SPEAKER_01 0:03

Good morning. How are you?

unknown 0:09

So far.

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Yeah, it's early. I hope you have a nap on your agenda today. Naps are good. That's why Jesus took them. He took them in boats, so that'd be cool. Turn with me to the book of Isaiah. The book of Isaiah. That's in the Old Testament, that's in the clean part of your Bible. Isaiah 61. Oh, I love the rustle of those pages. That sounds good. Of course, there's some people doing this too. Okay. We there? Isaiah 61. This is Jesus speaking through the prophet Isaiah about 750 years before he was born on this planet. And here's what Jesus is saying to the prophet Isaiah. The spirit of the sovereign Lord is on me because he has anointed me. I love that word anointed. It means something has oil smeared on it, which is reminiscent of the Holy Spirit. He has anointed me to preach good news to the poor, those people who are disenfranchised and marginalized in our world. But he also goes on to say, He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted. Two words are used in the Hebrew there where it says brokenhearted. Jesus came to mend shattered hearts. And uh life has a way of doing that to your heart, doesn't it? It sure does. Let's just pray for a minute. Jesus, we all recognize our hearts are shattered. Been shattered, probably will be shattered again. But we just praise you today that you came to mend broken hearts. I was gonna bring a piece of stained glass today as an illustration, but it's pretty large. And it's so big when I picked it up, I thought that's really heavy. And the frame kind of creaked on it. I thought, ah, that's probably not a good job. I did a bring that. But it was created by uh Noreen Mara. Any of you know remember Noreen? Yeah. She was a sweet little guy, gal artist. You know her, Charlene, I'm sure. But uh, we have several uh of her paintings in our house too, and we have this piece of stained glass. She was good friends of ours. Her husband, Steve, uh they're both passed away now, but he was a he was a guitar player, played a bass guitar made by Ron Bobrick. We got no guitar players here. Ron Bobrick, yeah. But anyway, they they both pass. But uh when I look at that piece of stained glass, you think that's really pretty. And then you think, it's just broken glass. It is, you know. But every piece of glass in that piece of art has a story. It was once useful. It was something you ate from or you served food in. I'm all for that, you know. I I I'm I I dig that, you know. Uh, but it has another story. It has a story about how it was broken. I was laying a uh ceramic tile floor in my kitchen, and somebody said, You know what's gonna happen when you drop something on that. Yeah. They were right. It's gonna shatter. I dropped a glass the other day. I think we're still finding glass shards, you know, just you know. So every piece of glass in that stained glass art is has a story about how it was broken, how it got shattered. But it also has a story about how Noreen took all those pretty pieces of glass and cemented them all together to make a piece of art. That's the story of the human race, isn't it? We've we all have a story about how we were useful and how we got busted and how God is putting us back together. And the scripture says that will be the ministry of the Messiah. He will come and he will repair shattered hearts. And to be human is kind of like being stained glass. We all have stories, you know. Good stories, bad stories. We were created for Eden. You know that the human race was created to live in Eden, the Garden of God. Think of that. And God came and manifested in physical form and took walks with Adam and Eve and talked with them, like, wow, you know. We were meant to live in Eden, the garden of God. But the human race got busted. You know, I think Eden has wired my heart. I do. I think it's wired in all of our hearts. I think there are times that we miss it, even though we've never been there, because we were designed to be there. But we're not there. And I sometimes wonder if the reason I'm so not at home in this world is because I was created to live somewhere else. C.S. Lewis said that maybe we're not at home in this world because God created us to live somewhere else. He created us to live in Heed in Eden with Him. So we're all wired that way, but that's not the way we live. We live more like shattered glass, like a piece of salute pulpavore. That means health in Spanish. Why do I remember things like that? Just the way my brain works. It's weird. Um, but anyway, uh, so we were created to live in Eden, but you remember what happened in Eden. There were true trees there. If Adam and Eve had not been driven out of the garden, they could have eaten of this one tree and lived forever. I'd kind of like to know what was in what was in that tree, wouldn't you? Wow, if we could sell that. Money to be made, but there was another tree, and that was a tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God said, Don't eat of that tree. If you eat of that tree, you will die. But the devil came along and said, No, you're not gonna die. God's trying to keep something from you. What will really happen is if you eat of that tree, you'll be more like God. Isn't that the ploy he fell for in when he was in heaven? He wanted to be more like God and got cast down here. No, you'll be more like God. So wouldn't you rather be smart than have intimacy with God? What a bad trade. And they ate