Happy Father's Day | Pastor David Kalamen | FRESH WIND Series

Welcome KCC on this amazing Father's Day.

We're so glad to be connecting with you online.

Today, we're actually where we usually have church at home at KCC.

We've actually moved to my father's home.

Of course, it's so appropriate for the day.

I'm in a home that really has a lot of memories for me.

I just want to know who's mowing your lawn.

Are you doing it?

Yeah.

Sometimes.

Sometimes.

This home has had small groups, has had uh meetings and uh gatherings all with people from all over the world, and and we just decided let's change a venue for a little bit and make sure that uh we're just showing you what's happening in our house and in our home.

So we actually have a funny little story.

I'm gonna show a little bit of a video of uh I hear you had a wasp nest in the tree behind us.

I'm gonna show the video.

It's gonna go online.

It's called bloopers, right?

Yeah, bloopers.

We're gonna show it to you, but uh, I'm gonna after that video, I'm just gonna release it to my dad to be able just to share his heart on Father's Day.

So enjoy.

Oh you okay?

Yeager.

He's making sure dad's okay.

Jaeger, it's okay.

Well, there hasn't been a Father's Day yet, son, that you haven't shown something about your dad that was humorous or funny or something.

And I just wish I wasn't that kind of dad to you.

Because it seems like you picked up on some of these things.

I found out how old I am.

We want to start with vulnerability.

We want to start and transparency.

Grace, grace.

Come on.

Well, you know, it's been uh seven years since my father passed away.

And uh I I can't say that I don't think about them often.

And I think a lot of the things that make us as men who we are are related to the input our fathers have had in our lives.

And uh um it was uh an interesting thing from my perspective that um I had an opportunity to write an article in Light Magazine, which is a publication that goes to all of BC and and uh Alberta.

It's Christian Magazine, and I encourage anyone that can to get online.

Uh actually I put a a clip of it in our uh KCC Facebook so people can go straight to it.

And it gives a little bit of a picture of my dad and doing some of the things that we really enjoyed to do.

Um The Last Chance it it it brought memories of the last chance really I had a chance to serve my dad and uh to minister to him because um I'd gone to one of my favorite fishing holes.

You know about it, don't tell anybody about it.

David's in the woods, it's a secret place.

Yeah.

And um I fished that day.

I my purpose was to get some fish so I could fillet them and bring them to my dad as uh as a gift on Father's Day, which I did, and I caught my limit, which I usually do, and uh brought them to my dad.

Filleted them, brought them to my dad, and was gonna cook it up for him.

So when I saw my dad, I I leaned over and gave him a great big hug and kiss and uh wished him happy Father's Day.

And instead of him just letting me go, he grabbed his and he is, he was strong in his old age, he grabbed my he uh head at my neck side and pulled me into himself and just hung on for dear life.

And I was I was locked in and uh he began to weep.

He just began to cry.

And I I didn't I I couldn't catch on to it was actually a surprising event for me.

Um but it was at that moment, and this is later on in my life, that I got a revelation, and I the revelation kind of connected back to the fact that my dad didn't have a dad.

And uh, for all of the Father's Days that we'd celebrated as a family over the years, I had never seen this.

But that day I realized Father's Day was a tough day for my dad, and he broke down and he wept.

So, you know what?

Uh the fishing factor was something that bonded dad and I for years.

We'd whether it was uh fishing for cod, Atlantic cod in Lunenburg, or whether it was uh Panasque Lake or Hathume Lake, and I think the picture in the article shows us the last fish he caught basically was at Hathume Lake.

So it was a bonding thing for me to have that.

Yeah.

Um but when my dad was was weeping, I realized that Father's Day to him was traumatic.

Uh it wasn't to me, but for dad, my father, it was.

And I was taken back by the reaction.

Um because as you know, we don't have any picture of our grandfather on my dad's side.

And got a few memories.

I mean, he uh when he was six months old, his mom had given her life to Jesus, and they lived in New Jersey, uh in Perthamboy, New Jersey.

And um, he took them on a holiday and he had made a decision to actually require his wife to make a decision.

He said, You can't love two men.

You can only love Jesus or me.

And she said, I can love both of you.

Yeah, I do love both of you, yeah.

Uh, but it wasn't acceptable to him.

