Welcome to the Lansdale Life Church podcast.
If you're seeking a closer relationship with Jesus Christ, this podcast is for you.
Thank you for joining us today.
Let's pray.
Father, God, we ask you to your spirit to really fill this place.
Yes, Lord, we welcome your spirit right here, right now.
Lord, we want to receive something directly from you today.
Regardless of audible words, Lord, we want you to speak into our hearts today,
into our spirits, Lord, so that we can be more connected to our Heavenly Father,
that we can fall even more in love with you as the perfect Father.
So that, Lord, as we leave here, Lord, we will know to whom we belong to.
Yes, it's in Jesus' name. Amen.
You know, when you think of the word Father,
many people have many different visual pictures in your head.
You know, maybe you're thinking about the guy who fixed everything.
Okay. And my father fit into some of these things,
but he walked, or at least he tried to fix everything.
Okay. But he had grease on his fingers.
He was always working under the hood or, you know, out cutting the lawn.
Always do it until we had to.
But always doing something, fixing, fixing.
Maybe you have that picture of the fix it guy,
and he just was always working, you know, around the house.
Or perhaps you think about the guy who always had the answers.
You know, just ask Dad. Just ask Dad.
You know, it's funny as my kids get older, I get phone calls,
and I think they just want to hear my voice for support
because they ask me things that I can't help them with.
And they know more about the subject than I do sometimes,
but I think they just like that comfort of,
I'm talking to Dad. I'll figure it out from there.
Whatever he's telling me to do, I'll do the opposite.
No, it's not that fair.
But like just that connection, you know,
but the answer guy, he always has the right solutions,
you know, to the problems or maybe the protector.
You know, the guy who's always making sure
the doors are locked at the end of the night.
He's always making sure, make sure you fill that tire up
when you get past a gas station, you know,
or, you know, your treads are getting low,
always safety-minded, always protecting,
always aware, you know, of those things.
Maybe that's the picture you have
when you think of a father, that visual image in your head.
Or maybe you're thinking about the provider, you know.
Oh, Dad, he worked, you know, he worked two jobs.
He was just always out making money,
making sure we had a roof over our head,
food on the table, clothes on us.
You know, he was just always busy providing,
providing, providing, you know.
And maybe that's your picture.
Or maybe your father just was a real great gift-giver
in terms of, you know, he always knew what to bring you
or to give you that would really light up your day,
you know, perhaps you have a father like that.
But many of us might not have that picture in our head,
you know, maybe it's the father
who was emotionally distant, physically absent,
passive, disengaged, or preoccupied.
Maybe because of situations like divorce
or work or military service
or difficult family circumstances,
you just simply didn't have enough time with Dad.
And there's a lot of broken families,
a lot of people can probably relate with that.
And some people, unfortunately,
never even knew their biological father.
There's too much of that in society today.
You know, so there's a lot of baggage.
And, you know, unfortunately,
the picture we have of a father in our head
based on our experience
can affect the way we perceive God, obviously.
You know, we can perceive God through this lens, you know,
and not really know our heavenly father.
But, you know, our heavenly father,
he doesn't make mistakes.
He always provides for his own.
He always protects.
He always has the answers.
And he always knows how to fix things.
You know, not just physical things,
not just cars or lawnmowers or whatever.
He fix what's most important, our lives, you know.
That's the heavenly father we have
is a heavenly father who fixes us.
And many of us just can't look past our experience
and really appreciate who we have as a heavenly father.
And today, I would just like us
to really like perceive, let even the Holy Spirit
be teaching you in your mind and in your heart, you know.
How much our heavenly father loves us
more than any earthly father can.
All of us have fallen short of loving our kids in perfection.
You know, we just have to realize,
yeah, there's going to be things,
oh, I wish I would have done that better.
I wish I wouldn't have done that better.
And if you haven't had children yet,
you're saying, you know, I'm not going to do that.
I'm not going to do that.
Well, you're going to do some things you'll regret.
But guess what?
As long as you're pointing your kids
or even your spiritual sons,
people that come under your sphere of influence
that you're a mentor to,
pointing them to your heavenly father.
You could say, yeah, I'm not it.
He's it.
If you can like introduce people in your life
to your heavenly father, you've done your job.
