The plight of humanity is: we are spiritually orphaned. We have not God as our Father. John 14:18, Jesus said: shortly I'm going to leave. I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever - the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, nor that sees Him nor knows Him, but you know Him, for He dwells in you, and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you. Notice this statement: I will not leave you orphans.
Will you open your Bible at John, Chapter 14. One of the things that God wants us to have, is an understanding of is the immense love He has for us. You only give away what you've got, you can't give what belongs to someone else. You have to have something that's real, and the thing that the world needs more than anything, is the love of God. You can't give it if you haven't got it, and this year I would encourage you to open yourself up to encounter and personally experience God's love.
So I want to just pick up where we were last week, speaking about the story of Hosea. Hosea, whose name means salvation, is a type of God himself, and Hosea had an instruction. His instruction was to marry Gomer. Gomer means to come to the end of yourself, to be completely at the end of yourself, to have no more resources left. Gomer was a prostitute. She'd sold herself out, and so Hosea went and married her. Now I didn't go into trying to think through just the implications of the story, but I want to raise this bit. Even though he was married to her, she struggled in her heart to believe she could be loved. Her struggle was the difficulty in believing: I could be loved. This is a struggle many people have. It's a struggle I had for years, and at times still have it. It comes and goes.
It's a struggle to know that we're lovable, to know that we're loved completely and perfectly; and what happened was, Gomer had in her heart a wrong belief system. She had a belief system that somehow she was ugly, defiled, unlovable, and no one could love her, so when you have those kinds of belief systems, even though she had a marriage, and a marriage to a man who loved her, she couldn't receive the blessings of that marriage, because her heart belief system refused to accept that she could be loved. She continued to live as though she was unloved and rejected. When people believe in their heart that they're unlovable, they sabotage their lives and relationships, either by going for addictions to try and fill up that need for love, or by doing crazy things that prove that we're unlovable. So she ran away, and went back and sold herself into prostitution, was living with a man, and proving thereby I'm unlovable.
And yet God shows that no matter where we are, no matter what state we're in, we are lovable, because He's got great love for us. So He sent this man, this prophet to represent Him, and go and pay the full price, to bring her out of the slavery of prostitution, bring her back to himself, and to reveal to her, that in spite of what she thought and believed, she was lovable. This story can be found all over the Bible. It's this tremendous story, it's the story of Jesus Christ. This man Hosea is Jesus Christ, coming because the Father sent Him, into a world that doesn't believe it's lovable, that self-destructs in so many ways, and no matter what we've sold ourselves to, Jesus Christ loved us, paid the full price on the cross, to receive us into intimacy again. The story's seen in the parable of the Prodigal Son, it's seen in so many ways in the Bible, and we're going to explore some of those things this year.
So her difficulty was, her core belief: I'm unlovable - in fact she was an orphan in her heart, no one could love me and care for me. Now I want you to just have a look with me in John 14:18, I want to share on the Orphan Spirit. It's not a demonic spirit. It's just a whole stronghold, a mentality, a way of thinking, a way of living. It is called the world system, it's the way of living your life, when you live your life without God, and I want to just show you how it began. I want to show you how it shows up in our life, and then how Jesus came to remedy that situation for us. This year it's my prayer that God will bring the church, through great increase in personal revelation and corporate revelation, of the love our Father has for us. As we experience that love, it will change us, and change our relationships.
I believe God's wanting to bring the spirit of fatherhood into the house and into the church. I believe He's wanting to raise up men and women in the church, who will be fathers to the next generation. He wants to put fathering in your heart and spirit, the heart to reach out and embrace, and be a father to someone who needs you. So in John 14:18, this is what Jesus spoke. He talked about leaving; He said: shortly I'm going to leave, and then He talked about the Holy Spirit. He said: I will send to you - Verse 16 - I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever - the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, nor that sees Him nor knows Him, but you know Him, for He dwells in you, and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you. Notice this statement: I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you. He's promising the Holy Spirit would come.
