Honor - Shane Willard - Father's Day Worship Service

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] so welcome to generosity church father's day special my name's caleb and it's my absolute pleasure to welcome you and encourage you to enjoy this time we have together you know we might still be separated by social distancing and across this great state of ours but we can certainly be united thanks to technology and united in purpose so here we are the first sunday in september a day where many aussies choose to come together and celebrate father's day today that we celebrate celebrate paternal bonds we celebrate fathers and father figures for some of us that is our biological father for others it might be a step father it might be a beloved uncle it might be an amazing family friend a grandfather so many great male role models that have been father figures in our lives that we can celebrate together you know i consider myself incredibly blessed on father's day words like tingle fights and family holidays um enjoying life together come to my mind my dad was incredible he also told me the importance of faith and belonging to the local church and on father's day i'm so grateful for those things because of the father that i had i've got to be honest that i find it kind of easy to assume that my heavenly father wants to be a great influence in my life an absolute force for good the bible says this about our father in heaven in luke chapter 11 and verse 13 says if you then though you are evil know how to give good gifts to your children how much more will your father in heaven give the holy spirit to those who ask him even if you haven't had an amazing dad like mine i'm sure that if you've experienced the peace the inner renewal the joy the wisdom the comfort of holy spirit that you can agree with me that god in heaven is indeed good and has amazing gifts for his children and yet i'm acutely aware today that because of absent fathers because of abandonment because of neglect and sometimes even abuse there's a lot of people out there that find the whole concept of fathers and even the idea of god as a father are really confronting it maybe even a downright terrifying idea well i want to encourage you if that's you today my prayer is that this father's day you might find the courage to stay take a step closer to god the father i believe that you'll find a father who doesn't disregard your story he doesn't disregard your pain and even your hesitancy maybe to understand him as a father but i believe you'll find a father that the bible tells us is patient and kind the father that does not do evil nor boast in it that the father who is not proud and doesn't dishonor others the father that's not self-seeking is not easily angered does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth and a father who always protects always hopes and always perseveres and you find the courage this year to get to know that father a father that because of the work of jesus christ each and every one of us has the ability to call my father and so this father's day i pray that all of us would come to know our heavenly father a little bit more and that those of us who have the privilege of being fathers that we might represent him well to those around about us that they would see and believe that our god is good and it is a father who has good things for us so welcome again enjoy this time together as we all see god a little bit more like he really is [Music] [Music] [Music] hey [Music] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Music] i just wanna speak the name of jesus over every heart and every mind cause i know there is peace within your presence i speak jesus [Music] i just want to speak the name of jesus to every dark addiction starts to break declaring there is hope in there is freedom i speak jesus [Music] [Music] oh i just wanna speak the name of jesus [Music] i speak jesus cause your name is [Music] god we bless your name and glorify your name your name we adore it is your name the reason we are here god you are the one that we are welcoming your greatness transcends all understanding and within your greatness you have loved us we thank you for your faithfulness that within the moments where we think all seems upside down and backwards you are moving us forward in ways we can't yet see for this we know you have never left us for this we know you are god for this we know we have heard your testimonies for this we know you are at what mightily within our hearts to this generation the fathers the mothers the brothers the sisters we celebrate that you god holy spirit are the teacher your spirit within and through and now as we gather today let imaginations awaken to what you can do for is there anything too hard for you is there anything too hard for others jesus this is what you rose for there is nothing you cannot do for your kingdom is here it is in motion father you are here with your people on the rise we celebrate you jesus we celebrate you jesus we celebrate you jesus shall jesus from the mountains jesus in the street jesus in the darkness over every enemy jesus for my family i speak the holy name jesus [Music] jesus in the streets jesus in the darkness over every enemy jesus for my family i speak the holy name [Music] jesus shout jesus from the mountains jesus in the streets jesus in the darkness [Music] your name is here your name is [Music] your name is break every stronghold [Music] i just wanna speak the name of jesus over every heart and every mind [Music] cause i know there is peace within his presence i speak jesus [Music] good morning generosity church so good to be here with you via online live streaming with my friends ben and libby stains oh yeah we originally book to be with you live but obviously for the circumstances in the world that is not going to be possible so it's going to be the next best thing and