Hope When You're Hurting

Summary

In this video Ps Adrian shows that we all go through times of pain and hurt but that God speaks into our situation with words of life. Listen to what God says about you and be transformed in both good times and bad.

Transcript

Right, who's ready for the word? Isaiah chapter 43. Isaiah 43. And thank you, Michael. That sounds great. Appreciate it. They always get caned when something goes wrong. And so every now and then you gotta, I go, hang on. I just said, actually, we should say thank you to the team who are doing a great job back there again.

And those guys back there, by the way, they're running online church every Sunday. It's not just what we do here. It's what we're doing online. So thank you to all the guys there, and we've got some of the key ones there. We've got Dylan, and Jen, and Ella, and Michael, and Fua's back there now, and a bunch of other people.

Thank you for everything you're doing. Isaiah 43! But now, O Jacob, listen to the Lord who created you. O Israel, the one who formed you says, Do not be afraid, for I have ransomed you. I have called you by name. You are mine. I want to talk to you about this passage. We're going to go through the first seven verses of Isaiah 43 today.

And I want to talk to you about this topic. Hope when you're hurting. Hope when you're hurting. The reason is because this passage here, some people call it one of the most powerful, or the most powerful, scripture in the Old Testament. It's wedged right in there, and it speaks such life. People, quote it, they put it on their walls, they remember it.

Do you know what's interesting about this passage? This was spoken two and a half thousand years ago, in the 500 BC time, when the Israelites had been conquered and taken into captivity by the Babylonians. And many of them had been taken from their homeland, from their cities, their towns, and transported as servants and slaves into Babylon.

where they were treated with disdain and given really no hope and said, your ways are no longer We're not going to accept them anymore. You'll live like us. You'll serve us and we don't care what happens to your country. It's done. And the Israelite people were in this space of hopelessness, of hurt, of pain.

They'd lost loved ones. They had no future that they could see. And they were going through a very difficult time. In the middle of this time, Isaiah, the prophet, gets a word from God to speak to the Israelite people and speak these words over them, to listen to the Lord who created. So I want to look at this today because this isn't just an encouragement for, hey, believe these things.

This is the truths that we need to know when we're going through difficult times. It's easy. If you're not going through a difficult time right now, if you're doing okay, That's great, but you know what? You're going to need to know these things. And sometimes what can happen to us is when we're doing alright, we can forget these truths until something goes wrong and then we're hit with what do we really believe about ourselves?

What does God really say about ourselves? Some of us in this place are hurting right now and you're going through things and maybe you've covered it up to yourself. But God wants to speak truth to you. He wants to speak truth. He wants to speak hope into your situation, like He did with the Israelites.

When they were captives in Babylon, didn't know what their future held. And yet God comes and speaks these verses to them. And, I'm reminded. When I was going through this, of a famous person that I've talked about before, maybe some of you or many of you would have heard of her, Corrie Ten Boom, and she's written this book called The Hiding Place.

She was a Dutch, woman who her family, over World War II helped protect and hide, Jewish people who were trying to escape the Nazis they got caught and they all got caught and they themselves got sent to a concentration camp, and her whole family died. Her mum and dad died, her sister died, and Corrie Ten Boom had to endure, this torturous treatment in these concentration camps for years.

She's gone on to write a book, she was a Christian, she believed in God, and in the darkest moment she cried out. She would quote things like, even in the deepest pit, God's love is still there. In the darkest, deepest pit that you can be in your life. God's love shines through and she held on to God in hope when she was hurting when she didn't have hope and she came out of that Stronger because of things she believed about God She would quote this scripture Isaiah 43 and it would give hope and peace into her heart and I want to encourage you If you're going through a time of hurt, God wants to lift you today.

If you're going well today, He wants to remind you of what He says about you. What others say, even if it's good, can change like that. But what God says doesn't change. So can we look at that? There's three things I want to bring out. Hope, when you're hurting. Three things that God says about you that are going to lift you.

In my darkest times, they've lifted me. And so we start again in verse one, we go through and it says, But now, O Jacob, listen to the Lord who created you, O Israel, the one who formed you. Says the first thing that God reminds the Israelite people and He wants to remind you and I of is this, we are created by Him.

He is the one that created us. And you go that's very simple, Adrian, but actually it's quite profound. Because the one who creates you. decides what your purpose is. The one who creates you decides the direction of your life, decides your identity, don't they? Your creator decides who you are.

