Proven Identity
How are you? I mean, like really how are you? You know, my kids always said good. And I said that's not answer because it isn't good. Me. It was nice thing. I'm asking because I wrestled and pray from about one o'clock till three o'clock this morning for you. Means I like my sleep. It's not my happy hour.
That means some of you are in the trenches fighting and maybe that's why I'm here. They're gonna have to help you. And uh, I have a great and very fond connection with Canopy. Do I not Mrs. Proctor? Uh, Marilyn and I helped. Well, more we were part of it, their kindness. Anything else When Canopy was still meeting?
The port streets. And then Josh and I first met when he was the techie at Rock Harbor, and I office there for two years. Wasn't on staff, but just helped put and pieces. And so this great history and great connectivity and I'm deeply on it that, um, I was invited to come in hand with you guys. I'm not much of a titles guy, so Jesus calls me Chris, my mother calls me Chris Meryll sometimes calls me jerk.
So anything goes, you know what I'm saying. Anything goes. Uh, it really is an honor and a joy and a privilege to be here with you. Um, I do want to take us to a story in the scriptures and uh, I'm not a great one off preacher, so if it sucks, just be so happy. Josh is back next week. Just be like, Thank God that's an African isn't back.
Ke that started in 2007. Um, I was at the movement I was part of before Global Church 20 Movement. Uh, Canada and, uh, one of the prophets called me out and, and you know, it's kind of cool when they do that. You're expecting you're gonna be rich and famous and, uh, you know, all that stuff and was not one of those words.
I'm gonna read it to you in just a moment,
which I think it's gonna help someone. You understand what you're going through. Oh, my wife's in Greece. Don't you just hate her for that . Uh, her nephew, South African, married an American girl from South Carolina and they thought, well, the midway point to meet is Greece for the wedding. So that's where she is.
I'm really sad to tell you Josh's mom came across. Hi, is Merrill here? That's kind of the normal thing when I go to chooses. Hi, Chris, is Merrill here, and I said, uh, sadly it's just me. I'm kind of soloing today. But, uh, she would be, if she's here, we do life in ministry together. I have. May next year. We've been doing ministry for 40 years and we've been married for 42 and we can make it so can you all.
So here's the deal, Kevin. Ken called me up and he said to me, Uh, I've got a prophetic word for you and um, this is gonna be a fun morning. And um, so I said, Great, Ken. He said, Take off your belt. And I actually think I hate this. This is one of my favorite belts. It's super old. I probably shouldn't be wearing it.
And he said, I want you. With your arms by your side. And I did that. And then he wrapped the belt around me and he said, I want you to lean forward, which I did in this position. And then he did one side glow and I kind of flew forward obviously. And he said to me, Chris, the next chapter of your life will be fashioned around the life of Joseph.
So, and I'm trying to think if that's a good thing or not. You know, it's kind of one of those pregnant pause moments. Silence. And then he read this. And if you have your Bibles with you, turn with me to Psalm 1 0 5
and it's verse 60. I'm reading from the new Bible. I've got the Christian standard Bible. So if it's slightly different to yours, okay, Swing of God said he called down famine against the land. God called famine and he destroyed the entire food supply. He sent a man ahead of him. Sent a man ahead of him.
How many of you are prophetically wired? Or there is a sense in your heart that God uses you prophetically and that normally means that he is sending you ahead. So please don't be surprised if you experience something first, not just by intuition, discernment, or sensing, but by actual life circumstance.
Cause God's looking for men and woman who are happy to be a model for him that he could point others to. Did we do in the text? As we do in our lives, God looks for people to say, Would you be prepared to do this? I was chatting with Kendall, whoever she is, and I said, How's the wedding marriage? And of course the immediate answer is great.
And I'm like, Kendall known you a long time. I want an answer. And I said, Marilyn and I completely irreconcilably different as son of Jesus and our kids. We have nothing in common. We told her I was happy to be in the spa. She was. Be in the cold water. Who swims in cold water? I mean, I ask you with tears in my eyes, you know,
Um, and, uh, but, but who is the one that is prepared to put their hand up and say, God, I dunno what it means. I dunno what we'll go through, but, but it's okay if you send me ahead of them. Joseph was sold as a slave. This is not looking good. They heard his feet with, uh, shackles and his neck was put into an iron collar.
