SPEAKER_00: Well we're continuing our series The Door.
SPEAKER_00: The Door.
SPEAKER_00: If you weren't here last week, you can go listen to that message for some context.
SPEAKER_00: But it I'll explain it in detail today as well.
SPEAKER_00: Do a short recap before we dive into some new material.
SPEAKER_00: The door.
SPEAKER_00: Eliminating generational gaps, releasing generational blessings to ensure the synergy of the ages, the advancement of the ecclesia, the church, the governing family of God.
SPEAKER_00: Father, speak to us today.
SPEAKER_00: Teach us your ways, teach us your word, make it plain to us and change us.
SPEAKER_00: Change the way we think, change the way we see our lives and what you've called us to be and do for the advancement of your kingdom, for the building of your family in the earth.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Genesis 17 7, God says, I will confirm my covenant with you and your descendants after you, from generation to generation.
SPEAKER_00: Now that is the word door in Hebrew, D-O-R, and it's essentially him saying, from door to door, this is the everlasting covenant.
SPEAKER_00: I will always be your God and the God of your descendants after you.
SPEAKER_00: So his covenant is never that he will be your God.
SPEAKER_00: That's not God's covenant.
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't think as individuals.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't think individuals.
SPEAKER_00: He's personal, and you can have a personal relationship with him, and you can know him intimately, but he doesn't think along the lines of individuals.
SPEAKER_00: He's always thinking family, cities, nations, and generations.
SPEAKER_00: He's always thinking generations and nations.
SPEAKER_00: And so he says, He never just says, I'll confirm my covenant to you.
SPEAKER_00: He always includes this, and to your descendants after you from generation to generation.
SPEAKER_00: This is the everlasting covenant.
SPEAKER_00: I will always be your God and the God of your descendants after you.
SPEAKER_00: God's covenant is a generational covenant.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't exist as anything other than a generational covenant.
SPEAKER_00: God thinks generations and nations, never just individuals, because listen, it's not about you.
SPEAKER_00: It's for you.
SPEAKER_00: What God wants to do in your life, it is for you, but it's never about you.
SPEAKER_00: It's always about other people.
SPEAKER_00: It's always about generations and nations.
SPEAKER_00: He is the God of generations and nations.
SPEAKER_00: We finished up our discipleship series, and that scripture we read every single week wasn't just Jesus saying, uh, go and make disciples.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Go and make disciples of what?
SPEAKER_00: All the nations, of all the nations, to the ends of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: So it's never just about you, it's never just about your family, it's never just about your city, it's never just about your country, it's always about the generations and the nations.
SPEAKER_00: So we we talked about this concept of a generational gap.
SPEAKER_00: A generational gap is a lack of honor and connection causing an interruption, hindrance, and decrease of the flow of God's character, nature, power, and ways between the generations.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: So it's an interruption, it's a hindrance, it's a decrease of the flow of God's character, nature, and power and ways between the generations.
SPEAKER_00: So the opposite of that is what I would call generational synergy.
SPEAKER_00: So generational gap.
SPEAKER_00: Then you have generational synergy.
SPEAKER_00: You could even say generational blessing, but it's an intentional honor and connection causing continuation, increase, and advancement of the flow of God's character, nature, power, and ways between the generations.
SPEAKER_00: So generational blessing is what we're talking about.
SPEAKER_00: So don't underestimate the power of blessing or what it means to be blessed.
SPEAKER_00: And we cannot afford to have the wrong definition of something as big and as powerful as blessing.
SPEAKER_00: And the opposite of that is what curse is cursing or cursed, blessed and cursed.
SPEAKER_00: So to be blessed means to be happy, to be caused to prosper, which means to push down the road, to advance, to be blessed means to increase, to go straight, to progress successfully, to be led on and made happy, essentially, is what it means, which is amazing.
SPEAKER_00: So at its core, blessing is a force that pushes you through life and all the challenges of life, causing you to advance and thrive no matter what comes against you.
SPEAKER_00: Let me say that again.
SPEAKER_00: At its core, blessing is a force that pushes you through life and all the challenges of life, causing you to advance and thrive no matter what comes against you.
SPEAKER_00: And so then to be cursed, we need to understand what it means to be cursed.
SPEAKER_00: To be cursed means to be made bitter, to be stuck, to cause, to be shaken.
SPEAKER_00: It means to be alone or apart from.
SPEAKER_00: It means to decrease.
SPEAKER_00: At its core, a curse is a force that hinders you in life, allowing all the challenges of life to overwhelm you and keep you from thriving, keep you from advancing, keep you from advancing spiritually, relationally, mentally, emotionally, physically, financially, professionally.
SPEAKER_00: It it someone someone is under a curse.
SPEAKER_00: When they're under the curse of sin and death, when they're under a curse, a generational curse, there is just this hindrance.
SPEAKER_00: They can only go this far and no further in whatever area of life that is.
SPEAKER_00: That's what it means to be cursed.
SPEAKER_00: So it's not some, it's not some weird thing that's gonna cause supernatural, weird activity to happen and pictures to fall off your wall, and all that's Hollywood's version of a curse.
SPEAKER_00: Don't don't get educated about the things of God from Hollywood.
SPEAKER_00: You're not, it's not uh it's not having some weird object in your house, then everything goes wrong.
SPEAKER_00: It's the heart.
SPEAKER_00: It's always about the heart.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if God says get that object out of your house, your heart has to be postured to obey him and get that object out of your house.
