Ask God.
He's actually saying He wants to provide for you.
Father, He wants you to ask expecting abundance.
Expecting abundance.
Amen.
I've got to preach now, normally we do some other things first, but I need to preach
today because I've got to get on the aeroplane.
And a little while ago I preached on how you can sit down by the way.
And I don't have to hurry as much as I think I have to hurry.
But a little while ago I preached on how, and I know this is what God is doing.
He is bringing His church back to that John 17 position where the church is not an entertainment
center, it's not a one man show, it's a family of God that are united.
And He says this is how the world will know that God sent Jesus is by the way they live
and love together.
And Jesus said, they will be one as we are one, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
So it's a body that's serving each other in interdependent love and I shared that.
And I believe that's what God is doing.
He is restoring His church today and it's a glorious thing.
One of the things I forgot to mention in that message, I didn't mean but I'll preach it
another time is that the church is God's family.
But if that's all it is, the church becomes stoopy.
It is God's family with a mission.
Yes, this is how we care about, but our mission is to bring others into the family.
That's why we go and do what we do.
It's just as a context, why we go into the nations is because God, Heavenly Father wants
to add children to His household and He wants it to be full.
So you can pray with me as I go that that very thing happens.
I thought what I'm preaching about today, last time Pastor Ross preached, he preached
on the Prodigal Son.
And one of my favorite passages of Prodigal Son, and I was speaking to Ross afterwards
and he's preaching a certain aspect of it.
And at the end of the message I got up and I said, well, one of the things that we need
to realize about that passage is that Jesus was speaking to the Pharisees when He preached
that message.
And He was speaking to them because one, they didn't know how He felt about lost people.
The passage is preached in the context of a lost ring, a lost coin and a lost son.
They're saying you don't understand how God feels about lost things.
And the reason they don't understand is that you don't understand God is a Father.
God is Father.
Because the parable should be called the Prodigal Father.
It's all about the Father.
It's not really about the Son.
It's about how the Father feels about lost things.
And He's not like the Pharisees.
They are judgmental, they are harsh, and He's saying this Father is, He just waits, He watches.
As soon as the Son comes back, He welcomes.
And Pastor Ross was bringing some of that out.
But I feel today that God wants me to speak more about the Father, heart of God, and knowing
God as your Heavenly Father.
And it's significant for me, this message is significant because for years, I became
a Christian when I was young.
I fell away for a few years and I came back to God.
Then I got hot for God and went off to Bible college and I was serving God.
And I'd been overseas doing missions and I was working in the church.
And I was zealous for God.
And at Bible college, I learned all about the holiness of God.
The Baptist college was where I went, was very focused on the holiness, the otherness,
the transcendence of God.
Not so much on the imminence of God, but very focused on that God was almighty, that God
was omniscient.
And that knowledge produced great faith.
So I always had the gift of faith.
God gave me that gift and I believed that God could do anything, that God was able to
do almighty things.
I had great faith.
But I had this encounter once where God just completely undid me.
And I was actually fasting.
I was on this long, long fast.
My wife was worried I was going to fade away.
But I was fasting for the favor of God and for more of God and for more souls and for
growth in the church.
All these good, all good things.
I was on this long fast.
And I'll never forget, I was waking at these extraordinary early hours, two and three o'clock
in the morning during that season, seeking God and spending hours in His presence.
And I'll never forget, I heard God's voice say to me, eat.
And I was fasting.
And I was thinking, that must be my voice.
And I heard it again.
Eat, in my spirit.
Eat.
And in that moment, God revealed Himself personally as my Father.
That He didn't care about my fasting.
You know, when God makes a revelation to you, it sounds shallow, but it comes loaded.
When God says the word eat, it's not just the word eat.
It comes loaded with meaning.
And the word was loaded, was like, I don't, I'm not your God because of what you do for
me.
I'm your Father.
And I was absolutely delivered and changed from that moment.
I remember saying to Michelle after I had that encounter with God, I said, I don't even
know if I'm going to do ministry.
I said, because if I just, I know I'm a child of God and all I want to do is please my Father
and if He tells me to go and stack shelves and put words for the glory of God, I want
to do that.
And I was absolutely set free.
And I came to know, and it was a progression, I came to know more and more and more.
My relationship with God changed.
I was relating to Him and I came to relate to Him today as a child of God.
And He is my Father and He is a good, good Father.
And He is a Father who loves to bless His children.
He loves to bless His children.
And like Jesus told that story, the Pharisees, because they didn't understand God as Father.
And I believe one of the great manifestations of the religious spirit is that we, God is
still a mystery to them.
Until God comes in and reveals Himself as your Father, He's a mystery to them.
That's what my testimony is.
God was a mystery, but He wasn't personal.
