Hi. This is Dave Olson.
I'm the senior leader of Hartman church located in Ankeny Iowa.
I hope the following message, challenges and courage's and
ultimately changes you. Thanks for joining us.
You know, your relationship with your father is really a strong
indicator of the trajectory of your life.
That's why there is such a war on families and fathers and so I
ended up reaching out of this passage and I'm just going to
I'm going to use this as a jumping off point for our
service here. This morning, let's pray.
Father, we thank you for your word Lord.
I ask that your word would be like, fire this morning would be
like an arrow that would strike the Heart Lord that it wouldn't
Encourage and strengthen Lord, that it would Challenge and
correct. And father, I ask that you would
snap that line in the spirit God that would give us an indication
lorda. An example, Lord, your word
would be the Plumb line for every man in this room in Jesus
name. Amen, I'm going to talk on
fatherhood and of course, there are principles that will apply
to mothers and women and children and so forth, but I
really want to address. It's the father's this morning,
this being Father's Day and so we're going to look at Ephesians
chapter 3. I want you to call your
attention to verse 1 and then we're going to jump to verse 14.
Listen to what it says. In verse 31 for this reason.
I Paul a prisoner of Jesus Christ on behalf of you Gentiles
and then depending on what the version you're reading all of a
sudden, there's a line or a colon, or he stops.
And he says this Assuming you have heard of the stewardship of
God's grace, that was given to me for you, on how the mystery
was made known to be my Revelation, and he goes into,
what is a parenthetical thought, there's a parentheses in the
flow of this book. So Paul and chapters one and
two, he's unpacking, theologically what we have from
Christ and then he's going to go into this prayer and just as he
launches into the prayer he decides, he has one more thing
he wants to talk about, and he's going to talk.
Talk about the call of God on his life and how God gave him
Grace to unpack, the mysteries of Christ, and then he jumps in
and verse 14. And listen.
What he says for this reason, I bow my knees before the father
said to you realize you recognize here in verse 1 and
verse 14, that he says the same thing twice.
He says, for this reason, I bow my knees before the father.
He starts to get into the subject, he's about to get into
verses 14 through the end of the chapter.
In verse 1 and he stops, and he gets into this parentheses, this
Rabbit Trail and then jumps back in at verse 14, one of the
reasons I bring that up is I want to give you scriptural
basis for your pastor going on rabbit Trails because this is
exactly what Paul did. Paul started to address,
something. He got on a little Rabbit Trail
and then he got back on track. So anytime you think Pastor you
get on rabbit Trails? Hey it's scriptural.
Amen. Verse 14 for this reason.
I bow my knees. He's before the father and
listen to what he says here. This is a powerful principle
especially for this hour in human history.
I bow my knees before the father from whom every family and if
you have there's a little reference there and every
virtually every translation you follow it to the bottom and it
will tell you, it can be translated every family or all
fatherhood. So it can read it this way.
I've kneel before the father from Whom all fatherhood in
heaven and on Earth derives, its name.
All Families derive, their name. Now in scripture, a name
represents identity. That's why often in Redemptive
history. As recorded in scripture, you'll
see people with the name change because their identity is
altered by an encounter. With God, saw the persecutor
became Paul the Apostle. Jacob, the conniving, you know,
the conniver became Israel, the prince with God and so there was
a change in the name and so when we talk about names, it
signifies identity. And so when it says I kneel
before the father from whom every family are all fatherhood
in heaven and on Earth derives its name it's saying that God is
God is the original father. He is the one from whom we
should get our definition of what fatherhood is and this is A
very important point because there's a war against family and
against fatherhood and against manhood itself going on in this
day and age. Fatherhood is not a biological
coincidence or an evolutionary coincidence.
All. That's just the way it happened.
It's not a political construct by some male patriarchal
conspiracy so that we can consolidate power.
Fatherhood is actually embedded in creation itself.
It is a part that is part of the created order, whether plant
life, or animal life or human life, and when we fail to
realize that and we begin to diminish, the role of both
fatherhood and masculinity, there are huge and terrible
repercussions that we're seeing across the landscape of our
nation. I was just reading yesterday and
it was the. I forget the official title but
it's the agency that license psychiatrists and psychologists
and they have this volume that they, they, you know, look at
all these different maladies so that you can turn to them and
you can find out what your malady is if you're struggling
with something and they've now they now look at masculinity as
largely negative that it's they call it toxic masculinity and
they look at masculinity as The problem and they trace it to all
these issues. And one of the things they'll
say is like, if you look at men in prison who are overtly
violent, it's because of toxic masculinity, I would propose to
you. The reason that there's a lot of
violence in prisons is because of the absence of healthy
masculinity and the formative years of those children.