SPEAKER_00: But curse just means to be made bitter.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, we talked about believer, follower, disciple, and disciple maker.
SPEAKER_00: That's Jesus' ministry mate.
SPEAKER_00: He's always trying to take people on a journey.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus was his ministry was movement.
SPEAKER_00: His ministry was follow me.
SPEAKER_00: Let's go.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus walked and he just kept on walking.
SPEAKER_00: And he walked and he walked and he walked and he never stopped.
SPEAKER_00: And he went from place to place to place to place.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Moving, moving, moving, bringing the kingdom of God, advancing the kingdom of God, pushing the kingdom of God forward, sharing the gospel, driving out sickness, driving out disease, casting out demons, right?
SPEAKER_00: Driving out darkness, driving out demons.
SPEAKER_00: What was he doing?
SPEAKER_00: He was always pushing forward the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because he was blessed.
SPEAKER_00: He was bringing blessing.
SPEAKER_00: Unbeliever, believer, follower, disciple, disciple maker.
SPEAKER_00: He was always trying to push people down that path to invite them into those things.
SPEAKER_00: And what happens is whenever we uh whenever anything hinders us from advancing in that way, because you can most, a lot of people, maybe most Christians, get stuck in the believer phase.
SPEAKER_00: And we we talked about this, I'm not going to get too far into this, but they just sit as a believer.
SPEAKER_00: That was my family.
SPEAKER_00: They were believers, but they weren't followers.
SPEAKER_00: And they did the best they could with what they had.
SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't enough.
SPEAKER_00: Now, thankfully, my parents are followers.
SPEAKER_00: They became followers, but they had to get to a place in their life where they said, There's more.
SPEAKER_00: There's more than just being a believer and being saved and having our sins forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe, maybe, maybe knowing that we're going to be in heaven one day.
SPEAKER_00: There's more to that.
SPEAKER_00: And they became followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: The number one thing that will hinder progress, that hinders advancement, relational, spiritual, mental, emotional, all of that, is offense.
SPEAKER_00: Offense is the Greek word scandalon, which means stumbling block.
SPEAKER_00: It means to turn away from or to impede.
SPEAKER_00: What an offense does, if you get offended at God, it causes you to turn your heart away from Him.
SPEAKER_00: It's an impediment.
SPEAKER_00: It hinders you, right?
SPEAKER_00: If you get offended at a person, the enemy's that's his ministry, is a ministry of offense.
SPEAKER_00: He wants you to get offended at the people that God's trying to bring life to you.
SPEAKER_00: He wants you to get offended at the people that you need to advance because he wants you stuck.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, to be cursed means bitter.
SPEAKER_00: It's literally what happens when you allow everybody gets offended.
SPEAKER_00: We all get offended.
SPEAKER_00: I get offended, but I quickly take that offense and release it.
SPEAKER_00: I quickly forgive because I don't want a root of bitterness to scandal on, to bring a stumbling block, an impediment in my life.
SPEAKER_00: When you get offended and you don't forgive and resolve it, you get stuck.
SPEAKER_00: All forward movement and advancement stops.
SPEAKER_00: That's literally the definition of a curse.
SPEAKER_00: Offense works together with negativity and bitterness to solidify an individual being spiritually and relationally stagnant.
SPEAKER_00: This person justifies complaining, and disgust is their dominant emotion.
SPEAKER_00: Without repentance and forgiveness, this is the chronic condition of this person, and it follows them wherever they go.
SPEAKER_00: Where they go.
SPEAKER_00: It's the same story over and over, new people, new places, same negative rut of offense.
SPEAKER_00: That is a stumbling block.
SPEAKER_00: That is a curse.
SPEAKER_00: That is literally how you get a curse.
SPEAKER_00: And it is through offense.
SPEAKER_00: There's other ways, obviously, but I'm just saying that's like the number one thing that will hinder people.
SPEAKER_00: The enemy is always, always, always trying to get you offended.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and notice he's always trying to get you offended, usually at people that could lead you and help you.
SPEAKER_00: So we're talking about is this generational synergy.
SPEAKER_00: This concept of a generational gap is an American thing that is a tragedy.
SPEAKER_00: It is there's no such thing as a generational gap in the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: No such thing.
SPEAKER_00: He wants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob working with synergy.
SPEAKER_00: He wants to be their God.
SPEAKER_00: He wants to be the God of all three of them, not just the God of one of them, and then three generations later the God of another one, and then two generations later the God of another one.
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, unbroken.
SPEAKER_00: I want to be this one's God, the parents' God, the kids' God, the grandkids' God.
SPEAKER_00: Synergy.
SPEAKER_00: Advancement.
SPEAKER_00: Um, so I was I was thinking about this the other day, and I heard this quote.
SPEAKER_00: I think it was Tim Tebow actually that said it.
SPEAKER_00: He said, inheritance is what you leave for people, but legacy is what you leave in people.
SPEAKER_00: So what we're really talking about here is like spiritual legacy.
SPEAKER_00: It's a kingdom legacy, it's a gospel legacy, it's a legacy of the truth about God, it's a legacy of worshiping him, it's a legacy of following him and helping other people follow him.
SPEAKER_00: There's no such thing as a generational gap in the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: I believe that generational gaps are a strategy of the enemy to keep the power of sin and death systematically preserved through family brokenness.
SPEAKER_00: So then the strategy of the father would be to keep the power of righteousness in life systematically preserved through family wholeness.
SPEAKER_00: That's what's so sad about divorce, right?
SPEAKER_00: Uh my house was a broken home.