In other words, they, they. His message, uh, feet invariably in the scripture, speaks I lovely other feet of him and brings good news. So, so they tied his feet up to prevent him bringing the, the message and then they put shackles around his neck. And the neck normally speaks of authority, so they wanted to ques his authority and silence his messaged.
It is not looking good until the time is prediction that comes through. Until the time, until the time you and I will go through these chapters in. Until the time you can delay it, but you can't speed it up. You can enforce God to use you for longer in a circumstance because of your reluctance and your wrestle and your resistance until the time his prediction came through and the word of the Lord tested him and the king sent for him, Pharaoh sin for him and released him.
And the ruler of his people said him free. He, Pharaoh made him master of his household. Ruler of all his possessions binding his officials at will and instructing his elders. I will refer back to that now in the summer of this year, we've, uh, we do, we need a delightful community here in town. It's called Genesis.
And, uh, I planted five years ago, which is not dissimilar to you. Uh, let me just find my notes and we will be in business. I was curious because we had a church of overwhelmingly. Of things is Marilyn Line, our sixties. We've got two couples in their fifties and everyone else is younger than 34. But I looked at the story and I thought, Lord, what is it that you are essentially doing with all of us?
And the first thing that came to mind, and this is for no extra charge, is the transition from the shadow self, the false self to the true self, the shadow self. Invariably is that part of us, which is hidden. Your son, your story. I hope no one ever finds out this about me. I went to college at 17, ended up in hospital when a wine bar hit me in a fight.
And so what I do is that I bring that out into the open so that I'm not awkward, I'm not living under the instruction and the discipline of my shadow herself. I acknowledge my sin, my, my false self. Please hear me, is the self I create based on the circumstance I face. So if you were here for the first time, You probably were quite trouble to know what self should you put forward?
Is this a religious community? Cause then I better amen. Lift my hand at the right time. How do I dress? Can I come with a short top, but can I wear sandals? My stock?
But what? How must I present myself? Because what you learn to do is to have a home self, a school self, a sports self, a college self. A I'm available to date self, then a married self. How do you want me to act? See, I'm creating all these false self narratives in order to survive the world I live in. The only problem is there's no grace.
Forgive my passion, but I'm a passion preacher. There is no grace of God to sustain your false selves. There's none. As the God systematically peels their office so that the true self can emerge it. Says, the essential self that God made you to be there is such sadness and exhaustion trying to live with our false cells, and that's what the gospel offers us.
I love Paul's writing. He says, I am who I am by the grace of God. It's discovering the beauty and wonder and mystery of my true self, or as he says in Roman's, Chaptain, a riched man that. Who will deliver me from this body of, So the thing I want to do, I don't do the thing I don't want to do. I do, Oh, help me God.
It's his true self. He's wrestling his way around his own wretchedness. Talking about Joseph, I'm gonna go through seven garment changes with you. This is not interesting. It's about the only poster in the Bible where his dress code, his sense of fashion, is spoken of only, I mean, over and over and over again.
The first we find him is that he's his daddy's boy. In Genesis 37, we find the story written of his pops completely spoiling him, and the sense of family of origin creates a false self. What must I be like to get my pops approval? But my pops on the other hand, is very busy in this case, doing one of a few things.
Fathers generally fall into. These categories absent. When I was in Singapore many years ago, there was an article, article in the Singapore Times and the headline was McDonald Fathers because the, they work such long hours in Asia that the dads have no time with the kids. So on a Saturday morning, mom gets some alone time.
Dad takes the kid to McDonald's cause it's got a huge big play area. And they say that Dad sit there on their phones absent dads. But not really. The message they shouted categorically and clearly is that I've got people, uh, way more important kiddo than you are. I cannot leave a phone called untouched.
