Anchors | Part 2: God's Heart Is Good

Today, it is part two of Anchors and the scripture that we are using as the foundation of our series is found in Hebrews chapter six, verses 18 and 19. Here's what it says. It says, so God has given us both his promise and his oath, and these things are unchanging because it is impossible for God to lie. Therefore, we who have fled to him for refuge can live with confidence. Everybody say, live with confidence. As we hold to the hope that is before us, this hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls. That's a key phrase, that we can live with confidence. And what the writer here is speaking about is the confidence that putting our faith in Jesus Christ brings to our eternal future. But as I've said each and every week, that it's not just for our eternal future, it's not just for the sweet by and by, but the question is, what do we do in the nasty now and now? Does the peace of God have the power to help us in our temporal present? The answer is, absolutely. And I don't think anybody would deny that we live in turbulent and uncertain times. If 2020 has been anything, it's been unpredictable and just nuts. I mean, it's like every time we turn on the news, it's something new, it's something different. We don't know what we're gonna hear next.

We don't know what's gonna happen next. We don't know what's around the next corner. And no one can deny it's difficult. And in these unstable times, I guess the question that we felt led to answer in this series is, where in the world do we find stability? Where in the world do we find peace? Where do we find hope? And where do we find strength? What in the world, in moments like these, in moments like these, certainly in my lifetime, I've never seen anything like it, what can we trust on? What can we lean on that will serve as anchors for our souls as we navigate the difficult waters of life? Are there some things that we can settle in our hearts, indeed, that we should settle in our hearts, that will give us confidence no matter what trouble life throws our way? Again, the answer is, undoubtedly, unequivocably, yes. And so in this series, what we're doing is we're looking at four major truths that I am convinced are indispensable for us to know. As followers of Christ, to settle in our soul that will anchor us, that will tether us, that will secure us no matter how crazy life gets. Things that we can believe in with all of our heart and put our faith and our hope and our trust in. These four truths are anchors for our soul. Last week, we talked about God's word is true.

That is the foundation of it all. I talked about that our faith is not rooted in some positive thinking, it's not just the power of positive thinking, it's not just saying to ourself, things are gonna get better, things are gonna get better. It's not just saying, I'm gonna have a good outlook on life, I'm not gonna be a negative thinker, I'm gonna be a positive thinker. It's deeper than that, it's bigger than that, it's broader than that. Our faith only has roots if God has first spoken. We have to believe that what God says is true. And when we believe and know that what God said is true, we can then build our lives on that and hang our lives on that and find hope and peace and stability even when everything else is shifting around us. So that's the first truth, God's word is true. The second truth we're gonna look at today is that God's heart is good. Now why is that such a big deal? It's such a big deal because if you're like me, I'm gonna be honest with you, when I was growing up as a kid and I was raised in a pastor's home, but I fell away from the Lord and I had heard a bunch of stuff and seen a bunch of stuff, and if you were like me, when I was a little kid growing up

and even as a teenager, I had this image of God for much of my life that God looked like Zeus, okay? Sitting on this throne with a trident and he had this long flowing beard and his eyes were like fire and he was this stern, angry old man and that if I didn't walk the line and tote the line and if I had a bad thought in my head or I did something bad, that he was angry with me and mad at me and that I had to somehow fight and work to earn his love and respect and the truth is, I probably never really would, but if I tried really hard, then somehow I could appease the anger of God. This, ladies and gentlemen, is absolutely nothing like what the scriptures paint our Heavenly Father to be or God like. When you view God this way, what it does is it just creates anxiety, it creates fear and ultimately in my life, it created this idea that I would never be able to live a life that was pleasing to God and so I just, I kind of opted out of it altogether and started going a certain direction

and of course, the enemy will grease the path that way and before you know it, you're farther than you wanted to go and you're doing things you never really wanted to do, so it's important, it's so important that we see. God correctly, that we view God correctly. And there are many names in the scriptures that refer to who God is, and that reveal the elements of his nature and character. But I don't think that anybody did a better job, or maybe let me say it like this, I don't think we can take anybody's word for it better than the one who knew him and knows him the very best, his son. So when Jesus himself wanted us to know the true essence of who God is, and when he wanted us to know what God was like, Jesus used the same word over and over and over and over. In fact, 167 times in the New Testament, Jesus used this word to describe God. In fact, when he taught us the most important prayer ever prayed, you know it as the Lord's Prayer, he taught us to address and identify God this way. Matthew six and verse nine, he said when you pray, pray like this, our father, our father, our father up in heaven, may your name be holy.

