Father's Day 2021 - The Art of Manliness

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] hey good morning hills family we're gonna kick a little old school today go ahead and stand to your feet old school or midwest style here come on [Music] when jesus came like a stranger in the night [Music] more praise [Music] worries and fears [Music] praise the lord [Music] i saw the [Music] i saw the light i saw the light no more darkness no more night now i'm so happy no sorrow inside praise the lord morning when this life is over [Music] just a few more weary days [Music] [Music] all right [Music] all right happy father's day hills church that was a blast let's put our hands together we're gonna sing about what happens in the father's house sometimes sometimes on this journey i get lost in my mistakes what looks to me like weakness is a canvas for your strength my story isn't over my story's just begun well you won't define [Music] that's what my father [Music] [Applause] [Music] check your shame you're in the father's house [Music] [Applause] [Music] my is and the story isn't over if the story isn't good [Music] is [Music] you're in the father's [Applause] we're declaring that prodigals come home prison doors fleeing wide open and miracles take place when we get in the presence of jesus it's not seeing that together in church come on [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] miracles take place [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Music] is [Music] jake [Music] here [Music] check your shame at the door cause it ain't welcome anymore you're in the father's house so good so good you guys can go ahead and grab a seat oh goodness that was so good we do this every week we take a break the time of worship to take communion so we're going to do that right now and the bread that you have that represents the body of christ that was broken for you and the blood that you have in front of you in that cup no sorry the juice you had before you in that cup represents the blood of jesus that was shed for you i'm gonna pray for us and we'll come back and sing some more god thank you so much for this time we have together and father there is nothing better than being in your presence you are the best father and i'm so glad that i as a young dad get a chance to lean on your wisdom father help us remember the cross and this time be so grateful for it in jesus name [Music] so [Music] i invite you all to stand back up with us as we continue to sing and worship the lord this morning i was lost but he brought me [Music] is [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] is i am [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] is this morning [Music] yes [Music] [Music] as we seek your face [Music] glory [Music] [Music] every morning [Music] oh [Music] we're [Music] and surrender [Music] we [Music] show us [Music] oh [Music] is [Music] [Music] oh jesus [Music] [Music] jesus [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Music] jesus [Music] [Music] [Music] come on jesus [Music] [Applause] jesus jesus [Music] thank you jesus [Music] jesus [Music] [Applause] [Music] jesus [Music] thank you so much for singing with us let's take 30 seconds [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] dad what about me makes you proud what about me makes you proud dad what about me makes you proud dad what about me makes you proud dad what about me makes you proud dad what what about me makes you proud well everything you do you know the fun you have around the house a very mature young man athletic you play tennis all this stuff makes me proud how much you care about things and about people how determined you are about doing things a certain way even though sometimes you get a little crazy you're caring for everybody no matter who they are and the way that you're always laughing i get to wake up every day and see you in the morning i get to play sports with you you bring a lot of joy to your mommy and i's hearts and our lives jamie you've grown up to be a fine young christian woman you're a good mother and you're a good spouse and i'm just very proud of you for all those qualities i'm proud of the wife that you are the home that you're building um proud of the friend that you've become uh to your mother and i i'm gonna cry i won't cry i'm proud that you are a hard worker that you want to help others and and that you are growing into that and i'm very proud why are you grateful for me why are you grateful for me why are you grateful for me i'm grateful for you because you provide for me and i mean you like work nights sometimes just to get us the things we want and you're always there i can always like i feel like i can always like trust you i can talk to you and yeah because you're my dad because i love you i like whenever you come and stuff a lot boy dad i got time grateful for you for so much you brought me up well brought me up with a good home i love you for that [Music] the times you you took me to ball games and everything and you know it wasn't until later in life that i realized that that probably meant more to you than it did to me even at the time all the football and basketball games if you were at every swim meet uh every sporting event i did um you've been there for me with opinions guidance and i hope i've kind of lived up to that i'm grateful for you because you've been a hard worker my whole life and you've raised a good family and you've been a good grandfather to your grandchildren you led our family very well and i don't think i would be the woman i am today if i didn't have your example and um the christ follower too you've set a really good example with what it looks like to not just love christ but live like him and i admire that in you you save people's lives and you've always been there for me no matter what i love you daddy [Music] i love you dad i love you dad daddy i love you i love you dad well happy father's day everybody everybody out there every dad out there man we're glad that you're here today whether you're here in person or online we just want to say happy father's day we hope that you enjoy all the things we have out in the lobby that you go out just have a great time for everybody asking this is an example of dads we are not as young as our children even though we think we are okay and so thankfully we've got good doctors who can make us feel not as old as we are so if this is your first time here man we're glad that you're here we'd love for you to stop by our welcome center and just stop by so we get the chance to say hi to you but for everybody in here i need to do me a favor right now and pull out your phone pull out your phone and go to hills church dot info that website is mobile friendly you can follow along with the rest of our service whether it's follow along with our notes for our message whether it's putting in prayer requests or whether it's signing up for events or groups or rooted or any of that stuff it's a website you want to just keep on your phone so you can keep in touch with what we do here at the hills church now ministry here at the hills church takes a lot of forms but today i want to just share a quick story of of life change that happens uh from somebody who just starts attending and my buddy jamin jamin health came here started attending a few years ago just kind of come to church he and his girlfriend at the time hannah they were just coming and they got plugged into our rooted class that's a class where we figure out where our story and god's story intersect and through that class jamin decided to give his life to jesus and he was baptized after rooted it was an awesome day and since then he and his wife hannah have gotten into a small group they've become not just serving in our kids ministry but some of our rock star leaders who who lead our kids and their awesome leaders just in our church in general and their life change happened because of the generosity of someone else who gave to the hills church that made the opportunities possible and so i want to say thank you on behalf of jamin on behalf of everybody who's had life change here at the hills and i want to say this because your generosity matters what you give to the church matters because it makes to where we can make opportunities possible for jesus to move in someone's life so if you're sitting here today and you're thinking you know what my giving it doesn't matter i want to just challenge that and say yes it does and we all have a step to take in our generosity story and so if you're here today and you've never given anything before i want to challenge you your step today is to just try giving today just say all right god i'm going to give this a try and see what you do do that and see what happens now if you if you've tried giving before but you're going to set up recurring giving that's your next step to make it a priority regularly so that your generosity happens every every month on whatever schedule works for you but if you do both of those things and you're sitting here today saying i've kind of already do those i want to challenge you to try out giving god try to increase your gift to see what god does in the ministry of the hills church and in your own life as well now i'm going to pray here in just a second we've got a few prayer requests that i want to pray over today we want to pray over ava mariah we want to pray over eileen who lost her mom this past week and then we also want to say a prayer thanks for for matt and for thankfully a surgery that went well on me but also there's just know that there's plenty of ways that god is moving you can always put your prayer requests in at hillschurch.info but let's join right now and let's pray together god i thank you for who you are god i thank for the fact that you work in and through us every day god i'm thankful that you could put fathers and men in my life in the lives of this church so that we can help lead this community as you would have us god i ask that you take everything given today and you change lives with it god i'm excited to see you work god i ask that you would move today in the lives of ava of mariah eileen as they they prepare to celebrate her mother's life god i pray that you'd move uniquely in each of those situations and god i thank you for the way that you've worked in my own life this week in the lives of matt uh this past week to bring healing in his life as well god i love seeing you work i'm excited to be a part of it and i ask all of these things in jesus name amen now next week we start a new series called one hit wonder so you won't want to miss it but today we've got a one message called the art of manliness it's going to be by lead pastor darrell mayer and you're not going to want to miss it but before we do that we've got a special tribute to dads by a group called brooks and dunn let's go ahead and ignore that and put our hands together real quick all right [Music] [Applause] [Music] i [Music] [Music] for a piece [Music] but the only way to keep [Music] yes [Music] hey [Music] [Music] i'm [Music] is [Music] when you're a dad you've got to play a lot of roles hey hey don't eat that okay baby let's just try to tap on the break okay no no okay just just tap on it just tap just just no just go up here turn left okay just go turn left okay well you see baby when a man loves a woman he uh honey okay baby remember what we talked about just concentrate and keep your eyes on the ball all right you've got baby girl your date's here and that's two weeks no tv and no phone and this is my door in my house nobody's gonna go with my face again [Music] like that you go back in your room right now change your clothes