i'm coming to you on father's day so i get to open the bible today and i take that very seriously and anytime you open the bible you want to ask at least two questions one what happened two most importantly what's happening in me right now because of what happened and so i want to talk to you about honor your father and mother today and i want to stop right there and i want to talk to the person who's fixing to click this off right you're like as soon as you heard that you're like uh uh i am turning i'm going to some other thing i want to stop just stop right there i want to talk to you because i i get it i understand that certain people avoid church on father's day and mother's day because they know some sort of message is going to come along these lines and and your story is [Music] has some pain in it and you just can't go there here's what i'm asking you to do i'm going to ask you to give me 25 minutes 30 minutes and i'm going to ask you to let me shift your imagination on that word because words matter less than our imagination of how words work and so when we hear honor we can have all kinds of different thoughts about what that is and what that isn't and if you'll give me a few minutes here i promise you i can recapture the beauty of that word i can recapture the beauty of that word and show you where it'll change your life so if you give me a few minutes here i promise you the key to your life and to your family moving forward is found in a proper understanding of that word if you'll let me do this we'll open this beautiful scripture together and find a beautiful new narrative for your life so let's go all right so what we're going to do is we're going to look at three different concepts uh the first if your light type likes to follow an actual bibles in ezekiel 18. the second is in exodus 20 and the third is in ephesians 6. and those three words that we're going to center our study around today are the words responsibility honor and promise so those three words responsibility honor and promise so in ezekiel 18 there's a guy named ezekiel and he's a prophet and he's writing to some israelite people who are finding themselves enslaved in an empire called babylon so babylon has come in and they have wrecked jerusalem and they've taken people uh captive and so um they are finding themselves dejected and and it's horrible and so so ezekiel is you know he's trying to write comfort into them he's trying to to speak encouraging words and and at first it sounds like he's slapping him around a little he he says this in ezekiel 18 verse 1. what do you people mean by quoting this proverb about the land of israel the fathers eat sour grapes and now the children's teeth are set on edge as surely as the lord your god lives declares the sovereign lord i don't want to ever hear you quote this proverb again so he says look the fathers eat sour grapes and now the children's teeth are set on edge i don't want to hear this coming out of your mouth ever again which leads to a couple of questions one what does this proverb mean and and two and more importantly why is god so apparently ticked off that they were regularly saying it now to understand this and to understand where we're going to go in exodus 20. this brief history lesson is going to help us quite a bit to understand how israel got to where they got so so let's start with a guy named abraham uh who had a son named isaac who had a son named jacob it's gonna be very quick and it's a bit of a caricature obviously because we're gonna cover quite a bit of history here in about one minute maybe two so a guy named abraham has sunday and isaac has a son named jacob who has 12 children and um and those 12 children um 11 of those 12 children sell their brother into slavery in egypt only to later need him to save them out of a famine um that in the land they were living in and so they didn't really realize that the person they're going to need to save their life was the guy that they've sold but that's how it works it's actually a brilliant story about how choosing not to escalate violence and to see the good and see what god did and things it's got quite a lot of good lessons there so joseph acts um kindly to them and comforts them and gives them a piece of land and in this family then start procreating and they start having babies and then the next generation has babies and then there was babies and more babies and then there was babies and there's more babies and then there was babies and babies and more babies and more babies and more babies until they begin to out populate egypt well this panics the head of egypt is god i need pharaoh and he says you know what this this can't be so he does what he found normal which would be to enslave the israelite people so 430 years later god raises up a guy named moses and he gets them out of slavery into freedom by walking them through the red sea and they end up at a place called mount sinai where they receive something we know as the ten commandments we'll get to that in a second they end up in their own land with this mandate be the people who show the whole world what justice and righteousness looks like remember you serve a god who's a slave liberator show the whole world what that might look like well this turns out terribly about by the third king a guy named solomon it says that this is the account of the slave labor that solomon forced to build the temple to the lord they also used slave labor to build more military bases where he had become an arms dealer by selling weaponry from country to country at a profit so a guy that comes from a lineage of freed slaves is now forcing slaves to build the temple to honor the god who frees the slaves and he failed to see the irony in that so what ends up happening is is they end up back in exile so that these people call prophets show up and say listen if you don't do what you're supposed to be