Firm Foundations: Week 5

Today we are finishing our message series called Firm Foundations. We've been looking at

the ten Commandments in Exodus chapter twenty, and today one of the commandments we're

gonna look at is a commandment that my mom instilled in me. My mom

taught me this commandment. She repeated this commandment and reminded me of this commandment.

And so let's look at Exodus chapter twenty, verse seven. You shall

not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord

will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. Now, my

mom taught me, do not take the Lord's name in vain. My mom

taught me that I'm not allowed to use God's name as a curse word or

a swear word. I wasn't allowed to say things like oh my God,

or I swear to God. I wasn't even allowed. I would get in

trouble if I said gosh or golly, because those were substitutes for God's name,

and that's just as bad as using his name. Anybody else raised like

that, or is it just me? But that's how my mom taught me.

And so today we're gonna look at two of the ten commandments numbers three

and numbers five. We're gonna look at these two commandments together, and these

commandments all have to do with the theme of honor. Honor is our theme

today. We're talking about honor. That commandment we just read is about honoring

God's name, and then the next commandment we're gonna read is about honoring others.

Take a look at verse twelve. We read honor your father and your

mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your

God is giving you. So this message today is all about honor. And

here's how I want you to think about honor with me. I want you

to think about honor as vertical honor and horizontal honor. There's two approaches to

honor. So if we look here, you and I, we are gonna

honor God vertically, we give honor to God and his name, and we're

gonna honor others horizontally, other people, other family members, we're gonna honor

others. So this is honor vertically and honor horizontally. So let's talk first

about honor vertically. Let's talk about honoring God's name. I brought along with

me this three legged stool because I think there are three components or three legs

to honoring God's name. Now, let me ask you, as you look

at this three legged stool, which of these legs is the most important leg.

That's a trick question. Now which leg could I remove and not compromise

the stool? That's another trick question. I want to talk about three components

or three legs to honoring God's names because I think there are three ways that

we might dishonor God's name. And so the first one, the first leg,

is misusing God's name carelessly. That's the first leg, misusing God's name

carelessly. In the NIV translation, Exodus twenty seven says, you shall not

misuse the name of the Lord your God. Now, this is what I

learned from my mom. This is what mom taught me. Do not use

God's name as a swear word or a curse word. Do not say I

swear to God, I'm telling the truth, or whatever. Don't misuse it.

James Chapter five says, do not swear not by heaven or by earth,

or by anything else. All you need to say is a simple yes

or no. Misusing God's name carelessly dishonors God's name. Now the second leg

of this stool. The second component is misrepresenting God's name, misrepresenting his name,

dishonors his name. If you think about the name Christian, the name

Christ is in the name Christian. If you call yourself a Christian, are

you representing Christ? Well. The name Christian was first given to the believers

in the first century in the city of Anne, and it was a pejorative

term. The name Christian in that culture meant little Christ, and so people

would degrade and mock believers by saying, oh, look at these little Christs,

these people who follow Jesus. They think they're like Jesus, little Christ.

And so it was used as a degrading term these Christians. But over

the years Christians took up that name and they carried it with honor. One

Peter chapter four tells us, however, if you suffer as a Christian,

do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name. We

bear the name Christ. So how you speak, how you conduct yourself,

how you behave at work and at school, it represents Jesus. We carry

the name of Jesus. In the Book of Acts, we read about the

apostles being arrested for preaching in the name of Jesus. And they were beaten,

and they were flogged and commanded not to preach in the name of Jesus.

But in Acts chapter five it says that they left their beating, they

left their flogging, celebrating that they were founded worthy of suffering. Dishonor for

the name, for the name of Jesus, and so we represent the greatest

name by carrying the name Christian. At the name of Jesus. There is

power in the name of Jesus. It's his name at which demons run and

flee. In the name of Jesus, the sick are healed in the name

of Jesus. The lost are saved in the name of Jesus. Addiction is

broken. In the name of Jesus, there is hope, and the dead

are raised. That's the name that we bear when we say I'm a Christian,

and so we represent Jesus. So that's the second component of this command.

