The Heavenly Father's Heart: A Story of Love, Provision, and Peace

Robert Cantu: that we have Trey Morgan with us today.
And so let's give him a big LCU welcome
and welcome Trey Morgan.
Trey Morgan: I didn't get to meet my father until I was six years old.
Wasn't because he was an absent dad.
My real father died when I was just a child
before I ever got to know him.
And as I grew up, I wanted more than anything else
in this world to have a dad like everyone else.
I wanted a father figure who would play ball with me,
who would hang out with me, who I could call dad.
And finally in 1972, my mom met a widower
who had four children and they fell in love
and he proposed to her and I was gonna get a dad.
I remember it was the best Christmas ever.
And I remember the time when my dad,
my new dad pulled me into a room and sat me down.
He said, "I'm gonna marry your mom, is that okay?"
And I said, "Yeah, I was excited about this."
And he said, "Do you have any questions about anything
that you would like to ask me or anything like that?"
And I said, "Yes, I have one."
And I was very nervous because I had wanted a dad for so long
that I didn't know how this was gonna work.
I had not had one of these before.
And I kind of fumbled over my words,
my hands were shaking a little bit
because I thought I knew how he would answer,
but I wasn't really sure.
And I asked him, "Would it be okay if I called you my dad?"
And if you've ever met my dad who is still alive today,
he never answers anything very quickly.
So I was just a little bit nervous
when he didn't just say yes immediately.
And he always thought his words through real careful.
And he said, he responded with,
"I would be disappointed if you didn't."
And then he said, "I have a question for you."
And I said, "What would that be?"
And he said, "Would it be okay if I called you my son?"
And I said, "Absolutely."
And I didn't have to think about that.
And from that time as a six-year-old boy,
my dad was not a stepdad, he was a dad.
He fathered me and seven other children,
and he went to our ball games, and he took care of us,
and went to our school activities,
and he was the father in my life,
and he treated me just like his own children.
And I was blessed to have a man who taught me about life
and taught me about being a husband and a father.
I remember at age 21, he was the best man in my wedding.
I remember at about age 42 that he stood by me
when I had a battle with cancer.
I remember a few years later,
a time where my mom got sick and passed,
and he was the anchor still in our family.
And all these years, he was not only a father to me,
but to all my siblings, an incredible father
of someone who wasn't even his own kid.
And I'm thankful today for a dad
who played that role in my life, and I'm thankful.
I don't know what kind of father that you had.
I don't know what kind of dad you had.
You may have one of those,
you think he was the best dad in the world,
and you may have had a dad that said,
I could have done a whole lot better.
But when you talk about fatherhood
and what a real father is about,
Jesus talks about his father in Matthew chapter seven,
and he says this.
He says, "You parents, you give your children,
"if your children ask for bread,
"you don't give them a stone instead.
"Or if your children ask for a fish,
"you don't give them a snake.
"Of course you wouldn't do that."
And then he says, "If you who are evil parents,"
and he means compared to God,
you're just not even in his league,
compared to his father, you can't even be in his league.
He said, "You who are sinful people,
"if you know how to give good gifts to your children,
"how much more does your heavenly father
"know how to give good gifts to those who ask him?"
And I'm amazed because here's Jesus that goes,
I know you had a good earthly father,
but do you realize just how amazing
your heavenly father is?
Do you even begin to realize
that no matter how good a father that you wanna be
or how good a father that you had,
nobody compares to the heavenly father,
that he is so good that everybody else pales in comparison.
They are evil compared to him.
He's that good.
And when you look at the different things
that make him so good and so incredible,
I can think of three things right off the bat
that just automatically make me go,
wow, God is a good God.
And that gives me such peace to know these things.
Number one, he's attentive.
He's always paying attention.
There's never a time when I bow my head to pray
that he doesn't go, oh, I'm sorry,
I did not even know you were talking.
I'm not always the best at listening to my kids.
In fact, there was a time,
one time my wife patted me on the shoulder and said,
honey, are you gonna answer him?
And I said, who?
She said, your son's talking to you.
And I said, I had no clue.
I sometimes struggle with that listening skill
that I don't have, but you're heavenly father.
You bow your head and you walk into his throne room.
You have his attention.
There has never been a time that you have been put on hold.
There has never been a time where he has just said,
hey, can I get back to you on this?
You have his attention.
He also sees you as incredibly valuable.
You are his prized possession.
He looks down on you and grins and goes, look at that.
I am so proud of him.
Paul writes and he calls you God's masterpiece.
He says, when God looks at you,
he brags and goes, look at this.
Look what I've created.
If God had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it.
I've heard somebody say, if God had a wallet,
your picture would be in it.
He loves you that much.
And I often think God doesn't,
God has never spoke to me and said,
Trey, here's what I want you to preach on Sunday.
