From Orphan to Heir | Drew Worsham

Kylen Perry: All right, all right, all right, Porch! How are we doing? It's so good to be back this Tuesday night. You already heard from me once. I'll be quick, but first and foremost, thanks for being here. We're so glad you would choose to be in this room with us, and a special shout-out to our Porch.Live locations tuning in from all over the nation. Give it up for Porch.Live, everybody, one more time. Porch.Live Tulsa, Scottsdale, and Midland, special shout-out to you guys.

Okay. I'm going to get out of the way very quickly, because I'm very excited about what we have in store for tonight. We have the privilege of listening to what I would consider to be one of the best Bible teachers I know, but more than that, somebody I would consider to be the genuine article, goals, when it comes to walking with God. I'm not just trying to hype him up so you'll listen. I think he can more than take care of himself.

We have a good friend in the room named Drew Worsham here tonight. Would y'all help me say "hi" to Drew? Porch, here's what I want you to know about Drew really fast. He's an illusionist. He's an executive coach. He's a pastor, speaker, and Bible teacher. He has a long list of things on his résumé, but the thing I love most about Drew is every time I spend time with him he sets the pace for me, very personally, of what it looks like to walk with Jesus.

The way he talks about God is the way I want to talk about God. The way he cares for people is the way I want to care for people. We really do have such a gift in him being here with us tonight, and I'm excited for where he's leading us over the course of the next few minutes together. Without further ado, would y'all do a great job of helping me welcome Drew Worsham to the stage?

Drew Worsham: How are you guys doing? Good? Okay. We're still waking up. I love it. Like Kylen said, my name is Drew. I live in San Antonio, Texas, which is a small city south of here. I feel so honored to get to be a small part of what God is doing tonight. I love Kylen deeply. I believe in his leadership and his heart.

There are very few men I meet who are as passionate about the name of Jesus and who have such a heart, not even just for The Porch but for Dallas, the Metroplex area, for people to fall in love with Jesus. Kylen, I love you. I'm grateful. It was, gosh, seven or eight years ago that we met, and it has been cool to watch you from College Station to Houston and now here in Dallas. My wife and I love you and Brooke so much, so I'm grateful to be a part of this.

I love Watermark Church. One of my favorite people is one of your pastors in TA. I say this sincerely. Last week, we were here, and my wife and I had these really deep conversations, like, "If we were to ever move to Dallas…" I'm not saying we would, but if we were, I think the number-one reason right now would be to be a part of a church like Watermark and what God is doing in this space and with The Porch. So, when I say it, I mean it. We love you dearly.

Kylen mentioned that, along with being a pastor, for the last 20 years I've traveled and toured as a professional magician, or illusionist, for the Christians who are here tonight. (It's usually a joke. We'll see.) The moment you tell people that, everybody is like, "Prove it." Okay. We'll do something really quickly, if you're down with that.

[Magic trick]

Hey, let me do one more thing if you don't mind. Everywhere I go, this is the question I get asked, and many of you will ask it immediately when we're done: "Drew, how?" I'll be honest with you. The moment the secret is revealed for a trick like that or any other trick, it's like the balloon pops. The magic literally leaves the room, but occasionally there are these moments where the way the trick works is so cool it's actually, to me, more impressive than the trick itself. Like, the psychology, the method.

So, if it's cool with you, can I show you how to do a trick? Are you down with this? I know I'm breaking all of the rules. Okay. It's really simple. It's really quick. You'll be able to do this from here on out. I'm going to show you what it looks like, and then we'll go from there. Cool? So, here's the trick. I have this domino here. I'll try to move slowly, but this is important.

The domino has a single dot on this side, which is cool, but on the back side of this domino, it has four dots. On the other side of the domino there are three dots, and on the other side there are six dots. Got it? I'll try to do it a little bit faster. There's one dot on this side. There are four dots on this side. There are three dots on this side. There are six dots on this side. Got it? Now I'll show you how it works. This is so cool. It's so random. That's how it works. Kind of neat. Right?