Now the third component, the third leg of honoring God's name. We

dishonor God's name when we misspeak in God's name, misspeaking in God's name.

Have you ever met anyone who told you God told me to tell you.

Have you ever heard that or the Lord told me to say this to you?

Well, two things. First, I absolutely believe that God speaks to

us. I absolutely believe that God's Holy Spirit communicates to us. He can

give us prophetic messages, words of knowledge, words of wisdom. God's Spirit

does speak to us, and he will share things that we have no way

of knowing without the supernatural gift of God. Now, secondly, I believe

we have to be very wise in how we steward what we hear from the

Lord and how we disclose what we hear from the Lord. And we must

be very discerning about what we receive when somebody shares with us a message that

they've received from God, because we have seen examples of people who misuse God's

name and misspeak on behalf of God, and they will use God's name to

coerce or to manipulate or advance a human agenda, or even abuse other people

by saying God told me. You may have seen people on the Internet who

are making a name for themselves by say saying God told me this event in

the world was gonna happen, but it didn't happen, or those who try

to predict political and government things God told me, but it didn't happen.

Or there are some making a name for themselves by trying to predict or claim

when Jesus returns and the world will end, but it hasn't happened. You

see, when we misspeak for God, it misuses and dishonors his name.

Theologian RT. Kendall writes this, saying the Lord told me misuses the name

of the Lord. It is merely name dropping. No matter how deeply people

feel that they have a word from the Lord, they do not need to

make this claim. Instead, they should let their hearers see for themselves that

this is a word from the Lord. So if I say to you God

told me, or if I say to you the Lord said, thus saith

the Lord, I'm not making God look more impressive. I'm trying to impress

you with my spirituality. I'm trying to impress you with my supernatural gift and

that that's a form of pride. And so that's one reason why here at

Church of the Crossing, we have some guidelines about hearing from God or our

prayer partners, our prayer teams, our leaders are trained that when we hear

from God, we try to speak in humility, and we say, can

I share something with you? This may be from God, or it may

not be. Or as I'm praying for you, this is coming to my

mind. You need to discern if this is from the Lord. We want

to speak in humility, we want to represent his name. Well. Remember,

honor has two parts. There's vertical honor and there's horizontal honor. We

honor God by honoring his name, and then we honor others. That's the

horizontal honor. My mom taught me to address adults with honor when I was

growing up. My mom taught me to say yes sir, yes ma'am.

My mom taught me to call the parents of my friends mister and missus.

My dad's doctor friends were doctor True, doctor Rome, and doctor Martin.

Pastors at church pastor David, pastor Eric. That's how my mom taught me

to speak with honor. We honor God and how we honor others. That

horizontal honor also honors God, especially when we honor our father and our mothers.

Now, this commandment honor your father and your mother is first introduced in

the Old Testament and the Ten Commandments, but it's a command that gets a

lot of attention. In the New Testament, Jesus talks about this commandment.

The apostle Paul writes about this commandment. We read in one of Paul's letters

and Ephesians. It says, children, obey your parents and the Lord,

for this is right. Honor your father and your mother, which is the

first commandment, with a promise, so that may go well with you and

that you may enjoy long life on the earth. So Paul points out here

this, this command has a promise that you will enjoy long life, it

will go well with you. Does this mean that if you honor your parents,

that you're going to live to be one hundred years old? Well,

I hope so. I mean that'd be great. I'd be happy with that,

I think. Though, even more meaningfully, the heart of this command

and this promise is that honor is a pathway to a blessed life, no

matter how long your days are, because honor begets honor, and there are

God's blessings in God's favor on those who show honor and those who receive honor.

I've been thinking a lot about this command honor your father and mother,

now that I've become a parent, Shepherd is now four months old, so

I've been a parent for four months, which means I know everything about parenting.