SPEAKER_00: That's one of the terms for a house where there's divorce, is a broken home.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what's so hard about it and so bad about it, is it's a breakdown of the family.
SPEAKER_00: It's a breakdown of the generations.
SPEAKER_00: And it's it makes it very, very hard, not impossible, but very, very hard to have generational synergy when the marriage fails.
SPEAKER_00: Not impossible.
SPEAKER_00: I obviously thank for the gospel and the grace of God.
SPEAKER_00: God has a plan.
SPEAKER_00: And when our natural family breaks down, he has a faith family that we can step into.
SPEAKER_00: That's the whole point of the gospel, actually.
SPEAKER_00: God kind of had a broken home, right?
SPEAKER_00: And he had to fix it.
SPEAKER_00: And he fixed it by sending Jesus so that he could establish an unbroken home, a wholeness, a whole home, a whole family.
SPEAKER_00: So eliminating generational gaps, I believe, starts with honor.
SPEAKER_00: It continues with discipleship, and it culminates with impartation.
SPEAKER_00: So at River Life, I have a name for that group, the Abraham generation.
SPEAKER_00: We call it Legacy Life, right?
SPEAKER_00: Legacy life.
SPEAKER_00: Now, legacy life is the Abraham generation in our church, which we have an amazing, amazing group of.
SPEAKER_00: So blessed, so, so blessed.
SPEAKER_00: God's positioned us to see this happen here at River Life in a remarkable way.
SPEAKER_00: The Abraham generation is honored, involved, and empowered for anointing and impartation to flow to the other generations, leaving a deposit of their values and faith in the next generation.
SPEAKER_00: An unhindered and increasing flow of God's character, nature, power, and ways from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, from parents to children to grandchildren and great grandchildren.
SPEAKER_00: Now, something that I'm personally burdened with right now is that the current popular ministry model of the church is not facilitating this.
SPEAKER_00: It is not facilitating unrestricted flow of God's character, nature, power, and ways from generation to generation.
SPEAKER_00: Almost the opposite.
SPEAKER_00: The current popular ministry model of the church is set up something like this.
SPEAKER_00: We have weekend services, we have groups, we have kids' ministry, we have youth ministry, we have young adults' ministry, we have married couples' ministry, we have empty nesters ministry, we have the uh elderly ministry, the the legacy life ministry, then we have men's ministry, we have women's ministry, we have prophetic ministry, we have prayer and intercessory ministry, outreach ministry, we have all these buckets and all these silos, all these programs, right?
SPEAKER_00: That's every church, every church that I know of.
SPEAKER_00: And they build all these things, and what it does is it actually separates the groups.
SPEAKER_00: It separates them by age, it separates them by gender, it separates them and silos them off unintentionally.
SPEAKER_00: This is what's happened, unintentionally, and then it programs and conditions them to be consumers.
SPEAKER_00: To be consumers.
SPEAKER_00: You need to have the thing I'm interested in, right?
SPEAKER_00: We now we naturally coagulate, and that's a beautiful thing.
SPEAKER_00: I think it's a God-given thing.
SPEAKER_00: We naturally coagulate.
SPEAKER_00: If you if if you put a bunch of people in a room, they're gonna the kids are gonna naturally coagulate with the kids, and the teens are gonna naturally, and the women are gonna find a little group and talk, and the men, that's beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: That happens naturally, though.
SPEAKER_00: That happens naturally when you get everybody in the same room.
SPEAKER_00: If we program everything to separate those people, then what how do we how do we see this God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?
SPEAKER_00: How do we see the synergy of the generations happening if the meetings and the programs and the ministries that we're building don't facilitate the impartation of that?
SPEAKER_00: And so when we were starting River Life, you know, we had these conversations.
SPEAKER_00: What would it look like to have in the church plant training that we received was you gotta do all these things.
SPEAKER_00: People won't come if you don't do all these things.
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord said, We're not doing it that way.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna show you a new way.
SPEAKER_00: We're doing a new thing, and I'm gonna show you a new way to do it.
SPEAKER_00: And I had the vision for the door in 2012, and I just thought it was a part of legacy life.
SPEAKER_00: I thought it was just a like, you know, random events that we may do as a part of legacy life where we bring in, you know, the families and the younger people, and there's some impartation and prayer and blessing services and stuff like that, which is great.
SPEAKER_00: I love, I want to do that.
SPEAKER_00: But God began to show me that it's way bigger than that.
SPEAKER_00: So I took it out from under Legacy Life and I put it on its own as a ministry.
SPEAKER_00: The first ministry that we will be launching in the fall is gonna be the door.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna explain what that is.
SPEAKER_00: But I just had this burden, I had this struggle, and then I didn't know what it was gonna look like, and God is beginning to bring the answer.
SPEAKER_00: And again, I think we had good intentions, um, but it simply has not produced good results.
SPEAKER_00: We unintentionally siloed everyone off in these buckets that literally separated them.
SPEAKER_00: What we need is to take all of those resources and all the effort and energy, bring those groups together and facilitate connection so we can see the flow of God's blessing to and through each generation.
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, so this whole consumer Christianity concept is a big deal.
SPEAKER_00: It's a problem in the American church.
SPEAKER_00: And we produced it.
SPEAKER_00: We I say we pastors and leaders of the last generation, we produced it.
SPEAKER_00: And it's uh I see it all the time on social media, and so we're not really on social media a lot.
SPEAKER_00: We do some things on social media, but we're not really on social media a lot.