Some of you are piecing this together. The way the trick works is this. If I take my hand and place it over this dot, what happens is your brain fills in the gaps and goes, "Oh, it's a domino with one single dot." Why? Because you've seen a domino that looks like this. You have never seen a domino that looks like this. So, if I do this, there's one dot. Or if I do this, your brain actually fills in the gaps and puts the third dot there. It's fascinating. The same as here you have six dots or here it becomes four dots.

Now, here's what's really, really interesting, and here's the reason I do this for us tonight. You're more likely to be fooled by something like that the more educated you are. Let me explain. Your brain creates shortcuts when it sees things like this. So, all of a sudden, it sees this. To conserve energy, it has to kind of implant that and go, "Okay. Hey, that's a single dot. Moving on. There's a lot more information we're receiving." It just kind of fills in the gap, so the more educated, the more experienced, the more likely you are able to be fooled by that.

Who's not fooled by that is little kids. They're quickly like, "I bet there are two dots. I bet he's just putting his hand over one." Here's the reason I even bring this up tonight. In just a moment, we're going to dive into the Scripture, and I believe God has something in store for each and every one of us in this space, like, on a personal note. Jesus wants to lean in, to pull the chair up close to you, go knee to knee, and speak to your heart in a language that's special to you.

My fear is that we dive into this Scripture and what I believe God wants to show us tonight, and the longer you've been in the church or the longer you've been a Christian, the more acclimated you are with how we do all of this, or maybe the more accustomed you are to the story of Jesus, I think it makes it harder for us to actually see what Jesus is going to invite us into tonight.

My fear is it would be right in front of us, how the trick works, the presence of God, and he would invite us into deeper waters than we've ever experienced, and we'll miss it because we've been here before. We're inoculated to it. It's like we have a flu shot, just enough of Jesus where it doesn't affect us anymore. So, tonight, I want to pray for us, and then we're going to dive into the text.

Jesus, I desperately need you in this moment. There are no words, there's no preparation, there's no magic trick or joke or illustration that can actually change a heart, but, Jesus, your words and your Spirit can do just that. So, Father, tonight would you open up the eyes of our hearts to really see you? Father, would we feel the invitation into deeper waters than maybe we've ever felt before, and maybe, just maybe, we would walk out of this room completely changed and different because we met with you. Remind us of our identity. Remind us tonight just how much you love us. It's in your name we pray, amen.

On August 5 of 2010, a copper mine in San José, Chile, caved in, leaving 33 Chilean miners trapped 2,300 feet below the earth's surface. Search and rescue teams began to drill down to see if anyone had survived and maybe found their way to a rescue shelter. Seventeen days, two and a half weeks, into the search and rescue, one of the drill bits that went down came out, and written in bright red color were these words: "We are well in the shelter. Signed, the 33."

Immediately, countries across the world began to leverage all of their resources and technology to try to figure out how to save these 33 men, including the USA and our very own NASA. Then, 69 days after being trapped, all 33 miners made their way to the surface one at a time. Over the course of the next few months, these men found themselves on news channels and late-night shows, like Jimmy Fallon, telling their story of how they survived. Slowly, we began to lose interest and went back to our lives, and they tried to do the same.

One year after their rescue, TIME magazine went to check on the miners to see how they were doing. A few were doing, we could maybe say, okay, but most of them had major issues. One of them, the day before TIME magazine arrived, had just been arrested for domestic violence. Almost all of them were wrestling with sleep issues, panic and anxiety disorders, or PTSD. Some were dealing with drug and alcohol abuse. Some started hoarding food and choosing to sleep on the hard floor instead of their mattress.

One miner they went to interview… They found him literally building a wall around his house. When they asked him, "Why are you doing this?" his response was, "I have no idea," which led TIME magazine to write an article entitled, "A Year After the Rescue, Do Chile's Miners Need Another?" Why? Here's the deal. They were free, but they weren't really free. Like, they were free. They weren't in the mine shaft anymore, but they weren't free.