A number of years ago, on some of you have probably heard this
story, Hallmark cards there. They had one of their major
printing shops that was near a prison.
And so what they did is they thought, hey, let's let's do
something for these men that are incarcerated.
It's coming up on Mother's Day. We print a lot of cards.
Let's offer free cards to these prisoners and they gave many
many cards and they ran out, more men were wanting cards,
they wanted to write their mom. They wanted to give their
appreciation of their mother and so, The thought man this was a
win. This was a way that we can give
back to the community and to those who are hurting the most
and so Father's day was coming up and they did the same and
wouldn't, you know, it that only like two cards were asked for.
The Mother's Day cards, were they went through them quickly,
but the Father's Day cards, no one was interested because the
fact is incarcerated, men have as a Hallmark of their history,
a disruptive rocky relationship with their dads.
As men, we have a huge effect on our children.
Biologically, it is the male who determines the gender of the
children. It's the male sperm that
determines whether it's going to be a female or a male child, and
I would propose to you that first the physical, then the
spiritual that men also have a great effect on how their
children show up even in their gender identity.
And we need to realize this that this is something we need to
own. That our words carry weight.
And so our role as a father is a very, very important thing.
I came across something that I had posted on Facebook a while
back, this is a couple years ago on Father's Day I'm going to
read you some of it this morning.
Father, has not a human invention or some evolutionary
biological coincidence. Nor did his, the construct, to
some patriarchal conspiracy, an attempt by men to keep the power
fatherhood is foundational to reality.
It is embedded in the creation because it emanates from its
creator, The God Who reveals himself as father, You could
argue that the primary Revelation, the self revelation
of God, is primarily first and foremost, As a father, it is the
foundation of creation of healthy relationships, and if we
lose that, everything else goes down with it.
We need to realize that all of creation emanates from God.
Just as an artist's creation is an expression of themselves and
therefore gives us insight into their true identity.
So scripture tells us that all of creation Bears, witness to
him revealing his eternal power and it is divine nature,
fatherhood is one such expression revealing who he
really is. Thus the war on fatherhood and
family, whether conscious or unconscious.
Is a war against him. The war against masculinity, the
war against the very distinction between male and female.
The ideology that says that disconnects gender from sex,
you'll hear on the news you'll hear and talk.
When you read the, you know, read our periodicals today.
You'll hear that that is rooted in solid science.
It's a settled issue in science and I'm here to tell you that
never came out of the sight, out of science.
Where that came from the first person to write about gender,
and sex, being difference was a Marxist bisexual, she was a
lesbian. I'm a Marxist in France, by the
name of Simone de Beauvoir. I always have trouble with those
front de Beauvoir, those those French names, but she was, she
was a philosopher. She was, I think she was
actually an English or a literary Professor, but she was
a radical Marxist feminist. And the new Left, see what's
happened? We need to understand that this
ideology that comes against the home where it's really coming
from. Marxism, and the new Left cannot
tolerate the nuclear family, it cannot tolerate gender roles and
it cannot tolerate healthy, sexual boundaries.
Matter of fact, the founders of these movements you can you
know, names like Wilhelm Reich and you know, Simone de Beauvoir
is one of the feminist writers, she ended up losing her teaching
license, by the way because she came again, she was petitioning
for the removal of all. All age of consent laws.
And she was asking for the release from prison of
convicted, paedophiles. This is the ideology the
morality of these people. And so when people tell you,
it's settled science, don't buy it.
It didn't come out of science. It didn't science.
Is the result of observing Behavior data.
So you come to verifiable conclusions?
This came out of a Godless ideology and they were Marxist.
And they understood that, what this was, this was something
that was designed from the beginning.
They understood, they could not take over a nation without
dismantling, the nuclear family, because they understood that the
protection of the children from this ideology was Godly Parents.
That would raise them in understanding of gender roles.
And so, there is a war against the idea of a male being a, man,
and a female being a A woman in us having defined roles.
And now, let me just make a statement here if you struggle
with what was classically called, gender dysphoria.
If you have that feeling that man, I'd my what I feel and my
biology do not match. I feel like somebody that is
born in the wrong body. That is a very real psychic
psychological struggle. I'm not minimizing that that is
tragic. My heart breaks for you.
And I'm here to tell you, there is Help From Heaven.
