Ps Shane Willard - Sour Grapes

thank you everybody thank you very much you can be seated thank you worship team you did a great job and thanks for preparing and doing all you have to do uh to do that it's so good to be with you my job tonight's over the bible right i take that very seriously so if your type likes to follow an actual bible ezekiel 18 if not we've created these really easy thought to follow along slides uh that we can um we can follow along um together um anytime you open the bible you want to ask a couple questions one what happened two more importantly what's happening in us all right now because of what happened so um afterwards um on your way out we have a resource table set up there at the back uh with just the new stuff from the last couple years you can find stuff on the book of revelation uh you during the coveted lockdowns pastors from everywhere were having me into their online platforms because dialogues play better than monologues and so i ended up being interviewed for over 12 hours by really smart people and so we had an editor sort of copy and paste and cut and edit it down to where it was by topic and i think there's probably over 10 hours worth of different stuff from being interviewed over big things and so you could pick those things up back there i just finished a christology course as well so you can all that's available back there the reason is is because that's the way we support our missions in the world so a hundred percent of the profit we make from that we give to the poor and the afflicted we have three homes in china that look after children with mental disabilities too and hen yang won in changsha we have a rescue home in cape town that gets girls out of the sex industry off drugs high school educated and job trained so we could do our part of breaking the cycle of poverty in the cape flats that's where that goes so if you come back there and say hello everything's on usb the only thing i would ask is that if you know you're not going to get anything god bless you i'll see you next time i'm through if you know before i leave tonight i'm going to grab something if you could do me a favor and do that first the reason is is that um robin's been here all day i'm i'm paid to be here but um robin is here out of the goodness of her heart and the fulfillment of scripture is to do unto others as you would have been doing to you and so i don't want her having to stay for an hour when it could be done in 15 minutes right so is that fair so so here's the order of things afterwards if you could like buy first and chat second that would be awesome right uh the reason is is you know there's an hour drive back and i've got to pack it all up and go to cans tomorrow so uh so it's we gotta go to our next place so if you could uh do that that would be that would be great all right so ezekiel chapter 18. now before we get into the scripture um we have to understand that words matter less than how we picture words functioning and so there's a way to say something that's true but it can create a not true image and that not true image it creates a real problem and so anytime you're reading something that's almost 3 000 years old you run the risk of the guy who wrote it using language that it didn't mean back then what it means now and so um if you've been walking with god for a while i'm not really worried about you but um if you're here tonight and you're like on the fence or this is your first time or you came with a friend or or you came just because there's a pretty girl here or whatever like i i don't i don't want to scare you to death by reading a 3 000 year old prophet's words and worry that you might apply it in a way that was never intended in that day so you're we're gonna he's gonna say some really terrifying things that sound terrifying they're not as terrified it's actually just a challenge so so let me just show you a couple pieces of language that you're going to hear before we read it all right so if you could bring that first slide up from me please so the first one is light life and increase in an ancient prophetic world the words light and life had nothing to do with where we go when we die it had to do with living in the light here choosing life here the reason i bring that up is because if you immediately apply apply life to heaven and death to hell there's a case to be made for that later but not with ezekiel the ezekiel those concepts weren't around and so in ezekiel he's an ancient prophet and he's going to say things like choose life choose to be in the light those are about a realm today that is living in god's ways and conversely next slide the words death darkness or decrease are descriptions of a way of life that leads to disrepair and an unraveling of completion it doesn't have anything to do with literal death so a couple of times in this passage he's gonna say if you sin you're dead right and it's like oh my goodness like every time i make a mistake i could die no no he's he's talking about choosing to live outside of a way that lives in peace and the word they used for that commonly was death or life life was the opposite of death so life was choosing to live in god's ways death was the opposite of life it was choosing to live outside of god's ways now with that as the setup let me take about i don't know 20 minutes and explain what happened and then we're going to see where he takes us to what are we going to do about that this is ezekiel chapter 18 he's writing to a group of slaves in babylon and he's trying to encourage them by sort of really really being hard on him at first here's what he says and the word of the lord came to me saying what do you people mean by quoting this proverb about the land of israel the father eats sour grapes and now the children's teeth are set on edge as surely as i live declares the lord you will no longer quote this proverb in israel the father eats sour grace and announced the children's teeth are set on edge i don't want to hear that come out of your mouth one more time which leads to two questions one what does that proverb even mean normally if i eat something