And so he took them on a on a uh holiday and on the uh to Florida and on the last day of the holiday, he divorced her and brought my dad back home to New Jersey, um, fatherless now, uh, as a single parent.

And they grew up in poverty, abject poverty, praying every day for food to survive.

And he went on to become a very wealthy businessman in the community, living only blocks away.

And my only memory of that was I was probably under 10, my sister and I, and we went to the home and knocked on the door, my dad brought us there.

And uh the wife he was living with, or the woman he was living with, basically uh we did my dad asked the question, Would you like to see your grandchildren?

Is John Holme.

And uh all I can remember, I never I don't have a visual of my my grandfather, but I have a I have a voice that keeps ringing in my ears.

And that was the voice that responded from inside the house that said, Send them away.

So I I grew up with some forms of rejection that I think a lot of people can identify with.

Um but I I at that point I got a little bit of an insight into the kind of rejection my dad must have felt.

Yeah.

Uh so for many years it was on on that level.

And uh I'm not sure uh what was more difficult to my father, uh not knowing your dad uh or knowing your dad didn't want to know you.

I I can't make the assessment on that, but for many years it was a closed book.

My dad just never brought it up.

I I heard a story about a father whose son had become very ill, and his uh dad talked to him at his bedside knowing that he didn't have a lot of time to live, and he he asked the question, uh, are you afraid to meet Jesus, son?

And his son turned to him and said, You know, dad, if Jesus is like you, then I'm not afraid.

Yeah.

And that always stuck in my heart because I don't have any fear of meeting Jesus.

My my dad had experienced a father deficit in his heart, and he could have, like many people today, grown up with some uh real difficulties emotionally, behaviorally.

I mean, we know in society that that there's a lot of dysfunction in families where there's fatherlessness or an absentee dad.

He maybe even be there, but absent from the process of helping the family.

And we when you look at the studies and statistics on poverty and homelessness and runaways and suicides and school dropout and imprisonment and all of that stuff, it's it's you know that fatherlessness is a significant issue for our generation.

And I I see it even uh more so as I look at the turmoil our culture and society is in right today.

Um and it was the prophet Malachi that basically said in chapter 4, verse 6, he said, you know, fatherlessness actually brings a curse upon the culture.

It destroys, it disrupts, it impacts.

So fathers have a a great role to play and a great responsibility uh if they do not play that role or carry uh carry a sense of responsibility and honor towards their their calling.

You know, thankfully, um my dad didn't turn out uh, you know, he turned his his father deficit into a father blessing.

And I know of only one way you can do that.

I know of only one way you can do that, and that is by actually coming into a relationship with Heavenly Father personally.

Yes, yes, and my dad turned his attention towards Heavenly Father, who they prayed every day for food, for provision, for care, um, and saw God provide, God take care of them.

Um my dad made Heavenly Father his earthly father.

And so, I mean, I remember growing up, and you know, whether it was on a on something that was aghast him, and he would say, My father, you know, he would use that phrase, or whether it was in prayer, he would come to God and it was my father.

Yeah.

It was always a very personal, intimate thing.

And I love I love the way Psalmist pictures God.

It says in Psalm uh 68, verse 5, it says, He's the father of orphans, the champion of widows.

Uh God is in his holy house, and he makes homes for the hope homeless.

And uh my my dad grasped that uh in a personal way, in the importance of making the face of Heavenly Father the face of Heavenly Father to us.

And uh my dad could have carried an orphan spirit, an orphan heart, but he he chose in his life to get to know God, uh to get to know older men and treat them as fathers so he had an opportunity in his life to fulfill that which was missing when he was growing up, and he he he he treated every older man like a father and with kindness and reverence and honor, and uh I carry that to this day.

It was just wonderful to see.

And I he learned from them and he translated you know what he perceived as healthy fathering uh to our family, to my my sister and myself, and for that I'll you know I'll always be grateful.

Well, Natalie, of course, works at the bank, and she has her name tag on, Natalie Calluman, and she still has people, as many people know, Pappy, uh was ministering here in the city for many, many years.

Yeah, and that his legacy still still remains, even after he's been passed away, as people approach her.

You wouldn't happen to know Pastor Arnold.