We have a rule in our house at dinner time. All the phones, all the TVs. All the iPads are off
absent. Dads, abusive dads. My pops was an alcoholic. I know about that. Ambitious dads who. You to achieve more than you maybe can or even want to achieve
the approval? Dare. Okay, so my son played for a really good soccer team when he was all like up and brier. We led a church up there and, uh, uh, win, win, win, win. About the same, the eight period of the season. They played so badly and lost. And I was astounded. All the parents on the sidelines say, Paul played good job.
That's BS really badly. And they must said, How can I say well played? How can I lie to my kid? Cause one day he encounters God, who is all God, who is all truth. And God said That sucked. And he gets wounded. He gets wounded. But my dad always said, I always did. Well, no, you did. So what we did at the end of every game is Tia and I would go have a burger and we would green, yellow, red, the moment.
Boy, what did you think you played wonderfully at? Well, dad, I thought I was, He's got a great soccer IQ and he's positioned himself well, but he got lazy and then he would hide. So we did the great deal. I liked that. Pass down the wing, bro. Great cross in. Gave the strikers a, but then you disappeared for 15 minutes.
Yellow, That's not good. That particular day climbed into the car with his eyes to figure. Where we have our burger. And he sat, I said, Well, how did you feel? You played it. Um, he didn't know what, He didn't know what to say. I should have brought him along today. Pretty threw you. And I said, You know, you sucked.
No, no service by doing the Orange County thing of applauding poor behavior, poor performance. Pure action. Pure action. You with me and. He has the daddy's boy and he's ambivalent and addict and I can add a whole bunch of things, but what his father did, Joseph's father did, was he did him an incredible disservice by treating him different from the other boys.
Now, I'm not saying we've gotta treat all our kids the same. That's the worst kind of parenting. Meryl's folks with our get that they prided themselves, three girls, we treated them all the same. I stopped them. I said, Ken, do you know that's really bad parenting? We already married. He said, What do you. Us. I said, Tell me about Tracy girl's older sister.
I said, Tell me about Merrill. Tell me about Jen. Now, are they the same? So you know, you can't treat all of the kids the same. That's great Secular psychology, it's very per practice. God does not treat us all the same. Don't you hate that guy in six foot four tall surfer build long hair when he walks in, all the girls start drooling.
Don't tell me God treats us all the same. I'm five for 10 and shrinking. I've got a big butt and a wobbly belly. We don't all get treated the same , but this is excess. This is the exceptional where the father's spoiling of his boy actually did him no good whatsoever. Number two, the code of many colors had to be removed.
We just don't know when and we just don't know. Can. Folks, please spoil your kids. I have a friend who's super wealthy and we had the ability the other day and he said to me, know I squirt my daughter. I said, Yes, you have. He said, I've traveled so much. She was a global executive with a global, uh, corporation, and he said, I've traveled semester.
When I came home, the only thing I could do is give my kids stuff. 16 brand new car, anything. Love you. I said, Do you know the disservice you're making, giving your husband? Cause probably he's not gonna be as rich as you.
You cannot replace love with goods. Go to many colors. Spoiled boy, he's in for one and a half decades of hell. You did not see him up. Well. Number two, something. Well, we obviously understand that the sibling thing is a big thing, so it's the problem. You may have a sibling who, from the eyes of your parents were perfect.
They were the overachiever they were, and you were perpetually compared with them, and you never matched up. Aren't you delighted for the gospel that God compares you to? No one but you. No better than you. There's no one worse than the, there's just you. I am who I am. By the grace of God or perspective, you're always silence because your perspective isn't about, Oh, don't worry, don't worry.
No, no, no, no. You, you got nothing to say. Or if you think what we will think, then it's okay.
Intimidated into. Or prejudice. Your choices are always seen as wrong. Perfection, perspectives and prejudice. Our siblings can enslave us. I I'm saying that partly cause it did happen to Joseph. You know the story, His brothers took the coat of many colors, orp him, swirled it in blood to get back to the pops and gave him the.
Liked garments of slavery. Why am I telling you this? Because it's in the story. Why am I telling you this? Because God wants to liberate you from the robes your siblings put on you. That's the gospel. Without uns, without judgment, without anger, resentment, or witness with a sweet beauty and wonder of God giving me a new me, you're not as pretty as your sister.
