Latest / Citipointe Church Caboolture / Faith Made Public | Dr Craig Heilmann

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Faith Made Public | Dr Craig Heilmann · Citipointe Church Caboolture

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Hey, welcome to the City Point Church podcast.
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Thanks for joining us. Every day is an opportunity to
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take hold of. So we hope this message inspires
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you and build your faith, but it helps you have more of a God
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perspective for your day. Enjoy.
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That's what I want to talk to you about this morning.
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I really do want to talk particularly, but some of you
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will interpret my message as a message for parents, right?
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This whole church, I'm going to argue this morning, has a
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parenting, mentoring, fathering, mothering spirit upon it because
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wherever the Spirit of God is, that's what I want to teach you
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this morning. I'm going to take you back to
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Pentecost. I know it's not Pentecost
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Sunday, but we are Pentecostals, right?
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So we want to go back to Pentecost and ask again, is it
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really just about the pouring out of the gift of tongues on
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Pentecost, or is there more to it than that?
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And I want to show you this morning, there's more to it.
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Wherever the Holy Spirit is at work, wherever the power of God
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is at work, that Spirit is a mentoring, fathering, mothering,
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parenting spirit. And that is on your church.
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That is on your church community.
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There would not be so much love and joy in this place if the
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Holy Spirit were not present. So don't misinterpret my words.
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I'm also going to talk particularly to the men of the
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church. Right, men?
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Yeah. We're going to treat.
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Sorry, ladies, I just want you to block your ears at some
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point. This is like a men's weekend
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retreat. This is raw meat, red meat.
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We're we're doing it. And you know, I look, there's a
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wonderful parenting story. I heard a little little kid
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probably like, I don't know, like Damon or someone goes home
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to mum and says, mum, how did we get to be here?
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Us human beings? And she says, oh, darling, the
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answer's obvious. God created all of us.
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He created every little child, every person.
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God's our creator. Little guy wasn't satisfied with
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the answer. He goes off to dead.
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He says dead, how did we all get to be here?
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And he said, son, you know, we're all descended from monkeys
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and apes and that's how we got to be here.
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The boy was even more and more confused.
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He went back to his mum indignantly.
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He says, mum, you lied to me. I asked where we came from and
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you said God created us all, even little children, and put us
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here. She said, well, we got that.
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That's the right answer. What's wrong?
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She said. I asked that, a little boy said.
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I asked Dad and dad said we came from monkeys and apes.
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She said darling, I have to explain.
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I was describing my family, he was describing his SO.
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So guys, I need you to listen in this morning.
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We handed over a church in February of this year after
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about a 12 month handover. It was such a precious
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experience and you'll be pleased to know I'm still welcome back
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in that church in Auckland, New Zealand.
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I go back every couple of couple of months and preach there.
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I'm still on the board of the church.
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But I remember when the Holy Spirit spoke to us and said it's
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time for you guys to we've done it.
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We planted the church, we've done it for, LED it for 15 years
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and it was time to hand that church on.
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And I didn't know what we would next do, but I knew that every
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time in my life from when I was 16 and I not only was saved, but
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I felt called just like that young man down there.
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And, and I've just had to learn what it is to grow up and live
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my life in Christ And the only way that I've been able to do
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it. And I was in the world for 16
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years, right? But I've been in the in Christ
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for 44 years. I just had my 60th birthday last
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week. I'm so grateful because I know
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that the young man who was 16 wouldn't be here today at 60 had
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it not been for Christ, probably wouldn't even be on the planet.
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I don't suspect. And I'm so grateful to Jesus,
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but I'm so grateful because you see, when you get Jesus, you
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know, that's just life transforming as as Damon
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expressed it this morning. But you also get something
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incredible when you get Jesus, you also get the church, you get
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instant family and it is so precious.
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And you will find mentors, fathers, mothers, parents in
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this place called church. And if you're not sure what to
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do about life, and I know life's complex, right?
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I mean, people who are growing up these days, particularly
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young kids in a digital world. I mean, we don't know what it's
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like. I'm a dinosaur.
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If I want to fix a computer problem at my house, I have to
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ask one of my kids or we have to ring a technician.
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I'm not going to be able to do it right.