You wouldn't happen to know Arnold, and that legacy is beyond just his time while he was here, it it goes beyond that time.

And so those lessons, those values that he's instilled in us are are still continuing to make a difference in people's lives.

Yeah, they are.

Why don't you take a little bit of time and uh I'm sure you can share with us some of those lessons so that we too can grow and be reminded of some of the the values that he instilled in us and in you.

Well, I would say the most important gift my dad gave me, and it was a matter of teaching, was that Heavenly Father existed and that I could have a personal relationship with him.

And I think because he was abandoned when he was young and at times fought the whole feelings of abandonment, particularly in his older age, which they they say that you repeat some of your emotional uh challenges from the early stages of your life.

Dad Dad was always affirming the presence of God.

The presence of God made a great deal, meant a great deal to him.

And uh so but his heart was this I don't want you to grow up when I'm gone and not have a relationship to Heavenly Father like I have.

I am committing you into the hands of Heavenly Father to now take care of, just like he took care of me.

So that was a precious gift for my life.

And uh I have tried to pass that on to you and Ryan and Carrie and e and Alan.

My my heart was to ensure that you had a personal relationship that transcended me with Heavenly Father, that that was the link uh between.

And you know, uh when the disciples of Jesus in John 14 asked them, I said, they said, Show me the Father.

Uh Jesus said, Haven't I been with you long enough?

I and the Father are one.

And if you see me, you've actually seen the Father.

And and so I can honestly say this that what I saw in my dad, in how we treated people and how he honored life as a whole, how he spoke about people.

Um I mean, there wasn't there wasn't hardly a time growing up that we didn't have people coming into our home uh and and and living in our spare bedroom.

Uh he cared uh so deeply about people uh that were in need, in poverty, who needed a help and helping hand.

And he got it when he was growing up.

He wanted to pass that on.

But he became like a father to me.

And it's like I say, if I want to see what the father looks like, and I looked at my dad.

Now, it didn't mean dad didn't have his flaws.

We all have our flaws, we're human.

But Jesus said, if you saw me, I'm a perfect, perfect example of who the father is.

So that was that was a critical thing for me growing up, was to learn that.

Um the second thing that I I felt was he taught me was how to be a generous man.

And I I remember him telling the story of this uh Jewish grocer down the road from him that knew he was uh he was a single parent child.

And he would go in and you know, he'd take a penny and he'd he'd want to buy some chips, and in that day it was like a you know, you could grab a handful for a penny.

Well, his little hand wasn't that big.

And uh he would he would look to the the grocer, and the grocer looked at him, and the grocer would put his big hand into the chip and and bring it out and fill the bag with a handful that was based upon him.

Well, that generosity was in my dad's heart.

Uh dad was overly generous, beyond and above.

He uh he was generous to the house of God and to the cause of God.

I mean, even when he could not he could not see anymore, I'd put his pen on his check, and he would write out his name on the check by heart because he wanted to make sure every Sunday his tithe was going into the house of God.

That was so important to him.

And I grew up that way.

Generous to God, generous to God's leaders, generous to his family, uh, generous to those who were in need, and particularly when Dad saw people that were in need, his heart was to give, and he gave sacrificially to those who were strangers.

Uh it didn't matter if he knew them or didn't know them, if he saw need, he was taking care of that need.

So he taught us to be generous, and I never want to lose that in my life, ever.

And I've tried to exemplify that, uh, and I I've seen it in all of my family, which it it really blesses my heart.

You know.

Uh a third thing that I I would say is honor.

Um my dad was an honorable man.

Uh he treated everyone with honor.

He treated his mom to her last breath with honor.

He served, cared for as a good son.

He treated his family with honor, he treated women with honor.

And it didn't matter what race or how old or whether you were decrepit, healthy, whether you uh, you know, were male or female, whether you're young or old, it didn't matter to dad.

My dad didn't carry uh a prejudicial bone in his body.

He he taught us as a family honor every life, celebrate it.

Uh because God created it with unique intention and purpose.

And so uh our lives were affected by that growing up.

And we taught you that.

We said that this this is this is critically important, be kind and honorable to everyone.

And so that was a that was a that was a big thing to me.

