What a wonderful day to be together worshiping the Lord and studying his word. If you'd open with me to Isaiah chapter 9. Now that's not where we're going to stop this morning, it's where we're going to start. In the Old Testament, I want to introduce to you a thought of how revolutionary it was that Jesus Christ, in his ministry, began introducing people to the concept of knowing and speaking to God as their Father. Now, the fatherhood of God nowadays in liberal churches means that everyone, God is their father, sir, but he's going to heaven. That's not what the Bible proclaims. Rather, the Bible speaks of God and the fatherhood of God is he creatively is the creator of all humans, and so we're all related to him creatively, but not redemptively. That only comes through the Son introducing us to the Father. And that's what we're going to see this morning, starting in Isaiah chapter 9. I want to introduce the Father through the Son to you this morning and show you how that applies to our salvation. Chapter 9, verse 6. And for some of you, I shared this at Christmas, but I noticed at Christmas time people don't usually get their pens out. They have so much on their mind. They're thinking about the parties and the presents and all the family activities that most people come to church and they love it, but they don't Engage completely. So if you haven't marked this in your Bible, then you weren't listening a month ago So I'm going to remind you again. Okay, look at chapter 9 verse 6 for unto us Isaiah 9 6 a child is born This is one of the messianic prophetic passages of Christ's birth 600 years before he was Incarnated this beautiful passage a child is born a son is given speaking of God The son eternally existing God the Father God the Son God the Holy Spirit The government will be upon his shoulder. Isn't that amazing? In the millennial reign when Christ is ruling the whole planet, he only needs one shoulder. Most people would need it on their shoulders. You know what I mean? We need everything. You know, he is God, so he can handle it all just on one shoulder. But look at this, and his name will be called, and here are four great titles. And I want to explain these, just underline them in your minds. Wonderful Counselor is the first one. The second one is Mighty God. Everlasting Father is the third. Prince of Peace is the fourth. If you're a Bible marker, this is what I have marked in my Bible. Number one, he's a wonderful counselor, so we never have to be confused. You ever notice how many people go through life confused? They lose their job, they're confused. What's God doing? They lose their health, they're confused. What is God doing? Things don't go the way they planned with the partner in life or the happy, wonderful life they thought they would have, and they're all confused. And the Lord says, I have come to live among you as your wonderful counselor. You ever met people who say, well, I have to go talk to my counselor? They're talking about a human. And they're dependent on that counselor to tell them what to do. Jesus Christ said, I am your wonderful counselor. All we do here is we turn people and remind them and focus them back on the Word of God. But Jesus Christ, using His Word, is our wonderful counselor. You know, you don't have to go through life confused, wondering what's going on. Jesus Christ wants to show you His pathway and guide you into all truth. And if we will follow Him, in his presence, his fullness of joy. So number one, if you're a Bible marker, he's the wonderful counselor, so we never have to be confused. He's the mighty God, so we never have to be afraid. And if you want to write this down, I remember I was just, five weeks ago, I was at some concert somewhere and someone spotted me in the audience and they said, oh, and Pastor Barnett's out there. Could you stand and pray for us? And so I had just preached on this in the morning service. And so I was there that afternoon at a different church. And so I just prayed. Thank you for being our wonderful counselor, so we never have to be confused. Thank you for being the mighty God, so we never have to be afraid. Thank you for being this everlasting Father, so we never have to be alone. And thank you for being the Prince of Peace, so we don't have to be anxious. I actually had people come up as soon as they got done praying and said, could you write that down for us? And I said, oh, you weren't in church. You should write that in your Bible. Then you can share it too. Okay, so he's a wonderful counselor, never confused, mighty God, never afraid, everlasting Father, never alone. When we moved to Oklahoma five or six or seven or ten years ago, whenever it was, it was a long time ago, we moved from New England where they don't really have thunderstorms, and I found out why. They have them all here. And we were in this little Broken Arrow duplex. We had three bedrooms, three children in each bedroom, and Bonnie and I in the third bedroom. And I remember