So I want to just open this scripture up, and begin to just have a look at it. Some of the seed thoughts I got came from a guy, James Jordan, a New Zealander who's got a tremendous revelation of the love of the Father, and I want to just share some things related to this. The first thing is to understand the purpose that Jesus came, so many people think He just came to die on the cross for our sins. It's much more than that. The purpose of dying on the cross for our sins was to remove the block to relationship. He wanted to soundly deal with the issue, that we live in this life separated from God. Sin separates us from God, spiritually orphans us, leaves us without a loving Father; and so Jesus came, and through the Bible God sent prophets, sent various men, and they all revealed some aspect of God. But when Jesus came, Jesus came to reveal this: He came to reveal that God is a Father. Now this was the major revelation that He brought to His day - that God is a Father. Now religions don't know God as a Father. They know Him as a God, they know Him as severe, they know Him in all kinds of ways. The do not know Him as a Father.
When Jesus taught the disciples to pray, He said this is how you pray: Father. If we have issues in our heart with a father, if there are issues of unresolved conflict, we will find this extremely difficult to connect with God as a Father. Yet Jesus said that's how He wants us to relate to Him, as a Father. For many, the experiences of a father have caused images in the mind to be formed, that are not what Father in heaven is like at all. They are idols, they are wrong images. Jesus came to show us exactly what God is, as a Father; so when you study the life Jesus, He said: the words I speak are the Father's words, I say the things He gives Me to say, I do the things He tells Me to do. So when you look at Jesus' life, He reveals exactly what Father God is like, in the way He handles people and deals with people. So have another go through the gospels, reading about Jesus, and begin to think: this is what God is like as a Father. Is this what I would have expected Him to do?
And so God is a Father - so Jesus made it very clear: the words I speak are the words the Father gives Me. So when He says: I will not leave you orphans; He's saying something like this: currently when I leave you, you are orphans, spiritual orphans. The plight of humanity is, we are spiritually orphaned. We have not God as our Father, we have someone else. It's called the devil, and he runs a world system, with a belief structure and ways of doing life, values and attitudes, and we live in that, we're conditioned by that, we think like that, and God wants to remove us out of that, to give us a revelation of His Fatherhood, His love for us, and to bring us into our identity as sons. So remember we shared the story of the Prodigal Son, and the older brother, although he was a son, lived as a slave. Here's a picture for people who are Christians, who have come into the house of God, who are a son of God; but still in the mentality, live like an orphan, like a slave. Jesus came to remove that. He came to take away all the need to perform, and came to bring us into a revelation of grace, and the sheer goodness of God.
You can't give to others what you don't have, and God was wanting to flood the church with a revelation of His love, His goodness, His grace, and His glory, to remove bitter judgement out of the house, out of our lives. So Jesus made it very clear that people are orphans, and He says: I promise - here's My promise: I will not leave you orphaned. Here's what I'll do - I will send the Holy Spirit. He will come into you, and you will no longer be alone. You'll actually be in intimate union with the spirit of My Father. He said: you have seen Me with you, but soon the spirit of My Father is going to be in you, joined to your spirit. You can't get any more closely connected than that. He said: this is better than having Me here with you, because now My spirit, the spirit of My Father - see Jesus represented the Father. The Holy Spirit represented the Father. The three are one, there's no breaking or dividing them up. When you have the Holy Spirit, you have the spirit of the Father in you.
So He said: I'm going to make it so that the spirit of the Father comes and lives in you, and within you, you will be joined, and this spirit is a spirit of sonship, it's a spirit that reveals to you that God is Father. That's why when you pray within you it'll bear witness, Abba, daddy, father, I can come to you, you're my loving father. That's the work of the Holy Spirit. He said: I'm promising you that; and so Jesus called us to two things. He called us into intimacy and relationship with God as a Father; He called us also into mission. Intimacy precedes mission. Jesus' mission flowed out of intimacy. They're interconnected. You don't have one without the other, you have both. If you just have intimacy, without mission, I question what kind of intimacy you really have, and whether you've caught the heart of the Father, who is ascending God. Now God sent you to Hastings/Napier, Hawkes Bay, because He has a work for you to do. Out of your intimacy, out of your love, out of your revelation of Him, will flow a mission to reach people, because people need love. They need a revelation that God is a loving God. Why? Because they don't believe they're lovable.