I I was taught to speak respectfully to the elders, uh, to my family, to my mom, my dad, but but also to everyone that uh uh I was taught to value life and uh to honor even the children that were among us so that the so that uh because I believe that children can teach you an awful lot.

Yeah, they can't.

Right?

You guys did, yeah, for sure.

When I was growing up, you taught me an awful lot about my my life.

But take a lot of credit there.

But but something else, so just there's so many things, but I'm just gonna limit it to four.

But he also taught us to be merciful and forgiving.

Uh in our generation or in growing up, it was hard for a man to say I'm sorry.

It was almost like an admission that I'm I was wrong.

And if I'm wrong, how can I be a leader?

And so you you you withdrew from that and you silently acknowledged you're wrong.

But you know, you you just didn't say you're sorry.

Well, my dad was man enough to admit it when he did something wrong and to say he was sorry.

And he carried that heart of mercy and forgiveness to almost everyone in his life, and he uh he had a lot of stuff come his way where people were very uh unkind.

Um they did things, they uh took advantage of him because of his kindness, and dad just never carried an unmerciful or unforgiving bone in his body.

Um I would stand up and I would at times try to defend my dad and and get involved and try to fix it up and repair it, but my dad would just let it go and and let God deal with it.

And I never ever heard him say an unkind word about anybody.

He kept those things in his heart and prayed about them, and when there was an opportunity to be merciful and forgiving, he was that.

And one of the phrases he would use, and it was from uh um one of the commentators, uh Matthew Henry, and he said, you know, if you're going to err, err on the side of love.

And I would argue with him on that.

I said, Why would you want to err?

Period.

You know, I had a little bit of a legalistic bone in me.

Why would you want to err?

Yeah.

But the older I've gotten, the more I realize now that if you're gonna err, err on the side of love.

Yes, love people, yeah, that that that mercy always triumphs justice.

And and so I I think I've become more of a a graceman that way rather than a lawman.

Um and it's in it's working for me in my old age.

Yeah.

And if there's anyone out there that I have hurt by being too just, um my heart, my heart is to be merciful and forgiving.

Um Malachi, you know, we alluded to that before, said that in the last days, uh, he was gonna turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to the fathers.

That's a wonderful problem uh promise.

And I I believe we're actually living in those last days if we've ever needed to see um a reformation in that area.

Yes.

Oh.

Well, it doesn't take very Very much effort to look at the world stage and say, man, the heart of this generation and the heart of the world right now needs reform overall.

We need a reformation.

How do you change?

How do you move the heart of a child to a father or father to a child?

How do you bridge that gap?

Well, I was actually reading that passage of scripture, and for the first time in my life, and this is why I love the word of God, because God can put his emphasis on one word or a phrase or capture something that you've never seen before, because the Holy Spirit illumines and makes the Word of God come alive.

And so as I was reading it, I I I just read that again.

Turn the heart.

And I went, wow, how is God going to turn the hearts of fathers to children and children back to fathers?

Because we know that there's a lot of dysfunction in our world that way.

And um, as I prayed into it, I just want to leave two keys for seeing that happen at the table today.

And the first is the commitment to pray.

Yes.

Prayer.

Um you cannot pray for someone without loving them.

That's true.

J it's impossible.

You just cannot pray for someone without loving them.

Maybe some of my frustration regarding those who say they pray for their spiritual leaders or their political leaders in our world today, and and yet their their speech is filled with hate.

That's just not a a possibility in my thinking.

And um you cannot love someone without praying for them.

So it works uh hand in glove.

And so the issue of prayer, God requires us to pray for those people that are estranged to us, that are uh that need reconciliation.

And uh just as He, you know, He's He sent His own Son on that level to bring that reconciliation, right?

Reconciliation was very important to God.

We're ministers of reconciliation.

We have the message of reconciliation and we have the word of reconciliation.

And so God wants us to use that because as we get from the prodigal son, the father was positioned in his heart constantly to be reconciled to a son that was whose heart had turned from him.

He turned his heart towards him, and was constantly thinking about drawing him back into relationship.

Well, prayer is the most powerful tool in bringing people back into relationship.

Um I've seen that.

And young people have their good days, their bad days, their in-between days.

And I've seen, well, is my prayer working, not my prayer not working, but I've seen over time that the more I pray for them, the more I love them, the more I'm committed to seeing them do well and succeed and prosper.