the first boomer. You know what a boomer is? Here, you can hear them coming. Boom, you know, the huge thunderstorms. And I remember as our windows were shaking, you could hear them squeaking in the apartment. Gradually, more and more of the children showed up in our room. Why is that? The thunderstorm was just as present everywhere, but what do you feel comfort when you're around the strength of your father. And that's what the Lord is saying. He says, when your life, when the boomers come, whether they're financial boomers. In fact, this morning in the prayer room, the elders met and we were praying for the Kenworthys and for Susan in the hospital. And what we were praying is that In the darkness, she wouldn't be confused, that in the physical condition she wouldn't be afraid because her everlasting Father's arms are around her. See what Jesus, it was a novel idea that he was introducing, that he could be the wonderful counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father. So everlasting Father, so we never have to be alone, and Prince of Peace, so we never have to be anxious. That's what he offers. Now, turn back to chapter 11 of Luke with me, and that's where we're going to start this morning. In fact, we're going to read in just a few moments. What we're doing is, and if you want to use your notes, there's a fresh one in the bulletin and we filled in all the answers for number 1 through 11. All that you have missed. If it's your first week, you're all caught up. All the answers that we've been filling in the blanks are done. We're starting at number 12 down here in the bottom left corner inside. And if you want to follow along, we'll be filling some of those in. I'll kind of put little hooks on the wall for you to store your thoughts. and to remember some things. But we're looking at the Master's message. We're looking at how Jesus presented salvation, described salvation, how he encouraged people, and what the new relationship they were to have with God as Father is all about. And that's where we're going to start this morning. Because Jesus said, if you are my disciple, then you get to go through life with me revealing God, who seems so far away to most people, to you as your ever-present Father. So you don't have to be confused. So you don't have to be afraid. So you don't have to go through life feeling alone. So you don't have to live in anxiety and taking pills so you're not anxious and drinking to relax you because you're so anxious. You don't have to have those crutches. You don't have to have some physical thing to hold on to because you can feel spiritually the everlasting arms of God. We have the greatest of life. We have eternal joys in God's presence, and we live a heavenly life on earth. I mean, that's the most powerful thing, and if we would just live it, as we'll see this morning, people would come to us begging us to find out how we have that, because it's so unearthly. But, we're going to see, starting in chapter 11, in just a moment, we're going to read the first four verses, we're going to see Jesus Christ, and in your notes, He says the evidence of his children, Christ's children, is they began to seek God in a new relationship. And we're gonna go through those one at a time. As Jesus points out in this, what we call the Lord's Prayer, this is not the Lord's Prayer, it's actually a disciple's prayer. The Lord's Prayer is in John 17. That's what Jesus prayed to his father. This is what we, as his children, pray to our father. But before we read this, I'd just like to remind you, if church traditions are correct, then the four men who wrote these four Gospels that we're studying certainly knew God as their Father. Certainly they had a relationship that was perfect with Him, so that as they went through life, they weren't confused and afraid and alone and anxious. Why? Well, Matthew had to have known the reality of God as his ever-present Father, because he was actually cut He was cut to death with a sword. The guy that wrote Matthew, the apostle Matthew, he was cut in pieces with a sword. The mob was so enraged that someone had a sword and they basically hacked him to death. Mark, who wrote the second gospel, knew the reality of God as his ever-present Father so he wouldn't be confused and afraid and alone and anxious. When he suffered death in Alexandria, that's modern-day Egypt, as they dragged him through the city behind a chariot. They tied him up and dragged him over the cobblestones until he died. So he was dragged to death, the gospel writer of the second gospel. The third gospel, which we're looking at this morning, Luke experienced that same reality of God as his ever-present father. When he was hanging to death, they hung him from a large olive tree in his native land of Greece. So he was kind of like a Wild West lynching. He was killed that way. And then John, who wrote the fourth gospel, had a realization of God as his ever-present father when he was scarred and horribly tortured in a