And we live in a world where our identity, our direction, is challenged by a whole heap of people. By society, by government, by parents, teachers, friends, Your own mind wants to give you your, and tell you what you are and who you are. But this is the truth. At the start of this verse, God comes to them and says, I'm the one who created you, so I'm the one who gets to decide what your purpose is.

I'm the one who gets to decide what your direction in life is and who you truly are. No one else gets to decide that, God. And when He created you, We know this, that God doesn't make rubbish, does he? He doesn't make garbage. If He created you for an amazing purpose. And we gotta remember that.

I was thinking about this when I was young. I created some things. And, to be fair, others did not see in them what I saw. I did some woodwork. Who remembers doing some woodwork in school? We got the lathe, got on the lathe, and then you got the chisel out, and we had a teacher, Mr. Nowak was his name, and he was passionate about woodwork.

And so we were doing that. We did a bit of metalwork as well, and that was like, you had to fold the metal and all that. And suffice to say, I'm not great with my hands. I was good at maths, I was good at these other things, but when it comes to practicals, it was like, I don't have the skill set.

And people like James here, he's a carpenter, right? Where are you, James? Somewhere, you've been helping usher today. James is a carpenter, he's good with his hands. When he puts something, it's a work of art. But I had to have this opportunity, and so I made some stuff in woodwork. I remember making, What was called the Tower of Hanoi.

Which is like a game, it's like these three things, and you have to, you've got different shaped blocks of wood. And, they have to be moved in different things, and anyway, it's hard to explain. But, it was a game that you had to play, and I made this Tower of Hanoi. And I had these, I laid the, The side that wasn't shaved right on every side, it was all different and it was a bit oblong and the square pieces of wood were all different shapes and, none of them were square.

And, the holes, the circular holes I had to put through the middle, I didn't get the middle, I got on the side. And I put it together and then varnished it and created it and I was like, here it is. I sent it to my, Mr. Noak, my teacher, and he looked at it and he said, You've laid this wrong here, this side, and this side, and that's all of thing and he marked it and he wrote on The back of it B minus big circle B minus.

I took that back I was like you don't get to give me a B minus. This is my work of art I took that home I put it on my desk and I used to play with that thing all the time I used to do the Tower of Hanoi And I, literally for years, Narelle got introduced to the Tower of Hanoi, didn't you? We got married and I was like, look what I made in woodwork when I was in year eight.

And Narelle probably looked at it and went, that's pretty dodgy work there, mate. But she knew I was proud of that Tower of Hanoi, right? Because it was my creation. And it might have, you know what, Mr. Nowak? You don't get to give me a B minus. I give myself a triple plus. Because that's mine. Isn't that how you feel about your creation?

When you make something, and you go, I put my heart and soul into this, and therefore I will determine its value. You don't get to determine it. Other people look and go, good on you mate. That can probably go in the garbage. But I'm going, no, it's pride of place. And I want to tell you, that's how God looks at us.

When He creates us, it doesn't matter what someone else says. It doesn't matter even what you say. You might go, I'm not even happy with the creation you, yeah, God says, you don't get to determine that, I do. Because I'm the one who formed you. I'm the one who made you. I determine your purpose and value.

When it's God's, He gets to speak over us and what our purpose in life is. Listen to this in verse 13. Isaiah 43 verse 13. No one can undo what I have done. God says, I created you, so I will determine your purpose, your function, not someone else. Who are you listening to? Who are you getting your value from?

God is the one. He's the one that gets to determine, and that's what we have to keep in mind. When you're hurting, those hurting you don't get to determine your value. You don't even get to determine your value. God does. This is what being a Christian is. A Christian is someone who says, actually, God's the ultimate authority because he made us.

He formed us. Therefore I will look to Him. Are you looking to God for your direction, for your purpose, for your value? Because He's the only one who knows what to do with you. My my nonna, my grandma, she was a great cook. Oh, she was so good. But no one else knew anything. To do it exactly how she was doing it.

She'd put together and she'd get the flour and the dough and she would mix that and be kneading it and putting it all together and add a bit of water and add this and add that and you didn't know what she was gonna make. Is she making pasta? Is she making pizza? What's she making? Only my nonna knew.