You get with non-Christians, and after a while they know you're a Christian. Suddenly all their feelings about themselves surface. That's how they really feel, and we need to be able to minister to them in love. So where are the origins of the orphan spirit? How did this thing all come about? There are two places; the first thing is you have to understand, that the origin of this orphan spirit is demonic. It's demonic. It began with Lucifer. We read in Isaiah 14:12-15 and Ezekiel 28:12-16, there are descriptions of life before the fall. The Bible describes an angel by the name of Lucifer. It says he was in Eden, the Garden of God; so the Garden of God, Eden, is not just a physical place. It's more than that. It's a garden, it's a place in the spirit of fellowship, intimacy and relationship with God.
It's also called the Mountain of God, and in that place there, he was the anointed cherub that covered it. He had a realm in worship, he had a realm of influence around the throne of God. He was a major angel, and then the Bible says that there rose in him, inequity in his heart. It says that he said: well I will arise, and I'll go beyond my positioning, I'll go higher. I will go to this, and he said: I will be as God. So in his heart, pride formed, and this is what he did. He rejected God as a Father. The angels are called sons of God too, and so he rejected the Fatherhood of God. When he rejected the Fatherhood of God, this is what happened. He was cast out of heaven. He was cast out of his Father's family. He was cast out of his Father's home. He was cast out from his Father's presence. He was literally orphaned - no Father. No Father, no home, no inheritance, no place. He was literally orphaned.
So he is the source, he is the one behind the whole attempt to bring people into a state of not knowing and understanding the love God has. His whole design and intention, is to distort your relationship with God, so you don't understand His loving Father heart, His loving nature. His whole structure of his world system is set up to keep you in a state of perpetual being an orphan. Now I'll refer to it in some different way, so that's where it happened, he was cast out. So he was rejected. He was abandoned. He was orphaned, and so he then desired that when he saw the creation of God, Adam, he desired to orphan Adam as well. He desired to separate Adam from God. Why did he want to do that? Two reasons; one, he was envious of what Adam had, and the positioning that God gave Adam; and two, this was the only way he could break God's heart, is to destroy His children. You think about it. People put up with a lot of things, but you touch their children, now something stirs up! People may put up with all kinds of things, and stand up for a lot of stuff and not say a word, but the moment their children are at stake, then they come out fighting.
Now you understand that your children, particularly, are a part of who you are, and so because your children are part of who you are, there's a deep fondness for them. There's an affection for them, and there's a love, there's a bond that's there. So because the devil couldn't do anything about God, his only way of lashing back at God, to wound and to hurt God, is to strike at the heart, to strike at the people that God loved, to take His children, steal His children. Once you begin to understand that, you realise what this whole thing in the Garden was about. I want you just to turn with me into the Garden of Eden, and to Genesis, Chapter 2. I want to just talk about the creation of Adam and I want to show you some things about this you'll have not noticed. I hadn't noticed it myself and just when I saw it I began weep and weep and weep. So we read in Genesis, Chapter 2, Verse 7.
Now we know that God created the heavens and earth. We realise in Genesis 1, God said: let there be light, and then there was light. He spoke. You notice that in everything that God did, He created it by the spoken word. God said: let there be light, let there be fish, let there be trees, let there be this, let there be that. He spoke, and the words created, the words brought forth out of the realm of the spirit, into the earth, the things He wanted to design; but when it came to man God did it differently. Here it is here, I want you to have a look with me in Verse 7. The Lord formed man out of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being. Now I want you to have a look at how God made Adam. I want you just to think on this for a moment, because sometimes I've found with scripture we read it, and we're familiar with the story, but we don't stop to think what happened.
