How are we doing?
Is it too much at one time, too
much content?
Can you take it?
Are you able from morning by morning?
Or do we have to alter maybe every
other day?
Or half a morning?
How are you guys doing?
I don't want to...
You're okay?
Okay.
Pray for enlargement.
Enlargement of capacity.
Because this is so remarkably rich material and
virginal, I don't know where else it's being
sounded.
As our sister said, this is foundation of
foundations.
If we had not this foundation, we're batting
at the air.
So now I want to take up the
question to which this theologian leads us.
And by the way, when we hear these
theologians, we should be earning a respect for
this noble labor.
A theologian is not one to be disrespected
himself.
Men who labor in the world work and
give themselves studiously an attention to the original
languages and have a breadth of knowledge of
what other scholars have said about a particular
subject.
And have learned to sharpen their faculties and
to even sum up the perspectives of others
with which they're not in agreement.
And will set forth that perspective faithfully and
then take it apart and critique it and
show why they cannot be in agreement and
then go on to state their own.
I can't think of any more valuable instrument
for our own sharpening than to delve into
and read the work of such men.
So that's why I feel free to quote.
To hear these quotes and to catch the
sense of them requires an unusual alertness on
your part.
Reading words is always deadly.
And these men are so complex in their
word and thought that it's not everyday speech.
And our Christian experience has not prepared us
for men who are so succinct and say
so much in few words.
So appreciate that and go into that.
So this call but has been examining the
privilege of calling upon God as father and
what it's remarkable significance it is seeing that
the father is the hub and the pivot
of very reality itself.
And that this is not a right that
we take to ourselves in human presumption to
call upon him as we will.
It's something granted to us as a grace
by Jesus himself who commands us to call
upon God the father and what is the
benefit of that call.
It's everything for us as the church.
Now he's going to take up the question
what is the issue of having been given
that privilege we do not avail ourselves of
it.
What's the consequence of falling asleep at the
controls and though we have the privilege of
calling upon God the father we fail to
do so or do it half-heartedly.
So here again the theologian is raising questions
that are needful that I want to go
into it.
So what God the father wills with us
and for us to his own glory and
our salvation is more than a solid but
stationary relation or a firm but passive connection.
He's the living father of his living children.
Isn't that a beautiful statement?
Talk about father of children.
He's the living father of his living children
and we will only be living children to
the degree that the father is for us
living and not just a fixed category or
an honorary title to which we are religiously
called to speak.
There's a living in this for him and
for us.
What he wills with and for these children
is therefore intercourse, living dealings between himself and
them, between them and himself.
They too have to enter into these dealings
on their side.
The veil is read from his side but
what about from our side?
They have to actualize the partnership in this
history.
They have to express in word and deed
his fatherhood and their sonship.
What's the point of it something being potentially
available to us if we do not employ
it?
If we do not call.
If we don't call upon God the father.
If though it's a privilege afforded us and
one to which we're encouraged to employ what
is the consequence when we don't?
It's serious.
The neglect of so great a privilege has
got to have consequence and that consequence is
visible and evident in the church today for
the failure to call.
And it's a good thing to explore why.
Maybe the root of it is pride, unbelief,
self-satisfaction with ourselves out of our own
humanity that we have no need to call.
We don't see ourselves as desperate.
We don't see our condition as urgent.
And maybe that's a statement that the faith
has been so reduced from its radical apostolic
content that we ourselves can perform it without
calling upon God the father.
Isn't that a final, what's the word, anomaly,
contradiction and maybe the very threshold of apostasy
itself.
When God is no longer called upon, no
longer needed, we are at the door of
apostasy where we can continue to invoke the
language but without the reality.
Because the apostate church of last days is
not one that visibly knocks its fist in
God's face.
It continues to conduct services, have worship teams,
say the right things but without the reality.
And the pity is they don't even know
it or see it.
So we need to guard the privilege of
calling upon God the father as father.
So much is at stake with that call
and we have been granted it and encouraged
to it through Jesus who also gives us
the enablement to make that call in a
significant way of father as more than just
a title but as an endearing image of
something called up in that call of a
real person, a real God, a reality, not
only a reality the reality because if we
lose that we lose reality.