doing in terms of maintaining justice righteousness if you just trade one empire of tyranny the egyptian empire for another one but call it god that doesn't work you can't just create a new egypt and that works so they end up back enslaved in a place called babylon and they blame somebody they blame solomon so much so that they refused to even mention him by name they just simply called him david's son because that's how you get somebody out of your mind if you want somebody not to be remembered just refer to him as not his name this is why if you've ever been through a divorce or something you don't refer to your ex by their name you refer to them as my ex or the children's father that's one way to get people to quit remembering who who they were so they just referred to him as david's son and they said look because david's son failed we are where we are it's david's son's fault that we are where we are and and they came up with this interesting song slash proverb uh that they would use to comfort themselves while they were in captivity and it went something like this it's my father that ate sour grapes and that's why my teeth are set on edge it's my father that ate sour grapes in other words solomon or david's son his mistakes are the reason we are where we are that's why the prophets uh to babylon that they say things like take heart for god will bring a new son of david who will maintain justice and righteousness to the poor which is why if you fast forward to jesus people called him a lot of things jesus christ jesus our savior jesus son of joseph jesus our king jesus the lion jesus the lamb rabbi jesus jesus a guy that likes fishing but the poor and the afflicted they had one name for him jesus son of david have mercy on me in other words are you the son of david that the prophets folds spoke about because if you're that guy that means you're here for the poor news flash i'm poor which means you're here for me now if you tuned out in any of that come back now because i'm going to summarize all of that in a couple sentences because of the history of israel what was happening was is the current generation was blaming the previous generation for why they are the way they are because we would never hear of that now we've never seen a case where someone's horrendous behavior is being blamed on the previous generation we don't know of any 20 year olds that if they were confronted on their dysfunctional behavior they might blame their father or they might blame their mother and here's here's the problem with this is god says i don't hear you do that it is completely disempowering to you to blame someone else for where you are in life that the power of taking responsibility empowers you to make your own path in life if you are where you are it's not because your parents fault unless you're eight if you're not eight if you're eight you get to blame your parents but if you're 20 you don't get to blame your parents anymore if you're 30 you don't get to blame them if you're 40 and like we've all we've all had experiences like that like i i've sat with someone before and they've told me their story and anyone could see yes your mother was horrible cantankerous possessive and critical and quite frankly terrible so you're a horrible possessive critical and quite frankly terrible i get it i get it your mom ate sour grapes that's why you are the way you are your dad was horrible he was abusive he was introverted he he never spoke to you he cut you all off he drank too much and so you're sort of an abusive introverted person that cuts people i i get it anybody can see it like you your dad was like that yes i get it so you're like that your mom's like that so yeah yeah so you're like that here's the problem the problem is that you're you're 40 and at some point you have to draw a line in the sand that says just because somebody else ate sour grapes doesn't mean that i have to perpetuate that darkness going forward in my life if you look all the way back in genesis 1 2 where creation was going on but part of the fundamental way a human being was meant to get their purpose in life was by taking responsibility even before sin entered the situation the idea was is i've made something now you tend it you take responsibility for it that taking responsibility is critical to us finding any sense of purpose in our life and if you look back at the adam and eve story no matter how you read it the truth is is they do the opposite of that and they blame one blames the serpent one blames the woman and neither one of them took responsibility for their own actions and so when we talk about the situation of honor our father and mother the first thing we need to do is we need to come to the understanding that actually the best place for my life is never ever ever regardless of how bad the fault was the best most empowering position i can take in my life is to say you know what just because my father ate sour grapes does not mean my teeth has to be set on edge i am not dictated by the decisions of the previous generation i can live on a more profound level than that and choose life and light instead of death and darkness and in ezekiel 18 he spends a whole chapter encouraging them not to buy into the deterministic philosophy of generational curses and and he says no no no every generation can stand on their own two feet before god and the ones that choose light and life will reap light in life and the ones who choose death and darkness will reap death and darkness but you can be empowered in your generation to choose that and it's empowering to your life to take responsibility for where we are you might say shane you understand how dysfunctional my family was well you're probably right i i would say also that all of our families had some level of dysfunction to them my dad was a good man but if i started telling some stories there's some things he did