sour it's my teeth that are set on ash not this proverb this proverb says the father eats sour grapes and now it's the children's teeth that are set on edge i don't want to hear that out of your mouth ever again so a couple questions one what does this even mean and two why is god so apparently ticked off about it so let's talk about this for quite a bit of time here all right so first to understand this we have to understand a brief history of israel okay so strap in take a deep breath here is the entire old testament and the history of israel in two minutes ready you have to pay very close attention here we go there's a guy named abraham and a sunday diez who could have a son named jacob who had 12 children 11 those 12 children sold one of the brothers into slavery in egypt only to later need him to save their sorry behind from famine and hit the family because they sold him in a place where now he is in charge of the food supply and instead of killing them he forgives them and gives them a piece of land in egypt and so this family now settles in egypt and then they started having babies and boy did they have babies and i mean babies upon babies about babies upon babies and babies and babies and babies and there was more babies than babies and babies and babies and babies until they started overpopulating egypt which panicked the pharaoh and the pharaoh did the only reasonable thing he knew to do with this group of people who were overpopulating egypt he put them into slavery 430 years later a guy named moses shows up anointed by god to get them out of slavery and into freedom he gets them out of slavery into freedom by walking through the red sea and he gets given a mandate by god to create a country that will show the whole world what god looks like by maintaining justice and righteousness to the poor this in turn this this is short turns out terrible by this by the third king a guy named solomon it says that solomon was forcing slaves to build the temple of god so if you're paying attention 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's failing to see the irony in that so they end up back at slavery in a place called babylon and who do they blame for their slavery they blame solomon so much so that they wiped his name out of the historical record for over 400 years simply referring to him as david's son why because if you want someone to forget about somebody don't say their name this is why if you've ever been through a divorce you never call your ex by their name you call them by my ex or the children's father that's how that works and they said hey it's david's son's fault that we are where we are david's son made a mistake and that's why we are where we are enter the prophets the prophets now show up in babylon talking to these israelites who are now slaves and they say things like take heart for god will bring a new son of david who will maintain justice and righteousness to the poor fast forward to jesus jesus is called a lot of things jesus christ jesus our savior rabbi jesus jesus our carpenter jesus son of joseph but the poor and the afflicted had one name for jesus jesus son of david have mercy on me in other words are you the new son of david that the prophets of old talked about what that means if you're the new son of david that means you're here for the poor news flesh i'm poor which means you're here for me now i thought that was yes not bad so these children of israel are enslaved at babylon and they blame solomon it's david's son's fault and when you're enslaved what do you do to comfort yourself you write songs poems plays because suffering is hard to explain in linear terms so they wrote these proverbs and one of the ones that got around in song was it's my father that ate sour grapes so now my teeth are set on edge somebody else made a mistake and that's why i am where i am now if you lost me in all of that right if you're like what what come back now ready if if i lost you in all that come back now let me explain this in one sentence okay here's what's happening in this passage the current generation is blaming the previous generation for why they are the way they are because that's not relevant at all is it we've never heard that i've been past three for years i'm a counselor your pastor has been pastoring longer than me there's some folks here that have been pastoring longer than both of us right and we love pastoring there's there's a few things we don't like about it like discussing boring random verses from leviticus that you can't figure out how to apply we don't we don't like to talk about that stuff right the other thing we don't really like is to confront behavior it's terrible we don't like to do that occasionally you have to do it you have to confront somebody on their horrible behavior and the number of times that it sounds something like this sir cut it out man you got to get your stuff together bro you're fixing to lose everything that's important to you come on man pull it together and the guy goes i know i know but if you knew what my dad was like you would know why i am the way i am or ma'am seriously you got to cut it out you're fixing to lose everything that's important to you you got to get it together we don't want to be the one to tell you this but you're critical cantankerous possessive jealous and horrible your husband is secretly praying for a comet to come to earth to bring him sweet relief from you and she says i know i know but if you knew what my mom was like you would know why i am the way i am my mom was critical can takers jealous possessive and horrible so i'm critical categories jealous possessive and horrible my dad was a drunk so i'm a drunk my dad's an abuser so i'm an abuser my dad's a philanderer so i'm a philanderer my father ate sour grapes and that's why my teeth are set on edge my mom ate sour great so that's why my teeth are set on edge and here's the problem with that i have a master's degree in clinical psychology you sit with me for 45 minutes and tell me the truth i can tell you why you are the way you are it's the easiest part of the job ray charles can tell you why you