And to lose reality what is more pathetic
in Christianity than to lose the reality of
God and have only the husk and the
form of its language and not its palpable
resonating reality.
So they have to express in word and
deed his fatherhood and their sonship.
Sonship means exerting it.
Sonship means expressing it.
You're not a son if you're slack.
You diminish in sonship if you shut your
mouth, if you do not call, if you
feel no obligation to pray, if you do
not express respect, if you do not honor.
Sonship is not just an abstract title, it's
an activity, it's a conduct, it's a status
that needs to be expressed, exerted and maintained
actively.
To be an inactive son is a contradiction
in terms.
And in fact in our own human relationships
when a son is inactive toward his father
he's lost his distinction.
He's no longer a son.
He may be technically but in actuality he's
a dead piece of timber.
He's not maintained and revered the relationship and
given himself to it in an active way,
in a respectful way, in an honoring way
and he himself pays the price of that
loss.
So to be obedient to this command, to
call upon him as father is to rise
up as the prodigal son did, to take
away to the father as his child, to
speak intimately to him, to claim a hearing
from him.
Invocation that aims at renewal or rather the
dynamic actualization of what has become a static,
stagnant and frozen relationship with him.
So the title of this chapter is Invocation,
to invoke, to activate a privileged relationship with
the father because if we don't keep it
actively we fall into a static, stagnant and
frozen relationship.
We've lost the key to the dynamic actualization
of a son in relationship with the father.
Got the picture?
And it's so easy to do.
And in fact we have done it.
And in fact this is an apt description
of us today.
Stagnant, frozen, static, not active, alive and dynamic.
On this side of course the relationship never
ceased to be dynamically actual and never stopped
working and speaking as the father of his
children.
On the side of his children however there
was and always will be the dangerous possibility
or even worse the evil reality of halting,
resting and rusting.
Praise God for Carl Barth.
He didn't get this out of a book.
He got this out of being a pastor
with a German-Swiss congregation which is the
toughest kind, the most critical analytical to penetrate.
And so he's bringing the anguish of his
own soul and the observing of this dramatic
critical mentality that does not cultivate the relationship
with father because it requires humility.
It requires humbling, requires love, requires something active
and these Germanic types sit on their humps
and refuse to open their mouths, refuse to
call, refuse to pray, refuse to honor, refuse
to acknowledge and they become stagnant, frozen, inert
and dead.
So we need to be warned.
He's telling us this can become an evil
condition.
What begins with neglect and indifference, if you
keep up like that, it becomes an evil
thing, a reality, halting, resting and rusting until
you're unable to call.
That there's nothing more agonizing to your soul
than to humble yourself and call upon God
the Father.
You cannot.
You've passed the point of no return.
You're so stultified, so fixed in your obdurate
condition you can no longer pray.
So how can you be about your Father's
business?
You can only be about your own.
So this is foundational, dear dear saints.
If we're going to be sons, sons must
be active in prayer and worship, in submission
and honoring and calling upon the name which
is our great privilege.
And if we harden in that, cannot pray,
devotion to us is a dead end.
We can't imagine ourselves getting up earlier and
finding a quiet place before the Lord and
talking to Him.
It's like lead.
Our words fall to the ground.
We end before we begin.
Anybody in that condition?
You need to read the biography of Spurgeon.
He prayed incessantly.
People who took walks with him in the
woods, they said he was continually praying where
he would stop and say look at this,
let's bow here and give God praise for
the beauty of His creation.
And when he got up on a Sunday
morning to speak before without a microphone, he
boomed the resonance of God with a voice
that was so pliable that it could make
people move from laughter to tears from one
moment to the other.
His voice was such an instrument for the
conveyance of God because all through the week
it was being enamored, it was taking up
dimensions of God Now think of the love
of God the Father that gives to the
son all of his substance and allows him
to go out and spend it, misspend it
wastefully and find himself in the corral with
the pigs and eating their husks and finally
so reduced that he says I must I'm
not worthy to be a son to this
Father but I have to go back and
the Father is not only waiting, he runs
to meet him with a kiss, a ring
and a garment and makes a feast that
the son who is dead is now alive.