The reason I even open up with that illustration is because of this. I believe, for so many people, especially in the West… In the Western church, many of us, as followers of Jesus, know what it's like to live forgiven, but very few of us know what it looks like to live free. Sure, our wrists and ankles don't have chains, but our hearts are far, far from free.

I believe there is a spirit of orphan, a spirit of slavery that has invaded our country, our nation, our churches, and even the hearts of our leaders. Whether it's a scarcity mindset, people-pleasing, approval-seeking, applause-chasing, performance anxiety, worry, fear, or stress, all of it comes from this spirit of slavery or orphan. Can I be honest with you, church? It's not freedom.

Listen. I want to be really honest with you today. Wherever you find yourself in this spiritual journey, there are these moments where we pick up God's Word and look at Jesus' words and look at these really crazy promises he makes, like John 10:10 where Jesus goes, "Hey, you know what? I came to give you life and to give it to the fullest," or Jesus in Matthew 11 where he goes, "Hey, are you tired? Come to me. I'll give you rest. I'll show you how to live in unhurried rhythms of grace."

We hear those verses, and there's this part of our hearts, if we're honest, where it's like, "Maybe those are cute metaphors. Maybe Jesus is talking about after we die." But if we're honest, life and life to the fullest, rest for our souls, freedom, that it's for freedom's sake that you have been set free, and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom… We kind of want to call BS or "Maybe it doesn't work for me."

Tonight, I want to invite you into what God has been showing me about what the secret of actually living in freedom looks like, if you guys are cool with that. If you have a copy of your Scripture, I'd love for you to turn with me to Luke, chapter 15. Before we dive into what it looks like to start to walk in freedom, I want to give you three lies from the Scripture. I love this. If you're into reading God's Word, these three lies and the story we're about to show you in the motif of Scripture… You're about to see it everywhere from this moment forward.

We're looking tonight at these three lies, and we're going to look at a story Jesus told that he tells in a trilogy. He tells these three back-to-back stories. In the first story, Jesus tells about this lost sheep and how this shepherd leaves 99 sheep, and he goes and grabs the one and brings it home. Then Jesus rolls into the next story where he goes, "Hey, there's this woman who has these coins, and she loses one, and then she tears the house apart. She finally finds this coin, and immediately, she invites all of her friends over, and they throw this Fat Daddy's-style party to celebrate the fact that she lost this one coin and found it."

Then Jesus shifts and tells this very popular story that maybe you've heard of about this lost son, the prodigal son story. I'll kind of recap it, and then I want to show you some key pieces of this story. Jesus tells this story about a younger son who looks at his dad and essentially says, "Hey, Dad, I wish you were dead. I want my inheritance. I want what's coming to me, and I can't wait any longer, so would you just give me what's mine?"

The father gives him his inheritance. The Scripture says he goes into the big city and immediately begins to live it up, partying. We'll find out later he's wasting his money on parties and prostitutes. He gets to a point where he loses everything. He's just scraping by to where he has to get a job feeding pigs. Jesus tells the story that there's a point where he's so hungry he's like, "Man! Even the food the pigs are eating looks good to me."

Scripture says he comes to his senses. He's like, "What am I doing? Even the servants, the slaves in my dad's house, are way better off than I am. I'll never be a son again. I've lost that privilege. So what I'll do is I'll just head home, and I'll tell my father that I'm sorry, and maybe, just maybe, he'll give me a job."

So, the Scripture says he's on his way home, and he's practicing his speech. He's like, "Father, I totally blew it against God and you, and I don't deserve to be a son. Just make me a slave." He's practicing this speech, and the Scripture says the father, while he's a long way off, sees him and begins to run to him, which was so undignified. Men did not run in this day and age.

He begins to run and wraps his arms around his son. His son starts to go over that rehearsed apology, and the dad doesn't even hear it. He just cuts him off and goes, "No, no, no. My son who was once dead is now alive. He was lost, and now he's found. Kill the fattened calf. Invite Coldplay. Let's throw a huge party."