But I honestly think that if God,
if I had God's word and he said, Trey, what?
I said, God, what do you want me to say?
He'd say, tell my kids one more time how much I love them
and how valuable they are.
Valuable enough that he gave his son to die for you.
The other thing that really stands out to me
is the fact that he is a provider, an incredible provider.
Oh, he doesn't always give me everything that I want,
he always gives me everything that I need.
He's a great provider in spiritual things.
In fact, again, in the book of Ephesians,
Paul says that he just freely blesses us
with spiritual blessings.
He pours out, he doesn't sprinkle in these little amounts
and go, give them a little bit here.
He just dumps blessings in your life
over and over and over.
And every time you're thinking, I've had all I can take,
he's backing up another dump truck going, send some more.
Because that's the kind of good father that you have.
And talk about peace, to know that you have a God
that's for you and not against you.
To know that you're precious in his sight
and that you have his ear.
He is such a good God.
Several years ago, I got a call from a friend named Scotty
who said, hey, would you load up and go with me
over to a little town where I'm gonna be in a parade?
He drove an ambulance, he was a paramedic.
And he said, I need somebody to throw the candy
out the window while I drive the truck
and we can't afford to have two paramedics out of town.
I said, I'll go with you.
I thought, this sounds like fun.
And so I got in the ambulance with him
and there were three of the biggest bags of candy
I've ever seen in my life.
And I said, wow, this is a lot of candy.
And he said, all I know is they said,
don't come home with it.
And I said, great.
So we pull up in this little, little bitty town
of about 600 people and this is their yearly parade
that they're gonna have.
And we get in line behind the police chief
and behind what little fire truck they have.
And there's our ambulance that serves that little area
and just a few more cars
'cause it's not a real big parade out there.
And all of a sudden, 10 o'clock hits
and the sirens start and here comes the parade.
I opened that first bag of candy
and I'm excited to start throwing candy out
to all the kids.
We go down the street and make a right turn
where all the people are supposed to be.
And there's one little kid that has showed up that day.
One.
And he's standing out there with his Walmart sack
hoping somebody's gonna throw him some candy.
And I turned the corner, Scotty turns the corner
and I start laughing and I go, are you kidding me?
This town has only one kid?
This is the most ridiculous parade
I have ever seen in my life.
And it was about that time it hit me.
I said, what do we do with all this candy?
And Scotty said, they told me not to come back
with any of it.
And I said, so we like give it to him.
And he said, yeah, let's dump it on him.
And so Scotty, soon as we got up next to the kid,
he pulls the ambulance over next to the curb
and I just start as fast as I can
dumping candy out the window, just handfuls by the tons.
And then when one bag is open, he hands me another.
And about halfway through this huge candy explosion,
this kid's standing there, his bag is full,
his mouth is open.
He's got candy up to what looks like about his knees
and he's just screaming going, ah!
It was literally the greatest day of his life.
I don't know who he is, I don't know where he is,
but I know today somewhere there's some man about 24
that's had a lot of dental bills
or is missing some teeth somewhere
because he got a lot of candy that day.
Now, if I finish the story,
let me tell you what happens next.
We finish off dumping that kid full of candy.
We go down about six more blocks and make another turn
and there are all the people right there.
And we've got no more candy and we're looking for
whatever's in the ashtray, some mints from Sonic.
And I was like, throw them in IV bags, Scotty,
something in here.
But that first kid got blessed is all I wanna tell you.
And when I think about how good God is
and the way he treats you and I as his children,
you're like the only kid that shows up at the parade.
You're like the one kid out there going,
man, you show up with your little Walmart sack
hoping God's gonna put two or three things in there.
And before you know it,
you're up to your knees in God's blessings
because God is a good God.
It's like standing under Niagara Falls with a teacup saying,
let's see what I can catch.
So here's my thought
that I wanna leave you with this morning.
I realized that I have got an incredible father
and I realized that God is so good.
And I am so undeserving of that.
When I think about how the creator of the world
makes time to listen to me
and the creator of the world finds me valuable enough
to let his son die for me
and just gives me blessing after blessing,
sometimes I feel pretty unworthy
and I don't know how to respond to that.
And sometimes for me as a man, I make a lot of mistakes.
And sometimes I don't feel worthy in a sense of,
he's too good for me.
I don't deserve to have this kind of blessing
and this kind of love.
But I have no doubt that as one of his kids,
that if I or you approach him at any time
and you come awkwardly,
maybe with your struggles and your sin and everything else,
and you're coming before him trying to go,
I'm not sure what to say.
I have no doubt whatsoever that if you were to say,
would it be okay if I call you my father?
He would respond with,
I would be disappointed if you did not.
That's the kind of God that you have.
That's the kind of God that gives me peace.
Y'all are dismissed.