cauldron of boiling oil. They fried him, basically. John was lowered down into boiling oil, kind of like French fries. And he amazingly, according to church tradition, survived with much difficulty and was, as we know, exiled on Patmos. That's what they knew. They knew Jesus Christ, who told them, when they came to know Him, that He, Jesus, would introduce them to God as their Heavenly Father. So no matter what they went through, prison, torture, martyrdom, or just everyday ho-hum life, they wouldn't have to be confused about it. They wouldn't have to be alone. They'd go through it with Him. They wouldn't have to be afraid. He's there. And they wouldn't have to ever be anxious about the future. Let's meet God as Father this morning. Would you stand together with me? Let's listen to the Lord Jesus as I read verses 1 through 4 of Luke chapter 11. Now, it came to pass as he was praying in a certain place. Now, just a second, look up. Luke teaches more about prayer than any other gospel account. Jesus is praying more in the gospel by Luke than any other of the four gospels. And so Jesus, at one of the times he was praying in a certain place, when he finished, you can just imagine, here's Jesus, you know, out in some remote place and just bowed down and crying out to God and all the disciples are standing around watching him and just listening to everything. And so when he got done, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray. John, as in John the Baptist, taught his disciples. And so he said to them, when you pray. That's why this is a disciple's prayer. He's teaching disciples how to pray. It's not how he prays. He doesn't need to be forgiven. He doesn't need those to do God's will perfectly. He already did. This was for us, for them and us as a result. It's interesting. He never taught them how to preach. He only taught them how to pray. And those men said, we will give ourselves continually to prayer and the ministry of the word. And they became the most powerful representatives. Here's the prayer. Continuing in verse 2, our Father in heaven, our heavenly Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come and will be done on earth like it is in heaven. How is it done in heaven? Perfectly. So in my circle on earth, I want it to be done that way too. Give us day by day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one." What a wonderful reminder that God's children's prayers reflect their relationship to their Father. Let's bow before Him. Father in heaven, we come in the name of Jesus and we pray that you would open our hearts, open our minds, work through your spirit in the privacy of our wills, that we might make choices today, choices to obey and to follow, choices to turn from and forsake that which is not pleasing, but to follow and embrace that which pleases you. With our whole heart, we want to seek you. We're so aware that we wander at times, and we want you to draw us even closer that, as the hymn writer said, the things of earth would grow strangely dim. We pray for any who are not yet related to you as their Father. Creatively, they know that maybe you made them, but redemptively, they've never met you. Jesus has not yet introduced you, dear Father, to them. I pray that they would say yes, that they would acknowledge that you alone are their only hope, and that they would turn in faith to you and from their sins. and call out to you today. And for us who know you, may our hearts be stirred with what your true children look like, and may we choose to follow you in this way this morning. We'll thank you for what you do in our midst, for Christ's sake. Amen. As you're seated, I want to remind you that in your little notes there, number 12, the evidence of Christ's children, Now let's take apart this prayer, the Lord's Prayer, in a real simple way. And I would encourage you, I only give you the note sheet if you don't want to write in your Bible. I mean I write all these in my Bible so that every time when I read to the kids I can preach these things over again. So you can do the same and underline it in people's minds. But our Father who art in heaven. So Christ's children, number one in your notes, seek God as their Father. Remember what Jesus said? He said, He said, the lost, their father is a devil, John 8, 44. He says, you're just like your father devil. He was a murderer from the beginning. He abode not the truth. When he lies, he speaks of his own, for he is a liar and the father of it. So you and I either walk according to our earthly father, the devil, that's how we were when we were born. or we've been born from above and we begin to look like and respond to and act like our father in heaven. It's a choice. And you can tell. Jesus said, I can tell who's your father by how you act. You might act like your father the devil. And he came to kill and steal and to destroy. And so if you are hateful and if you are greedy and if you are one who is just marked by that and by untruthfulness and all