you are not leaving this house like that you are not leaving this house oh [Music] got it got it oh baby go go get the door get the door maybe go get the door isn't it [Music] bye and then jesus stepped in stopping everybody from throwing the rocks and he said he who has not sinned may throw the first stone and we do all this knowing that we will get fired because we all get fired but by the grace of god you might get called back to be a consultant hey baby girl what's up well happy father's day to all the fathers out there can we give a good hand to dads today i want to give a shout out to daniel knight who uh asked me to do that for some reason before service he wanted a special shout out to him apparently he is a superior father uh to everybody else so today is father's day but also an awesome day for the life of our church for the last year we have been praying to be able to get our campus open in the branchville correctional facility open again well last week we got news that it is open again and we are now live again in branchville so let's welcome our branchville guys good morning fellows i just want you to know i wanted to play gangster's paradise to intro today's service by coolio and i got outvoted by brooks and dunn i like all kinds of music i'm a cuban cowboy is what they call me so you know father's day is an amazing day but it's one of those things that if we were to look around on father's day uh most dads most father's day messages are about dads not doing their part they need to step it up they're terrible at their jobs they need to be the men of the house they need to do this can i just say that we have more incredible dads than we have bad dads here okay we have we have dads who are doing an awesome job okay we don't have to have like this come to jesus so i'm going to encourage dance today especially in a culture that tries to push dads down so i want you to turn to the person next to you it doesn't matter your gender or whatever is going on just turn to him and say you have more influence than you realize now how do many of them gave you like a look turn to the other side see if you get a better reaction so you have more influence than you realize all right maybe you've got the same reaction both times that's okay you know but in modern day we have these depictions of dads okay back in my day i'm gonna i'm gonna date myself now i can't literally do that but i'm about 41 years old and back in my day there were like these shows i couldn't understand them because i didn't speak english but i watched them how many of you remember the waltons right john boy and everybody there yeah i didn't understand why he listened so much that would never happen in real life but and then you had the cleavers right and then you know the dad would come in he's like this perfect specimen of a human being he's never done anything wrong and like the worst thing beaver's ever done is like you know hit a kid on his bike and went home but then we move into like the early 90s and we get the dad-like figures like roseanne where we've got dan connor he's like i'm afraid of my wife type of deal then it gets even further you get into the homer simpson type character right in the out bundys they're just buffoons they can't figure out anything they're like i can't do anything all i do is go to work and i come home and like that's what dads have been like pushed down to like when you look at a dad if he's a normal dad on tv he's like this overbearing monster or he's just a pansy okay and can i say that there there is a place for masculinity in the church there's a place to be a man in a church it's okay to say that it's it's not bad it's not a horrible thing to have some manly qualities and it's not horrible to be a good dad it's actually the manliest thing you can do and i'm going to prove it to you today through psalms chapter 112 verses 1-3 it says this praise the lord how joy for those who fear the lord and delight in obeying his commands their children everybody say their children will be successful say successful everywhere an entire generation of godly people will be blessed and they themselves will be wealthy and their good deeds will last forever okay those who fear the lord okay you're gonna be you're gonna have a great life but it starts off with fearing the lord now i don't know about you but when i grew up or my kids growing up in the church have a much different experience than maybe your kids do my kids have been coming to church since they plopped out we're going to church okay dad works at the church and so no matter what we do they're here they get to see every side of ministry that you never get to see okay the reason people come up to me they're like hey your kids are amazing how do they how'd you do that and i'm like well i didn't do that by myself okay number one they have an amazing mom but they also have an amazing church they have a huge environment of people there are times guys when my kids are at the office they've been there all day and i had no idea like my wife dropped them off and they've been doing things on these great incredible journeys without me i'm like where have you been how did you get here they're like yeah you know pastor chris took me out want to hang out with me thinks i'm awesome and i'm like really imagine that and what happens is they've grown up in these environments and so now my kids want to do things in church right now my oldest is gone he's at camp helping be a kid's camp counselor right my youngest is after my job he started off by going hey you know what would it be like that if i could become the worship leader at the hills i was like that's not bad we can replace paulie or ryan that's fine they're good guys i'll get another job then one day he's like hey what what what's pastor dave do i was like well he's the executive