I'm there. There's I'm not talking about
just disregarding these things, but what we've done is, we've
turned a corner in the western world and it didn't come out of
the scientific lab. It didn't come out of medical
institutions. It came out of Godless
philosophy that made the distinction between gender and
sex and scripture is very clear. God created them male and
female. Female.
And when there's a disconnect there, it's tragic and we need
to have tremendous compassion, and we need to help people.
We need to walk alongside them, and I have known people.
I was just sharing with some guys, back in the sound booth.
I have some dear friends. This woman was deep deeply
involved in the lesbian community and she her lover had
a family that her Lover's family were believers.
They were Pentecostal Christians, on fire for the
Lord. And they began to witness to her
and she was very resistant to the gospel because she wasn't
raised in a Godly home but here her lover was and she began to
cry out to God and ask God. God if this is true you need to
save me and she got radically saved but her heart was so
immersed in this relationship and she was asking Lord God
you've got to deliver me. If this is really your truth,
then I need to get out of this relationship and I can't extract
myself. And what ended up happening is
her lover was ended up dying in a tragic car wreck and she got
free, she married a minister and they've been in Ministry for
many years. Have a wonderful family
grandbabies, a phenomenal Ministry and God completely
delivered her of those. Those struggles in her life.
Now was a process there is help and there is healing but we
can't let go of the standard out of an unsanctified compassion
that ends up. Up giving credibility to Godless
philosophies, we've got to be so very careful and there's this
tension that we live in. There's it's one thing to deal
with the individual and it's another thing to deal with the
ideology and dealing with the ideology, we need to take a
strong stand. In dealing with the individual.
We need to have a very compassionate approach but take
the stand, it is not doing anybody a favor.
When we endorse their bondage, we're leaving them stuck in so
we want to be people that walk and great compassion and in the
power of God and we come trained to deliver people from those
types of bondages. And so it's very important.
So modern-day Marx's, we need to understand the new left.
Day Marxism that you can read their writings and they
understood. See they came up against a
dilemma after World War Two. The whole, the Frankfurt School
out of which critical race Theory, and critical theory and
general came and those are Marxist ideologies.
What happened was is they they realized that their philosophy
wasn't going to be able to turn Nations.
They realized that the prosperity of the West Wood and
insulate people from going along economic lines.
And so they had to find a new way to divide cultures.
And what they chose is race and sexuality and you can read their
writings. It was a very, it was a
strategic move, they were brilliant.
But diabolical and they understood in order to take over
a nation. We need to wipe out, gender
distinctions, we need to wipe out age of consent laws.
Do you know the night United Nations right now is proposing
to wipe out age of consent laws? Exposing little children to very
graphic sexual things is not some side issue.
It is Central to the philosophy of the new left in modern-day
Marxism. Because what they want to do is
divide people along their the sexual immoral, xand race.
And so, they have done a really good job of doing.
So, and we need to understand this thing, because we can end
up siding with these demonic ideologies and fueling the
problem. And so we need to understand, we
don't have the luxury of just saying, well, I don't agree with
that, but I don't know why we need to know why we need to
understand what's really going on.
If you're interested in, I can give you some books, that will
help unpack that much better than I could.
So we need to realize that a war against fatherhood and family,
whether unconsciously or consciously is a war against God
because he is the ultimate father and to say that, you
know, there's no there's no difference between Male and
female that it doesn't matter. Your biology is trumped by your
psychology. That is a demonic philosophy
that leaves people in torment and bondage.
And so fatherhood emanates from God.
He is the original. And this is what Paul is telling
us in Ephesians 3:15, all fatherhood derives its name, its
identity from him. We as fathers are intended to be
an expression of who he is. We are to flow from him.
God does not use the term father to relate with us.
He uses it with us as an expression of who he is.
The problem is, is that we start with our broken Earthly fathers
and view him through the lens of them.
And we need to understand this morning that scriptures clear.
He is the original He didn't use that term in regards to himself
so that he could relate with us. He is a father that is the
ultimate summation. You will never understand God.
Unless you understand his fatherhood.
We as fathers are intended to be an expression of him.
God does not use the term to relate with us.
He uses an expression of who he is.
Our human rules are reflections of the Divine.
Hints of the Eternal order faded expressions of the original that
is God, he is not taking on our role in an ill-fitting attempt
to relate with us. The essence of who he is, is a
father. We are the reflection, he is the
reality. We have been assigned these
roles as created Sons, but through the fall, these have
been Twisted distorting the real in the original through sin.