that, he says you're of your father the devil. Because those whose father is in heaven act differently and look differently. You know, we lived in California when we moved to New England, and little James was born in New England. You know, it was normal, I guess, in New England to have three children, so they didn't see anything. But when Julia was born, we had, you know, went by the zero population growth mark, and so the nurses thought they should talk to us at Rhode Island Hospital. And I remember the nurse sitting down with Bonnie and I, and she looked right at Bonnie and she said, have all of your children had the same father? And, you know, they, you know, it was just, I guess, their protocol. And I smiled and I said, yeah, don't they all look like me? And she said, no, they don't. You know, and so, you know, thanks a lot. They look like Bonnie. And that was fine. But, you know, I started thinking about the fact that people look at children and they wonder who their father is. And we live in a culture where I guess it's increasingly, they might not know who the Father is, but you know what God said? He says, you should bear the image of your Father in heaven. And the works of your Father you will do. And that's what Jesus Christ emphasized. What does that show up as? Well, look at the second line of this. Our Father which art in heaven, they claim God as Father. Hallowed be your name. The evidence of Christ's children is, and in your notes, they seek to worship Him. What is the evidence of salvation? We become no longer worshippers of ourselves and worshippers of our pleasures and worshippers of this earth. But we are those who worship God in the Spirit. That's what Philippians 3 says. For we are those that have been regenerated, Paul says. For we worship God in the Spirit. What does John 4.24 say? God seeks us to worship Him. The evidence of salvation is a desire to worship God. And so that's a change, because we weren't born that way. And he says, we become those who are hallowing, who are worshiping God's name. So we seek to worship Him. Look at the next line. Your kingdom come. We are submitting to Him. That's what goes at the bottom of the page in that little line. Submitting to Him. We submit our will, our choices, our ways to Him. That's what it means to be in His kingdom. That's what it means to be acknowledging Him as Lord. We say, not my will, Jesus said, but what? Thine be done. Submitting to Him. God's children look like Him. He's their father. They don't look like their father the devil anymore. They don't walk according, as Ephesians 2, 1 says, according to the course of this world, according to the power, the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the sons of disobedience. We walk according to the indestructible life, the power of God. We look like God, we worship God, and we are submitting to God. Do you know one of the basic characteristics of a born-again person? They are submissive. Their life, they are not like the culture in America. I'm an island, and I live my own life, and I do it my way. No, they say, it's not my life. I'm bought with a price. I do it his way. They're submitting and it's a difference. It's very visible difference we have. The next one is verse 3. Look at this. Give us day by day our daily bread and forgive us our sins. We are, the next line if you're taking notes, depending on Him. We're depending on God for our forgiveness. We're not earning it ourselves. We're depending on God for our salvation. We didn't merit it ourselves. And we are depending on Him even for our daily life. Now, Someone recently compared the whole population of the world to a room full of 100 people. So 6 billion people, each person would equal like, what, 100 people would equal 60,000 or 60 million or whatever. I'm not a mathematician, but if the whole world was distilled down to a room of 100, 7 of the people would be America. We're 7% of the world's population, and guess what? we would have over 60% of all the stuff. So let's speak in doughnuts, okay? If 100 people had 100 doughnuts, 7 of them would take 5 dozen of those doughnuts and sit up there in their corner and eat them. And the other 93 would split 3 dozen doughnuts between them. Now, what does that mean? Well, it means that We live in a country where it's very easy for us to not say, God, give me my daily bread. Most people, between Social Security and their pension, they don't need anybody to give them daily bread. They're going to have everything they want for the rest of their life. And it's very hard for us to get this in our mind that we are to be, as it says, depending on Him. You know what? Every time we have a meal, I remind the children that we should be grateful we even have food. Even have it. I mean, did you read this week? The power went out in California. You know, that rolling blackout. And they made the mistake of turning the power off for 18 hours to the refinery out there. Do you realize that those people only keep so