And so when I'm changing Shepherd's diaper, his smelly, stinky, dirty

diaper, I whisper in his ear. I'm doing this because I love you,

and one day You're going to show me honor and change my diapers when

I'm super old. Just kidding, I don't say that, but it has

crossed my mind. When I turned eighteen years old, I graduated from high

school and I sat down with my dad for breakfast. We sat down at

a diner in my hometown and we were ordered breakfast, and I had just

graduated from high school and I was planning to go to college near my hometown

in Ohio. But then a church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, reached out and

invited me to join the staff team and do youth ministry at the church.

And I decided that I was going to accept that invitation and move to Pennsylvania

and go to college there. And so at this breakfast meeting with my dad,

I shared with him my plans and told him how I had been invited,

told him my plans to move, pack up and go and go to

school there. And my dad later told me that during our conversation, his

mind was catching up to everything I was saying, and he realized halfway through

our discussion that this was not an advice meeting, this was an information meeting.

I was informing him about my decision. I didn't ask for my parents'

advice. I didn't seek their wisdom or their counsel. I didn't honor them,

and that's something I regret. I don't regret the decision I made,

but I regret that I didn't honor my parents. So as we talk about

honoring others, honoring our parents, honoring our grandparents, honoring those that God

has put in our life. Just like there's three legs to this stool,

I want to make three observations about honoring others. And the first thing is

that sometimes honor gets confused with respect, and I want to say that honor

is given, respect is earned. We respect people because they've earned it.

We respect people because they conduct themselves like Christ. They have character, they

have integrity, They've earned our respect. Honor is something that we give to

everyone. It's something that we do to honor the dignity and the value of

everyone, because everyone's created in the image of God. And I understand that

for some of us, honoring a parent in particular can be complicated because there

might be some baggage in the past, there might be some wounds, some

disappointment, there may be even some dysfunction in the family that you've come from.

And someone will ask, well, what about an absent parent, What

about an abusive parent? What about a selfish parent? Do they deserve honor?

No, they may not deserve, but we honor everyone. Honor is

given, respect is earned. There's a scene in the TV show Band of

Brothers. It's a TV show about World War Two soldiers, and it's a

scene that I think of frequently when I think about honor is given, respect

is earned. In this scene, there are two officers that encounter each other,

Officer Winters and Officer Sobl. Now, Officer Winters has been promoted up

to the rank of major. But back when Officer Winters was a lieutenant,

Officer Sobl was his commanding officer, and Sobil mistreated Winters. Sobol treated him

poorly. But now in this scene, Officer Winters outranks him and Captain Soble

when he sees this man he used to be under his command, who is

now his superior officer. Officer Sobel tries to act like he doesn't see him,

tries to walk past him, and he doesn't salute him, and then

Major Winter says something. He says, Captain Soble, we salute the rank,

not the man. Honor is given, respect is earned. Notice what

we read in First Peter Chapter two, Honor everyone, love the brotherhood,

fear God, Honor the Emperor. Do you know what kind of emperor was

ruling Rome when Peter wrote this? Not a very good one, not a

very nice one. It was likely the emperor Domician, who abused Christians,

killed Christians, persecuted Christians. In fact, Domssion labeled himself with the title

Lord and God. Now you tell me, is that somebody that Christians should

respect? Absolutely not, Yet we're commanded to honor the Emperor, honor everyone.

Do we honor those who don't love God? Yes, those who make

fun of our faith or disrespect our faith? Yes, Honor is given,

respect is earned. You can honor someone even if you don't like them.

When we honor fathers and mothers, and we honor grandparents, and we honor

others, we are honoring God. We are embodying the humility and the character

of Jesus. Now at this point, some Christians have a question, and

they say, what if obeying God displeases my parents or displeases my family.

What if my family doesn't love Jesus and they don't approve of my faith.