You. Gifted as your brother. You're not as smart as your sister. Even though we come to faith, even though we love Jesus, if we don't allow the spirit of God to deal with this, it will forever shadow you. You, and this isn't one of those kind of psychological rah sessions, folks. This is my understanding of the text.
I was never. Say this. My father was a perfectionist. He was an alcoholic and a very practical man, had his own construction company. I'm not a perfectionist, I'm a romantic, and the only cut I've ever had on my hand is a paper cut . You know what I mean? I was like my pops at all. And I lived under the shadow of my brother below me and my sister above me, always gave my father's approval.
My sisters just like my brother, My dad stubborn as the day, and my brother could fix anything. Me, I'm a reader. I'm a writer. I'm a run of words.
There is a place of freedom where God takes the garment of this pleasure. I know exactly when it happened with my dad, but exactly where I was. The day God set me free, He said to me as a young preacher, he said, Chris, you cannot have two fathers. That's longer story. I won't bore you with them. And I just sit with my dad.
He wasn't. German manic, blue eyes, blonde hair, tough man. And to take him to lunch and say he is not a believer. And I said, Pop, God says I could only have one father, and right now I have two. So I've made a choice. He's my father. One tear old down his cheek. He said, Well, can we be friends? He said, Okay. And that day, God liberated me.
Wow. From living under the shadow of never quite being good enough. My sister and my brother were more good enough in my father's eyes. Number three, not just spoiled by his pops, not just sibling rivalry and jealousy. Are you tracking with me here? I mean, is there anything in here that's beginning to resonate with your wrestles and struggles?
Why? Because God loves you enough to fight for your true self. God loves you enough to let. Whatever course of action needs to happen until the full you begins to emerge. Not a cookie cutting form of someone else, not living under the shadow of someone else's displeasure. I work with church planters. I meet with them every single day of my life, and the number one grown is the wife because she doesn't know who she is.
She doesn't know who she's supposed to be, and she doesn't know if there are friends that she can trust.
Number three, we will know the story from Genesis 39 of part of her, a high fancy guy in Pharaoh's bureaucracy. Hi Joseph. Now it says of Joseph that he was well built and handsome. He was a stu that all of his skin, wavy, dark hair, smooth hands, I mean he. To work his master's spot. His wife, Potter's wife finds it.
Curiously, good looking. And the garment exchange we have here is this moment when Joseph runs from her and leaves his jacket behind. Now what is the essence of this conversation? Can I read Carl Truman? He says in his book, Strange. In biblical times or ancient Greece, sex was regarded as something that human beings did.
Today it is considered to be something vital to who human beings are.
You and I know in a postmodern millennial world, one of the battle prizes be true to yourself. That is that true? It be true to you. Don't let anyone else tell you you be true to you. So if Joseph, Is true to himself. What should he he have done in that moment? Lept with her. He's a slave. The rich auntie is making a move on him, dripping with Jules.
This is his moment. He's gonna be a stud amongst the other slaves. I am sure. And I am reading into the text. Forgive me, he's probably not had a lot of sex for a good while, if ever,
Joseph. True to yourself and sleep with her or be true to your creator and run. Not only is there very poor philosophical energy driving to be true to yourself rhythm, but there is a higher call that we are to develop our sexual identity. All of you, young single people, before that happens too late before that happens, it's too late when she is coming onto you or he onto.
If, if it is the girl, I mean the, the buttons are down and the perfume is rich and the shirt, the skirt is short. It's too late then to try to decide what your sexual identity is. Then I said to my boy the other day, he's single, My girls are married. I said, Boy, how are you doing? He said, Dad, it's not easy.
He said, I've literally at girls phone me and say, You don't around for sex. I'm own a relationship. I just need sex tonight. And I said, Boy, how did you. You see that Aha. Dream that I get married as a virgin. You see, he settled the sexual identity before the girls come calling. I'm not bagging on that.
Please hear me. I'm telling you, his story have true to himself. He's 23. You think he doesn't want to get to bed with a pretty point Lo girl? Hell yes. Everything inside of him, but we, we, of course, endlessly I would call his. Inside of him is settling his sexual identity beforehand. So when those that literally come to me at a party said, Can we make that right now?
