Our Heavenly Father #7: From Orphan to Child of God Mentality

Our Heavenly Father does not want His children living like orphans in His own house. In this seventh message of the series, the pastor teaches that real change comes when we move from an orphan mentality, always striving and asking for approval, to a child of God mentality that boldly receives what the Father has already given. He builds on Our Heavenly Father #6 — Fellowship, a Soft Heart and the Fullness of God and ties it to the first words of the Lord’s Prayer.

Below you will find the full video, a structured summary, the Scripture behind each point (linked to the NKJV on Bible Gateway), a side-by-side look at the orphan and the child, a timestamped outline, and practical steps.

Sermon at a Glance

This message was preached at NTC Ministries in Merrill, Wisconsin, on a Sunday when the church shared a Thanksgiving meal together, and it was posted in November 2025. It runs about 61 minutes and closes with the congregation praying the Lord’s Prayer. The pastor begins by recapping the series, from building the kingdom to kingdom faith, before he says he will “kick it into gear” with the orphan and the child.

His main point is that God has already given His children everything that pertains to life and godliness. What separates those who partake of it from those who do not is how they see God: as a distant lawgiver and judge, or as a loving Father.

Faith in Jesus and the Faith of Jesus

If God had wanted the law of Moses to be our standard, he says, He would have given it to Adam in the garden. Instead He gave Adam one command: keep the garden and do not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Disobedience brought corruption, and we now live in an earth-cursed system.

Jesus came to show us how to live above that corruption. In the world you will have tribulation, He said, but be of good cheer, “I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). We look to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2). But the pastor says we are meant to go deeper, from faith in Jesus to living with the faith of Jesus.

Martha is his example. When Lazarus died, she believed he would rise “in the last day.” Jesus answered, “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:23–26). Many believers live where Martha lived, waiting for a special sign or feeling before they can receive. Jesus, by contrast, constantly saw the lame walk, the blind see and the dead raised, even in the middle of terrible things.

That kind of faith takes revelation. When Peter confessed that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God, Jesus said flesh and blood had not revealed it to him, but His Father in heaven (Matthew 16:15–17). The change, the pastor says, happens as we go from an orphan mentality to a child of God mentality, seeing God as our Father.

Jesus Came to Show Us the Father

Most people, even among Christians, see God as a far-off lawgiver and judge. That picture never brings anyone into victory. The pastor points to Romans 8:32: He who did not spare His own Son, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? The foundation verse for the whole series is 2 Corinthians 13:14: the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit. The work of Jesus and of the Spirit is to bring us into relationship with God as our Father.

He shares that his life changed when he gave up trying to make himself right before God by strict rules. “Our giving up is more important to God than our trying,” he says.

Man in corruption had terrible ideas about God, like Job’s friends, whom God finally told to stop. So Jesus came as the one mediator between God and men (1 Timothy 2:5). A mediator brings two parties together so that each sees how the other is thinking. Jesus experienced everything we experience so that He could be a faithful high priest who asks the Father for mercy, and He tells people the Father is not a judge waiting with a bat.

People needed to see God’s goodness in Jesus before redemption, or they would never have broken free from the law. That is why Jesus said that whoever has seen Him has seen the Father (John 14:9), and why He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil (Acts 10:38). The thief comes to steal, kill and destroy, but Jesus came to give abundant life (John 10:10).

Jesus constantly pointed to the Father. Look at the birds of the air, He said; they do not sow or reap, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Look at the lilies; Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these, and your Father knows what you need (Matthew 6:26–32). Before Jesus, the pastor says, it was nearly impossible for people to embrace God as Father. David came close. He knew God’s mercy, hesed, and said he would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of God (Psalm 84:10). Few Christians today, he observes, speak of God that way.

Hallowed Be Your Name

Recapping Ezekiel 36:23, the pastor reminds the church that God said He would sanctify His great name, which had been profaned among the nations. God revealed Himself to Israel, but they could not grasp who He was, so they had nothing true to tell others. They made Him out to be a lawgiver and judge. David knew better: God’s sacrifices are a broken spirit and a contrite heart (Psalm 51:17).

In John 17:25–26 Jesus prays, “O righteous Father! The world has not known You,” and says He has declared the Father’s name so that the love with which the Father loved Him may be in us. The pastor explains that to be hallowed, qadosh in Hebrew, is to be consecrated, set apart and shown to be the God of love and goodness that He really is. God wants His love in us and flowing out of us. “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God,” says 1 John 4:7–8.