Well, a couple of things. One, that is a real question,

valid question. Two, I think that is often the exception and not the

rule. You see, we must obey God no matter what other people think

about that, or even if it displeases others. But you don't have to

be a jerk about your faith. You don't have to be arrogant about your

faith. You can still show honor even if it creates displeasure. Jesus even

talks about this in Matthew, chapter and ten. Jesus says, I have

come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother,

a daughter in law against her mother in law. A man's enemies will be

the members of his own household. Now this sounds like a harsh teaching,

but here's I believe the proper interpretation of this scripture is that Jesus is saying

there will be some family members who accept Jesus as Lord, and some family

members who reject Jesus as Lord. Jesus is telling us that the Gospel will

divide families because of their own choices, and those who reject Jesus as Lord

have made believers their enemies. I once met a young man who grew up

in a Muslim family, raised as a Muslim, and as a young adult,

he decided that he didn't want to be Muslim anymore, and he started

exploring Christianity, started learning about Jesus. And then he told his Muslim business

partner and his Muslim parents that he wasn't a Muslim anymore. How do you

think that went for him? Well, his business partner cut him out of

the business and took all of their earnings and all of their capital, leaving

him without resources, without income. So now he's dependent on his parents.

But he just told them that he's not a Muslim, and his parents have

essentially disowned him. They live in the same house, but it's not a

home. Their roommates don't talk to him, they don't acknowledge him, they

don't speak to him. His parents have made him their enemy because he's no

longer a Muslim. But what does Jesus say about treating our enemies? He

says, we love our enemies, we pray for enemies, we bless our

enemies, we honor our enemies. Now you may be hearing these words,

and someone might be thinking, Andrew, just tell me what honor is.

Just tell me what honor is. Define it for me, give me a

list, give me a step by step guide, and I will do what

you say to show honor. And so this week I have prepared, worked

really hard to prepare a step by step guide for you on how you show

honor to others, how you show honor to your parents, to your grandparents.

And sadly, I'm gonna disappoint many of you because I don't have a

step by step guide on how to show honor. It'd be foolish of me

to try and prescribe to you how to show honor to the people in your

life because I don't know your relationships, I don't know your context. So

what I'd like to do is encourage you to ask ask yourself these questions.

Ask yourself, do I honor God by how I treat my parents, How

I speak to my parents, by how I talk about my parents, how

I think about my parents. Only you can answer these questions. And if

you find yourself justifying something or making some excuses like, oh, I'm just

venting about my frustration, maybe there's some work to be done. I have

a friend who is living in a unique season in life. He is right

in the middle of the Sandwich generation. Do you know what the Sandwich generation

is. It's those adults who are in their late forties and their fifties who

are raising children, maybe even grown children. But they've also got parents who

are aging and need a little bit more support, and so they're like in

the sandwich between two generations. My friend Dale is living smack dab in the

middle of the Sandwich generation. On one hand, he's got grown kids,

he's got a granddaughter, he's got a second grandchild on the way now.

On the other hand, his father is aging and has some real health needs

right now. Dale told me that in one day, in one day,

he was in the morning babysitting his granddaughter, and then in the afternoon he

was helping his dad at physical therapy. Like he's living in both extremes.

And if you can relate to that, you know how it can feel a

little bit disorienting. You know how it can be a little bit challenging,

and there's like no man you will like turn to page ten to learn how

to help your parents who need some extra support. And so this is the

second observation I want to make, like the second of the three legged stool.