of the tree. They didn't die immediately, but eventually they did. But something happened. They were no longer comfortable in God's presence. And when he came to have a walk with them, they hid. You know, people have been hiding from God ever since. Some people don't want to find him or don't want him to find them. They're happy to be hidden, you know. But the human race has been hiding from God ever since it was broken in the Garden of Eden. So we were wired to live in Eden, created to live in the Garden of God. But here we are in this war, war-torn world that assaults our soul from the time we're born, doesn't it? In fact, you know what? It may assault our soul before we're even born. We hear teachings now uh that's that say that even in the womb that children sometimes experience trauma. We know about drug babies, they're born addicted to drugs because of the drugs their parents took, their mother took, or they're they're born addicted to alcohol or nicotine, you know. So they're traumatized in the womb. In fact, if a mother feels fear, anger, chemical changes take part in her body, and and the baby experiences that. So even in the womb, you know, here we are assaulted by this world. We're born into this war-torn world that assaults our soul every day. And there are a lot of experiences in life that shatter our soul, just like something dropped on my kitchen floor, it just breaks in a bunch of pieces. And you're every age you ever were. Do you know that? You're six and sixteen and sixty-eight. We're every age we've ever been. And we have stored stuff from every age, good stuff and bad stuff. That's all stored away in our souls. There, it's all part of us. And there are a lot of experiences in life that just kind of shatter the soul and and parts of it kind of pop off and get stuck at that age. Therapists call those young places. And when they're dealing with their clients, they look for those young places. And the reason they call them young places is because when they trigger one of those hurtful memories, the way we respond is like a young person. Like, for instance, somebody gets really mad at you and yells at you, and you want to go hide in a closet. That's not the mature reaction of a 47-year-old woman. That's the reaction of a six-year-old kid who probably ran and hid in a closet. So if a therapist finds this young place and finds a place where people ran, they know there was some trauma there. Or you go through something that's really hurtful, something that really hurts you badly, and you want to eat a half gallon of ice cream. I'm all for ice cream, but not a half gallon. If you eat a half gallon, you are medicating something, you know. You found it, we found a young place, because that's not the reaction of a 47-year-old mature man. That's a six-year-old kid. So if you find these places where people react like they did when they were a youth, you know there's some trauma there. And all of us are filled with that. We're every age we've ever been, and we stored all the trauma we've ever experienced, and we've also experienced some safe places where we would run, you know, to get away from the trauma. Our souls store all of that, and we store a lot of brokenness. Every time I'm in Franklin, Indiana, just about every time, I go drive through the north end of Franklin. I go up Hurricane Street past the last house on the left. That's where I grew up. And I love to drive around the neighborhood, and when I do, I can remember every kid that lived in every house. I remember the vacant lots where we played football and baseball, and I remember the goal on the back of our garage where we played basketball in the alley, you know. And I remember all these good memories. That's a safe place for me. Life was not complicated then. There was no stress in my life back then, you know. That's a safe place. And every time I do that, I come out of there just feeling really good. I've been to a safe place. We all have safe places. Safe places are good. And we go there to retreat from stuff that hurts us, right? Do I need to tell you that life is stressful? You already knew that? Yeah. Probably so, you know. So we were meant to live in Eden, but we're far from that in this shattered world. I have a friend, um, known her for a long time, and she just she had trouble getting on with life. She just couldn't get on with her life. So she finally went to counseling. We think, oh, she's going to counseling. Things are going to get good. No, things are going to get real bad for a while because they're going to pick all the scabs off the wounds and you're going to bleed, you know. But she uh went to the counselor, and the counselor found she had childhood memories up to this place, and then suddenly she had no memory whatsoever for several years, and then it began again. So that tells you something. Boy, something happened in that period of time. That that that the girl's mind doesn't even recognize anymore. It was so hurtful. So the counselor sits down with her and asks her where she lived at this time and and uh where she went to school and who she hung out with. And basically what he did, he picked through that period of time and and helped her recall memories. And as the memories came back, they were traumatic. Because she found she'd been sexually abused by her parents. Like Smith and Wesson has a cure for that. But she just blocked out a period of her life because it was so hurtful. That's sad. This is the world we live in, and it just