Jesus said if you really wanna know the perfect nature and heart of God, if you really wanna know who God truly is, if you really wanna know what he's really like, it can be summed up perfectly in this one word, father. Now I gotta stop right here, and I have to just dive down and address this for a moment, because of the time and the age, and the circumstances in which we find ourselves living, because I realize that we live in a world where the word father elicits a diversity of images, and emotions, and memories. For some of you in this room, you may have been like me, I was blessed, blessed, blessed with an amazing father, a man in my life who encouraged me, and loved me, and was there for me, me and my two brothers have been fathered very well, I'm so thankful for that, and maybe some of you have had a wonderful father like that as well, but I also know that based on modern statistics, that if that is you, that you and I are in the vast minority. Unfortunately, many people here or watching online did not have that at all. For many, their personal picture of a father is far from a positive thing. In fact, we live in one of the most fatherless generations

in all of history. A special U.S. Commission on Child Development reported in 2007 that only 32% of all the children born in the United States of America will live with both their biological parents to the age of 18. That means only three out of every 10 people you're gonna meet will have their father and their mother. Seven of those people will not be raised in a home where their father and their mother were in the same home. And the effects of this absence are showing up in devastating ways. Listen, I don't know if you've ever heard of a guy named Bill Glass, but Bill's a guy that I've known about forever. He's a prison minister who's given his entire life to prison ministry, and he travels the country sharing Christ with inmates around the nation. And in one of his books, he said in 2002 that there were 1,202,107 people in federal or state prison. 98% of those inmates were male. And of the 3,452 inmates that were on death row, 94% of them interviewed, expressed an open hatred for their fathers, and most of them did not even know who their father was. Now, I know that may be an extreme, and maybe that doesn't really apply. You know, you're not so angry, you're not so left alone that you ended up in prison. But I would say that even for those of us

that may have had father's presence, sometimes the memories aren't really the best. I'll never forget hearing a friend of mine who was a pastor share about his wife's experiences. They were married for many years, and he was talking about how the experiences that his wife had with her father growing up had shaped and molded her life in profoundly negative ways. She was raised by a good provider, but he was so emotionally disconnected that she nor her siblings ever felt like they were good enough. Her father never affirmed them. Her father never said he loved them. Her father never expressed pride in them ever, no matter what they did. And he shared with us one day that his wife was so excited to go to college, not because she was necessarily driven to get an education, not because she was so committed to getting a degree or so enamored by having a successful career. She was extremely interested in college and excited because nobody in her family had ever graduated from college, nobody. And she kind of felt deep down that if she was the first one to ever graduate from college that she would finally, finally, finally be able to do something that would make her father proud of her. And she dreamed of this moment all of her life.

She dreamed of this moment that she would be able to graduate. And at that graduation ceremony, she would be standing there in her cap and gown Holding her degree and her father would walk up and for the first time in her life Look at her and say baby. I'm so proud of you. I can't believe you finally did it I'm so thankful for you in my life And so the day finally came and when she finished she finished just not barely she finished with a 4.0 She crushed it in her college career. And finally the moment was here Everything she dreamed about everything that she had thought about and she sees her family Walking towards her and sure enough her dad is out front leading the way Walking with this pace and he's coming up to her and she's just she's just so filled with anticipation and expectation She's never said this to anybody before she had never told anybody how she felt before but here it comes This moment where all of her life would confer converge in this moment of affirmation and he walked right up to her and says well It's getting late We better hit the road before the traffic gets too bad. We'll see you next time and she was Beyond Devastated and my friend talked so much about how that that moment had Shaped her life and how it worked its way into their marriage and manifested itself in their children in many different ways Everything she did she did to win her father's approval and affirmation and she never got it And this pastor talked about how much it had devastated her life and maybe you're here and you're listening to this and you go, dude I know exactly how she felt. I've lived my life exactly that way looking for affirmation and never got it Maybe you know what it's like to work and strive to be affirmed and and it doesn't matter It's like nothing that you did was good enough, but I said that to say this it's so important today That we set the right tone I had to address that because it's so important that we set the right tone as we talk about the character and the nature of God It's so important that we understand something as we move forward So I'm going to ask you today Regardless of your background and your experience to do something with me so that we can make this moment Meaningful and that I believe God can speak to us in an effective way