pastor and you know he does basically all you know the stuff dad doesn't want to do he's like well who's going to get your job when you leave i was like well i don't know buddy he's like that's i want your job so he's already got a succession plan and he's like when you retire i'm gonna have the church okay and here's the deal the only reason he even wants to do those things is he saw it modeled for so long done so well that he wants to be a part of everything that god is doing my son wakes himself up no other day of the week except for sunday every other day during the summer it's 11 o'clock sunday mornings he's got to be up at 5 15 to leave with me to come here and he's like i'm up i'm ready i was like if your mom knew that you had this magic trick inside of you okay because it was what he did and the bible says if we fear the lord our children will be blessed not only financially but they'll be blessed to be a blessing and their good deeds and their works will be remembered forever those who are righteous will be long remembered what if we could raise a generation that is not just generous or righteous or compassionate what if we could raise a generation that changed the nation what if we could raise the next generation to do more than we ever could what if you as a dad took on the challenge of raising your kids in a way that would change the world maybe you're a single mom in here and you're like man this is just against me and let me tell you something every single mom is a hero it's not easy to do you've got to do dual parenting and look yes the statistics are against you but we serve a god who is beyond statistics and he isn't worried about it we believe that every mom that comes here is going to be the exception to the ruling your kids are going to be just fine because you have a church that is going to stand by you and support you all the way through so don't freak out we got you but we've got to kind of go back to realize how did we get here how did we get to the point in society where dads are looked at like this and and where did we come from you know back in my day uh i am an 80s kid i was born in 79. back in my day you didn't have a cell phone like the option to to talk to your friends at a moment's notice wasn't even there okay in the 80s you designed your kitchen around your telephone right you wouldn't even think about that today but remember you're like that's where the telephone's gonna go and then you work around all the cabinets to fit in that spot right in the 80s we did this thing called going outside yeah some of you young people you have no idea there's a whole world out there right my parents i would come home from school they'd be like take off your school clothes put on your plate clothes and go outside and when did you come home when the street lights are on that was universal everybody knew that and your school clothes okay or your play clothes were just your school clothes that didn't fit you anymore so you're like i'll be right there we were wearing skinny jeans way before they were popular men had capris back then and they nailed it fashion was at top of the list okay and what was happening is we would go outside and we would just walk into the garage like i'm 10 years old i would grab a gallon of gas matches a shovel and head off into the woods nobody asked any questions they didn't think we were up to no good nobody was questioned there was no nosing neighbor they were like have fun hey he's new to the neighborhood take him with you go for miles in there we blew up parts of our woods that nobody knew about and they're like he's they're fine they're fine kids like fires oh yes they love that okay you know when we got on bikes we didn't have any helmets right as a matter of fact they would give us two pegs right and we'd strap them to the bike and we put as many people on one bike as you could take it was like a circus act you'd have like 15 of your friends and you're like we're safe we're fine kids didn't die in the 80s very easily you could jump in front of a car in the 80s and walk away just as easy like you get hit you just were so afraid to get in trouble by your parents you'd get hit knocked over be like don't tell my mom these are my good clothes okay and and inadvertently what we have done over time is we've gone well now you need a helmet and now there's a stranger outside every door everything's out to get you you should stay right here next to me and what happens is we've got a generation that is now over corrected and fearful they're afraid of everything well i can't go outside i can't know right no bike without a helmet you know it's illegal to buy a power wheel yeah how many remember the power wheels yeah you can't buy one now they're illegal it's dangerous or you can you could go right under a car one of those things what do you mean dangerous you pull out into traffic that's how your friend's dad lost his mind every night you're like there's that dumb kid again i'm like yeah it's me but we've raised up a generation of people who are scared who are nervous around every corner and so instead of taking risk they've done the opposite they're like i'm not leaving my home i'm not going out i'm not taking these risks and here's the deal we have been told by culture it says raise good well-rounded kids that are well educated and fit in when the bible doesn't say anything about any of those things i'm not saying education is bad we don't want a bunch of people being like that's not what i'm saying okay education is good okay but it does say this in mark chapter 8 verse 36 it says what is what good is it for man to gain the whole world yet forfeit his soul what does all this learning do if you lose jesus in the process we're in a culture where everybody gets a trophy i can't stand that i won't put my kid in something where he can't