And gentlemen, I want to tell you unless you deal with your
own father issues, you will replicate those in the and the
Next Generation to the degree that we don't settle Our Father
issues. And the fact is every one of us
has them because every one of us has a father who has fallen,
there are no perfect dads. And so, the enemy will
strategize to wound us and no one can wound us like a dad.
And even if you had a Godly father, like I did, my dad is a
great man. We are, we have a great
relationship, we talk at least daily.
And a lot of times, multiple times a day, I was out at Team
Challenge the other day. I preached I got done in this
young man. Stood up, came right to me.
See you look just like your dad. I take that as a compliment.
I love my dad. But there were things my dad did
that wounded? Me and my dad is mad at.
He's a man of God. So there were times where he
realized some things he did he drove an hour and a half to see
me and he said I need to talk to you pulled up in my driveway and
said, you know, I was thinking about this and I don't know why
I did that. Would you forgive me?
That's a good dad. But here's the problem that if
we don't understand and we don't face those issues, if we don't
begin to deal with those in release them through forgiveness
and even redeem those things we end up replicating them in the
Next Generation. And father, wounds are a, the
really, the Taproot of a lot of our problems today.
There was an interesting study that went on what it was is in
South Africa. There were a lot of endangered
species and South Africa, was one of the primary places people
point to as a real win and preserving these dying species
of animals. And so what they did is they
would start these animal reserves and they would try to
put all these endangered species on these reserves.
And one of these animal reserves, had a plethora of
Infants too many. So what they want to do is
they're going to move these elephants to some of them to a
new animal reserve but they realized man these big the the
adult male elephants are just too big to move.
So what they did is they gathered up a lot of the small
elephants and they said we'll just they'll just grow up on the
reservation. Well, a few years into this,
they begin to find that. There were these crime scenes
that were showing up all over the animal preservation.
It was dead rhinos. And they knew it wasn't poachers
because they're valuable tusk was still intact and they would
see these bloated, dead rhinos with big holes punctured in
their sides and they couldn't figure out what was happening.
So they began to mount cameras all over this.
Preserve to Fig find out who was the perpetrator of these murders
and they found out catch this. It was a gang of young
adolescent, elephants. They would pick on these rhinos
and they would pick on other animals to their work.
As they began to grow, they would they would go up and they
would kick them. They would roll them or
sometimes they would they would knock them over and sit on them
and all these kind of crazy things they were just like
bullies. And there were certain male
elephants that would write they even had names.
They named each one of them and they would rise to the surface
is kind of the gang leader and some of them they actually had
to kill because they would start to attack humans and so forth
and it was Out of outside of the realm of normal elephant
behavior that, they'd seen on these other preservation sites.
And what they realized is they weren't raised in families, they
were raised by one another. And so finally they decide we're
going to have to figure out a way to get some older elephants,
some male, mature, male elephants.
And so they got these huge trucks had never done this
before and they move these huge bull elephants and what happened
is, these bull elephants began to kind of push these young ones
around and bring them into line and they stopped their murderous
Rampages. It's an amazing thing.
Now, it's the it's a picture even embedded in creation of the
effect that a father is to have on young men that to harness
that potential. So that it's not destructive.
And the violence we see in the inner city today.
The violence we see, among young people, is not the result of
toxic Mac masculinity. It's a result of the lack of
healthy masculinity. Being there to raise them up and
to bring them into their potential.
I just heard another story the other day.
There was, I don't remember where the school was now, but
there was a lot of violence on the campus.
And they were trying to figure out how we going to stop this
because some of these kids were just beating each other up.
The kids were scared to go to school.
Even the teachers were worried and a group of fathers that we
had, kids went to that high school, they said we're going to
start the dad Patrol. And they signed up and
volunteered. And they would between classes,
they just alternated shifts and the dad would stepdads would
stand in the hallway. They would high-five the kids,
they get to know them by name and the violence stopped.
And the news media picked up on this and they went and asked the
kids, they said what's going on? What is there a change?
He said, oh yeah, but we used to be scared to come to school, but
now that these dads are here, it's feels safe here.
And one of the reporters asked this young woman, they said,
well, how How is it that these dads are able to to stop these?
You know, these kids from acting out.
And she said if you ever heard of the look, when the dad's just
give the look but there was something calming about these
dad's being in that environment. And I'm telling you our role as
fathers, even though we often don't understand it.
We need to, we need to get a vision for this that we are
voice our presence carries weight.