And I'm told him, Kissing,
you settle your sexual identity before it happens. The quest does not be true to yourself. The quest has been true to your creator. You are fearfully and wonderfully made you young ladies, it may be too late. I, I just think there is such purity and wonder and mystery about a virgin both ways. And I think God gifted that to us so that when we get married and when given Merrills 18 was 22, I thought I knew everything about six and full honeymoon.
I was clueless. Or what do I do now? I mean like, cause we both virtues, we've never done this before. First item H. Sucked. I was completely useless, but poor her wife. I think she must have thought, Dang it, this is it. Suck it up sister. Cause it ain't getting bad. You know the best the,
But there's a beauty and the wonder and a mystery as we stub the St. Stutter and stumble our way forward until we make love with such beauty and wonder and intimacy that God comes by his presence. It's a sacred moment, not a Sens. Your moment
friend of mine spoke, we've been friends for, we were in the army together. This was probably 38 years or something, lived their wedding. My Sunday night we were landing. He's a very prophetic man. I don't think our congregation knew what to do with it, but God was in the house and he was coming into land.
He spoke of him and Kati who was sitting there making love. He. When we make love, the presence of God comes into the room and he says, oftentimes we just sit there afterwards weeping this. She wonder and gratitude that God has given us purity In an age of defile sexuality. God can change your code. God could put another robe on you.
Beautiful robe where? Marriage, it's not boring. Religious, their petition. They're all speaking at her woman's event some years ago, and she spoke about that time where everything's right and the light's alone and the music's playing and there's, there's flowers, but she says sometimes she's just gotta have a quickie, like an in and out.
And of course the place fell apart, you know, . Yeah. Sometimes we just need an in and out. Okay. Are you with me? Let God transform your position and posture and thinking around the area of sexual. So some of you girls, I wanna say this, were kind of closed eyes who are beautiful. I can't imagine how hard it is for you to, to to see yourself through his eyes.
Who heaven. Any father's eyes. Cuz the only thing you've ever be in is the object of man's curiosity on us looking above you. But you see, the beauty of the Joseph's story is that God takes. Of him, the picture that part of his wife had of him. I need that. Gimme that clock. This is not the one I want you to have next.
Number four. How am I doing time wise? I, how, what time I'm supposed to finish. Well just be relieved. I'm preaching. Get at four at our community. So we'll let Dylan together. number four is false accusation. Let let God minister to you folks. There is such sexual bomb. Out there. I'm starting off the sea. We talking about pornography.
Almost every young man and many a young women in our church struggles with pornography. It is such, Can I be CRAs pastor? It is a pastor that it has put people under so much time, which, And don't you love the message of the gospel where God refreshes our sexual lenses and he gives us fresh insights. We don't feel like we have to.
Move the stain of sensuality as if it comes from others somewhere else. Then it actually comes from the throne of grace and the sheer wander and delight of an intimate God wanting us to be intimate with each other. It's a beautiful thing. All right. I'm gonna run through the others false accusation.
It's a very difficult road to release. Can I just encourage you to say, we will all be accused of something that's completely untrue. everyone. Yeah. But whether we are guilty or not makes no difference because we want to scream and shout our bitterness, our anger, our resentment, and unfortunately the way to deal with false accusation silence Jesus like an damned to the laughter.
Or Simon, are you the king of the Jews? Read it this morning in mind about, are you the king of the Jews? He acted not a word.
You know those of you who going through this right now, maybe in business, maybe in marriage, maybe in relationships, I don't know. But false accusation is one of the toughest things that we, And you and I will 100% active fight two lawsuits in the last church we lived. I prayed, I'm embarrassed to say God killed him.
Oh, Jesus. Cause the two people who led the lawsuits were friends who had been in. Who traveled the nation with me. This hearts turn and it wasn't true, and part of the accusation was something that happened in the church before we got there and I had to learn this false accusation.
This came to me and said, Let us, Stewart will count. Just Sue. I hope to then with love and my heart. Thank you for wanting to protect me, but my Bible says we don't sue each other. I said, You giving. A free ride. I said, um, they can do whatever they want, but I want be like a man with this morning.
