The Father Saw (When You Feel Invisible)

dash on YouTube. Yes I'm his manager, and yes I'm going to take a cut when he gets to that level. I want to look at Matthew chapter six today, Matthew six, verse one through four from the sermon on the mounth that Jesus preached, and I want to get into a very deep topic. Don't worry about standing up in show today. You probably need to sit still for this one. But it's not bad. It's really good. But I just want

you to receive it. You know, sometimes I worry that everywhere else you go in life, you're so focused on what you need to do, and you come into church with that same mindset. But in many ways, I want this time to be the one part of your week where you can receive. Now that doesn't mean you do it passively, because you get more out of it if you put something into it. But this message today comes from this general spirit of the age Zeitgeist, where it

seems that our entire emphasis is on being seen. And you're going to see that phrase seen two times in this passage. But it's in direct contrast. And I want to do my best, with the help of the Holy Spirit, to illuminate or that God will illuminate exactly what we need to see today. And I trust that He will be careful. Verse one not to do your acts of righteousness before men to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.

So when you give to the needy, and right there, you know most of us just heard the word give. This is not a scripture about money. This is a scripture about motives. He's using the vehicle of talking about money to get to the idea of what are your motives. And he says when you give to the needy, or when you pray, or when you fast. He uses three different examples in Matthew six. But when you are doing

something significant, don't do it to be seen. Okay, when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do on Facebook. And did I read it wrong? I just got caught in twenty twenty four a moment, but this is a this is a like thirty a D. So I'm off on my dates. Okay, do not do it like the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets. To be honored by men. I tell you the truth. They have received their reward

in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. The title of this message is the Father Saw, The Father Saw. I want to pray one more time if you would join me. Lord, your word is powerful, and if I get out of the way, it will do work. So remove me. I know that it's my vocal chords right now, but I pray that

the voice would come from heaven now. If their hearts are blocked by something that they are thinking about that is not in this room, I pray that every thought would be taken captive right now, so your word can go forth, feed your people. God, use me to do it in Jesus' name. Amen, this is my last service of the weekend. I preached three and I forgot to do this every other time, so I decided to do

it upfront on this service. Now. It's really good that we saved it for last because my middle son, Graham, is a wrestler and he won two state championships. Yeah. Well the first one that he won, and it's kind of like a what do you call it, like a junior state championship or something like that, so it wasn't necessarily like NCAA or something like that, but it was

a big deal to us. And I remember on the way home from the first one that he won, because we were both kind of surprised that he won it. And when we sat down at Pizza Hut to celebrate, which is what every great parent does at any juncture of life, whether it's book it or a state championship, Pizza Hut is the answer. How many know that you store up for yourself treasures on earth, or you can

enjoy treasures at pizza Hut. That's in Matthew Chapter six, verse twenty one through twenty three, and I said, man, it's so good. I got to be here for it. I said, imagine if I had missed it because it was on a weekend and I had scheduled someone else to preach so I could be there and watch it. And he said something back to me. It's one of those moments you live for as a parent. I said, what if I had missed it? He said, well, if you hadn't been there to watch, I probably wouldn't have won.

Like it was written straight out of a script from Seventh Heaven, you know, like stuff your kid's never saying. My house usually is more like the Simpsons than Seventh Heaven. But this was at one moment and it took me back having that trophy to the year was nineteen ninety when I won first place. And I don't know if you can get a close up of this. I never won a Grammy, but I won the Somerville Takedown Tournament. Come on, in the one hundred and ten weight pound

division ninety three. If I need to tell you something, hold on. You might not want a clap yet. There were only two other people in the weight class, and they didn't give out trophies. So my dad on Christmas Day there was an awkwardly wrapped present under the tree. And my dad was not always the model father. He did his best, but my mom was always there telling

him what he needed to do. And she said, get that boy a trophy and wrap it and write him an And I never forget what the note said is that here is the trophy that I watched you win that I think you deserve. So what do you do when the world doesn't give out trophies? This message is called the Father saw. Jesus makes a distinction in Matthew chapter six between what people see and what God sees.