And that we have a huge part in raising the Next Generation,
both male and female. When when dad's you know and on
Mother's Day we can talk about the role of a mom and that the
essential nature of having moms involved.
But I'm telling you a dad in both the the little girl and
that little boy's life. It's the dad who begins to shape
their identity even more so than a mom Fatherhood emanates from
father, God. And as we begin to understand
who he is and model ourself after him and get healed of our
own father issues by coming into relationship with the ultimate
father, then we can even begin to heal our past, he'll you know
backwards in the generations, I had to go through that, my dad
and I had to bury the hatchet. There were some things I had to
apologize for the he had to apologize for.
There were awkward conversations we had to have but I'm so
grateful now for his His influence in my life.
And only then can we begin to have the influence?
We need to have into the future but if we don't settle the past,
the past is going to cast a dark shadow over the future.
And so, our father issues are a huge issue.
I don't think it's a coincidence that the Revival of 25 years ago
that has literally wrapped the globe and a move of God was
called The Father's blessing out of Toronto and it happened on
Father's Day in bra. And and Brownsville assembly in
Pensacola Florida. It was a move of God having to
do with the father heart of God and it was necessary before the
Great Harvest could be brought in because if we would have had
a great harvest without fathers healed of their father wounds,
we would end up with a dysfunctional Revival.
And so, we need to understand that fatherhood emanates from
him. When we are trying to Define
fatherhood, we must not begin with man as the example.
When we do, we reduce the concept of a father to the frail
attempts of human fathers to be dads.
We then superimpose their failures and deficiencies upon
our heavenly father. This drives us to the faulty
presuppositions that God will fail us like our Earthly.
Father, did I know for me? When I got saved I had some
issues in regards. As to my father, that kept me
from really receiving the Father's Love and I had an
encounter with the Lord one night when I was still in Teen
Challenge. I was sitting in my little my
little bedroom in the Lord spoke to me and said go ask.
John it was another student. John Godfrey said go asked John
if he has a devotional I took that is so weird.
I went into his room said you got a devotional.
Yeah I just put it in my suitcase here I walked out like
okay, sat down, open it up and boom.
There was this article about fatherhood and the Lord began to
minister to me and all of a sudden the Lord took me back to
an episode in my young adolescent years I was I was
probably, I don't know, it probably was more like when I
was 14 years old and I was just starting to Rebel.
My dad didn't know, I was already using drugs.
I was already going out and doing a lot of things I
shouldn't do. He didn't realize it yet, but he
could tell there's something going on.
And I remember my dad coming into my room and we lived in
this parsonage. The church my dad pastured, it
was the parsonage. You had to be careful walking in
the upstairs because it would shake the light and the
downstairs. It was a pretty rough.
Ruff ruff house. And so the, our bedroom was this
kind of attic room that it had these.
You know, slanted walls and I was sitting at this drafting
board. I was drawing and my dad came,
and he said, what you doing? I said drawn, I'm like, what are
you doing? That's what I'm thinking, you
know, why are you in my room? And he said, oh, you know, just
he's talking, small talk, and I'm thinking, what's going on
here? This doesn't usually happen.
Why is he invading my space is what I was thinking.
And he was just talking and and just small talk and I was
responding you know, and I think in this is awkward and all said
my dad walked over and I was in a dormer it was a little slanted
roof, you know. And so he had to kind of
crouched down and get inside the Dormer and he went, he said,
Dave, I up, I love you. He put his arm around me and
kind of stared at the Dormer wall.
And I'm looking one way he's looking at the other and here I
am real stiff and he's I love you.
Okay, and then he said, well, I'll talk to you later.
Walked out. And add a 14 year old kid.
I'm thinking that was weird. What was that about?
Because my heart was already hard.
But now as a 19 year old kid that had been radically
encountered by the Lord. After a lot of pain in my life,
I was processing this father, when the Lord began to talk to
me and all of a sudden I went into this encounter and I was
back in that room and I saw my dad doing that and it broke me
in half. I began to weep because I
realized how awkward that was for my dad for him to come in
there. And tell this rebellious 14 year
old kid that was not going to Kate the affection.
He had to go in there and kind of bend down in a dormer and
stare at the wall to this kid. That's all stiff.
I love you, and I didn't reciprocate, but I knew where
that was really coming from that.
My dad really did love me. I had bought into a lie that my
dad didn't love me that, he loved my sister, and but he
didn't love me. And I, there was this wound that
was there. And all of a sudden, I just
began to weep because I realized how hard that was for my dad.
How awkward that? Was for my dad and that it came
from a tender place that he really did love me.