He is only personal when we know Him.
And what people don't understand is one of the, the reason Jesus Christ came into our
world was to manifest God as Father to us, or to reveal God as Father.
You know, He's referred to as Father so many times, hundreds of times in the New Testament,
only six times in the Old.
And Hebrews chapter 11, there's, sorry, chapter one says, God who at various times, in various
ways spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets, as in these days spoken to us
by His Son.
In other words, He's, this is something that religious really were struggling with.
He's saying there's two ways God spoke.
He spoke through the prophets, but the prophets only had a certain revelation, but in the
last times, He spoke through Jesus, His Son.
Why?
Because the prophets didn't have a full revelation of God.
That's why God is not referred to as Father often in the New to Old Testament, but Jesus
came to reveal His Father, and the reason He came was that only a Son can reveal a Father.
So He comes and He speaks and His role is to reveal the Father, and you see this in
so many places.
In John 17, which I preached on about how God is resetting the church, Jesus prayed,
and He prayed this prayer, and this is for the church, this is for the disciples, and
He spoke, I'll just read from verse 23 of John 17, I in them and you in me, that they
may be made perfect in one, that's what I preached on, and that the world may know that
you have sent me and have loved them as you have loved me.
So He's talking about His Father and He's saying, I want them to know, I know myself,
Jesus knew as I'm loved by the Son, as the Son, by my Father, and I want them, the disciples,
to know that they are loved just as much as I am loved.
Because Jesus died to bring many sons to glory, and that's the revelation I got.
God loves me as much as He loves Jesus.
He does, I'll prove it to you through the word.
He wants us to know that we are loved children.
And in verse 6, He says, I have manifested your name to the men.
Why did He, I have manifested your name to the men who have given me out of the world,
why did He manifest His name as Father?
Because they knew Him as Yahweh, the name the Jews used, and they wouldn't even speak
it but they would write it, and when they spoke it, they referred to Him as Jehovah.
But He said, I came to manifest or to reveal God as Father, which means you cannot know
God as Father except through Jesus Christ.
He's the only one who can reveal to you that God is a Father and He is your Father.
You can't come to that knowledge any other way.
But Jesus said, I have manifested your name to the men you've given me out of the world.
He revealed it because it was hidden.
In Matthew, hallelujah, someone's happy, in Matthew 11, Jesus says a well-known passage,
I thank you Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the
wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes even so, Father, also seem good in your
sight, all these things have been delivered to me by my Father and no one knows the Son
except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son and the one to whom
the Son reveals Him.
So you cannot know the Father except through Jesus revealing Him to you.
Nor does anyone know the Father except to the Son and the one to whom the Son wills
to reveal Him.
Come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will
find rest for your soul.
My yoke is easy and my burden is light.
What that is saying is that the reason we need to have God revealed as Father through
Jesus Christ, he says, because when God reveals Him as Father, then and only then you will
go to Him in your prayer closet and only then you can receive rest.
My goodness, how this world needs rest today.
The only way you ever receive rest is by knowing God as Father.
Otherwise you'll work, work, work, work, strive, strive, but when we know God as Father, we
know He cares for us, we know He's tendered us, we know He's more concerned for our welfare
than we are and we can go to Him, pour out our burdens on Him and He gives us rest.
That's a deep peace, a deep... your burdens are released in that place.
You can cast your burdens on Him and He gives you rest for your souls.
I love that verse more than any other thing.
Because He alone can give you rest for your soul and that rest can only be received when
you have received revelation from Christ that God is your Father.
You can't do any ministry until you get that.
Jesus didn't start until He heard the word, you're my beloved Son.
I'll tell you why we need to know God as Father and particularly this generation, this
millennial generation.
What generation are we up to now?
Generation X, third generation Y.
We must be back to A. Or are they just all millennials?
I don't know, but why we need to know God as Father, it's so important for us to know
Him because fathers give children identity.
In the Old Testament, you see all these things, they're called genealogies and the New Testament
starts in Matthew with a geneality and the geneality is referred to so and so, the Son
of.
So and so, the Son of because their identity comes from their Father.
And even we have names that we call William's son and John's son.
It actually means Son of John because fathers give us our identity.
And this generation, I see they have an identity crisis.
And I'll tell you, you never know who you are till you know whose you are.
But once you know yourself as a child of God, the Father, you know who you are.
You know how precious you are, you know how loved you are, you know how valuable you are,
you know what your purpose is.
And this is why people today, they're fascinated and obsessed with brands.
Because brands are giving them an identity.
I wear Gucci or whatever it is because there's something about that I want to identify and
I don't know who I am.
I get a tattoo because that tattoo tells me something about who I am.
When people look at me, they look at me a certain way.
I wear lots of makeup in a certain way because I want people to identify me as XYZ.