I'm asking you to look at the heart of God the right way and to remember this if you're taking screenshots, please Please please do not hold your spiritual father in contempt just because your earthly father may have gotten it wrong So important. This is so important Please do not hold your spiritual father in contempt just because your earthly father may have gotten it wrong in spite of what your individual Experience may have been with your earthly father I am suggesting that we not view our spiritual father through the lenses of our earthly experience but that we would allow our image of God as our spiritual father to actually be set and seen through the lenses of the holy scriptures That we would let the Word of God Tell us and define for us who God actually is as our father not necessarily What our earthly experience has been Especially if it has been a bad one, listen, here's what I want you to know. God is the standard of what a father should be Just because an earthly father may have gotten it wrong Does not diminish what God still is and what God has the potential to be in our lives? And one of the greatest anchors of our soul in this life is the reality that we have a spiritual father who truly listen Loves us who truly cares for us and who truly affirms us that you can please your heavenly father and you can have an intimate connection with your heavenly father and that he desires that with you and Wants that for you and wants that with you the prophet Isaiah called God our everlasting Father one translation says he is our forever father We sing a song in this church that sometimes says his love never fails never gives up and never runs out on me That's exactly who your God really is Respond regardless of what your earthly father may have done. He may have let you down. He may have failed you He may have given up on you and ran out on you But the song and the scripture says that your heavenly father never ever ever ever will And you need to know that and you got to settle that in your heart because it will become. Oh, it will become an anchor for your soul because if bad listen when bad things happen if You believe that somehow God is angry with you or mad at you or that he is a stern or hard judge You will think that you will never be able to win for losing and that God is some

Unpleasable being that doesn't love you or care for you when you have the correct Perspective of God no matter what happens in life. You find it reassuring you find peace that passes Understanding that your heavenly father is still with you and loves you and is willing to provide and bless be with you for the rest of your life. So there's three things that I just wanna say to you today. There are three things that happen when we acknowledge God as our Father, as our Father. Three things, get ready, we're gonna take some screenshots. Here we go, number one, when we pray to God, our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, it reveals, number one, what his heart is truly like. It reveals what his heart is truly like. Now through the centuries, there have been many different ideas of who God really is. I don't know if you've ever read much philosophy. I've always read a plethora of things in my life. I read a diversity of things, and I've read a lot of philosophy. And Aristotle referred to God, he believed in God, but he referred to him as the unmoved mover, the unmoved mover. In other words, Aristotle believed there was some higher power that was responsible for the universe, but he certainly isn't concerned about what's going on in our lives. He don't have time for that. He really doesn't have any concern about that. Thomas Huxley, a self-proclaimed scientist, he once called God the eternal unknown,

and he claimed that God can never be known because he himself doesn't want to be known, that he doesn't want us to know him, that he is purposely distant, that he is purposely aloof, that God wants to be left alone. But these verses and views and ideas are not what the scripture teaches at all about God. And I thought about when I was building this message, there's literally, a message like this, there's hundreds and hundreds of scriptures that I could literally give you, but I thought about this one that was just, I think is so beautiful, that really tells us the heart and the nature of our Father and what he is like in our lives. The psalmist David wrote it in Psalm 103, verse 13 through 17. Listen to this. Here's what David said God is really like. He said, the Lord is a father to his children. He is tender and compassionate to those who honor him, for he knows how weak we really are, and he remembers that we are only dust. The love of the Lord remains forever with those who honor him, and his salvation extends to many generations. What I'm trying to say to you today is that fatherhood is not an earthly concept. It didn't start with us.

