Greetings, friends and new listeners and welcome to The Sound of Faith. I’m Sharon Otz thanking you for tuning in today because we know faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. I’m excited to bring you today’s message, I took a DNA test and God is my Father. You may be aware of all the attention Ancestry DNA is getting these days. Well, imagine the shock when my own husband Benny and I took a DNA test and he found out that his dad is not his bio-father.
Benny Knotts is not a Knotts, but there is a greater DNA test in I took a DNA test and God is my Father. God loved him and the last thing that Jesus heard his father say is, you are my son and I love you. And saints, let me tell you this, when you get in some of your severe trials, Satan’s going to play the same card on you. He’ll play the same card because he doesn’t want you to be reminded of the fact that God loves you and you’re in a trial and you’re hurting, you’re hurting really bad. And he says, if God loves you, why?
Have you ever had that question in your heart? If God loves me, why? Is he allowing me to go through this or this to happen to me? He’ll start off that way. Then he’ll go from asking you that question. Then he’ll answer it for you. God must not love you or he would get you out of this, not have let it happen in the first place, et cetera. How many know what I’m telling you?
And then he’ll go further. If you don’t rebuke him, he’ll go from God must not love you or he’ll go to God doesn’t love you or he would. And he may not have done this with any of you yet, but he did it with me and I’ve told this story before, so I won’t repeat it today. But when I was in that severe trial, I actually heard loud voice. I won’t say it’s audible, but honestly it seemed like it was audible. It was so loud. God hates you. It scared me.
It was so powerful and so mean. God hates you. But the very fact that God let me go through that whole thing and I preached it before that whole thing the next day, I’ve got the greatest revelation I ever had at how much God loves me. I thought he let me go through that horrible thing last night and it was bad to show me the devil is a liar because he loves me because Satan was trying to kill me for real, trying to take me out, but he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t do it because when Benny began to rebuke Satan in the name of Jesus, it broke. The devil will try to use that same card on you and the same card on me.
Amen. Jesus didn’t fall for it and don’t you fall for it either. He knew at age 12, now think about it, the 12 year old Jesus knew God was his father. He said to mama, mama, why are you so upset?
Don’t you know I got to be about my father’s business? And mama said, she didn’t know what to say. The scripture says they didn’t understand what he was talking about. You know, she understood, but she didn’t understand.
But nevertheless, we are not told what she said, but basically she said, well son, I understand, but you’re coming home now and don’t pull this stunt again because the scripture said he went home and was subject. That tells me somebody got a good scolding and he had to grow after that. He had to grow in wisdom. He was 12 and he knew the Torah.
He could quote the Torah, but he didn’t have all wisdom yet. He was still growing in wisdom. Amen. And sometimes when you’re 12 year old and 13 year old and even 16 year old makes you want to bop them upside the head, just tell yourself they’re growing in wisdom. They’re growing in wisdom. They’re growing in wisdom.
Amen. I told you the frontal lobe of the brain is not fully developed until age 25. And that’s the part of the brain where a person’s initiation or actions are to take risks. Risks.
That’s why teenagers and young people will do stupid things because they don’t appreciate the danger and the risk. Amen. So he knew who his father was. He had to go through this test and we know the 40 days he was tempted and we know that he passed all the tests and when he was done, he said, Satan, the Lord rebuke you and Satan departed. Now he is ready to go on his first mission and it only makes sense that he would start his first evangelistic mission in the town of Nazareth where he grew up while we’re still in Luke and we’re still in chapter four. But let’s look at verse 14 and Jesus returned. That’s from the temptations in the wilderness in the power of the spirit under Galilee.
And there went out a fame of him through all the region round about and he taught in their synagogues being glorified of all. Now he’s ready to go on his mission. Let’s drop down to verse 18 and you know this is what encapsulates his mission and it is actually taken straight out of Isaiah 61 the spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor.
He has sent me to heal the broken hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised. And when he read this out of the scroll after he finished, I’m sure he was dramatic. He paused, he took that scroll, he handed it over to the one who would have taken the scroll and carefully folded it up and kissed it. They always kissed it and put it up in the cabinet.
Jesus was waiting until he got all that done because he didn’t want anybody to be distracted about what he was about ready to tell them. So it’s quiet in there. You could hear a pin drop.
