Trust Fall

I'm telling you that man's got talent.

He was over at the house last Thursday and he was like, hey, man, you want to play some music?

I said, let's go.

Went back to my office, I handed him my guitar and he played that and I said, all right, I have a favor.

He said, what's that?

I need you to play that Sunday.

And I kid you not, it is exactly what my message has been about, Because the devil has been out to destroy the relationship between kids and fathers since the beginning of time, when Adam and Eve walked through the garden.

Satan's first mandate was to destroy the relationship between God and them, because if he can distort our view of God, he can distort our vision of ourselves and how we're supposed to treat each other.

So he told me about that song and I said man, please and they fill up their bottles full Please sing that for me Sunday, because God had been laying it on my heart and no kidding.

So, all right, I think it was Pastor Aaron.

I was talking to your message you did about identity crisis.

I told him I was going to do a message about that and then you did it, and then I started getting trust on my heart.

You know I go trust in God.

And then you said can you trust God?

Can God trust you?

So I was like Lord, this is addition, not subtraction.

So God gave me this message and it's literally almost both of those wrapped into one and I'm like, well, I mean, maybe they didn't get it the first two times around, so God's going to let you have it again today.

Y'all should listen better.

You don't have to listen to me.

It's good to be in the house of the Lord on such a great day of Father's Day.

Man, fathers are so important in our lives and the thing is, a lot of people play the role of a father because some people don't have daddies and you are the unsung heroes that never get talked about.

So thank you for your service as well.

So he played this song and man, it just like that that part where it's like he was playing.

I'm like, okay, it's about a father and a son, and then he started talking about him and God, I'm like, oh my God, that's me.

You know, I started doing the whole.

Oh my God, I was like, and I was like trying to sit in front.

We just got doing some work in the house and I'm trying to like be a man in front of him because we just did some man work and I'm like I can't let him see me cry to his song that he wrote about his sons.

And then it's between him and God and I'm like, oh, allergies are terrible today, but there's something about a relationship and a bond between a father and a child.

There is a special kind of trust that is infused in this relationship.

When my daddy told me he was going to do something, it don't matter if it was Goliath standing in his way, he was going to make it to where he said he was going to be, it didn't matter.

And see, that was back then when you shook hands and it meant something.

Is that too tough for a Father's Day?

Sorry, let me back it up and ease in.

We have got to get to where our word means something again, because then we try to talk about Jesus being the word and people get confused because words mean nothing anymore.

So why should they believe in Jesus if the word doesn't mean anything, fathers, it starts with us.

There's a special trust and, as I prepared for this service, I'm like Lord, because you can ask Pastor Aaron, I sent, sent.

I don't know if it was two to three emails saying wait, never mind.

Oh, wait, no, no, okay, I worked it out.

Okay, never mind.

I could not get.

I was like Lord, what are you doing?

You said was it last Sunday?

You said that.

You said I don't know what I'm preaching, or was it maybe the Sunday before?

And it's like God, what are you doing?

He's like I'm just seeing if you trust me.

And no joke, I just now realized that, like on this stage right now, I just realized God was testing to see if I trusted him While preparing a message.

Talking about trust, god has got a sense of humor.

I mean, oh man, so trust fall kept coming on.

Anybody ever heard of the exercises?

I know you've been a part of some big organizations.

I don't know if they ever did this or if it got too brutal because some people would have grudges and would move on purpose like nope, oh man, you trusted me, that's good, but the trust fall kept bouncing around in my head and and I was like you know, god, and I started thinking about my person.

You know, I can only preach from me.

I can't preach from you.

I can't preach from you and you can't tell other people my testimony you can, but it doesn't have the same effect when it's your story.

And I started saying you know God, what do I have problems trusting?

Like, where is our relationship in that disconnect?

I got this little off the Internet back here and, yeah, somebody's gonna move, I know it.

That's too high for me.

I need about a.

You're not that high and I'll jump.

I need to really know the people well.

And one of the easiest prayers that we pray and we say it in church all the time.

If you've been in church for any extended period of time, you know the prayer.

God, I trust you.

It is one of the most difficult prayers to live out.

After you pray it.

It's hard.

God, I trust you.

Wherever you lead me, I will follow.

And God's like okay, let's go.

And you're like wait, where are you going?

I thought you trusted me.

Just move your feet.

Where I go, daddy, where are we going?

Lord, I trust you.

Where are we going?

Oh man, it's the easiest but the hardest.

And it's like salvation.

Like salvation is one of the easiest things ever.

God forgive me.

Jesus, I believe that you are God's son, that you died on the cross for our sins.

I believe and trust in you.

And then the devil knocks on the door the next day asking if you can come out and play.

And then we go no, my daddy said I can't, and that's on a good day.