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And like my children will actually say to me or Dad,
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you're So what do they call me a boomer?
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Dad, you're such a boomer. They have no idea.
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I'm actually Gen. X get you get your facts
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straight. But but we have no idea as as
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people what what growing up digital looks like.
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I didn't grow up digital. Obviously you can look at me and
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know that's true. But young kids are growing up
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and all they know I see, I see kids in restaurants with their
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parents will be on their devices, their phones, and then
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the kid will be on an iPad. At two or three years of age,
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nobody's talking to each other anymore.
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And I recently gave AI just developed a talk around sex and
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relationships. And of course, you go into
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churches full of young people. I just did one down in Sydney
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full of people from the islands, Pacific Islands.
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And I got up and said, yeah, I'm about, I'm 60 years of age in
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about two weeks time. And I'm just going to give you a
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talk about sex and relationships.
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Of course the kids were laughing.
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Like, what do you know about sex?
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You're 60, who's going to have sex with you?
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And but I was pointing out to them and I realized that I
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slowly got them on board when I started to say, you know, you're
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struggling to build relationships, aren't you young
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men? You know, we, we live in a
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connected, wired world, but our young people are as lonely as
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they've ever been. We have an epidemic of
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loneliness. And yet look at us this morning,
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joyful, bound by relationships in the spirit.
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You know, God gives you instant family and it's incredibly
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beautiful. And I said to these young
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people, you know, you guys don't know how to and this is how you
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get them. You insult them, you say you
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don't, you don't know how to build relationships.
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And all the boys were sitting over here and all the girls were
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on this side over here. And I said, you young guys, you
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think you can just walk across the church and you don't even
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know how to talk to those young sisters in Christ over there, do
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you? You have no clue.
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So I'm speaking to you young people here right now.
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Do not be that guy who walks across the church, puffs out his
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chest and says, what? You must have come freshly baked
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from the oven because you are smoking hot.
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Do not be that guy, OK? You're overconfident.
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You lack punch and delivery. What do you, what do you have to
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say to a young sister in Christ? You say text her, don't Facebook
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her. Actually, you know what?
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Call her. Call her.
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Maybe talk to her father first before you do, but call her and
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say would you like to go for a walk on on a moonlit night at
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the nearest water source where the moon will be glimmering?
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Although I want to see some poetry from young Christian men,
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right? I don't want you to be the guy
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who walks over and goes, you look like my mum, shall we go on
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a date? Don't be that guy either.
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You're not under. That's creepy and that's like
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stalking. Don't do that.
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Don't be that guy. But anyway, I really won them
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over with the insults. You can imagine.
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It was fantastic. But I, I want to just
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communicate to you in the, in the moments we've gone that
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we're sitting on an incredible challenge as parents today, as
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as church pastors, church leaders, youth pastors,
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teachers, our politicians as well.
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You know, they're making laws all over the show banning kids
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from doing all sorts of things online.
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But, you know, I don't think saying no ever really works.
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What I learned as a Christian, and my kids are now echoing it
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back to me, which is great. But what I learned as a
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Christian was that, you know, saying no when two kids are in
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the backseat of the car, you know, is never going to get you
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that far. It's your yes that gets you
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somewhere. If you don't have a massive yes
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for God, you won't overcome the temptations of the world.
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You got to say yes to God. You got to put him first in your
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life. And if you do that and you
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submit your life to the wisdom that's being communicated to you
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week by week by week from this church and from your
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relationships with others around you and the commitments that you
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make to other people, you will know we'll never be strong
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enough. You need a big yes in Christ.
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So I want to talk to you this morning, take you back to
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Pentecost real quick. And I just want to say to you
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that a prophetic spirit excels at mentoring.
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It excels at Fathering. You know, this is just something
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the Holy Spirit does because he has Pentecostals.
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We attempt to think Pentecostal just about speaking in tongues.
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And it's good. It is.
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It's really important. But there's more going on.
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And I want to prove to that to you, if you come with me to Acts
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chapter 2, just real quick, I won't read it all, but you know,
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the event, the Spirit of fire falls from heaven, The gift of
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tongues drops onto people. People start speaking in tongues
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and everybody around says, oh, these guys are drunk.