You will not outgrow honor. You will not outgrow giving honor. You

will not outgrow receiving honor. Even if you have children that you're raising,

you still honor your parents. Even if your parents have passed, you honor

their memory and their legacy. Honor might look different when our parents are older

and need more support and care. Jesus actually argued with some of the religious

leaders about this commandment. In Mark chapter seven, Jesus says, for Moses

said, honor your father and mother, and anyone who curses their father and

mother is to be put to death. But you, that's the Pharisees,

the religious leaders. You say that if anyone declares what might have been used

to help their father and mother is corbin that is devoted to God, then

you no longer let them do anything for their father and mother. Thus you

nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. Okay,

what is Jesus talking about? What is Corbin? Corbin was a Jewish

tradition that if you sold property or you had some money and you wanted to

give this to God's work or God's mission, you would put it in Corbin

like an escrow account. So think of it this way. If you sell

property, or sell some stocks, or you got some earnings, you say,

I want to take this and I want to give it to God's work,

So you might put it in an escrow account, or you might put

it in a charitable fund that can be used for God's work. But then,

what if unexpectedly your parents have some health concerns, or they're ill,

and they've got medical bills, or they need treatment, or they need care.

But all your resources are tied up in this account under Corbin, what

do you do well? The Pharisees of Jesus's day would say, you can't

touch those resources because you dedicated it to God. You can't honor your father

and mother. Honoring our parents can look different when they are older and need

support and need care. I'll give you two examples, two completely different examples.

On one hand, I know a family here in the United States who

has an older, aging relative who's lived in their home with them and they've

been a family. Now that relative has some health needs that require more care,

more attention, and this family's trying to decide, do we we switched

to assisted living? Do we switch to professional care? On the other hand,

I was speaking with one of my friends from our Arabic speaking congregation who

grew up in Egypt, where there's a completely different culture than the United States,

and my friend told me that in Egypt it's common for parents and children

to have their grandparents and their great grandparents all live in the same home and

live out their days because that shows honor. And my friends told me that

if an Egyptian were to put their parent or grandparent in assisted living or into

professional care, they would be shamed in their community. It's incredibly dishonoring to

their family. And so which one is right, Well, it's not always

black and white. It depends on the context, depends on the family,

depends on the culture. I personally know one family who helped one of their

older relatives and they lived out their days in their home and in their family.

At the same time, another older relative needed professional care and they worked

with a treatment place, professional care for them. They did both because that's

what was best for those relationships. If you're living in the Sandwich generation and

you're feeling this pressure, I want to encourage you today that God is with

you. There is grace for you. If you feel like, where's the

manual, where's the how to instructions? I want to tell you, don't

feel shame, don't feel guilt, don't give into the pressures and expectations that

other people put on you. You may not have a manual, but you've

got God with you. You've got the spirit of God guiding you, and

He's gonna help you. And so that's why I want to encourage you to

ask yourself this question as you honor your parents, ask yourself, am I

doing the best I can with what I have? Are you doing your best

or are you just doing the minimum? Are you doing the best you can

or are you just doing enough to satisfy your conscience or or just the minimum?

Are you doing the best you can with your resources, the best you

can to show love, the best you can to support. Are you praying

with and loving showing the love of God to your family, to those that

God's called you to honor. In Exodus chapter twenty, God gives us the

Ten Commandments. He lays down the instructions for following him and obeying him.

And there's one thing that God says in Exodus chapter twenty that is really unusual.

He says something that's puzzled me, and it's many scholars have debated what

God is talking about here. In verse four, he says, you must

not make for yourself an idol of any kind, or an image of anything

in the heavens or on the earth, or in the sea. You must

not bow down to them or worship them for either lords. Your God am

a jealous god, and will not tolerate your affection for any other gods.

Lay. Now this is the part that's puzzling. I lay the sins of

the parents upon their children. The entire family is affected, even children in

the third and fourth generations of those who reject me. Now, this is

the part that's puzzling. As I read this, I wonder why did God

say this? Why did God say that children will suffer the consequences of their

parents. Why did he include this? And here's the conclusion that I reached.

Now, I haven't read this in any Bible commentaries or other scholars.

So I could be wrong, but I wonder if God is warning families about

generational sins and generational curses. I wonder if God is warning them that when

you bring an idol into your home, you're inviting demonic forces into your home.

You're inviting evil spirits into your home. And we know that demons and

evil spirits can torment and oppress families for generations. Now, you probably don't

have a little gold statue in your an idol in your home that you pray

to. But God says he will not tolerate your affection for any other gods.

