Good morning. That song is called Love is War. And it's uh it's good to be reminded sometimes that the love we have from God was not simply given to us, it was fought for, and it was paid for by Jesus on the cross, and we have it, but He He's the one that fought it. And it's it's funny because sometimes we fight for God's love, right? But we don't have to, because he already fought for it, he already won it for us. And I love to be reminded of that. It's amazing. It's a great way to start our morning. Well, I hope you're doing well so far today. We started a new series last Sunday called You'd Do Well. You would do well. And we're borrowing that phrase from Acts chapter 15. James, the leader of the early church, tells all these new believers that, hey, if you would follow these simple instructions, you would do well. If you want to grow, if you want to get closer to God, you want to succeed in your relationship with God, just focus on these things and you'll do well. And he didn't give them this laundry list of rules and regulations. He gave them a very small, simple list of actions to take. And so we're taking the spirit of that statement, you would do well, and saying, hey, as a group of people that love Jesus, as a group of people that would like to succeed in our relationship with God, what are some things that will help us do well? What's some advice God has given to us in Scripture that we can apply to our lives? Because He's our dad. And He wants us to do well. Those of you with kids, root for your children, right? My daughter Lily is five months old. And this week, for the very first time, she got up on all hands and legs. Like she's not crawling yet, but she's close. And I'm sitting there cheering her on, right? I'm like, you can do this, you can do this, and she can't talk it. I don't think she knows what I'm saying to her. But at five months old, I know she understands the sentiment. That I am cheering for her, I am rooting her on, and all I want her to do is succeed, whether that is her crawling, whether that's her sleeping. I really want her to succeed in sleeping. Um very invested in that achievement. One day it's going to be a world of other things, but I'm cheering her on. I want her to succeed, and that is our God's heart for us. He is our dad. We may have never thought about it that way, that he actually roots for us, that as you're living your life, he is cheering you on. And whatever your endeavors are, he wants you to succeed. And if you're here this morning and you don't know where you stand with Jesus, you haven't made that decision yet, I hope that the one thing you get out of this morning is that God loves you as your father and he wants you to succeed. It's been said that first impressions are everything. I don't know who said that, and if it hasn't been said before, it's been said now. So it's been said that first impressions are everything, and I think there's a lot of truth to that. First impressions are really important. I am glad though that there are people who have the grace and the goodness to look past a bad first impression, because if not for those people, I wouldn't have very many friends. I just wouldn't. I'm really bad at first impressions. I have this condition where my mouth moves faster than my brain. I've had it since I was young. There's still no cure. But that has led to me having several situations in life where if I could go back and change those first few moments when I met someone, I would change it completely. One of the worst that I've ever had is with a friend of mine named Sid, Sid Gerand. He's a great guy. A lot of you know Sid. If you don't and you have kids, you've seen Sid's amazing artistic ability on display in the lobby where we check in our kids and our nursery kids. He made that big tree that's in there. Yeah, it's amazing. Sid is an incredible guy. I met him when I was in my early 20s, so this was a long time ago. And uh somebody laughed. Why did you laugh? I'm about to be 31 years old, I'll have you know. I'm excited. This month. So um, so when I first met Sid, we were at Marietta Diner, which is a wonderful place. And a friend of mine who knew Sid brought me up to Sid and introduced me, and he said, Sid, this is my friend Justin. He likes video games. And I wasn't really thrilled about that introduction. It's not that it wasn't rooted in some truth. I mean, I'll just be honest, I was born in 1983. Go poll a bunch of guys born in 1983 and ask them if they like video games. We all have a fondness for Mario. We turn on our Xboxes from time to time. I do it now purely so I'm prepared to enjoy it with my son. It's just parenting at this point in life. You know. I turn 30, I put away all childish things. I just mow my lawn and pray and read the Bible. That's all I do. Um, but even though that statement was rooted in truth, I wasn't thrilled with it because this is Justin, he likes video games. I mean, he might as well have said, this is Justin, he's an 11-year-old boy. It's the same thing. And so I started to feel a little insecure. And I started to feel uncomfortable in my own skin. I started to worry about