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They're they're out of their trees.
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They've got no control. Peter gets up and he says in
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verse 15, these people aren't drunk as you suppose it's only
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9:00 in the morning. They're not drunk, no.
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And I want you to read these words and let them sit with you.
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This is that. Everybody say this is that, this
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is that. Now we all know what the this is
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that this is the outpouring of the spirit and the gift of
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tongues falling and fire on people.
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What's the that he points us to the that he says it's Joel
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chapter 2. Joel chapter 2 is not about the
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gift of tongues. It's about what the gift of
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prophecy in the last days. God says I will pour out my
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spirit on all people. Your sons and your daughters
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will prophecy. I want to say to you this
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morning, City Point N God has given you your community.
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He's given you the youth of this community and they will prophecy
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if their parents did not, they will.
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So you have been called and with that call will come a mentoring
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spirit for all of you. I don't want to hear that.
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You say, oh, I don't have any children.
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I don't need to do any fathering or mothering.
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There are children out there without parents.
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There are children out there whose parents are not yet in
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Christ. You can be a father like God is
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to who? The fatherless.
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Let that mentoring spirit sink in.
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Your sons and your daughters will prophecy.
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Your young men will see visions. Wow.
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The Spirit of Prophecy is what falls at Pentecost.
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It manifests itself with tongues and revelation that comes with
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tongues, but it's a prophetic spirit.
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It says to me that we as Pentecostals, we need to go back
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to the Old Testament and ask what is the prophetic gift?
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I mean, if at Pentecost that that prophetic power, that
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prophetic spirit is poured out on the whole church, right?
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It's given to all of us. What does it do?
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How does it work? And I want to take you quickly
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back to the Old Testament to answer that question.
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I want to take you to the obvious candidate, probably
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apart from Moses, the most important prophet in the Old
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Testament. Who is that?
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Elijah? It's Elijah.
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Elijah sets the scene for prophecy in the Old Testament.
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We want to go back to the school of the prophets.
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Let me take you there. 50 men from The Apprentice or the
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school of the prophets. When it stood at a distance
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facing the place where Elijah and Elijah had stopped at the
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Jordan, Elijah took his cloak. He rolled it up and he struck
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the water with it. The water divided to the right
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and to the left, and the two of them crossed over on dry ground.
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This is the handover narrative between Elijah and Elijah,
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right? Elijah has mentored a young man
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called Elijah, and he's mentored him so well that this incredible
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prophet of God, Elijah, ends up handing on not just the same
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spirit that he had, but what a double portion of his spirit.
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That's how well he did at passing on the baton.
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But I want to show you, this is in the whole Old Testament.
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This is what prophecy is about. Elijah's the master prophet,
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right? But who was?
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And look, Elijah is incredibly important, right?
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He arrives on the scene in in the book that we call First
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Kings and he disappears. He gets taken up to heaven and
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sort of a charity experience. And the whole rest of the Old
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Testament is waiting for Elijah to come back.
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They recognize how special this guy is.
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Everyone is waiting for Elijah to return.
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Would you come with me to Malachi chapter 4, verse 5?
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Why is this significant? This is the last chapter in the
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Old Testament. It's not talking about Moses.
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It's not talking about Joshua. It's not talking about King
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David. What does it say?
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See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before the great
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and dead dreadful day of the Lord comes.
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He's the bookend of the whole Old Testament.
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Something important is going on and it connects up with Acts 2,
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right? This prophetic spirit that
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Elijah manifested is now on us. But I want to ask what the
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significance of that for us is. What Elijah does with his cloak
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in that hand over narrative is exactly what Moses did with his
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rod at the Red Sea. What they did right, the people
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of Israel passed over on dry land.
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What it tells me is that the spirit of prophecy that was on
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Moses got handed to Elijah. And then Elijah knew that as he
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came toward the end, he would need to pass that mantle on.
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And what he did was he found a young man working on a farm, and
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he goes and puts his cloak around him.
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That's Elijah. And he says, I'm going to mentor
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you. I'm going to father you.
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I'm going to share my spirit with you such that you will do
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greater and better things than me.
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You'll have a double portion of my spirit.
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This is incredible. Elijah possesses the mantle of
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Moses, but he doesn't keep it to himself.