shatters us sometimes. But here's the good news the Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me. He has anointed me to preach good news to the poor, to bind up the brokenhearted people with shattered hearts. Jesus came to put our hearts back together, like a piece of mosaic art or a piece of stained glass. He came to take all those pieces and put them back together and make something beautiful of it. And that's what he's doing. He's doing that in you. He's doing that in me. Some days it doesn't look like that, does it? But he's doing it. He's doing it. That's the good news. Jesus came to put our shattered hearts back together. How did he do that? Turn to John 3.16. You can probably quote this. I'll give you the first word. For God so loved the world that he gave his only or begotten or one and only Son, that whoever believes in him would not perish, but have everlasting life. How did Jesus come to heal our shattered hearts? He came with a message. He was a messenger. In fact, John called him the word of God, which means revealed knowledge. Jesus came to reveal something to us. What did he reveal? God loves you. What? God loves you. And there's some people who would think, no way. God could never love me. Why would he love me? See, they have this image of God is sitting up in heaven looking real stern with his rod in his hand saying, Next time, you're gonna get it. See, they see him as that angry God of the Old Testament. But what they overlook is the knuckleheads he was dealing with. If they didn't make you angry, nothing would, you know. So they think of this angry God from the Old Testament, love me. God couldn't love me. But Jesus said, God loves you. That's a simple message, but so profound, and some people don't. A lot of Christians still don't get it. They think God's mad at them. They fear the wrath of God. Hey, he's not mad at me. I don't fear the wrath of God. You know, the impending judgment. Hey, he's not mad at me. Why should I be worried about that? You know, God loves you. Man, what a simple message, but so profound. God loves you. Go to John 10 10. Oh, I love the rustle of those pages. It sounds good, doesn't it? John 10 10. Jesus said, This thief, that's the devil, comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I am come that they might have life. And life to the full. One version says, abundant life. I love 1 John, where it says, See how the Father has lavished his love on us that we should be called the children of God. When I heard hear that word abundant, or I hear that word of her word lavished, you know what I think of? I think of buttering a bagel. Yeah, that's the weird way my mind works. But I do. Every time I see those two words, I think, oh, that's how you butter. I've watched Jenny Sue butter a bagel. She doesn't know how to do it. Right. She, she, she, she, you know, just wipe a little butter. No, you've got to slather it on there. So it leaks through the hole and in your hand and drips off your elbow. Now, when it's dripping off your elbow, you're good, okay? Slather it on there really good. That's the that's the picture that comes in my mind when Jesus says, I'm come that you might have abundant life. Or 1 John, he has lavished his love on us. What Jesus was saying is that the Father wants you to have the very best life you can imagine. That sounds pretty good, doesn't it? A lot of people are not experiencing that, but that's what's available. Jesus said the Father sent him so that we could have abundant life. Now, how do we do that? John 17, 3. Turn to John 173. Yeah, that sounds good. Let's pick up the first verse. After Jesus said that, he looked up toward heaven and prayed, Father, the time has come. Glorify your son, that your son may glorify you. For you granted him authority over all people, that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. Now, this is eternal life. This is how we enjoy that abundant life that love lavished on us by the Father, the best possible life we could ever have. He says, This is eternal life, that you may, they they may know you, the only true God, in Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. So the key to having this abundant life, where the love of God is lavished on us and we become his children, is having a relationship with him. Hey, we're back to Eden again. Where people walked with God, had conversations with him. The Father wants us to have a relationship with him. So that we can have a relationship with him. Jesus, or God wants to father us. What'd you say, Don? God wants to father us. Jesus referred to his father as Abba Father. Did you ever catch that? Father is a that's a, you know, a brain won't work. That's a proper form of. But then he used that term Abba, which is means daddy, papa, you know. It's when you run up to your dad and say, Dad, I love you, and he gives you a big hug. That's the kind of relationship that God wants us to have with him, an intimate relationship. He wants something. I know him. Now, when Jesus says when the Father wants to know you and you know him, he could have chosen two words. He could have chosen word idete, which means heart knowledge. Some people are satisfied with that. They just want to know about a lot about God. That's religion. Okay. Jesus didn't come offering religion, He came offering life. Don't settle for religion when you can have life. You don't want to just know about God. You want to know about, you want to know Him intimately. That's the term that Jesus used, Gnosis, which