How many know there's a difference. And have you noticed that the world hands out trophies sometimes for all the wrong stuff? Y'all, Uncle, help me preach a bit today. I'm gonna have to do this by myself. The world will hand out trophies always for what is seen. But we have a God who celebrates the unseen. He is the king of a kingdom where what is unseen is

often more important than what is seen. The unseen is often more important than the scene in the kingdom, but the world celebrates the scene, and so people will congratulate you for a new car, even though what they don't know is you can't afford the payments. And the world will celebrate you for getting a promotion. And it's good if you get a promotion. I pray you get every promotion God wants you to have this year. But people will never come up to you and congratulate you for peace. Hey,

congratulations for your peace. They can't celebrate it because they can't see it, and you can't celebrate what you don't see. If you lose weight, people will celebrate you even if you put it back on and lose it again year. Look, if you really want people to celebrate you, let me give you a fool proof way. Every year, gain thirty pounds and lose it, and at least half of the year people will tell you how much better you look.

But if you lose the weight and keep it off, nobody walks up to anybody and says you still look all right because they can't see that. So people don't celebrate consistency. Can I teach a little bit before I preach? One of the ways that I tell our staff that you can know you're getting good at your job is when people stop giving you compliments. In fact, one of the ways that you can tell you're a good parent is when your kids don't thank you for keeping the

heat on. They just walk up to the refrigerator like stuff is supposed to be there. Am I right about her? If your child ever tells you, hey, thank you for indoor plumbing, that probably means you're not providing very well at this moment in time, and it needs to get better. And often the greatest proof that you're doing good in God's sight is that you are taken for granted in

people's sight. And I know what I'm preaching about today because when I first started preaching, people would pinch my cheeks. I was seventeen years old and they would pinch my cheeks. Now I got this beard, and my cheeks aren't so soft to pinch anymore. And I figure that if I'm really doing my job preaching, you'll stop thinking about how good the preacher was, and you'll start being able to

hear what God is saying to you. But now I need you to know that In Matthew chapter six, Jesus says that there is a tremendous temptation to do things to be seen by people and whether that means that we live our lives like a reality TV show through the vehicles of Instagram and Facebook, showing people certain scenes of our life that present an image that we would like them to think is really us, while secretly feeling lonely because the discrepancy between our real life and our

projected life is becoming more distant, and that distance creates the illusion of feeling like an impostor. Even though you are doing the best that you can, you are showing something that is better than what you are, and so people will congratulate what they think you are, but secretly who you are is dying inside because nobody sees it. And I'm preaching this whole series because our need to be seen by others can keep us from being known by God. I don't mean that God doesn't know you.

He knows everything about you. He's the only one who does. But we see the contrast in Matthew Chapter six, Let's look at it again. He says, be careful when you do what you do that you don't do it to be seen. How many things in my life am I doing to be seen? There is no worse feeling than that of invisibility. You know, when you are doing your very best and it goes unrecognized, it makes it kind

of harder to want to keep doing it. And when you feel unseen, especially by the people whose attention and approval you crave the most, it can create a compulsion in your life to start doing things that are not even really consistent with your character in order to receive from people a confirmation that can be taken away just as easily as it was given. But we are not citizens of this kingdom, which celebrates and compliments all the things that are seen. We are citizens of the kingdom

where Jesus has things like this. When you do something in secret, your father sees it, and he will reward you according to what he sees. So my message is, if you have felt unappreciated, uncelebrated, unnoticed, and insignificant in this kingdom, what is unseen is often what is most significant. Now not in the world. In the world, we we correlate scene with significant. But I'll tell you what. You could take this pulpit away and I could still preach

my sermon because I really don't need my notes. They're just like Linus's blankets, just like a security thing for me. I really have the message in my heart. So you could take this away and I could still preach. But if the signal that's causing this microphone to make a sound were to drop out, you could no longer hear the message. Why because what is invisible is often what is most valuable. And yet can I keep going. I'm gonna do it, whether you want me to or not.

I got you now, Whether we will admit it or not, we are so good at celebrating the wrong stuff. People will always, especially the crowd, give us rabbits. The crowd will always celebrate the wrong thing. People will always celebrate what they can see. And another thing that people will always do is celebrate a gift rather than celebrating character. We celebrate the wrong stuff. Now, if you do it in secret, and this could refer to anything in your life.