That is what orphans lack: an orphan can build a large company yet never know the love of a father. Jesus says God wants to be your Father, and knowing that love takes away striving. “Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32).

So when the disciples asked how to pray, Jesus began, “Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name” (Matthew 6:9–13). The pastor connects it to Ezekiel’s promise: when God’s name is hallowed, He takes out the heart of stone and gives a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26–27). From the beginning He gave Adam dominion over all the works of His hands. He never meant to withhold anything.

The Greek word for hallowed, hagiazo, carries the same sense as the Hebrew: pure, blameless, set apart and regarded with great respect. James 1:17 says every good and perfect gift comes from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. Our lights cast shadows, the pastor notes, but God’s light has no shadowy area where you have to wonder about Him.

He illustrates the difference between a child and a guest. A child will ask for a drink of water at three in the morning and know they will get it. A guest in the same house hesitates; they are in the house, but they live there as an orphan of that home’s father. “He wants you bold,” the pastor says, embracing Him as your heavenly Father.

Filled With All the Fullness of God

In Ephesians 3:14–19 Paul bows his knees to the Father, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named. The pastor explains that “family” there is patria, meaning fatherhood. Paul prays that we would be strengthened with might in the inner man, because it takes spiritual strength to take hold of what God has taken hold of us for (Philippians 3:12).

The prayer continues: that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that, rooted and grounded in love, you may know the love of Christ which passes knowledge and be filled with all the fullness of God. Do not lean on your own understanding, but in all your ways acknowledge Him (Proverbs 3:5–6).

The word fullness, pleroma, means completion or a multitude, and the pastor says the Romans used it in three ways: when a census found every bed in every house full, when a cargo ship could not hold another toothpick, and when a military ship had skilled personnel at every post. For us, he says, that means all comfort, all provision and all protection from God.

That gives a confidence described in Hebrews 11:1: faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. He calls it the title deed, the confidence that I already have what I need, and he says this is exactly why we move from faith in Jesus to the faith of Jesus.

From Orphan to Child of Our Heavenly Father

Many people call themselves Christians but live as orphans, the pastor says, feeling that God failed them and that they must simply cope. Paul faced this in Galatia. “O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you?” They began in the Spirit and then tried to be made perfect by the flesh (Galatians 3:1–3). Then in Galatians 4:1–7 he writes that an heir, as long as he is a child, does not differ at all from a slave, though he is master of all.

The word for child there, the pastor teaches, describes an infant who cannot yet speak. He tells of a minister friend who adopted a little boy from another country. Brought into a home that could give him everything, the boy cried for days because he missed the place he knew. Only later did he understand he was loved and could ask for what he wanted. Many Christians are like that, he says; maturity means being willing to be uncomfortable while God moves us out of our self-strength environment.

Because we are sons, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts crying, “Abba, Father.” Abba, he says, is Aramaic for a child who knows the father’s love intimately. The Holy Spirit keeps crying it within us, teaching us to speak as sons, and the old language of lack passes away. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17).

The table below gathers the contrasts the pastor draws between an orphan and a child of our Heavenly Father.

An orphan, he says, always strives for approval, even in a family with a living father. Salvation is not a reward for the righteous; it is a gift for the broken. It has nothing to do with our goodness and everything to do with Jesus’ goodness. In Him we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28), and He who began a good work in you will complete it (Philippians 1:6).

He uses the prodigal son to show the Father’s heart (Luke 15:11–32). The younger son came home planning to say he was unworthy, but the father put a ring on his finger, shoes on his feet and a robe on his back and threw a party. When the older brother resented it, the father said, “Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours.” He could have had a party any time.

Thankfulness Keeps His Goodness in View

2 Peter 1:1–4 says grace and peace are multiplied through the knowledge of God, and His divine power has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness. The pastor stresses that this is for every believer, not only a gifted apostle or evangelist. Through His great and precious promises we partake of the divine nature and escape the corruption that is in the world through lust. Fights and wars come from wanting what you cannot get in your own strength (James 4:1–2).

1 Peter 2:8–9 contrasts those who stumble with a chosen generation and royal priesthood called to proclaim the praises of Him who called them out of darkness. “That’s Christianity,” he says: showing people the goodness of God. Praying for people to be healed and provided for is how His name is hallowed among us.

Then Romans 1:18–23 warns that people who knew God did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, and became futile in their thoughts. The pastor says the Greek for glorify means to honor God as He really is. When we stop being thankful we profane who God is, and “if you have a wrong image with God, you’ll have wrong results in life.”