Just when you stop, and you begin to see what really happened, the first thing is, it says that God formed Adam. In other words - now that word 'formed' is the word used when you have a potter, and he takes some clay in his hands with water, and he begins to spin the pot, and begins to squeeze and mould and shape it. So this word 'formed' has to do with touch, the hands. So notice that God didn't create man by speaking. He created man with His own hands. He actually took the dust of the earth, and then He began to shape. Can you imagine God standing there in the earth He'd created, and taking handfuls of dust, and as He takes those handfuls of dust, He begins to let His glory flow into the dust. He begins to move, and His hands move over it, and He begins to shape. All the angels are standing around, and they're wondering what on earth God is up to. They've seen Him create the heavens, and they've seen Him create the earth, they've seen Him create the sun, moon and stars. They've seen Him create the seas, the animals, the plant life. They've seen Him create everything, and now suddenly God is standing on the earth, and God reaches down into the earth and picks up some dust.
He's holding it in His hands. There it is, Almighty God, holding dust in His hands, and He begins to move His hands like a potter. As He moves those hands, He begins to shape, and the angels and everyone are watching, just what is God up to now? He begins to shape, and as He begins to shape, the dust that He's shaping takes on the shape of a human body, the image of God, eyes and ears and nose and mouth, hands and feet, a body. But if you've ever been in a wax museum, it was probably a bit like one of those. You see a dead body, it's just like a wax, it's there, but there's no one in it, and so the angels are standing, and it's almost like God, out of the dust of the earth, has made this body, and it's an adult body, a fully grown body - so Adam wasn't just a little baby that came into being. He's actually formed as a body, fully, fully formed. And everyone's watching, what is God up to? Then it said: God breathed into him the breath of life, breathed - now notice this - breathed into his nostrils.
Now God didn't do this from a long way off. God is here like this. He's holding Adam, and He's just formed him, but all there is, is a human body, a perfect human body, and then God needs to do one other thing. He needs to give Adam the kiss of life, and so [kisses his wife] like that. See, it's not something a long way off. This is something intimate and close. Why? Because He's about to make someone He loves. He's about to form man in His own image and likeness, and so the Bible says: He breathed into Adam, into His nostrils. So that meant He had to be close. [Laughter and applause] Now think about this. Now when He did that, Adam became something, so God put in His life, the life of His spirit, and suddenly Adam became conscious. Now when Adam became conscious, you've got to realise now, his mind was not corrupted by sin. Scientists tell us we use only about 10 per cent of our brain. The smartest person has perhaps got an IQ of 150 to 200. Only 10 per cent - imagine what the IQ is, if you've got the full brain use.
Now you've got to remember, he's had no experiences of life at all. He's had no memories. There are no memories. He's about to open his eyes, and have his first experience, and what is his first experience? [Laughter] As he opened his eyes, his first experience was God, His heavenly Father, fully of glory, full of love. He looked straight into the face of God, into the face of His Father. What he saw on that face was love, approval, acceptance, and the biggest smile you've ever seen in the world. God is making a Son. God is making man, in His image and likeness. God is making someone to govern His creation. God is making His family, and the first experience that Adam had - so as He breathed into him, the skin suddenly became pink, as the blood began to flow, the heart began to pump. Suddenly Adam becomes conscious, and as he becomes conscious, he realises he's alive. It's like waking up, and suddenly he wakes up, his eyes open, and what he sees, is the face of God. He sees the face of his Father. He feels the love of his Father, the approval of his Father, the acceptance of his Father. That is his first and lasting impression; and your first experience of anything - it's lasting. So imprinted upon him, is a loving Father. What an amazing thing aye? Isn't that amazing? Think about how amazing that is.
So he doesn't know any pain, he doesn't know any suffering, he doesn't know what sorrow is, doesn't know what rejection is, doesn't know a thing about any of those things. He opens his eyes, and he sees his Father's love, and every day he's living in his Father's love. Every day he's talking with his Father. Every day he's receiving love. Actually heaven is on earth. The kingdom of heaven is now on earth. He has access to his Father in the realm of the spirit. He has access to heaven, yet he's on earth. He's God's original intention. Now you notice that not only did he have this experience of God's touch. He would have smelt the fragrance of God. He saw the face of God. He experienced the feeling of God's love. He walked in that love, and yet it was incomplete. God needed that he have someone human to express that love to. Love never can be alone. It always has to overflow to people, and so he caused Adam to go into a deep sleep.