He just didn't know how to show it.
And in that moment, something broke open.
It was like a flood gate, and I was able to receive the Heavenly
Father's Love. Tony these father wounds, we
have a tendency being humanoids that we evaluate God through our
Human Experience rather than evaluating our Human Experience
through. God and God lovingly came down
and reminded me and took me into that encounter.
And some of you guys this morning, some of you ladies this
morning have father wounds, and I'm telling you that God wants
to touch that and remove that there are no Perfect father's, I
remember a number of years ago as a pastor, you end up in
situations where you're with families at the end of their
life and and there was a dad laying on a hospital bed.
And I knew some of the history of this family, having haven't
counseled some of the family. And so now I'm in this room and,
and the dad had a rocky relationship with the Lord and
had, they were pretty sure he was going to go to heaven, but
it would things were up in the air and I watched the family
lean over. And I watched one of the kids
say to their dad whisper. I love you.
Dad, you were a good dad. Now you got to understand, I
knew the backstory, okay, I knew that was a generous evaluation
of what really went on. And it broke me.
It brought me to tears. Because I saw the look on that
Dad's face all of a sudden this aged elderly, man, this little
child like look came on his face, like he just drank it in.
It's almost he, I mean, he was at death's door, he almost sat
up. He was just drinking that in.
He just like a little child. He needed to hear that from his
children and it was just such a vivid picture to me that this
was a man who wanted to be a good dad, but didn't know how.
and this man because I had talked to some of the family had
hurt some of his children by the things he did but yet who he
really wanted to be was a good dad and I'm telling you if we
can understand that that broken father's produce broken sons who
grow up to be broken fathers, who produce broken sons and what
God wants to do is he wants to stop that - Legacy and if Will
yield ourselves to him, God God, I'm telling you, God can turn a
whole family line in one generation.
One generation that thing can turn my dad, my dad's dad, my
dad, led him to the Lord at the end of his life.
He was a very immoral man Drinker very sexually immoral.
The whole family was dysfunctional on my mom's side,
same thing, just a lot of dysfunction, but Mom and Dad met
Jesus. And it's like that flow it.
There's a beautiful picture in a in the book of Exodus where they
come to the River, Jordan to cross the River Jordan, remember
where the River Jordan stopped flowing and they marched across.
Do you realize? It says it stopped flowing at a
town called Adam. God wants to stop that.
Add Dynamic flow of the Fall, that brings all that garbage
with it and he wants to stop that flow.
So it's no longer flowing in our family line.
As I was praying this morning, just asking the Lord what he
wants to do this morning. I saw a picture and it was, It
was like this landscape and I knew it was inheritance, it was
family histories and all of a sudden off the landscape lifted,
all this valuable stuff that had been hidden in the weeds.
It's like it was separated. And you could see the value that
laid in the fields that were hidden under, all the other
stuff that was in those fields. And the Lord reminded me of a
story was kind of a strange illustration, but it was of a
young boy. All I want to say his name was
Charles Hall. His mother and father went to
the Bible School, founded by Charles Finney Oberlin College.
It may not have been founded by him but he was the president of
Oberlin College. They went to that school and
ended up in as missionaries in Jamaica and they ended up having
to come back because they couldn't sustain it financially.
And so as a young boy, he began to ask God about wealth and he
wanted to learn, he wanted to do something to create wealth so
that he could fund missions. And one day in class, in science
class, the teacher showed them, a little piece of aluminum, a
little tiny block of aluminum and talked about how valuable
this was. And he said, the person who
learns to extract aluminum out of the soil will be a very, very
wealthy person. And so, he said his life towards
doing that at that time, aluminum was among the crown
jewels. There was a block of aluminum
among the crown. Jewels, matter of fact Napoleon,
he would feed his guests on plates of silver and gold, but
the guest of honor, 8 on a plate of you hurt your honor aluminum
because it was so valuable. Matter of fact, the Pinnacle of
the Washington Monument was made of aluminum because they could
only get just tiny little elements.
It's one of Most plentiful elements in the Earth, but it
was so hard to extract out, and so he began to study that and he
would when he come up, he tries something to didn't work.
He, he just began to Worship the Lord and he kept trying and one
day he learned through electrolysis to separate
aluminum from the soil. And he started a company that
eventually became known as Alcoa.
And he became a very, very wealthy person and funded
missions and a lot of other things.
And as I was laying in bed this morning in the Lord showed me
that picture, he reminded me of that story and it's like we put
it this way honor. Is the way in which you extract
the wealth out of the previous generation.
