Rabbi Schneider - The Destination of Christianity
I want to talk with you today about one of the deepest things that you and I as human beings can ever comprehend. And that is knowing the Father's love. You see, oftentimes we place so much emphasis on Jesus that we forget the fact that Jesus is the way to the destination, not the destination. The Father is the destination. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life and no man comes to the Father but through Me". Yeshua was sent into the world by the Father to bring us to Himself. And so Father, we just pray right now for a spirit of wisdom and revelation to know you. In Jesus' name. Don't misunderstand what I'm saying. In no way am I bringing down the person of Yeshua. No. Yeshua is part of the Godhead. The point that I'm making, however, beloved, is that much of the church places no emphasis on the Father. They place all their emphasis on Jesus, and that is out of balance.
And so today we're going to be focusing on how to receive the Father's love. Let's begin by understanding this. That the Son, Yeshua, has always been in the bosom of the Father. I'm reading now from the Gospel of John 1:18. Hear the word of God. "No one has seen God at any time; God the only Son, who is in the arms of the Father," or some translations read, "In the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him". And so notice here the emphasis is not on Jesus as the destination. The emphasis is on the Father as the originator of life and Jesus is in the Father's bosom. You see, Paul tells us in the Book of Romans 11:36 this: "For from Him," speaking of the Father, "For from Him, and through Him, and for Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever..." So I'm wanting you to see now the preeminence of the Father. When Jesus was questioned about the day of His return, Yeshua replied, "No one knows but the Father".
Church, what I'm calling us back to today is to get our relationship with the Father into alignment. If you'll notice the way that you pray some of you, you'll notice that when you pray you always begins your prayer with Jesus. You pray to Jesus. You pray in Jesus' name. But that is really not a biblical alignment with how to relate to the Godhead. You see, Jesus taught us to pray, "Our Father who art in heaven..." I want you to see that it's the Father, beloved, that has called you to Himself. I'm going now to the book of Ephesians. I'm going to begin reading there in chapter 1. And let's begin reading there in verse number 3. The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of God abides forever. Hear, beloved one, God's word for you. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ..." So let me ask you a question. Who is the one that blessed you? Let's look again. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us..."
So let's take a step back and let's start to give thanks in our heart to the Father. It's the Father that blessed us. It's the Father that sent his Son into the world because he so loved us. Again, what I'm trying to do is to bring the church back into alignment because the church has been so focused on Yeshua, so focused on Jesus, that they've made Jesus the destination, rather than understanding that Jesus is the way to the destination. The destination is the Father from whom are all things. So listen again. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ..." Let's continue on here in the book of Ephesians. "Just as He..." Now, who is the "He"? The "He" again is the Father. "Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him in love," Listen to this, "He predestined us to adoption as sons and daughters through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will".
So let's think it through logically. The Father, the Father is the one that blessed us, the Father is the one that chose us, and the Father is the one that predestined us to Himself through, the Scripture said that we just read, Jesus Christ unto Himself. And so can some of you even sense as I'm speaking even this early on in the message that, yeah, your heart has been a little bit out of alignment because you've been so focused on Jesus, but your focus has ended with Jesus rather than continuing on to understanding that the destination is the Father. It'd be like if you were in a Midwestern state and wanted to take a trip to Miami Beach, and had a layover in Atlanta. It'd be like you got to Atlanta and stayed there and never continued on to the final destination in Miami Beach. The final destination being the Father. And we need to understand this because the primary relationship that we've been called into is that of being a son and a daughter to the Father. In the Scripture we just read, we read that the Father predestined us to Himself through adoption, listen now, as sons and daughters. So our primary relationship is as a son or a daughter of God the Father. We are the bride of Christ, and we're in Christ. But I'm trying to reestablish this biblical apostolic doctrine in our hearts, not just in our heads. But we're looking today to the Father for revelation knowledge.
Father, we pray that you would overshadow us with Your love. Father, we know it takes the power of the Holy Spirit upon us and within us to bring us into an internal realization of Your love for us and to know ourselves in You as sons and daughters. And so Father, I pray that the truth that I'm proclaiming now, Father, that you would work with it by the Ruakh HaKodesh, by the Holy Spirit, not only bearing witness with our hearts, but bring us in Papa, I pray, to an experiential knowledge, revelation, and realization of Your love for us. That You would make us secure in our hearts of our identity in You. That we are the sons and the daughters of Father God.
Now, I want you to consider this as we move on. The primary relationship in all of the universe, in all of creation, in all that exist, the primary relationship in all of existence is the relationship between the Father and the Son. The relationship between the Father and the Son, and the Son and the Father is the primary relationship in all of existence. You see, the Son has always been in the bosom of the Father. We got done reading that just a few moments ago in the Gospel of John 1:18. That no one has seen God at any time; God the only Son, who was in the arms of the Father, He has explained Him. And so we take a step back and focus for a moment on the fact that the primary relationship in all of existence is the relationship between the Father and the Son.
You see, the Son has always been. We read in John 1, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God". So the Word who is Jesus, the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us has always been. So there has been this eternal relationship between the Father and His Son, who's in his bosom. You and I now have been chosen by the Father and predestined to the Father through the Son, and we are now, listen, in the Son. Get it, the primary focus of the Father's love forever is His focus on His Son. You and I now have been adopted by the Father, and we are now, beloved children of God, in the Son. Over and over in the Brit Chadashah, we read "In Him... In Him we are forgiven of sins". In Him, in Christ.