It takes all the pressure off of you
and puts all the pressure on God.
And guess what?
He can handle it.
He can handle whatever you bring him
because he is all knowing.
He is all problem solving, right?
And that's our God.
You know, we want to be that the people
who lead others to the Lord, the heavenly father.
So today we're going to talk about the father of lights.
And we're only really studying,
studying two verses.
It's one of my favorite thinking about fathers.
I always, this is like the verse
that always pops into my head, you know,
the father of lights.
And it's interesting because this book,
this letter of James is written
by the half brother of Jesus Christ.
You know, there were the original 12 disciples,
Peter, James, and John.
That James is a different James than this James.
That James was a disciple and an apostle.
And he will read in a couple of weeks
how he's actually martyred during the early church.
But James becomes really the leader of the church
in a sense.
Peter kind of did his thing,
but James was the administrator of the early church.
And James shared a household with Jesus Christ.
Can you imagine that?
He lived under the same roof as Jesus.
He shared their same earthly father
as Jesus, Joseph.
Of course, they were half brothers
because Jesus was born of Mary,
the virgin mother of Jesus,
and the Holy Spirit who impregnated her.
So they didn't share the same father biologically,
but the same earthly father, Joseph.
And so James and Jesus really had a lot in common,
only, you know, he didn't believe Jesus
during his ministry until he rose from the dead.
He didn't actually believe Jesus Christ
really was the son of God.
Or he's the son of Joseph until he realized.
And why I really am amazed by James's letters,
because he doesn't even introduce himself
as the half brother of Jesus.
He doesn't even consider himself
on the same level as Jesus,
even though they shared the same household.
But he didn't even rest his identity
in his earthly father, Joseph.
He rested his identity in his heavenly father, God.
And guess who introduced him to our heavenly father?
Jesus.
You know, I mean, I can't imagine
how James must have just been thinking,
wow, I just didn't know it all those years.
It just went right over my head.
And now here I am.
And I know, not Joseph.
I know my heavenly father.
You know, Joseph was a good guy.
I mean, Joseph, as you know, was a just man.
In fact, we read in Matthew 1.19
how when the angel came to him and spoke to him,
he was already decided in his heart
that he wasn't going to tell people
that she was already pregnant,
assuming it was with another man,
because he had mercy.
Theoretically, he could have almost had her stone.
Roman, you know, government
might have gotten in the way of that a little bit,
but people were stoned.
Look, Stephen's going to be stoned next week.
Well, two weeks from now.
In Acts 7 and 8, we're going to read all about that.
So there was stonings,
and Mary could have been subject to that.
But at the very least, a lot of ridicule, scorn,
and she would have just been kicked out of every synagogue.
But Joseph had mercy on her.
And he cared for her.
Then he says, you know what?
I'm not going to marry her,
but I'm just going to, you know,
just hide the fact that she's pregnant
and we'll see what happens.
I'm paraphrasing, of course.
But the angel came and told him,
no, this is of God.
But he was just going to put her away
because he had a lot of mercy.
And, you know, we also read about,
you can put that down, JT.
We also read about how Joseph, you know,
took Jesus out of Jerusalem
and he heard that Herod was killing all the babies.
And he actually brought him to Egypt
and kept them there for a while
until he was told it was okay to come back.
But then when he was coming back,
he said, oh, no, you know,
there's another mini-king.
Now that Herod's dead,
his son is in Jerusalem.
I can't go there either.
So he was very protective of Jesus.
You know, he was a protective father.
We could see that, you know.
And he shared a trade with Jesus.
He probably shared all,
I'll bet you James was probably a carpenter.
So my point is they learned a lot
from this earthly father.
They gained a lot,
just like we've all gained a lot
from our earthly fathers.
But no one can compare with our heavenly father
because he gives us the ultimate source of life.
He gives us our purpose.
So let's read James chapter one verse 17.
Every good gift and every perfect gift
is from above and comes down
from the father of lights
with whom there is no variation
or shadow of turning.
And we're gonna be piecing this verse apart.
But the first thing is every good gift
and every perfect gift.
You know, that word good means good.
It means it brings happiness.
It brings joy.
It's useful, that kind of thing.