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He hands it on. He passes on to the mentoring
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spirit. By the way, what we know what
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Moses mission was, wasn't it? Hear, O Israel, the Lord our
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God, the Lord is 1 Love the Lord your God with all your heart,
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with all your soul. You guys are doing all of this,
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but listen to the next bit. These commandments that I give
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you today are to be on your hearts.
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Impress them. Where?
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On your children. Don't just write them on the
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wall. Don't just leave them in a book.
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Where do you put them? Into your children?
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Pass it on, it tells me, he says.
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Talk about them when you sit at home, when you walk along the
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road, when you lie down, when you get up.
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Tie them as symbols on your hands, he says.
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Bind them to your foreheads. Write them on door frames, in
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your houses and on your gates. You know Moses was a youth
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pastor, wasn't he? He's thinking to himself, I
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don't want this thing passing through the Red Sea to be a one
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generation experiment. The church has existed for 2000
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years on earth since Jesus left us precisely because we've
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passed it on. If people didn't pass it on, I
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wouldn't be here this morning. We have to pass it on.
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And so the spirit is not just tongues, prophecy, miraculous
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gifts of healing. All of that's beautiful and
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wonderful and the church should rejoice in it.
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But it is a mentoring spirit. It's passes on from generations.
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If you're not, your vision is not intergenerational, you've
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missed it. You've got to pass it on.
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So Elijah's mission is just Moses mission again.
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Now listen, what what Malachi says right at the end of of the
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Old Testament, I'll send you the prophet Elijah to you before the
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great and dreadful day of the Lord.
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And what will he do? You read it out loud.
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What will he do? He will turn the hearts of the
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parents or the fathers to their children and the hearts of the
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children to their parents. You see, the Old Testament's a
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very wise book. I know people think it's junk.
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It's not. It possesses the wisdom of God,
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and what we learned from it is that Elijah, in possessing the
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Spirit, knows that his role is intergenerational.
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And the whole Old Testament bears witness to that.
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It's intergenerational. So if you want to enter the
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school of the prophets, you have to get this mission on your
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heart. I don't want to hear when I
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leave this morning. Look, I don't have any kids.
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Do not say that word. If this spirit is a mentoring
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spirit, a fathering spirit, a mothering spirit, a parenting
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spirit, then you, I'm saying to you, I don't care how old you
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are, If you are walking in Christ, then you can find
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someone else who can walk behind you and follow you.
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You can pass it on. Do not ever say I'm not a
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father. If you've not had children, so
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be it. Don't know what causes them
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these days. By the way, come to my talk on
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sex and we'll work it out. But I want you to gather people
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that are not your biological children and make them your
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biological children, right? Just like Elijah did for Elijah.
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Now I want to give you some more revelation about Elijah because
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it's important. And dads, I want to say this to
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you. I, I, I want you at the seminar
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on the 18th because we're going to talk to you about the
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significance of how you hand your faith on to your kids.
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Right. Don't miss that.
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Don't, don't go. Oh, it's mum's.
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Mum's the best parent. That's true.
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You've made a truthful statement at that point.
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I agree. Every man marries above himself.
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We know that. But but don't make excuses and
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say, Oh my, my wife does that stuff.
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No, you, you be in charge. You step up.
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You see, I want to, I want to share something to you.
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And it's a bit heartbreaking, but you'll get it because I know
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that where you live in Brisbane, this whole city, this whole
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country is a land of fatherless men.
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This is a fatherless country. And you know why it's
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fatherless. It's fatherless from the Prime
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Minister all down, by the way. It's fatherless because we
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haven't let God be our father. And the price you pay when you
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don't let God be your father is that you are absent fathering.
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You see, it gets passed down, doesn't it?
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And if we've broken our link to God the Father, if we won't let
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the Father of Jesus be our Father, then we cannot father
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ourselves. We can do, we can do our bits
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here and there, but it won't be the spiritual fathering that I'm
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talking about. You got to have God as father
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for that. Don't say I'm sending my wife.
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I'm sending, I'm sending the, the bright department, the smart
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department to do no, no, no, take responsibility.
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You know, you be their dads. You get your wife to go.
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Don't wait for your wife to tell you to go.