In Genesis 5:1 it says: He called their name Adam. In other words, when God formed Eve, Adam and Eve were one. There was no division, there was disunity, there was no hiding, there was no deception, there was no dishonesty, there was nothing like that. Actually they just walked in love and openness, and they had a relationship that was intimate, and close with one another, and with God. Every day God would come into the Garden, and they would walk and talk with Him, and enjoy it. They actually had heaven on earth. What an amazing experience, tremendously amazing experience - and so he lived in intimacy, lived in closeness, lived in a most amazing environment; and then the devil came. The devil is the one who wants to orphan us, and this is what he had in mind: I've been orphaned, I'm going to take away these kids of God, I'm going to take away His children, I'm going to destroy His family. So he was subtle. God had given Adam some warnings, given him some boundaries. He gave that, He gave him opportunity to be a steward, and to grow in authority and wisdom and stature.
So He gave him an assignment, a place to work out that assignment, some boundaries around that assignment, and within that, he was to grow up - but of course you remember the story in Genesis 3. We read it there; the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. Well really? Did God say don't eat every tree of the garden? The woman said: well we can eat the fruit of the trees of the garden, but the fruit of the tree in the midst of the garden, God said you shall not eat it, nor touch it, you'll die. The serpent said: oh, you won't die. God knows. He knows something that He's not telling you. The day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, you'll be like God. Now that was the very thing that was in Satan's heart: I will be as God; and so he says: oh, you'll be as God. What he's saying, simply is this: you really can't trust God, He's a hold out, and He's not telling that you'll eat that fruit, you know what's going to happen? You'll be like Him. Oh? Oh I don't need God, I could eat the fruit, and I'll actually just be able to be like Him? Whoa, this is awesome!
Now remember, the plan of God is we become like Him, that we grow into His nature. But it's growing through relationship, and walking with Him - but he's saying: here's another way. You don't have to trust God. In fact, I wouldn't trust Him at all. He knows you're not going to die. There are going to be no consequences of sin! Come on, He's holding out on you. What you need is to take this, you need to do this. You need to let go Him being your Father. You need to step out and do something for yourself, just like the Prodigal Son. So they took it and they ate of it, and the moment they ate of it, their eyes were opened; and now suddenly some things have happened. The glory that was on them vanished. That's why they looked and saw they were naked. There was a glory of God's presence upon them; they were not conscious of themselves, they were not conscious of one another, they were conscious of God's love. And what happened, in a moment of time, guilt came in, shame came in, fear came in. They began to cover, they began to hide. When God came, they ran away and hid, and God came and visited them, to find them.
Notice the question that God asked them. He didn't ask them: have you guys broken my laws? He didn't ask them: have you done something wrong? What have you done? He asked them a relational question: where are you? He did not come with judgement in His heart. He did not come with condemnation in His heart. He came as a loving Father, to find His children: where are you? Adam and Eve were hiding, so then He asked a second question: well who told you you were naked? Who have you been talking to? Have you eaten of the tree of knowledge of good and evil? And immediately, Adam, now Adam was faced with this opportunity: He could be responsible, and own his actions, and ask his Father to forgive him; or he could deny responsibility, blame someone else, and refuse to repent, and come back into relationship with his Father. In that moment, he did what men do. Men find it really difficult to say: I was wrong, I am sorry, will you forgive me? It comes right back to Adam.
If he had just done that, God would have room then, to forgive him; but he didn't do that, he denied and blamed. Now you imagine two people walking in love and unity, and Eve's shock for the first time. Now what you've got to understand, is the shock they experienced. They are in a state where they're stunned, because the glory has gone, the presence of God is gone, fear is in them - they're feeling emotions they've never felt before, and they're in a panicked state and hiding. When God speaks with them, instead of seeing Him as a loving Father, they see Him through the corruption of their own minds: I'm scared of Him. He's going to punish me. I've got to blame someone else, so I don't get punished. With that, then God stepped in, and began to do some things. The consequences of the fall were this: notice these words here. Read down here, and I'll finish with this in a moment.