It didn't start on this planet. It started in heaven. It started with God. It is a heavenly concept. In other words, when the Bible calls him father, it is not describing what God is like. It is describing what God actually is. God is not like a father. He is the father. He is the purest form and the absolute origin of fatherhood. And according to Psalm 103, he is strong enough to defend and protect his children, but he is also tender and compassionate enough that he comforts us and consoles us when we need it. He is truly a father to us. He's not stern. He's not angry. He's not Zeus. He's not Father Time sitting on this throne waiting for us to screw up. He is tender with his children. He is ready to forgive. He is ready to help us. He is ready to welcome us home. This is what the Bible says God is like. In fact, if you're not even familiar, really, with church or the Bible, I'm sure you're familiar with a story that's been told over and over. Even people who don't go to church are familiar with this.

It's the most famous parable, really, probably in all of the Bible. It's the parable of the prodigal son. But what you need to know is that it was not called or named the parable of the prodigal son by Jesus or by God. We named it the parable of the prodigal son, but that was not the real intention of the parable to focus on just the inequities of the son. Let me give you some context. Jesus, when he was on this earth, not only did he come to redeem humanity, but he came to also reveal to people what his father was like, who God actually was. And there was a group of people called the Pharisees that had taught people to believe just what I said to you, that God was stern, that God was mean, that God was a judge, and that if you didn't keep all of the 646 laws, that somehow God was gonna condemn you and judge you, and that he was this unpleasable being that you had to live your life constant in fear of. And when Jesus gets to this planet, he says, that is not correct. That is not who my father is at all. That is not who God is at all. That is nothing what God is like. And so in this parable in Luke, Jesus actually tells three parables, and he's doing it to try to share with the people who God actually is and what God is actually like.

And he ends up telling these three parables, one about a woman who loses a coin. She's got a bunch of them, but she loses one, and she never stops looking until she finds it. And then he tells a story about a shepherd who has a hundred sheep, loses one, and he leaves the 99, he goes after the one, and then he tells a story about a father who had two sons. And we know it is the parable of the prodigal son, but really, it's a parable about a passionate father. And Jesus says, this son comes to the father, youngest son, and he says, I want you to think about what I'm about to say. I want you to think about how he spit in his father's face. He says, I know that you're wealthy, and I know that one day I'll inherit my portion, but I don't want to wait until you're dead. I want it now. How dishonoring and disrespectful. You can't, he could have spit in his face and not been more disrespectful in that context ever. And his father doesn't lash back. His father doesn't go crazy. His father goes, you know, it breaks his heart, but he says, I'm gonna give it to you, and he gives it to him. And we know the story. He goes out and he spends it all in just a short amount of time, and he just lives it crazy and goes nuts,

and he finds himself in this pig pen because now the money's gone, and all the friends that he bought that he thought he really had are gone. And he's about to feed the pigs slop, and the Bible says that he looks down, and as he's pouring this slop to the pigs, he looks down and it actually starts smelling good. It actually starts looking good because he hasn't eaten in days, maybe weeks, and he's about to take slop and put it to his mouth, and he has this moment that comes to his senses, the Bible says, and he goes, look, look, look, look. You know what? I just had this thought. Even the guys that serve my father, even the guys that work on my father's farm and ranch, they live better than this, and so I'm not even gonna try to go back and be accepted as a son. I would never even disrespect my father that way, but maybe, just maybe, just maybe, just maybe, if I get up and go home, and I grovel, and I beg, and I crawl around on the ground, and I ask for a job, maybe he'll just let me work at the ranch, and I can live with the servants out in the servant's quarters and never be called his son again, but maybe I can just have three squares a meal a day

in a cot. The Bible says he gets up and he starts to make his trek home. He stinks like pigs. He stinks like slop. The Bible says, you know the story, that when he gets a far way off, the father sees him coming a far way off. Why? Because every day, the father would come to the porch, and he would sit, and he would wait to see when his son would come home. He knew the money would run out. He was just hoping that he wasn't dead, that something hadn't killed him, and when he sees his son coming a far way off, you know the story, the Bible says he gets up, and he jumps the fence, and he runs as hard and fast as he can down the road, and he embraces the son, no matter what he smelled like or looked like, and it's a superlative, it's a verb in the Greek language, the Koine Greek that says he didn't just kiss him, but he kissed him, and kissed him, and kissed him, and kissed him, and kissed him. He's weeping, and he's crying, and he realizes that his son has finally come home, and the son is about to, and by the way, you need to know