what this guy must be thinking about me. This is a terrible first impression. And this wasn't helped by Sid's stature. If you know Sid, he is a big guy. So look at me, and then just picture the opposite of me. Someone that's physically imposing, okay? Sid's like six foot four. He's built like a tank, he looks tough. I've only seen him wear black ever, and he has these giant tribal tattoos up his arms. He's a tough-looking guy. And here I am in front of this giant of a man, and I'm Justin, the guy who likes video games. Like, what is this? So I decide to to reset this first impression. I'm gonna clear the air and make sure he understands who I really am. So I say, Well, look, it's not like I'm one of those people that dresses up like video game characters and goes to conventions and stuff. Okay? To which Sid says, Oh, well, I'm one of those people. Yeah. Oh, but it gets better. Then my my friend, my great friend who introduced us, decides that this is the appropriate time in our introduction to go, oh, oh yeah, Sid does that all the time. In fact, he owns a business where he makes high-end replicas of video game costumes and armor, and people buy these to go to these shows. That's like his whole world. And so, and so in this one moment, I've not only insulted Sid as a human being, I've insulted his entire client base, I've insulted his entire career, and I just had to walk away and wish that I could die. And and Sid's a good guy, he's still part of his hands, I don't know how, but uh but he is, and and I love him, and I'm glad he could look past that. But in that situation, it would have done me a lot of good to know who I was talking to. Right? We can get into a lot of trouble when we don't realize who we're talking to. And if you read the Gospel of John, if you haven't before read it, it is this incredible picture of Jesus. John was Jesus' best friend. And so he's able to give us some insight into who Jesus is that we just don't get anywhere else. He was privy to all kinds of conversations, and we see the intensity of Jesus, the passion of Jesus in the Gospel of John. And when you read John, you don't have to go very far to realize that most people who meet Jesus and talk to him for the first time have no clue who they're talking to. You want to talk about bad first impressions? Like me and Sid, we've got nothing on Jesus and a lot of the people that he met. They just have no clue who it is they're talking to. The fact that this is God in flesh completely escapes them because if they had known that, they would have said a lot of very different things. Early on in his ministry, people said Jesus wasn't qualified to talk about God. It reminded him that he hadn't been properly trained. So God was not qualified to talk about God. That's an interesting concept. A little bit later, some people said, You're demon-possessed. And in those moments, you just want to clinch your jaw and say, Oh no, this is bad. You don't realize who you just said that to. This is Jesus. People call Jesus a liar, a fraud, a heretic. There's this one situation, this is the best, where Jesus has claimed that he is greater than Abraham. And Abraham is the founding father of the Jewish nation. And so we've got the founding fathers. It'd be like someone saying, you know what, I'm a lot better than you put George Washington, Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson combined, you don't even touch me. Alright, if someone said that, you know, Fox News would have a heyday, and that's what Jesus says when he says, Look, I'm greater than even Abraham himself. And this this does not go over very well in the people's eyes. And so in John chapter 8, verse 52, the people said, Now we know you're possessed by a demon. They just suspected it before. Now they know. Even Abraham and the prophets died, but you say, anyone who obeys my teaching will never die. Are you greater than our father Abraham? He died, and so did the prophets. Who do you think you are? Think about this. This is Jesus. And hear these people saying, Who do you think you are? Who are you? That's a loaded question. Right? Anytime someone says, Who do you think you are? Who are you? That's that's rarely a positive circumstance. It's always, who are you to judge me? Who are you to tell me what to do? Who do you think you are? And I've had a few people ask me questions like that over the years. Usually those are not pleasant conversations. One time, though, was what I would consider the strangest interaction I've ever had with a human being in my entire life. I was flying on an airplane from Kansas City, Missouri to Atlanta to visit Megan. I was 19 years old at the time. We were in a long-distance relationship. And I'm on the plane flying by myself. That doesn't bother me though, because I had a magazine. I was gonna read, I was gonna just enjoy myself and get through this flight. I sit down in my seat, and this guy sits next to me, probably about my age now, about 10 years older than I was, and he starts talking to me. Now I've given him no indication that I would like to talk at all. Verbal, nonverbal. In fact, I'm reading my magazine, I'm