If you do, if you do what you do according to your values, not according to external validation, then you understand the meaning of the Father. Saw the sacrifices that you made that no one else really pointed out, the stuff, Nobody gave you a trophy for. What would it be like this year for us to live with God as our audience and not our dysfunctional friends and family members who are secretly so caught up in their own crap that they can't celebrate us because they're waiting for us

to celebrate them. Now. I struggle with this because it's hard for me to live my life for an invisible audience. And they used to sing a song in the children's church where I grew up that said, be careful, little eyes, what you see? Did you all have this song in children's church? Be careful, little ears, what you hear? The creepiest children's Bible song ever for the father up above is looking down with love. It's like this doesn't feel

very loving. This steals invasive. Okay, so you remember the song. Every move I'm made, every breath take, I'll be watching you. It was like the beat was so good to the song. I didn't realize it's a stalker. But he said, your father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. Say this out loud, my reward. Y'all can't mumble this part. Y'all are so loud about the wrong stuff. Get loud about this shot us say my reward is from the Lord touch. Somebody say I don't need a trophy. I

don't need a trophy. I don't need a trophy for everybody who was not appreciated, for everybody who was not celebrated, for everybody who was unwanted, even abandoned. I want you to know your father saw who left you, He saw who should have been there. And when my father and mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me off. My father saw when people mistreated me, and I could have got even, but I put it in his hands. He saw it, and my reward is with the Lord.

Ten seconds to celebrate the presence of God in your life. Come on from the front to the back, nephews Toakaston, give him praise if you know he was watching. So how good are you at celebrating the unseen? Do you celebrate those moments in your life where God is making you stronger but your biceps aren't getting bigger. People will celebrate your biceps. Oh man, you go tickets to give

you the ticket to the gun show. People have fifty thousand cliches to compliment your because people celebrate what they see. But nobody ever came up to me and said, hey man, your contentment is like gains bro and we all know which is more valuable. But we live in a world where what is visible is celebrated more than what's valuable. So if you move toward the clap of the crowd, they will lead you right off the cliff. I'm gonna

stop right here, but you see the illustration. If I keep following that clap, where am I going to end up? If you keep chasing clout right now, what's it going to be like when the people that you live to please are no longer even paying attention. Your friend might move to Alabama. Now the person that was your whole soul source for affirmation is gone to another nation, I mean state. And the Lord said to tell you that he saw it. Now, we don't need to be afraid.

This is not a verse about retribution. You know your father who sees what is done in secret. Some people hear that like a threat. And when I said that your father sees what is done in secret, you were like, oh God, oh no, that's the worst news I heard all day. He's not speaking about punishment, he's speaking about reward. He's trying to get us to see that we're seeing whether people do or not. Okay, I get it, Pastor, he sees me I get it, Do you really? Or

are you still buying stuff? Are you still giving away things? Are you still One thing that I've learned is we don't graduate from our need to be approved by people when we graduate high school. We still live for approval. It just gets more expensive. I can't preach it any harder than this. I dressed like a highlighter and everything so y'all can see me today. And when God gave me this message, he said, call it the father saw the father saw, because they thought nobody saw, but I did.

And since you can't see the father visibly or hear the father audibly, I want to deliver the message today that he saw. He saw what you didn't get. He saw that integrity that you had. He saw when you didn't go off Now Wednesday you did, but then Thursday you got it together and you didn't do it again. So see, we got to celebrate the times where we do get it right now, I'm bad at this. Stand up. If you're like me and you have a hard time celebrating your successes. Stand up if you're like me and

you have a heart time celebrating your successes. Stand up if you let me have a hard time celebrating your successes. All right, let's take a moment. Since we're so hard on ourselves and we have a hard time celebrating ourselves on every location, let's celebrate the fact that we had the self awareness to stand up and know that we're hard on ourselves. See how weak that was, Like, I'm not clapping for that. Sit down, I gotta work on y'all for a minute. We are so bad at this.