Okay. Close the cabinet. Go sit down, sir. Today, this saying, this prophecy is fulfilled in your ears. And they were amazed at what he said. And he went on to speak. Let’s look at verse 22 and all bear him witness and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth.
And they said, is this not Joseph’s son? Here we go again. Here we go again. What are you talking about today?
This is fulfilled in your ears. We know who you are. You are Joseph’s son. Who are you making yourself out to be?
The spirit of the Lord is in upon me to anoint me to do all these things. Who are you anyway? Don’t we know who your dad is? He’s a carpenter. That’s what you are.
You’re a carpenter. Amen. But they had to scratch their head and say, but how did you get so learned? How did you get so smart? Amen.
How did you? Because his words were so gracious. So for the next three and a half years, this is what Jesus had to face over and over again. Who is your father? Where is your father? Again and again, Jesus had to contend with the same thing, but what did he do instead of just saying, well, my father is God. He began to say, okay, like father, like son, like father, like son.
If you don’t believe what I’m telling you, then believe me for the work sake. Look at my works and see that the father is in me. It is the father that has anointed me to do these things.
Amen. That’s John, I think 10, 37 around there. So now while we’re still in Luke fourth chapter, let’s drop down and see what this first thing was in this mission in the synagogue. Let’s look at verse 31 and he came down to Capernaum. So he was up on Nazareth, up on the hill, right?
Now he comes down the hill to the coast to Capernaum, a city of Galilee. And he taught them on the Sabbath days and they too were astonished at his doctrine for his word was with power. And in the synagogue, there was a man which had a spirit or a demon of an unclean devil and cried out with a loud voice saying, let us alone. What have we to do with thee thou Jesus of Nazareth?
Are you come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art, the Holy one of God. And Jesus rebuked him and said, shut up and come out of him.
And the spirit came out. So here he’s just preaching. He didn’t call a prayer line. He didn’t say everyone that needs deliverance, raise your hand.
Okay, come on up here. He’s preaching, he’s teaching and the devil can’t stand the anointing. The devil goes to church and he plays possum. How many know the devil goes to church? And as long as it’s a dead church, a dry church, a church that doesn’t preach deliverance, a church that doesn’t expose the devil in any way, he can come to church every week and everything is cool. But when somebody with the anointing to set captives free, somebody that has the anointing to break the chains and the fetters of bondage gets up and preaches and teaches, the devil gets nervous. He starts squirming and either he’s going to do one or two things. He’s either going to get up and leave or he’s going to do what this man did and say, let us alone. What was Jesus doing to him?
He’s just preaching. The devil said, let us alone. We know who you are. We know that you’re the holy one of God.
Let me tell you something. The devil knew who Jesus father was. The devil knew it.
If anybody knew it, the devil did. So then he tried to put on a show, but Jesus said, shut up and come out. And ultimately the devil had to come out because he had to bow down to the authority of the son of God.
Verse 36, and they were all amazed and spake among themselves saying, what a word is this? For with authority and power, he commands the unclean spirits and they come out of him. He had authority, exousia, where did he get that? His father. This is my son, my son in whom I’m well pleased. He had power, dunamis.
Where did he get that? The holy spirit. He had that baptism of the holy spirit. Amen.
So we not only had the authority of his father, he had the power to go forth. And you see saints of God, the new birth gives us authority and the holy spirit baptism gives us power. Aren’t you glad you got both? Amen. Aren’t you glad you have both?
Cause a lot of people only have the first one. They’re a child of God. They love God. They’re repented.
They serve God and they have authority, but they don’t know what to do with it because it takes the power of God to operate in that authority. Look at verse 41 and the devils or the demons also came out of many crying out and saying, you are Christ or you are Messiah, the son of God. The devil knew who Jesus father was. Amen. I would have to think that all those Pharisees and scribes and lawyers and naysayers sitting there in that synagogue, they heard what the demon said.
They heard it. Amen. But they kept struggling and saying, who is your father? Where is your father?
Oh, you don’t have to tell us. We know he’s Joseph. Amen. But the demons knew and they had to obey him when he spoke because he had received authority from God over them.