Then we meet the older brother who the whole time is out in the field and gets frustrated and refuses to go to the party because of the special attention his brother is getting, and then the story just ends. Tonight, what I want you to see is this story is about two sons who both carry a spirit of slavery or maybe orphan on them. By position they're sons, but both acted like orphans. Both acted like slaves, one through rebellion, one through religion, and both almost missed out on the very inheritance God was trying to give his kids.

So, I want you to see tonight three lies you and I are prone to hear and to receive that would allow us to walk in a spirit of orphan. I want to encourage you tonight. I have a feeling there will be one of these that speaks just a little bit louder to you. As you hear it, I'd ask you to sit with it for a moment, to go, "Hey, why does that one seem to have my email address?"

It just may be that the Spirit of God may speak to your heart and start to invite you into more freedom, but it's going to start when we first have to realize what lie we're believing. I'm going to give you all three of them, and then you're going to see which one maybe sits with you. So, here we go. We'll dive into the story.

The first lie is you'll never have enough. If you have a spirit of orphan or spirit of slave, this lie circles around in your mind. "You'll never have enough." I'll tell you how it plays out. Verse 17: "When he came to his senses, he said, 'How many of my father's hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death!'" "I don't have enough. I'm acting like an orphan." Or the older brother, later on in verse 29…

He looks at his father when his father comes out to plead with and beg him to come celebrate the fact that his brother, who was lost, is now found, was dead and now is alive. "Come celebrate." The way he says it to his dad is, "Look. This whole time I've been working for you, and you never gave me even a young goat that I could celebrate with my friends. You never gave me a goat. Father, you've been holding out on me. You don't take care of me. I've got to take care of myself." It's this spirit of orphan that lands on both sons.

"You'll never have enough" is the first lie. Now, this is how it may play out for you and me. In the back of your mind, you feel like you'll never have enough money. You'll never have enough friends, enough resources, enough time or energy. There's even this part of you that goes, "God, have you forgotten me? How much longer will I be single? God, are you going to actually put someone in my path or am I going to have to do this myself?"

I know it's a little close to home, but these are indicators that there's a spirit of orphan or slave that begins to creep into our hearts. It's a scarcity mindset that leads us to worry. It leads us to anxiety and fear, and it's not freedom. It's a spirit of slavery, of orphan. Let me give you a quick example. If your family or someone you know has adopted a young child, or maybe that was a part of your upbringing…

You can watch. There's this young child who goes from not having parents or parents who are fit, and then legally, there's a moment they stand before the judge that this child moves from what the state considers an orphan into being a child of these two parents. They're now Mom and Dad. The court sees it. The state sees it. The mom and dad see it. That child now has access to everything that is that family's. They get to sit at a table with full access to every meal that's placed on that table.

What's interesting is in almost every case, a child is adopted legally, with full access to everything on the table, and still find themselves hoarding food. They'll find themselves with a little drawer in their room where they stash snacks. Why? Because even though they're legally adopted, there's still an orphan spirit that rests on them.

My daughter Tilly, who's 5 years old… I think we have a picture of her. Tilly is so fun. If you come to San Antonio and want to visit, and you come to the house and want to play with Tilly, whether it's bubbles or fruit snacks, she's so hospitable. If she finds out there's something you like, she's quick to be like, "Oh my gosh. Do you want some fruit snacks? Here, I'll give you more fruit snacks. Whatever you want. Just take them." It can be her Easter candy, and she's like, "You can have some. You can have some."

We noticed a couple of weeks ago, if you come over and are playing with Barbies, and she feels like you're having a really good time, then almost every time she will give you the Barbie and say, "You can take this one home. It's yours." We had to have a conversation where we were like, "Hey, Tilly, listen. Fruit snacks? Give them away. You can just throw them. Barbies? They're expensive, so we're going to hold on to those. Cool?"

True story. My daughter looked at me and said, "But, Daddy, you can always get me more Barbies." This is where it hit me. My daughter knows she has a dad who loves her deeply, a dad who's always going to take care of her. She's not wrong. She can give away all of her Barbies and go, "Dad, I want some new Barbies," and we'll go, "Yes. Get in the car. We're going right now," because she has a dad who loves her and will always take care of her. Never, not one time, will I let her go without.