And then on the other days we'll wait until daddy falls asleep and then sneak out the window.

Some of y'all are laughing because y'all lived this out.

I didn't do that, stolen that out there.

I was too scared of my dad.

I did remember sneaking to the, just a small confession.

He's not here so I can say it.

I did remember one time my parents' rules when I was younger was they didn't want me to go see a movie unless they saw it first.

They didn't trust the ratings.

You really can't still trust them a day.

There's all kinds of stuff in there that we don't want our kids to see.

So he wanted to see it first.

So their rules were and really it was.

One of my dad's rules was you can't go to the movies.

Some of you that may be foreign to you, some of you of you are like yep, that was the rules back then.

Couldn't go to movies, couldn't go to dances.

I had to plead and cry for my pastor leader at my house to let me go to my senior prom, and I ended up actually getting to go to my junior prom because I the girl that asked me to go.

I asked her to ask my dad.

I know the system.

Some of y'all have been there.

So this morning I want to journey through the scripture and I'm going to do some very basic scripture reading, because here's what I know Things sometimes in life get so complicated and we try to do the same thing to the Word of God and our relationships in life can get so complicated.

We try to do the same thing to the word of God and our relationships in life can get so complicated.

We try to do the same thing between us and God.

It don't have to be that way.

It does not have to be that way.

So let's slow down and take a take a little, a little walk through some of the scriptures.

I'm going to do some basic stuff that maybe you haven't heard since grade school, that back there in Pastor D's class, how she's teaching them.

Maybe it's some scripture that you haven't heard in a while, because it's like the small things.

The reason the Bible says to go back and repeat your first fruits is because sometimes we end up getting so smart and so secure in our relationship and our salvation that we forget to be saved.

I'm gonna go back to my notes, sorry.

We want these words on our lips God, I trust you, even if I fall, even if I fail, and there's this disconnect.

We stop trusting when God fails.

The problem is, god doesn't fail and we start giving definition to God by man's failures.

We start saying, oh God, you didn't come through over here, but yet it was.

Maybe somebody else who wasn't trusting and leaning on God and doing what they were supposed to do.

Has anyone?

Let's do a test, let's do a blind test.

I don't know really what that means, but has anyone in here ever had God fail them?

How many times have we failed God?

Kind of a one-way street on that one.

So we start defying God by our man mess-ups.

God, I trust you Because he never fails.

We stop trusting him.

We start labeling it with things that don't even make sense and someone we trusted maybe failed us, and we start defying God by the downfall of man, and this is hilarious to me.

Okay, when Tristan was born, I held that little alien head-looking baby, and it doesn't matter how ugly your baby actually is.

You'll think it's beautiful.

I've seen some of y'all's babies.

I'm just kidding.

I'm just kidding Pastor Aaron, I'm just kidding.

I'm just kidding he's going to mute me.

Turn off the camera, game over, you'll really see who's in charge.

No, so I held my child.

Okay, we've all done this.

If you've ever had a child, if you're celebrating Father's Day, you're the father of the house.

You've held a child at some point.

And so I held my son and I could not stop smiling Like it was a joy and an immediate connection.

My dad told me before he was born.

He said listen.

I said, do you have any wisdom for me?

I asked that question.

I've learned a long time ago that I am not the wisest, I'm not the smartest, I'm not the greatest.

I need wisdom, counsel and good people around me to lift me up and make me stronger.

And I said, dad, my dad is one of those.

He's a powerhouse man.

He knows how to pray.

When he prays, things happen.

I have learned so much in my personal walk and in my ministry from him.

We are all reflections of our parents, whether you like it or not.

So, parents, it's your fault.

And so I held him in my arms and I said, dad, you know what can I expect from being a new parent, a new father?

And he said it will be this immediate love that you cannot understand.

And he said it will be this immediate love that you cannot understand.

And I never, up until the time that he was placed in my arms.

I did not understand this until he was placed in my arms and I immediately knew what he was talking about.

And I still can't explain it to you, because now it seems that the older my son gets, the further his mouth and brain are getting separated from each other, and the older he gets, the more mature he thinks he is and smarter than everybody else.

And now I want to punch him.

Happy Father's Day.

If you've been a parent, you can understand when they're coming into a teenage year.

This is my first teenager.

I don't know what to do.

Any wisdom you have, please write it down and give it to me at the church.

I'm accepting all and any.

Thank you, but such is the path of parenthood.

Now put yourself in God's position.

Imagine the teenager years of your children.

You have some older parents in here.

Maybe you even have grandkids now.

And now you're laughing because ha, that's you Nope, take them home, sorry.

Now you can send them home with somebody else and it's not on.

You Got a little shout, praise, dance right there.

But now put ourselves in God's position and we get so furious and mad at God.

I've been there.

Anybody else been mad at God before?

