In lesson 12, does anybody need an outline for lesson 12? Anybody? So everybody was here this week or last week. Alright. So we were on, the lesson is a child of the Heavenly Father and we covered becoming a child of God. And then we covered God wants everyone to be His child. and then God will never disinherit a family member and then number two was benefits of being God's child and A was we get a family name and we started on B which is inheritance and so we'll pick up in the middle of that one and What is this inheritance that we receive by being a child of God? Well, there's a recitation about Jesus that says, you can't describe him because he is indescribable. That's a little plain, but it's true. The same thing is for our inheritance. We can't describe it fully because, I believe it's in your outline there, 1 Corinthians 2, 9, I hath not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. So, if you ever hear anybody say, well, I know exactly everything about the inheritance, everything God's going to get, they're lying. Because God said, it has not entered into the heart of man. So, we do know some things about it. 1 Peter 1 and 4, excuse me. To an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you. So our inheritance is incorruptible. It cannot decay. It cannot deteriorate. It is imperishable. Unlike everything on earth that decays, our inheritance is perfect and will stay perfect. It's not a trust fund set up somewhere that somebody can steal away. Our inheritance is perfectly preserved. Again, it's undefiled, unsoiled, perfectly clean, uncontaminated, unspotted, untainted. On Earth, there's no such thing as perfectly clean. It's just simply an acceptable amount of contamination. You know, we always say, well, you got germs. Well, you do have germs. But hopefully you have an acceptable amount of germs that your body can handle. But anything on earth is contaminated to some degree, but our inheritance is not contaminated at all. Again, never fades, never changes, never grows old, and never loses its freshness. Our inheritance is secure. Our inheritance on the screen is reserved in heaven for us, that we know for sure. Now, it is not protected by the FDIC. It is protected by the God I will see. That's a whole lot better than the FDIC. No matter what we imagined beforehand, the reality will be even better. And if you've got a good imagination, you can imagine some pretty good stuff about it, but it's going to be, I don't know what you're imagining, but it's going to be better because we're not able to comprehend how good it's going to be. And then we also, as a benefit, we have a home. C is home. have or have had a parent or grandparent that can no longer take care of themselves. Parent or grandparent that can no longer or could no longer, that's most of us. And it gets that way, and I guess more than half the cases, somebody has to take care of that parent or grandparent. Of course, the ideal way is for them to be able to stay at home and somebody take care of them, but it's not always possible. The care of a relative can be a short time A few weeks, but it might be many years. But we know that we will have a place in heaven, a home in heaven, a place to go. Not a retirement home, but a place for an everlasting life home is where we're going. It's not an old folks home, it's a safe folks home. And John 14, two and three says, in my father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also. Jesus is preparing our long-term care facility. And He's been doing it a long time. He's doing a perfect job. And it's not a long-term that we're old. It's just long-term that it's forever where we'll be. Evidently, the Thessalonians had some questions about this. And Paul wrote to them in 1 Thessalonians 4, verses 13 through 18. And this is always a good scripture to read and to study on and to think on. Matter of fact, it tells us at the end that it is, but verse 13, I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep, for the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first, then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and so shall we ever be with the Lord. And this verse 18 is something that we need to do. Wherefore, comfort one another with these words. And you can comfort yourself with these words as well. They are comforting words. In my lap, there we go. One day soon Jesus will come for us in what we call the rapture. Those who have already died will come with him and we will meet them in the air. That last phrase should be the attitude of every Christian. And the rest of who? Us. That will be our attitude that we Us in here are going to meet Jesus in the air. We shouldn't be worried about going by the way of the grave. We should be expecting to meet Him in the air. Paul was expecting to meet Him in the air. How much more should we be expecting to meet Jesus in the air? When we finally reach heaven we will be home. And then D, we receive as a benefit protection. God takes good care of his children. And I don't know why my laptop's trying to freeze this morning. But nothing can happen to us without God's permission. And I know a lot of times things happen to us that we don't understand that are bad but they're good for us and that's difficult to understand how could some very bad things that happen be good for us well God knows and we have to trust his word and that alone sometimes is all that might get us through the situation is knowing that it is for our good but the Bible gives us many illustrations about bad things happening to God's people. One of the biggest illustrations is what happened to Job. Lost everything he had. Friends turned against him. Wife turned against him. But yet, God gave him more in the end than he had in the beginning. The Israelites at the Red Sea. If you're reading the story for the first time, And you see how hard it was for them to get out of Egypt. You say, they're leaving. Boy, everything is going good. But then they get to the Red Sea and the Egyptians are behind them and the mountains are beside them and they have nowhere to go. But God took care of them. He knew that that was the place that they would be in. And of course, they thought they were in trouble. But God saw them through. And then the Jews in the time of Esther, that when Haman, if I've got to remember his name right, was trying to destroy the Jews, God gave Esther the exact way, the exact plan, the exact thing to do to help them out of that persecution. And we have the prophet Elisha, how that things were not going seemingly the right way and his helper was there and he said it looks really bad but Elisha prayed and said Lord I pray they open his eyes that he may see and the Lord opened the eyes of the young man and he saw and behold the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha God is surrounding us with protection Now we're like the young man here, we can't see that protection, but we can know that it's there. We have the protection of God around us at all times. And if something bad happens to us, it's not because the devil found some way to slip in, unbeknowing to God, but God knows exactly what is happening. But Romans 8 and 31 says, what shall then we say to these things if God before us, who can be against us? Knowing that all that God has done in the word of God for his children, all that God has