lose if my kid stinks he's gonna know by the end why because life does that's not reality nobody hands me a trophy when i come to work if you walked in tomorrow and your boss was like hey congratulations you woke up today here's a trophy i'd be like keep that thing melt down 50 of them and get it in a check we don't need those out of boys and what it is is we're afraid we've we stopped telling me when teachers write something bad back in my day if a teacher wrote on your thing your mom believed the teacher and you got beat accordingly okay i grew up in a hispanic home okay my mom would just hear bad note boom lights out there were no questions asked okay teacher bad boom you didn't question the teacher now it's like what must be the teacher's fault no your kid's not learning anything it's not the teacher's fault that's on us it's our job to raise them okay the danger is sometimes we inadvertently teach them to chase achievements and in doing so they lose jesus man we you need to go to college you need to go to college you need to go to college you need to go to college i wish there were at least 50 people in this room that started hammering that message home like going to church you need to go to church you need to go to church you need to go to church you need to go to church this will do more benefit this will do yes you need an education but you need to go to church why because that is how you are going to change the bible says in first peter chapter 1 verse 16 or verse 16 says this be holy because i am holy culture tells us that success is well-rounded educated people and the bible says be holy for i am holy children are becoming a reflection of what they're exposed to back in my day look it wasn't easy to get a hold of like bad stuff like you really had to go out of your way imagine you as a child growing up in the day and age of sexuality and all the stuff these guys have to go through the world that they have to walk through and then sometimes parents to make their children happy we sing songs about it clap along if you like because we want you to be happy the bible doesn't ever talk about being happy it says be holy for i am holy happiness is not jesus's goal holiness is jesus's goal for your life and some of you are so worried that you're like i want my kids to be happy when was the last time your parents cared about you being happy my mom made me fake smile all the time i just gotten beat okay like my mom had a uh paddle that said fire foil in spanish drilled holes in it for lack of resistance she would unload that thing on me and then be like smile i'm happy i'm happy are you happy yes of course he's happy look how happy he is do jumping jacks show them how happy you are why because happiness was not the goal they were trying to train people up in the way they should go and one of the things is we've gotten distracted we're so afraid that our kids will be we've got every disease known to man and trust me they're real ones i'm not saying that there's not but we've got a million little things that didn't exist before why because we're paranoid that they're gonna get hurt i don't want my kids feelings hurt that's not the real world someone's going to hurt their feelings and if you don't teach them how to prep for that jesus is going to be like what are you doing so our job is to raise christ-centered children who are anchored in jesus who find their self worth in jesus and aren't worried about what everybody else thinks about them because if we keep exposing them to what they're exposed to they're going to end up just like that okay i ran a youth ministry of about i don't know a thousand kids whatever for 12 years or so and inevitably there'd always be one white kid forgive me white people okay there'd be one white kid who would get hooked up with the emu culture the goth culture and i'd always be like in six weeks he's gonna have a radical transformation he's gonna go from loving race cars stock cars and all this to wearing all black okay face painted change eye color i'd be like what happened he's like you know i just had this real transformation inside of me and this is who i really am like no you're not you just want to fit in their desire to fit in drew them to do things they wouldn't normally do and that's our job is to make sure that we are the number one every dad in here you are the chief environmentalist of your home the bible says in proverbs 13 20 it says the one who walks in the wise will be the one who walks in the wise will be but a command companion of fools will suffer right if you walk with foolish people you're going to end up in harm's way i'm a testament to that don't hang out with me back in the day we were going to be in harm's way but the counsel of the wise leads them to be wise if you want your children to grow up knowing jesus they need to be surrounded in an environment that envelops jesus can i get super practical with you today i want to talk to you about the exposure all those things and proverbs we talked about that i got to move on john 17 3 it says this is eternal life that they may know you the one only true god and the one you have sent jesus christ you want them to know the thrill of knowing jesus some of you don't even talk about the thrill of knowing jesus at all you got all these things how many of you are late people you like going to the lake and driving their boats around there are more of you than this okay you all come up to me like you won't come out in the lake yeah you're like people there's nothing wrong with being a lake person you've been blessed you have all the tools you need you have all those things this is how you do this conversation and show people naturally show your children naturally how god is amazing talk through what a blessing it is to have the things that we have when was the last time you