For the three of us that are honest the rest of y'all we're going to have prayer after church.

I've been mad at God before Because I prayed a certain thing.

I thought something was supposed to come out, certain thing.

I thought something was supposed to come out the way that I thought it was supposed to come out.

And if you've ever experienced God before, you know usually it's not the way you think it's going to look.

It usually doesn't come out all nice and pretty with the bow wrapped up, and usually it's not the people around you that change, it's you that changes.

But such is parenthood.

I cannot get through my son's head that my wife and I are not stupid.

Can we maybe agree that sometimes God is trying to do the same to us?

That's too hard to.

I love y'all.

I love y'all.

I want you to really pay attention to this first point, because I feel like that this will change, no matter what your situation is at home, no matter if you're a single parent, if you're the grandparents raising your kids or if it's just a village and you got the village idiot running around.

I want you to pay attention to this point.

What you're doing matters.

I want you to pay attention to this point.

What you're doing matters, you matter.

And the reason I wanted to kind of drive this in for a second is because I feel that we get in these.

It's very easy.

It's easy in the church house, especially if you volunteer or you're part of staff in the church.

You come and do your job and sometimes you can be so busy you forget to take in what God's trying to pour into you.

And sometimes we can get so caught up in being a parent and we think we're a good parent.

How do you know you've never parented yourself?

If you're a great spouse, how do you know You've never been married to yourself before?

If you're a great pastor, how do you know You've never been married to yourself before You're a great pastor?

How do you know You've never pastored yourself?

So we have to be vulnerable to other people's view on us.

I heard something the other day.

I was listening to a podcast.

I love listening to other preachers and he said and this is all around Father's Day, mother's Day, christmas, whatever you want to do with all the family you don't like, and Thanksgiving and things like that.

What is it like being you on the other side of me?

What is it like in your chair, to see your husband as the way he treats you?

What is it like?

And this kind of broke my heart, because sometimes I'm not very patient.

Some would call it anger issues.

I don't know, but sometimes as a parent, I snap because he's been wearing on my nerve until they're raw, bare and broken.

Such is the path of parenting.

Such is the path of parenting.

And I'm like God.

What can I do to change me?

How does my son see my parenting?

That's tough, because I parent like my parents parented, and so for me to change what has been done to me my entire life to fit the atmosphere that's in my house, it's hard to do.

It's hard for me to change something that's always been.

We get that in the church house.

We want the same songs, we want the same pews.

We don't want nobody new coming to our church.

Now, we're not like that here, but I'm just saying.

It's easy to fall into that gap.

It's easy to become that way and we get in this rut and God's trying to make trenches where we can really fight.

But what happens is, especially when you are the parent, whatever the situation looks like, you forget to just take a deep breath and just lay back on God for a second and just get your rest.

We were talking the other day like she drives a little bit further now to work, since we live over here in Longview, and she was like I just don't have time to do everything I want to do in the day.

It's tough.

You got to work, you got to eat, you got to have a home, you got to have a vehicle to get from A to B.

Then you have to come home and Deal with your husband, deal with your child.

By the time you're done, you're done.

Nobody better come in there.

I'm not saying she's that way.

I'm just saying that that's a blanketed baby.

I'm not saying she's that way.

Hold on, hold on, all right, let's go.

I'm going to get back to my notes, all right.

But we need to remember to sometimes stop, pause and take a deep breath and just take in what God is trying to pour into us your heavenly father's chest, and just know that you are not forgotten, that the work you are doing matters, because you know what One of the most thankless jobs is being a parent.

But one of the most rewarding jobs is being a parent, and one day they're going to have little kids that are just like them.

It's a waiting game.

I know one day it's going to happen and I'm going to be like, hey, you remember when you used to talk to me like that All right time to go back to your house.

Here's all this candy.

I'm sorry, I'm waiting y'all.

I don't care about him being a kid, I'm ready for him to have some, and not even because, being a grandparent, I just want to.

Yes, lord.

So I told you I was going to take it to an easy verse.

It's John 3, 16.

Have you heard this?

If you've been in church for any amount of time, or if it's your first time, you're an online family and you've never experienced God.

This is why Jesus came.

Verse 16, it says for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

That right there gets me excited because that levels the playing field for everybody.

And I've got some names I'm going to mention to you because, listen, names mean something.

When you get married, usually one person takes the other person's name or your hyphenate or whatever you do, however progressive you are, but a name means something.

If you look up, like when we were like sometimes I don't know if she's getting baby fever or what happens, but it comes in waves where she'll talk about it and then it's like nope, so I don't know.

But sometimes we'll look up baby names and we'll look up the definition because it's important what something means.

A name means something.

And so I have some names.

I have 16 names.

I'm going to land on the last one, number 16.

But there's a reason I'm doing this, so I'm going to go through them.

