How the Father Sees You

Good morning everyone. I hope you enjoyed worship. So glad you're here with us today. Hey, look, take a second. I want us to connect, okay?

If you're new with us or you've been with us for a while, won't you take a moment and write in the comment section your name, what people call you. If we know who you are, that's fine too. Just post in there. Just say, hey, I'm here. I'm here.

I'm ready. Because here's the deal. I don't want us just to be spectators. I want us to be participators. There's power and presence and we need to be together.

And on this live feed, it's the perfect time for us to practice community as we're together. It's just one of the methods, but many methods we can do online. But it's really important here on Sunday for us to be live. And for those of you who probably will watch this later on, just let me say this. If you can be live on Sunday morning with your family, that's super important because there is this connection.

piece that people need. You may not need it. It may be okay for you. And it's great that we can film these things and then you can go back and see them over and over again. And you can connect with them in the evening or the next day.

But here's the deal. When you're present and together and everybody's together at that moment, there's something beautiful about that. When two or three are gathered in his name at that moment, I am there. And it may not necessarily benefit you. You can deal with watching it later on, but it might be for somebody else who's watching.

So I think there's really awesome power in being together here this morning. Connect with somebody. Please connect with somebody. Let them know that you love them. In fact, take a second, and I want you to do this.

Whoever you're with, whoever you're watching this with, whether you're with your family, I want you to do one of two things. I want you to hug somebody. If you're not hugging them, maybe you want to social distance, hug them a little bit, side hug them a little bit, elbow bump them or fist bump them, whatever that is. Just take a second and do that. And here's another thing I want you to do.

Take a picture of your family together, worshiping God. Just do that sometime during the broadcast. I'd love you to do that. Just throw it on your social media page and hashtag SaltChurchVV for us. And let's just see you.

I want to see you worshiping. I'm going back later on. I'm going to check on this. And I'm going to look for names of you guys, and I'm going to be praying for you because I'm always praying for you guys. And if you're new with us, I really want to get to know you, and I want to connect with you as well.

So take a moment and do that. Hug somebody. Hey, guys. Easter is next week. I can't believe it's already here.

I mean, just a week away. And we're still having Easter, whether it's online or in person. Obviously, we're not going to be in person this year. But we are having Easter online this year, and it's going to be big. I want you to invite your friends and family, everybody that you know, to connect on Easter Sunday because we're going to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus together.

But we've got something really special for you this Easter. We're going to connect with our brothers and sisters at Risen Church right here on the oceanfront. We're both together in this. We're celebrating the resurrection together. We're reaching people together, and we're going to do this together.

We're going to show, symbolize what the church really is this Sunday. It's not about one church or another church or another local church, but it's about the church as a whole. We believe that's what Easter is all about. Thousands and thousands and millions of people coming together to celebrate the greatest feat that ever happened, Jesus Christ conquering death and the grave. And we're going to celebrate that together.

So we want you to be a part of that. And stay tuned. We're going to have something special for your kids as well. This is going to be a family thing, so stay tuned for that. So it's Palm Sunday.

So can't we just celebrate Palm Sunday? Just take a moment and just celebrate Palm Sunday. Thank God that He sent His Son. This is the start of Holy Week. This is the time where the prophecy was fulfilled when Jesus would enter Jerusalem on a donkey, and the people would celebrate.

People would be singing Hosanna in the highest. They'd be celebrating and lifting Jesus up. They were all about Jesus, and they were just laying palm branches on the ground as He was walking through. Here's the King of kings. Here's the Lord of lords.

And through church tradition, we have always celebrated that at the beginning of Holy Week. But what's interesting is that by the end of the week, many of these same people would change their perspective. They would see the Son of God, Jesus, as somebody completely different. In fact, they would be calling out, crucify Him, crucify Him, putting Him on the level of a common criminal. The perspective of people change.

And it's interesting that we change our perspective of God according to our circumstances. You need to put that down. Put that in the comment section right there. We change our perspective of God according to our circumstances. And this is a very interesting time we're living in.

We've never experienced anything like this crisis. And for many people, their perspective of God is perhaps changing. We have fear. We have worry. We have cynicism.