SPEAKER_00: But I'll see in the community groups, you know, Celina community groups, whatever city Facebook groups and stuff where people can get on.
SPEAKER_00: And all the time you see people jumping in there looking for a church, looking for a church.
SPEAKER_00: And I saw one last week.
SPEAKER_00: We're new to the area and we're looking for a church, and we're looking, and then there's a there was a paragraph.
SPEAKER_00: We're looking for a church that has great Bible teaching, and we're looking for a church that has uh men's ministry, and we're looking for a church that does stuff with youth and kids and uh you know, kids' Bible studies, and all this list of stuff.
SPEAKER_00: And we're we want to we want to uh serve our community, we want to get involved in serving the community, we want outreach.
SPEAKER_00: We're looking for a church, all this, and then the the feed was just all these people from all these churches going, try this church, try this church, come to my church, my church is great.
SPEAKER_00: We do all these blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
SPEAKER_00: Check, check, check, check, check, check, check.
SPEAKER_00: Check the box, check the box.
SPEAKER_00: Come consume.
SPEAKER_00: Come come consume with us.
SPEAKER_00: We'll feed you all the stuff you want.
SPEAKER_00: And my heart is breaking as a pastor going, no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: We've lost the way.
SPEAKER_00: That path is not leading anywhere.
SPEAKER_00: So what do we do?
SPEAKER_00: I could promise you, I could have done all the things that we were trained to do.
SPEAKER_00: We could have done all the marketing and all the things that we'd be have anywhere right now, we'd have anywhere between 200 and 400 people here.
SPEAKER_00: Guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00: It's not it's not a matter of maybe.
SPEAKER_00: Guaranteed, anywhere between two and four hundred people here.
SPEAKER_00: That's what every other church that's doing all the stuff, that's what they're getting.
SPEAKER_00: That's what they're getting.
SPEAKER_00: Regardless of The preaching, regardless of the worship, regardless of the presence of God, regardless of any of that, if you're doing the programs and you're hitting the marketing right, 200 to 400 people in the first year.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm just like, I'm not, I don't care.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter to me.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want a bunch of consumers.
SPEAKER_00: I want a family.
SPEAKER_00: I want to see a family of people that are passing blessing from generation to generation.
SPEAKER_00: That we're really encountering God, serving God, loving God.
SPEAKER_00: Titus 2, verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: I actually even love the title.
SPEAKER_00: Usually I, when it includes like a title over the scripture, I delete it.
SPEAKER_00: But I love this one, so I left it.
SPEAKER_00: It says, this was a command.
SPEAKER_00: This was uh, and it says, promote right conduct in God's household.
SPEAKER_00: You see that?
SPEAKER_00: Promote right conduct in God's household.
SPEAKER_00: And I just I love that.
SPEAKER_00: What's it, what's what does it call it?
SPEAKER_00: God's household.
SPEAKER_00: Promote righteousness in God's household.
SPEAKER_00: So listen to what he says.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 1, as for you, Titus, this is obviously the Apostle Paul writing to Titus, promote the kind of living that reflects wholesome teaching.
SPEAKER_00: Teach the older men to exercise self-control, to be worthy of respect, and to live wisely.
SPEAKER_00: They must have sound faith and be filled with love and patience.
SPEAKER_00: Similarly, so in the same way, in other words, the same thing that I just said about the older men, now I'm saying about the older women.
SPEAKER_00: Teach the older women to live in a way that honors God.
SPEAKER_00: They must not slander others or be heavy drinkers.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, they should teach others what is good.
SPEAKER_00: These older women must train the younger women, generation to generation, to love their husbands and their children, to live wisely and to be pure.
SPEAKER_00: So the same thing that the older men were supposed to teach to the younger men, to work in their homes, to do good, and be submissive to their husbands, then they will not bring shame on the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: And the the interesting thing about to be submissive to their husbands, in the same way, similarly, so what he's saying is promote the kind of living that reflects wholesome teaching.
SPEAKER_00: So a husband who is exercising self-control, worthy of respect, lives wisely, filled with faith and love and patience, right?
SPEAKER_00: Submit to that husband is in essence what he's saying.
SPEAKER_00: Then you will not bring shame on the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: In the same way, so again, in the same way, all these things apply.
SPEAKER_00: Encourage the younger men to live wisely, and you yourself must be an example to them by doing good works of every kind.
SPEAKER_00: Let everything you do reflect the integrity and seriousness of your teaching.
SPEAKER_00: So that's a command for righteous conduct in the household of God.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, this is what the church, this is what's supposed to be happening in the church.
SPEAKER_00: Now, is that, are we able to accomplish that with men's ministry and women's ministry and youth ministry and all these different things?
SPEAKER_00: Is that, do those individual meetings facilitate what Paul just told Titus?
SPEAKER_00: Not necessarily.
SPEAKER_00: Some, I mean if you're doing it, I guess if you're doing it right and you have a really good leadership structure and there's discipleship, intense discipleship happening, maybe.
SPEAKER_00: So the challenge then is how does this become an opportunity that is facilitated?
SPEAKER_00: How do we facilitate that?
SPEAKER_00: What does that look like?
SPEAKER_00: I believe that one of the best definitions of a leader is an ordinary person that creates opportunities for people that they can't create for themselves.
SPEAKER_00: An ordinary person, again, a leader isn't some extraordinary person.
SPEAKER_00: It's an ordinary person that learns how to facilitate opportunities for people that they cannot facilitate for themselves.
SPEAKER_00: That's a leader.