There is riches in every family, in your history.
I don't, it doesn't matter in this sense.
How broken your father? And your forefathers were God by
Design, put great wealth in the generations.
But we've got to extract that. We've got to have eyes to see
and only as we begin to see him as the real father.
That can we can relate right to our Earthly fathers.
And God wants to extract some of those riches.
I think I may have talked about this recently, but I can't help
myself. When I think about this
principle, it's in the last will and testament of King.
David second, Samuel chapter 23. And David.
It's his last will and testament.
Now, David has lived a phenomenal life.
I mean, what God has done with him is epic. and so David is at
the end of his life and he's going to write it says this is
the last words of David it's possibly him writing it himself
or at somebody writing what he's dictating but he's saying this
is the last words of David And he goes on to say the anointed
one, I am the Oracle of God, I speak God's words.
God has blessed me. He says, is not my household
right with God. That's a big statement.
When you were see his history, this was a man who knew
forgiveness and Redemption. And now, he's an old guy.
He's ready to step over and Eternity.
There's no false humility here. He's just owning and he's
saying, I'm the guy God put his hand on in my generation and
He's just glorying in all that God did with him, but what
breaks me and what just struck me?
So strong reading that a while back was, he says these, this is
the last words of David, the son of Jesse comma the king of
Israel, And it's so struck me that David at the end of his
life when he had reached the Pinnacle, he's so revered even
today. He's so revered by his people
that he had achieved this enormous success.
And while he's standing on that platform, he says wait a minute.
I'm David you know who I am the king?
The Oracle, wait a minute. I want to introduce you to
somebody and he pulls this broken man named Jesse next to
him and says, hey, I'm the product of this guy and in so
doing, he redeemed, his history and wiped the shame from his
dad's name. This was the man who didn't want
to own him in front of the Prophet, but David owns him in
front of the world. And that is redemption.
We need eyes to see as we look over the landscape of our past
are the history. The Legacy that has been left To
Us by our forefathers. And even if there's just just
broken landscape, I'm telling you.
They're there is treasure there. And honor is the way by which
you extracted, and when we really get healed, we begin to
have compassion on the broken father, that fathered us.
And when we give Mercy, all of a sudden, something is released
from that history that we can then begin to walk in and give
to the Future. But we've got to see it
bitterness will cause you to be blinded to the treasures in your
family history but gratitude and honor is the way to lift that
out. I'm gonna ask the worship team
to come forward as I read through the rest of this when we
try to find fatherhood weakness, not begin.
With man as the example, when we do, we reduce the concept of a
father to the frail, human attempts of human fathers to be
dads. We then superimpose our
failures, our deficiencies upon our heavenly father.
This drives us to faulty presuppositions that God will
fail us like our Earthly. Fathers did Earthly fatherhood
was intended to Aid us in our relationship with our heavenly
father showing us the way to him.
How to relate with God as a father, how to see ourselves as
sons and Men of God exaggerate. But now due to the fall,
fatherhood is all too often become the primary hindrance
when we start with God, however, we then have the proper lens
through which, to interpret what true fatherhood is and it equips
us to face the hardships of life.
When we start with God, he redeems the phrase and even the
relationship. We are then able to extend grace
to the broken Sons. Our fathers were God's
revelation of himself. As father is the first step in
redeeming us from the fall. He wants to redeem this idea,
this concept and elevate it once again.
Dad's you pave the way for your kids to relate with God, your
example, your relationship with them and with God serve as a
temperate template pressed into the moldable clay of their young
minds. This holy stewardship must be
recognized for what it is but you can't give what you don't
have. We like Jesus need to hear the
father speak. You are my son in whom.
I'm well, pleased. If the Son of God himself Need
the sinless Son of God. Had a perfect father needed to
hear that from his father. In order to launch into
Ministry. How much more do you?
And I, with our broken, pasts need to hear that and receive it
and get it in a so that we become like John the Beloved
John. When he wrote his gospel he said
five times and the one whom Jesus loved and the one whom
Jesus loved you. He was talking about he's
talking about himself and that was an arrogance.
He was Not saying yeah, when you look at the disciples, I'm
really the one who he loved wasn't saying that Peter didn't
get offended. When he wrote 20 red, John's
gospel. What John was saying?
Is that when I look in the mirror, I can't help.
But sees the guy that's been impacted by God's love.
The man who was a son of Thunder.
A bar brawl, would would empty the bar and a fight became the
Apostle of love, John the Beloved and that the turn.