that when the father ran, they didn't do that because they wore these long gowns, these robes back in the day, and for a man to run, he would have to lift up his skirt basically to expose his legs to run so that he wouldn't trip, so men of dignity and men of renown never ran anywhere, but the Bible says he pulls up his gown, and he runs as fast as he can because he doesn't care what anybody thinks or what anybody sees or what anybody feels. All that matters is that the son of mine that was dead is now home, and as soon as he gets there, the son begins with project, can I get a job, and he don't even let him finish. He turns around and he says, go ahead and prepare the feast, and bring me a robe, and bring the ring again, that was the signet of his family, and put sandals on his feet. My son has come home. Listen, this is what God's, this is what the Bible says God is like. He's not the guy, just when the son deserved a lecture, what he got was forgiveness. What he got was acceptance. What he got was affirmation. He didn't deserve it. He didn't earn it.

He didn't do anything but disrespect his father, but when Jesus wanted to tell us what his father was like, he told us a story about a God that welcomes us home in spite of what we've done, in spite of what we think has disqualified us, that he is tender and compassionate, as David said, that he is ready to forgive and to welcome us home. This is who our heavenly father is like, and knowing that is an anchor for our souls. Knowing that helps us know that no matter how bad we have fallen, how many mistakes that we have made, how bad we have screwed it up, that his grace is greater than my sin and greater than those things that separate me from God. It creates, tells us who the nature and heart of God really is. Number two, when we say our father who art in heaven, the second thing it does is it creates a reverence for his role in our story because the prodigal son is all of our stories, and it creates a reverence for his role. In other words, God has honored us by making a way for us to be his children. He went to amazing lengths to redeem us and to bring us in. Did you know that the Bible basically tells us that we were orphans? That's what we really literally were. We were lost without a family to belong to. And God sent his son to bring us home and to redeem us

and bring us into his family. Let me give you scripture. Galatians chapter four, verses four through seven. Here's what it says. But when the time came, God sent his son, born among us of a woman, born into our conditions so that he might redeem us who had been kidnapped by the law but now we have a heritage, he says. And you can tell that you have been fully adopted as his own children because God sent the spirit of his son into our lives and we cry out, Papa, Father. And now it is plain that we are no longer slaves but we are children. When we truly begin to understand what God has truly done for us and in our lives, here's what I'm trying to tell you. There will be a deep love. There will be a deep respect. There will be a deep reverence for God and the things of God. You won't do things because duty tells you you should or religion tells you you should. You will do it because you realize that you were lost and undone without God or his son and when God brought us back home, he gave us a family and embraced us where we know we don't deserve to be. I'll never forget what happened to me. See, this is why people say, man, why are you so loud all the time

and passionate all the time and blah, blah, blah all the time? Listen, it's because I know where I should be. I know where I should be today. I know where I could be today and I can tell you right now that it shouldn't be here. It shouldn't be on this stage preaching the gospel to you, pastoring this amazing church and preaching the gospel. My life was on a terrible trajectory and at 20, even though I had given up on God, God never gave up on me. Even though he loved me, I ignored him. He protected me when I disrespected him. He kept reaching out to me even when I disregarded God and the reason I'm so stinking in love with God is not because somebody told me I should be, not because religion tells me I ought to be. I'm in love with him because he first loved me and he never gave up on me and there was a reverence in my life for God because he didn't just save my soul, he saved my life and I know where I should be today and many of you know where you should be today and if you'll never forget that and if you'll relive that every day, what'll happen in our lives is there is this deep reverence that grows naturally in our heart for our heavenly father. It shows up in our service. It shows up in our giving. It shows up in our worship.