I'm saying all that to say this, if
you allow your relationship to God to die,
if you find it difficult to pray, if
you cannot summon an inward reality that corresponds
to the word God and Father the Lord
will allow you to eat husks he'll allow
you to misspend everything and you'll find yourself
degraded and finally so desperate that what you
had not volunteered when you were able you
will now volunteer out of your desperation got
that?
If you'll not pray when you're able, you'll
pray when you're desperately needful and that there's
yet a God the Father who waits to
hear that prayer and so my encouragement as
a father of the faith is this, don't
wait for that desperation don't misspend your precious
substance don't allow yourself to be degraded and
come to a final place where you're eating
like pigs and then have to cry if
the Father will receive you, though you're not
worthy to be a son now activate yourself
now seek the Lord now pray, now enjoy
this relationship because in the Westminster Confession it
gives the principle what is the purpose of
salvation?
The chief purpose of man is to glorify
God and to enjoy him to glorify God
and to enjoy him forever and if you're
not enjoying God how are you doing with
God's people?
How shall you find more delight with God's
people in all of their defect and condition
if you'll not find delight in God?
They will be as dead to you as
God himself and your relationship will only be
minimal and mechanical so that we will fall
into the conditions of the Hutterite communities where
men are described as the pig man the
chicken man, the machine shop man, the man
is his identity by what he does but
he has no value for what he is
You got me what I'm saying?
You have no love no delight.
I have a particular delight in some of
the Hutterite men that have come to us.
I love to hear them, I love to
see them I love to hear their prayer
I'm worried $4,000 new hearing aids, not
that the old ones were that bad but
I was missing what one of the brothers
was saying in particular I didn't want to
miss a word that he says It's precious
to me, I want to hear him.
You have no delight in God's sons if
you have no delight in their father and
then what then is the body of Christ?
Some kind of mechanical assemblage that functions according
to certain the whole genius of the church
is destroyed when we have no delight in
God's sons because we have no delight sons
is an activity the
older brother will be
outside the door pouting you never did this
for me and I was faithful okay, invoking
God the father is the enterprise that follows
his word and summons to come back out
of an atmosphere of unnatural cold and aloofness
to one of natural warmth and intimacy did
you get that?
okay invoking God the father, what's the whole
purpose, what's the point of it?
is the enterprise that follows his word and
summons this is his invitation to come back
out of an atmosphere of unnatural cold and
aloofness to one of natural warmth and intimacy
it is the attempt in relation to him
who acts and meets him actively, not just
to keep on waiting slackly for whatever develops
that's the meaning of children slack in their
attitude well if it comes when he wants
they're cold and indifferent, God summons and invites
us calling upon him as father is God's
provision to keep us from falling slack and
becoming cool indifferent and that's what this theologian
is telling us this is not a formality
this is not a mechanical provision this is
through God's grace to keep us from falling
into a condition to which we will invariably
come not just for petitions but for his
own sake as a person it's the most
difficult thing we would rather do we'd rather
perform some act but for the relationship to
come to a natural feeling, warm, affectionate regard
with God as father is more difficult for
us than fighting demons and it's the most
difficult the world, the flesh and the devil
would get you to quit before you begin,
because there's no visible evidence or sensate or
measured success in terms of some felt experience
if that experience does not come you're ready
to quit you need to read I think
the article is now on a website on
the presence of God esteeming the presence esteeming
so this is there's no sonship without this
guys we can pack up and quit go
home and forget the great word, the honor
the glory, sons sons being called to glory
if we will not enjoy God if we
will not have a sense of what he
is it is godliness as father and have
an intuitive sense of that without seeing him
or necessarily feeling and it saves us from
becoming cold hard, indifferent a
son is an active praise he calls, he
worships the question needs
to be raised how many of us have
an active intention to become sons that we
desire sonship that we see this as honorific,
as an ultimate statement of the faith to
which we have been called and the salvation
which we have been given that we're not
just content to be slack with one day
like another we desire to come into the
fullness of the privilege by which God is
glorified mainly as sons if we have not
the conscious intention we will not obtain it
so I just want to raise the question
how many consciously, it's not automatic it's a
growth into something by an assertion and not
just that attitude that waits for whatever develops
not just to keep on being silent, in
this way they attempt to overcome the movement
from the church you've got to move this
distance it's strange and perverse it's unnatural God
never intended for a presence in the earth
of Christians who have not a son's relationship
with the father that's strange, that's unnatural he
intended was the same kind of relationship that
Jesus had of a warm, palpitating trusting regard
and a calling and a frequency to be
the norm for those that are in the
earth as Christians anything less and other than
that is perverse slack unfruitful degenerate an evil
reality of halting, resting who has ever reproved
us like that who has ever spoken to
us as firmly as that and shown us
what would be the consequence if we neglect