incorporated that vernacular that language into the way you speak i thank god for this this thank you jesus for my boat it wouldn't sail without you you're like you can't thank god for your boat look you can thank god for whatever is in front of you and teach people to be not only a blessing look it's okay to be wealthy people get mad at wealthy people it's okay to be wealthy as long as you understand that you are blessed to be a blessing teach your children that show them what it's like to be a blessing don't pull up to a homeless person be cynical about every homeless person like you know their whole life story oh they're just probably going to go out and get drunk i'm like you're on your way to a party to go get drunk i don't get it invite him be like i'll save a buck i'll spend my buddy's beer come on we're all getting hammered we go to the hills church like this church just invited me to some craziness people your family your children will follow jesus if you follow jesus however rules without relationship equals rebellion if you don't have a relationship and you don't walk out what you say you're going to the number one way for your children to stop following jesus is bring them to church and show them the church has zero effect on you talk about jesus but don't live like him at all you become the first hypocrite they see look people love jesus they just don't like you they want to go to heaven just not with you how many of you know people are like i'm going to heaven i'm like dear god i hope that's a different place i'm like i hope i hope the mormons are right like there's six of them or 12 heavens and i'm skating onto the christian one no that's a deal rules without relationship equals rebellion you have a bunch of rules do this do that the second you say do as i say and not as i do you've lost it you're supposed to be a model christian you set the environment you are the model christian this is the way we handle ourselves this is the way we carry ourselves is the way we act the way we talk you're the model men you are the model in your home right when me and my boys go to the mall okay i have one that loves to shop one that hates the shop okay i love to shop because i like pretty colors i don't know but i can tell you at every mall close to here what the tile looks like outside of every lingerie store because i've taught my boys from a young age this is how we look at lingerie stores there's nothing in there for you son there's only see and what you don't understand is think about the young ladies who have to live up to that image they found five women in the world that meet that requirement and put them all on a billboard and then my kid's like that's what i want and he doesn't understand why his model the behavior like i think abercrombie should hire me i'll take my shirt off be like this what a real man looks like merry christmas come on in yeah i'm wearing a santa hat you're seeing it yeah i'm a jesus i love jesus too okay why because we're trying to model it some of you are the sexiest men but you're not the sexiest christians you should model that behavior dave's trying to make me laugh i'm not going to look over there we exist in a natural world and a supernatural world at the same time we shouldn't draw a distinction between both you shouldn't be like hey in church we're in the supernatural world but when we go home we're in the natural world they're one place you live in the natural and supernatural at the same time you don't change residences when you leave this place you don't get to go well now we're not in church you can say whatever you want i'm like no be that person everywhere it's not that hard i watch you guys practice here like i can do it for an hour i just can't i can't i gotta cuss you should i gotta get it out like no you don't you can do it you have the ability to model the behavior the second thing i want you to understand besides the exposure issue is this i want them to know jesus through prayer and his will through the word and this goes back to modeling this is a culture that is caught not taught you cannot teach somebody how to pray you model it they catch it look there are so many i i'm a minority i'm very proud okay we do things a little screwy but we got a lot of things right okay in just about every minority's home still to this day we've got a huge bible somewhere it was your grandma's bible and your grandma's got more knowledge wrapped up in her brain that is like she's on the tip of losing her mind every second and she will whip out that bible and she's got an answer for everything my grandmother had alzheimer's disease and when she would come clear she'd be like this is what jesus has for you and i'm like what the you okay she's talking and then she just and then when my grandfather was like losing his mind in his last days he started writing down all the people he was praying for and i remember he calls me in his room and he's like don't give up on these people jesus needs them and i'm going how does that happen because it was caught by their parents their parents instilled in them why do you think culture wants you to destroy your family be like just go your own separate ways don't rough it out don't try to work things out just destroy blow the whole thing up why because they know this if we can blow the whole thing up the stories of your generations will not last your prayer life will be blown up my kids learn how to pray by watching me pray my son does more devotions than i do he's always praying he's like dad i'll pray for that i'll pray for that what else you got i'll pray for that i'm gonna be the lead pastor one day i gotta pray for those people you can't make somebody follow jesus but you can put them in the right environment where it is so hard not to that they're going to love doing it the exposure man teaching them