But perfect is complete.
It's whole.
It satisfies.
That's that word for perfect.
And our father of lights,
he has every good and perfect gift.
You know, as a dad,
I like giving good gifts.
To my kids, you know,
and I always did when, you know,
when they were growing up,
depending on our financial situation,
sometimes they were better,
sometimes they were lesser, you know,
but, you know, when we could,
and some of those gifts brought a lot of fun.
Like I'm looking back at the swing set,
which we brought to two houses, you know,
and we had a lot of fun with that
until the woods took it over
and everything grew over it.
And then it was like,
yeah, no one wants to play on that thing.
Have you ever had one of them?
And then we had the trampoline.
Okay.
And that was fun.
And they would have all their kids
and too many kids got hurt on that thing.
But, but anyway, you know,
they like to live dangerous.
So they're all, you know,
and then finally the nets came down
and they broke apart.
Still they're bouncing.
I'm thinking, you know,
we should take that down someday.
And before you know it,
they're jumping off the deck
onto the trampoline
and then off onto the ground.
I'm like, all right, that's it.
We got to disassemble this thing, right?
This is becoming too dangerous.
When we first,
when they're real little,
we moved to our new house
back in 2020, 2001.
And we had a lot of woods back there.
So I said, we got to get something right.
So I ended up getting them mini bikes,
you know, three mini bikes for three boys.
Morgan ended up riding it
more than Jake did.
But, and I'll never forget,
like we get them,
we bring them home.
It was a deal
because it was a package deal.
A little Pee Wee 50.
Anyone ever ride one of those things?
And a Pee Wee 80.
Two 80s and one 50.
So anyway, bring them home.
I'll never forget.
It's that night.
It's in the middle of the night.
And they're only,
how old are they back in that day?
They're young.
They're maybe, I don't know,
eight, seven, and five or something.
You know, something like,
maybe a little older.
Anyway, I should have figured that out
ahead of time.
But they were little, right?
And it's in the middle of the night.
I'm waking up.
You ever do this and I'm suddenly,
am I an idiot?
Like I bought three motorcycles
for my little kids who never rode
a mini bike or anything motorized
before in their lives.
Like what a bad dad.
But you know, I already own them now.
What am I going to do?
But they survived.
Praise the Lord.
They live.
But yeah, those are some fun gifts.
But you know, as time went on,
they needed to get better gifts.
More gifts that have
a more complete purpose.
Like education.
I started putting into their tap fund
and everything when I could, you know.
You know, for their education,
for college and all.
And even we shifted to, you know,
Christian school
because we just felt
it was better for them.
Not judging anyone who doesn't.
I'm just saying it was better
for our family.
But really investing.
And they might not have
seen that as a gift.
But it was much more impactful
for their lives
than the trampoline,
than the swing set,
or the minibikes.
Because they're important things, you know.
But you know what?
The perfect gift we gave them.
The perfect gift we gave them
is plugging them into a youth group.
Plugging them into missions trips.
Plugging them into church.
To Godly families.
To a community of believers.
So that they could really learn
the lifestyle of Jesus Christ.
Because that's eternal value there,
you know.
That's the perfect gift.
But in the end,
it comes from our heavenly Father.
That perfect gift.
You know, my dad was a good guy, you know.
He taught me a lot of things.
He was the most humble guy.
He really was a humble man, you know.
And not a man of many words.
But he just expressed, you know.
He just, his character
just expressed that he was a kind man, you know.
And he always had this love for me, you know.
No matter what.
And I needed a lot of love many times
when I did a lot of disappointing things growing up.
And I just never questioned, like,
he still loves me, you know.
He still loves me.
Even though I'm just not a lovable son many times.
And yet he still loved me.
And he demonstrated a lot of things to me.
He demonstrated like hard work, you know.
He demonstrated, again, like that patient, humble nature.
He demonstrated that work ethic and commitment.
And I'll be honest with you.
My mom and dad didn't have the best relationship
most of the time.
A lot of the time.
But there's never a question they're staying together.
Now they could have worked on the actual relationship.
But in that day, staying together was a big thing.
And even more so nowadays, right.
They stayed together.
He just had loyalty and dedication.
And I learned that from him.