turning the pages, which is a really good indication that I'd like to keep doing this. But he decides we're gonna have a conversation. And when you're on an airplane, you can't escape it. You can't go anywhere. So I just say, okay, I guess, I guess we're doing this. And we start talking. And he begins to ask me these incredibly personal questions. Questions you do not ask someone you just met. These are not what do you do for a living, why are you going to Atlanta type questions? Right away, he looks at me and says, So who are you? And I was like, okay, well, uh, I'm I'm Justin, and uh, and he cuts me off. He cuts me off and he says, no, no, no, that's your name. I want to know who you are. And I I I mean, I remember this like it was yesterday. I was so confused, and so I said, Okay, I I well, I'm a college student and I'm studying, and he cuts me off again. And he says, No, no, that's what you do. I want to know who you are. And that is exactly how the conversation went for the next hour. It's this guy asking me who I am, and every time I answer, he says, You're wrong. Every single time. It was so bizarre. I was so frustrated at the end of this flight. Megan picked me up from the airport and asked me how my flight was, and I said it was good, but I don't know who I am. I need your help. And to this day, to this day, I don't know if the guy was crazy, weird, brilliant, deep, an angel sent by God. I have no idea who this guy was. None of those answers would surprise me. But but that question, who are you, that that took me back. I couldn't answer it. Who do you think you are? I walked away going, that's a really tough question. But see, Jesus, it's different. This same question, who do you think you are? Oh, it doesn't phase Jesus. Not for a second. Because Jesus knew exactly who he was. And so when they said, Who do you think you are in John 8, 54, Jesus answered, hey, if I want glory for myself, it doesn't count. He recognizes that they think he's bragging instead of stating a fact. But it is my father who will glorify me. You say he is our God, but you don't even know him. I know him. If I said otherwise, I would be as great a liar as you, but I do know him and obey him. So they say, Who do you think you are? And he says, I know who I am. I know my father. You don't know my father, you think you know my father, I really know my father, I know who I am. Jesus is insulted so many times in Scripture, and it doesn't really bother him. It's very strange. He gets accusations thrown at him that would cause most of us a lot of reflection and insecurity, and they just roll off Jesus. So when someone says you're demon-possessed, he doesn't go up to the disciples and go, hey, hey guys, you don't think I'm demon-possessed, do you? Like, I don't give off a demon-possessed kind of vibe, right? Because that's not what I want to do. Jesus never does that. He doesn't, he doesn't even get defensive. He just says, No, no, I'm not demon-possessed. That doesn't make any sense. I just cast out a demon. How would that work? Jesus knew exactly who he was. He knew that he was God's son. He knew that he was the beloved son of the living God. He knew he was God's pride and joy. See, when Jesus was baptized, God bragged about him like we all love to brag about our kids. And God said, This is my son. I love him, I'm proud of him, he brings me so much joy. And Jesus never forgot that. He lived his whole life knowing that. And so anytime someone said he was less than that, he would just go, No, no, I know who I am. Insecurity is something that uh that all of us deal with. And it's probably one of the most, if not the most, powerful tool that Satan has in his arsenal. A big part of this series is is dealing with practical issues in our lives, having practical solutions that are given to us by God. But you want to talk about a practical issue, insecurity? If you solve insecurity, you solve the root cause of a ton of big problems in your life. Because insecurity is at the root of almost all of it, and insecurity comes, no matter what the insecurity is, it comes from not really knowing who we are, from not really understanding who we are. I mean, insecurity is dangerous. I have a friend and mentor that was coaching me a few years ago, and he recognized that I was dealing with a lot of insecurity, and he let me know you've got to deal with this now. Because this is serious. Insecurity has to be compensated for, and most of the time it chooses some really poor ways to compensate. If we're insecure, we we will avoid friends that hold us accountable. We will look to people to flatter us and puff us up. And in Proverbs 29:5, the Bible says to flatter friends is to lay a trap for their feet. Insecurity makes us susceptible to flattery. Insecurity makes us put expectations on people that are unrealistic. It puts a strain on relationships that relationships can't handle. I'll never forget when I was in college, our pastor at the church we were at in Kansas City, his name was Roy Moran, a very wise man. And he was working with me and a bunch of other young guys who were young and married, and he said, Look, I