God as father no one no one has
ever addressed us like that they've allowed us
to get by with the terminology of sons
and sonship in a shallow way because they
themselves are shallow how shall they reprimand us
but the love of God the father is
this he'll not let us get away the
love of God the father is showing us
what the neglect of his own fatherhood will
mean if we choose to remain silent and
slack this is love to provoke us to
call upon him and to exercise the very
privilege which is ours as children to call
upon God as father not
at all it's an adoption even Jesus, who
Reggie and I were talking at the break,
had to learn obedience for himself an author
whom I intend to bring before us another
great English writer, said Jesus became what he
always was he was always the son but
he became the son by his own human
attention to the very thing that God is
speaking to us his own devotional relationship with
the father and his obedience to the things
to which the father called him brought him
into the sonship which we had now to
appropriate humanly and actively as a son in
the earth why?
that we would have a model for our
own emulation and faith that it was not
automatic for him though he was the son
of God by creation from the beginning, before
he made his advent into the earth but
he didn't come in just saying look ma,
no hands I'm accustomed, this is what I
always was I'll just continue what I did
and fulfill and appropriate and come to
maturity in an active way so that when
they found him in the temple and said,
how do you like this of course, we
thought you were lost don't you know I
had to be above he went down with
them to Nazareth and dwelled in Nazareth, he
went back down with parents who did not
know him, know his calling did not understand
him and he went down with them in
that condition to submit to them and honor
his father and his mother and in the
lowest place on the earth that later on,
generations later they said can any good thing
come out of that and he grew in
grace, he grew as a son by going
down he grew as a son by obedience,
he grew in the things that were contrary
to his flesh by parents who didn't know
him so he became what he always was
so that we would not say, well don't
expect me to be a son like that
it didn't have his advantage in deity through
attention and worship and prayer and devotion the
same way that we obtained that reality as
a son, he had no advantage over us
by virtue of being, sonship is an
accomplishment, sonship is a glory, sonship is an
ultimate attainment, potentially ours were given every grace
and not the least of the graces to
call upon God as father as trusting sons
and to be in a respectful worshipful and
affectionate regard with father as the very key
to sonship or else we grow cold and
distant, separated and stale and lose any affection
in regard for the father and for other
of his children, that's why I say how
many people, sonship is an ultimate and knowing
both him and themselves they're charged some a
son is grateful and those whom God condemns,
condemns as sinful and judges them and gives
them over to their own lusts in Romans
chapter, forsaken the creator for the creation and
are not grateful gratitude is an essential component,
a deeply felt experience because who are we
who are we to call on God the
father, it's a privilege and a grace that
requires our gratitude because that calling and that
gratitude is at the foundation and rudiments of
not only what it means to be a
son, but what it means to be a
man what it means to be human what
it means to be distinguished as an aspect
of God's creation if you're devoid of gratitude
if you're devoid of this reality, what are
you as a person, let alone as a
son you're just a biological entity that consumes
that takes up space, that needs to be
fed, that needs to be gratified sexually, that
needs needs, needs, needs, needs but other than
your needs and your consumption what are you
in significance that's
why mankind is in his present condition, ungrateful
and disobedient to everything that God says we're
seeing come out large before us unthankful, unholy,
ungrateful disobedient to parents incapable of natural affection
incapable of mercy hard, capable of murder, torture
devilish, why they have forsaken the grace that
God offers to man in his image for
which gratitude is a warrior so young,
be careful don't dry up, don't become cold
don't become stultified don't become fixed unless
the endowment would have been so so by
what repentance have you come into the kingdom
by what repentance have you been saved from
the ungodly, unthankful and unholy did you just
make a decision at your will and choice
I think I'll call on the Lord the
free offer of independence I'll announce it, we're
marked by a shallowness of a pervasive kind
with the depth of brokenness of our heart
cold and thankless been saved by the grace
of God to become sons who are warm
palpitating, affectionate honoring regardful, grateful maybe
well we're going to come into this, what
is sin and for what have we been
saved and if we were saved out of
that would we not be more grateful now
and relish and cherish not only that salvation
but the opportunity through it to become sons
by active persuasion and active seeking of the
God who has saved us the father who
sent his son we're an ungrateful, cold and
we're forced to conclude that only in this
turn to unselfish praise from God which comes
out of gratitude does invocation of the father
become what it is the work of a
people who are free because they are freed
by God for God this praise and gratitude
and calling upon the father is the free
exercise of our will and if we do
not make it, we diminish in that essential
component by which we are distinguished not only
as sons but as humans as men we
then become what, beast children we become capable
of the most inhumane acts we're worse than
animals if we do not exercise a freedom
by which we can have relationship with the
father and the graces that are elementary to
our humanity got the picture?