SPEAKER_00: If you can do that, you're a leader.
SPEAKER_00: That's one of the great things about being a group leader.
SPEAKER_00: Having a group is something you have that you can invite somebody to, and you can facilitate something happening in their life that they can't facilitate on their own.
SPEAKER_00: Anytime you create something that you can invite someone to, you're a leader.
SPEAKER_00: So again, the challenge then is how do how does this become an opportunity that is facilitated by the church, in the church, for the church?
SPEAKER_00: So let's look at door and just what that actually means, that word generation.
SPEAKER_00: It means this properly, a revolution of time, an age or generation characterized by quality, condition, and class of men.
SPEAKER_00: So all this is straight out of the strong concordance, the Hebrew and Greek.
SPEAKER_00: It also means a dwelling place, a habitation.
SPEAKER_00: It means posterity, which is I love that word.
SPEAKER_00: It's a great word, which is secession.
SPEAKER_00: Successful succession.
SPEAKER_00: Posterity.
SPEAKER_00: So that's what the door means: a revolution of time, an age or a generation.
SPEAKER_00: And it says from 1752, which is the word that door comes from, and it's dur.
SPEAKER_00: And it means a primitive, uh, so the primitive root of that means properly to move in a circle, to remain, to dwell, to heap up, pile up, to remain moving in unbroken connection.
SPEAKER_00: So that's what door is.
SPEAKER_00: It's where you heap up and you pile up blessing for the next generation.
SPEAKER_00: That's the role and the duty and the job of a generation to fulfill its purpose is to see habitation, a heaping up, a piling up and this posterity, this secession, a handing off of the baton to the next generation.
SPEAKER_00: And so then my definition of the door is an unbroken generational connection that fosters habitation of God's heaping and piling up blessing for posterity and generational spiritual health.
SPEAKER_00: So I mentioned legacy life.
SPEAKER_00: So our values, I like to have core values for different areas.
SPEAKER_00: I have core values of my life.
SPEAKER_00: We have core values for River Life Church.
SPEAKER_00: And under legacy life, here are the values of legacy life.
SPEAKER_00: Number one is preservation.
SPEAKER_00: Number two is instruction.
SPEAKER_00: Number three is direction, and number four is impartation.
SPEAKER_00: So when I think about the Abraham generation, what I want to see is preservation, old principles, right?
SPEAKER_00: Instruction, old ways, direction, old paths, and impartation, old mantles.
SPEAKER_00: When we set out to plant this church, God said, I'm doing a new thing, but it's going to be an old thing.
SPEAKER_00: I'm building something new on old foundations.
SPEAKER_00: And so legacy life is about the old principles, the old ways, the old paths, and the old mantles.
SPEAKER_00: But then how do we get that transferred to the next generation?
SPEAKER_00: How does that happen?
SPEAKER_00: That's an opportunity that has to be facilitated or it will not happen.
SPEAKER_00: We've proven that if it's not facilitated, it will not happen.
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about in our faith family.
SPEAKER_00: You can do this in your family, in your natural family, your biological family.
SPEAKER_00: I hope that you're doing that, but I'm talking about in the faith family.
SPEAKER_00: How does that happen?
SPEAKER_00: Because I had to be grafted into a family of faith where I had spiritual moms and dads, and spiritual grandparents, and spiritual aunts and uncles to receive the old principles, the old ways, the old pasts, and the old mantles.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not here today if I didn't have that in a church.
SPEAKER_00: Interesting, uh, a friend of mine shared this with me the other day.
SPEAKER_00: Sweden, the country, has been involved in research and projects focused on reducing social isolation and increasing contact between the generations.
SPEAKER_00: Swedish studies and programs have looked at how interactions between children, teens, and older adults can improve belonging, reduce loneliness, and strengthen communities.
SPEAKER_00: So they've done this whole social project in Sweden about this, and they've been doing this for years and years and years.
SPEAKER_00: More broadly, the evidence from multiple countries suggests that benefits for older adults.
SPEAKER_00: So when you do this, when you facilitate these the synergy of the ages happening in a country, in a city, in a f in a church, here's the benefits for the older adults.
SPEAKER_00: So for the for the Abraham generation, reduced loneliness and social isolation, improved mood and self-esteem, greater sense of purpose and meaning, increased social engagement and activity levels.
SPEAKER_00: I would even submit probably longer life.
SPEAKER_00: Benefits for younger people, less age-related prejudice and stereotyping, better attitudes towards older adults, access to mentorship, life experience, and emotional support, increased empathy and social skills.
SPEAKER_00: And so I think about my story.
SPEAKER_00: I I've shared my testimony, so I'm not going to go back through all of that, but when when I got ready to, when God wanted to establish generational blessing in my life, he put me in a church and he gave me these spiritual big brothers and these spiritual fathers and mothers, and they and they just poured into us.
SPEAKER_00: And we were around each other all the time.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, back then we had church on Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night.
SPEAKER_00: You had uh minute meetings on Monday night, Tuesday night, Thursday night, Friday.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it was anytime the doors were open, we were there.
SPEAKER_00: Like we were showing up.
SPEAKER_00: When you served on a Sunday, we had one service at 10:30, but we would get there at like 6 a.m.
SPEAKER_00: and we wouldn't leave until like 1.30.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, when you served and then we were coming back at 6 o'clock that night, and then and we were there from 6 o'clock that night till 10, 11 o'clock, whenever we would leave.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, think about being around people like that that much, that much proximity.