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You go and say, babe, we're going.
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I'm even paying for it. And since it's free, that's but
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she may not know that I want you there.
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Don't delegate it. Let Elijah be your inspiration
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because Elijah was bull's eye, focused on fathering and
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mentoring. And I want to speak to your
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hearts this morning because you know the truth about Elijah's
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story. This will break your heart.
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Elijah lived in a fatherless time, just like us who was
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running Israel when Elijah was running around Ahab, a weak man
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under the spell of an evil spirit called Jezebel.
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And I'm telling you, wherever fathers are absent, the Jezebel
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spirit takes over. If we don't let the Holy Spirit
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of prophecy and the spirit of mentoring and fathering be in
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our place, then we say to Jezebel, have a free for all.
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Go for it. And the first thing she did, by
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the way, read your Bible. The first thing she did was try
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to wipe prophecy out of Israel. She tried to kill every prophet.
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One of the guys that Elijah runs into, Obadiah had hidden 250
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prophets in a cave so she wouldn't kill him.
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And then she went after who? Elijah.
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Elijah. When you read the stories in
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First Kings, Elijah never runs away from Ahab.
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No one ever runs away from a weak man.
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But he ran for his life when Jezebel showed up.
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Why? Because he was a fatherless man
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himself. You know how I know that when he
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sits down under the broom tree, depressed because Jezebel's
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trying to kill him? This is a bloke who's brave,
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right? He was never afraid.
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He charged up to Ahab even when Ahab's leading his armies.
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Wasn't afraid of Ahab. He's sitting under the broom
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tree lamenting his life. You know what he says?
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Give up. I am no better than my father's
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1 kings 19/4. He had a deadbeat dead.
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He had a daddy let him down. The reason I know that is
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because when you read the story closely, you realize Elijah
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turns up on the scene in first Kings 17.
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He's introduced to us like how is Jesus introduced?
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Jesus being Joseph, Jesus the son of Joseph.
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When we read Elijah's story, because genealogy is matter,
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right? They who you came from is
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destiny. And so when we hear his story,
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what do we hear? Elijah, the Tishbite.
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Elijah from the town of Tishbi. We know where he came from.
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We don't know who he came from. He's a fatherless man growing up
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in a fatherless time. And he's sitting under the tree.
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And he says, oh, you know, I'm going to end up being just as
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worthless as my father's. Fatherlessness, spiritual
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fatherlessness, Spirit of Jezebel, we're told in
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Revelation 220 to 21. Nevertheless, I have this
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against you, Thyatira. You tolerate that woman Jezebel,
23:12
who calls herself a prophet. Her teaching By her teaching.
23:15
She misleads my servants into sexual immorality in the eating
23:18
of food sacrificed to idols. I've given her time to repeat of
23:22
immorality, but she's unwilling. Ask me why or answer me why
23:25
Australia is overrun by sexual immorality, pornography and also
23:30
by idolatry. When you get the privilege to
23:33
fly into the new airport in Sydney, when it opens up, have a
23:36
look out the window. What you will see is 100 foot
23:40
high golden statue of Krishna. I kid you not, go look it up
23:46
online. Golden statue of Krishna at the
23:50
big Hindu temple which lies just outside the new airport in
23:53
Sydney. That's what you're going to be
23:55
confronted by when you come to Australia.
23:57
We are a land full of idols. We're a land full of idols
24:01
because we haven't let God be our father.
24:05
You cannot be a father to another till you have let
24:08
yourself be a little boy to someone else.
24:11
And so we need to make God our father.
24:13
I want to speak to you this morning.
24:14
Men, young men and women as well.
24:18
Have you let God be your father yet?
24:21
You know some Elijah had a dad who let him down.
24:28
He did. That's clear to me.
24:31
And yet Elijah, apart from his episode under the broom tree, he
24:35
gets back on his feet, dust himself off and says, you know
24:37
what? Fatherlessness stops with me.
24:41
I'm taking responsibility. He then goes and finds Elijah
24:44
and says, man, I may not know how to do this.
24:46
I may not be very good at this, but I'm starting with you.
24:50
I am passing my life on to you, right?
24:54
That's what's going on. It's incredible.