And if anyone else tried to get their hands on the dough not, you gotta stay away from Nonna's dough. She's the creator. She's deciding what this becomes. And she'd make dough and she'd put it together and then you get the lumps, the blobs of dough. You get the blobs and you know how, I don't know if some of you have seen it, there's just blobs sitting there and you go, what's this gonna be?

This looks like nothing. No, the yeast is working on it and it's the blob there and it's what's she gonna do with this one? What's she gonna do? And she'd get that one and she'd push it out and make a pizza and put it in the oven. And that was awesome. But you know what else you do? Some of that dough, and I talked about this last night.

People didn't know what I was talking about. She would take some of this dough, and she didn't make pizza with it, she would get it, and get the pan, the frying pan, and pour extra virgin olive oil, has anyone had this? Extra virgin olive oil, she'd heat that oil up, and she'd get a blob of that dough, and she'd push it out, and she'd throw it into, not throw, she'd gently place it, Into the frying pan and it'd start sizzling and cracking.

She'd add salt. And you know what? If she wanted to make it deluxe, she would have added some anchovies into the dough, beforehand. And she'd fry up that dough in the thing and then she'd pull it out and she'd drain the oil off. And we had fried pizza dough, my friends. It was the best tasting thing in the universe.

Fresh, fried pizza dough. No one knew. She was the one who decided what would happen with each blob of dough. Whether it's a pizza, whether it's a bit of fried pizza dough. I mean, honestly, I would hang out for that. I would go, my mum, I'd say, mum, can you make some of Nonna's food? Because it's amazing. I want to tell you, God looks at us the same way.

You don't know, ultimately, what your purpose is. You don't know what someone, but God has a plan and a purpose because He forms you and He knows what He wants to do. And your job is to believe that and then find out from God who He's called you to be. Not find out from your friend or your parent or society or your own plans.

Too many people are coming up with their own plans. But God says, it's my plan. It's my purpose that will stand. And no one can change it. We're created by God. So then he goes on, the one who formed you says, Do not, in verse 1, do not be afraid for I have ransomed you. I have called you by name.

You are mine. So here's the most beautiful thing, because it follows on. We're not just created by God. We're chosen by God. Because you know it's possible when you create something you can discard it, can't you? Or you can be disappointed with it. And some people here, we feel like that's how God sees us.

You can go through times where you feel discarded, you feel broken up, beaten up. Life can do that to you. Your own mind can do that to you. But God does something greater than just say, I created you. He says, I created you, therefore I get to determine your value and importance. And I choose you. I choose you.

I'm the one who ransomed you. I've called you by name. I've picked you out and determined I want you. You are mine. He goes on. When you go through What does it mean when you've been chosen by God? He goes on in verse two. When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown.

When you walk through the fire of re oppression, you will not be burned up. The flames will not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the holy one of Israel, your savior. I gave Egypt as a ransom for your freedom. I gave Ethiopia and Seba in your place. Others were given in exchange for you. I traded their lives for yours because.

You are precious to me. You are honored and I love you. When was the last time you thought about that as it applies to you? It's easy to say God chooses people and God loves people. When was the last time you applied it to your life, truly? Because sometimes that's hard to do, because actually when you try and apply it, you go, Oh, I don't think I'm lovable.

I don't think I'm chosen. I don't think God wants to do that, because you look at what's happened to you. You look at how people have treated you. You look at how you think about yourself, and you think, Oh, am I really chosen? The challenge is to say, are you going to listen to your creator? And are you going to say, God, I accept that truth of being chosen by God.

See, we all go through times in life where we're not chosen, don't we? It's our fear. Human beings, we have a need to be chosen. We have a need to be valued. We have a need to be accepted. You can pretend like you don't, but you do. You need to be accepted. It's an inherent need. God put it in there. There's times in our lives when we're not, and it hurts us and it breaks us apart.

When I was in high school, I, Believe it or not, I was in some musicals, high school musicals. The first year or second year I went in, I was just in the chorus. And, the chorus group and so I was like, gotta sing on the sidelines and what they'd do is they'd pair you up with someone when you had to do the dances, right?

I don't like dancing at all. I've tried to remove it from my memory that I ever participated in it. But we had to dance. We had to do this choreography. And so you get paired up with a partner. There was another, member of the chorus and I was paired up with her and we had to do these dances together through the whole musical.

