father, who cares about us, want us to be taken care of? That doesn't mean he's going to meet everyone. He's going to supply exactly the house you want or the car you want or the vacation. But he'll meet every need that you have. He promises to do so because he cares about you. He's more committed than we are. So we don't need to worry about it. Now, I don't think that many of us just sort of say, Oh, God doesn't care. I think we suddenly slip into this sort of mentality of, Well, you know, I've got to do my part and God will do his part. And that slips then on into, Well, yeah, but realistically, if I don't do this, then I can't expect that. And then we forget that God is in control. And every time we worry, we doubt. Last week, I talked about this stress and how it builds in our lives. I was with a guy not long ago who said to me, he was moving toward having panic attacks. And he said, I'm going to probably have to get some medication. I can't deal with this. And I said, well, that might be appropriate. And he got to the point where he said this. He said, you know, maybe I'm not really a Christian and I guess I just don't love God enough. And I said, brother, you've got it all wrong. The fact is, you don't know how much God loves you. You're all stressed out and panicked because you haven't received the love of God in a way that assures you that God will take care of you. God is a caring Father. Number two, God is a changeless Father. You can count on Him every time. He's going to always be the same, always dependable, always consistent, always worthy of our trust. Look at the next verse. Every good and perfect gift is from the Father, read it with me, who does not change like shifting shadows. Now, dads, you know, you and I can be somewhat unpredictable at times. We can have a bad day and things can go really crazy when we get home. I was counseling with a family two or three years ago and out of the room, when the parents were out of the room, the teenage kid said to me, we don't know what to do with our dad. I mean, he seems to change every day. One day he comes home and he doesn't say a word. Next day he comes home and he's raging and ranting. One day he's silent, next day he's violent. One day he's a good guy, next day he's the nastiest guy I know. The truth is that inconsistent fathers will produce insecure kids. I want to say that again. Inconsistent fathers will produce insecure children. If daddy's having a bad day, I don't know how to act today. Where do you go to find security in an inconsistent world? Well, you look to Father God because he never changes, he never has a bad day. God never wakes up in the morning and says, boy, I'm grumpy today, I wonder who I can zap. That's not how God functions. God functions consistently. It can always depend on him. And here's the amazing thing. Catch this. Look at the next verse. Even if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot disown himself. How many of you, when you're having a bad day, when your day's not going well, and you can't seem to get through to God in prayer, and you start asking, well, did I have my quiet time today? Was I listening to my praise CDs as I was supposed to? Was I being considerate to people? Was I this and that? And you are asking yourself, really, indirectly, the question, do I deserve to have God answer my prayer today? And if you don't feel like you deserve it, then you sort of say, well, no wonder. Here's a word we use. We say, I'm out of fellowship with God. But can I give you a little clue? God is faithful to you, whether or not you're faithful to him. And so, really, in the end, when you just say, God, I need you, regardless of how good you've been that day, you can look to God and count on him. Isn't that amazing? I want you to know, the times that my heart melts the most are when I realize how much God does for me that I don't deserve. And if you think you deserve it, if you think that you're spiritual enough now that God's going to answer your prayers because you've elevated your quiet time to a certain intensity level, or your prayer language, or whatever gift you might have, I want you to know you're missing the essential message of scripture, which is we all come on the basis of the blood of Jesus, unworthy, undeserving, and we receive everything as a gift of his grace. Isn't that awesome? So that means if you're like me and you're having a bad day and you didn't do what you were supposed to do, you can still call out to God in his faithfulness. He will honor his word to you. And I'll tell you, when he does that, you know what it does to me? It doesn't give me license then to just distance myself from God and do my own thing. It makes me love him more because he is so faithful to me. And we live in a culture where things are changing so rapidly. We need some things that are changeless. Islands of stability in a sea of change, as Alvin Toffler said. One thing my own dad provided, and I don't even know that he realized how important it was, was stability. And I'm not saying here anything condemning to some of you dads who have to move a lot because of your jobs or whatever, but I want to ask you to consider something before you take every promotion that comes down the line. You see, my dad said no to a couple of things so we could stay. I grew up in the same house from age first grade through twelfth grade. Had the same school, the same set of friends, the same network of relationships. And it was very significant in my life. And it helped me a whole lot just to know I could count on a few things. God never changes. And we need to do what we can to demonstrate that we can show love and grace and forgiveness and caring and commitment just as he did to us. The greatest heartbreak of kids in the day in which we live is the fact that so many dads and now even moms seem to go back on our promises. Dad, have you ever been there when your kids have said, I remember this, so many different times when we were growing up and I'd say to kids, as soon as I get home from work we're going to go out and get some ice cream or we're going