The Father's Pleasure

John & Brandi Belt
John & Brandi Belt

Join John and Brandi Belt as they share how God delights in you.

The Transcription

But we want to just spend a couple of minutes tonight talking to you about the father’s pleasure. You know, it’s so amazing that we get this opportunity really to have relationship with God, you know, and not just that he’s God and control, but that he wants to be God, that’s our father, you know, and that we get the blessing of being his children. So I’m going to just read a quick scripture for us mark one, and starting in verse nine. And that’s kind of what we’re gonna talk about tonight. But in those days, Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee, and was baptized by John in the Jordan. Coming up out of the water, he immediately saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, saying, You are My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. So we just want to spend a couple of minutes talking about that, and just how, you know, Jesus really was an example for us to go and get baptized. But then he gets immersed. And as he’s coming up, right, the Holy Spirit is descending on him. heavens open, The heavens are open, you know, and, and the Holy Spirit is more than just a dove. He’s the person of the Holy Spirit. And he is on you. He’s in you coming out of you. I mean, he is the Holy Ghost. But one of the things we really love about this passage is that it talks about God saying, This is My beloved Son, you know, because your identity is found as a son or as a daughter before anything else. That’s right. And

I believe that even in the natural Jesus, that was the affirmation that he needed at that moment, before he went off in the ministry understand this is, again, a huge affirmation for him, because he’s going out, he’s doing things. And obviously, he lived a life that was pleasing to the Lord, he is 30 years old at that point, and all of the training everything he had done even as a carpenter, everything had led up to this point. And he submits themselves to the baptism of John. And in that the heavens open, the voice comes out and says, This is My beloved Son in whom I’m well pleased, and everybody could hear it. John, the Baptist could hear everybody there could hear this voice. And it was an it was a confirmation to them. But it was also a huge affirmation to Jesus, because of what he was going to do in the next three years, is going out among the people. And just to know, the father’s affirmation how important it is for us, just as an example to us that we need to hear the father’s voice, okay, you are My beloved Son, you’re my beloved daughter, in whom I’m well pleased. And I am with you, I will never leave you or forsake you, I am with you, forever and ever and always. And so Jesus, the most painful point in his life was when he was on the cross. And there’s a moment where he said, My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? And God, he always referred to as his father, right up into that point. But because of the separation and taking on the sins of the world, at that moment, all of a sudden, the reality of being separated from God was happening in Jesus. And so he doesn’t even address his father. But it was, it was like the most empty point in his life, of not experiencing the Father’s love on the cross at that point in time. And so how important it is for us to have his love in our lives. And that’s why in Romans, I believe it’s chapter five, where it talks about how the Holy Spirit pours the love of God into our heart. Yes. And you know, hope does not disappoint us because the love of God is poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. And so how important it is for us to receive Yeah, of the Holy Spirit, and receive that love of God because love is the most important thing.

Yeah, and remember, it’s so important to that you are finding your identity, especially in this season, but really all the time as being a child of God above everything else. You know, it’s easy for us to get caught up in finding identity in status, you know, how much money you make, what kind of vocation you have, how exciting it seems to be it’s easy for people to get caught up in you know, even the labels of my mom or a dad or yeah, all started saving nothing. You can’t take anything out of this. You didn’t bring anything in you can’t take anything out. That’s all false identity.

Definitely. But even people idolize ministry, you know, people find their identity and absorb it and in a platform and in reality, God is saying all of the things of the world all those systems, all the mechanisms, really the spirit of religion, even all those things are against what I am calling you to do which is become a son or daughter, apparently one of our kids is saying hello in the video, but that’s okay. But so you know, God wants you to first find your identity in him. And really how you do that is spending time with him.

It really reveals what you value. You know, when everything is taken away reveals what’s really important to you? What is the most important thing to use it the title is of the position I’m a possible so it’s on profit zone. So I’m this and that and all these kinds of things, is that the money is the big house that you had all this kind of stuff, and got shakes at all, because everything they can be shaken will be shaken. And he’s gonna He’s gonna reveal where your values are. What do you really value? What do you spend time thinking about the most? Is it really him? Or is it ministry? Is it the God of ministry? Or is it God? It’s a big difference. There’s a big difference. And so we want our hearts to be pure before the Lord Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord that has been him who has clean hands and a pure heart does not lifted up his soul to an idol. And anything can become idolatrous. Anything can you know, so we got to lay our hearts before the Lord and say, Hey, we’re here for his affirmation. We’re here to serve Him, us, me, Lord. I’m a living sacrifice for you. And we have an alarm going off what for? I have no idea, but it’s not my phone service. Anyway, God is good. But no, seriously, you know, our affirmation comes from the Lord, you know, we just need to look for that.

And not only that, we want to just encourage you guys during this time again, I know it feels like we’re harping on it. But make sure you’re spending time pressing into God, you know, the greatest thing you will ever do is deepen your intimacy with Him and your relationship with him. And so, honestly, whether it’s five minutes is what you feel like you can do, or five hours, you know, God is not looking so much at the time, but just the effort. And in all reality, the more you make the effort to spend time with him, the more he breathes on it and, and almost grows a hunger in you to spend more and more time and he’ll multiply, you know, time in the natural so you can actually spend that time with him.

Everything is by His grace. Yeah, you know, if our lives are found pleasing to Him, it’s because of the grace of God that Paul said, I am what I am by the grace of God, if there’s anything good in us, it’s by the grace of God, it’s my spirit within us. And so the beautiful thing about grace, it’s, it’s not really to clean up your mess. It’s really to empower you to be all that God has called you to be. He hasn’t called us to be failures, he hasn’t called us to live in sin. He doesn’t call us to live apart from him, but his grace and enables us to be overcomers. To be empowered to receive of the Spirit and to walk in his ways. To even have a passion for His Word and His truth. The Spirit of grace enables us to have all these things to have grace in prayer to have a desire to pray. All these things come from the grace of God that he gives to us. But it’s an enabling power. It’s enabling for us. So we need the grace of God.

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