I really did, you know.
That type of like long suffering.
And sometimes with my mom, he needed some long suffering.
And she for him too.
But just that I learned those things.
But you know, and he even like taught me religion.
You know, I wouldn't say he taught me
that deep relationship with the Holy Spirit and everything.
But he did teach me religion and fear of God.
You want to meet him?
He's not here today.
But I have some pictures of him.
But I just thought I'd show you a few
because I didn't even realize I could find any.
But there he is, okay.
Entering World War II, okay.
My dad, Connell Bonner.
He actually looks a lot like Jake.
And then the next slide is my dad and mom.
And there they are.
Getting married and then the next slide, I forget.
Okay, so that's my dad at Wildwood Beach
with my sister and third, my oldest brother.
Were you guys Wildwood goers in the day, you know?
That's the only place you went.
And then the next one is yours truly, right there.
I'm Buddha, okay.
I'm the little pot belly guy, right there.
I was the youngest.
And there's my brother just above me.
We were about 15 months apart, Brian.
And there's my dad, you know.
And so, you know, I'm just showing you these
just to put some skin on the game.
And then the next one is him and his dad, okay.
Now, my grandfather came over from Ireland
at the age of about 16.
He had to prove he had a job.
Prove he had a job to enter Ellis Island.
That's a thing you don't hear about too much anymore.
But anyway, that's another story.
And he was a blacksmith and he worked with iron.
And do you know, he shoeed the horses.
If Michelle's here, she's gonna say,
that's not how you say that.
She's a horse girl, right.
But he shoeed the horses of the trash trucks
that took the trash in Philadelphia
all the way up until he was in his 70s.
He still, they went a long time.
There was like a couple left.
He was the last blacksmith of the horse shores
of the Philadelphia trash trucks.
So, and there's pictures of him like this.
It was like this bald guy, old man, bam, bam.
Holding this big Clydesdale or whatever horse
and just trying to squish him.
But my dad learned a work ethic from his dad.
And these are earthly valued things.
And then I have one last picture of him.
There he is.
So this is just before he passed away.
He was taken in a fatal car crash while I was up at Penn State.
And it was quite alarming.
You know, I was 20, got the phone call.
And so that was, you know, this was right around the end there.
And he didn't know, you know, we never know.
But as long as he was alive, he invested everything
I believe he could to the best of his knowledge,
you know, the best of his ability.
And, you know, we just don't know how long we have.
And we really do need to invest,
whether they're a biological child
or just people that need help and guidance.
We need to invest, you know.
You know, I had a little issue back in February.
I'm running on a Planet Fitness treadmill.
And I pass out, okay.
Ended up I go to the hospital.
Ended up I find these things in my heart, these scarring.
I end up getting the defibrillator and pacemaker.
And I'm thinking, who is this guy?
I never knew this was going to be me, right?
And so ever since then, you know,
I have the device just in case.
But when I go out jogging, I still think, you know,
I wonder if that's going to happen again, right?
But, you know, God's got me.
So this morning I'm running.
I love when God gives you metaphors up to the last minute.
And you could just keep editing, right?
But I'm jogging along this morning.
And as I'm jogging, I'm running up this road
and I see four turkey vultures in the middle of the road.
And I'm like, that's kind of weird.
And so as I'm jogging towards them,
I'm like, well, they'll fly away soon.
Everybody's, every animal's afraid of man to some degree.
I'm jogging, I'm getting closer and closer.
I'm like, they're not leaving.
This is really kind of creepy, right?
And then finally, I'm maybe 12 feet away, 13,
and two fly up in the air, but they start kind of hovering.
And I'm jogging and I'm like,
and I'm running like within five feet of these things.
And I'm like, and they're just staring at me like,
what the heck?
Where's the roadkill?
Like where's a party without a roadkill?
That's the only reason turkey vultures gather together
is to eat the roadkill.
And as I'm jogging by, I thought of something funny.
Maybe they know something I don't.
I swear that happened.
I'm thinking, I got to plug that into this morning.
Because that seems funny to me.
I don't know if they'll get it.
But you just never know, you know?
But you know, life is short and we just have to invest.
But you know, Father God is the perfect God,
the Father of lights.
And He has the perfect gifts.