many hours of gasoline in California? And they turned off the refinery. And so the gas stations all ran out because they have to be refilled every 12 hours. Or they run out because those people drive so much out there. They don't have horses like we do. You know what I mean? And so they're spending all their money buying gas. And so here is finally our culture is realizing that they have to depend at least on the power company. But God says, don't just depend on the power company, depend on me to give you your daily bread. There has to be a conscious choice. It doesn't mean that I'm going to go home with empty cupboards and hope that something materializes. It means that when I pull out of the cupboards or off from the shelves of the store, I am grateful to God. He even let me have life and breath and enough money to buy food. It's a life of dependence. And so we are, if you're taking notes, depending on Him. That's a mark of a Christian. The next one is, it says, for we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. We are loving others. The Lord says that a Christian is characterized by being forgiving of others when they trespass against us and when they hurt us and when they harm us in whatever way. Just for you to think about this, if we are not characterized by loving others so that we will forgive them and not hold grudges and be bitter against them, if we don't do that as Christians, we already know what's going to happen, right? Matthew 18 says this, Jesus said, if you don't forgive your brother as God forgave you, then I will send the torturers to you. Read Matthew 18 sometime. I meet, as a pastor, and talk to a lot of people, I meet people who are being tortured because of their unforgiving spirit. And they can't figure it out. They're just unhappy all the time because they have no place in their heart to forgive others. And God says, if you do not show the forgiveness I've shown to you to others who offend you and who come to you seven times in a day and say they repent and they're sorry, if you will not forgive them, if you will be bitter and angry against them, God says, I will not let you have my peace in your life. If you are restless and without peace, either you're unsaved or you're acting like an unsaved person and not being forgiving. And the Lord says we should be loving others and forgiving them. Here's the next one. Do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. And here's the last thing for your notes. We should be seeking holiness. The evidence of a believer is that they are depending on God for all they need. They are worshiping God. They are submitting to God. He is their Father. They're loving others and they're seeking to live a holy life. Part of the erosion of Christian culture is that that's been lost. And that's not being taught. The Scriptures say, follow after holiness, in Hebrews 12, without which no one will see God. A Christian is characterized by following holiness, pursuing holiness, hating sin, fleeing sin, renouncing all the hidden things of darkness, and purifying from every filthiness of the flesh, as it says in 2 Corinthians 7, and pursuing holiness. So the Lord says, the evidence of Christ's children, if you're a note-taker, God is their Father, they're worshiping Him, they're submitting to Him, they're depending on Him, they're loving others, and they're seeking His holiness. Well, let's continue, because the next one's even more interesting. I'll give it to you right away. Number 13, Jesus called in chapter 11, and move your eyes down to verse 28, He moved to a new topic. Now, if you're keeping notes, Jesus called for inside Outedness. You say, what is that? That's a cute word, okay? I made it up. Inside outedness. How do you like that? I thought of it the other day. We were headed off somewhere, and you know, it's easy with the big four, but the bottom four, we have four older children and four younger children. The bottom four, you know, they get mixed up where their shoes are and everything, but somehow we got them all in the car, and as they were getting out, I looked, and one of the buddies had his sweatshirt on inside out. And I thought, well, that's okay. The new fashion is they've seen people, they wear their tags out nowadays. I guess they're on the outside. They buy them that way. I think it costs more if you have your tag on the outside for everyone to see, you know, extra large, you know, or whatever. But it wasn't meant, and his little sweatshirt tag was sticking out, and so I said, oh, honey, just a second. I pulled it off of him and put it on him the right way. He actually had it backward, so the tag was in the front, and it was really cute. But as I saw that and I was flipping all around, I thought, wait a minute. Look at verse 28. of chapter 11, but he said, more than that, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it. Keep it where? They don't just hear it, it's not just out here, but it comes inside of them. And you know what? A truly