All right, number five. You still with me? Can I gather through the last couple quickly, The dark night of the soul? The dark night of the soul. So John of the cross, and I think the 13th century gave a language. Very, very dark time in all of our lives. And can I just listen in, in a, in a gospel world where happiness is one of the objectives, how many Jesus, and you'll be happy.
Not true, you'll be very sad, but you'll discover joy percolate itself. How? Through the darkness of the lo in which you are seated, come to Jesus and you'll live Your dreams. Not true. Come to Jesus and die to your dreams and discover the dreams that last for eternity. That what we do down. Has eternal significance.
I sat with another friend and he's made millions of money, and he just said to me, Chris, I've achieved nothing. And I said, Well, we've got 20 years together. Let's make it count. Let's make it count. See what God can do with a surrendered life, who's not preoccupied with money, Doesn't have to. I think they've got whatever the dark light of the soul is.
A time where God, brutally. Us away in the darkest places. I'm an optimist. I'm an enthusiast. I'll be very subdued today. I promise you. I want to be my best behavior for Josh, that I'm a seven on the Enio Graham throw in an eight. On occasion, I am danger . But the dark night of the soul is where God takes his places irrespective of our personality.
And one of the little verses that tickled me about this portion was this, After the baker. The but and the baker, um, it says this, and Joseph was in prisons two more years. Why? I mean, that super sucks. You know what I mean? And, and I wondered if it wasn't because he was looking for the vi or the baker to be as met, Messiah, getting me out of here if you can.
Then it was looking, look into the, to the prison warden. Get me here. If you get me outta here. Always looking to himself. I'm gonna try and find a way to. Of those folks, the dark night of the soul is not contingent on your wisdom to negotiate a way out of the mess. It only comes when the untold happens, when God plucks you out.
There's no shortcut. There's no short time. It's simply dark place where God has taken the outer garment off the color, many colors he's taken. Garment off the garment. Off the garment, or. Only thing left is for God to create in Joseph a deep humble trust in who he really is. Much more to say about that.
Let me go to number six. There is a curious little verse in Genesis 41, it says he shaved, changed his clothes and went deffer up. I'm like, hell, why? We've got. All Bible anyway. Why does one whole verse go to he shave? I mean, like, who cares? He changed his clothes, which we hope, and he went to Barrow. I'll tell you what it was, is there was a humility that was starting to leak out of Joseph.
His father spoiled. I'm the man. Hey, all of you guys. You bow down before me. I'm strutting. I'm leaving. I'm styling you. Out at this time. Fair says to him, I, I believe you prophesy accurately. I'm translating. And he says, No, sir. It's not. I, I think all of heaven was leaning out over the ball street looking to see what will he say?
Yeah, I'm actually a prophet. You heard about me? Yeah. Yeah. I, I rock man. I rock. I got the whole but of baker thing. I got that down text. Do you need me? I can prophesy. If I succeed, I can become the king's prophet. I'm. Styling. That's not his response. He puts a new garment on him and it's a garment of humanity.
So sir, it's not I, but the Lord who speaks mysteries you with me? Is that what God's waiting for in your life and mind? That the moment of deep, pure humility, Oh God, it's not me. It's not me. I'm not fighting for me. It's you. Everything I have.
In theological terms, it's the providential theology. When you suddenly feel like, Oh my gosh, God's working all of this to the good. I didn't join that to that. I join that person to that person, that event or that, and suddenly you mystified as the great slide, Show him plays and God takes you, puts his arm, right.
You said, How do you understand? Why you have to go through that. Do you understand why that relationship was broken? Isn't it interesting? I'm landing. Isn't it interesting that, um, Joseph gave his brothers clothes
when he tucked away their money and their provisions? He put a goman sit, an outfit, a Nordstrom or Calvin Klein or something, suit, and he's just gonna tuck it in there. Cause he had learned how God had stripped him of every unnecessary robe until the only robe that counted was humility. Because it is not I, sir, it is the Lord who speaks myre.