are the way you are he could see it okay if you don't some people well what he's blind okay yeah i get it your mom's horrible if only half of what you're telling me about your mother's true i get it she was horrible and i get it that's why you're horrible she's horrible you're horrible nailed it right you're dead horrible that's why you're horrible i get it you nailed it the reason you are horrible is because your parents were horrible i get it here's the problem you're 40. right and at what point do you draw a line in the sand that says just because my father ate sour grapes doesn't mean my teeth have to be set on edge just because my mom was a certain way doesn't mean i have to be a certain way my parents darkness does not have to be continued on in perpetuity i could choose a different path listen why you are the way you are is not your parents fault unless you're eight if you're eight totally their fault if you're 28 it's you and it's not empowering to blame somebody else for why you are the way you are this is what's happening in this passage ezekiel's saying in no way is it empowering to you to blame the previous generation for why you are the way you are the most empowering stance you could possibly ever take is to draw a line in the sand and says yes those people had darkness those people had disrepair those people had shame but i don't have to carry that forward just because somebody else ate sour grapes doesn't mean i have to eat sour grapes and my teeth are set on edge oh yeah my parents were bad with money so i'm bad with money my parents were abusive so i'm abusive my parents were lazy and that's why i don't get up before 10. my father ate sour grapes and that's why my teeth are set on edge god says i don't want to ever hear that out of your mouth again it's not because i don't love you it's because i do that is totally disempowering say shane you're a stan man you're a stan my family had issues really let me ask you a question about your family did your family have a man and a woman trying to live together then there's going to be issues why because marriage is hard and ridiculous and a blessing and complex marriage is so complex the bible can't even agree on what to say about it depends on who you read solomon's like he who finds a wife finds a good thing rock what's the bible say about marriage it depends solomon's like marriage let's do it a lot right paul's like well he who marries does not sin but he signed up for a life of pain why because even if you marry someone who's basically good-hearted and basically mentally healthy right now if you marry sort of a lunatic what do you want me to do right but you marry a basically good-hearted basically mentally healthy person there's still going to be issues because of preference men and women prefer different things and i mean at a very base level like smells women prefer sweet smelling things perfume candles flowers you buy a woman a bouquet of flowers every woman in here she's gonna do one thing first she's gonna sniff it right you and a man a bouquet of flowers all he smells is 70 bucks that's what that cost we don't care about that you go to rabina town center there's a shop there i don't know how you do this there's a shop there that makes a full-time living selling candles and you can go in the middle of the day and they'll always be two women in there smelling wax listen two women can go to a candle shop and sniff wax for an hour and call that fun you'll never see two men doing that you imagine walking by a candle shop there's two guys in there hey billy check that out man that's that new white lilac scent man that is something no way no way why because men prefer stinky things there's nothing funnier to a group of men than when something stinky happens that's hilarious women find that disgusting they're supposed to live together right men love stinky stuff it's in our blood you ain't gonna change that don't try to get that out of a man it's in our dna it's in our blood we love stinky stuff you're in a if you're in a backyard rugby match and you're like bloody sweaty nasty disgusting you get out of there and you shower quickly because you got a meeting you take your bloody sweaty nasty rugby clothes you put them in a plastic bag you tie it up and put it in the boot of your car three months later you go to the boot of your car and you see that bag every man knows what has to happen it's in us if there's a bag with known stinky things in the bag every man in here knows what must happen we have to open that bag and we have to smell it wow and here's the thing it's the code of the man if three of my mates are standing around and there's a known stinky thing they all owe me a courtesy sniff of my stinky thing and you'll have grown men passing around a bag everybody knows it stakes and they can't help it they're like oh yeah oh man jim that's a good one that's a good one and now i owe them a courtesy sniff of their stinky thing this is why if you're ever caught in traffic on the gold coast and there's four guys stuck in traffic at a red light and three of them have their head out the wind and the fourth guy's in the back seat laughing he just cashed in on his courtesy sniff your family had issues of course they had issues say shane you're a stan man you understand my dad had issues really your dad had issues everybody's dad has issues my dad has issues and i'll be clear about this my dad's a good dude man my dad's a great guy actually it is four o'clock in the morning where he lives in 30 minutes he will be up praying for me 4 30 yesterday he was praying for this meeting right no matter where i am 4 30 in the morning my dad's up praying for me and he doesn't tell me every time i just know that's what he does my dad's one of these people that gets up really early right he's like an old military vet he just gets up he gets he gets up early when i when i was a kid he got up at six junior high is 5 30 by high school was five by university it was 4 30. now he gets up at 4 15 to pray at 4 30. i was talking to him the other day he said sure you know what they're doing they're gonna start getting