to go play putt-putt or we're going to go down to the batting cages or whatever. And something would happen and we'd have a meeting to go to or something. And I'd say, oh no. And the kids would say, but Daddy, you promised. You promised. Boy, I used to feel so low when that would happen. And fortunately, Carol would try to cover it and say, well, you know, Daddy had something come up but he couldn't control it. And we'll do this another time. And good moms are helpful that way. But here's the great thing about God. Look at this. God will never go back on his promises. Romans 11-29. God will never break his promise. God is the ultimate promise keeper. I want you to watch up here on the screen a video clip from a recent promise keepers conference. Because you see, promise keepers is about fathers and sons bonding and even fathers and daughters. It's about the bond of keeping promises with God and with one another. And I want to encourage you men just to prayerfully consider. Does God want you to go, I went with my kids, my boys, I went with my dad three years ago to the promise keepers event at Three Rivers Stadium. So watch up here on the screen and just see if you resonate with any of this. We've got to stop deceiving ourselves. Our kids want us. All my friends have that nice relationship with their parents, their mother and father. And I'm like, well, why? What happened to me? I don't know why, but I got a good father. I can remember when my dad had his first heart attack. Well, I get to the hospital and there's my dad. And they were getting ready to do the balloon angioplasty. It's like a rotarooter for the heart. And the doctor said, my older brother Joe was there too. He said, you boys better go in and say goodbye to your dad because we may lose him right here on the table. So I remember having my dad, I remember my dad looking up at me and Joe and saying, well, boys, I guess I ought to say something. Well, now, that's all he ever said. He never said anything. I have wondered, what was it that he was going to say? And why didn't he say it? Do you want to display the evidence that your heart has turned toward your children? Say the words. Today, say the words. I love you. I love you. And I ran to my dad. And we hugged each other. And I said to my dad, I love you. And he said, son, I love you. That was the last time I saw him alive. I was so thankful that we had that time of affection. Lord Jesus, we lift up those who feel like they had to go through childhood without the dad they needed. Lord, help them find in you the father that they've always wanted. I want every young man who is single here right now, stand. These are our sons. I want every one of the rest of you to stand up, give them a father's hug, and pray the father's blessing. Give it to them. Give them a father's hug. Come on, pray over them. Give them the father's blessing. It was first when he said all the single guys to stand up. And then he said, those are your children. And give them a hug. Give it to them. Give them a father's hug. Give them a father's blessing. And I felt like I actually had people to give me hugs that cared about me. Today, it just shows that, you know, not all people think of themselves. And not all fathers are bad fathers. So I'm just happy that now I got my spiritual father. Let's welcome our sons. All right, wherever you are, sons, come on in here, quick. Let them out. Stand up. Give them a standing ovation. Here come the kids. A new generation. Come on, these are your young men. Let them know what they mean to you. Make it the next generation. Let's go. One of the great things of those events is the opportunity with thousands of other men to affirm the things that really matter. So God is our father, is a caring father. He's a changeless father. Number three, He's a close father. He's available to us all the time when you need Him. He's not distant or far off. Look at Acts 17, 27. God did this so people would reach out for Him and find Him since He's not far from each of us. Is God close to you today? Do you sense His closeness? I trust that you do. And yet sometimes it's difficult for us. Many of us grew up with absentee fathers. Maybe they were busy building a business or maybe they were gone pursuing their hobbies or whatever. But if your father was relatively a non-event in your life, it's difficult to sense that he might be close. And in our culture, that's the movement of things. Unfortunately, Time Magazine last Father's Day did a study. Here's what they found. The Council of Economic Advisers commissioned by President Clinton found that with two full-time earner incomes or in single-parent homes, that on average, children had 22 fewer hours each week with the parent. 22 fewer hours each week. In other words, more than three hours a day less with their parent than in 1969. Now, put that together with what's happening with kids today. And it makes a lot of sense to me. If you're three hours less with that parent, they're bound to be gaps in what values and what's really important. I was with a group of teachers from one of the local high school districts that you'd all recognize. And they were saying to me, you know, we don't know what's going on but something really needs to change in the schools. Because we can see the values slowly slipping and the increasing measures to counteract those slippages in values which is just more and more security, more and more defense mechanisms. More and more presence of authorities and so on. And these teachers were lamenting the fact that even in the classrooms and in many events, the students don't even stand for the national anthem anymore. There's just a lack of a sense of what really matters. Many parents have decided that money and standard of living are more important than time with their kids. And I've heard parents say the answer to that is, well, you know, we've got to make ends meet. And I say, well, where are the ends? Maybe you need to lower the ends just a little bit. Don't make your kids pay for what you need to give them. And that's just more of you. Absentee parents make it