That took be number seven is the Lord for moment. Now, you may wonder why I used that, because he dressed him in robes of fine London. We moved in 26, uh, 26 years ago, 1996. And the first Christmas we were here, um, we used to two very big. Big Christmas bashes in South Africa, summer. So the pool, watermelon, barbecuing, just massive amounts of everything.
Now it's the first year we know no one. We are leading a very broken church up in North County and, uh, Marilyn , We Nuts. I think we bought each kid like 30 gifts we just did in our house and Diamond Bar. It was just, I mean, literally layers of gifts and we looked at each other and said, We kind of think we're overplayed a little bit
The part of the, the, the gift giving that is forever stuck in pathology was when the girls opened up and it was pajamas, they would tend and eight perspective, and you could see the kind of look off disappointment on their, on their faces. You know, like really PJ's for Christmas. And Meryl got into her enthusiast adventure mode and she said, Girls, this is from Bsro.
You know, there's not a whole. This is Not Gap. This is from Nordstrom, so it's a standard VNA joke now that whenever we want to make much of a dressing moment, the comment was, it's from Nordstrom and we all know what it refers to. This is a Nordstrom moment. He dressed it in Robs or fine folks. It comes that moment, and this is where I'm landing.
There comes that moment where God looks at you with deep affection, I suspect with a tender eye full of tears as he is. Watch you. A way through each one of those dro moments. And ultimately he puts his robe of humility on you. And he smiles and he says, Now, do you understand? Now, do you understand? That's what I had in mind all the time.
Remember that prophetic word 13 years ago Now, do you understand? It's taken me 13 years to re you form up Christian walk is not a. Of ever increased profile, ability and wealth. Sometimes it is a very dark valley because it is in the valley. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for them art with me by rod and they staff the that comfort me.
If you are looking for a happy Christian journey, you will not be around long. But if you embrace the darkness and. Emerge the pain, trauma, and tremor of your pain, of your heart attack, of God drooping you and letting the true self emerge.
You will have this one. You are your head to the please.
Could you open your hands on your lap? That's just by Proctor thing.
Use it all over the world now. But I do give Todd the morning.
What a room for a beautiful ring in morning on an occasion. Lord, when you in the mystery of heaven, Bring me here this morning. I can only assume with. June the ninth. I can only assume it's cause. You want precious sons and daughters to understand. Now I understand now my tears make sense now. My pain and disappointment and heart take and brokenness make sense?
And I will go through it. Until so far, Becks, for me, no shortcut, No. Us. You love us too much to allow us to remain row in. Yes. Dears gardens. We're gonna wrap each one of our shoulders. The go of humility. No. So is not like it is The Lord
Phil are gonna sing over. Rather than stand this for the moment, I don't know what protocol is shared with all of you, but I want them to sing over you. I want the spirit of God to meet with you. Wipe away your tears, bring clarity to your confusion.
Can I just speak off the mic for a moment? I'm a father. That's what I am. I love that more than anything else, but being a husband and these moments, I sit there and I say, Father God, what are you doing? Love these people so deeply and care for them so fondly. Your heart must be ranged by the wrestles that your son and daughters do.
There's a, You've heard of helicopter parents. 1990 New York University Time University came out with an article where they've got a new one. It's called the snow. Parent goes ahead. It clears the waste so the kids don't have to suffer any hardship or obstacles. The only problem is God loves you too much to remove them.
And I think the times God is most at pain is when we blame him for things that we think he should have done.
And he's got a far more beautiful picture for you, beautiful. You holy, you liberated, you, tearful you
in moments like this. Look at Kendall as she sang, and I thought there's a, there's a, there's a sweet fatherly invitation to come and be with him. He, him.
Now we're gonna land. What time do you normally finish? Should you, You've left already. Has it gone by? By. I'm gonna ask all of us to stand and those who want to, My invite is for you to come. And two kneel in the front. Now it's a hard thing for a 64 year old, cause I can't kneel , but I think sometimes there is the robe of humility that he wants to wrap us with.
And it means that we sometimes need to humble ourselves and say, Lord, I just didn't understand. I just didn't know what you were doing. I was so angry at you, but I think I understand now You take us from the top on that same song you might. Ask you to stand together, Those of you who just as an outward statement of surrender acceptance to so.