And I remember she had a boyfriend at the time that I knew as well. We were in class together. And so there was a time where we were sitting around and we're talking all together about the musical, about what's happening. And, someone threw out a joke going, Oh, watch out, so and so, Adrian's, partnered up with your partner.

And I said, something like, Oh, no, you don't have to worry, about that. And it was a joke. And he looked and just went, Oh, don't worry, Adrian. And everyone just cracked up laughing. And I still remember that because I laughed with them. But at that time, I was overweight. I had a lot of insecurity problems where I went, I'm not an attractive person.

And, I was like, no girl's ever gonna like me. No girl's ever gonna go after me. And so I made a joke. You know what hurts the most? When you think something about yourself and then it's confirmed by others around you. Like it was just common knowledge. Because in that moment, I suddenly realised, Oh, they all think that of me.

I'm not lovable. I'm not attractive. I'm never going to get a girlfriend. I'm not chosen. It's a laugh. I'm a laughing stock. And that, if you let that be the thing that determines who you are, that really affects your psyche. It affects how you behave. It affects how you interpret others behavior towards you.

You start acting in ways because you expect to be rejected. You expect to be hurt. You start thinking of yourself in certain ways, and you stop believing the truth. And the thing is, this has happened to all of us. And maybe, some of us have gone through that. Feeling rejected by a partner or someone that we thought were just not lovable, we're not popular.

Some of us have dealt with racism. Feeling like, why am I being judged for something that isn't, is nothing wrong with me, and yet I'm being judged because of the colour of my skin or because the country I come from or whatever it is. Some of us have been judged because of age or whatever it is.

It hurts when you're not chosen. It hurts when you feel rejected. And yet God comes to us, and this is why it's so important, friends, because if you let the world determine whether you're chosen or not, sometimes you'll feel good and sometimes you'll feel terrible. And sometimes if you feel really good, it's only fleeting.

I've known some of the great pastors who were honored and privileged. Oh, look at this person. They're amazing. They're amazing. They're amazing. Then they got older and then they handed on their responsibility to someone else. And you know what? They got forgotten like that. And suddenly the honoring of people became nothing.

Because you're not chosen by people, you're chosen by God. You have to get in your heart. I am chosen by God. He is the one who honors me. He is the one who loves me. He is the one that says you are precious to me. I have called you by name. You are mine. Do you know what has held me through my whole life?

When those things happen to me? Yes, they hurt. Yes. But I would go back into my relationship with God and I'd have to keep going back. When I was young and I was trying to get into ministry and I was serving as a volunteer and I walked past a corridor one time, they didn't know I was there. And I heard someone talking about me and they said, that's why, I remember the words, that's why Adrian will never make it in ministry.

Because I hadn't done something the way that they'd wanted me to, and they said that, and I never went, but it stuck. Ah, I'm not chosen again. It's happened to me many times, it's happened to you many times, but I had to go back, and I went back to God. And I opened up, this is why my friends, some of us, we've got to get into the Word of God.

Not because God says or else, but because this is where life and truth will be spoken over your heart. We've got to get into a relationship with God where you spend time with Him. Because when I was a kid, and as an adult, and throughout my life, do you know what I've had to do? I've had to go back to God and say, God, I feel like I'm rejected by this person, by that, by this.

I've rejected myself. I don't feel good enough. And the Lord would speak this truth over me. Son, I've called you by name. You're mine. I'm with you. Why are you worried about what they think about you when your creator has chosen you? Imagine what you'd live like. Let's get a little sense of it. How would you live?

How would you go to your employer? How would you do your job? How would you be in your relationships if you had that at the forefront of your mind all the time? I wouldn't be worried whether you accept me or reject me. I wouldn't be worried about how I come across. I wouldn't be worried about whether my employer thinks I'm any good or not.

I'll go, Oh, I want to do a good job. But you know what? Employer, you don't determine my trajectory. You don't determine my value. What would it be like if in our relationships, we were being loving to each other, but we weren't relying on that person to give us value, saying they're going to go through a tough time.

My value comes from God. I've been chosen by God. And when rejection haven't come, and some of us need to know it because some of you've been rejected by a partner they've done to, they cheated on you. They abused you. And you feel rejected and you feel debilitated by that. But the truth of the Word of God is that you've been chosen by Him, the Creator God.