had this guy come into my office the other day. He said he and his wife are really struggling, and his wife doesn't make him happy anymore. And Roy looked at the guy and said, What makes you think that's her job? And he challenged all of us young guys to search the scriptures and find where it says that our wives are supposed to make us feel good. I'll never forget that. Insecurity makes us expect other people to make us feel better than we feel about ourselves. Insecurity can ruin marriages. There was a recent study done about why people have affairs. And this very famous marriage counselor wrote this book, and in his study, he said that 92%, I want you to think about this, 92% of the people he interviewed that talked about having an affair, the men he interviewed, said that it was not physical attraction that led to the affair. It was that they felt underappreciated by their spouse, and this other person made them feel better. In other words, it's insecurity compensating in an unhealthy way. Insecurity can ruin jobs. A lot of us in this area are familiar with the name George O'Leary. He was Georgia Tech's football coach back in the day, and he was very successful. So much so that he was hired by Notre Dame in 2001. That is the holy grail of college coaching jobs. And he was fired five days later because it was discovered he lied on his resume to puff himself up. And his lie was completely insignificant. He lied about what kind of a football player he had been back in the day. He said he was a letterman at a school that didn't even exist. And he got fired, and he was the college coach for Notre Dame. They didn't hire him because he lettered in football. They hired him because he was a proven commodity. He proved that he could succeed at a high level. That's not easy to do. That's why they hired him. But yet his insecurity led him to lose everything in that situation. Insecurity is, it's dangerous. It is so dangerous. And if we have the ability to deal with insecurity and to overcome it, we solve a lot of problems in life. Because so much of it really does boil down to insecurity. Insecurity comes from not knowing who we are, whether we're insecure about the way we look, how much money we make, how much money people think we make, how athletic we are, how athletic we used to be, how athletic our kids are, how athletic our kids will be. No matter what we're insecure about, the root cause is that we don't realize who we are. But Jesus did. And so insecurity never had a leg up on Jesus. He knew exactly who he was. And I could see where we could say, oh yeah, but he's Jesus, right? Like if I was Jesus, I'd be pretty secure too. I could say, hey guys, did you not see me walk on water? Let's just be honest, that's cool. When Jesus turned water into wine, by the way, it was 900 bottles worth of wine, that's the equivalent it was. How many wedding invitations do you think Jesus got per week after that miracle? Okay. Jesus could have said, Did you not hear me just teach? You not see the spiritual bombs that I'm dropping everywhere? No one's ever taught like I've taught. No one knows the stuff that I know. Have you not seen how many thousands of people follow me everywhere I go? I'm Jesus, I'm secure. See, Jesus didn't point to any of that. Jesus never pointed to what he did, he never pointed to what he said, he never pointed to the miracles that he performed. Jesus pointed to one thing and one thing only, when he was showing people how secure he was in who he was, and it was only the love of the Father. Jesus' entire understanding of who he was was completely enmeshed in his understanding that Father God loved him. And we see that all through the Gospel of John. In John 5, 41 and 42, Jesus says, Your approval means nothing to me, because I know you don't have God's love within you, for I have come to you in my Father's name, and you've rejected me. John 3.35, the Father loves his son and has put everything into his hands. John 5.19, Jesus explained, I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does, for the Father loves the Son and shows him everything he's doing. In fact, the Father will show him how to do even greater works than healing this man. Then you'll truly be astonished. For just as the Father gives life to those he raises from the dead, so the Son gives life to anyone he wants. In addition, the Father judges no one. Instead, he has given the Son absolute authority to judge, so that everyone will honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Anyone who does not honor the Son is certainly not honoring the Father who sent him. John 5 26, the Father has life in himself. He has granted that same life-giving power to his son. John 8 16, the Father who sent me is with me. Your own law says that if two people agree about something, their witness is accepted as fact. Well, I'm one witness, and my father who sent me is the other. Even after all this, I love this. John 8 27, they still didn't understand that he was talking about his father. And so Jesus goes on in the very next verse. Jesus said, When you have lifted up the Son of Man on the cross, then