Me and Holly went on a hike to Crowder's Mountain Friday, and while I was busy beating the imaginary opponent to the top of the hill, I was thirty steps ahead of her and she was looking at the view. She said, she said, I said you. I said you need to keep up. She said, you need to slow down. The views getting good, and I was like, I know it. But she was talking about the the landscape, and I realized it was an analogy for what she brings to my life that is so irreplaceable. Holly is great at

celebrating herself. She really is. She does not need lessons in this. She came downstairs the other day celebrating her workouts and that she had, you know, made it to a certain point in her workouts, and I'm the kind of person that you know, I'll do the workout and then think about the fact that you know, somebody else could have lifted more, and I'll just do this all

the time. Really, I struggled to celebrate myself, and I used to think that was godly, because, after all, the Bible says, humble yourself in the sight of the Lord. You notice people who quote that verse are never really that humble, and they don't even know what verse it is. The next time somebody quotes the Bible verse that you to beat you over the head with it, ask them what chapter and verse, ninety nine percent chance they'll shut up.

I'm not talking about pride. I'm talking about process and progress and being able to say, in certain moments of your life, nobody else saw it, but the Father saw. Otherwise, you're going to be waiting for people to give you trophies that don't even exist. Oh, by the way, if they gave the trophy real quick example, they can take it back. They can change their mind about you. So I have to get calibrated. I feel annointed to preach today. Is it just me? I feel annointed to get us

set free? Watch this. We talk about getting set and free from sin and shame. We need to get set free from people. Not that we don't care about them, but we can't be controlled by them. I can't even let you control this message, because what if the best thing I say is the thing you're not ready to hear. What if you don't like the taste of the medicine, I gotta mash it up in the apple sauce and give it to you anyway, because I cannot be controlled

by a crowd and deliver God's word. Now, you cannot be controlled by a cultural ideal of success and really receive the affirmation that comes from God alone. And today is the day for somebody that you get a different audience, not the audience that is external, because they will always

clap for what is visible. But if you know you have a God on the inside of you that is the treasured possession of your life and the strength of your soul, give in praise right now and celebrate his presence in your life that if you don't have anything else, you've got him and he is enough. Y'all do what you wanna do. I'm gonna take twenty seconds and celebrate that word. Thank you Lord for loving me. Thank you Lord for choosing me. Thank you Lord for keeping me.

Thank you Lord for forgiving me. Thank you that you didn't just see my mistakes, but you saw my potential. The father saw, The father saw, He saw the tears you cried while you were waiting because you wouldn't compromise just to fit in. The father saw, the father saw. And so when we when we celebrate the unseen, write that down on your page. Celebrate the unseen, because what is most seen is not always what's most significant. You know, the devil can't defeat you, right, He's a defeated foe.

Now if it were you against him and be like Connor McGregor, you know, be over in forty seconds. But did y'all see that I need my money back? That was sixty dollars for forty seconds of fighting. If I do the math on that, and I can't do it off the top of my head, that's a very expensive dose of violence that I purchased last night on the UFC fight. If you'll know what I'm talking about, don't worry. I was praying. But when we say that that that the devil, you know, the devil is doing this and

that in my life. There's only two things he can do. He can't defeat you the Cross of Jesus. Christ defeated the devil once and for all. He is a defeated foe. You don't run from him. He runs from you. You resist him, and he flees. But and this is really important, because this is where it happens before I take you over and into this next section of the teaching. Understand that since he can't defeat you, he will always try

to distract you or discourage you. Because he can't defeat you, because greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world. Now, he can't defeat you, but he can distract you. Distract you with what others are doing. He could distract me as a pastor with how other churches reach people. He could distract me as a man of how other parents are raising their family.

And certainly I can learn from that. But if I get so distracted by how you're doing it, I might miss the uniqueness of how God made me to do it, and then I become discouraged, distracted and discouraged. He wants to distract you so you crash, or discourage you so you quit. This message finds many of us distracted and discouraged. And when we come to this point, it is the revelation that the Father saw that enables us to get

our focus back. You cannot preach a message like this about the unseen celebration without at least bringing up the parable of the prodigal son. I don't think the message would be complete without Luke fifteen. For Jesus, it was difficult to get the people to perceive what he was

saying when he preached sermons. So he would preach on the kingdom of having blessed, are the porn spirit for their kingdom, of having blessed and meet for them inherit the earth, blessed those more of the to bless those who hunger, thirst rusts. They'd be feel blessed peacemakers. They be called chidren of God. He would teach about the kingdom. It was a very different kind of kingdom. It was an invisible kingdom. It was an unseen kingdom. But he