I don't have them up here because I don't want you to know if I pronounced them wrong or not.

El Shaddai means Lord, god Almighty.

El Elyon, the Most High God, adonai, lord or Master Yahweh we probably all have heard Yahweh at some point.

We know that one.

It means Lord.

Yahweh has been interpreted by some scholars as he who makes that which has been made.

I think that's kind of cool or brings into existence whatever exists.

Jehovah Nisi, the Lord, my banner, victory.

He fights for us.

Jehovah Ra, the Lord, my shepherd.

Jehovah Rafa, the Lord that heals.

Jehovah Shema, the Lord, is there.

Jehovah Mekadishkim, the Lord, who sanctifies you.

El Olam, the everlasting God.

Elohim means God Quanah, jealous he is a jealous God.

Jehovah Jireh, the Lord, will provide.

Jehovah Shalom, the Lord is peace.

Jehovah Sabbat, the Lord of hosts.

Number 16 is Abba, abba, father.

You know when I looked up these names and God has in the Bible that we call him Father.

That means something Because it's no longer just a distance, a long distance relationship.

It's personal, and the more I learn about God, the more I realize I don't know God and the level that is available to us.

The more I read the word, the more I understand it.

I don't understand.

The deeper I go in a relationship with God, the more I realize that the well is so deep.

Let me ask you this this is a little personal, I don't want you to raise your hands, but how many of you have stopped digging from the well, you stopped drawing up from the well of God and your relationship is a Sunday morning service, and can I tell you today that the Father is not wanting you to just show up on Sundays, but he's wanting you to meet with him every day.

If we just do the basic relationship situation of me and my wife, if I talk to her only once a week, we would not be close.

There's a reason he calls himself Father because he wants us to be close to him.

He wants that relationship.

The more I learn, the less I know.

And here's some characteristics of God, and there's a reason I'm building up to this Omniscient, having infinite awareness, understanding and insight.

Omnipotent, having unlimited power.

Able to do anything.

Omnipresent.

I like this one Widely and constantly encountered, common or widespread everywhere, all the time, like a good neighbor, our God is there and like a good parent, he is all up in your business.

He cares that much for you and he cares that much for me.

I don't know why.

I can't explain it.

I can't describe it to you.

When I held my son, I could not explain it.

I could not really describe it except cry.

He knows exactly what you've done and he knows exactly what you will do, and yet he still pursues you and he still sent his son for you and yet he still loves you.

Why?

Because I'm going to say this twice because I want you to really understand this the depths of your sins do not limit the effectiveness of his salvation.

I'll say it one more time.

Write it down if you need to.

The depths of your sins do not limit the effectiveness of his salvation.

If you can't do so much to earn into God's love, you cannot do so much bad to make him stop loving you.

He loves you that much.

I'll compare it again.

I have tore up my parents' life with drug addiction and alcoholism and everything else.

I destroyed and left a wake of bodies in my path to the lowest of the lows.

When I was addicted to meth, I was seriously destroyed their marriage because they were praying for me.

They didn't know how to pray for me, they didn't know what I was on, but I would disappear for days and I left a wake of bodies in my destruction.

And yet God still pursued me.

He loves you that much If you're watching online.

He loves you that much that he will take what you've done and turn it into something beautiful, that he can take all the nastiness in your life and he can clean you up and wash you in his blood and make you as clean as snow, and there is nothing the devil can do, can take that away from you, because God, our Father, loves you that much and I couldn't understand this unconditional love until I held my own child.

There's nothing like it, josh.

Y'all better be ready, man, when y'all hold yours you're gonna cry like a baby, and it's gonna be.

I'm gonna make fun of you.

Cry like a baby, and it's going to be.

I'm going to make fun of you.

I'll probably be crying, see, I told you, but if God, if God didn't, if God could care for me, if God could restore my life above and beyond where I was headed anyways, god can do that for you.

The Bible and the Word of God and the Father and Jesus Christ died for us to call us to a place of repentance, not to stay the same, to turn from our wicked ways, and all these things in names of God, all these characteristics that he is.

He still loves me.

He still loves you, loves me.

He still loves you, and not only he still, he pursues you.

See, to me that doesn't add up, but when I think about my relationship with my son, he can irritate me and find the nerve and push that button over and over again, but at the end of the day I still love and care for him in a way that I cannot explain and it kind of makes me mad because it doesn't make sense.

Like you can have somebody outside of your home tick you off, make you upset and you can write them off.

And people try to do it with their children and I've seen it with parents and kids.

You know they get in arguments, you know family blowups, but there's always that love that is still there.

And if God cares the God of the universe listen y'all.

We're one little planet, the God of the universe that hung the stars and the moon and created everything to coexist in the way that it does here.

He cares that much for each individual person.