It says in Verse 24: He drove out the man, and placed cherubim at the gate of the Garden of Eden, a flaming sword which turned each way, to guard the tree of life. Why did God do that? Verse 22, the Lord said: man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. Now lest he put his hand and take the tree of life, and eat, and live forever, we've got to get him out of here. Now how many of you saw that movie Lord of the Rings? How many saw Lord of the Rings? Okay, now there was a guy in there called Gollum. You notice Gollum was a really ugly creature, an incredibly ugly creature. But if you watched the movies, in one of them, it showed what he used to be. What he used to be, was just one of the elves. He was quite a nice looking fellow, but when he reached out for the power of the ring, he became corrupted, and as he kept the ring in his possession, eventually he became totally corrupted. He changed physically, he changed his appearance, he became an ugly, vile, loathsome, divided internally kind of creature - horrendous.
This is exactly what God saw would happen to Adam and Eve, now that sin had entered their lives. They'd refused to take responsibility for sin, so this is what happened. Then He saw corruption would come, and He said: I love them too much to leave them like this, so this is what's going to happen. Firstly, you have to carry the consequences of your sin; secondly, I'm going to send a redeemer; thirdly, I'm going to cover you; but fourthly, you can't stay here in the Garden. You can't eat the tree of life, you can't live forever, because that corruption would go on and distort and disfigure you, if I didn't stop it. You've got to come to an end. I can't let you have the tree of life. Then what it says is this: God drove them out of the Garden. Now think about that word 'drove'. It meant: He divorced them. It meant literally, He pushed them out of their possession and inheritance. Now when you push someone, it's because they are reluctant to leave.
Now have you ever seen someone, who's just had a major accident, maybe a car crash? You see them straight after a car crash, they are in shock. Their emotions are in shock, their mind's in shock, their body's in shock, and they sort of stand there, and they're kind of bewildered. Often what medical people have to do, is they have to gather them and guide them, and literally make them go to where they need to go, or to sit down and do what they've got to do, because they're in shock. So we see that God drove them out - they were in shock. They were traumatised by what they experienced. They were now orphaned, out of the Garden, out of the presence of God, out of the love of God, and so that's where the orphan spirit developed.
So how does it manifest in people's lives? A whole number of ways. Let me just give them quickly and see what Jesus came really to do, I'll just give a couple of scriptures for it. Here's the first thing. An orphan has no sense of home or belonging. When people are born into this world, the thing we are lacking, is a spiritual home and spiritual belonging. There's no sense of name or identity. An orphan has no one to speak words of affirmation in them, to say who they are. They have no father. Spiritually people are orphaned. The third thing is, that there's no inheritance. When you're an orphan, you have no one to leave an inheritance to you, you have no one to leave property, money, finances, resources to you. If you're an orphan, you have no one to provide for you, discipline you, guide you, correct you through life. If you're an orphan, this is what you are: you are alone in life; and this is what you learn: there's no one to look out for me except me. I need to look out for number one. So the whole world system operates on this principle: I must look out for number one. I must look out for me. Why? Because there's no one to provide for me. Actually it's the sign a person's orphaned. With it there are a whole number of issues of course, rejection and abandonment and loneliness and stuff like that, but basically people become subject then to the world system. Now you think how people live their lives. They live as spiritual orphans. When we come into the church, we can easily come in, come to Christ, and yet still live like spiritual orphans. That's what the elder brother did, in the story of the Prodigal Son.
What did Jesus come to do? This is what He came to do: I love this, John 1:12. This is what He said: To as many as received Him, to as many as welcomed Jesus Christ, to as many as believed on Him, and put their trust in Him; He gave them the right, the privilege, to become a child of the living God. To as many as made Jesus welcome, when Jesus came and walked on the earth: one, He showed what the Father was like; He taught what the Father was like; He acted and lived out what the Father is like; He died on the cross to deal with the issue of sin. Why? So we could get out of that place of being an orphan, into a place of intimate connection with the Father. To everyone who received Him, He gave the right and privilege to become a child of God, to become not just a child, but an heir of God, heir to all that God has, access to God, access to love, access to being unconditionally loved.