That person that rejected you, they're the one that needs help. They got it wrong. You're not a discard. You're not a reject. You're honored. You're lifted up. You're cherished when your employer lets you go. When you don't get the promotion, I'm chosen by God. How would you live if you would walk in life going, you do not, these people don't determine, my pastor doesn't determine my value.

Whether Adrian talks to me or not, or says I believe in you or not, that's nice. Hey, we all like encouragement, but I'm talking about having a deeper sense of being chosen. I like encouragement, but I don't need it to know who I am. I've had to grab a hold of this. I am chosen by God, not by man. My mum and dad might love me, but God is the one who chose me.

And we have a greater truth than these Israelites even understood. Because we know, he says, I've ransomed you. He says, I've come and I've ransomed your freedom. But we know God did even more than these guys understood. Because 500 years after this, Jesus Christ came, and He became the ransom for us. He came and said, I will take your place, I will die for you, so that you can be saved, because I value you and I love you.

So you've got no excuse as a Christian, to be honest. Because God's already showed you. And sometimes we're putting circumstances we go through in life as the things that determine our value and whether we're chosen. And Jesus said 2, 000 years ago, I chose you then, and I saved you then. And that what you go through in this life should not and will not determine whether you're chosen or not.

Because I'm talking about a hope beyond this life. I'm talking about a hope that Corrie Ten Boom had in a concentration camp where she's being tortured and hurt and watching people die around her and she said, yet my hope is in God because I'm being chosen by Him. Do you know you've been chosen by God?

Because Christ chose you. Your father chose you. So therefore, when you go through deep waters, I'll be with you. I'm going to be there. I'm going to hold your hand. Notice he doesn't say I'm going to stop you going through trials. He doesn't say the fire's not going to come. The difficult times aren't going to come.

He's speaking to the Israelites in that time. The difficult times will come, but in the middle of them, you know that God has chosen you. The Christian life cannot be lived without God. And to be honest in a very, in an immature way, which is if God loves me, then he'd stop anything bad happening to me. It won't, it doesn't work.

You know that, don't you? Try and live your Christian life like that and you will have to give up. You'll have to quit like others have. I know people who've walked away from God because they went through a difficult time and they said, well, God doesn't love me. He hasn't chosen me. I reject it.

You have to go deeper than that and said in the midst of my suffering God is there with me. I can't explain all the ins and outs of why that's the deep questions. I don't deny that but I'm here to tell you the truth that your Christian life has to go deeper. It has to be able to cope with going through the trials and believing that you're still chosen.

So when you're tormented, when you're rejected by others, when people hurt you, You don't run from God and say, No God, He doesn't love me because they did this to me. You run to Him and say, God, and that's what I had to do. It's what you have to do. It's what many of us have done here. God, I run to you and I accept you've chosen me above how I'm being treated.

I'm created. I'm chosen. And then we go into verse five. Do not be afraid for I am with you. I will gather you and your children from east and west. I will say to the north and south, bring my sons and daughters back to Israel from the distant corners of the earth. Bring all who claim me as their God, for I have made them for my glory.

It was I who created them. I love this passage because it takes us deeper and deeper into the truth of who we are. You're created by God. You are chosen by God, and then he gives you the beautiful cherry on top. The amazing. Thing that is you'll never get your head around. He calls you his child.

He calls you his child You're not just chosen as a good representative. You're not just chosen as someone that God says Hey, I'm gonna utilize you because hey, you've done a good job Oh because I love you for a bit because you're doing this or you're doing that No, he chooses you as his child and there's something about that you cannot fully express.

Can you? How do you explain the relationship that we understand between a parent and a child? A loving relationship. How do you understand? Is something inherent in human beings that we know the depth, there's something deep, and I think it was put in us by God. When it's right, when it's pure, it's so loving.

Your mum, your dad, when you were born, you might have had a massive head like me. You might not have been the most beautiful baby, but they don't care, do they? You're beautiful. They cherish you. They're like, that's my child. I love my child. I'll do anything for my child. My daughter's started in a new school.

And I've watched, I'm trying to be the strong parent going, Ella, you're going to have to work out, you're going to have to catch a bus to school sometimes, you're going to have to do this. Trying to train her. Narelle, it's like, I'm going to drive you, I'm going to pick you up, I've made your lunches.