What do you give your affection to? There are modern day idols in

this world, things that we love more than God. Sometimes things that we

worship more than God. Sometimes those modern day idols will influence our children and

our grandchildren. What you honor will create generational curses or generational blessings. And

you may be young, you may be single, you may be in college,

and you don't you can't even think about having children or a family.

I want to tell you the decisions that you make now will produce generational curses

or generational blessings. I've seen this in my family. Both Lauren and I

we come from parents. Both of our parents are divorced, and their parents

are divorced multiple generations. We see examples where addiction issues and a parent get

transferred to a child. I mean, men learn from their fathers how to

mistreat and abuse women. I've seen daughters learn from their mothers how to manipulate

and take advantage of men. We see the generational consequences. I have a

very good friend who grew up in a home that did not love Jesus.

He's a Christian now, but growing up his parents his family did not love

Jesus, and sadly, he was introduced to pornography as a little boy,

and he struggled with that his whole life until he came to faith in Jesus.

Where do you think he was introduced to that sin his father? His

father approved of that sin in their home. I met a young woman who

struggled with night terrors and sleep paralysis. She would often wake up in the

middle of the night. She couldn't cry out, she couldn't move, and

she feel this demonic presence sitting over her. And she wanted to be free

of this and so I asked her all the standard questions about inviting evil.

Do you use Ouiji boards, no, Tara card's, no horoscopes, no

palm reading, no, no, no. And then she told me that

her dad often suffered the same conditions, sleep paralysis and night terrors. And

I said, tell me more about your dad and his family. And then

I learned that her father's mother was a fortune teller and dark things like that,

evil things like that, invite sin and evil, and we see how

it torments generation after generation. Thankfully, that young woman renounced those generational sins

in the name of Jesus, and she was free of those night terrors.

And so this is the third observation. If we're talking about three legs of

a stool, the third observation is that your children will honor what you honor.

Your children will honor what you honor. If you value integrity, if

you value character and honesty and humility, your children are going to learn those

qualities. Your children will value what you value. They will honor what you

honor. A friend to mine is raising a teenage son, and recently,

this teenage boy has started working and earning a little bit of money for himself

and One day after church, the family was driving away from the church and

the teenage boy said, wait, stop, we have to go back to

the church building. And a little bit puzzled, his parents asked why,

and he explained that he still had his tithe offering that he wanted to give

before they left the church. And so they turned around and came back in

and he put his gift in the in the lock box in the back.

Your children will honor what you honor. Now, I understand that you may

be hearing this, and there might be something going on inside of you because

you've got baggage from your family of origin. There's some stuff in the past.

There's some junk in the past. There might be some dysfunction, there

might be a lot of disappointment. There might be some destructive patterns. And

you've promised yourself that you're not gonna commit the sins of your father. You're

not gonna go down the same path that your mom went down. And I've

heard many Christians who say I'm gonna break the cycle, and I understand what

they're saying, but I think God wants to do something deeper than just break

the cycle. I believe God wants to heal the wound. He wants to

bring healing to the wound. He wants to heal the heart. He wants

to heal the disappointment. He wants to heal the regret. He wants to

heal that baggage and that trauma. In Exodus twenty, he says that the

sins of the parents will visit to the third and fourth generation. But then

in verse six he says, I lavish unfailing love for a thousand generations on

those who love me and obey my commands. God's love heals the hurt of

the past. God's love heals the hurt in the family of origin. God's

love transforms, and God's love fixes what was broken. And so here's what

I want to say. Here's what I want to tell you. If you're

feeling this tension, if you're feeling this stuff from the past, the family

of origin coming back up, Here's what I want to tell you today.