you will understand that I am he. I do nothing on my own, but say only what the Father has taught me. It's the Father this, the Father that, the Father, the Father, the Father. The Father loves me, the Father's equipped me, the Father teaches me, the Father talks to me. Jesus' entire understanding of who he was, his value, his identity was focused on one thing and one thing only. I am the son of God. That is why I'm secure. That is my identity. And because of that knowledge, insecurity had nothing on Jesus. The very first temptation in the desert when Satan tempts Jesus, he says, Hey, if you're really the Son of God, like he's trying to get Jesus to question whether or not he really is God's son, but Jesus doesn't take it. He knew who he was. And this morning's you do well statement is that we do well to know who we are. We would all do very well if we were like Jesus and we understood who we are. So who are we? Who do you think you are? 1 John 3.1 says, see how very much our Father loves us? For he calls us his children, and that is what we are. But the people who belong to this world don't recognize that we're God's children because they don't know him. Sounds familiar, right? Jesus just said the same thing. Galatians 3.26, for you are all children of God through faith in Jesus Christ. And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes. There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female. In other words, you're not defined by those things anymore. For you are all one in Christ Jesus, and now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham, you are his heirs, and God's promise to Abraham belongs to you. Romans 8, 16 through 18, for his spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God's children. And since we're his children, we're his heirs. In fact, together with Christ, we are heirs of God's glory. Other translations of that verse say that we are co-heirs with Jesus. Think about that. We are co-with Jesus. Ephesians 1:5, God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. Through faith in Jesus, this is who you are. You are the son or the daughter of the living God. You are God's pride and joy. When he looks at you, he sees Jesus. He sees the same love, the same excitement, the same passion. He sees everything that he saw when he looked at Jesus. He loves you just as much. That is who you are. We are the children of God. And if we got our complete sense of identity and security from that, insecurity wouldn't stand a chance. See, we can get our security from a lot of things. And a lot of those are good things, right? So maybe we're attractive. And if that's you, you know who you are. And if we're attractive, we might say, Oh, I'm attractive, I'm a good-looking person. But what happens when we get old? Or we gain weight and turn 30 and our metabolism like bye. It's been a lot of fun. Enjoy dieting and yoga. You know, if our security is wrapped up in the fact that we are successful, that's a good identity. If other people identify us as successful, that's great. We might take that as our identity and say, yes, I'm a successful person. What happens when we fail? Where does that security go? If my security is wrapped up in the fact that I'm a good dad, there's a lot of days I'm not. If our security is wrapped up in anything other than the fact that we are the sons and daughters of God, insecurity wins. But if we live our lives knowing what Jesus knew, that we are the children of God. Scripture is clear on that. In fact, when asked how to pray, Jesus said, okay, pray like this. Our Father in heaven, not my Father in heaven. He said, Our Father. He included us in that. That is who you are. The question is, do we live like that? Do we enjoy the privileges that come along with being the sons and daughters of God? Because this world's going to make us try to accept lesser identities. Even religion tries to make us accept lesser identities, right? I've spent most of my life believing I was a follower of God, a servant of God, a worker for God. And you know what? We are all workers. Jesus said the harvest is great, but the workers are few, but it's a family business. So we work for our dad. And there are perks that come along with that. Do we take advantage of the access? Do we take advantage of the love that we have from that? If you're the son or daughter of someone important, there are perks. I hope one day to coach my son's little league teams if he decides to go out for sports, carry on the incredibly mediocre athletic legacy that his father left him. Can't wait for that. And if I'm the coach of his team, there's this mentality that says, oh, if he's your son, treat him harder than you treat the other kids. That's dumb. Because he's my son. It should be painfully obvious that I love him more. Right? The other parent should get upset with me. They should say, you cheer for your son a lot louder than ours. I'm like, I do. And you cheer for yours louder than you cheer for mine. Because he's your son. And maybe there's even some perks. Maybe the other kids run 10 laps, but I cut Liam off at nine. Say, hey. Kids, your dad could have