And that thing was when he received the love God, when he
when John would look at himself, he couldn't help it.
There he is. Again, there's the one whom
Jesus loved and until you see yourself that way, you will
never be able to be the father or the mother that you were
intended to be. We need to be infected impacted
by the love of God, so that we don't feel like we're failures
and we're not measuring up, but we know the one who knows Us
best loves us most, and he's the one who defines us.
Fathers were meant to Define their children and the ultimate
father wants to Define you. He wants to heal you of your
father. Was, I'm going to ask you to
stand this morning. Paul says this later on, in that
passage, when he begins that prayer, he said, I pray that the
power of the spirit would come upon you.
Not for Ministry says, so that you would grasp the immensity
The height depth, width and breadth of the love of God for
you and the for the Saints in Christ.
And then he says this strange phrase and that you would know
this love that surpasses knowledge.
How can you know something you can't that is beyond knowledge.
What he's saying is you need an encounter with the love of God,
that is beyond your ability to think yourself into There's
something we need from God, will never be able to study our self
into it comes by encountering him.
The father who loves us while we were yet, sinners Christ died
for us while we were yet. Sinners, the father said, I'm
going to send someone to rescue my sons and daughters.
And when that becomes your identity, then you have it to
give dads. I want to do two things this
morning. If you're here this morning and
you've never been reconciled to Jesus, you're saying I need to
get right with God or maybe it was something you did.
But you've wandered and you're saying, I want to recommit to
Jesus this morning, I want to be reconciled to the father.
If that's you, I want you to raise your hand.
We want to pray for you this morning.
You need to get right with the Lord.
Listen God brought you here this morning for this very thing,
this is a Divine appointment. So if that's you don't Don't
don't hesitate just raise your hand.
We want to pray for you this morning.
If you need to get right with the Lord, raise your hand High
until I acknowledge it. You know, you need to get right
with the Lord. Listen, I know there are people
here this morning that you need him.
You need a fresh surrender if that's you, just raise your
hand. The second thing I want to do
this morning as I want to pray for the dads I want to pray for
the men. I'm going to ask every male in
this room to come up front. I want you to stand in the
solitary right now. I want to pray a father's
blessing over you, and we're going to just present ourselves
to God. We're going to ask him to visit
us so that we can become the men.
I'm telling you what this nation needs.
What the church needs. Are men who become fathers.
Listen, you may be on the years where you're going to be
producing biological children. It's time to begin to produce
some spiritual children. There's a generation of young
men that need to hear from another man.
You have what it takes. So now ladies I want you to get
behind these men and just put your hands out towards them,
once you to bless the men, come behind them and just begin to
pray. And guys, listen, everyone of us
have felt like, we're not up to the call.
Every one of us has had doubts about our ability to do what's
going to take, but it's not about us doing, it's about him
doing it through us. Bruce over said, where are you
at? Where's Bruce is right here.
One time. Bruce and I were consoling.
A young, man. And the Lord told me scoop him
up in your arms and give him a father's hug.
And I remember telling the Lord, Lord, he's only like eight years
younger than me. This is awkward have Bruce to
it. Bruce has a few years older me
he could be more of a father figure and the Lord rebuked me
and he said I'm not talking about you releasing.
I'm talking about me, fathering him through you.
Now grab that guy and I grabbed him and just tell him and he
wept and gave him a father's blessing.
We want to receive the father's blessing this morning so at six
down to the roots of our identity and then we want God to
get strengthened us to give it away.
Some of you I'm telling you God's going to turn the legacy
of your family's. What the enemy meant for bad.
You are the kinsman redeemer. You hear me?
You are the kinsman redeemer. The enemy brought shame into
your family line, failure. Going to look back on the past
generation. Say God, I forgive them.
Lord, I bless them and we're going to turn this thing.
So, Lord we ask right now. God for a father's blessing.
Lord we need you. Father is Men We Stand before
you as the broken sons that we are.
But Lord, were your son's? And Lord were asking that you
would Open the Eyes of our understanding, open our ears
that we could hear. You are my son and who, I am.
Well, pleased. Lord by your spirit shed.
The love of God abroad in our hearts and Lord.
I'm asking God for special Grace, for those who have been
especially wounded Lord, those who are never able to hear from
their father, a father's affirmation, Lord.
I'm asking God that you would reach in and touch them this
morning. Lord that they would begin to
receive from you, what they shouldn't receive from their dad
so that they can turn and bless their fathers in Jesus name.
Amen. Amen.
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