that were funny i guess now but at the time were he liked to scare us he liked to embarrass us he thought that was hilarious he thought it was hilarious to embarrass me in front of all of my friends and then he became sort of sort of popular with them now he never meant it maliciously or anything but you know we could all tell stories and the truth of it is is if you're thinking you know what your best stories about your dad are funny my stories are not that funny my story is actually quite frankly abusive and so could you could you help me at all and and i would say a couple things one the first place we have to get to is we have to understand that the posture of taking responsibility instead of blaming somebody else for why we are the way we are is critical to honor because the second thing i want to talk to you about is honor so the first thing is responsibility second thing is honor in in exodus chapter 20 verse 12 this is a part of something called the t we call the ten commandments uh in in the in the israelite world they don't call them ten commandments and i i have no trouble with calling them ten commandments because that's what we know them as but in the jewish world they're called a ten word katuba a ten word marriage proposal this was not 10 conditions for god to love us this was 10 proofs he already does this was a group of slaves who were led into freedom now when you take a group of slaves and you lead them into freedom you've got to start at ground one about what it even means to be human what does it even mean to act like as someone in the image of god in our world what does that even what does that even look like and so this first thing that comes around is pretty basic stuff like god wants to have a relationship with these people and if we and if we read the ten commandments as a marriage proposal instead of ten conditions it makes it way more beautiful like hey don't have any other gods before you well that's common sense like if we're going to be married i'd like to be the only one or or hey don't have idols and in other words if we're going to be married if you could put the pictures of your own boyfriends down that would be that would be awesome right if you would if you would resist the urge to make me in some image that makes you comfortable that that would be that that would be great oh hey don't use my name in vain and by the way that wasn't a language issue that was a way you carry yourself issue it was don't carry the name in a way that disappoints the hope the rest upon it in other words don't sign checks i wouldn't sign don't come up with your bad idea and convince everybody by saying god said if things like this you know oh let's take a day off a week and spend it together right let's let's do that let's let's have a day off where we remember we're not machines because you came out of slavery there's never been a day you weren't a machine so let's let's do that and then the whole thing flips and it talks about how we interact with each other and he says things like honor your father mother which we'll get to in a second he says things like don't kill each other that's a good idea like like in other words in our new world the biggest strongest people can't kill the weaker people that would be an amazing world hey hey don't sleep with each other's spouses right wait a minute in our new world the biggest strongest higher class people can't rape our wives with no judicial right at all that'd be amazing hey don't steal each other's things oh you wait a minute you mean it in our new world my life my wife and my stuff is protected this would be amazing oh in our new world i get a day off this would be an amazing thing and of course the natural question would be how do we stay in a land like that that would be an amazing place and so in the middle of it god says hey honor your father and mother that your days will be long in the land that god's in other words if you want to stay a long time in this situation the critical nature of honoring your father and mother is it can't be overstated and here's the problem with that the problem with that is that words matter less than our imagination of how words function and so when i say honor i have to understand that i'm dealing with potentially a hundred different imaginations of what that is and what that isn't so let's talk for a second about what honor is not uh honor is not pretending it didn't happen uh honor is not sweeping it under the rub uh honor is not pretending it's not wrong uh honor is is not this willy-nilly i'll just i'll just say i'll just say you were great regardless of how dark it was honor's not any of those things actually what we're going to find in a second is that honor is the opposite of that honor is not walking into the situation i shut and blinded and pretending like nothing happened honor at its purest form is actually eyes wide open calling it what it is uh in in the jewish consciousness there was a couple of words that matter here life light and increase or death darkness and decrease in in their world this was not about going to heaven when you died it was about living in such a way that led our life to wholeness here or living in such a way that led our life to disrepair here and they called that death or darkness or they called wholeness life and light and so actually honor has nothing to do with calling something that's darkness light that would be terrible or calling something that is disrepair repair are calling something that is chaos creation actually uh honor is the opposite of that honor in the jewish world this is so important honor has nothing to do with what you say to someone and more to do with what you act how you act away from them now if you take a second you just know that to be true like if you're if you're a dad and your 16 year old says dad i honor you well that would bless your heart but what's more