That blows my mind.

Josh, come up here.

So I just want to do a little demonstration for you, because the devil, like I said at the beginning, has been trying since the beginning of time Let me do it right here, beginning of time to break the trust between us and God, to get it to where you get focused on your stuff and you forget that God is bigger than that.

Stand up on the chair.

Yeah, get up is bigger than that.

Stand up on the chair.

Yeah, get up, so you might can say that he maybe is about the biggest and I'm about the smallest in the church.

His daddy may be a little bit bigger, but turn around, turn that way Careful.

Now I want to display this to you, not this.

Hey guys, this is us and this is God.

Now, josh, do you trust me?

Yes, that didn't sound too confident.

Do you trust me?

Yeah, that didn't sound too confident.

Do you trust me?

Yeah, you've actually said it multiple times to me since we've known each other.

Do you trust me?

We'll get there.

Now, if you trust me, you trust me with it.

For sure you trust me.

All right, fall back, come on.

You said did he not?

Did everyone hear that?

He said that he trusted me.

Everyone heard you.

You liar, fall back, man.

Okay, you can get down now.

But everyone heard him right.

He said he trusted me.

It was so hard for him to live it out.

I don't know if it was the height or if it was my size or his, but there's something about saying something and really believing it.

We've had this conversation multiple times.

He said man, I trust you, I trust you, I trust you.

That's why I chose him to come up here because he said I trust you, I trust you, I trust you.

And every single day, if you believe Jesus is your savior, you say to him I trust you, I trust you, I trust you.

And then he says, okay, fall and trust you.

And then he says, okay, fall.

And you say, wait, hold on.

I only showed you what you've already been doing.

I just put up here on the stage and display what you do in your heart every day, what we do in our heart every day.

God, I trust you, I trust you, I trust you.

Then fall.

You may be fallen, so something like the darts of the enemy goes past you instead of hits you.

You don't know what you're ducking and missing.

When you fall into his arms, you don't have a clue what he's protecting you from.

All you're worried about is the fall.

Do you trust me?

Do you trust me?

And, like I said, the devil's been working on these household things since the beginning of time.

Have you noticed that the devil didn't come into the picture to tempt to break away that relationship until it was man and woman?

He didn't come when it was just a man.

He didn't come when it was just a woman.

He waited until there was a union underneath God to try to break it up.

Because if he knew, if he could just break that relationship, and you see what happened to their kids, it began to break and break and break.

God has designed things to be the way they are supposed to be, no matter what culture says.

I'm not here, I'm not going to bash anybody Because, like I said a minute ago, jesus came for all.

And you know, I was studying one day and I didn't realize this.

But Jesus, actually the bloodline from David was actually through Joseph, his father, that Joseph, his father.

There wasn't his father.

And I was like, well, how does that make sense?

God did something and through that bloodline, see back in the day, even if somebody was not their child, when they were in their household, it was as if they were the father, was the father of that child, no matter what.

It was their child.

And I was like this makes so much sense why Jesus was so trying to bombard that wall between Jew and Gentile.

He understood not belonging somewhere.

He understood being the stepbrother I mean, that's what he was or the half-brother.

He wasn't full blood, but you see, the devil.

I think pastor said this before but the devil's not done anything new.

He's doing the same stuff today that he started doing back then.

He thinks he's so sly and slick, but we see him.

Don't let the devil do the same junk he's been doing up in your house.

Cast him out, in the name of jesus.

We just sang a song a minute ago about the authority that we get from the name of j.

You better start casting things out, anointing things.

Slick that house up until God restores it.

I'm telling you there is power in the name of Jesus and we need to, as the church, start acting like there is power to heal the brokenness, to restore the broken homes.

And I'm telling you, y'all, when we start believing what we pray, and we start believing what we pray and we start believing what the word of God says, the gates of hell will not prevail.

If the devil can distract and disrupt, he can dismantle and he can divide the house of God.

If the enemy can get your mind confused about who God is and take that father out of your life, then he can distort the definition of the relationship that was meant between us and God Child and father and there becomes this disconnect not only of who God is and we get confused.

And now whoever wants to claim God can say, oh, I want to thank God today, and they don't have a clue who God is.

They'll do it on TV and then, once again, somebody else distorts the view of who God really is.

Then we get confused on who we are and then we start to lose that whose we are, and it's hard to really understand something if you don't have the correct definition built in truth the Word of God.

That matches up perfectly with what Pastor Jim preached about the identity crisis, because we have this massive outbreak of identity crisis.

According to the US Census Bureau, in 2018, 19.5 million children more than one in four live without a father in the home, and I really want you to see this for what it is.

This is not some kind of bashing session.

This is not something to say oh, if you have a house like this, god loves you and God can be in something, no matter what somebody else took a path to do, but I want to challenge you to bring the change that we want to see.