done in our lives previously, we don't need to forget about times that God has brought us through, that God has seen us through illnesses and sicknesses, and God has seen us through hard times. We need to remember those times. We need to reflect back on those times. And then when we come up against something difficult again, it won't seem so bad. Because we know God is in control. And then number three in the lesson is being the right kind of child. As our Heavenly Father, God has a loving desire for us to grow in our relationship with Him every day. He wants us to grow closer to Him every day. Now, as a child of the Heavenly Father who holds our salvation eternally secure, we should have that same desire to grow closer to Him every day of our life. Now, we're human and does it happen? No. but it should be our desire for that to happen, that we draw closer to him. Each of us can do that every day in two simple steps. A, obedience. Exodus 20 and 12 say it tells us to honor thy father and thy mother, that thy ways may belong upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. A young child does not understand much, but he can and should be taught to obey. If you have brought children up or bringing children up, certainly you should teach them to obey you. Proverbs 22, 15, foolishness is bound in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him. You see, you don't have to teach a child to make the wrong decision, you have to teach the child to make the right decision. And I've heard people say, well, I think you ought to let them grow up and make their own mind up. Yeah, if you want problems. Proverbs 22, 6, train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it. What happens when people Don't bring their child upright. They don't teach them right from wrong. They don't teach them to obey. I think this is in Chicago. And mostly young people protesting or they're marching against Israel for Palestine. If you don't know what's going on, you say, well, and what they're saying is Israel is just killing Palestinians left and right. They don't care who they're killing. They don't even consider what the Palestinians have already done beforehand. But then they will protest for Palestine one day and for gay rights the next day. But the Palestinians hang gays in the street. They don't even know what they're doing. Because they haven't been taught anything. They just follow blindly. And we are, as children of God, we are not to follow blindly. We are to follow the Word of God. And we should teach our children, we should learn ourselves that we are to obey the Father and it keeps us out of trouble. Paul instructed children to simply obey their parents, Ephesians 6, 1. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Colossians 3, 20. Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well-pleasing unto the Lord. Will God give us the same commandment in Jeremiah 7, 23? But this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people. And walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you. I remember one time when Caleb was first starting out in basketball at the YMCA. The coach, you know, instructed him. He told all of them. Of course, he can't control what the parent does, You need to keep your studies up. You need to study. You're playing basketball. You got this. Tell them right you know." And I told Caleb, and I don't remember what the grade was, but I said, if you ever make this low of a grade, you're not playing the next game. Guess what? He made one. You know where it was? I don't want to go. Oh, you're going. You're going to sit on the bench. It would have been nothing, no punishment, hardly at all if he didn't go. But it killed him to sit on that bench. But he learned. You know how many more of those grades he made? Zero. At least not when he was playing ball there. I don't think he ever made it that bad again. I don't know. When we obeyed our parents, sooner or later, we were glad we did. We can rest assured when we obey God, we will be very glad that we did. Many people don't obey their heavenly father by living according to his word. And we're not known as perfect, but again, we should have that desire to obey God. James cautions us against living this way, but be ye doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. If you're just coming to church and listening to the word of God and then leaving and living just like everybody else does, you're deceiving yourself. James 4, 17, Therefore to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin. James is a very simple writer. James is not a real long book, but there's a whole lot in it. And that's very simple. If you know to do good and you don't do it, it's sin. Luke 6, 46, And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? So why do we say our Heavenly Father? Why do we say, why do we pray to God please this, God please that? God, yes. Amen. But when we go out of here, if we're not going to live what he tells us to do, why are we doing that? Why would someone do that? Romans 2.13, for not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified. Someone once said, it's not how much of the Bible you learn, it's how much of the Bible you live. If you could quote the whole Bible, if you don't live it, what good does it do? We make a sad sermon of ourselves if we don't live by the word of God. And somebody may use us one day as a bad example in a sermon if we don't live the way God says for us to live. Knowledge without obedience only increases condemnation. We are responsible for what we know. And we have the truth. We have the word of God. And we have it. So we are responsible. You say, well, I haven't read that part yet. It don't matter. You got it. If you can read, you're responsible for it. The second step of being the right kind of child faithfulness as God's children we owe him our faithfulness and our devotion God is an ever faithful father to us 2nd Timothy 2 13 if we believe not or you could say even if we don't believe yet he abided faithful he cannot deny himself so it doesn't matter If we believe it, God is still faithful. So we should be faithful. Doesn't matter what we do, how we act, God is going to be faithful to his word. 1 Corinthians 10, 13. There hath no temptation taken you, but such as is common to man. I know a lot of times things happen to us and we say, well, if I don't do this, something's going to happen. And we know we shouldn't do it, but if we don't do it, then this is going to happen, that's going to happen. And we feel like no one has ever faced temptation this strong, but they have. And God has made a way of escape. but God is faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able but will with the temptation also make a way to escape that you may be able to bear it but if we haven't been obedient and we haven't been faithful yet the way of escape is there but we're not going to see it and we're going to do what we shouldn't do but if we're obedient and we're faithfully obedient, we'll see the way of escape. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for this day that you've given us. Lord, we thank you, Lord, for being our heavenly father. Lord, we thank you for all our benefits. We thank you, Lord, for a home in heaven one day. And Lord, we look for your return. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.