You know what He gives you?
In Ephesians 2.8, He gives you salvation.
For by grace you have been saved through faith.
That not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.
Amen.
Remember on Pentecost,
when Peter is giving this long speech
and suddenly they say,
what do we got to do to be saved?
And in Acts chapter 2, Peter says this,
if you have that JT, he says,
Repent, let every one of you be baptized
in the name of Jesus Christ
for the remission of sins
and you shall receive what?
The gift of the Holy Spirit.
Man, just that alone.
Salvation, the Holy Spirit.
We have everything we need.
We are empowered for an amazing life
down here and beyond.
And so that's the idea.
So let's read on.
Again, look at James 1.17.
And we're looking, why the Father of lights?
Every good and perfect gift is from above
and comes down from the Father of lights.
What is that all about?
Well, you know, God is light.
In Him there is no darkness.
One John 1.5, right?
And when He brings us into salvation,
we are born again.
We are born of light.
We become children of light.
I have a little menage of verses there, JT,
if you could put those three.
Ephesians 5a,
for you were once darkness
and now you are light in the world.
Walk as children of light.
Let your light so shine before men
that they may see your good works
and glorify your Father in heaven.
And finally, Colossians 1.12,
giving thanks to the Father
who has qualified us to be partakers
of the inheritance of the saints in the light.
We are ambassadors of light.
The word says we wear the armor of light.
We have the light in us, upon us.
We are children of light.
Think about that.
Like we carry the light with us.
I was thinking, you ever go to a wedding
and the bride and groom are ready
to come running out of the reception,
the sermon, the hall, whatever it is.
It's the smallest words I can't come up with.
But anyway, they're in that place.
They're in that place, right?
And everyone's lining up
and then they light the sparkler, okay?
And they're passing on
and everyone lights another sparkler,
another sparkler, and it's like,
and everyone's like, whoo, whoo, whoo.
And then they don't come out.
And you're like, come on.
I got this, it's about to burn my hand.
Where are you?
Right?
But then finally, they come out
and all the pictures and say,
but one sparkler lights the next sparkler.
And it's a brilliant picture,
but eventually those sparklers go out.
The only eternal light
that we can have in us
is through the father of lights.
The Lord who puts his light in to us,
makes us like him.
You know, I was thinking about
another example of light,
how it passes on and on.
And I was thinking of fiber optic cable.
Do you know how that works?
Fiber optic cable.
I never realized it's literally light
that travels through cables.
Some of you are like, no, duh, right?
But I didn't know that.
And I'm like, wow, that's really cool.
In the 1800s, they discovered this process
because they ran water through,
they ran light through water.
And as the water came out
and like a kind of an arc,
the light followed the water
and they discovered this.
Wow.
And then eventually they put glass
into these cables and plastics.
And now in the 80s,
they ran the first cable
across the entire ocean.
And it all starts with one laser beam
at the beginning of the cable.
Isn't that amazing?
Like so one laser beam goes in the front
and it just spreads and spreads
and goes out everywhere it goes
to bring a signal to wherever it's going,
to bring communication.
And that's like us.
We carry that light wherever we go
and it's his literal light.
We're not reflectors.
You know, I hear examples of like
the moon reflects the sun.
Well, we're not just reflecting.
We are.
We are the light of God.
You know, we are children of the light, right?
So that's who we are born to be
when we become born again.
You know, we need to know who we are.
I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts
this week, Think Biblically.
If you ever want to check it out,
it's really good.
It's Talbot University.
But anyway,
and I heard this interesting,
this interesting interview
and it was,
do you remember the Michael Jackson song,
Billie Jean?
Should we try it?
We're saying it good.
Well, all right.
I'm not going to,
I'm not going to moon dance.
If anyone knows how to,
you could try it right up the aisle here.
No, maybe not.
But like,
I could never moon dance.
Could you?
I couldn't even,
well, Jill could.
Okay.
But I couldn't.
Okay.
And I'm like, how do you,
anyway, it does whatever.
But, but Billie Jean is not my lover.
So, but Billie Jean,
I heard this interview
and it was with the daughter
of the real Billie Jean.
Okay.
Her name is Laneige Garrison.
And it was an amazing story.