24:58
Jezebel is the very spirit that produces fatherlessness.
25:03
She kills all the spiritual men. That's who she went after in
25:07
Israel. All the prophets, She said, I'll
25:09
get them first. We'll take out all the leaders,
25:12
and then everybody else will just fall under the spell.
25:16
We live in a fatherless country today, but it stops with us,
25:22
right? It stops with us.
25:24
Don't sit here this morning and say I don't have any kids, Greg.
25:27
No, no. You go find some, go find your
25:30
Elijah and pass on a double portion of your spirit to that
25:35
young person. So that's what's going on in
25:39
Elijah's day. There is a Father Hunger in
25:42
Israel. Elijah lives in a fabulous time.
25:46
Doug Wilson, a guy wrote a book called Father Hunger.
25:48
He said this. When the wrath of God is
25:50
revealed in the world, it is revealed as God.
25:53
Let's go of a culture. God has let go of Australian
25:57
culture, That much is very clear to me.
26:00
It's up to us to say, Nah, there is a spiritual reality, there is
26:06
a spiritual fight and we intend to be part of it.
26:09
We intend to walk in that prophetic spirit of mentoring.
26:13
In a culture like ours, God takes away the natural
26:16
protection of fathering. By the way, those those slides
26:19
that you see, that photograph which Kim got for us as part of
26:24
the seminar presentation we do, those are kids from our youth
26:27
group at the church we planted in Auckland called the Upper
26:31
Room. And we pledged to God that we
26:35
would pray for and we would do everything in our power to see
26:38
that any kid, no matter where they came from, would find
26:41
Christ and follow Christ their whole life.
26:44
That was our commitment as a church.
26:45
We were passionate about young people, passionate about the
26:49
ministry to young people. There's those kids, all of them
26:54
following Christ, right? I mean, they look like a gang of
26:56
terrorists, but they, they really genuinely are following
26:59
Christ most of the time. No, these are good kids.
27:04
And I'm, I'm just telling, you know, you're like, wow, do you
27:09
know what part of our church's ministry came more under assault
27:12
than any other youth work? Because we took a stand and said
27:18
this far and no farther, We're taking these young lives for
27:22
Jesus, and that's where the devil went.
27:25
No way. Because there's not one piece of
27:28
turf in the spiritual universe or Kingdom that is not under
27:32
contest. Whatever you say you're going to
27:36
do here in Caboolture, the devil will say no, and then the fight
27:42
is on. And at that point, what God
27:44
needs is spiritual people with a spirit of prophecy to step up
27:47
and speak into it and have courage.
27:50
We live in a country where we're told that we're all essentially
27:53
like all dads are, like Homer Simpson.
27:59
Do you know Homer Simpson? If you're a Gen.
28:02
Xer, you probably do. If you're a Gen.
28:04
Z or an alpha, you don't. Homer Simpson, I'm the greatest
28:07
dad in the world. You're probably not, but that's
28:12
we're mocked. Men step up.
28:17
Don't say what ails modern Australia is the fault of women.
28:21
It's not. It's us in the the the medieval
28:29
romance play called the death of Arthur Mort to Arthur and I read
28:34
this quote. True knighthood lies not only in
28:38
physical prowess. You know, everybody wants to be
28:40
strong and brave, but also in one's commitment to protect the
28:45
weak and uphold justice, Man, that's our job, to be courageous
28:52
and to protect others around us, to pass on whatever we know to
28:58
the next generation. We know what happens by the way,
29:00
to fathers and children. Depression, intimacy issues,
29:11
lack of emotional control and regulation.
29:13
They get angry. More violence.
29:16
Inevitably. You wonder why we live in such a
29:18
violent society in Australia. It's a product of
29:21
fatherlessness. It's as simple as that.
29:25
Fatherless men exhibit controlling behaviors.
29:27
They seek validation through work, struggle with self esteem,
29:33
struggle with boundaries. This is a spiritual
29:36
manifestation in our culture, and it has to do with the fact
29:40
that we have forgotten God. I want to lead you back to
29:45
Elijah. Despite his own fatherlessness,
29:51
despite the bad times in which he lived, he had a fire in his
29:57
belly to be a mentor. Your children are suffering
30:05
because of technology. Well, I made a lot of jokes
30:08
about it earlier, but it's it's painful.