is heart knowledge, experiential knowledge. God's the one wants us to have a relationship with him. He wants to father us. Well. After I lost my dad, I really missed him. It's like there was a big hole in the middle of me. My dad was the sweetest guy you would ever meet. Nothing like me at all. That apple fell far from the tree. He was just a sweet guy, humble guy. He's nothing like me at all. But uh my sister said he was the most humble man she ever knew, and I think that's true. Just I always knew my dad loved me, and my dad was proud of me. I didn't call him father. He's my daddy. He's my dad, you know. And I was close to him, and I just missed him real bad. And shortly after he passed, I remember one day I'm standing in the kitchen, and guess what? I'm buttering a bagel. So and while I'm buttering this bagel, my mind is somewhere else. I'm just thinking about my dad, and I'm kind of having this conversation with God. And I just said, God, I really miss my dad. I miss him every day. I really miss my dad. And I said, God, could you just be my daddy? I need that. And you know what? I think the Lord went, Yes, finally he gets it. You know, and I think anytime we respond to God and we really want him to father us, he goes, Yes, they finally got it. That's what he wants. Jesus came with a simple message. God loves you. God wants you to have the best life possible, and he makes that possible through a relationship with him. He wants to father you. Let that soak for a minute, okay? That's pretty profound, isn't it? Simple and yet so profound. How did Jesus do that? He did that with two bloody pieces of wood. He accomplished all that with two bloody pieces of wood. That's what the cross was all about. It was there that Jesus took our shame, our guilt, the stuff that made us wanted to hide to hide from God. And on that cross, he took all those hurtful things that ever happened to us, and he bore those in his body for us so that we could walk free of them by forgiving and accepting forgiveness. And Jesus took that those two pieces of bloody wood and he just tore down all of the walls between us and the Father, all the things that separated us from knowing God as our daddy. And he built a bridge. Man, I marvel at the cross. I'm just beginning to understand what actually happened there. What God accomplished through two bloody pieces of wood. I traveled for uh 18 years. And uh yeah, I looked like a dog. Uh, but I was all over this country and around the world and singing, preaching, and stuff. But one of my favorite ministries was every summer for about 15 years, I spent a week with the children and uh the staff from Indiana Children's Christian Home. It was up in Ladoga, Indiana. And kids there were remanded there from the courts. They were incorrigible. So they were sent to this place, they lived there, they they had they were educated there, you know, they were counseled, ministered to there. It was just a tremendous ministry. But I had the privilege of going and spending a week of camp with them every summer for like 15 years. I preached and led worship, and and as they got to know me, they just released me to minister to the kids and counsel them. And, you know, I got bitten as getting one guy named Keith, he bit me really hard. I still remember Keith. I got kicked and hit and spat on, you know, and I loved every minute of it because I felt like I was really doing something important. I remember meeting a little kid named Danny. Danny was standing next to the counselor when I first met him, and the counselor was a good friend of mine, one of the counselors at the home. And Danny was standing there, sweet little kid, and you know, just wow, kind of kid everybody would want to know. And and uh later uh I got with the counselor and he said, Let me tell you about Danny. He said, When Danny was brought to the home, two deputy sheriffs brought him in, shackled hands and feet. He was kicking, he was spitting and trying to bite them, and they brought 10 years old, they bring him in, they put him in a chair right in front of the counselor's desk, and they zip-tied him to the chair. Then they took the shackles off and said, Good luck, and walked out. And he and my counselor friend said, Danny spat at him and cussed him and called him everything imaginable. And he said, Well, I knew I needed to defuse that situation. So he said, after a while, I got a I got a rubber band and I made some spit wads and I started shooting them at him. That's an interesting therapy, isn't it? But he said, after a while, Danny just cracked up. He thought it was funny, and they both laughed together and they began a rapport. And I looked at that little kid and I thought, that's Danny. He came to the home because he'd murdered somebody. Can you imagine that? And I'm looking at this kid, sweet, innocent kid. Wow, you know, that's what Jesus does, you know, he just rewires our hearts and just puts them all back together. I love that ministry. Unfortunately, a lot of those ministries were defunded by our government and they no longer exist. But you know, Jesus came with a simple message, and that was God wants to put your shattered heart back together. And he does that by fathering us. Jesus did something else, he modeled what it looked like to trust the Father. Scripture says, Jesus said, I only do what I see the Father doing. So Jesus really followed the direction of the Father in everything he did. I think one of the most powerful scenes that we see in