But you don't need any of that when you come into the knowledge that God is your Father.
I mean it.
There is a great deliverance that comes when you actually know that you truly are Almighty
God's child.
He is your Father.
And it's so critical.
And I really believe this revival, there are so many young people out there who are so
lonely, so lost because they don't know who they are.
They don't know why they're here and they are struggling.
There's so much mental illness because people don't have their identity.
And the last verse in the Scriptures says the hearts of the fathers are going to be
turned back to the sons to the fathers and the fathers to the son.
It's going to be a revival based on fatherhood.
The fathers give you your identity and when you have a father, you know who you are.
When you have a father, you also know where you're going.
When you have the heavenly father, you know you…
And you know what you know, when I say you know where you're going, what you know and
you know it in your knower is that we're just passing through this world.
We are sojourned.
And I know without a doubt and it's so freeing, this world is not my home.
I've had many houses and I'm not phased about it because they've never been my home.
Heaven is my home.
Earth is my mission.
Heaven became my home when I come to know God as my father.
And a lot of people, before I knew God as father, heaven was a place and it was a destiny
and I used to think maybe we're going to sit on a cloud and there's going to be lots
of worship up there.
Maybe we're going to go and occupy planets and there's going to be mission.
I had all these theories about what heaven was but when I come to know God as my father,
I now know heaven is my home.
I have a home.
If you look to John 14, I have an eternal home.
And I'm so looking forward to going there.
In fact, I have to check myself sometimes.
Be careful.
I'm not frightened of death at all.
Sometimes I think about my heavenly home.
Jesus said, not let your heart be troubled.
Believe in God, believe also in me.
In my father's house are many mansions.
If it were not so, I would have told you.
I go to prepare a place for you and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again
and receive you to myself.
So, as soon as I die, as soon as I die, I know the first thing my eyes will see is actually
before I see Jesus digressing, I believe I'm going to see angels.
John Wesley once said, someone's come to John Wesley and they said, somebody so and so died
and his answer was, did they die in peace or did they die in glory?
There's a parable where Jesus tells a story about a rich man in Lazarus and when the poor
man Lazarus dies, it says, the angels came and carried him to Abraham's bosom.
And I believe where I die, angels are coming for me and they're going to carry me and the
gates are going to open.
And you know, here it says, and some people disagree with me this and don't leave the
church, it's an interpretation of the Bible, but it says, some people, it says here, Jesus
has gone away to prepare a place for us.
So everybody who's a Christian has a place for them, prepared.
And in that father's house are many mansions.
I don't believe everybody gets a man because the Bible says some people are going to make
it, they're just going to make it by the skin of their teeth, everything's going to be burned
up because they believed in Jesus, but they believed a lot of wrong things.
But in the father's house, there are many mansions.
And you know why heaven is a home?
Because the father's there.
Takes a father to make a home.
So heaven is there because the father is there.
And we know God is father, we know he's prepared a home, place, waiting.
You know, in that place, I know God is show.
In my time, many, many poor people, many people from...
I'm here because you cared enough to go, I'm here because...
That's where we go.
We go.
We go to get people into the father's house.
They're going to be people who stay.
Doesn't that stir you?
That so motivates me.
Jesus also said in John chapter 10, verse 29, he said, these words, he said, my father
who has given them to me, he's speaking about how he's the shepherd.
He says, the father who has given these sheep to me is greater than all and no one is able
to snatch them out of my father's hand, I and my father are one.
When you have a relationship with God is father, also, you not only know where you're going,
but you also, while you walk in this earth, you are completely...
I mean, there is total security when you know God is father.
No one is able to...
There was a thing on the television a little while ago.
I was passing a store and I looked inside and there was a thing about the big earthquake
in Turkey, Turkey.
Turkey, there's a big earthquake.
And in the midst of the...
On the television, there was this picture and I thought it was so wonderful that there
was chaos everywhere and there was smoke and there were emergency people running everywhere
and there was noise and it must have been just after the earthquake.
And then there was a picture of a man and he had a very, very young child and the young
child was completely oblivious to what was going on.
The young child was completely secure in the strong arms of this father.
That's how God wants us to live.
The Word of God says, he sees every sparrow fall to the ground.
He knows the number of my hairs.
He knows how many fell out yesterday.
He knows all about me.
He knows my goings and my comings and he watches over as I go out and as I come in and I am
perfectly secure that nobody can touch me apart from him allowing to touch me.
Nothing can take my life until he says, your number is up.
To the believer who knows the Father, when we live like that, there really should be
no place for anxiety and we've got to move into this and we're learning about it more
and more and applying it more and more and every now and then we may slip back in but
we've got to just, when you feel yourself becoming anxious, you just have to go back
and speak to God as your Father because it says, perfect love casts out fear and when
we know that he loves us so much, we're held in his hands, that he watches over us as we
watch over our children, that's the place that we feel.