how should we encourage the unbelieving world to
this relationship part of the reason for our
sons is our witness to the unbelieving world
of what is the benefit of his fatherhood
by those who are privileged to call upon
him and because we have been privileged they
are privileged because he's a God who is
without partiality
because we're saved they can be saved because
we're grateful they can be grateful because we
have been made human freely and it shows
in affection and warmth and respect they can
be saved out of an ungodly generation that
is condemned for judgment, where's that witness invoking
the privilege of calling upon the father freely
because we are freed by God for God
so there's something elementary about humanity itself so
when I came to Africa and my message
to the church was you need to be
in guardianship for what is made in God's
image in your black brethren who are being
treated like animals who are being neglected and
being devoid of the most elementary consideration by
those who are in power you need to
assert yourself as the church that has a
regard for what is made in man's image
and content for it and face those who
are in a place of political power and
say you guys need to meet the condition
of mankind in an elementary way appropriate to
their dignity as men because their life is
not human in poverty, ignorance and disease.
Got the picture?
You can't be this kind of a church
if you have allowed your freedom to
become impoverished and unused and have not asserted
your benefit and the benevolence of God and
the privilege to call and show forth the
reality that comes from that charge about the
neglect of that humanness that comes from the
grace and we've
seen that in our generation by the most
cultured nation in the world.
They had not an elementary relationship with the
father.
They were devoid and collapsed under the weight
of worse and we're going to see that
crisis come again.
So this then is a sketch of the
invocation invited and summoned which must come as
a vent in the lives of Christians as
thanksgiving praise, prayer and therefore as the primal
and basic form of the whole.
This is the name of the game.
This is the foundation of church.
This is the reality of realities.
This is the ultimate ground zero foundation and
if you listen here, there's no picking it
up in any other place.
You're a play actor.
You're a performer.
You're a dilettante.
You just pick up those things that touch
your fancy and your interest.
Relationship both with the father is the primal
ethos of the faith.
This is the foundation of foundation.
To go on to any other thing, that's
why we're beginning here, would be pointless.
Sin, judgment, the wrath of God, the mercy
of God, salvation, redemption, sanctification, glorification, all those
things would just be dead vocabulary when certain
people may not only be called the children
of God but are this and as such
qualified and able, willing to call upon God
their father, when in this calling, in their
thanks and praise and prayer, the Christian ethos
is actualized, maintained, continued and developed.
Boy, I wish I could brand that on
every one of us.
It's continued and developed.
This is not a dead ethos.
This is a live organic thing.
Lest it become a praise prayer comes out
of gratitude, thanks, is actualized, comes
into reality and maintained and continued.
There's no such thing as a slack contradiction.
It's a, what do they call that word,
a slack son?
It's ipso facto not a son.
A son by definition, by nature, by calling,
is one active in gratitude, praise, worship out
of which comes his service.
And maybe one of the most painful pseudo
realities of our Christianity is the so-called
worship by those who can strum guitars and
turn up the amplifiers but have not a
thankful heart, are not grateful and that their
praise does not issue out of what is
their summons and their calls, gives them the
right and invites and that musicology
that goes out instead of livening and quickening
the congregation of God who is being celebrated
deadens it.