So, the question is…Is that how you and I walk through life? Do you realize that when you claim to know and love Jesus…? Yes, you've been adopted into the family, but more than just that title shift, you have a Father who loves you deeply and dearly, and he knows every single one of your needs, your desires, and your wants. He looks at you and goes, "I'm going to take care of you. You don't have to hoard. You don't have to play with a scarcity mindset."

You can take your life with open hand and go, "Yeah, I can give it all away. Why? Because I have a really good Father, and he will always, always take care of me. It may not be in my timing. It may not be when I want it. I thought I'd be further in that job by now. I thought I'd be married by now. I thought I'd have kids by now." You have a good Father who sees you and goes, "I'm not holding out." But so many of us don't live like that. We still live as orphans.

Maybe that's not your lie. Maybe it's not the first one; maybe it's the second one. The first one is you'll never have enough. The second lie that orphans believe is you'll never be enough. Verse 19. This is how it plays out. The younger brother looks at his father and goes, "I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. Just make me a hired servant." That's an identity statement.

The older brother looks at his dad and says, "Hey, but when this son of yours came home…" Once again, he's just like his younger brother, just a different factor. He's distancing himself from the relationship of the father. He's distancing himself from being a son. It's a being question. "I'll never be enough."

The way this plays out for you and me in real time… It's fear of abandonment. It's people-pleasing. It's addiction to approval, attention, and affirmation. It's walking through life with a deep-seated shame or toxic shame. If you struggle with a lack of boundaries, it's not sonship. It's not freedom. It's a spirit of slavery or orphan.

The root of this lie (I mean, a lot of them are, but this one specifically) is shame. I want you to see this. This is really deep. I'm about to give you my counseling notes from my own journey. This is free. You didn't pay for it. The root of this lie is shame. Shame always pushes us into hiding. That goes all the way to page 3 of the book. We hide, and when we hide with shame, there are only two outcomes. We either become a victim or a hero. Those are the only two options when we're walking in shame.

This is going to step on some toes, but maybe this is where we get invited into freedom. If we find ourselves walking as a victim… Listen. You know it. You feel it. You have the friends around you. When people go, "Hey, how was your day?" you immediately rattle off all of the hard things that happened. "I got stuck in traffic, and I was 10 minutes late. Then this happened, and this happened, and they didn't have my favorite coffee drink."

It's not just because you had one hard day. That's your default dialect. That orphan spirit is heavy on you. That victim… It's never going or always complaining. That's one side. Here's a side that sadly gets celebrated. It's the hero. Shame all of a sudden creeps into our story, and we have to be the hero of the story. So, guys, we find ourselves constantly dating the damsel in distress. Why? Because we have deep-seated shame issues, and we believe we'll never be enough, so we think that maybe, if we save you, that will somehow validate our existence.

I'll just give you a quick example. We have to be the hero. We have to step in. That's why that people-pleasing kind of creeps in. It plays itself out in so many ways. Let me fly it up to 30,000 feet so it's not so sensitive. In the brilliant 2012 film The Dark Knight Rises, Christopher Nolan's adaptation of Batman with Christian Bale… Oh, it's so good. So, so good.

There's this particular scene in the movie where Bruce Wayne goes to this masked gala, and everyone has a mask on except Bruce Wayne. He finds himself dancing with Anne Hathaway, Catwoman, and she poses this question. This is the scene here. She says, "You're the only one without a mask. Who are you supposed to be?" His response is "I'm Bruce Wayne, eccentric billionaire."

Now, this scene gets lost on many of us, but it was incredibly important to the director Christopher Nolan. Here's why. He was trying to communicate in a small moment that because of Bruce's childhood trauma and deep-seated shame, Bruce actually considers Batman his true identity, and Bruce Wayne is just the mask he wears to the public. Ooh, it's so good. Let me take it a step further.