would use these things called parables. How many of you have heard of parables? Yeah, you've heard of them. But Jesus is the one who created that format of teaching or adopted it and elevated it to his highest level to show us what something looks like that we can't see with our eyes. So he would take something that we can see and use it to illustrate something that we can't see, in order to help us to understand that what is unseen is often more real than what

is seen. So a lot of times, the things that you can't measure are the things that are actually that actually matter the most. Right, joy matters more than money. I promise you, it does. I promise you it does. I'm not rich enough to know this, but I do know some people who have everything and nothing simultaneously, because if you can't enjoy it, why have it? So what

is unseen is more important than what is seen. You can see the boat, but you can't see the fact that the people riding on it don't even like each other. What is unseen is more important than what is seen. This is the principle of the kingdom, the kingdom of God, not the kingdom of the world. The kingdoms of this world clapp for what they can see. Oh you got followers, Ah,

you got status, Ah, you got a BMW. All of that is fine, But I want to know what's happening, not under the hood of your car, but in the interior of your soul. Do you have something that can't be taken away? Now? Jesus' most famous parable was about a son who went to his father and took his share of the inheritance before his father died, and Jesus was illustrating two different things in this parable. The first one was about the father and the second thing was

about us. And I want to read it to you. I'll read it not in its entirety, but enough where you get a sense, because it's very powerful to see what the father saw. You know, we often preach this passage just to talk about how this young man in the passage is, as you'll see, making some bad decisions, and we'll talk about how no matter what you've done, you can always come home to God. And all of that is true. I hope you know that that in

this kingdom you're always welcome. The times where you feel like you deserve God the least are the times when you need his presence the most. It's so important you pray when you're struggling, not just when you feel like you're on top of it. Is so important that if you struggle with an addiction that you pray even while you're drunk, even while you're high. You need to pray even when you're in the middle of it, because he's the god of the mountain and the god of the valley.

But the primary point of this passage is not about what the son did. It's about what the father saw. And Jesus is teaching about this concept of the outcast being welcomed into his kingdom. And he continued in verse eleven. There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, father, give me my share of the estate. So he divided his property between them. I never noticed the word them, but it means that both brothers got their share. And you know what else.

The older one got more by Jewish law, he got two thirds of the estate. Younger brother got a third. Which one's more two thirds or one third? Your kid, I know we went to public school. But come on, now, the older brother got more. But I want you to notice that the younger brother left. Says that he set out, got together all he had Verse thirteen, set out for a distant country, and there squandered his wealth. And while

living after he spent everything. There was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need, so he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country. I need those of you who really know God to pray for someone who needs to hear this next part, because it's just where they are. He hired himself out to a citizen of that country who sent him to his fields to feed pigs, and it got so bad for him when he got disconnected from

what his father's resource had made available to him. He had the seene resources of his father, but he no longer had the unseen reality of his relationship to him, and he longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything. He's waiting for something to be given to him by people that only his father has. So he's eating what the pigs eat. He's feeding off of what the world

feeds off of. He's scrolling and clicking and liking and deleting and filtering and cropping and snapping and clicking and liking and loving and clicking and checking and subscribing and unsubscribing and everything that is in his feed is only making him more hungry. What people are most likely to celebrate is often what is least likely to satisfy. And while he was in this starved state, the Bible says

that verse seventeen, he came to his senses. He's waiting for something to be given that he had all along. And he came to the point that I'm praying we come to during this series where we realize that they can't give it. It can never come from outside. It has to come from within. Do you hear me preaching to you today. It has to come from within. It has to come from spirit, It has to come from source. It has to come from Father. It cannot come from

your friends. Your friends can be a conduit, but they cannot be the sole content of what your soul receives. And if they give it, they can take it. But when he came to his senses, he realized something. My father has what I'm hungry for. My father has what I'm starving for. Look here we have church what the world needs. But if we act like the world acts and chase what the world says, we cannot celebrate the fullness of what we've been given. He said, my father's

minimum wage employees are better off than I am. They're throwing food away and I'm begging for scraps. So the Bible says, because he was hungry. You know it is good when you get hungry. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. But the wrong appetites can never be satisfied. And when you are starving for status, you will stuff your soul with what can never satiate the true need. But he got up and he decided, I don't have to live like this.