The answer is thankfulness in everything, though not for everything (1 Thessalonians 5:18). He does not thank God for a tragedy, but finds something to be thankful for in it, knowing all things work together for good to those who love God (Romans 8:28). Even his own clumsiness, he says, the Father will turn for his good.

He closes by reading Psalm 30:1–4, Psalm 34:1–3 and Psalm 107:1–2: let the redeemed of the Lord say so. The early church’s communion, he notes, was an agape meal spent talking about God’s goodness. The Lord’s Prayer, he concludes, is more than a repeated prayer; it is a life.

Living It Out This Week

Here are practical steps drawn from this message on our Heavenly Father:

• Ask like a child. Bring your needs to the Father boldly, the way a child asks for water at night, instead of looking for someone whose life seems better to pray for you.
• Pray “hallowed be Your name” daily. Ask God to show people who He really is through your life.
• Let go of striving. Stop trying to earn His love by your performance, and rest in Jesus’ goodness.
• Give thanks in everything. Find something to thank Him for in each situation, especially hard ones.
• Encourage, don’t compare. Treat other believers as family and cheer them on where they are weak.
• Share His goodness at the table. Like an agape meal, talk with family or friends about what God has done.

Timestamped Outline

• 0:01 Recap: building the kingdom
• 1:06 One command in the garden, not the law of Moses
• 2:12 The faith of Jesus and Martha’s faith
• 4:47 Revelation and the orphan mentality
• 5:56 God as Father, not a far-off judge
• 8:20 Our giving up and Job’s friends
• 9:23 Jesus the mediator shows the Father
• 11:44 The birds of the air and the lilies
• 12:49 David and the mercy of God
• 15:14 John 17: I have declared Your name
• 17:43 The Lord’s Prayer: Matthew 6:9–13
• 20:07 What hallowed means
• 21:27 The Father of lights, and the child at 3 a.m.
• 24:28 Ephesians 3: the whole family named
• 26:41 Pleroma: the fullness of God
• 30:25 Galatians 4: an heir who is still a child
• 34:18 Salvation is a gift for the broken
• 37:01 The adopted boy who cried for days
• 39:16 Abba, Father
• 42:59 2 Peter 1 and the prodigal son
• 48:38 Partakers of the divine nature
• 50:53 Romans 1: they were not thankful
• 53:21 Thankful in everything
• 57:19 Psalms of praise and the agape meal
• 59:42 Praying the Lord’s Prayer together

Our Heavenly Father Series

This message is part of an eight-part teaching series at NTC Ministries. Start from the beginning or continue where this one leaves off:

• First message: Our Heavenly Father #1: An Introduction to the Fatherhood of God
• Previous: Our Heavenly Father #6 — Fellowship, a Soft Heart and the Fullness of God
• You are here: Our Heavenly Father #7: From Orphan to Child of God Mentality
• Next: Our Heavenly Father #8: Growing in Spiritual Maturity by Continually Hearing God

Frequently Asked Questions

Is it wrong to want a good life as a Christian?

The pastor says no. Some Christians and even ministers say God does not want you to have certain things and that wanting them is greed. He calls that thinking twisted. God gave Adam dominion over everything He made and has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness. Wanting a good life and what God created is not greed; refusing it because someone else’s mind has fallen from that truth is the mistake.

Should Christians still ask others to pray for them?

Yes. The pastor says it is great to have prayer from others, and Scripture tells us to ask for prayer and to be united in it. The question is the heart behind it. If you are thinking your life is not good enough and someone else’s goodness will get the answer, that is an orphan mindset. We do not qualify by our goodness; we come by Jesus’ goodness.

How do I know if I am living with an orphan mentality?

The pastor gives several signs: feeling that God has failed you or come short, thinking you must earn His love, striving for approval, relying only on your own strength, and blaming God for bad things in a corrupted world. A child of God instead sees obedience as a joy, expects the Father to turn things for good, and boldly takes what He has given.

Scripture References

All passages open in the New King James Version on Bible Gateway:

• Galatians 4:1–7 — from slave to son and heir
• Matthew 6:9–13 — the Lord’s Prayer
• Ephesians 3:14–19 — the fullness of God
• Ezekiel 36:23 — God will sanctify His great name
• John 17:25–26 — Jesus declares the Father’s name
• Romans 8:32 — He will freely give us all things
• Luke 15:11–32 — the prodigal son
• 2 Peter 1:1–4 — partakers of the divine nature
• Romans 1:18–23 — nor were thankful

How this summary was made: written with AI assistance from the sermon’s own transcript and checked against the Scriptures listed above.

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