Christopher Nolan says that means for Bruce Wayne, the true self, the true being, the only person who was actually worthy of the love he never got from his parents because they were murdered (he's an orphan, so he has an orphan spirit), is the person hiding behind a mask all alone, trying to prove he's more than human. It's performative, and it's not love. The root of this lie is shame. It creates distance between us and the Father, and it doesn't lead us to freedom. The lie that we'll never be enough.

So, maybe it's you'll never have enough, maybe it's you'll never be enough, or maybe it's the third lie that you'll never do enough. This is the younger brother who looks at his father and goes, "I'm no longer worthy to be called your son, so just make me a hired servant." Here's the younger brother's rationale: "Hey, listen. I have totally blown it. There's no way possible that I could ever earn my way back into the family, but just maybe I could get a job, and maybe I could do enough that you would love me again." "If I could do more, maybe then you would approve of me, God."

The younger brother at the end of this story looks at his father, and this is what he says: "Look. This whole time I've been slaving for you. Not one time did I disobey an order." How interesting his language is here. He's not even trying to hide the fact that he has this spirit of slave and orphan on him. He's like, "The whole time I've been working so hard for you. I've been slaving back here. Not one time did I get it wrong, and you've been holding out on me. It's like no matter what I do, it's never enough to you, is it, God? What do I have to do?"

Both of these sons believe the lie that they'll never do enough. For us, this plays out in validation junkies, addicted to comparison. It's performance anxiety. It's the imposter syndrome. It's this trap we get in, constantly trying to prove our worth by what we do. We quickly find ourselves introducing ourselves and immediately telling people what we do for a living, as though somehow that would validate our existence.

Can I bring it close? Some of us believe this lie so much we'll spend way more money than we actually have to buy clothes we do not need or really fancy cars that are way beyond what are actually practical. Why? Because when we get inside of the car or we put that jacket on, there's a moment where we feel validated and the spirit of orphan and slave doesn't speak as loudly as it normally does, so we medicate for a second. This is deep, but once again, it's like the magic trick. The longer you've been walking in this, the harder it is for many of us to see it.

I'll give you one more quick example. If your day or your mood is affected…you feel the shift…by criticism, the amount of "likes" you got on that social media post, someone not recognizing or validating your hard work, or (none of you in this room would struggle with this, but people back in San Antonio sometimes do) if you feel like your standings with God are dependent on your Bible reading consistency, your attendance at church or The Porch, or your management of sins…

If you feel like God's view of you is somehow shifted or gets better based upon how well you play the Christian game, how moral you are, how well you read the Scripture, how often you show up, how you are able to somehow manage your morality, it is a spirit of slave, and you're believing the lie that you'll never do enough.

The truth is (hopefully you know this) Christianity is not about what you and I can do; it's about what Jesus has already done. So many of us have this mindset that Christianity is like this giant list of dos and don'ts. That's why we feel like we're doing well. "I'm following the list. I'm doing things well. I'm staying away from the don'ts, and I'm doing the dos, and God, I guess, is going to be somehow pleased with me. He's happy. Right?" We find ourselves jumping through all of these religious hoops.

Can I free some of you tonight? That's not what the journey toward Jesus is about. It's about the moment we actually come face-to-face with Jesus, when we actually bask underneath the waterfall of his grace, his mercy, and his love. We'll look at those things and go, "Yeah, I don't want to do those things. I don't want to be a part of those things, but those things don't matter. Why? Because I'm your son, and I'll walk away from whatever it takes to get more of you, Jesus, not in order to earn your favor but because I'm already loved and cherished by you."

You and I weren't just set free from a spirit of slavery or orphan; we were set free to something. We were set free into a spirit of sonship. This is huge. Don't miss it, please. From this moment forward, my prayer tonight has been that you can't not see this everywhere, but I'll give you a few. Romans 8:15: "For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear." It's one of the lies. "Instead, you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry out, 'Abba, Father!' The Spirit himself testifies together with our spirit that we are God's children…"

I love it. I love that the father's response in the last few verses of the chapter is he speaks against the lies. So, this whole idea of "I'll never do enough…" He's like, "What do you mean?" "I'll never have enough. I'll never be enough." The father looks at him and says, "My son…" He immediately speaks into his identity, the being. "You'll never do enough? What do you mean? You were always with me."