I don't have to chase this. I don't have to beg for it. I don't have to wait for it. It's not mine by behavior, it's mine by birth. And I have a father, and I'm nowhere he lives, and he didn't move, and I can go back right now, KINGO the kingdom is in ann So he said, I'm starving to death. I will set out and go back to my father, and I will say to him, father, he practiced his speech. Well, it's just he's practicing what he's gonna say. He's writing a speech he will never

even need. You're gonna see it. He makes his speech in his mind. He never makes it with his mouth. Father, No I say it like this, Father, No, I say, father practicing, practicing in the pig pin. Father. By the way, the Bible never says that the boy's heart was repentant. It just says he was hungry. Even if you come to God for the wrong reasons, he has what you need.

One brother told me one time, I don't mean to judge, which is a clear indication that what they are about to say is going to be the most religiously phariseical thing that's ever come out of a human beings mouth. I don't mean to judge you. But over there at Elevation Church, you've got a lot of sinners. I was like, what do you want to come? I wish you would categorize somebody else sloppy, messy, petty self talking about you

got a lot of sinners. He said, some of them just come to church because there's pretty girls at Elevation. So you don't think pretty girls need pretty men to get married and have pretty babies and serve a pretty god. I don't care what you come for, care what you get when you get here. Amen, Thank you Jesus. I came for the music. But I got the message. Amen, and he came on home. He came home. You come home and your soul. You know, he came home physically.

Some of us need to come home mentally home. True, you we keep wanting to be seen, but we're not really known because we're only showing the parts of us that we think are acceptable. But then you come to this place in life and you go. I got to go where I'm known. It was fun getting approval from people while I was the one paying the bills. But now I'm broke, and now I know where I can go. And having that home base is so important for a fifteen year old, a fifty year old, an eighty year old.

So he comes on over. He says, h I have sinned. Going His speech goes on and on forever. You know all these ways we beat ourselves up, that God never beats us up. I sinned against Heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. You see it. He is connecting his belonging to his behavior. He's connecting his sense of self worth to his decisions. But why I wanted to preach this message is what

happens next. All of that is good But verse nineteen and twenty is why I stood up to preach today for you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired men. So he got up and went to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw. The father saw, can you put my title back up on the screen. The father saw, while he was still

a long way off, his father saw him. He saw past his clothes that were dirty, He saw past the stench of the pigs that he had been living with, and the decisions that he had made. He saw past the offense and the foolishness and the waste, and he saw him. God sees you, and he was filled with compassion. I ran to him. A rich man doesn't do this in Jewish culture. But he saw him. He saw his son, even though he looked like a slave at the moment. He saw his son. God sees his daughter. God sees

the unique you underneath all the layers and labels. The father saw. The word of the Lord to you today is The father saw. He saw the mistakes that you were going to make before you made them, and he called you anyway. He saw every sin you would commit after he forgave you, and he forgave you anyway. The Father saw. When he looks at your life, he doesn't

see the decisions you made. He sees the death of his son and the righteousness of Christ, and he no longer sees you through the lens of any of your life's lowest moments. The Father saw me through the finished work of his son, Jesus Christ. The Father saw, and the Father said, I see, my son, I see the next of your life. I see this turning around. I see how I'm gonna use this thing in your life. I see how this dry season that you've been through.

I've been preparing the ground. I've been telling the ground've been breaking up the ground. The Father saw. Now, now, do you have the faith to celebrate what you cannot see, to know that God sees something in you that people don't see in you, That your father sees in you what you might not even see in yourself. The Father saw, and he embraced his son because he saw who he

really was. With everyone standing all over the church and no one moving, I want you to see for a moment what the Father saw, because it comes a point in your life where people have said so much about you, and you've said so much about yourself that you no longer see what the Father saw. You know. I was asking God last year, in a moment of doubt, self doubt, what do you see in me? Why do you use me? Not special, not that holy, so far from perfect? What

do you see in me? And I didn't hear a voice out loud, and never have, But it was an impression that he said, I see myself. I put a piece of me in you. In fact, I put all of me in you. And the moment you can see past the patterns of behavior that identify you as a sinner and a slave, and begin to see yourself as the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ, that I am a child of God. It is that revelation that's what

changed my life. It was not changing my behavior. It was the revelation that God sees the real me, and he loves the real me, and he chose the real me, the quirky me, the weird me, the goofy me, the dumb me, to make the same mistake over and over again. Me. He sees past all that people see. He sees past every pretense, every pretension. He sees past every surface construct and he sees me. The Father saw. Maybe nobody else did, but he saw. He sees the desires of your heart.