Jesus came to deliver us of the bondage of performance. Under the law, people perform to get accepted by God. Jesus came to give a different way, it's called grace. It's called: God did it for me! Jesus did the work for me, I need to believe and receive, and become positioned to enter and access my Father's love and blessing. In Romans, Chapter 8 it says: the spirit that He's put in us, is a spirit of adoption; the spirit that you receive when you receive Christ comes into your heart, to place you into your sonship - no longer an orphan, no longer living alone, no longer abandoned, no longer without identity, no longer without someone to speak into your life, no longer without someone to correct you, no longer without an inheritance, no longer having to look out for number one, no longer having to live that kind of life; now access to the treasures of heaven, access to the blessings of God, access to a loving Father. That spirit witnesses with our spirit. I am a child of God, I am loved by my Father.
Jesus came to bring us into spiritual sonship, not to be a slave, not to serve and to work, not to just do what we're told, but to come into relationship with God, to be able to experience His love, experience His face again, experience His glory again, experience His blessing in our lives. God came to give you that. How much of it are you receiving? The Prodigal Son couldn't believe it could be trusted, and went out and went into the world; but came back and experienced that love and provision. The elder brother was like many Christians, in the house, but no concept of the love and resources of his father available to him. We'll talk with you another time why those blocks are there, and what to do about the blocks that stop me realising my sonship in Him. God wants you in this year, to have a great revelation of His Fatherhood, His love for you, your identity in Him, so you're free from performing, free from pretending, free from trying to be someone. You can just be yourself. He freed us from the law, so we can be ourselves. He said: I accept you like you are, so you can rest, and be yourself, and then grow into the person God has made you to be.
Let's just close our eyes. Father, we just thank You right now for the wonderful love, the wonderful, wonderful, wonderful grace poured out. Oh God, deliver us from the mentality of an orphan, living as though it's all up to us, struggling, striving, competing, envying, eyeing what others have, and wanting what they have. Bring us into revelation of Your Fatherhood, of Your love, of Your acceptance, of Your provision. Bring us into revelation of Your destiny for us. Oh Father, we thank You. Jesus prayed that the love that the Father has shown Me, might be in those who follow Me. Imagine that - love, affirmation, destiny, legacy, the many blessings that God has. He wants them to be realised in your life. This is not a year to live like a slave and a pauper. It's a year to step into God's love and blessing and provision, and the changes He wants you to make.
Is there any person here today who hasn't received Jesus Christ yet, you're not yet a Christian? You know Jesus died on the cross to break that orphan spirit, so you'd never be alone, that in your heart would be home, in your heart would be heaven, in your heart would be the spirit of God; the power of sin broken, joined to heaven itself. What a wonderful, wonderful gift God offers you, but it requires a decision to receive Jesus Christ. If you don't receive Him, then you carry on walking like a spiritual orphan, and you're not just orphaned in life, you're orphaned for eternity - a tragedy, when God makes it possible to be part of His family. Today I invite you to respond to receive Jesus Christ. I want you to pray this prayer with me.
[Repeated by congregation] Father in heaven, I come to You in Jesus' name. I have lived as a spiritual orphan, separated by sin from You. Today I receive Jesus Christ, I receive His forgiveness, I receive His life. I receive the spirit of sonship into my heart. Lord, I turn away from all sin and choose to walk with You. Today I thank You that You are revealing Your love for me day by day. I thank You as I walk with You, I will grow as a son of God into my destiny, and the inheritance You have for me. I thank You today I am free from performing, free from trying and struggling, free to enjoy You. Amen. Praise the Lord!
If you're listening on the internet, and you prayed that prayer for the first time, you've opened the way for Jesus Christ to become your saviour. I encourage you to reach into the website and get access to some of the teachings, some of the resources. Otherwise you need to get connected quite quickly into a local church somewhere that preaches the gospel of Jesus Christ. Get connected to the family of God that can help you.
Father in heaven, we thank You for this day. Is this a great day or what! [Applause] Are you a blessed person? You're removed from cursing into blessing, curse of failure into curse of success, curse of poverty into blessing prosperity. We are moved from curse to blessing today! Amen.