You ever look her up
and she's,
she's amazing, amazing speaker.
She's born again.
She's like, has a doctorate.
She's amazing, right?
I think a doctor,
but whatever.
But so she was telling the story
about how her mom,
unfortunately,
a beautiful lady,
but she was mentally ill.
And she thought her children,
three of them,
were all born by Michael Jackson.
He was the father of her children,
two twins and her.
She was the older one.
They were four years younger.
And so she would tell them all the time,
Michael Jackson, he's going to,
you know, he's going to eventually,
you know, admit that you're his
and all this stuff.
And it's like,
and so it's really tragic,
the stories she told.
And they literally camped out
across the street from his mansion
outside of his gate
for two weeks one time.
And we're just waiting
for him to come out, you know?
And at one moment,
they saw a flash of someone
who was in disguise,
take off in a vehicle.
And they, and then she said,
that's him, that's him, you know?
But so finally,
she was in and out
of mental institutions.
She and her siblings
were in and out of foster care.
And eventually,
her aunt and uncle adopted her.
And they introduced her to the Lord.
And she got saved.
Meanwhile, her mom was Muslim.
And so was,
she didn't know her biological father
because she thought it was Michael Jackson.
But eventually,
she got adopted.
And she was introduced
to the father of lights
through these adoptive parents.
And it was awesome
because finally,
she felt like she belonged
all these years.
She figured it out, by the way.
She said, by the time
she was in like high school,
it's like, Michael Jackson
ain't my dad.
And I know my twins,
they're not from him either.
She figured it out, you know?
But it was just sad
because she see her mom
was locked up one time,
you know, on the news
and everything for all this.
But she always told
the wrong person was her father.
But then she had this
adoptive father,
but he wasn't really her father either.
The father of lights,
the heavenly father,
that's her real dad.
And as she was talking about this
in the interview,
it was like so moving
to think how inspiring
this lady is
in spite of her upbringing
and in spite of her past.
And she just shared these things.
And then finally,
her biological father
reached out to her,
a Muslim man with,
I think he had other wives and stuff,
reached out to her,
hey, you know,
why don't you,
you know, come over
and maybe, you know,
maybe you can be part
of our faith too.
And we can be re-engaged
as a family.
And she's like,
are you kidding me?
Like after the way you've abandoned me,
you think I'm going back to that?
No, I belong
to the family of God.
I belong to the father of lights.
If you ever check her out,
it's just an amazing story.
You know, so let's look
at the rest of 17,
James 1 17.
Every good gift,
every perfect gift
is from above and comes down
from the father of lights
with whom there is no variation
or shadow of turning.
The ESV, I like the version,
it says,
with whom there is no variation
due to change,
due to change.
In other words,
God never changes
his perspective of you.
His face is always shining down
upon you.
He always loves you.
Oh, they just did that.
All right, I'm going to turn
over here then.
I just can't.
I can't do this.
No, he's always looking.
It's a matter of
where are you looking?
You know, in fact,
they say when they talk
about the sun rise,
you know, the sun doesn't rise,
but that's what we say.
Oh, the sun.
Look at that beautiful sunrise.
No, the earth is turning
towards the sun, right?
The sun never moves.
Well, if it moves,
it doesn't move around the earth.
That's for sure, right?
But it's the earth moving.
It's us turning into God's
wonderful shining face towards us.
He doesn't shift
based on our actions.
He's always loving us.
No matter what,
he's always there.
He's always ready to love us.
You know, I love how
Jesus tells the parable
in Matthew 18,
how he talks about,
you know, this is like
the love of God.
And he says, what do you think?
If a man has a hundred sheep
and one of them goes astray,
does he not leave the 99
and go to the mountains
to seek the one that is straying?
Even if he should find it,
assuredly I say to you,
he rejoices more over that sheep
than over the 99
that did not go astray.
Even so, it is not the will
of your father
who is in heaven
that one of these little ones
should perish.
He's chasing after us.
You know, he's always going after us.
And when you see that picture though,
I think about the prodigal son
because there's what could seem
like a contradiction
because God also compares
our relationship.
And I know it's more of Israel
being the older son
and Gentiles being the younger son.
But let's just use
the parable for this purpose.