Mum, I didn't like that lunch this week because it wasn't the same as the other kids had. I'll make you a different lunch. What do you need? Whatever you need, I'll do it. Why? Ella's not going, thank you mum, that's so kind. She's expecting it. Because it's the parent child relationship of love, of acceptance.

And God says, I give you that, that's who you are to God. What? Do you know who you are? You're a child of the Most High God! I will bring my children! Back to me, says the Lord. That's why Christ came, to make you a son and daughter of God. Dogs don't understand this. No, we take it for granted. We try and put our understanding of the father relationship onto animals, don't we?

You watch a documentary going, look at that penguin, the penguin's going, the mother's coming alongside the thing. I go, they don't care. Nowhere near as much as you, right? Our dog Ollie, he never met his father. He didn't. Never met his father, and he left his mother when he was two months old. And we thought he was going to be really sad.

And he's going to, maybe he's going to be left with issues. He came into our house, he didn't give a rip. He's here's Adrian, here's Narelle, here's Ella, you're my best friends on the earth. I'm the happiest when I see you. Somewhere in his mind he must be looking at us going, you're not mum and dad. He doesn't care because he doesn't have that same bond.

But human beings, we have a bond with a parent. It's a bond of agape love that says, I don't care who you are, what you look like, what you've done, you're my son, you're my daughter, and I love you. And that's, you're not just chosen, you're a child of God. It says in Romans 8, the whole of creation and all of the angels are standing in awe that you have been made a son and daughter of the Most High God.

God, let me read you something in John chapter 17. I hadn't seen this like this. It's there for all to see, but I hadn't seen it like this. Jesus is praying his really, his last prayer for his disciples. He actually says in here, he says in verse nine, you don't have it up there, but in verse nine of chapter John 17, he says, my prayer is not for the world, but for those who have given me because they belong to you.

And he then goes on to say an all that are going to come. He said, I'm praying for my disciples now, and I'm praying for everyone that's going to become disciples. He's praying for you and I. 2, 000 years ago, Jesus said a prayer about us. And He says a whole bunch of things about His love for the Father, and the Father's love for Him, and His relationship.

God the Son. This perfect unity and loving relationship between the Godhead that exists between them. Called God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. And He says this in verse 23.

I am in them and you are in me. He's talking about us. May they experience you. May you experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me. You ever thought about that? That Jesus is saying, the same love that the Father has for the Son, for Jesus Christ, is the love He has for you.

That when you become a Christian, what actually happened is that God invited you into the perfect unity of the Godhead's love. The same love. The same perfect love. It's hard for us to get our head around it because we rate love. Even among kids, the oldest kid usually thinks that the youngest kid gets the special treatment and the more love, and the youngest kid thinks the oldest does, and we're always comparing who's loved more.

Who does God love more? Us. You. Christ. The same love He has for Jesus Christ, His Son. His eternal Son. is the same love He has for you and He has invited you to become a son and daughter of the Most High God. If you can get your head around that, that will hold you in a concentration camp when they're torturing you.

That will hold you when you're rejected by your partner, your spouse. That'll hold That truth will save you and heal you and give you hope when you've been abused. When you've got nothing and everyone's forgotten about you and they don't know the stuff you're going through and you're going through grief and pain.

We'll give you hope for eternity. That is the hope friend. I'm telling you Christianity is not a crutch to lean on brothers and sisters. Christianity is the hope. That every human being needs. Because we're all hurting. We've all been broken. We're all in a lost world where sin exists and we say things about ourselves.

We do the wrong thing. Others do the wrong thing to us. And we try and cope and go through. And in the middle of that, God comes and says, I'm your creator. I created you. I've chosen you. Not because you did anything. Because you're precious to me. And then I do the thing that the whole of the universe stands in awe of.

He makes you His child. He's made you His son. He's made you His daughter.

So you're walking around like that. What do you need to apply? Wherever you're watching in our churches. Come on, some of us, we all need to apply this, but some of us need to apply it right now because we feel downtrodden. I'm a child of God.

He's made me His child. I was watching something, I was reading a book and watching. And it was so poignant to me, it was so simple but so poignant. There was a story of a father who had been taken prisoner and tortured. He was over in Japan and he was taken away in the political and for years was tortured.

And he had two sons, one of whom was not his blood son, was one he'd adopted.