SPEAKER_00: One of the ways the enemy can can disrupt this is by limiting proximity to those people groups, to those age groups.
SPEAKER_00: And so I just, we just built relationships.
SPEAKER_00: We just became family.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we spent hours and hours and hours a week with these people, just receiving from them, listening to them teach God's word, having them lay their hands on us and pray over us.
SPEAKER_00: Unbelievable the riches that we didn't even know.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we didn't even have a clue how good God was being to us when we were in that season.
SPEAKER_00: But I remember when it came time for me to go into ministry, and I was still young enough to, you know, go off to college and have some cool ministry experience.
SPEAKER_00: So I was wanting to go to like Southeastern or Southwestern uh, you know, assemblies of God University to get credentialed ministry.
SPEAKER_00: And I thought, literally thought that was going to happen, or go to some master's commission somewhere.
SPEAKER_00: And I sit down with Pastor Mike and I tell him, you know, what I'm feeling and what I'm sensing.
SPEAKER_00: And he goes, Hey, there's this uh school of ministry over in Bozier City on Monday nights at this church called Family Worship Center.
SPEAKER_00: And if you go through these, they teach the Breen School of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: So if you go through all these classes, uh you can get credentialed with the assembly.
SPEAKER_00: That's the next step, you know, to help you get into ministry and become a pastor, is to get you credentialed with the assemblies of God.
SPEAKER_00: And so you you need to go, and and I was like, no, I don't want to do that.
SPEAKER_00: I literally was like, I don't know about that.
SPEAKER_00: And then the Lord started dealing with me.
SPEAKER_00: This is what I have for you.
SPEAKER_00: This is what I want you to do.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not closing these other doors.
SPEAKER_00: This is what I want you to do.
SPEAKER_00: I had even quit my job because I knew like I'm going to I'm going to Bible college.
SPEAKER_00: And I just quit my job so I'd be ready.
SPEAKER_00: And then the the my phone rang.
SPEAKER_00: I was uh I was still working, I was doing landscaping and stuff, but I quit my job and my phone rang, and it was one of the pastors of our church, and he wanted me to, he was hiring a facilities person at the church and wanted to know if I wanted to come.
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, No, I'm gonna be going to Bible college, you know, and I don't want to go, I don't want to get tied down to anything.
SPEAKER_00: And then it was still, I said no to everything God had for me, and then had to circle back and go, you know, so I called him back like two weeks later and was like, hey, Pastor Randy, is that job still available?
SPEAKER_00: And he was like, Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: It's like I thought I thought the Lord told me it was you, you know, and I was like, it was me.
SPEAKER_00: And so I started working at the church.
SPEAKER_00: But so now I'm talking about Bible college, and I'm like, no, I don't want, I don't want to do that.
SPEAKER_00: And then the Lord said, That's what I have for you.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to do that.
SPEAKER_00: And so I go over to Family Worship Center in Bosier and I walk into this class, this college, this urban Bible training college.
SPEAKER_00: And at the time I was 25, I guess, 24, 24 years old.
SPEAKER_00: And I walk in, and it is a room full of grandmas.
SPEAKER_00: When I say grandmas, I mean grandmas.
SPEAKER_00: Some of y'all are cool grandmas.
SPEAKER_00: Perm, gray perms, buns, little Pentecostal buns.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, these these ladies were 70s, 80s.
SPEAKER_00: I'm 24 years old.
SPEAKER_00: I walk in there, I'm the only guy, and I'm obviously the only young person there.
SPEAKER_00: And every Monday night for three years, I sat there and received the greatest treasure, one of the greatest treasures I've ever been given in my life.
SPEAKER_00: I was trained and equipped with the ways of God, the righteousness of God, the power of God, the character and the nature of God.
SPEAKER_00: Just hours and hours every Monday night.
SPEAKER_00: Unbelievable what the enemy would have stolen from me if I had gone off to one of these big colleges to get my training.
SPEAKER_00: What he had for me was hidden away in the generations, in the Abraham generation.
SPEAKER_00: And little Marla Eden, every week we would show up.
SPEAKER_00: And what was cool is some of my friends that started getting called into ministry, they started coming.
SPEAKER_00: And so I had some friends in there, and it was like, look, it's a bunch of old ladies, but I'm telling you, God's doing, God's God's equipping us, God's doing something.
SPEAKER_00: And so when I had like two or three other guys that would come on Mondays, we'd ride together and we walk in, all the little ladies and us from Freeport Community Church.
SPEAKER_00: And then Pastor Al Eden, the senior pastor of the church, he would come and teach some of the classes, and she would bring some other pastors in to teach some of the classes.
SPEAKER_00: But I ran across this and I want to read it to you because I just think it, I think it's exactly what I'm talking about here.
SPEAKER_00: But Marla Eden went into glory years ago after we moved here, and Pastor Al asked me if I would come speak at her funeral.
SPEAKER_00: And so this is this is what I ran across this.
SPEAKER_00: This is what I said at her funeral.
SPEAKER_00: I said, All of us are here, all of us who are here today were favorably and fortunately placed in proximity to one of God's greats, one of his heroes.
SPEAKER_00: When you looked into Marla's eyes, you could see the spiritual depth and maturity.
SPEAKER_00: You could see how serious she was about the gospel moving forward and sound doctrine being propagated.
SPEAKER_00: Her voice trembled with passion, reverence, and the fear of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: I remember how her voice would change when she would begin to prophesy over us and speak truth with great conviction.
SPEAKER_00: Her voice is something that will never be forgotten.