This is not a shame fest.

This is a situation that is obviously 19.5 million children don't have fathers in the house.

This is serious, but this is a challenge to the men that are around.

Take someone under your wing B show them who God the Father really is by your actions and caring for them.

Tristan, when he was very small, I wasn't around.

I was drinking meth Anything I could get my hands on, I was out doing it, and so my dad and other men, like my cousin being one of them.

Hopefully, one day y'all get to meet him.

He lives up in Oklahoma.

They ended up stepping in when I was never there and they were a father figure to him, and that breaks my heart.

Some of the most important years of his life I wasn't a part of, because I was too stupid to realize that a father is one of the most important things in the house.

But let this be an opportunity for us men that we see.

Keep your eyes open and let's just not be focused on our home.

Be vigilant in the people around you to be open up and say what can I do today to serve these people?

We need to shine the light in these opportunities.

You men be a father to someone.

There's no reason why we as men can't help others and lead them in our communities in the way of Christ.

There's no reason we can't.

And this in return, will show them who God the Father is.

This will help restore the true definition of our heavenly Father.

So what is the Father?

While we're at church, we'll look at some scriptures, that's okay.

2 Corinthians, 6.18 says and I will be a father to you and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.

Once again, this God of creation says that he will be my father.

If I don't have one, he will be one.

Proverbs 4, 11 through 12.

It says I will guide you in the way of wisdom and I will lead you in the upright paths when you walk your steps, and your steps will not be hampered, and when you run you will not stumble.

If you've ever had a child tr Tristan, when he was little he got brave enough to not have the training wheels on, and he may have been a little more brave than he should have been.

But if my boy says he's going to do it without you know, all right, where's the risk?

We're going to take those things off.

He fell and scraped his knee so many times, but he was not going to stop.

Daddy was always there to help him out.

Then we look to Jesus.

How Jesus describes how God views taking care of us.

Then Jesus said to his disciples therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or what about your body, what you will wear.

23, for life is more than food and the body more than clothes.

Consider the ravens.

They do not sow or reap, they have no stool, room or barn, yet God feeds them.

And how much more valuable are you than birds?

Can I tell you something?

In the Jewish tradition and the law, ravens are the dirtiest of the dirtiest in the bird.

They view them as nasty and detestable.

And if God takes care of them, how much more will he take care of us?

25, who of you, by worrying, can add a single hour to your life?

Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?

Verse 27,.

Consider how the wildflowers grow.

They do not labor or spin.

Yet I tell you, not even Solomon, in all of his splendor, was dressed like one of these.

If that is how God clothes, the grass of the field which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire.

How much more will he clothe you?

You have little faith.

29.

And do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink.

Do not worry about it, for the pagan world runs after such things, and your Father knows that you need them.

But seek his kingdom and these things will be given to you as well.

I've read these scriptures thousands of times and I've never, I never knew ravens were disgusting.

I thought it was another bird.

I never understood the depths and it just the way scripture comes alive to me.

It's so amazing, like I'll be reading something and it's like God's just like nugget and I'm like whoa Dude.

God cares enough when I'm studying that he drops something just for me.

He loves me that much, he cares for me that much that on my worst day he still gives his best to me.

Do you trust him?

So I have something down here.

I tore up a shoe box.

I don't know if y'all know this or not, but I like shoes and, by the way, I was thinking of this, it would be awesome.

You know Christmas miracles, right?

You've heard the.

Okay, it'd be great for a Father's Day miracle If I walked into a shoe store and they had more than one guy's aisles of shoes and 40 aisles of the lady's shoes.

Reminded me of this when I brought this.

So this right here, you can do this at home.

You don't have to.

But if you want to, you can Just take an old shoe box.

If you have one.

It's got a little slit in the top and when you do your praying, I want you to get a piece of paper and I want you to write down what you're praying about.

God, I believe you, god, I trust you, I am leaning on you.

I don't understand it, I don't get it, I don't see how the end is going to happen.

But, god, I don't have to, because you know what the truth is.

Even if he doesn't answer the prayer, you should still praise him.

That seems backwards, but usually we find our strength in the praise before the prayer request is answered, because I couldn't make it through to keep praying if I didn't have the strength that I found in my praise to keep praying.

It'll wear you out.

We just read a scripture.

You can't worry another hour into the day, you can't, you can't.

Even I'm telling you.

I know some people that worry and I was telling that was it you.

I was telling about my grandma.

Uh, she's deceased now, but a few years ago she lived with my parents and my dad would go out to check the mail and you know those little metal poles that you kick underneath the door where you can't open them from the outside.

My dad would go to check the mail and by the time he got back to the house, just from the street, it would be butted up against there.

She was so fearful someone was going to break into the house.