He sees where you're weak. He is compelled to come closer in that place. Jesus said that God, every hair on your head. What a picture to me that speaks of proximity. You can't count the hairs on my head unless you're close. God doesn't just see me at a distance. He sees me up close, and he sees himself and me. Some of us here have a hard time receiving that word. It sounds like syrup. It sounds like a fairy tale.

It sounds like something that belongs to another world. But there is something on the inside of you trying to tell you right now. What that man is saying is truth from heaven. This is the bread of Heaven. This is the word of God. He sees you. And I know people don't notice. And I know a lot of times you feel uncelebrated, unappreciated, and ineffective. In fact, some of you have been thinking, even this week, would it really even matter if I was here? Would the people

in my life be better off without me? The Father saw, My father saw, he saw something in you that looked like him, and he brought you into this situation, this space and time. I just want to pray for you for a moment, because you're gonna leave here and see all kinds of images of things that make you think your life is down here. But I want you to see something for a moment in your spirit. Close your eyes, lift your hands. We celebrate your presence. God, you have

really really been there for us. Your arms stayed open, your fridge stayed full, you kept our bed ready for us for when we came back to this moment, and we're coming home and our souls this year. We're coming home and our souls this year. We're not eating pig food this year. We're not just gonna stuff ourselves with whatever is most available. But we're coming to your table today. God, not in a matas forracle sense, but really now, in this moment, I asked that you would fill us, be

full of You, full of truth. I really want to pray for the teenagers. God. I don't want them living with pigs. I don't want them feeding on the pods that come from the plants that they would have never even looked at before. But now they got so desensitized to it. God, I prayed that they would, that they would move back to the place where the Father sees. We thank you that even if we're at a distance, you see us. I call that one home today that you know by name. Lord, I don't know the name,

but you do. And as somebody who's hearing this message, and it's like, Oh my God, that's just for me, that's just for me. That's what I needed in this moment. Would you see your word? Heads bowed, eyes closed, with everyone praying, I want to invite somebody to come home to the God who made you in this moment, he's already running towards you. My father saw his son in

the distance. He so loved the world, and he so loved you that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him will not perish, would have everlasting life. And it's by grace that we're saved through faith, not of works. It's a gift of God, so that no

one can boast. And in this moment, whether watching online or here in one of our buildings, if you're ready to come home today and place your full faith in the work of Jesus Christ, what he accomplished on the cross when he died for your sin and believed that he was raised from the dead so you could have new life. I want to pray with you right now. I wish I could do it one on one, but God, God is God is right there with you in this moment,

and He's been calling you and you know it. I want to pray for you right now, and I want you to pray with me. This is a prayer of faith, and if you will pray this from your heart, we're going to pray it out loud. God will hear you, and your sins will be forgiven and you'll be a new creation in his name. The Word of God says, so he is more than enough. With heads about and eyes closed, praying out loud as a church family together for the benefit of those who are coming to God

or coming back to the Father. Let's pray together, Heavenly Father. I am a sinner in need of a savior, and today I make Jesus the Lord of my life. I believe he died that I would be forgiven and rose again to give me life. I receive this new life. This is my new beginning. I am a child of God. If you pray that shoots your hand up on the count of three to one, two three, I'm gonna celebrate you all over this church. Come on, shoot it up high, not tim and shoot it shoot it up high. Come on,

can we celebrate everybody who just came home? Thank you for joining us. Special thanks to those of you who give generously to this ministry. Is because of you that this ministry is possible. You can click the link in the description to give now or visit Elevationchurch dot org slash podcast for more information and if you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe. You can share it with your friends. You can click the share button, take a screenshot and share it on your social stories and tag us at

Elevation Church. Thanks again for listening. God bless you.