SPEAKER_00: God delights in pouring out his power, his anointing, and his special gifts into humble, servant-hearted people like Marla Eden.
SPEAKER_00: He carefully tucked away his goodness, love, wisdom, and revelation into Marla and then invited people that he wanted to richly bless to mine it out of her.
SPEAKER_00: When God called me to ministry, I was young enough to go off to college.
SPEAKER_00: I remember sitting down with Mike back and telling him of sensing a calling and wondering what was next.
SPEAKER_00: I was hoping he would say I needed to go off to Southwestern or somewhere grandiose for school and ministry training, but he was much wiser than that.
SPEAKER_00: And God's plans for me were much more tailored to his heart and his kingdom than that.
SPEAKER_00: In his goodness, he put me under Pastor Marla Eden.
SPEAKER_00: For years, we would come weekly right here to this campus.
SPEAKER_00: I was, we were, the funeral was at that church, and we would sit under her teaching.
SPEAKER_00: God knew that we would all need much more than knowledge to do what he's called us to do.
SPEAKER_00: He knew that we needed impartation.
SPEAKER_00: He knew that we needed kingdom perspective and roots.
SPEAKER_00: He knew, and he knew just the person that had it over in North Bozier at a place called Family Worship Center.
SPEAKER_00: Each week, her class would show up and she would feed us dinner and then feed us God's word, telling us stories and illustrating principles with perfect examples from her and Pastor Al's thousands of experiences in ministry.
SPEAKER_00: Being taught and mentored by her was something I consider to be one of the greatest honors God has given me in my life.
SPEAKER_00: There are hundreds of people in ministry all over the world carrying pieces of her knowledge, wisdom, and her passion for God and his church.
SPEAKER_00: And I am here representing all of her students today, remembering that we would not be who we are without her investment into our lives.
SPEAKER_00: And then I said this to the family as I closed.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Pastor Al, Jerry, Debbie, thank you for sharing her with us.
SPEAKER_00: She will live on through me and all of her students.
SPEAKER_00: That's the door.
SPEAKER_00: What would I have missed going off to some big college and having that experience?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it would have been fun, but fun isn't what was going to equip me for ministry.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't going to equip me to be the man that God was calling me to be.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 45, 17 says, I will perpetrate your memory.
SPEAKER_00: I will perpetrate your memory through all generations.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, the nations, listen, will praise you forever and ever.
SPEAKER_00: Generations and nations.
SPEAKER_00: That's what God is about.
SPEAKER_00: The word impart means meta-domi.
SPEAKER_00: It is a Greek word.
SPEAKER_00: It means to give over, to share.
SPEAKER_00: Meta is a primary preposition that means with, after, or after being with.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so remember that.
SPEAKER_00: After being with.
SPEAKER_00: Didomai means to give something to someone of one's own accord to his advantage to bestow a gift or to grant to one asking, to let, to have, to supply, to endue.
SPEAKER_00: I love that word because that's what Jesus said we would be endued with power from on high, from the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: That's impartation.
SPEAKER_00: Furnish necessary things to reach out and touch, present a writing.
SPEAKER_00: I love that too, to present a writing.
SPEAKER_00: There's legacy in writing.
SPEAKER_00: Thankfully, we have, are you, aren't you glad that we have some impartation from the writings?
SPEAKER_00: To give over to one's care to entrust or to commit something.
SPEAKER_00: I know that's a lot, but track with me here.
SPEAKER_00: So it means after being with someone to receive necessary things, important things, things that you need to flourish and thrive, things that you need to be who God's called you to be and do what He's called you to do.
SPEAKER_00: It's after being with them, they will in proximity to reach out, right?
SPEAKER_00: And you can receive impartation.
SPEAKER_00: So impartation means to receive something necessary for your advancement after investing relationally and submitting yourself to someone in order to receive what they have.
SPEAKER_00: It's impossible to be blessed without impartation.
SPEAKER_00: Just like Jesus blessed the kids, right?
SPEAKER_00: You have to be in proximity to someone who has impartation, who has blessing, and they can bestow it or endue it to you.
SPEAKER_00: But it's only after being With.
SPEAKER_00: You don't just get it because you showed up in someone's prayer line, they laid hands on you and said, You can have it, right?
SPEAKER_00: I remember when God, this is another early story of ministry, God was calling us to, uh, God had called us to serve in youth ministry.
SPEAKER_00: And we served for years in youth ministry.
SPEAKER_00: And thankfully, when we got there, it connected us with the youth pastor who discipled us in a profound way and had a profound impact on our life.
SPEAKER_00: We we received impartation from him that was game changer for us and discipleship.
SPEAKER_00: But after about four years, um, he left.
SPEAKER_00: He took a job somewhere else and he left.
SPEAKER_00: And we were super passionate about youth ministry.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we were like, this is our calling.
SPEAKER_00: Like, this is what God's called us to do.
SPEAKER_00: We'll die here.
SPEAKER_00: We love it.
SPEAKER_00: And when he left, our heart for youth ministry completely turned off.
SPEAKER_00: Because we were in place to serve the next youth pastor and all of that, and it completely turned off.
SPEAKER_00: And I was like concerned that like something was wrong with me.
SPEAKER_00: Like, what is going on?
SPEAKER_00: And so we were seeking the Lord and going, God, what is the deal?
SPEAKER_00: I thought you called us to youth ministry.
SPEAKER_00: And God taught me one of the greatest lessons he's ever taught me in my life.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Son, I never call someone to serve something.