signed up to coach, but they didn't. This is how it goes. You know? I uh I probably shouldn't be a little league coach, the more I think about it. But there are perks to being the child of someone important. We all have that. But so often we choose not to live under that. One of the most famous stories Jesus told is the story of the prodigal son, and we gave it that name, not Jesus, and it really should be the story of two sons, because there are two sons in the story, and both have incredible application for our lives. So the one son everyone knows about and talks about the most, he's the prodigal son. He runs off, takes his dad's money, goes crazy, basically goes to Vegas, loses all of it, comes back home. Okay. Then there's the other son. The other son is dependable. The other son works hard. The other son has served his father, has been at his father's side, has worked the fields. The other son, he's a good son. But when this prodigal son comes back, the dad throws him a party. And this does not make the other son happy. He says, Hey, you're throwing him a party? I've never had a party. I've been working in the fields, I've been doing your work, and he gets a party, and the dad says, Oh, son, you're the one that's chosen to be my employee and not my son. You could have a party every day if you wanted to. Everything I have is yours, but you've chosen to live as if you work for me. Instead of living as if you're my son. You want a party? Snap your fingers, I'll throw you a party. But you have to choose to live as my son, not as my worker. Do we choose to live as the children of God? Do we take advantage of the access that we have to God that we can only have through Him, through faith in Jesus? How do we do that? How do we live like we're children? Three actions. There's something we have to reject, there's something we have to remember, there's something we have to receive. My son's four, and he came up to me the other day for the very first time. He was playing with a group of kids. He walked up to me, he was kind of like looking at his feet, he was all dejected, and I could tell something was bothering him. So I asked him, son, what's wrong? And he said, Well, that boy over there. I looked over, saw the boy. He called me a baby. Put his head down. And I'm like, Oh, this is the first time people are starting to label my son. They're trying to give him an identity that's less than what his real identity is. And so I looked at Liam and said, Well, uh, are you a baby? And he said, Well, no. I'm a big boy, because he's four. And I said, Oh, well, then he's just wrong. And for Liam, for this moment in time, that was enough, and he sort of perked up and went and played. But see, I know that's just the start. And his whole life, just like all of us have experienced, there are going to be a lot of people who will jump in and say, Hey, let me tell you who you are. And they will put an identity on him that is less than who he is. And he has to reject it. All of us have to reject whatever identity we are given, whether it's positive or negative, if it is less than being the son or daughter of God, reject it. Because that is not who you are. See, that's the thing with Jesus, right? That's what makes Jesus so difficult for a lot of people because the world is full of people who like Jesus, who would like to give Jesus an identity that's very nice. Oh, yeah, Jesus is a prophet. I believe Jesus is a great teacher. I believe Jesus is a good man. I believe Jesus was a miracle worker, and that's very nice, but Jesus did not identify himself as those things. Those are very nice identities to have, but Jesus didn't say that's who I am. Jesus said, I'm the Son of God. That's who I am. He accepted no lesser identities for his life. He doesn't want us to either. I'm not sure what identity you live under. Some of those might be negative. You might think some pretty terrible things about yourself. I'm sorry if that's true. I know how you feel. Some of those identities we live under might be really nice. They might bring us a lot of accolades. They might even be identities that we earned. We worked hard for. But anything less than being the son or daughter of the living God gives insecurity a leg up because none of those other things can last. But once you're a son or daughter of God, that can never change. We have to reject anything less than that. We have to remember that we are his kids. We have to pray like we're his children. When is the last time that we prayed as if we were a child sitting in our dad's lap? I know prayer is tough for some people. I have a lot of good friends that have a hard time praying, and they love God, but they just believe that prayer is something they can mess up. If we believe prayer is a ritual, we can mess up a ritual. If it's a formality, we can mess up a formality. A kid has to do something pretty bad to mess up, talking to his dad while sitting in his dad's lap. But see, that's that's who we are. I mean, my son's four, my daughter, she's five months. I hold her, I love it. She spits up on me, I don't care, I love it. To think about God being okay with our spit up. Think about God being okay to hold us. And you know, we might look at that and say, well, yeah, but I'm an adult. How big do you think you look to God, right? But how nice is it to know that when we pray, we can pray to him like that. We can share everything that's going on, we can share our heart, we can talk about the most ridiculous things. Because he's our dad. Maybe we pray a lot, but but a lot of our prayer life is dominated by asking for forgiveness. That's like 10 years of my relationship with Jesus. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I'll never do it again. Please forgive me, please forgive me. And see, when my son does something wrong, I do not mind him apologizing. That doesn't bother me at all. But he doesn't have to beg. Right? He says he's sorry once, I say I forgive you, and we're done. In fact, I've already forgiven him before he asks, but it helps him to know that I have forgiven him. And this week, as you pray, and I encourage you and challenge you to pray every single day, like you're the son or daughter of God, because that is who you are. And if something comes to your mind that you need to ask forgiveness for, great, just ask it once and be done. That's all you have to do. And that's really for your benefit, not his. He's already forgiven you. Jesus took care of that. Remember that you're the child of God because life will make you forget. That's why we've got to pray and talk to him every day so that we can we constantly remind ourselves who we are. Reject who we're not, remember who we are. The third thing is receive. Some of us may have never received our rightful place into God's family. There's a very famous verse in Romans that gets used a lot when people are trying to get hands raised and stuff, and it's the wages of sin is death. But the gift of God is eternal life. Now, I love that because in that in that statement, sin is our boss. It gives us wages. We earn what we get from sin. But what God gives is a gift. And Jesus said over and over that those who who live and follow me will inherit the kingdom of God. And inheritance only comes through family. It only comes through family. And I'm not sure what may be holding you back from being a part of this family. I'm not talking about a part of this church family. This church family is great. It is fantastic. I love it. But we're talking about being a part of God's family. That you get the opportunity to live your life and every single day. Remember that you are a son or daughter of God. You don't earn it. My children did nothing to earn their place in my family. And we're no different. I'm not sure if it's fear of the unknown. I'm not sure if it's fear of the Bible. I read the Bible constantly. I love the Bible. We put a lot of the Bible in here. I don't pray to the Bible. You can have questions about the Bible and go ahead and come into the relationship you can have with Jesus. He'll work out those questions over time. It might be feeling like you don't belong. If you look at the scriptures and who Jesus chose as his followers, his standards are low. Very few of Jesus' followers would get hired at any church in the country. Like any of them. You belong. You belong in the family of God. And all you have to do is let them know you want to be part of it. There's no ritual, there's no thing you have to do, there's no specific prayer you have to pray, but it's just you talking to God and saying, I want in this family, I want your love, I want to be who I really am, because unless we are that, unless we're the children of God, we live our whole lives being less than that. And there is no reason to do that. So receive Jesus. And if you're ready to do that this morning, welcome to the family. We got a great prayer team that meets in the prayer room, which is this big wooden door in the main lobby. Go to them afterwards and say, hey, I accepted Jesus today. I'm part of the family now. Will you pray with me as I get started? And they'll just help you seal that commitment and get started in a really great direction. But this is really between you and God. You may have walked in this morning not realizing that you were the son or daughter of God. You may have walked in this morning forgetting about that. That is who you are. That is who all of us are. That is our identity. And if we live knowing that, we do pretty well. I mean, how could we do better? We would do well to remember who we are. We are the children of the living God. We are the pride and joy of God. Let's pray. Jesus. It's crazy to think about you and everything you are. And to realize that when it comes to our family, you're the big brother. You've brought us into your family. Your father has adopted us as his children. Lord, I pray that every single one of us would live our weak, would live the rest of our lives, rejecting any identity anyone has ever put on us or any identity we've ever put on ourselves that is anything less than being your child. Help us remember who we are. Help us receive you into our lives. Help us live knowing who we are. We love you. We thank you. Amen. Let's worship him a little bit more.