born-again person, it says in James chapter 1, has received the engrafted Word, which is able to save their soul. What did we see last week? The Word doesn't just land on top of the soil, it takes root. I was hitting that last week. It's rooted in your life. And you know what? It comes from the outside to the inside of your life, and it starts affecting you. Here's how it affects you. Look at verse 34. When we have this inside-outedness, what's inside us shows up on the outside. The lamp of the body, verse 34, is the eye. Therefore, when your eye is good, your whole body is full of light. What's inside shines out. But when your eye is bad, your body also is full of darkness. Do you remember the last line of Robert Conrad's famous book, Lord Jim? What's the last line? Oh, the horror. What was it? It was the heart of darkness in Lord Jim, the guy in the jungle. Didn't you have to read that in classics? I think I went to school a long time ago. We used to read substantial books in the old days. And they were about themes, moral themes, in the public schools. And Conrad was saying that this guy, Lord Jim, had focused so much on evil that when he died, his last words were, Oh, the horror of a heart of darkness. Where did he get that concept from? Right here. If your eye is bad or evil, everything inside of you will be full of darkness. Here's the positive side. What? We can only see where your head goes, but God knows what your eyes are looking at. What do your eyes focus on? What do your eyes seek out when you're alone? When you're reading magazines or books, what do your eyes look for? What is it you're seeking after? When you're watching television, what is it that draws your attention? When you go to the movies, what is it you want to see? When you're cruising around in the internet, what is it you want to see? When you're out in everyday life, what is it that your eyes goat for. Because what Jesus is saying is, if you have good eyes, if you focus on that which is good, it means on the inside there is a hunger for good. But if your eyes focus on evil, and darkness, and the flesh, and wickedness, and even materialism, which is a part of the God of this world empire, stuff, fashion, nice stuff, all the time, living for it, that's a mark at the inside. is not godly, because God says, My people will desire that which brings light, which is righteous, which is holy. So, he said, good eyes, you focus on the light. Now, here's the last one. Here's the conclusion of his whole discourse, verse 39. Then the Lord said to him, chapter 11, verse 39. This is the last aspect of this inside outed living. Now you Pharisees, You make the outside of the cup and dish clean, but your inside, your inward part, is full of greed and wickedness. He said, you really clean up nice, but you're filthy on the inside. I was thinking about that this morning. I can't believe how much I thought this morning in first service. I remembered moving here and when we had the moving van come in New England, you know how, have you ever had one of them come? They come with a whole crew and big boxes and paper and they just grab everything in sight and they're wrapping as fast as they can. I think they get paid by how much wrapping paper they use. So they were just wrapping and putting in and the person that did the quote, they said, don't leave anything out. If you leave anything out, they'll wrap it. I didn't know he meant that. And I came from Dunkin' Donuts, and I had my, that's a chain in the east, and big, white Dunkin' Donuts cup, you know, the grande, and I had it right there. And I had this little rag and a little bar of soap, and I was, because your hands get dirty, you know, I was cleaning, and I had my little rag, and I was wiping stuff off, and I set my grande down in my rag with the soap in it on the counter, and I went to talk to the guy out in the truck. I came back, and my grande was gone, and my rag was gone, too. Eight months later. When I was unwrapping boxes, I found my Dunkin' Donut cup. They had wrapped it up, and it was right there. I had finished it, but he had, I had finished all but a little bit, and it was a lot of cream and stuff. It was just, you know what it looks like, you know, after it sits for eight months? It was like that. I found a fuzzy washcloth. Have you ever seen mold, how it grows on a wet rag, you know? And it was just inside of that paper, fuzzy, and the bar of soap wrapped up You know, I thought about the Pharisees. That cup looked so pretty on the outside, and that wrapping paper looked so pretty on it, but when I opened it up, there was a molded fuzzy rag and a rotten, sour cup. Still pretty on the outside. But look what the Lord says, on the inward part, the way I see you, what you're really like on the inside is going to matter on the outside for eternity and it's full of greed, the end of verse 39, and wickedness. So what's the opposite of that? Christians, born again people, number one in verse 28, on the inside. The Word