"But I'll never have enough."

"What are you talking about? Everything I have is yours."

Paul picks it up again in Galatians 4. It's so good. "But when the [time was just right], God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, 'Abba, Father.' So you are no longer a slave, but God's child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir."

The story of Scripture is that you and I… Listen. On page 3 of the book, the Enemy shows up, and he poses three lies. Can you guess what those three lies are? He looks at Eve and says, "Hey, you're never going to have enough. God is holding out on you. He said you could eat of all the fruit, but there's one that he didn't. He's holding out on you. Oh, you feel like your being is broken, right? But if you had this knowledge, oh, then you'd be fixed. Not only that. Then you'd be able to do what God can do."

They believed that lie, and the spirit of orphan came crashing into our planet. It broke everything we know. The whole Old Testament, although it's filled with a bunch of wild stories, is really just one giant promise. The promise is that God sees you and me in all of our brokenness, in our orphan spirit, and one day he's sending a hero to fix every bit of it. So, when you turn the page from Malachi into Matthew, the Old Testament into the New Testament, the hero shows up.

But it's not what any one of us expected, because the hero is actually God himself. Jesus steps out of heaven and wraps himself in human flesh, teaching you and me, as he walked on earth for 33 perfect years, what it means to be fully human and to be fully alive. Do you know what's really interesting? What's the title the God-man, the God who put on flesh, chose to wear? What's his part in the Trinity? What's it called? Son.

Have you ever stepped back and been like, "Why 'son'?" It's not biology. Jesus isn't Hercules. He's not a demigod. He was the God who put on flesh and moved into our trailer park. Why bear the title of Son? To show us what our inheritance looks like, to show us what our new identity as sons looks like.

There's so much. I'll just give you a couple more. I think this is important for you. Jesus gets baptized right before he starts his earthly ministry. Scripture says he goes into the water. He comes out, and all of a sudden, the sky opens up. The Father's voice speaks. There's a dove that descends as the symbol of the Spirit. The Father's voice says something really interesting. He says, "That one? That's my boy, and I am madly in love with him, and I'm super proud of him."

What? What are you proud of? Jesus hasn't done any of the things that we celebrate. He hasn't walked on water, hasn't healed anybody, hasn't turned water to wine, hasn't cast out demons, hasn't healed the sick, or called the dead out of the grave. He hasn't gone to the cross. What's the Father proud of? He's proud of him no matter what he does because he's his.

These are the words that are spoken over you and me as we get adopted into the family. They combat all three of those lies. "Oh, you think you'll never have enough? You think you'll never be enough? You think you'll never do enough? Well, guess what? You're mine, and I deeply love you. You're mine. I'm a good dad, and you don't have to do another thing. I'm already wildly proud of you."

Jesus, from that moment, gets led into the desert where he faces those three lies yet again. "Jesus, you'll never have enough. All you have to do is turn these stones into bread. Jesus, you're never going to be enough, so why don't you throw yourself off this temple. Call the angels. They'll grab you, and then guess what? You'll get to be the savior everyone wants you to be instead of the misunderstood Messiah you've been called to be.

Jesus, you're never going to do enough, so why don't you just bow right now, and I'll give you the kingdom. Do you really think the cross will be enough? It won't. So just bow. I'll give it to you." Jesus is able to combat all three lies and the spirit of orphan because he's the Son. He's able to walk in these deep levels of freedom.

So, tonight, let me share one more thing. The million-dollar question is…How? "Cool, Drew. You exposed the lies. Now what the heck do we do? How do we actually start to walk in the spirit of sonship?" I want to tell you this really quickly. This is important. The spirit of slave or orphan, whatever this is… I didn't grow up in a charismatic home, but I'm learning it's the only spirit that cannot be rebuked. It's a spirit that has to be replaced, and it can only be replaced by the spirit of sonship.

