Morning Chapel Prayer Playlist
Morning Chapel Prayer Today
Worship leader…
Good morning, everybody.
Well, for those of us who live in America, Father’s Day is on Sunday. I know some of us have had good relationships with our fathers. And some people don’t. Some people don’t even have a relationship with their fathers.
Elijah’s experience running away and hiding is an example of God as our father…
I was spending time with the Lord this morning, and He took me to 1st Kings 19. He showed me how this is actually an interaction between a father and a child. We know it as the story of Elijah running after what happened with the prophets of Baal. And he goes under the tree and he’s just like, “I’m done. I want to die. My life is over. I’m finished.” But what God showed me is His heart as a father through all of this… And for those of you that have kids or had little kids at one point, you know when they’re tired and hungry and they need a nap and a snack. And God being the good father that He is, that’s what He does. He’s like, “Okay, you just need to go take a nap for a while. We’ll come back to you in a minute.”
So He lays him down, feeds him the best food, the food from heaven. Elijah’s still not in a great mood when he gets up, so God’s like, “Okay, go take another nap and we’ll have some more food.” Being the good Father He is.
But then when Elijah gets up the second time, and he still has questions. Finally, he’s awake and rested enough to be able to verbalize what he wants. But even then, God’s like, “You know, you don’t really need the answer yet. That’s not really what you need.” And being the good Father that He is, He sees the fear just like we do with our little kids. Maybe it’s a storm, maybe they think there’s a monster under the bed, or whatever it is. And we know they just need to be held and whispered to, “I’m here. It’s going to be okay? I’m here.”
And that’s what God does, right? He whispers. And once Elijah hears the whisper, he can articulate again. And finally, God can give him the answer. Because He’s a good Father, He met all of the other needs first. If He would’ve given Elijah the answer without first feeding him, making sure he was rested, making sure he wasn’t afraid anymore and all worried and scared, would we really call that a good father? No, probably not.
It sounds like that’s what we need…
We think we know what we need. But just like our toddlers who think they know what they need, we can be toddlers. I hate to say it, but we can. And God, in all of His wisdom, knows what we need and the order in which we need it. So sometimes we think we need answers and He’s like, “No.” Sometimes you need to rest. Sometimes you need to just know that He’s here, because He’s a good father.
So if you’re not sure why God’s doing what He’s doing, just remember Elijah. Pretty sure he was confused as to why God was doing what He was doing. But God is a good Father.
Pastor Heather…
I think it’d be appropriate to talk about God as our Father. Father’s Day is coming up. Also, I need to introduce myself. Hello, I’m Heather Sibinski. I’m one of the pastors here at Living Word. We have Father’s Day coming up and everybody’s in a different place with that.
Some people, that’s a good thing.
Some people, it’s a painful thing.
Some people have lost fathers.
Some people have really difficult relationships with their fathers.
Some people don’t have a relationship with their fathers.
Our natural fathers are symbolic of our spiritual Father…
The Father plays such an important role in our lives and our identity of who we are, and that’s very symbolic obviously of our Father God. He speaks identity over us, and there’s a lot of us with some daddy issues in the natural maybe even the spiritual as well. How you relate to God, how you understand Him, how you communicate with Him, how you fellowship with Him, how your heart connects with Him. A lot of that might be through the filter of your own natural relationship with your father or the lack thereof.
Pastor Heather’s testimony…
And I know for me, and a lot of you know my testimony, it took me a very long time to wipe the face of not-present fathers off of the face of God and to understand how much He loved me. I didn’t have to perform for that. I didn’t have to earn that. And to understand that He wasn’t far away. He wasn’t absent.
Romans 8—the spirit of adoption…
I want to read Romans 8:15–16 in the Amplified. “For the Spirit, which you have now received is not a spirit of slavery to put you once more in bondage to fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption, the spirit producing sonship in the bliss, which we cry Abba Father. The Spirit Himself testifies together with our own spirit assuring us that we are children of God.”
I love the way the Message Bible says it:
“This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike “What’s next, Papa?” God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what’s coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance!”
Some of us still walk through life like orphans…
His Spirit touches our spirit and confirms who we really are. We are His children, sons and daughters of the king, heirs of the kingdom. I think a lot of us are still walking through life like orphans. And I’ll admit, sometimes I catch myself doing that. I catch myself… “I got this, God, I’m good. I can take care of this. I can meet that need. I can do this. I can perform. I can use my own strength.”
He says, “Let me father you.”
And there’s so many times in my life that I’ve heard Him say to me, “Let me Father you.” And for some of us, it’s a difficult concept to understand if we have those things in our past. What does that mean to be fathered? It means to allow somebody to come in, to help you, to provide, to care for you, to go out in front of you and do those things.