cultivating time in the word man it's so awesome just sit down with your family read the bible some people are like i can't read the bible i just don't understand it try keep trying try try again try your life but it's boring yes because you're used to getting everything in four seconds you turn on youtube and you're annoyed that you had to wait five seconds for the video i've seen people lose their minds come on i'm like dude it has been one second your mind is done you are cooked teach them the joy of coming to church this is the first generation listen to me which generation the first generation in u.s history that parents asked children if they wanted to go to church if they wanted to go to church okay i don't know how you went to church but there was no if i was going if my mom's heels were headed towards the door everything that was lucky enough and blessed enough to be brought up under it were pointed that direction and come hell or high water because she wasn't the best christian she was going to drag us to church let's go i had a girlfriend there's a true story i got my first girlfriend my mom sent a priest over the house to talk to me about it he just showed up his name's father blewett he sat down he's like i heard you have a girlfriend yes as your mother had to talk with you which one i was like i can't believe my mother talked to a priest i was like my mother does have demons in her you probably should get him out i thought that's what he was there for but she never ever ever ever ever made it a question look when you get to heaven jesus isn't going to be like were your kids really happy did your kids have a very fulfilled life good for you you did so good i'm so proud of you no i didn't have a mission for them that you completely missed or whiffed on no we just wanted you to skirt around the whole idea of life and changing other people's life we were we just wanted them to be happy and go to baseball some of you the reason it's not sticking is you have given your children other priorities and you've taught them the other priorities you're like hey we got a baseball thing this weekend we're going to go to that and i'm like whoa whoa whoa whoa wait don't don't start teaching them more priorities above jesus because then they'll start trying to figure out where your priorities are well i need pastor i'll see you in about seven months i'm on this traveling team deal and look i'm all for sports i love sports but i love jesus more and i'm not trying to raise well-rounded perfect people i don't look i don't care if my kid can dunk if he can't read scripture i don't care if he scores a million points a game if he's not going to heaven i promise you of every parent that has been brought before me with a star a legit nfl star which there have been many in my time okay sean alexander was a youth member in my youth ministry brandon marshall was a youth member in my ministry and the one thing i would tell their parents is be like don't let them stop coming to church don't let their gift be the thing that takes them away because god gave them their gift and you're teaching them that that is more important than the person who gave it to them and you got to be careful you're like well i'm not trying to do that no it would make your kids happy but you know it'd be awesome if you've taught your kids how to be happy where they're at how to celebrate we have had over 250 people baptized in this church in the last two years how to celebrate don't we don't have time for clapham run down time so just imagine all the clapping people roaring in your head okay so what happens is we were praying for somebody who needed a heart transplant who was told no he didn't even qualify they were sending him home to die this is two and a half months ago and within three days of us praying for him as a church he gets a new heart he's doing amazingly well for somebody who had a heart transplant then there was a gentleman who had coveted they're like he's gonna die they left him on a ventilator for months and months and months we kept praying and praying it's not over it's not over they sent him to louisville it's over in louisville he needs a lung transplant well he ends up two weeks ago getting a lung transplant now he's off a ventilator and back to on his way to being normal okay why because lives are being changed here and instead of bringing them here to see lives changed you're cheering them on towards their achievement and not towards eternity the world's gonna keep going folks i promise you one hour church ain't gonna kill your kid it's gonna stop them from getting killed it'll stop them from making stupid decisions because going to church isn't something we do the church is who we are and where we're going to be where we are it's our identity there's a big difference between being a christian family and a christ-centered family a christian family points to a church and says i go there a christ-centered family says that is my church that is my identity i am a big piece of what's happening here some of you are like i don't know how to get involved i don't know if i want to be involved you have a purpose you have a plan god we miss you when you're not here you're like the church doesn't need me to be here you don't know why god needs you to be where you're at when he needs you to be there but trust me missing weeks upon weeks after excuse after excuse is not going to cut it for your kids it didn't cut it for our generation look what happened to us when we got handed the reins the 40 year olds of this world when we got handed the reins okay 18 18 of all americans went to church in 2020 the same study by the barna group we are down to four percent why because we let everybody else take our roles we didn't grind ryan if you'll come and join me we didn't grind it out we didn't say you know what