She would worry herself crazy because she thought something was going to happen.

I know what real worry looks like.

It's hard to trust God, especially when we don't see the outcome.

I had my mom.

She had it's called primary pulmonary hypertension.

She got it from something she was taking for a few years of her life and between the blood flow of her heart and her lungs there was a valve and I think it had three holes in it, little pinholes, and I think it had three holes in it, little pinholes, and so it would make her heart try to pump the blood more because it didn't have the pressure it needed to get to where it was trying to go because it had holes in it.

So it was leaking.

Long story short, the doctor said, and they had people from London, they had doctors down from Houston to come and look at her to try to figure out something to save her life.

And they said the only way to save her life would to be get a heart and a lung transplant.

I don't know if you know anything about transplant lists, but that's almost impossible.

And they said, and even after that, it would maybe only extend your life about five years.

So you wait all that time, you have all that surgery and you still only get maybe five years.

And they said when they diagnosed her she had three to five years to live.

I was in high school, y'all To watch my mom.

She had this cart.

She would push from the laundry room to the bedrooms to put it up and then the same to bring it back and put it in there and she would push it just down the hall hall and her chest would be like blood red because she she could not catch her breath, she would be on oxygen.

And I told you before, my dad's a pastor and he he made every phone call and connection he could.

People in, uh, south africa were praying People down in El Salvador people.

We went missions trips and we knew the pastors down there and y'all we waited and we waited.

I remember the day my mom, she grabbed it.

We were.

She was on the worship team.

I played the drums, my dad played the keyboard and she played the bass and she was playing and I remember just looking over at her.

She grabbed her chest and hit the wall, played the bass and she was playing and I remember just looking over at her, she grabbed her chest and hit the wall and just fell to the ground.

When you see somebody you love, I'm my mom's favorite, I know it, she knows it, my brother knows it and I tell him multiple times, everybody should know.

And to see my mom grab her chest and hit the wall and slide down and then, as a teenager, say God, how am I supposed to trust you?

Look what you've done to my mom and just with the raw, you know.

I mean, how do you pray when you don't believe God's doing anything?

How do you continue to pray when you don't see God doing what you're asking Him over and over to do?

How can I have faith if, god, you're not giving me something?

Am I the only one that's ever prayed real before?

I'm tired of the Mickey Mouse prayers that we pray.

Oh God, give us a good day.

God wants to mess your life up.

God wants to get a hold of us in a new and real way, to where, when we leave, we are not the same when we walk out these doors.

God wants to change and shift something in your life to where, when you say I trust God, you are trusting God and you know something is going to happen.

It don't matter if it's the water's parting and he's got to hold him back.

It don't matter if you got to tread through it wet.

You believe God's going to do what he said he's going to do and you're going to keep your hands raised and your praise strong and you're going to dance all the way into victory, not because you've seen what he's done, because you know who he is.

You don't need proof to know who God is, because that's the thing we get our faith back when we say God, I trust you if you show me this.

Am I the only one that's done that before God?

I trust you.

If you do this and you may not put the if in there, but when you start worrying about it, you are.

So let me show you what I brought this for you get a piece of paper.

You're praying about something, you're believing about something.

And here's I love visual things.

This is so simple and stupid.

It's an old shoe box, like it's tore up from the floor up, like it ain't that great at all.

But I put a hole in the top and I said, lord, I'm going to put all my prayers in here.

If I'm believing in prayer for Cassie, if I'm believing in prayer for my mother when she's sick, or I believe that my little baby boy is going to walk one day, I'm going to take it, I'm going to put it in this box and I'm going to believe that God's going to do it.

And when I start doubting it, I'm going to pull it out and say God, I don't trust you.

Today Changes it, doesn't it?

It's real good when you're talking about faith and you go leave it in the box.

But then, when I start doubting it if I will literally go back and start pulling things out that I'm not trusting it for anymore, it puts a perspective on things.

It changes the way I'm looking at how I'm really praying, because when I start worrying and doubting, that is the seed that will bring me to where I don't have faith in God anymore.

I speak faith and life over you today, in a new faith that you have never walked in before.

If God can put life back in dry bones and make an army, what can he do in your life?

Either we believe that the Bible is true or none of it is.

Either we believe that when Jesus died and he left the comforter to come back to us, that we believe that by Bible is true, or none of it is.

Either we believe that when Jesus died and he left the comforter to come back to us, that we believe that by that spirit we can raise bodies ourselves and lay hands on the sick and they will recover.

If we believe that in this church, then this world will never be the same, but it starts with you, it starts with us.

We have to be a church that we pray first and we believe God's going to do it.

No matter what, it doesn't matter if he does it.

We still believe that he will.

Because I don't praise God because he did something in my past.

I know what he's done for me.

My testimony is strong.

I know that God will always show up.