When we truly realize just what God means to us and how amazing his love and grace truly is and where we would be right now if it wasn't for him adopting us, respect and reverence will begin to come naturally. I'll just tell it to you like this. The birth of ungrateful, the birth of an ungrateful spirit is when you feel entitled, that somehow you feel like you deserve what you've got but when you understand that we never deserve to be a part of the family of God, what we deserved was wrath and judgment because of our sin but he sent his only begotten son and through his grace brought us home and we look at sin for what it is and what it did to us and we look in the face of God and his grace and what he did for us, there is no way that anything can roll out of our heart but worship and gratitude. There is no way. That's all that we can expect to feel. You know I was on a plane coming back from San Diego. This week I had an opportunity to spend a week with some amazing pastors and leaders and I'm thankful for the time but I had a four hour flight back from San Diego to Atlanta to make my connection and I was looking over my notes for today and I thought about this week as I read Galatians chapter four, I thought about how that we have so many couples

in our church right now that are going through the process of adoption and how much work it is. We walked through several of them with them through the process and some of them have actually been through the process and they now have their child but I didn't ever realize until years ago what a difficult process it is. They had to attend required classes. They had to go through visitations and inspections. They've invested copious amounts of money. I'm not kidding you. Copious amounts of money and time into not only paying for the preparation but also preparing their home for a child because in this process everything is required to be just so. And again, some have completed it and they have children in their homes now and I got to thinking about this. When God blesses these families with a child, now I know that there is an element in a child's life where sometimes they'll wonder why did my mother and father give me up and who are my parents but here's what I have seen over and over again by people who were adopted that were raised in good homes. Those children grow up knowing that there were people who loved them enough to fight for them, to work for them, to labor for them. That they were so loved that people were willing to invest incredible energy and sacrifice

to embrace them and bring them into their family. See, when you have children, you don't get to choose what they're like, but you didn't choose that. They just came. But when you adopt someone, you are choosing them. You are fighting for them. You are laboring. You are moving heaven and earth to make it happen. And when you know that you were lost and undone and somebody fought for you to bring you home, it changes everything in your heart. And when we know that we were without God and without hope and that God sent his only begotten son, listen, you need to know this. I wouldn't give my son for you. And you wouldn't give your son for me. You wouldn't. What do we say? Blood's thicker than water. Can't help it. And especially if you knew I was guilty of whatever they were accusing me of. But that's exactly what God did. We were guilty. We were stained by sin. And the only perfect man who ever lived was placed on a cross and died the death a sinner should have died so that you and I could be made free. When you fully, as best as we can, embrace that, it changes everything. And what it becomes is an anchor for our soul in spite of turbulent times and difficult ways. Number three, when we pray our father who art in heaven and we say father, ultimately it reminds us that we can expect his involvement in our lives every single day. This is what fathers do.

This is what fathers do. Being a father is not determined by one's biological ability to sire children. Takes no great sacrifice to do that. Fatherhood is determined by involvement and nurture. Time investment and priorities. Real fathers are involved in every part of their children's lives. That's what good dads do. And there are three things that the Bible says God has promised us as our father that we can count on that serves as anchors for our soul. Let me give these three to you and we'll pray. Number one, the Bible says that we can fully expect the care of God, that he will provide, that he will be for us what we need for him to be. Matthew chapter 6 and verse 26, here's the way Jesus said it. He said if you really think that God's going to let you down, you need to go outside and look at the birds. Just look at the birds. Jesus said they don't plant, they don't harvest, they don't store food in barns, but your heavenly father feeds them every single day. Don't you realize Jesus said how much more valuable that you are to him than they are? Jesus said what loving father would feed his chicken and starve his children? No father, no good father would feed his chicken and starve his children if he cares for them every day. If he cares for the birds, if he cares for the animals that have no souls, if he provides for hippopotamuses and giraffes and platypuses, that's a weird combination of animals, but that's just what came to my head, if he cares for ... Jesus said how in the world could you ever live in total anxiety thinking and believing that you're never going to make it and that your father is not going to provide for you when all you've got to do is walk outside and look at the birds and realize that God makes sure that they have food and shelter every single day of their lives. Rest in the fact that God will provide.