No praise without gratitude.
No gratitude without acknowledgement.
No acknowledgement without the realities to which we
are called of which the principal one is
calling upon God as Father.
Listen here, it must become an event in
the lives of Christians as thanksgiving praise and
therefore the primal basic form of something that
we do, it's a movement to call upon
and we continue to do for which the
Holy Spirit is given as an aid, as
a blessing my spirit rejoices in God my
Savior is the magnificat of this then is
the mystery of the central and basic act
of controls and determines spirit my spirit
rejoices in God my Father but religiosity does
not need to call upon a fatherly God,
it does not need any special movement and
act of God it does not need any
baptism sending outpouring and gift of the Spirit
it may work itself out in this way
that the spiritual life lives to be null
and void of this God without the work
of the Holy Spirit religiosity is not
grateful and does not worship the Spirit of
God is given to them that obey Him
and the fundamental primal obedience is to call
upon God, this do in this way pray
our Father which art in heaven, whatsoever you
ask of the Father in my name we're
commanded, we're invited not to do it is
a disobedience and the Holy Spirit is given
so how then can we see all
together part of what is worshipful, goes all
together with summoning God everything is tied up
apart from the Holy Spirit no one can
or will call, no one will call upon
God as Father, therefore no one can or
will call upon God as Father and therefore
in truth the Christians can, one always related
to the Father the
Father lets himself be moved by the giving
of thanks because as he hears it their
weak and dissonant voices are sustained by the
one strong voice of the one by whose
Eucharist the inadequacy of theirs is covered and
here the theologian is saying however feeble you
think your prayer is and your devotion, God
hears it and receives it in and with
the Son, because His Eucharist, His thankfulness is
taken up with yours so that you're being
heard by God the Father with dimensions more
than you are offering out of your own
weakness and ineptitude, but if you don't offer
in your weakness and ineptitude there's no further
grace given with the voice of the because
we will be discouraged when we hear our
own low quality of prayer and be encouraged
to stop and he's saying however feeble it
sounds to you the Father brings to it
another dimension your weak and dissonant voice is
sustained by one strong voice of the one
whose thankfulness the inadequacy of theirs is covered,
it sounds like very grace that God does
not evaluate the quality of our prayer with
something greater, but if you don't offer your
minimal prayer neither will it receive, the devil
wants to dissuade you from offering up your
minimal prayer and when you do God will
work with the Father to invoke an answer
beyond what you thought even to ask and
to pray, how do you like them apples?
There too, these kinds of self-conscious but
our prayers will take converting power and grace
and take our feeble for every time God
has answered my prayers that I thought were
embarrassing and answered them as extravagantly and as
lavishly as the most eloquent the Father's response
to me is not proportionate to my own
evaluation of my prayer he answers my feeble
prayers as profoundly as he'll take
your little scraps he'll take your inadequate little
bit of a prayer and make it to
count as something deserving of his hearing and
give an answer by it beyond anything that
you thought it ought to say.
Don't you define and establish the criteria for
what you think yes it might come and
it ought to come with tears and prostration
in the most desirable form the devil
wants to dissuade you from being active sons
who will offer up to the Father what
meager things you're able for it will become
enhanced by that measure from the son who
is high priest and whose prayers are always
heard and I've seen the truth of it
in the answer that I've received far out
of proportion to the feeble thing that I've
offered up.
You know what in your crisis moments when
prayer is most urgent all you will be
able to offer up is a feeble prayer
Amen Know that the Father is such that
he receives it as being the very prayer
of his own son and will give you
lavish answer and when you hear that and
know that you know what you can do?
You can become grateful for such a God
and such a Father who is not a
heated critique of evaluating I'll take this prayer
but I'll reject that one he receives it
all as honoring to himself and gives lavish
answer to all.