So you and I are now in Messiah Yeshua, and the Father's love, all of it is focused on Messiah Yeshua. You and I are now in Him, which means the Father's love is focused upon you, beloved child of God, in the same way that it's focused upon the Father. And so, we continue on. I just want to bring the scripture to bear. John 3:35, "The Father loves the Son and has entrusted all things into His hand". Now, this love that the Father has for His Son, it will go on forever and ever. The Son will never stop relating to Father God as His Father. Likewise, the Father will always have Jesus in His bosom as His son. And so you and I are predestined forever to be the sons and the daughters of God, and we'll never outgrow that relationship. In our earthly life, the Scripture says, a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. And so in our earthly existence, in some degree, a man leaves his father and mother. But in our eternal relationship with the Father, we will never outgrow the relationship of being His son and His daughter.
I want us to understand that the only reason, if you're a believer today, if you're already a child of God, the only reason that you're a child of God is because of the fact that the Father brought you sovereignly to Himself. Jesus said in John 6 that no one comes to him unless the Father draws him. And when someone comes into Jesus they then come into a relationship with the Father. So I want you to understand today, sometimes because of our human limitation and our lack of revelation, and our lack of spiritual sight, we think that somehow we chose God. But that is completely flipped upside down. We did not first choose God. God first chose us. And the only reason that we're walking with God, the only reason we have a love for God, the only reason we have a hunger for Him is because the Father first chose us. Jesus said, "You did not choose Me, I chose you". And so because the Father chose you, beloved one, he then drew you to His Son.
I'm reading now from the Gospel of John 6:44, and 45. "No one can come to Me," Yeshua is speaking here, "unless the Father who sent Me draws Him; and I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the Prophets: 'And they shall be taught of God.' Everyone," Yeshua is still teaching here, "that has heard and learned from the Father, comes to Me". No one comes to the Father except through the Son. And the Son then is the one that brings us into this divine relationship. But notice the order here. We've been focusing on the Son but in actuality, the Father is the one that sent the Son to be His agent to bring us to Himself. And so you may not have realized it, but your faith in God is a result of the Father teaching you. It's by osmosis sometimes. We don't even realize that we're being taught. We're not even aware of the Holy Spirit's work in our lives. The scripture says that God undergirds us though we don't know it.
What Jesus just got done saying is, "No one's going to come to Me unless the Father draws him". God loves you. He drew you to Himself through Jesus. I just feel His love for you, that He wants you to understand that the reason that you've come it's not random. The reason, beloved one, believe me, is because the Father chose you and drew you. Jesus said, "And they should be taught of God. Everyone who has heard and learn from the Father, comes to Me". And so your openness to the word of truth, your openness to the word of God, your belief in the fact that Jesus is the only way, just as Yeshua taught in John 14:6, "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father, but through Me," your belief in that, if you're a true believer... And I'm qualifying because if you don't believe that Jesus is the only way to the Father, then you are really not a disciple of the Lord that's been taught in the word.
If you just believe that Christianity is a good religion, if you just believe that Jesus is a good option, if you believe that all paths lead to the same place, you've, forgive me, completely missed it. You've totally missed the mark. Jesus is not a good option. Jesus claimed He was the only way to the Father. He's the only one that can take away your sin. He's the only one whose blood has the efficacy to take away your sins. He is the only way to the Father. That's what Jesus taught. That's what the Father says. That's what the Old Testament reveals. You are in Jesus, beloved child of God, with your sins forgiven, adopted as a son and daughter because the Father chose you before the foundation of the world and then predestined you to Himself in and through His Son.
Jesus continued in the 65th verse of John chapter 6. He was saying, Yeshua speaking here, "For this reason I have told you that no one could come to Me unless it has been granted by the Father". I want to impress upon us today that we are loved. We are not in this world alone. We didn't wander into this thing. This faith that we have, it was given to us as a gift from God. You see, because the Lord chose you to be His adopted son or daughter, He then work in your heart by the Ruakh HaKodesh, by the Holy Spirit, putting faith in you. He causes faith to well up within you. The Scripture says that your faith has saved you and that your faith, beloved one, is the gift of God. The Father worked in your life through the Holy Spirit, causing faith to well up from your inside. And then He drew you to Himself by that faith, placed you in His Son, took away your sins, and now He is at work in your life to conform you to the image of Jesus Himself.
You see, you have a destiny as a son or a daughter of the Father. You might think your destiny is in your career. You might be focusing 70% of your time in advancing your career. You're thinking about it at work, you're thinking about it at your kitchen table when you get home at night and eating your dinner. You can't concentrate on your family, your husband, your wife, or your kids because you're thinking about your career. But your career is not your destination or your identity. Your identity is not to be a better salesman. Your identity is not to be a better whatever you are professionally. Your identity is as a son and daughter of the Lord.
And that's what we need to be focused on. We need to focus on being transformed. That every day we get up, we put one foot in front of the other. And God is using everything in our life as we're looking to Him, using it all for good to conform us to the image of His Son. It's your identity and your destiny. Your identity is that of a son or a daughter, and your destiny is to be conformed to the image of Jesus as a son and a daughter of Hashem, of Father God. That should give meaning and purpose to your life. You might be thinking, "Well, there's not much left for me anymore. You know, I'm past my career, or you know, my husband or wife passed away, or I'll never get married, and my best days are behind me". But you know what? Those are all lies. There's purpose every day, because our purpose is to be conformed to the image of Jesus and to know God as our Father.