up at four to pray at 4 15. i was like my god dad if you live 10 more years you're gonna have to eat breakfast the night before this is ridiculous my dad's a good dude he's got issues like one of his issues he loved to scare us he thought it was hilarious and i'm not talking about a mild boo i'm talking about terrorized six-year-olds like i've never been i've never been a morning person i've always been a night owl i can get a lot of work done at night but i can't really in the morning early in the morning i just can't i can't stand it so i've never been able to get up too good so i used to have this bad habit i'd get up in the morning and i'd sit on the side to bed and fall back asleep i was six let me be clear about this six right my father decided i'm gonna break him of this and here's his idea because he was up before everybody else he hid under my bed now he he didn't tell my mom my mom would never allowed that so he's under my bed just waiting to get up so i get up and i sit on the side of bed i'm just about five just about to fall back asleep just i was about to fall back asleep my dad reaches out and grabs my feet i thought the boogeyman lived under there anyway your dad has issues everybody's dead has issues my dad liked to embarrass us he thought it was hilarious one time he was taking me to church for junior high bible camp something we do in america sort of weird we got bible camp right so you're 13 years old and dad's pulling up to the church and there's two american-sized yellow school buses 57 passengers apiece what could go wrong you know my dad pulls up and says hey buddy once you know i love you i believe in you i'm going to pray for you every day that god's going to do something your life at camp like thanks dad love you too see you later he goes hang on where's my kiss i was like dad honest to god not here like a hundred of my friends are here yeah he said i get it i guess that's fine go ahead so i get out the car hand the bags to the bus driver they put the bags under the bus i go on the bus i'm in the next to last row we're fixing to go fix it to go to my horror i look up and my father had decided to get on the bus it was 43 degrees celsius 95 humidity he had his shorts pulled up to here he had sucks pulled up to his knee and he got on the bus with a limp and he said to everybody he grabbed me the bus had a microphone he said excuse me everybody this bus isn't leaving until my shady way and he comes up here gives me a kiss the whole bus starts shedding ksm yes there your dad had issues everybody's family has issues that's not the question the question is whether or not we're doomed to perpetuate those issues into eternity or can we be wise enough to go this part of my family belongs in life and light and this part of my family belongs to death and darkness and i'm going to leave death and darkness behind and choose life and light that's what matters and here's the wrong question this is the question that'll ruin us is it normal that's a that's a stupid question because normal is a function by which the way you grew up before the age of eight what you think and what i think is normal is ground into us by the age of eight and it's a function by which we saw our parents operate so some people normal is yelling some people normal is calm some people normal is drunk some people normal is sober some people normal is pure some people normal as promiscuous what's normal is not the question what is the question is does that belong to death or life and if it belongs to death we got to leave it behind if it belongs to life that's what needs to be perpetuated forward and everybody realize everybody does have that moment in life where you go have like a like you're like 10 and you have a slumber party um a friend invites you to sleep over and you're from a calm family and they're like yelling at dinner and you're like man these people are weird right but then they come to your house and they're like man these people are weird right like we've all had that moment where we realized the way we grew up isn't the way everybody else did right the question isn't what is normal the question is what is death and what is life and we need to eradicate death and perpetuate life and this is what ezekiel's getting out here this is the very next verse this is verse four check this out for every living soul belongs to me the father as well as the son both the both alike belong to me but the one who sins is the one who will die every living soul see there were two beliefs in ezekiel's day that do not exist anymore but it matters because it did then the first belief was that god was for certain people and against others now we would never think that but back then that's what they thought we've had an encounter with the risen christ that we realize that god's love is for all people they didn't really realize that they thought god was for certain people and against other people the second thing they thought was this is kind of crazy we would never think this but they did they thought it was possible for god to still be punishing a grandson for the sins of his grandfather even though the grandfather had been dead 50 years so they thought you could look at someone's life being ruined and even though he didn't do anything it's god still punishing him for his grandfather that's what they thought ezekiel's going actually i'm telling you god's nicer than that god is not for certain people and against others every living soul belongs to god but if someone's life's going into disrepair it's not god punishing them for somebody else's sin it's their own thing that's causing the problem and here's what he does it's a i don't know 17 verse long example that i won't read i'll just explain it but trust me i'll do it justice ezekiel says suppose a righteous man gives birth to a wicked son and then that wicked son gives birth to a righteous grandson so if you're following me righteous grandfather wicked father righteous son and then he just asked one question who gets rewarded for who and who gets punished for who does the son inherited the wicked the great the righteousness of