We have doubt. All these things are creeping in our lives. And more than anything, we need to know that there is a God that cares. But in times like this, our perspective changes our circumstances, change our perspective. When we're dealing with hard times, sometimes it's hard to see the Father as a Father that loves us, a Father that cares about us, a Father that believes that we are worth something.

Some of you are losing your jobs. Some of you are getting cut back in hours. And you're wondering, how are you going to make it tomorrow? Some of you have health issues. Maybe you've lost a family member.

There's a lot of things going on, I'm sure. Or you look at your retirement plan and you're like, oh no, I'm not going to have anything to retire. And you're thinking, it's really hard from your perspective, because of the circumstances that surround you, it's hard to see the Father. But can I tell you this? God never changes His perspective about us, no matter the circumstance.

You need to write that down real quick. Put that in the comments section really quick. God never changes His perspective of us, no matter our circumstances. God never changes His perspective of us, no matter our circumstances. And in the last weeks, we've been looking at the prodigal.

We've been looking at this son that was wayward. And we've looked at it from different perspectives. We looked at it as we saw this son leave his father and go out and spend all of his inheritance and waste it away and realize that he has nothing. He comes back to the Father. The Father welcomes him in.

And we've been looking at it from different perspectives. We've seen it from our perspective as believers, as people who follow hard after Christ, but perhaps we have some prodigal parts, some wayward parts in our life. We looked at it from the church's standpoint, the crowd. We looked at it from the non-believer's standpoint, the person who doesn't know God and how he sees the church and how he sees God or she sees the church and she sees God. We looked at it from the perspective of the other brother who was in the church and worked in the church and the person who did all the right things, but yet may have not had a relationship with God.

Maybe they wanted the things on the master's table, but didn't want the master himself. They wanted everything that was on the father's table, but didn't want the father himself. But this week, although the previous weeks were a bit challenging for us, I've got really good news this week for you. I've got gospel news for you this week because I want to show you what the father thinks about you. The father thinks about you.

And what's interesting is that as you look outside the story of the product, Well, we're going to deal with that story, but there were two other stories that happened before then. Remember when we started chapter 15 of Luke, we see that the Pharisees, these guys who were church people or temple people who knew a lot about the law and they were looking at Jesus and he was hanging out with sinners and tax collectors and even prostitutes and they were like, how dare this guy hang out with these people? So Jesus starts sharing these stories about what these people meant to him. And he starts out with one story, it's about a lost sheep, the parable of the lost sheep. Many of us are familiar with that and we can even quote that maybe.

But what you can get out of this is number one, you are precious. God sees you as precious. Follow with me in Luke 15. Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn't he leave the 99 in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?

And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and his neighbors together and says, Rejoice with me, I have found my lost sheep. I tell you that in the same way there will be rejoicing. Isn't that beautiful? Rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents.

Then over 99 righteous people who do not need to repent. See, in the scripture, the shepherd represents Jesus. And in John 10, 11, we see clearly that it is Jesus that he is talking about because he says, I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep. He is the good shepherd and he leaves the 99.

He leaves the crowd and goes after the one. He risks his life even to gather the one, to find the one that is lost or is strayed. Sheep are precious. Sheep are innocent. Sheep were special to a shepherd.

It was of high commodity to the shepherd to find the sheep. He loved them because they were very precious. Think about a sheep, how innocent it is and how lost even sometimes it is, unless it has a shepherd to guide them. And the shepherd knows his sheep. He goes after his sheep.

He knows them well. And when his sheep call out his name, he comes for them. And the shepherd doesn't just send out anybody. He goes himself. That's what's interesting about this story.

He could have sent out anybody to go find that sheep, but he went himself. I love that idea of himself, he himself. In fact, in the New King James Version, there's several scriptures that kind of explain that, especially in Hebrews 1, 3. It says, he had by himself purged our sins. He himself purged our sins.

In 2.18, it says, for in that he himself suffered. In 3.13.5, for he himself has said, I will never leave you or forsake you.