What a God what a Father how deserving
not only of our appreciation our gratitude our
love and out of that will spring praise
and worship and out of which comes true
service unto him Come on you saints this
is the foundation Amen Pray without ceasing call
upon God the Father it's your summons it's
your privilege there's a grace I'm surprised
at the answers I've received when more times
than not I do not pray to the
I pray to the Son because I had
a hang up about the word Father for
which I had not a comfort and an
ease it was easier for me to pray
to the Lord though the Lord has said
pray to the Father in my name I
haven't up till now been able to do
it or have been instructed to do it
now I'm being instructed and I believe that
heretofore my prayers will be punctuated in the
name of the Father I will call upon
the Father abundantly more than what I have
lost by that failure the Father wants to
be a neglect the triunity of God and
the glory of the Godhead when we omit
the centerpiece of that God merely to give
tribute to the Son or to the Spirit
is to ignore that three fold chord in
the God who sends both Son and Spirit
so Father must be restored to his elementary
place of our earthly relationships with
Fathers to discourage our heaven so I said
to someone must we be continually scarred and
what's the word crippled because we had unhappy
and we're summoned so
to do and see all of the benevolence
you're only a cripple to the degree you
don't have to you could be raised up
from that crippling condition and learn about the
beauty of fatherhood from the very source itself
and be more compassionate lest you find yourself
duplicating him I'm
grateful that that's where he is our Father
which art in heaven because in calling upon
you in heaven I'm having opportunity for a
linkage with heaven and all that heaven implies
which I would lose if I were praying
more of course the calling upon you there
brings me in a way into that reality
so that the day might come by the
consistent heaven is more than the geographic of
reality and glory and honor and beauty and
holiness so praise God that we call upon
God the Father it's more than just a
little designation he knows where he is why
does he have us to say that because
in the saying we're transported in some measure
by faith into that realm of reality which
needs to be brought into the earth and
for which the church is wanting and lackluster
we're not exhibiting enough of the heavenly dimension
because we have not made sufficient recourse to
it through prayer to our Father which art
in heaven there's a wisdom to this this
is not just God whipping together a sign
of love and a benevolence could you see
it God wants heavenliness into our earthly our
drab and inadequate is the best of what
we're able to perform if it has not
a heavenly quotient so when he says here
here's how to pray call upon your Father
because in the doing something comes through hallow
not only his name but family it saves
us from the grimness of just abstract mechanical
Christianity this is a grace you dear saints
much hinges but if you don't exercise it
if you refuse to speak you choose silence
you will not pray you will not call
then you void and neglect the remarkable benevolence
so get off your dead hump and repent
for your silence repent for your pouting my
father failed me therefore I'm not going to
bow to that father get over that choose
to honor choose to respect choose to exercise
the privilege and grace to call ask his
forgiveness as one of the first graces on
earth repent and come alive let's give
God thanks and gratitude for so great grace
for a father which art in heaven and
bids us call upon him saving us from
grim earthliness even when we're thank you Lord
gracious God our God oh my God this
is love Lord what a
God you are formula little man holy
man stagnant
pool dead cold indifferent lacking spring
up blue springs pray
in Bulgarian no
other prayer out
for that very reason we might as
well have remained where we were be a
silent here our
own will oh
courage and love any fear father
whether weak where were we were strong consider
what it is that truly this
man I don't understand it but he saw
something no man takes my life and he
yielded up that last act is the this
dumb centurion recognized this is the son of
God this act revealed him and so what
is the essence of a son one who
yields up and if you can't yield up
your voice in prayer how shall you yield
up your spirit in death how can you
show ultimate sonship when you're not showing immediate
sonship a yielding up and a giving up
of pride of yielding up your voice in
praise it's
not a static be a son and yield
up your voice without feeling without waiting for
the father he's holy and he's yield up
your voice in the prayer
of Paul for this cause I bow my
knees unto the father of our lord Jesus
Christ of whom the whole family that he
the father would grant you according to the
riches of his glory to be strengthened with
might by his spirit in the inner man
that Christ might dwell in your hearts by
faith that you're being rooted and grounded in
love of all saints what is the breadth
and length and depth and height to know
the love of Christ which passes knowledge of
God he bows his knee to the father
with might by his spirit Paul went to
the spirits
with a sense of your ponderous reality because
that reality is the key to not that
reality we have no reality God
the heart of the trinity thank you lord
who glories in the sun who sends the
spirit who is full of rich God lord
help us we cannot
know fatherhood we cannot express it until we
catch glimpse of what it is in its
primal and true