If you know any of my testimony, my biological dad was not a part of my life. My mom left him when I was one. He was just young and into drugs and just not ready to be a dad. And so later on in life, when she married who I call dad now, my stepdad at that time… When I was probably in about third or fourth grade, he adopted me to take his name. And I’ll never forget, I walked into class and they stood up. They had me stand up and the teacher had to tell the whole class, “Okay, this is no longer Heather’s last name. This is her new last name, because she was adopted.” And all the kids came up to me and said, “Oh, were you like an orphan in an orphanage?” They didn’t understand. And I had to explain, “Well, no, my stepdad adopted me so I could take his last name and now he’s my dad.”
As adopted children, God is our father…
But the really cool thing is, if you look at my birth certificate… they literally change your birth certificate. It has my stepdad’s name on it, like he is my biological father. And so now think of that in the realm of what we’re talking about now. You are a child of God. Your birth certificate when you came into the kingdom of God was changed to His name. He is your Father.
And I just thought that was so amazing. There’s no record of anybody else. If you were to look, that is my birth certificate now. And how much more powerful is it when God becomes our father, that there’s no history of who we were before. That’s who we are. It changes our identity legally, spiritually. Do you see what I’m saying?
If you have daddy issues, just know “you’re not alone…”
And so if you’re out there and you might have some daddy issues like I had some daddy issues, just know that you have a Father that loves you so much and you are called into His kingdom. You’re not an orphan. You’re not a slave. You’re not a servant. You are a child of God. And with that being a child comes privileges, rights. You are an heir of the kingdom.
If I walk into my home, I don’t have to ask my dad if I can have a glass of water. I can just help myself because he’s my father. He’s not going to say, “Well, you didn’t ask me. That’s not yours. That doesn’t belong to you.” No. Once you are in the family, you have rights. I can walk into their home. My kids can walk into my home. They don’t have to ask because they’re my kids. They don’t have to ask if they can eat something. They don’t have to ask. Well, they’re getting older now so they do have to ask for money. But you can ask God for money. But I love them. I want to help them. I want to supply for their needs, right?
How much more our God in heaven?
So I just want to read just a little bit more about how good our Father is. And I think we can go back into worship and just thank Him like it’s Father’s Day. A lot of us are maybe going out, we’re buying gifts, we’re buying cards, we’re getting stuff for the barbecue grill or whatever your dad’s into… fishing stuff, Menards gift cards. There’s all those classic things that we do for dads.
What are we doing for our Father God for Father’s Day? What more could we do than to worship Him, to love Him, to thank Him, to think of all the ways He’s been present in our lives. He’s provided.
And it’s easy to take that for granted because we don’t physically see Him, but you can see what He’s done in your life. You can see those times that He provided, those times that He healed, those times that He saved, He rescued, He took care of you, He loved you. And so I just want to get into some more time to worship Him and we’ll get into some prayer as well and just magnifying Him and thanking Him as our Father.
Hebrews 13:5–6 in the Amplified Classic, the second half of verse five says…
“And be satisfied with your present circumstances and with what you have for He God Himself has said, I will not in any way fail you nor give you up, nor leave you without support. I will not. I will not. I will not in any degree leave you helpless nor forsake, nor let you down or relax my hold on you, assuredly not. So we take comfort and are encouraged and confidently and boldly say, The Lord is my helper. I will not be seized with alarm. I will not fear or dread or be terrified. What can man do to me?”
Deuteronomy 31:6–8 in the Amplified Classic…
“Be strong and courageous and firm. Fear not nor be in terror before them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will not fail you or forsake you.” You might have had a physical father, a biological father, a stepfather that failed you and forsook you. God will never do that. “And Moses called to Joshua and said to him in the sight of all Israel, Be strong and courageous and firm for you shall go with this people into the land which the Lord has sworn to their fathers to give to them and you shall cause them to possess it. It is the Lord who goes before you. He will march with you. He will not fail you or let you go or forsake you. Let there be no cowardice or flinching. But fear not neither become broken in spirit, depressed, dismayed, and unnerved with alarm.”
We have a good, good Father…
He does not leave us. He does not forsake us. He does not fail us. He does not drop us. So allow Him to father you. You don’t have to walk through life alone. You don’t have to figure everything out. You don’t have to perform. You don’t have to be perfect. You are a son and a daughter of the most high God. And He wants to father you. He wants to provide. He wants to love. He wants to be there. He wants you to trust Him.
And I think it’s just a good reminder today of how good our Father is, that we can allow Him to do those things in our lives.
He is worthy of our trust.
He is worthy of our worship.
He’s worthy of our love because He’s always faithful.
He loved us when we were unlovely.
He loved us when we were in our mother’s womb.
He created us.
He knows everything about us.
That’s a father that deserves to be worshiped. And especially as we have Father’s Day coming, I think it’s just a good time to remember that aspect of God in our lives and who He is.