But it all that hinged on the fact that Jesus knew who his father is. Amen. We know we know who our father is. We don’t shake in our shoes when we’re confronted with the adversary. Amen. Because we know who our father is and he’s not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and a sound mind because Jesus knew who his father is. You know, read the Gospel of John, go through it over and over again, especially chapter eight and nine and 10. I mean, he is constantly having to confront these people about who his father is.
Amen. But he knew. And so my question to you today is, do you know who your father is? Do you know? Okay, let’s turn to first John three.
We’ll be finishing up soon here. The epistle of John chapter three, you know this verse well. Chapter three, verse one, beloved. Ah, doesn’t say beloved, does it? Doesn’t say beloved there, but it does in verse two.
So I’m just going to move it up if you don’t mind. Behold what manner of love the father who the father has bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God. Therefore the world knows is not because it knew him not beloved.
Now are we the sons of God and it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know when he shall appear, we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is. What manner of love and what’s it? The bestowed bestowed is a little stiff. I like the synonym is better. The Greek means lavished. How many like the word lavished? Lavished means to pour out abundantly.
Amen. To just lavish on us that we should be called the sons of God and here the sons of God is not a gender identity. It has nothing to do with gender. It has to do with legal placement that we’re an heir of God and a joint heir with Jesus Christ. An heir of God, because you understand that in the society at that time, only sons were the legal heirs. So that’s all that it means.
So don’t get hung up on that gender thing. But now are we the children of God right now? Amen. Oh, we are the heirs of God. We are the children of God.
And here’s the thing about it. The world doesn’t know us. Why should we be surprised or upset when the world doesn’t get us? They don’t know us. Jesus said they didn’t know him. And he says, because they don’t know me, they don’t know the father. They don’t know the father. They don’t know me. They don’t know the father. They don’t know Jesus and they don’t know Sharon and they don’t know you.
Amen. They don’t know us because they don’t know God. They don’t understand our relationship with God. Now here’s what they’ll tell you.
This is what you’re going to hear out there all the time. We are all children of God. How many know that’s the saying that explains everything in their mind. We are all the children of God. That is true in the sense that God created us and we are his children because he created us in his image and likeness. Amen.
We don’t look like a frog or a dog. We look like the image of God. He created us in that sense. We are his children. Amen.
In that sense. But that’s the reason for the new birth. Amen.
Coming back to where we began. It is only those that are born again that have his seed. The incorruptible seed of his word in us.
Amen. And only those that are born again have God’s spiritual DNA and are truly the children of God. And so when you hear that, you know, they say we’re the children of God. Yes, but you have to be born again to have his seed in you. And look, here’s the proof of it. Here’s the proof you got his seed. Look at verse seven.
Little children, let no man deceive you. He that does righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous. He that committed sin is of the devil for the devil sins from the beginning. And for this purpose the son of God was manifest that he might destroy the works of the devil.
Whoever is born of God does not commit sin for his seed remains in him and he cannot sin because he is born of God. Now, very quickly, because I’m out of time, I do want to make this clear to you. You see all those th’s on the end of the verbs do with and committeth and etcetera sinneth.
And again, we got that old King James version. It’s usually we say I don’t like it, but here it’s telling us something very important. That th tells you that it’s written in the present tense. And what that means is it’s continual habitual action.
So here’s what it’s saying. Whoever keeps on sinning, whoever keeps on sinning, God is not their father. God’s seed is not in them because of God’s seed was in them. If they were born again and the seed was in them, they would not keep on sitting, but they would keep on doing righteousness.
They would keep on doing righteousness. He said, so whoever is born of God does not keep on sinning because the devil sins from the beginning, but he is the one who keeps practicing righteousness. We all make mistakes, folks, but if you are constantly falling into the same sin over and over and over again, there’s something wrong. Now either you are not truly walking in the born again experience, or this is another possibility I feel like the Lord would have me to say, you are setting yourself up to fall into that sin because the Bible says, make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lust thereof. So if you have a problem with sexual sin, you shouldn’t be spending the night with somebody staying at their house and say, I’m just going to spend the night. No, you don’t put yourself in that position.