his grandfather or the wickedness of his father and does the wicked father get the righteousness of the grandfather or does the righteous grandfather get paid for by the wickedness which one pays for what and he poked the whole hole in the argument that way and he says the good news is better than that the good news is that every generation can stand on their own two feet before god and the ones that choose life get life the ones that choose death get death but it's not the consequences of god actively punishing somebody for somebody for something that somebody's been dead 50 years about and he says this is how this works and you understand in those days that would have been unbelievably liberating to a group of people who thought maybe i'm suffering because of the sins of my grandfather to hear actually if you wake up and you draw a line in the sand and you choose life there's life waiting for you this is how he concludes it which is going to be my answer to what's happening in us right now because that's my best effort at explaining what happened i don't that's about as good as i could do with that but now let's ask what's happening in us right now and see where ezekiel takes it watch what he says next slide he will not die for his father's sin he will live he's talking about the righteous grandson right but his father will die for his own sin because he practiced extortion robbed his brother and did what was wrong amongst the people yet you ask why does the son not share the guilt of the father now why would they be asking that because that's what they were taught their whole life the son is punished by god because of the father right and so ezekiel is saying something new and the people are going hang on come at me again why does the son not share the guilt to the father since the son has done what is justin right has been careful to keep my decrees he will surely live and not die keep going the soul sins is the one that will die the son will not share the guilt of the father nor will the father share the guilt of the son there should be a lot of oh thank god in this room for that one the soul who sends us the one the son will not share the guilt of the father nor the father share the soul of the good guilt and son the righteousness of the righteous male be credited to him the wickedness of the wicked man which charged against him but if a wicked man turns away from his sins he's committed and keeps my decrees and does what is justin right he'll live and not die in other words if you're on the road to death you have one choice turn around to life that no matter how far down the road of death darkness and decrease you get you're one choice for turning around and beginning to live in life like an increase ezekiel this is 3000 years old and he's saying you are never too far down the road of death to turn your life around never ever ever you're never too far removed are you sick and tired of your life being in disrepair are you ready to get your your life together and if this is what you need to do you need to simply turn around and change roads right but then watch what he died this is such wisdom watch this none of the offenses he's committed will be remembered against him because of the righteous things he's done he'll live and not die do i take any pleasure in the death of the wicked rather might not please when they in other words i i'm not a god who sits above the story going man these people about to ruin their life this is going to be awesome boy i told them no no the god revealed in christ and the god revealed in scripture is like hey if you're on the road to death he's going get off the road change lanes take the next exit do so i take no pleasure in someone ruining their life i love it when they turn around and live keep going but if a righteous man turns from his righteousness to commit sin and does the same detestable things a wicked man does will he live none of the righteous things he's done remember because of his unfaithfulness he's guilty and because of the sins he's committed he'll die in other words if you're on the road to death you have one choice turn around but this is such wisdom man especially anybody but if you're a young person in here this is such wisdom that good decisions do not work like savings accounts like if you're on the road to life and you make 30 years of good decisions you don't then get 30 years of horrible decisions before you get back to zero actually you can make 30 years of good decisions and make one really bad mistake and the whole thing can turn on you essentially he says if you're on the road to death turn around but if you're on the road to life keep going every single day make the best choice to choose light and life instead of death and darkness right yet you say the way of the lord's not just listen when you're give some when you're giving a group of people who's been taught one thing their whole life a new thought sometimes they push back even if what you're saying makes more sense so there was a group of people who this doesn't sound fair to us watch what ezekiel says the way the lord's not just hear o israel is it my way that's unjust is it not your ways that are unjust here's your way that god is punishing people for the sins of their great grandfathers does that sound fair or is this more fair if a righteous man turns to his righteousness to commit sin he'll die because it said he's committed he'll die but if a wicked man turns away from his wickedness he's committed it does what is justified he'll save his life how's that unfair every generation can stand on their own two feet before god and not be punished for the previous generation's mistake and they could choose life and light instead of death and darkness and if you choose life you get life you choose death you get death it's on you because he considers his offenses he's committed and turns away from them he will live and not die yet the house of israel says the way the lord's not just in other words who amongst you saying that's not fair is it is it my ways or or yours that are the unjust one keep going therefore o house of israel i will