30:10
It's not their fault, but can I share with you something that
30:14
goes with it? What we've learned through the
30:16
researching this and talking to parents and reading what the
30:19
experts say, that generation that is addicted to their
30:26
technology and struggles with all sorts of problems as a
30:29
consequence of it is also incredibly open to God.
30:33
Thus, seeking the stats have come out in England, there are
30:37
two million more under 24 year olds going to church today than
30:41
they were 10 years ago. And that's a country that's
30:44
going to hell in a handbasket. But people are flooding into the
30:48
church, they're flooding in. They're flooding here, here in
30:53
Australia as well. Because we've been lied to for
30:56
so long that materialism somehow would save us or some other
31:00
false scheme would save us. And we've woken up and got to
31:03
send a new spirit on young people.
31:06
And in the midst of loneliness, suffering and mental anguish,
31:10
anxiety at epidemic proportions, they're saying to themselves,
31:15
there must be something more. If you're sitting here this
31:19
morning saying there must be something more, I want to tell
31:21
you who he is. His name is Jesus.
31:25
That's the more the thing you've been seeking, the thing that
31:29
ache inside that says I don't know where to turn.
31:32
I don't know how to solve my problems and challenges.
31:34
I'm telling you his name this morning because I found him, or
31:37
he found me at least when I was 16 years of age.
31:42
He found a guy that grew up in Tasmania, a high school kid in
31:45
Tasmania, lost, lonely, indifferent to life.
31:53
And he said to me, come follow me.
31:56
If that is your prayer this morning, I would love to find
32:00
the truth. I would love to find the truth.
32:04
I'd love to pray with you this morning.
32:07
I want you to do the most courageous thing you could ever
32:09
do. Take your hands off the wheel of
32:12
your life. Don't try this driving when you
32:14
go home. This is a spiritual thing.
32:17
Take the hands off the wheel of your life for a minute and say,
32:21
Lord, I have steered myself into a ditch.
32:25
I've tried very hard but everything has failed.
32:30
It's crumbled around me. I have broken relationships.
32:35
I have too many keys to name. I'm taking the hands off the
32:42
wheel. I want you to take over driving.
32:45
Would you come and save me this morning?
32:48
Would you come and meet me in my place at need?
32:51
Maybe you're, maybe you grow up fatherless and there's a deep
32:55
pain and hunger in your life as a consequence.
33:00
And maybe you failed with your own kids in some way and you're
33:02
punishing yourself about that. I didn't come here this morning
33:06
to tell you to feel bad about yourself.
33:09
Elijah made a positive decision. I might have been fatherless
33:14
myself, but I'll be a father. You can start today to let the
33:20
Holy Spirit into your life, to let Jesus come and start
33:24
directing traffic and steering your life.
33:27
You'll be blown away how things will turn out.
33:30
I'm standing here. I just, we just gave up the
33:32
church like I said to you in February.
33:35
And I knew that we were meant to do it, but I had no idea what
33:38
would happen. But I've lived walking with the
33:41
Spirit for 44 years now and every time God has said to me,
33:44
give something up, he's telling me I've got something new for
33:48
you. So we jumped a plane, come over
33:51
here. We had two kids living here.
33:52
We came over today. I'd teach two days a week at
33:56
Christian Heritage College. I'm building a Center for public
33:59
theology there. I sit on the Ethics Committee at
34:02
Bond University. I've got more opportunities and
34:06
things going on around me that I could possibly name right now.
34:08
I've been in the country 18 months since since, you know,
34:12
doing the church in New Zealand. We lived there for 25 years.
34:16
How does that happen? It happens because I took my
34:20
hands off the steering wheel and I said, God, you do it.
34:25
I'm happy to drive with you. Now.
34:27
God is like, you know, one of those Aylon Musk, uberless,
34:31
driverless things, whatever they are.
34:33
You have to be a Gen. X that understand that stuff.
34:35
I don't, I'm not getting into one.
34:37
By the way, I trust God with my life.
34:39
I don't trust Aylon Musk with it.
34:42
But I'm telling you to become a driverless car this morning.
34:46
Let God drive it.