1. Introduction
Story of Hosea and Gomer – Hosea 1 – 2
Gomer (to fail, come to an end) runs away in spite of the love Hosea has for her.
She believes she is unlovable, undeserving of love.
She sabotages her relationship with Hosea – proving what she believes.
Core belief: I am unlovable – root of negative behaviour, addictions, ‘performance’.
God reveals His Amazing Grace through Hosea – His unquenchable love for Gomer.
Jn 14:18 “I will not leave you orphans”.
- Jesus came to reveal the Father and His Love and heart for people.
- Jesus spoke the words His Father gave Him.
- God calls people orphans – ones without a Father.
- Jesus promises - not to leave you orphans = send Spirit of Father
to live in you.
- To resolve the issue of being orphans by being
united with the Father.
2. Origins of Orphan Spirit
(a) Lucifer
Is 14:12-15 Lucifers 5x “I Will” – I will be like the Most High.
Ezekiel 28:12-16 Lucifer – cast as a profane thing from the mountain of God
He lived in the garden of God – the presence and glory of God, the Father.
He rejected the Father hood of God and His positioning.
He was cast out of the Father’s presence, love, glory.
He was rejected, abandoned, judged, with no hope of restoration.
He became the original orphan, the source of the orphan spirit.
(b) Adam
Gen. 2:7-8, 21
(i) God formed Adam (v7)
- All other areas of creation God spoke into existence – “let there be”.
- God did no ‘speak’ Adam into existence. God formed man.
- Form = to squeeze into shape like a potter models the clay.
- He used His own hands to shape and form a human being in His likeness.
- Formed a perfect adult human – perfectly functioning body – without life.
(ii) God breathed into Adam’s nostrils (v7)
- God kissed Adam – came near to him and imparted His breath – His life.
- Adam suddenly came alive – a living soul in a body – able to experience.
- He became conscious, alive – personality awoke, memory and experiences start.
- Brain had immense capacity to think, image, reason (we only use 10%).
(iii) Adam’s first experience – Father’s Love
- Adam opened his eyes for the first time – first experience – first feelings and sensations.
- What experience? Father’s face – smiling with approval and love.
- Small fragrance of His presence – looked into the face of God – face of love.
- First experience was the face, and love, and touch, of God the Father.
- Jn 17:3 “This is eternal life that they know the Father …”
- Adam looked into the love of God.
(iv) Relational Unity
- God called their name Adam – Gen 5:1
- Adam and Eve walked in love, oneness, unity – experiencing glory and love of God.
- No experiences of pain, rejection, sorrow – lived in Kingdom – love, peace, joy.
- Daily intimacy and oneness with Father and with each other.
(c) The Temptation and Fall
Gen. 3:6 – 10
Satan the original orphan – hates God and hates the family of God – destroyer.
He set a trap for Adam and Eve – “be as God knowing …”
He formed the lie = there is life to be found outside of God.
Immediately Adam followed his wife into sin.
- Loss of Glory
- Experience guilt, shame, fear of punishment
- Disfigured by sin
Example of Lord of Rings – Gollum.
Lust for power – corrupted and changed him – grossly disfigured.
(d) Consequences of Fall – ‘Orphaned’
Gen. 3:20-24 God drove them out of the Garden
- Confronted them
- Called to account
- Made a promise to them
- Clothed them
God still loving and compassionate
Could not allow them to continue to live forever progressively disfigured.
Drove = to force out from a possession, divorce.
Adam and Eve were stunned emotionally, spiritually – in shock!
Never experienced this before – lost their relationship with Father – orphaned.
Orphan
- No sense of home or belonging
- No name, identity, words of affirmation
- No inheritance gifted
- No source of provision, discipline
- Alone – having to perform, fight, compete for everything
- Subject to world system governed by the devil – look after No.1, compete
- Roots – rejection, abandonment, shame, fear, bitterness, loneliness
When people grow up in this system they think it is normal – Way of Life.
Jesus Promise – John 1:12, John 14:18, Romans 8:15.