SPEAKER_00: I call people to serve someone.
SPEAKER_00: I called you to serve Philip D's.
SPEAKER_00: Philip D's is gone.
SPEAKER_00: Your assignment is over.
SPEAKER_00: And I began to ask him why I don't understand that.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, youth ministry, I'm called to youth ministry, or I'm called to ministry.
SPEAKER_00: He said, No.
SPEAKER_00: You're called to people.
SPEAKER_00: And this is what he said: there is no impartation in what?
SPEAKER_00: Only in who.
SPEAKER_00: And then he said this, and there is no accountability in what?
SPEAKER_00: Only in who.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm calling you to have impartation and accountability.
SPEAKER_00: And that only comes from attaching you to a person that you are serving, that you are following, that is mentoring you.
SPEAKER_00: All the other stuff is just the fun stuff you get to do, but that's the that's the assignment.
SPEAKER_00: And I never looked at ministry the same again.
SPEAKER_00: So when we moved here, we moved to McKinney.
SPEAKER_00: God told us to move to McKinney.
SPEAKER_00: We didn't had to Google McKinney.
SPEAKER_00: We didn't know exactly what that was going to look like.
SPEAKER_00: We didn't know anybody in McKinney.
SPEAKER_00: And so we moved here, left everything we ever known.
SPEAKER_00: Y'all know the story.
SPEAKER_00: And after the smoke cleared of moving and transitioning and unpacking, I said, okay, we're here now.
SPEAKER_00: What?
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Where is always about who?
SPEAKER_00: I'm not passionate about a geographical location.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I'm passionate about a people.
SPEAKER_00: He said, There's people here that I need you to build relationships with.
SPEAKER_00: And that was going to be the ensuing years, was all about who, God.
SPEAKER_00: Who?
SPEAKER_00: What people?
SPEAKER_00: What relationships are you calling us to build, to invest in?
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because God is a God of generations and nations.
SPEAKER_00: And there was something that He was trying to do in and through us, and in and through the people that He was connecting us with.
SPEAKER_00: And I I believe that that's what the door is going to be.
SPEAKER_00: And we're going to build more of the details of that.
SPEAKER_00: And I have more to share, so I'm actually going to speak again next week.
SPEAKER_00: We'll finish up the door.
SPEAKER_00: And then I'm really excited to jump into a series on relational uh health that I call relational success.
SPEAKER_00: It's my one of my favorite things to talk about.
SPEAKER_00: And so I hope you hear the heart of that today.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, Jamie, you guys can come up just as we close.
SPEAKER_00: Always love to have a moment where we pause and we go, okay, Holy Spirit, what were you saying?
SPEAKER_00: What were you saying in that message, through that message?
SPEAKER_00: And I think the Holy Spirit was ministering different things to all of us in different ways.
SPEAKER_00: That's how beautiful the Holy Spirit is.
SPEAKER_00: He just comes and takes something and it means something different to you, and he speaks something different, he can brings conviction, he brings affirmation.
SPEAKER_00: But I don't know how God I I shared some of my story of what that looked like.
SPEAKER_00: I have so many other stories.
SPEAKER_00: When I when I got ready to get my master's in counseling again, he put me with a little old lady in her counseling school, and I got my master's degree through her little university that she had, and there was a room full of us, and it was a bunch of older people and me.
SPEAKER_00: And for years I sat in her classroom learning about counseling, and it changed my life.
SPEAKER_00: Changed my life.
SPEAKER_00: Little old lady, full, full of the Spirit of God, full of wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: And she was very, very smart and knew what she was talking about.
SPEAKER_00: She was brilliant when it came to counseling and temperament therapy and all the things that I was trained in and got my master's degree in.
SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't what I thought it was gonna look like, y'all.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know where you're at right now, but let's let's stand.
SPEAKER_00: You guys can go ahead.
SPEAKER_00: In that respect.
SPEAKER_00: What God has for you, what he's preparing you for, what he's called you to.
SPEAKER_00: But think about it, he's calling you to someone, not something.
SPEAKER_00: God has called you in this season to someone, not to something.
SPEAKER_00: And in that calling, in that obedience to find that someone and to and to receive impartation from them, you'll be equipped for the something.
SPEAKER_00: You don't chase the something, you chase the someone.
SPEAKER_00: It's the Elijah and Elijah, it's Jesus and the disciples.
SPEAKER_00: It's all throughout Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: God has hidden necessary things inside of people, and you have to find them, and you have to spend time with them, and you have to learn from them, you have to receive impartation from Him, and then you get the treasure of those things.
SPEAKER_00: But more than that, you get the treasure of who that person is.
SPEAKER_00: And just like those stories that I shared, God has stories like that for each one of you.
SPEAKER_00: So, Holy Spirit, we just shut ourselves away in this moment and we ask you to speak to us as we as we worship you, as we sing this next song, as we close out today, just speak and minister, Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Just open your heart right now, turn your heart towards the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: What are you saying to me, Holy Spirit?
SPEAKER_00: How does my life need to look different in light of what I've heard today?
SPEAKER_00: Who whose future and whose destiny depends on me imparting what I have to them?
SPEAKER_00: Am I available?
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I want to be available.
SPEAKER_00: What treasure, what equipment is hidden away in somebody else that's going to prepare me to do what I'm called to do?
SPEAKER_00: Lord, am I willing to go after that?
SPEAKER_00: Am I willing to find that person and schedule time with them?
SPEAKER_00: Sit and ask them questions, learn from them.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Lord.