You know the prodigal son?
Parable, right?
So the younger son
just squanders his money, okay?
He says,
Dad, I want all my inheritance now.
He leaves, goes to a faraway land
and spends, spends, spends,
on all the debauchery
and everything else.
And then finally,
he's down to like working
as a slave basically
for this guy of that land.
And he's looking
and he's watching the pigs eat.
And he's like,
man, that month old broccoli
is looking real good right now.
You know what I mean?
He's like,
he's just yearning to have the pods,
whatever a pod is,
in that mud, that slop.
He's thinking,
that even looks good, right?
So he's just yearning.
He's that hungry and starving.
And he's just longing for anything.
But no one gave him anything,
the word says.
He didn't actually eat it.
He wasn't allowed, right?
And then finally,
something came over him
and we read in Luke 15
that one version says
he came to his senses.
But most versions,
including King James version,
says he came to himself
when he came to himself.
Think about that.
He said,
how many hired servants
of my fathers
have bred enough
and to spare
and I perish with hunger.
I will arise and go to my father
and will say to him,
father, I have sinned against heaven
and before you
and I am no longer worthy
to be called your son.
Make me like one
of your hired servants.
And so that's what he did.
But this came to himself.
Think about that.
He finally realized,
I don't belong here.
I belong there.
I belong with my father.
You know, he was a great dad.
What am I, nuts?
Like, I thought
I was gonna find satisfaction,
joy and purpose away from him.
He is my satisfaction,
joy and purpose with him.
Like, he is the source
of all those things.
I have to go home.
Now, he right away says,
but he probably won't,
he even misunderstood
the mercy of his father.
And I think a lot of people do that.
They fall away from God.
And I've seen this many times
that are in this pattern of repentance,
a pattern of repentance.
It's like, oh, I'm really screwed.
I'm on the drugs, the alcohol.
I'm going back
and I just have to do this
and I have to do that
and I just have to measure up
and how come you're not doing more?
You should be doing more.
And then all of a sudden,
they cave again.
They go back to all the other stuff
and they're doing all the things
and they're like,
they're finally going back again.
Like, I just got to do more.
I got to do more.
And that's what religion is, by the way.
And it's trying to purge yourself
of the contamination
of what you keep going back to.
But it's not going to work.
You have to die.
That person's dead.
My life belongs with dad,
with Abba's father.
He's the father of lights.
That's where I belong.
And until we just say,
I'm dead.
I want to go back to being really alive.
And we go back
and that's the picture.
He's saying,
he came to himself.
He says, I don't belong here.
I belong there.
But he's probably going to make me
one of those things.
But they're treated pretty good too.
And he goes back
and you know what happens?
Dad's there.
But he didn't go after him.
He didn't go after him.
But something told him to go home.
And we know that's the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit draws people back.
Even if he's not physically
running after the people,
the Holy Spirit is drawing.
Drawing people to the Heavenly Father, right?
And so he finally goes back
and there's dad out on the porch
seeing like,
like, that's him.
Like, look, like it says he was far off.
And he went running.
Dad went running towards him.
And the sun starts saying,
I am not worthy.
He just like smothered him,
like kissed his neck.
They were weeping.
And he's like, go get the robe.
Go get the ring.
Go get the sandals.
Go get the fatted cap.
Worth throwing a party.
Because my son who was lost
is now found.
Like, that's God.
He doesn't turn away.
You know, when his light is shining,
if there's shadows in your life,
it's not him who moved.
You moved.
His light is always upon you.
His face is always shining upon you.
It's not him who's moving away.
It's you who's moving away.
And he says, just turn towards my light.
You remember when Cain killed Abel?
That picture is so embedded in my head
because, you know, he said to Cain,
why has your countenance fallen?
That meant his face was literally at the ground
as God's talking to him.
And he's saying, sin is creeping at the door.
You don't want to let it have you.
And just Cain is just like saying,
I just can't look at you.
You know, he has creatures.
It's kind of a weird way to say that, isn't it?
First fruits of his creatures.
And it's literally not,
it doesn't mean man.
It means everything.
Everything created.
We're the first fruits.
You know, God made man in his own image.
In his image, he made man.
You ever read that in Genesis 1, 27?