And I love how Isaiah 59.16 says it, therefore, his own arm brought salvation to him. He himself goes out because he sees you as precious. You are precious. I want to share a little story with you.

And I'm going to read this story that I read in the book one time. And it goes like this. And it might be a little bit of a tearjerker, but this kind of shows the heart of the father. After World War I, the United States allocated funds for the orphans in Europe. At one of the orphanages, a very old and thin man brought in a very thin little girl and said, I would like you to take care and take in my little girl, please.

They asked if she was his daughter, and he said yes. And then they said they were very sorry, but our rules are we can't take in any children if either of the parents are living. And he said, but I've been in prison camps, and now I'm too old and too sick to work. She'll die if you don't take care of her. And they felt compassion, but they told him, I'm sorry, there's nothing we can really do.

And then the man said, are you telling me that if I die, you will take care of my little girl, and she can live and have food and have clothes and have a home? And they said yes. So the father reached down and pulled her to himself, hugged her, kissed her, and put her hand in his hand, in the man's hand behind the desk. And he looked at the man and said, I'll arrange it. That day he went out and hung himself.

Now however you felt about the man's decision to do that, this is much like what Jesus did. He looked at the father, he said, Father, you mean if I die, they will live? The father said yes. And Jesus said, I'll arrange it, because you're precious. You're precious, you're a lost sheep.

He loves you. The second point I want to make is, you have value. The second story is the parable of the coin. It starts in verse 8, it says in Luke 15. Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one.

Doesn't she light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, Rejoice with me, I have found my lost coin. In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents. Now, symbolically, silver represents value. And God values you.

I also think it's interesting that he uses a woman in this story as opposed to the other stories. And some commentators would even say that this represents the Holy Spirit. Now, I'm not sure if this is what Jesus was really getting at, but it does make a lot of sense, because in the first story you see the Son. And then he leads into the prodigal after this story, which represents the Father. Now we see the Holy Spirit.

And if you know anything about women, obviously us men are always trying to figure out women, right? But women seem to have more connection with their emotions. And when we see this woman here, she's sweeping the floor. She's trying to find, and that day they laid straw on the floor because they were mostly dirt floors. And when you lost something, it would be hard to find.

So she's sweeping the floor, sweeping the straw out of the way to try to find this coin. Now, any man out there, you can probably vouch for me after a few minutes. And looking down and I'd look at the straw on the floor, I'd say, forget it, it's just a lost coin. But for her, she was compassionate about finding that. She was passionate and she felt compassion to find that, right?

And women tend to connect with their emotions. And when I think of the Holy Spirit, I think of the same thing. He connects with us emotionally. In fact, the Scripture shows us that the Holy Spirit brings joy and emotion. It brings joy to us.

He fills us with joy. Certain Scriptures even talk about the Holy Spirit grieving, grieving for us. When one is wayward, the Holy Spirit grieves, if you look at Ephesians. And He yearns for us. The emotion of yearning, the Holy Spirit yearns for us.

In fact, James says it like this, James 4, 5, it says, Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain the Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously? He yearns jealously for us? There's a good jealousy and there's a bad jealousy. The good jealousy, or the bad jealousy rather, is what something does for me. I want it because of what it does for me.

But good jealousy is what something does for the other person. And this is the kind of jealousy that the Spirit... has for you. He wants something good for you. He yearns for you.

She had 10 coins, but she was sweeping the floor for that one coin. Silver represents value. Another thing to note is that if you hold up a coin at home right now, you'll see somebody printed on that coin, right? It represents freedom. It represents all that we are, a U.

S. currency. We have a president on it, a former president on it, and it represents what our country stands for and God we trust and freedom and things like that. And that day, Caesar was printed on a coin. Caesar was seen as a god.

Caesar was Caesar. Caesar was over everything. And when you look at a coin, you see that imprint. So my question for you, whose image is on you? If you're a coin, whose image is on you?

You were created in the likeness of God. You were created to be like him in his image. You were created. And the value of anything is determined by what someone is willing to pay for that piece. The value of anything is determined by what someone is willing to pay for it.

You need to write that down. It's like a Babe Ruth baseball card or Mickey Mantle baseball card. A little piece of card. It's cardboard. It doesn't mean a whole lot.