So, how do we get that? The only way we start to walk with the spirit of sonship is by proximity to the Father. That's it. I'd love to be able to give you an app, a pill, a Whole30 diet plan, 75 Hard… I wish there was some type of thing I could give you that would somehow fix it, but here's what I'm learning: proximity to the Father is the only thing that makes us actually become sons. That's it. Sadly, in the Western church, the reason this spirit is so rampant is because very few of us know how to just be with the Father.

Can I give you a quick example? Many of you, when I said that, immediately created a to-do list of what you're going to do tomorrow a little bit differently, immediately believing the third lie. "Maybe I could do more." So, maybe the question for you is…What would it actually look like to just learn to sit, to be, to turn your phone off, to close your mouth? It is so difficult in our day and age, and it's why this spirit, I believe, is so thick in our churches.

I started with this cheesy little domino trick. What's interesting about the domino is, like I told you, it's just psychology. It's just a trick. What's really cool is at first… Once again, for a lot of us this is Christianity. It's like, "Oh, that's kind of neat. That's cool how that works." Then it kind of wears off, and we're like, "Oh, yeah. We're all used to a two-dotted domino. No big deal." But as we get closer, my prayer for you is that you would start to realize the presence of Jesus is more real than the chair you are seated in tonight.

As many of you start to experience and sit in his presence, you're going to start to see things you never saw before. Many of you will walk out of here and be like, "Wait. Question. Was it two? Was it three? Was it four? Was it five? I don't know how many dots." But some of you will swear up and down that you really did see six dots. You'll be like, "No, no, no. I don't know what you saw. Maybe it was all in your head, but I really did see six dots."

Then some of you are going to walk out and be like, "Well, what about the other side? Did you see two? Did you see three? I felt like he started off with that," and you'll be like, "No, no. I promise I saw three dots. It was the weirdest thing. I don't know if that's you." Here's what's really wild. Some of you tonight, as you step in and get a little bit closer to Jesus, as you begin to walk in the freedom he offers… My prayer and my hope is that you'll go, "There's so much more than I ever thought possible, because Jesus just keeps getting better and deeper."

So, tonight, here's how I want to end our time. My invitation and application for you is, this week, what does it look like for you to actually learn to just sit with the Father and receive your identity as a son so you could learn to walk in real freedom? So, tonight, if you're okay with it, here's how I would like to end my time.

I want to speak a blessing over you, a father's blessing. If you would, I invite you to stand wherever you are. You can take whatever posture tonight that's comfortable for you. You can stand, you can close your eyes, you can open your hand, whatever is fitting for you. Just give me 60 more seconds. Don't miss this.

Many of you, like myself, never received a blessing from your father. Maybe most of your life it has been a lot of curses, and it's why you walk in this orphan spirit. So, tonight, not from me but on behalf of our heavenly Father, I just want to speak a blessing over you. My prayer is that wherever you find yourself in the spiritual journey, you would receive it. So, tonight, to the college student, to the young professional, to the single, to the solo parent, to the religious, to the skeptic…

"You are my child. You're mine, and I love you. I'm proud of you, and I'm pleased with you. Tonight, I release you from all performance and trying to somehow earn my love or try to earn a sense of belonging with me or to maybe earn my pride over you. Even if you were to never do any of those things ever again, those three truths will always be true. I love you, you're mine, and I'm proud of you.

I see you, and I know you. I desire to be with you. I want you to abide with me. I love time with you. I care about what you're feeling. I care about what you're thinking. I value your dreams and your wants and your desires, and I want to talk to you about them. I see your heart to really know and to really love me.

I see your heart and aptitude to really love your friends and family, to engage them, and to make them feel valuable and seen. I see many of you fighting to let me be the father you never had or the friend you never had. I want to teach you, and I want to be with you in all of these areas. I am the Dad you long for. I love you, son. I love you, daughter."