I know things look sketchy at times, I know 2020 is crazy, man. I know that some people have been laid off, I know that there are some things going on right now that people are scared and they're trepidatious, I get it, man. But what this is telling us is that when we know that God will provide for us, that we can trust him to provide that nothing that we need he doesn't have the ability to give us and to care for us, that rests as an anchor of our soul. You can tether to that and take God at his word and know that he's never going to leave you, nor forsake you, that he's going to be with you every step of the way regardless of what the outlook may be. We can expect his care. Number two, we can expect his correction. Now don't skip over this one because you don't like it. He loves us way too much to allow us to keep living our lives in a destructive manner. Let me say it to you this way, good fathers will correct and direct in order to protect their children. Good fathers will correct their children and direct their children in order ultimately to protect their children. Hebrews chapter 12, five and six, dear child, don't make light of the Lord's discipline and don't give up when he corrects you for the Lord disciplines those he loves and he corrects each one he accepts as his child. I'm 48 now. My 20s, there was a whole lot more of God. There were aspects of God that I appreciated more than his correction and discipline. I love to read about the provision of God, the blessings of God, you know, all of those promises. And I knew that the correction of the Lord was real in there, but it was just one that I hoped would be not proficient in my life. But I can tell you, as I get older now, what I've come to fully appreciate more than ever about the love of the Lord in my life is his discipline and correction. Because I think now I'm done lying to myself.

You know what I'm saying? I'm done lying to myself. I think you come to an age, I hope we come to an age where we're done telling ourselves the narratives we want to believe about ourselves. You know, the scariest dude in the world to me is me. It's that dude, I shave his face every day, scares me to death. Because I know that me without God or me on my own, the atrocities that I'm capable of and so are you. And what I've come to love so much about my heavenly father is that he is a good, good father. And because he is a good, good father, he directs and corrects me because he's trying to protect me so that I don't live a life of destruction. Tina and I raised two kids, they're 29 and they're 27. Let me tell you something, I know what it's like to feel the pain of disciplining my children. And I realized that if I didn't discipline my kids when they were growing up, here's what it meant. It meant two things. Number one, it meant I love myself more than I love them. Sometimes people will say to me, oh, I can't discipline my kids because I love them so much. No, you love yourself so much. You hate the way you feel when you have to do it. But a good father or good mother will do it with tears in their eyes. I'm preaching. I know what it's like to have to discipline my daughter and walk down the hall and cry my eyes out. I know what that feels like. And the other thing that I realized is that if I didn't do it, I was leaving them to the wolves to figure life out on their own, to somehow launch them out into into life without direction, without correction, so that somehow they would just have to figure it out on their own. That's not what good fathers do. Good fathers correct and good fathers direct. They get involved when they see their children going the wrong way. They get involved in their life.

They step up and they step in. God, man, when God corrects us, what the writer of Hebrews is saying is, do not take that lightly. Don't take it lightly. Don't act like this don't matter. What you are experiencing is the love of your heavenly father who is doing everything in his power so that you will live a blessed and fruitful and meaningful life. I thank God for this. And when we know that God will correct us, when we know that God will direct us, it serves as an anchor for our soul. And number three, the Bible says that God promises we can count on his companionship. I've been called a lot of things in my life. Husband, pastor, honey, baby. And some so crude, I could never repeat from this pulpit. But when I'm called daddy. I got two. In this world, it calls me daddy. It pulls on my heart in a way that nothing else does. I'm going to be there for my kids no matter what. They're never going to be alone and they're never going to have to be struggled by themselves as long as I'm alive. I'm going to be there for my kids no matter what. They're never going to have to be struggled by themselves as long as I'm alive. I love them and I'm going to help them. Hebrews chapter 13, five and six, last scripture. Here's what it says, for God has said, oh, listen to this now. Come on. For God has said, I will never fail you. I will never abandon you. So now we can say, here's that word again we started with, confidence. The Lord is my helper.

Have no fear. What is he saying? He's saying that when you know God is for you and will never fail you and will never abandon you. Now you can know that you can anchor your soul to that and no matter what comes your way, life will not be fearful or anxious. You don't have anything to fear. that God is with us, and when we tether our life to that, it changes everything about that. Somebody in this world may have abandoned you. Somebody may have let you down. God says, my pledge and promise to you as your father is that I never will, and in a world where everything is shifting, and everything is crumbling, and everything is moving, and everything is going haywire, this is something we can anchor our souls to that will stand the test of time, how we live with peace that passes understanding.