honoring is knowing that when he or she is out with her friends at 11 o'clock at night in town that they are acting in a way that honors the values of your home out there more so than what they're saying to your face in here or um if if you're a pastor right you say oh look um one of your church people says hey pastor look i honor you well that would bless your heart and if you're if you're a part of this great church you should be honoring your pastor you absolutely should absolutely and that would bless their heart but what's more honoring is that when people are away from the church that their life is honoring the values of the church out there that's more honoring now the same thing's true when it comes to honoring your father and mother honoring your father and mother has nothing to do with what you say to them this is why somebody like myself who had great parents we we we look at this command and we could think of all ten that's the easiest one honoring my father and mother that is simple and yet i could miss the whole point and there are people who maybe their parents were terrible and because of that they just avoid the whole thing and it has everything to do with how you live going into the next generation away from them choosing to eradicate death and darkness and leave that in the past and choosing to perpetuate life and light and moving that forward now what that requires is not being blind not calling darkness light it actually requires us to call it what it is let's think about it this way honor is not pretending it didn't happen honor's really not saying it's okay honor is not pretending it wasn't wrong honor is actually doing an audit every generation and going where is this generation perpetuating life and light and where is this generation actually perpetuating death and darkness and what god says is that if you want to live a long time in the land this awesome land imagine a world like this if you want if you want that for a long long time you need to regularly at least every generation do an audit and see where we're perpetuating life and light and where we're perpetuating death and darkness because once you start perpetuating death and darkness to the next generation it's only a few generations away before that overtakes an entire society so let's let's maybe put some language around this and talk about what honor is honor is maintaining godliness through our generations maintaining light in life it's breaking the cycle of ungodliness for the next generation and it's tied to a promise about length of time in that amazing land it requires us to call things that are darkness darkness and choose not to get retribution but choose to live better going forward going into the next generation so so how can we do that well i think first we need to appreciate the fact that we're alive like the truth of it is is that no matter what our parents did or didn't do they did give us life before they did anything else so before we knew any of their light or any of their darkness they did give us life i think we need to see our parents in perspective of sinful humanity that everybody misses the mark everybody's got their issues everybody's got their story everybody and i think we need to give up the urge to stand in judgment and if there's any vengeance to be had just leave that at the throne of the one whose throne is made of justice and righteousness leave that in god's pay grade see the truth of it is is that your parents were probably wounded too i love the way the franciscans say they say to fully no is to fully forgive that is why god is the only one who can fully forgive because he's the only one that actually fully knows [Music] but the truth of it is is that our culture actually depends on it the quality of your life depends on you honoring your father and mother now what does that mean well it doesn't mean to call something that wasn't okay okay it doesn't mean to live boundlessly let him just keep doing it it does mean to call it darkness and go you know what i'm going to draw a line in the sand and as for me and my house we're going to serve the lord and we're not going to act like that and perpetuate that through the generations because see what is normal is established in all of our brains by the age of eight you think that the way you grew up was normal and here's the issue with that so do i and so does the person you married and so does your neighbor and that's why when we're when we're confronted by somebody who's their normal is a bit different than our normal which was only a virtue and a function of where we grew up we go ah that's weird but see they think we're weird that the question the worst question is is is this normal that's a terrible question the far more profound question is is this wise is this useful is this light is this darkness and choosing to eradicate darkness and leave it in the past and choosing to perpetuate light and life in the future and when we do that that's honor and when we do that we actually save our culture from a perpetuation of darkness let me let me be more specific it is within your power today to change your family tree forever it is maybe you need to have a conversation when this video goes off and you need to say to your spouse is there anything we're allowing in our family that's just a virtue if that's how it was always done but actually for honest it's actually darkness it's disrepair like some families yell to get their way some families are more peaceful the question isn't what's normal the question is what's wise what's useful what perpetuates life in life some families are promiscuous some families are pure the question isn't what's right or wrong or what's normal the question is what's wise what's useful and what perpetuates light and life and here's the truth of it if you'll be brave enough to take an audit of your family system and go you know what there