of God is there. Number two, verse 34, on the inside there's good and that's what their eyes are looking for. And when they get a chance to look at anything and seek out anything, they're seeking for good stuff. And number three in verse 39 at the end, they are contented and clean on the inside. They're not greedy. They're not always unsatisfied and wanting more and wishing for this and lusting after that. They are not greedy. They're content. And they're not, the very last word, wicked. They're clean. See what Jesus said? Jesus called for inside-outedness. I want you to be on the inside, what people consider to be nice on the outside. I want that to be what you really are. I want you to wear your spiritual lives like a buddy with the tag on the outside. Let everybody see what you are on the inside, on the outside. And let it be the Word, and let it be light, and let it be contented goodness. Didn't Jesus speak? I mean, can't you see the dirty cup? He spoke in such clear terms. Well, let's just do one more. Turn to chapter 12, and we're going to start in verse 8. Here's the last one. It's number 14 in your notes. And you can be assured of heaven. Now, isn't this what we would all... I mean, this should be something important to all of us. You can be assured of heaven, Jesus says, if you have these elements in your life, and you might want to write them in, and then I'm going to show them to you in the text, okay? The first line, under 14, you can be assured of heaven if you are, number one, Christ-confessing. I'll explain it to you. If you want to take notes, write, Christ confessing, comma, the next one, God wealthy. Oh, you say, these are funny ways of speaking. Well, it's kind of a simplistic way of looking at it. And I'll explain that to you in a minute. So God wealthy, Christ confessing, here's the next one, kingdom seeking. That's the third one. And the last one is heavenly hearted. Okay, let me show them to you in the text. And again, If you write in your Bible, you can write it right in. I haven't written right in mine. Here's verse eight. And also I say to you, and by the way, this is the beginning of a big discourse. Look, in chapter 12, Jesus starts talking halfway through verse one, and Jesus finishes talking in verse 59. So this is one of those complete discourse chapters. Jesus is preaching message after message, and look what he says in verse eight. And also I say to you, whoever confesses me, Jesus said, my people, the people that are my sheep, the people that belong to me, the people that are going to live with me in my Father's house forever, those people confess me. What does confess Christ mean? It means two things. It means I confess my allegiance, my ownership, my only salvation in Christ. That means that I proclaim that. That's one thing it means. The other thing, confess means to say the same thing. I say the same thing about Jesus Christ that He says about Himself. I confess He is the Lord. I confess He is God the Son. I confess He's my only hope, my Redeemer. All those things. So there's a two-fold nature. One is my confession of my salvation only through Him. The other is my confession of Him being God, supreme, Lord over all. And I acknowledge that. So there's a two-fold confession here. But a true believer is both. Christ confessing. This one seems to speak of saying in front of people that I belong to Jesus Christ. He's bought me and saved me and redeemed me. But number one, Christ confessing. Keep going down through verse 13. And I want to read this whole thing to you. So Jesus is talking about confessing Christ and someone from the crowd says in verse 13, Hey teacher, tell my brother, To divide the inheritance with me, the folks died and he took all the money. And Jesus said, man, who made me to be a judge or an arbiter over you? And he said to them, take heed and beware of covetousness. For one's life does not consist in how much stuff he has. You could have fooled me. Watch the news, read the paper, look at television. I mean, the people that our world showcases as the happiest are the ones that have the most stuff. And you know what? They're most unhappy ones. Because the tree of happiness does not grow in a sin-cursed earth. You can't truly be happy apart from Jesus Christ. But they appear to be happy, and they have so much stuff, we think they must be happy. So Jesus says, okay, I'll show you a rich person. They're not happy. Verse 16, he spoke a parable to them and said, the ground of a certain man yielded plentifully. He had a really prosperous business and he thought within himself, wow, what am I going to do? I don't have any more room to store all the junk I've got. Verse 18, so he says, this I'll do. I'll pull it down. My storage places, I'll build bigger storage places and I'll store all the stuff and all my crops and goods. And verse 19, here's the key, the heart of what was wrong. And I will say to my soul, You notice who's absent from this conversation? Who's he talking to? Himself. Well, look