It's not worth anything. But what somebody's willing to pay for it gives value. And people are willing to pay for it. And people are willing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars just for a little card. That's how Jesus felt about you because you are valued.

The third thing I want to mention is you are unique. This is really important. Let me just dig into this for a few minutes. This is probably my longest point. Luke 15, 20, it says, and it goes to the prodigal.

It goes back to the prodigal story. It follows the coin story. So he got up and he went to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him. And he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.

Now, I want you to underline that part, a long way off. He saw his son a long way off. And his father saw him, was filled with compassion for him. He knew his son. His son was unique.

He recognized his son and he recognizes you. You are unique. And it's easy to see God as this big God that loves everybody. He loves the world. He loves the church.

For God so loved the world, he gave his son and he loves everybody. But it's easy for us to get caught up in being, you know, one in a billion people that God really cares about. But you know what? He knows you. He knows you specifically.

He created you. Think about it like this. He created the animals. He created plants. He made them big, small.

Different colors. Different colors. All are unique. Everything he created is unique. He created the stars.

He created the planets. He made them all different. Uniqueness is how he creates. In fact, Psalm 19 says the heavens declare the glory of God. The skies proclaim his handiwork.

Day after day, they pour forth speech. Night after night, they reveal his knowledge. Our universe is unique. Our universe is unique. He designed laws of cosmology and physics in the universe to govern our existence.

We exist because of the things he created. He made it unique for us. And he has the ability and knowledge to create every detail of everything around us. And he has the ability and knowledge to create you uniquely. You are unique.

Let's think about it like this. Let's take it from a scientific direction. DNA. All of us are created with specific DNA. DNA.

We have 100 trillion cells in our body. And if we unravel the DNA in one of those cells, they will be 9 foot long. They will unravel to 9 foot long. 9 feet long. If the uncoiled DNA in your body would connect all together, it would be as long as going to the sun 70 times and back.

That's a lot of DNA. One strand of DNA holds about 8 billion letters, 500 million words, and 8,000 books. One strand alone. Even Bill Gates said himself, there is no supercomputer in the world that can even measure up to one strand of human DNA. And as far as he was concerned, it will be far, far, far in the future if we ever are capable of doing that.

Because you were created uniquely. Your fingerprints, the iris of your eye, everything is uniquely created. You were knitted. You were created in your mother's womb. You are unique.

See, that's why the father was grieving for his son that he lost. Because he was like, that's my son. That's my missing son. That's the one that I created and that I love. That's why he grieved for the lost sheep.

That's why he grieves for the lost coin. That's why he grieves for his son. Because you are precious, you are valued, and you are unique. He's like, that's my boy. That's my girl.

And when we're far from him, or we're wayward, or we change our perspective of God, God never changes his perspective of us. That's the father's perspective. But here's the struggle for the father. Here's the battle. I've always brought in a battle.

A battle from every perspective. The father's battle is this. In the three stories, what's unique about the prodigal story, in the lost sheep story, he goes out for the sheep. In the story of the coin, in the parable of the coin, she sweeps the house to find the coin. He goes out for the coin.

But in this story of the prodigal, he waits. God waits. And the battle for God is the weight. Because he's given you the choice to make a decision for him. Because his...

See, here's the thing. If he didn't give him the choice to come home, the son the choice to come home, if the father didn't give the son the choice to come home, then he would have been home in his body, but he wouldn't have been home in his heart. God desires a relationship with you. But he's given you the choice to make a decision for him. I love how the story ends, or this particular point in the story ends, and it says, The son said to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.

I am no longer worthy to be called your son. That's in Luke 15, 21. And then he goes on in verse 22, But the father said to his servant, Quick, bring the best robe and put it on him. And then put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. This is really good news here.

Let me just explain what I'm talking about here as I close here in a second. The robe represents a covering of sin and shame. It was probably the father's robe that he was giving the son because it was the best of the robes. So there's love and grace available for you. The father's waiting with the robe to put over you to cover your sin and cover your shame.