Speak the name of Jesus over your past. Speak the name of Jesus over

your pain. Honor the name of Jesus, because at the name of Jesus,

lives are changed, stories are rewritten. Will you speak the name of

Jesus over your family, over your children, over your grandchildren, because it

is the name that changes family trajectories. It's the name that changes what has

been broken and corrupted by sin. Philippians two says that God exalted Jesus to

the highest place and gave him the name that is above what above every name

that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow in heaven and on

earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Is he the Lord of your life? Is he the Lord of your

heart? Is He the Lord of your home? Have you honored the name

of Jesus in your life? There's healing in the name of Jesus. And

so I want to end by telling you just a little story about my family

of origin. When I look at my family of origin, I'm kind of

a unique part of my family. And I'm talking about like my immediate family,

my brothers and sisters, and my parents, my grandparents, And as

far as I know, there's nobody in my immediate family that's in vocational pastoral

ministry like I am. I've got some relatives, but like my family of

origin, there's nobody else doing what I'm doing. I didn't really follow the

traditional or expected path in my family of origin. You see, my mom

is an accountant and successful businesswoman. My dad's a surgeon. I didn't go

into medicine. I don't like blood. I don't want to be around blood.

I've got a grandfather who is in the military, served honorably in the

military. I know I'm too soft to make it through boot camp. I've

got another grandfather who was successful entrepreneur, businessman. He negotiated millions and millions

of business dollars in business deals. Great negotiator. I am not a good

negotiator. The young guy that's cutting my grass this spring was gonna charge me

thirty dollars and I ended up paying him thirty five just because I felt bad,

like I don't negotiate, and so being a pastor. It doesn't seem

like a natural trajectory from my family of origin until I learned about my maternal

grandmother named Veda. And I've talked about her before. I didn't know her

well because I was just barely one years old when she passed away. But

I've learned about her remotely from a distance. You see, my grandmother was

a disciple maker, and an evangelist. She studied the Bible. She traveled

the country speaking at women's Christian Women's Connection events. She would analyze the Bible.

I've read her sermon transcripts typed out on a typewriter, her testimonies,

her stories. I've read through her Bible and seen her notes. She boldly

stood in front of crowds of hundreds of people, proclaiming the Gospel, telling

people about Jesus. And as I read through her transcripts, I saw that

she would often use stories to talk about Jesus. She even used props on

stage to talk about Jesus. Does that sound familiar? She would give altar

calls and invitations to faith, and many, many people came to know Jesus

because of her ministry. And I realized, like, even though I didn't

know her, I've got some things in common with her. Her spirituality is

in my DNA. Her influence is in my life because she honored Jesus.

The generations that come after you will learn from you. Your influence, your

witness, your testimony, your honor will influence those to come. And so

here's what we're going to do. Now. Now we're going to transition into

an opportunity to receive anointing because I believe God wants to release more of his

love and more of his presence into many here and so first I want to

invite all of us to stand together, and as we're standing, if you're

a prayer partner, please come forward. You can get ready here in the

front. And I want to extend two invitations to anointing. And if you'd

like to receive anointing, just come down this center aisle and share will help

direct you to a prayer partner. First, I want to invite moms,

grandmas, step moms, all women who have a desire to be used by

Jesus for his glory. If you are a woman who loves Jesus, who

wants more of Jesus, who wants to see Jesus multiply in your life,

I want to invite you to come forward and receive anointing and receive more of

His love. We want to pray over you. And in addition to that,

I want to extend this invitation to everyone who needs more of God's love

and more of God's hope. If you're hurting, if you need a miracle,

if you feel broken, if you've got a physical pain or illness,

we'd love to pray for healing for that. So everyone's invited. Let me

pray for us to open this moment, and then you're invited to come forward

as you're letting. Father, God, thank you for your grace and thank

you for your presence. God, thank you that we have a hope in

Jesus. And so God, I pray for every woman here that you would

release more of your spirit into their lives, that you would multiply their influence

for the Kingdom, that you would multiply their influence of the Gospel. And

God, I pray for every single person who wants to honor you, that

wants to glorify you, that more of your power would embolden them to walk

in obedience to You. And I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.