i've got to be there because they need me you're like i don't know how i can be used we can tell you but i bet you you know how to be used as well some of you aren't friendly people we don't need you to be a greeter okay some of you you have gifts of using your hands your tactile learners you're like man if you need a car fix tell us that we'll use you man i'm a painter tell us that we'll get you in contact with somebody why because there's a single mom who needs your help or there's an elderly family who could use their yard mode and they call us but we're still waiting on people to call us god has a place for you and a purpose for you in everything you say and do god has a reason for you and the question it comes down to and we find this in joshua chapter 24 and verse 14 says now therefore fear the lord serve him sincerely and in truth and then he's going through and he's challenged by god he says choose this day whom you'll serve and this was joshua's response but as for me in my house we're going gonna serve the lord i don't care how talented my kids get on a sunday as for me and my house we're gonna serve the lord why because i can't afford darker days i can't afford less people praying i can't afford handing over do you know that we are the number one country in the world getting missionaries sent to it there are more missionaries being sent to the united states than the united states is sending out africa is a number one mission sending organization in the entire world and the number one mission field in the entire world is the united states how ironic that when we were children we were told about all these great missionaries that went to africa not only did they do their job they won people they trained them now they started to send them back to the very people who'd forgotten the god who taught them lest you forget what god did for your grandparents and how they got to who they are and passed it down to you and here's the deal for my house i'm not willing to let it stop with me christianity i will not stand before god and be like i'm the i'm the length that lost it not me i'm sorry i'll give up anything i don't but we used to pray crazy things in the early church we used to say things like jesus send me anywhere jesus take my life you can have everything you want if you can use anything lord use me you remember those songs if you can use anything lord use me take my hands lord and my feet i'll go anywhere you send me i'll do whatever but that starts by you manning up and going you know what i choose this day to serve jesus and anchor my family on christ with every head bowed and nobody looking around you'd say daryl that's me on this father's day i don't care if you're a man a woman in here but you say i'm going to be christ focused i'm gonna i'm gonna create the atmosphere in my home i'm gonna teach my children the joy of serving god and i'm gonna show them how to serve god by serving the church christianity is not going to end with me in my house as long as i'm the father i'm the mother i'm going to raise them in the will of jesus and i'm going to stand firm until the end if that's you will you stand right now so i can pray for you you say i will i'm gonna i choose to stand for jesus i will stand for jesus right now wherever you're at just stand up thank you thank you i stand for jesus no nothing's gonna be more important in this family this is what jesus is the most important thing to us this is why we live this is why we do it i stand for the cause of christ [Music] heavenly father i pray for every person within the sound of my voice god i pray for those online the man and branch of god i pray that they would serve jesus with all their heart they would be the chief environmentalist of their home they would be the men who rise up and say i'm going to raise up a world-changing generation lord i'm going to raise up people that are going to shape this nation for jesus they're going to take a stand they're going to stand up for principles for their morals for their beliefs for who they are and what they represent father god we're not going to let empty homes be a place where the devil can resign we're going to put you in place everywhere and as for me and my house we will serve the lord in jesus name and everybody said amen you can be seated for just one second two things i need to cover with you number one is your pastor i'm gonna ask you to pray for me a lot of times i spend time praying for you i'll show up i'll pray over everything and i need your prayer right now my son is 13 years old we've been monitoring a mass in his brain for the last two years so over the course of this last year it's grown and he is scheduled for brain surgery on july 26th [Music] look my faith is not shaken i trust in the god who heals i trust in the god who delivers i trust in the god who saves and i know he's going to do it but as a dad i could use your prayers we trust you we believe you i love this church family because i know you guys will do that also we have a couple winners lots of losers in our church today that didn't get anything but we got two winners for the fastest knockout norm bullock where are you at norm are you in here norm has left the building all right we'll call him adam hubbard i think i saw you in here adam adam you just won yourself dinner at st elmo's man you uh you crushed it in corn hole hey guys we love you we hope you have an incredible week have a happy father's day don't ask dad to do anything we are off today [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] um [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] so [Music] hmm

Channel: The Hills Church

Views: 99

Rating: 5 out of 5

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Id: AH4QdHWwICU

Length: 83min 32sec (5012 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 20 2021