That's where Jesus Christ comes in. He's laid it all down. His blood was shed so that you could... Amen. Be covered.

The sin and shame and the guilt that you feel. Because all of us feel the tension of guilt like something's just off. Something's just not quite right. But God has available for you a robe. A robe of righteousness.

And then there's the ring. The ring represented, or still represents even to this day in this story, a restored identity and belonging to a family. It was a signer ring that was given to the son to welcome him back into the family. Come back home. I'm going to put the ring on you.

You belong. You're a part of this family. You are valued. That's where value comes in. You're a part of the family.

And he's waiting to say, come on back home. I created you. I made you to be a part of me. And though you left me, I'm here and I'm ready for you. So he restores our identity.

The identity that was lost in sin is now restored. And then there's the sandals. And this is probably the biggest part of it. There's hope. That renewed purpose and meaning for life is now restored.

That you have purpose. You have meaning. No matter what you're facing in this crisis. You feel like your employer doesn't care about you because they let you go. You feel like your retirement is going away because you're not really worth anything anymore.

You feel all those things. But guess what? Your identity is restored in Jesus. You are somebody. And God cares about you.

Don't change your perspective based on your circumstances because the Father never changed his perspective of you. He still loves you no matter what age, no matter what situation you're in. He loves you. And he's calling you home. He's calling you home today.

So I say this. Are you ready to come home? He's waiting. He's waiting for you to come home. And as I close this series, that's the question overall.

Every time I've ended these messages, these series of messages, I've asked that. Are you ready to come home? Whether you're far from God. Whether you're wayward. Maybe you've taken a path around God for a little while.

It doesn't get you anywhere. Maybe you've done all the right things your entire life. Maybe you're the good Christian. But today you realize, well, maybe I don't really have a relationship with God because I've always done it this way. It was always about doing the right things, saying the right things, going to church every Sunday, participating in liturgy or whatever it might be.

Maybe you've been there and you're like, wait a minute. The Father is calling me home because more than anything, he wants a relationship with me. He wants to talk to me. He wants to fellowship with me. He wants to be a part of my life.

He wants to change me from the inside out. If you would pray this with me. Father, in the name of Jesus, I believe that you are the Son of God. Today, I make a decision. As you wait, Lord, I make a decision to walk towards you.

He's seeing you from a long way off right now as you're praying this. And he recognizes you're unique. Lord, I'm walking towards you now. I'm walking towards you. I want you to get a picture of the Father coming and grabbing a hold of you.

Because that's what he's doing right now. I believe that you are the Son of God, Jesus, and that you died on the cross for my sin. Please forgive me, Lord. Come into my heart. Come into my life.

And make me new. Change me from the inside out. I walk with you from this day forth. I am your child. Amen.

Guess what? Scripture tells us that the angels are rejoicing right now if you made a commitment to him today. The Father is throwing the robe over you. He's throwing it on. He's putting on the ring.

He's putting the sandals on. You are good with God. You have been made right with God. We can celebrate that. Won't you just celebrate God right now for just a second?

Amen. Let's give him praise. Let's give him praise. All right. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much. Hey, if you gave your life to Christ, connect with us online. We'd love to hear from you. Info at saltchurch.org.

If you're new with us, we still want you to connect with us. We'd love somehow to get connected or get something in the mail to you. We'll send you a gift in the mail. Also, if you've been with us for a while, remember we're always praying for you. We're praying for all of you.

Let's stay connected. Get connected in the online community. And I look forward to Easter next week. We are going to see you there, and it's going to be great, and it's going to be powerful. We can't wait.

God bless you. Have a great rest of your week. Hey, everybody. Thank you so much for your generosity. We've been able to do an incredible amount through your giving.

It's awesome to see what you're doing. We're engaging in some projects during the crisis. We're providing food for the elderly by dropping groceries off at their door, and we're able to do that through your giving. Also, remember that Elevate 2020 is still happening, and we're giving 20% of that to cancer research for children and to help families in need. Also, we'll be providing a lot more information about some of the things that we're doing during this crisis.

So your giving helps this happen. Continue to give. We love you so much. God bless you. Thank you.