difficult for kids to trust God because they just don't have a good model. Turn your outline over. Look at this. There's three things. That was very good, by the way, all together. I appreciate that. Your dad had been here last week. I appreciate that. Three things. God is a close father and therefore He's never too busy for you. He's never too busy. He never says, hey, check in with me later. I've got a lot on my mind. Isn't that great? He always says, I want to listen. He makes time for you. You know, I was astonished. It was about a little over three months ago. I was meeting in my office with the project manager of all this development. Those of you who've been here for a while and watched these apartment buildings going up in the retail center, I mean, that's a $55 million project, folks. And the gentleman who's responsible for that lives in another city. And he's responsible for two similar projects, by the way, at the same time. So he's handling about $150 million worth of development. And he came into my office and we were talking. He said, by the way, I just want you to know this is going to be my last meeting with you. I didn't know if we'd offended him or what had happened. And I said, well, can I ask you why? And he said, because I'm quitting my job this week. I said, wow. That's a pretty big change. He said, well, I'm not taking another job either. And I said, well, what's behind that? He said, I'm 45 years old and I don't know my kids. And so I'm quitting my job so I can spend time with my kids. And I showed him the picture of my kids, the wedding picture that I have up in my window sill. And I said, well, you know, I can't think of a better investment. And I said, God bless you as you try to make up for some lost time. That's pretty radical. Doesn't happen much these days. Now, not many of us would be in a position to be able to do that. His level of success had a lot to do with it. But by the way, his level of success is also what drives most people to keep climbing. And I just want to say there's a balance somewhere that we need to make time, Dads, for our kids so that before those 18 or 20 or 25 years are gone, they know that we're there for them. Second, God loves to meet our needs. I've already talked about this, but look, if you give good gifts to your children... By the way, Dads, how many dads love to give nice things to your kids? You'd love to give them a good gift knowing that. You'd love to see them smiling. I mean, I could tell you so many stories of moments when it doesn't even have to be a big thing. It's just a thoughtful thing. Well, our Heavenly Father loves to do that. He loves to meet our needs. And thirdly, He's sympathetic to our hurts. You know, He doesn't say, when something happens in our life, He doesn't say, hey, buck up, get over it. Life will get better. Look at the next verse. The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. How many of you could give a testimony for that today? And I'm sure in this audience today, there are a number of you that are brokenhearted today. Maybe you're in the very back row because you just wanted to slip into this church to see if there would be some place where you could feel some comfort and some assurance. The Lord is close. And He wants us in that closeness to know Him intimately. He wants us to know Him as Abba, Father. This was a term, by the way, that Jesus gave to knowing God. If you go to the Middle East, as I have on a couple of occasions, gone to Israel, you'll hear the little Middle Eastern kids running around saying, Abba, Abba, Abba. It's the word for Daddy in the Aramaic. And Jesus is telling us, I want you to know our Heavenly Father is Abba. As Daddy God. Look at Romans 8.15 on the bottom of your page. It's by His Spirit that we cry, Abba, Father. God wants us to have this natural, open, intimate relationship. And friends, I know a number of us struggle with what I'm saying right now. Some of you grew up in very formal, strict religious tradition that God was distant and cold. And that's the way you... I'm not sure that that's really what God wants of us. Where does that come from? Where did you get that? Where did the church that you went to get that? Well, they carried it down from the church. Well, just think about it. People often say, I wonder what it's like in the pastor's home. I wonder what the pastor's home is like. I get asked that question now and then. Do they have services all day long? Or how's the work of their house? Well, I can tell you what's never happened in my house. I've never come home and had our kids say, Oh, great procreator of the pastor and family. Which thou sovereignly bestow upon us our allowance for the week so that we might go forth and declare thy goodness. And by the way, could you beseech us some extra cash because we want to go to a movie night. I mean, my kids... It was a very natural home setting, just like yours. I mean, I would just say, What are you talking about? And yet, how many of us talk to God that way? We don't feel like we can talk to Him. Just say, you know, Daddy, I've got some needs. I'm hurting about this one thing. Daddy, would you listen? This is difficult for me. God wants us to know Him intimately enough that we can share our very hearts with Him. And that doesn't mean that we don't see Him as an awesome God and all that. But He says, Jesus came that we might have access to the Father. Dear one, I don't know what your background is, but I want you to hear this testimony that's going to be shared right now because it's from somebody that went to church for a lot of years and thought they were doing it right, but they didn't have a relationship. They basically were cultivating a religion. And I just want to ask you, is this something that maybe you need to look at? Would you give a warm welcome to Paul Eichenlaub as he comes to share? Hello. Good morning. When I talk to people now and share my testimony about my life and coming to Christ, I often choose to use the expression that I had a religion, but not a relationship with God. You see, for the first 29 years of my life, ev