judge you but each according to his own ways can you imagine the sigh of relief on that oh god's not holding the sins of my grandfather against me wow repent that just means turn around turn away from all your offenses and sin will not be your downfall rid yourself of all the offenses you've committed and get a new heart and new spirit i'm gonna read that twice because it's so important rid yourself of all the offenses you've committed and get a new heart and a new spirit why will you die o house of israel for i take pleasure in the death of anyone declares the lord so turn around and live now great sermons are not meant to be agreed with or disagreed with they're meant to be wrestled with for application so what do we do with this what do we do with the information in this passage what's happening in us right now because of it let me put some language on this next slide all of us are shaped by our history and heritage so stop and i'm going to talk very i know i spoke really fast i did that on purpose so you'll pay attention but now i'm going to speak slow because this matters every person in here was shaped by their family of origin and let me be clear what you think is normal is not your fault it's not you didn't choose your parents you didn't choose the situation you were in and some of us in this room had awesome parents who normalized life and light and if that's your parents you should write them a text or an email or phone call or something thanking them for letting you start on third base to use a baseball metaphor everybody was shaped by their history and heritage and let me be clear if you had horrible parents that's not your fault you bear no responsibility to that and if you had awesome parents that's also not to your credit you didn't deserve that either we were all shaped by our history and heritage what we think is normal is what we think is normal but we must all take responsibility and turn around and live what does that mean it means we need to take an audit what's in my family habits that belongs to death and what's in my head family habits that belongs to life not what is normal what is death and what is life and choose to eradicate the death and perpetuate the life and let me stop and make this point because here's the thing in a room this size it is statistically improbable that there's not at least one of you thinking this i i want to address it because it's really important there'd be one of you going good one shane this is why i never come to church on mother's day or father's day because somebody i've never met is going to stand on a stage and use the bible to tell me to honor my father and my mother but here's the thing you just told the the most horrible things you could tell about your father you just stood on a stage and you told your best stories of the terrible things he did to you and it was hilarious but if i said what my dad did to me not hilarious if i told you what my mom did to me not funny as a matter of fact i probably wouldn't be allowed to share it because it'd be too much for some people this is why i never come to church on mother's day or father's day because somebody i've never met is going to make me feel bad about not honoring my father and my mother but if you knew what they did to me you wouldn't be asking me to honor them now is that a good question or a bad question that's a really good question and if you'll give me three minutes i think i can help you with that okay first of all i am so sorry for whatever it was that happened to you that's not your fault you didn't deserve it it was horrible it is never good or right for adults to expose children to adult emotions adult stresses like if you were seven and your dad and mom said look we're broke and it's sort of your fault i don't know where we're gonna eat you had to go to bed carrying adult emotions adult stress and especially adult violence if somebody's 10 times your size beating the crap out of you that is not okay and i'm very sorry for whatever happened you should have never had to deal with it but the hope for your life is that you honor your father and mother and let me explain one you don't honor people because they're honorable you honor people because you're honorable that's first second words matter less than how we picture words functioning in our world honor means saying something to somebody not in the jewish world in the jewish world honor has almost nothing to do with what you say to someone and almost everything to do with how you act away from them and you know that to be true like let me give you example you have a great pastor here okay and you should honor him correct and if you said pastor i just want you and trish to know we honor you that would bless his heart that's called encouragement and that would be great but what's more honoring to your pastor is not what you say to him it's how you act and behave away from him it's it's living out there according to the values of jesus christ expressed in here same thing if you're a parent you totally get this if you're 16 year old said to you mom dad i honor you well that would bless your heart and you should honor them but what's more honoring is not what you say to someone it's knowing when you're with your friends at surfers paradise at 10 o'clock at night that you're living in a way out there that honors the values of your family away from them now so when the scriptures say honor your father and mother it has almost nothing to do with what you say to them it has everything to do with how you act away from them how you perpetuate life and light to the next generation not how you respond to the previous one this is why the key to your life is to honor your father mother what does that mean it means to audit the death that was in your family habits and choose to eradicate that and audit the life if there was anything in there that was life choose to perpetuate that my dad's prayer discipline should be perpetuated my dad's work ethic should be perpetuated my dad's generosity should be perpetuated it belongs to life my dad's love for scaring six-year-olds needs to die with him and the