It's a chiasm.
You know what a chiasm is?
It's kind of like A, B, B, A.
It's like a point, a point, that last point again,
and then the first point again.
It's like a little algorithm.
But the center of it is always the main purpose, image.
We are the image of God.
All humanity is the image of God.
But you know, there's only few who are called children of God.
Only those who receive him as their Lord and Savior.
In fact, John 1, 12, 13 says this.
He says, but as many as received him to them,
he gave the right to become children of God.
To those who believe in his name,
who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh,
nor of the will of man, but who?
But of God.
You know, it's his will that you be saved.
But you must receive him.
You know, not everyone are children of God.
I hear a lot of people erroneously say that.
Well, we're all children of God.
Well, who's all?
Who's we?
You know, only those who receive the Lord Jesus Christ
as their Lord and Savior, and they die
and are brought back to life.
They are children of God.
The others are actually, in some cases,
referred to children of the devil.
They're still apart from God.
I mean, that's scary.
We have to be right with God.
And I just want to encourage right now.
You know, he wants to adopt us.
I love these verses, Galatians 4, 15, and Ephesians 1, 5,
which says, to redeem those under the law
that we might receive adoption to sonship.
You know, five times adoption is mentioned,
and every time after it says to sonship.
That means to daughtership too.
But every time he predestined us for adoption to sonship
through Jesus Christ in accordance
with his pleasure and will.
You know, nobody was born into this.
We need to be adopted.
And you can only be adopted
if you're ready to die to your old self
and be alive in Jesus Christ.
And so we might as well give an altar call now.
Not an altar come up, unless you want to.
That would be awesome.
But invite you to receive the Lord Jesus Christ
as your Savior.
It's just time.
Like, what are you waiting for?
The vultures?
Yeah, don't wait for them.
You know, don't wait for the car accidents.
You know, I mean, you know,
how I wish I would have known that
before that would have like
changed my relationship with my dad, for sure.
But I wasn't saved.
And I hope he was to some level of
being with the Lord.
I'll know someday.
But, you know, I can't figure that out.
Neither can you.
Don't worry about who's not here anymore.
You can't fix the past.
We have to make sure our destiny,
our future is secure in Jesus Christ.
That's all we can deal with,
is the now and the future.
The past is past.
Don't let the past decide your destiny.
You know, we're looking forward.
We can't look back.
A lot of people refuse to receive
the truth of the gospel
because they don't want to even consider
those who have already passed away
are not with the Lord.
Well, why figure that out?
Don't worry about it.
That's God's problem.
That's humanity's problem.
That's not your problem.
You worry about you.
It's the same thing with that island thing.
Oh, what about the island?
Why don't you worry about you?
Okay.
You need to be right with God.
So let's pray.
Father God, I know I'm a sinner
and I know I need a Savior.
So, Lord, I want to surrender myself to you today
to receive a new life,
to become a child of life.
In Jesus' name, amen.
You know, one last thing.
When you're going to watch the fireworks,
if you go to see them on July 4th,
I'll never forget this amazing, amazing message
that Chuck Smith,
the founder of Calvary Chapel,
gave one time and he said,
you know, when you go to see the fireworks,
right, and you put out your chair,
your blanket,
you're watching these brilliant boom,
boom, boom, right?
And then the finale,
it's like, wow, you know,
it's, they're gorgeous.
They're beautiful.
But then when they're all done,
everyone starts packing up
getting their stuff.
It's all over now and they start
going back to the car,
and the smoke is still covering everything,
but then it starts to drift away.
And what do you see?
The stars, the stars.
You know, we are children of light
in the darkness
and we never burn out.
Fireworks are here today
and going tomorrow.
The lights of this world are temporary,
but the father of lights,
he is eternal.
His gifts are eternal.
He is the one who fixes everything.
He is the one that provides everything.
He is the one that protects everything.
He is the one with all the answers.
He's the father we've always wanted
and we can have him.
Amen.
Let's give the Lord a round of applause.
Thanks for joining us at Lansdale Life Church
as we praise God
and discuss His word.
Don't forget to join us
for Worship Live Sunday mornings
at 10 a.m. Eastern on YouTube.
Be blessed and have a great day!