The only place we feel.
Jesus said that no one can snatch them out of my hands.
He also said this.
He said, when you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He and then I
do nothing of myself but as my Father taught me, I speak these things.
That means the key to the prophetic ministry is the Father heart.
If you're someone who has a prophetic ministry, you want to develop in the prophetic ministry,
the key is knowing God as Father because when you know God as Father, you'll hear him speak
because he speaks to his children.
As my Father taught me, I speak these things and he who sent me is with me.
The Father has not left me alone but I always do those things which please him.
When we know God as Father, we are pure, we know where we're headed but knowing God as
Father, Jesus says, I only do those things which please him.
And if you have a ministry, the motivation for every act of service ought be to please
him.
It ought be to please him that we know God has said, would you go to this certain place?
That's me, I'm an evangelist and I don't go because I want to stay.
I don't go to compare or compete.
I go, I love my Father, I just want to please him.
That's the motivation and I believe one of the problems in the Western Church, the reason
the Western Church has not thrived is because there is competition amongst churches, amongst
ministries that the motivation is not, we don't do what we do just to please him.
Success has become an idol in the Western Church.
But when your motivation is to please the Father, you're not aiming for success, you're
aiming for faithfulness.
We want to be faithful to the Father and if I've been faithful and pleased the Father,
I don't care what it looks like but if worldly success is an idol, we'll always be measuring
ourself, who's got more and who's got more and who's doing this and who's doing that.
And the trouble is, when you live like that, there's insecurity in that place because once
you become successful, you become afraid who's going to take it away.
But when you live just to please the Father, there's complete freedom in that.
There is complete freedom.
Lord, I live before an audience of one.
Let me please you.
So when you have a, like you're driving along and you're anger rising up, in that moment,
what you want, you want your conduct to please the Father.
When you're just living in your home, you want your conduct to please your Father.
That's where the motivation for all Christian service has to come out, that my Father, who
gave His Son for me, who paved the way into heaven for the blood of His Son.
He's given everything.
I just want to please Him.
I don't want to do works.
I want to do only those things which I hear the Father asking me to do but I want to do
them.
I want to please my Father.
So God wants to reveal Himself to all of us, not just as omniscient, not as just God Almighty
who comes down the mountains, movers.
He sent Jesus to manifest the Father so we would know our identity.
We would know who we are.
Why we're here.
Have our identity established in Him as His children.
That we would know where we are heading, that we have a home.
You know the difference it makes?
When you know heaven is your home, you don't sweat the small things.
You don't sweat worrying about the economy or losing stuff.
You know one of my favorite scriptures?
Blessed are the meek, they will inherit the earth.
And I often joke, I drive along with my children, I'll talk about this, this or that and I say
I'm not worried, I own it all.
We're going to inherit the earth.
But if you really know where you're going, it makes such a difference how you live.
Heaven is my home.
All passing away.
I am secure because I'm held in my Father's arms.
Everything I do.
My relationship with Him.
You know I don't have to strive.
I don't have to work.
If it pleases Him that I rest, rest.
Pleases Him that I give.
If it pleases Him that I go, I go.
But do it because I've become His child.
Really is.
I just know there are people everywhere.
Both outside the church, inside the church as well.
And I know if I live that way for a long time, there are people in this room here today that
you are saved.
You know Jesus died for your sin.
That's all in your head.
And it's all true.
And it's all, and you know God is loving and He's kind and long-suffering and He's merciful
and He's kind.
But as I said, only Jesus can reveal God as your Father.
And some people, you know God as well.
Some people I know haven't received that revelation.
I believe today.
Some people He wants to reveal.
You know what revelation is?
It's like when something is not seen yet, you can't see it.
The lid is lifted, it is revealed, then you can see.
In the Spirit, that's what happens when Jesus, when I reveal His, not as the, just like Jesus.
Another Father, my Daddy, mighty Daddy, my Father, He wants you to know Him intimately,
who watches over you, who provides for you, who protects you, loves you more than you
comprehend.
You don't have that revelation.
You want the word.
No, there's other things you can do.
Just come out here and just pray gently some music.
I do believe that the Holy Ghost wants to do something here.
He wants to take you deeper, deeper in your relationship with God and to remove blockages.
You know, revelation is progressive, just as it was for me.
I knew God as this, I knew God as that, I knew God as that.
Then I knew Him.
Maybe you're somewhere along that journey, but I know the Holy Spirit today wants to
do something.
You need that.
You need that, you just come.
No one's going to pray for you.
Just line up here.
Trust that the Holy Spirit will do something wonderful in your heart.
Amen.