are certain family habits that are perpetuating that actually belong to darkness and death and we don't want that anymore so we're going to eradicate that we're going to we're going to quit doing it here's what will happen your children will grow up with a different normal and you can change your family trade forever our culture depends on that our life depends on the length of time in the land depends on that so first responsibility second honor third promise let me read you the words of the apostle paul from ephesians chapter 6 he says honor your father and mother which is the first commandment with a promise what was that promise that you'll live a long time in this awesome land god has given you so that it may be well with you and that you may live long on the earth so so here's and then he goes on to say and fathers don't provoke your children to wrath but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the lord see i i travel the world and um i get asked every now and then shane you must come from a long line of educated preachers um now my great-grandfather was illiterate he made his living moonshining and he was a racist member of the klu klux klan [Music] my great-grandfather was an illiterate moonshining racist so how do you get from a literate moonshining racist to a guy that travels the whole world telling all cultures that the love of christ is for everybody and christ is the ground of being holding all things together there is not june or greek saving a free male or female why because there's one spirit holding us all together how do you get from that to that well my parents drew a line in the sand and said you know what as for me and my house we're going to serve the lord our children will go to school our children will read books our children will learn the love of christ and our children will not be racist because that's just stupid and in just that little shift generationally what ended up happening is an entirely new normal is perpetuated forward listen for some of us our fathers did eat sour grapes and you know what we need to call that what it is darkness is darkness disrepair is disrepair chaos is chaos but to honor your father and mother has nothing to do with pretending that didn't happen it has everything to do with naming it because if you can mention it you can manage it and making a choice as for me in my house going forward we will live in light and life and you can be the hero of your family tree how do you do that we take responsibility we choose to honor and we embrace the promise and when we do those things you can be the hero of your family tree and one day your grandchildren look back on you and thank you for that but if you don't your children are gonna have to do it why leave it to them when you could do that now so why don't right now where you where you are why don't you ask yourself a few questions one is there anything in my family tree that actually belongs to death and darkness any habit that we do it's not light in life it is normal because that's how we grew up but it's not light in life and is there anything we need to repent from and instill new habits maybe we could ask it this way ma'am if your son married a woman like you would you be happy for him if your son married a woman who treats him like you treat his father would you be happy for him because here's the problem he's gonna and it's not because of oedipus it's because he thinks you're normal or sir if your daughter married a man like you would you be happy for her or would you think oh no because if the truth is is that as parents we're meant to show our children what god is like so how did they think about compassion how did they think about the poor and afflicted how do they think about the marginalized how do they think about interpersonal conflict and if we look at that and go you know what i don't want my children to have that future the key to changing it is honor your father and mother call the family habit what it is and choose light life and increase go forward eradicate darkness perpetuate light our culture and our life depends on be the hero of your family tree today hi everybody thank you for joining us today why don't you join us with your families with your friends and we're going to worship god together [Music] you have come [Music] never ending [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] the grace [Music] for us [Music] [Music] forever [Music] [Music] yes [Music] jesus [Music] foreign [Music] across the earth [Music] to [Music] [Music] dancing in the altar forever [Music] [Music] me [Music] please thank you for all that you have done for us the war is [Music] the over [Music] he is made a way for us [Music] no [Music] [Music] he is [Music] is [Music] he's [Music] is [Music] it is comes it is it is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Music] a is for us [Music] is [Music] [Music] he has this [Music] is [Music] he is [Music] in something [Music] victory he is [Music] every breath you're faithful every word you're faithful in every season your faithful god every need you're faithful every path you're faithful in every season your faithful god [Music] i raised [Music] every breath you're faithful every word [Music] your faith [Music] every season your faithful god [Music] is [Music] only one [Music] [Applause] [Music] you are [Music] you are my safe place goes on and on and on [Music] goes on and on and on [Music] christ cap [Music] myself [Music] jesus father we can't help but respond to your goodness [Music] jesus we love you oh how we love [Music] you jesus we love you [Music] our hearts little [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign

Channel: Generocity Church

Views: 420

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Worship, Church, christian

Id: dqhKlVl7KIM

Length: 70min 2sec (4202 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 05 2020