When I was living in my car, I never one time I actually slept in my car the rest of the time, god provided it was drug dealers, it was.

I had some money to be able to get one of them.

Cheap hotels that you know cracks being sold out of.

Y'all know which ones I'm talking about.

I've been to residence and now I just bought my second home and where I chose to live, because that's what my God does, that's how my God shows up, because I know, because of the valleys, that he's going to be faithful through the valleys and on the mountaintop.

I know this, I've lived this.

We have to remember in the word of God, there was I don't, I think it was Abraham, but I'm not 100% sure.

They put these 12 stones and they said that when they come back they would remember what God had done.

Y'all need to start laying stones out To where, when your kids and their kids and their kids say what does this mean?

Let me tell you the story of what God did for me.

I'm very open, which I mean I'm preaching it.

So you probably know that.

But I'm open with my child about my mess-ups because I want him to know what stupid looks like.

I don't shield him.

Well, I tell him what he needs to know that sin will lead you down a path and further than you always expect it to, but so will God.

And God restores, god renews.

I'm telling you, people, I am so humbled and broken by where God has brought us to because I don't deserve it.

Because I don't deserve it, I can't tell you, I cannot explain to you why God does it.

I was talking to a pastor friend of mine yesterday and I tell everybody that the reason God blesses us is because of my wife, and he started laughing and he was like, yeah, that's probably true, but, man, you got favor on you.

I said why?

I don't understand it.

I don't understand.

It doesn't make sense to me.

And God says shut up and enjoy it.

Sometimes we try to figure out things and we're like God, I trust you If you'll show me the blueprints.

He just says shut up and enjoy the ride.

Can I say that in church?

Sorry, I love y'all.

I want you to seriously.

I want you to seriously.

We've got a miracle happening right now.

A few Sundays ago we had another miracle happen in the middle of praise.

Praise brings the power of God.

His atmosphere, his glory fills the praise of his people.

When you start praising, even when you, if you only feel.

If you only praise when you feel like praising man, we'll be in some bad situations.

I want to praise him when I don't feel like it, because that's when he shows up and starts changing things.

That's when he shows up and shows us who he is things.

That's when he shows up and shows us who he is man.

Hope I wasn't too rough on you fathers, but listen, we got to trust Men.

You're the head of the house Some of you ladies right now maybe the head of the house.

We have to raise our children up in the way of the Lord so they won't depart from it later in the years.

If we teach them the word of God he promises it will not return void.

It doesn't matter right now what it looks like.

Some of you may be older parents and you got some kids that ain't living right.

Trust God, even when, right now, you cannot see the results.

I can't even imagine if my son puts me through what I put my parents through.

But they still believed and they still trusted.

And here I am.

I am the result of someone pushing through.

I'm sure a lot of us in here are the result of someone a mother, a father praying for you when you were not where you were supposed to be.

We have got to trust God.

We have got to restore Men.

It is our job to restore that example of who God is being the father Men.

We've got to step up our game and be true fathers and reflections of our father.

Bow your heads and pray with me.

Lord, I thank you for your mercy and your grace.

All that I do not deserve.

We thank you, god, for your presence here today in the worship and the word, lord.

I pray that, god, these words do not fall on deaf ears, but, lord, you continue to speak throughout the week.

God, help us to trust you even when we don't see.

Help us to lean on you even when we don't understand.

Help us, god, to still have hope and faith even when we don't get the result we were expecting.

God, help us to trust you and praise you through the storm.

Father, if anybody here does not know you, I ask right now, lord, that they accept you as their Lord and Savior.

I don't want to end this service without at least giving an altar call.

If you're at home watching, you're still in your pajamas, or if you're here and you're in the service with us.

I want to have an opportunity for you to accept Christ as your Lord and Savior.

Don't let another minute pass without accepting God as your Father.

I want to pray for you.

If you did not know Jesus, you want to pray for you.

If you did not know Jesus, you want to accept him.

Or maybe you have grown cold in your relationship with God and you have just become stagnant and stale in your relationship.

I want you to just shoot your hand up and say that's me, that's me, that's me.

Pray for me.

I need Jesus, I need God.

There's no shame here.

That's the devil's game.

If you'll stand and lift your hands and pray with me, just lift it towards heaven.

Just stand and lift your hands towards heaven and just let's pray out this service in worship.

Lord, we thank you so much for who you are.

God, we are so thankful of you being our father.

We are so grateful that you come and meet us every single time, wherever we are, when we call out to you.

Every single time you are faithful to show up.

God, we thank you, we appreciate you, we love you and God.

Today, we honor you as our Father, being that example for us.

Lord, that we God.

I thank you so much for all that you are, for your sacrifice, for your love, your unconditional love.

Lord bless this week.

As we go out, in your name, we pray.