You don’t put yourself in a position where you’re going to fall into that. If you’ve got problems with drugs, then don’t go around people that are taking drugs or whatever the sin might be. You’ve got to flee fornication, flee it. And fornication takes in all sexual sin. Amen. And you’ve got to not even let your good be evil spoken of.
So sometimes people keep falling into sin because they’re not fleeing. But if you have God’s DNA in you, then everybody’s going to see it because you’re going to resemble your father, talk like your father, walk like your father, live like your father. Amen. And you are not going to sound, talk or walk like the world.
So let me say this in closing. My DNA results were, I know who I am. I’m definitely Sharon Hardy. I was born that way. Now my dad did not take a DNA test. My mother did, but my dad didn’t. But it’s kind of easy to figure out who your mom is unless you were adopted and given up and left on the doorstep at the firehouse.
It’s easy to know who mom is. It’s when the dad thing that you don’t know, you say, well, how do you know that brother Hardy’s your dad if you didn’t take a DNA test? Well, my results said that I am 46% Eastern Europe. In case you’re wondering what Eastern Europe is, it’s around the Baltic.
It’s where Poland and Lithuania and Estonia and some more than ones over there are. And you all know mother Hardy came from Lithuania. That was my highest percentage. And there is no other source that I could get that from, but mother Hardy. I’m also 25% English from Great Britain.
That doesn’t surprise me because the Hardy’s are from that area. I’m 17% Scandinavian. And at first I thought that’s gotta be wrong because you know what that is? That’s Denmark and Sweden and Finland and Norway up there. We’re all, I thought, how can I be? But then I looked on the map and here is Lithuania and here is the Black Sea and over here right across it is Scandinavia. And so you can imagine people traveling back and forth and spending the night here and there and everywhere. So that accounts for that. Amen. And so I’m only 4% Western Europe. Now that would be Germany and the Netherlands and France and those nations. And that was a question mark because my mom is certain all her life, her 80 some years that she’s German.
But boy, I got a low percentage there. So another mystery. We may never ever figure this one out because it’s really an old mystery. Amen. And it wouldn’t be directly my mom.
It would have to go further up the line. My mom knows who her parents are, but there’s some question about maybe who her grandparents. So here’s the thing about it. This can tell me my DNA and tells me who I am. Well, I took another DNA test and this time I took a spiritual DNA test.
Amen. And I found out that because I am truly born of God and a child of God, I have received the spirit of sonship or I received the spirit, amen, of a child. I’ve received that spirit in my heart whereby I’m going around saying I’m a father. I’m a father.
You’re a good, good father. That’s who you are. That’s who you are. And I’m loved by you. That’s who I am. I know who I am.
I’m a child who’s loved by my good, good father. Do you know him this morning? Hallelujah. If you know him, come on, stand on your feet. Amen.
I hope you’re enjoying this unique message. I took a DNA test and God is my father. The current rage is DNA testing through services like AncestryDNA.
It’s actually rewarding to trace your ethnic roots back to Europe or Africa or Asia. But many have been unexpectedly shocked to learn their father is not their bio father. This happened to my husband, Benny. He found out that Benny Knotts is not a Knotts. Since all the players involved are deceased, there are many questions that cannot be answered. But the good news is he has been united with his three new sisters he never knew existed.
But there is even better news. Benny took a spiritual DNA test and God is his father. Many today do not know who their bio fathers are. Others who do know have no relationship or restrained relationship with their fathers.
The feeling of rejection is a heavy load on the heart. Jesus was rejected by his own people and most did not accept that he is the son of God. But as early as age 12, Jesus knew who his father is and he was eager to be about his business. He said, if you don’t believe me when I say God is my father, believe the works I do.
If you were born again of the incorruptible seed of God’s word, the attributes of your heavenly father are evident in you and God calls you his beloved son or daughter. I took a DNA test and God is my father is available on CD for a love gift for the radio ministry of $10 or more. Request SK205, mail to sound of faith, P.O. Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland, 21203, or go online to our e-store at soundoffaith.org where you can also purchase on MP3s. Recently we have had to cut several radio stations because of finance. Don’t let this station be cut. Help us today with a generous love gift for radio. To receive the CD, request SK205 with your minimum love gift of $10, mail to P.O. Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland, 21203. Till next time, this is Sharon Notts singing Maranatha.