at all this stuff. I'm going to... Oh, I got more and more. Oh, I'm going to find a place to store it all. I'm going to keep it. Well, I'll just keep multiplying it. And who was left out of the equation? God. You see, for a Christian, anything we get in life is a test from God to acknowledge He is the owner. And we are just the stewards. Now, just put this into modern day life. The accounting department at a mega corporation that's making $100 billion a year in sales, General Motors, the accounting department knows that the money coming in to the corporation and the money going out is not theirs. If they think it's theirs, they go to jail, right? It's not theirs. They just, they receive it and they dispense it. They don't keep it. That's called a servant of the company, a steward of the money. God says, we are his stewards, and he gives us our life, our breath, and all the material stuff we get in life. Not for us to say, wow, what am I going to do? If I get a seven-year, double my money every seven years, I'll be able to retire at 51. Wow, I'm going to do that. And I'm talking to myself and planning it all, and God says, you left me out. Because I gave you that for you to say, God, what do you want me to do with this? All I have has come from you, and so everything I have belongs to you. Therefore, nothing I have do I possess. It's all because of you." So what do you want me to do with it? See the difference in attitude? Well, this guy didn't have that. He's talking to himself. Verse 19, he says, "'Soul, you got a lot of stuff laid up for many years. Why don't you take, you know, kick back, eat, drink, and be merry?' But God said to him, This night, your soul, your immortal, eternal, endlessly living soul, is going to be required of you. You're going to be called before the bench, and you're going to have to answer for your stewardship. Then, what are you going to do with all those barns? We know the story. He leaves it all behind. But look at verse 21. Here's the key. So is he who lays up treasure for himself. And look at the end. and is not rich toward God. So what is a truly born-again person? Verse 21 says they are God-wealthy. Not earthly wealthy, not self-made, but they're God-wealthy. Their wealth has come from God. Their wealth belongs to God. Their wealth is at God's command. Now, God has commanded that if you don't take care of your family, you're worse than infidel. It says that you should be like the ant and store up for the winter. There's nothing wrong with preparing for old age and for weakness and sickness and need and everything else. But I'll tell you what, the seven Americans sitting up in the corner with the 60 donuts just doesn't work. And that's what's happened. And America's... We just want to collect it all. Here's the next one. Look at verse 31. Jesus said, Christ confessing, verse 8, verse 21, God wealthy, verse 31, but seek the kingdom of God. A true believer will be kingdom seeking. What does that mean? God compares in the book of Revelation, he narrows down everyone on the earth to be earth dwellers or citizens of heaven. Either their whole orientation is earth and they're planning on being here forever and act like it, or their orientation is heaven and they're planning on being there forever and they act like that. And so what a verse 31 kingdom seeker is, someone who seeks God to rule in their lives because they know they're going to live with God forever, they're going to worship God forever, they want to submit to him now because they're going to be his servant forever, and they seek that kingdom. So they seek him as king. Here's the last one, verse 34. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." What Jesus talks about is that they become heavenly hearted. And he explains that. Look at verse 37. Blessed are the servants whom the master, when he comes, he finds them watching. They're looking for the Lord. Verse 38. It will be good for those servants whose masters find them watching. The whole concept of of heavenly heartedness of those who are seeking God's kingdom and kingdom seeking is that they realize that life is so short and they want to live forever and they want to do things that matter forever. I'm writing the annual report. It's coming up in two weeks and my part of it. You know, one of the defining moments in our church, we committed to this VBI thing and you all gave almost $300,000 Forty men from our church either are going or have gone. But the highlight was when the whole institute opened and they interviewed the students. And they said to the students, what do you plan on doing in five years? And that one student said, well, I plan on being in heaven because my town is Muslim and they kill everybody that comes back that's a Christian. Wow. That's a defining moment. What do you have in your life that will matter in heaven? Think about it. Jesus said, You can be assured of heaven if you're Christ-confessing, God-wealthy, kingdom-seeking, and heavenly-hearted.