And his two sons didn't see the father for years and years and years. And this man, he was a pastor. He was taken away, tortured. Finally, one time, out of the blue, years later, he turns up at their little tiny hut. And he falls in and he's dying. And he can't breathe. And they'd sent him back, basically, to die.

So he didn't die under the government's care. And his two sons are there and they hadn't seen their dad for years. They could hardly remember him because they were just little kids, but they remember. And here he is. And he's there on what became his deathbed and he's looking and he's struggling to breathe.

And his two sons are there looking this moment. He looks and he says to his two sons, I have so much that I want to tell you so much. I want to share, but he doesn't have much time left. And he just looks at them and he says, you are my sons. And I am your father.

And then he passes away. I think why is that important? Because I think that's what God wants to tell us. So much to learn. So much to understand. You spend your lifetime doing it. You know what God wants you to know? You're my children. You're my children.

Jesus said it. He said how much I've longed to gather the Israelite people like a mother hen gathers her young under her wings. He said you wouldn't let me. Will you let the Lord be your dad? Will you let the Lord love you? Will you let the Lord grow you as a son and daughter? Will you walk? into your home, into your relationships, into this church as a son and daughter of God, and let him speak that over you.

Delve deeper, say, Lord, show me, show me, show me, show me what my purpose is. Show me, God, that you've chosen me. Show me, God, that I may live for you, that I may make you a proud dad. Because that's what sons and daughters want to do. We want our parents to be honored and lifted up. Not because they make us, but because we love them.

You're created. You're chosen. You're His child. Come, why don't we bow our heads. We're going to pray.

Thank you, Lord, that you give us hope when we're hurting. I thank you, Lord, that you speak greater things, better things than this world does, than our circumstances do, than our experience does. You speak truth, God, that it overwhelms what we see in this world, because you're speaking into an attack. That we haven't fully seen yet, but we shall.

And I pray today that your people, your sons and daughters, would know that they know, Holy Spirit, put it in their heart. A man can't do it, my words can't do it, But only the Word of God and the Holy Spirit of the living God can pierce the heart of each person and say, that's the truth and I make it real to you today.

And I pray for every person watching. I pray for every person in our church. Let it become real. We are loved by the Father, chosen by the Son, created through the Spirit of God

for your glory, for your honor. And Lord, I. There's people all over our churches and you're going through hurt right now, so I'm going to pray for you. I'm going to pray for you. Maybe if that's you, all over our churches with their heads bowed and eyes closed, maybe you want to lift out your hands before the Lord and say, God, that's me, Lord, I am hurting and I need your Holy Spirit to come fill me.

All over our churches, why don't you just lift out your hands before the Lord, before Him. Say, God, come. I need my Dad. I need my Abba Father. I need your love, Lord. I need your healing power. So Lord, all over this place, all over our churches, Holy Spirit, you're the lover of our soul. You're the one who chooses us.

You're the one, you know, every circumstance, you know, the brokenness, you know, the pain, but Lord, you are greater, you are stronger, you are mightier, and your love overcomes. Nothing can separate us from the love of God. And Lord, right now, I pray, let your beautiful people know that love. Let them know that grace, Lord.

Let them be ministered to. Their hurts are gonna be overcome by the hope and the love of God. Sons and daughters of the most high God. Maybe you're in this place and you haven't given your life to Christ. You say, Jesus, I need you. Forgive me. Be my Lord and Savior. I need to be saved. I need to be in relationship with you.

You might've been way away from God and never come to Him. And all over this place, if that's you, I just want you to lift out your hand before the Lord and we're gonna say a prayer together, all together. across all of our churches.

Say, yes, God, I want to come into my heart, come into my life, be my savior. I need you, Lord. I need, thank you for choosing me. I accept that, Lord. I accept that, Father. We're going to say a prayer all together across this place. You say it with us if you've lifted your hand or you want to. Lord Jesus, thank you for dying for me.

Thank you that you've chosen me. I believe you're the son of God, that you did die on the cross for me and you rose again. So forgive me Lord, become my Lord and Saviour. Make me a child of God, in Jesus name I pray, Amen, Amen. Pray that truth stays with you, those three things will carry you through every season, through everything you go through in your life.

I'm going to go out different than how I walked in today because of who you've made me to be.

Have an amazing afternoon. Bless your church.