the Scripture where Jesus really modeled trust for the Father was in Luke 22 when he was in the garden. Remember they had the Passover meal? And then they went out to the Mount of Olives, and and uh Jesus took three of the disciples and took them a little deeper into the garden, left part of them at one place. And they took Peter, James, and John, went a little farther, and then he went about a stone's throw from them, the scripture says, and he prayed with such anguish that he sweat like he was bleeding. That is an anguished heart. I don't really understand how Jesus was put together. It's far, it's far above my pay grade, okay? Because he was wholly God, totally God and totally man. Do you get that? I don't. Just right over my head. But he was totally God and totally man. And in the garden, his humanness and his godliness were really clashing. There was stuff going on there I don't understand. But I know he was anguished in mind, in soul, spiritually. I don't think it was the pain of the cross being nailed to the cross that put him in that kind of anguish. I think it was something else going on. Because when Jesus died on the cross, my sins, your sins, were put on him in such a way that he experienced separation from the Father. I don't even get that, what that felt like. But he he told us what was going on when the sun wouldn't shine, it suddenly got dark, you know, in the middle of the day, and he cried out in the midst of that from and quoted the psalmist when he said, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? But Jesus there in the garden, as he is anguishing about the cross, he says something that's really profound. He said, Lord, I would pray, Father, take this cup from me, but your will be done. Wow. That is surrender, that is trust. It's hard to trust God like that, isn't it? There are there are shattered parts of my heart that doesn't want to let go. I don't want. By the way, it's those areas where we're shattered, where we have the hardest time trusting God, letting him into those areas, but it's letting him into that area, those areas where we we really get changed. But it's just kind of hard to trust him into every area of our life. But the promise is that he'll work everything out for your good if you do that. Sometimes it doesn't look like he's doing a really good job, does it, you know? And it's kind of hard to trust him and let go. But Jesus models what it looks like to totally trust God. I think he mostly modeled that in the garden when he said, Your will be done. I trust you, Father. I'm just gonna let you follow me. Jesus models something else. You know, sometimes I think Christians think we we we've got this ourselves, we're all alone in this. We tend to be such independent people anyway, that we just try to work it all out ourselves. I don't know. When I'm working things out myself, uh, it's probably not working good. Somebody said, when you're beside yourself, you're never in worse company. There's some truth to that. When I'm doing it my way, uh, it's probably not gonna work, you know. But Jesus never asked us to work it all out on our own. In fact, he modeled, he modeled something that's really important. He modeled a life that was led by the Holy Spirit. Turn with me to scriptures to the Luke the fourth chapter. Luke the fourth chapter. And we're gonna be in our third chapter, excuse me, Luke the third chapter, and we're gonna be again in verse 21. I didn't get this for a long time, you know, and when it hit me, it hit me like a ton of bricks. Like, whoa. Verse 21, chapter 3. When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. Why would he need to do that? Well, John didn't understand that either. He said, Look no, baptize you, are you kidding? And Jesus said, Hey, John, to fulfill all righteousness, I must do this. And so John submitted. But so when he baptized Jesus, go on to say, it goes on to say, and as he was praying, heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice from heaven cried, You are my son whom I love, with you I am well pleased. Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit. That's kind of profound. Because God the Father, God Jesus, God the Holy Spirit are all one. So why would Jesus need to be filled with the Spirit? But we go on. So at his baptism, he was filled with the Spirit. Chapter 4, verse 1. It says, Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert, where for 40 days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry. So Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit at his baptism. Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned to Galilee, to the Jordan, from the Jordan, to Galilee, and was led by the Spirit. Wow. So Jesus was full of the Holy Spirit, led by the Holy Spirit. Huh. Why did he need that? If he, the Father, and the Holy Spirit are one. Keep on keep going. Verse 14, chapter 4. Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit. So what was the secret of Jesus' power? The Holy Spirit in him. Why did he need the Holy Spirit in him? Okay? There's the question I kept asking. Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread throughout the whole countryside. He went into his hometown synagogue, by the way, and quoted from Isaiah 61. He actually read it from the scroll and said, Today it's fulfilled in your hearing. Go on. Look in the fifth chapter of Luke, 17th verse. One day he was teaching Jesus, Pharisees and teachers of the law who had come from every village of Galilee and from Judea and Jerusalem were sitting there. Get this. And the power of the Lord was present for him to heal the sick. So Jesus was full of the Holy Spirit, led by the Holy Spirit, ministered in the power of the Holy Spirit. And the question I had is, why did he need to do that? Here's my answer. Here's why I think this is right. I think he modeled that to us to let us know. Hey, this is how we do it. We don't do it on our own. We allow God's Spirit to fill us and work through us. That's our secret to living this life. Does that make sense? Another question. If Jesus needed the power of the Holy Spirit, how much do I? So Jesus modeled for us, you know, a life that was trusted to the Father, and He modeled to us a life that was filled with the Holy Spirit. There's how we make it. God doesn't expect us to make it on his own. He wants to keep. Let me say something. I don't think there's going to be a third temple built. I don't think God needs to build another temple before he comes back. He's got a perfectly good temple right now. It's my heart. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit. And he has come to live in us, you know, in our heart. He's got a perfectly good temple. Okay, right here. I'm sorry if I upset your theological understanding there. Okay. I'll probably do it again before I'm done. I try to do that occasionally, just you know. But Jesus modeled for us what it looks like to be led by the Holy Spirit. That's our secret. I was at the Indiana guitar show yesterday. I'd be there today if I weren't preaching. Tommy was there too. We did not buy a guitar, did we? Because we knew we couldn't come home if we did. But I love going to the guitar show and seeing the people I know that there, Jenny Sue and I had a booth there for several years and sold my book and sold instruments and got to know a lot of people. But two of the people I we got to know really well are Steve Scarfina and his wife Kathleen. They are good blood, aren't they? Steve is a founding member of REO Speedwagon. Remember them? He's also Pavlov's dog, Pavlov's dog. He part of that. But we're talking, I just love those people. Just love them. And uh we're talking, and he said, I want to show you something. He's got this real grabbly voice. I want to show you something. He goes in there and he pulls out this. You've been singing rock and roll as long as he has. You're gonna have a grabbly voice. He pulls out this guitar case, he puts it up on table, and he opens it up. And here is this classic epiphone guitar, one of the first they built that was built much like the Gretsch style guitars, hollow body electric guitar. Are you with me? Are you getting this? You need it for the test. But anyway, he pulls this out and I look at it and go, man, that's one of the first ones I made. He said, Yeah, my dad bought it for me in 1960. And then he pulls out some pictures. He said, The first band I had, we were playing that. Here I am at 14. And he said, That guy over there, that's Michael McDonald. He was 11. Do y'all know who Michael McDonald is? Doobie Brothers? What's wrong with you people? He said, He grew up down the street from me. And he said something that's so cool. He said, Michael McDonald is a righteous dude, and he pointed me. He said, He's like you. He said he'd give you the shirt off your back. He said, A lot of guys I know in the rock and roll world, they're prima donnas, but not Michael. He's the real deal. He's a humble guy, and he'd give anything to anybody. That's cool. Hear that. But I'm looking at this guitar and he said, I played this in Pavlov's dog and in Ario Speedwagon, and I played it until it was a piece of junk, and I sold it for a hundred dollars for parts. And he said, years later, a guy came and brought it back all restored. And I'm looking at that guitar. I thought, that's kind of like us, isn't it? You know, we were created to be really useful, but we got really damaged and broken, and we were only good for spare parts until Jesus came and he put us all back together. How'd he do that? Simple message. God loves you. God wants to father you, and he wants to put his spirit in you. That stuff will preach, won't it? That's pretty good. I want to ask you a question. Oh. Do you know Jesus? I didn't ask if you're a religious or go to church. I tried that too. It didn't work very well for me. Do you know Jesus? Because that's what God once really wants, really wants. He wants us to know him, have a relationship with him. It's pretty simple. Why don't you just close your eyes and I'll lead you in a little prayer? I pray this prayer a lot when I first wake up in the morning. It goes like this, and you can just repeat it in your hearts after me. Father, I believe with all my heart that Jesus is the Christ and He is your Son. And I acknowledge Him. As my Lord and my Savior. Come, Holy Spirit, in the name of Jesus, fill me, transform me, make me more like Jesus. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen. If you prayed that prayer for the first time and you really meant it, that preacher right there would like to talk to you. Okay. Thank you for listening today. God bless you. God loves you. He wants to father you.

SPEAKER_00 44:41

Thank you, Don. Good words. Good words. We are loved. And we have someone that wants to be a father, a daddy. Yep. Mm hmm. And we celebrate what Christ has done for us on the this uh this isn't the first Sunday, but this is a Sunday of the month we're celebrating this. Um we'd like just uh uh just to have