same would be true for all of our families because here's the thing when you choose to honor and you perpetuate life two or three generations down the road people just assume the whole family tree was awesome like i travel the world under normal circumstances and i get asked this all the time shane wow you must come from a long line of educated preachers uh no all four of my great-grandparents were illiterate they couldn't read all four my great grandfather was a member of a racist organization known as the klu klux klan my great-grandfather made his living moonshining if you don't know what that is that's running illegal liquor across state lines my great-grandfather was an illiterate moonshining racist so how do you get from a literate moonshining racist to someone with three university degrees traveling the world talking about the compassion of christ for all people how do you get from there to there i'll tell you how my mom and dad drew a line in the sand and said huh uh as for me and my house we'll serve the lord our children will go to school our children will read books and our children will not be racist because that's just stupid and in one generation they changed the whole family tree and now people all over the world assume my illiterate moonshining racist great-grandfather was a preacher that's honor what better way to honor him than to live like i do now i'm so sorry for what happened to you but the key to your life is to eradicate the death and perpetuate the life and the jewish people had a word for that honor to honor your father and your mother and here's what's so important to the story when we choose to live in god's ways god gives us a new heart and a new spirit he says get rid of all these things and get a new heart and a new spirit this is so important there's a way to preach this and there's a way that i've heard it said and it goes like this have you ever seen somebody ruining their life like they're just they act like a jerk all the time right it's somebody's kind heart and said oh bless their heart if they could just get healed they'd act better boy they need a lot of healing man if they could just get healed in their heart they wouldn't be such a jerk right if they could just get healed they wouldn't be critical tankers jealous and horrible they could just get healed they they need a lot of heart healing before they can act better and the idea is if you get healed in your heart you can act better okay and i'm all for that except for in this instance ezekiel takes the exact opposite place and he says why would you wait to get healed just choose to behave better because here's the truth some things you can't be healed from listen to me some things you cannot be healed from some divorces are so horrible you want to be healed you're gonna wait you're healed from that some abuses are so personal you're gonna wait till you're healed from that no and that's the beauty of ezekiel's point ezekiel makes a point god is not interested in healing your heart god is interested in giving you a brand new one why would you walk around with a minded up heart when there's a heart transplant waiting on you and here's what he says if you'll by faith choose to live in life a new heart and a new spirit is wrapped up in that now i want to pray for you now and i want to pray for us to have the courage to see things different the irresistible urge to respond to what we see that we put this word that we examine tonight into practice because words that aren't put into practice they don't mean anything it's the words we put into practice that matter so i want us to take a second be quiet and i want us to ask this question if you're sitting next to your spouse maybe you could take them by the hand and you could pray something like this holy spirit is there anything that we're allowing in our family that belongs to death and we're only doing it because that's what we were taught lord would you reveal to us any place that is perpetuating death in our family habits i know we were taught to yell to get our way but that's death i know we were taught greed but that's death is there anything because here's the thing a night like tonight you could change your family tree forever and if you don't you'll leave it to your children and one day you'll think back on tonight and wish you did wish you acted i want you to name that thing and make a commitment together we will choose life and eradicate death we will choose life and eradicate death lord would you give us that unction of the holy spirit to act perpetuate life eradicate death and set us free [Music] and for the people in here who've had a particularly traumatic upbringing i pray that you would give all of us the courage to live in life and light and to honor and you would honor your promise to give us a new heart a new would you minister to everybody who's been abused and traumatized and hurt give us the strength to live different amen would you look this way thanks so much to be with you all day i hope jesus got bigger the cross works better the resurrection is central scriptures get bigger not smaller may we live according to the yoke of our rabbi jesus not to just believe in jesus but to see the world how jesus saw the world may we live in a way of love where we treat people as they are worth not as they deserve where we fulfill scripture and not just be right about one verse and when we see needs and we know we can meet the need may we open our splatners all over that need and may we as a group of people may we take responsibility for our life and resist the temptation to blame somebody else for why we are with the way we are and may we live on a higher plane than that and empower our life and may it never be said from anybody in here ever again that my father ate sour grapes and that's why my teeth are set on edge may we live more profoundly than that thanks so much guys grace peace

Channel: King's Church, Australia

Views: 162

Rating: 5 out of 5

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Id: HWHbzyfz9uA

Length: 46min 43sec (2803 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 16 2021