And when they do, I mean it's like my high five time.

It's my jo most joyful time in life, is to see them come through and accelerate.

So praying for one another, it releases the blessing.

It it it is not just a command of God that we pray, but it's critically important in my praying for my dad, because there was a deficit there in his knowing how to be a father to a son.

And I I struggled over that for many years, like wanting to see that father heart out of my dad.

And it was by blessing my dad and praying for him and loving on him that he actually came into that place of great healing in his his own personal life and was able to be a father to me.

God said, You be a son to him and teach him how to be a father by being a good son.

Wow.

Well, that that shifted my life.

And I saw that turning in dad's uh uh later years, and I remember the last phrase, you know, that I I can clearly remember him saying to me, it was in a funeral service, and we were both carrying the casket uh of a friend, and he looked over at me and he said, You're you're my beloved son and whom I'm well pleased.

And I had not heard those words from my dad all my life.

So I think that in breaking that crust of the heart that gets hard and cold, when we begin to pray, it may be difficult for us to pray for someone who's abused you or hurt you or not lived up to your expectations, but when you pray, God puts a love in your heart to pray even more.

And when you pray, God begins to answer those prayers and s slowly turn the heart.

And I believe we're cooperating with the Holy Spirit on this.

Yeah, this is a an end-time promise that He will turn the heart.

You can believe it, He will turn hearts.

And the second one was the issue of forgiveness.

And I know you know, forgiving someone that's abused you, but hey, listen, my my dad uh lived in poverty two blocks away from a dad who was a very wealthy, wealthy, we would call him a millionaire.

Never gave a cent to help.

And when when he died and passed away, and even though my dad was his only son, he never left him a cent.

And I think, how do you live your life in a forgiving way?

Because forgiveness actually changes you.

When you carry a forgiving heart to someone who's been hurtful to you, and maybe that's broken that, or maybe a child to a father that's broken that.

Um forgiveness is a powerful tool uh given to us by God to bring a reconciliation and a and and to turn the heart.

And that to me is why God sent his son.

It was the gospel, it is a whole message of forgiveness.

God forgave us even when we didn't deserve it.

Yeah.

He forgave us.

Well, there are maybe sons and daughters that don't deserve it.

There may be fathers and mothers that don't deserve it.

But it's not based on whether we deserve it.

It's based on the grace.

And because we've been freely forgiven, we need to freely forgive for our own benefit, but also that God can turn the heart.

That's right.

And um, I I was working with my dad in the early stages of our ministry, and I got this letter in the office.

I was sort of like secretary and all kinds of things, so I was opening the mail, and there was this letter that came in from Perthamboy, New Jersey, later on in dad's life.

And uh I opened the letter and I recognized it was a couple of leaflets from a United Church and everything, and there was a little note in there that basically said maybe these could be a benefit to you.

And when I looked at it, it was at the bottom of it, it was Dad, his father, in the latter eight years of his life, was he was there was dementia setting in, there's no question.

But you can tell that he had kept in connection with where his son had gone, and then sent this letter to the right address, and even though there was nothing in it that was of benefit to dad, it uh other than the fact that his dad had said maybe this can help.

Yeah.

My dad immediately got on a plane and went back to New Jersey, knocked on the door of his dad's house, and his dad was senile at that time, and he went in there and washed his dad's feet and blessed him and loved on him, and and attempted to share his testimony with him as much as he could grasp.

We don't know what happened to his dad, but uh it was you know months later, and his dad passed away.

My dad was merciful and forgiving right to the very end.

He prayed for his dad.

He didn't use his dad as an excuse for his pain or or or try to um uh undermine uh his father because of his his lacks.

He looked to Heavenly Father, and Heavenly Father lifted him out of that father deficit and made him a blessing.

And that's my heart for fathers and children, you know, all over today, is that they would yield to the moving of the Holy Spirit to allow God to knit them together again.

Fathers and mothers and their children, children to their fathers and mothers.

And uh maybe it can start by doing two things.

One, pray.

Number two, forgive.

Forgive.

Yeah.

So that's my heart to you today.

Wow.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Well, we want to be uh able to continue to be carrying that spirit into our into our ministry at KCC and to the people that we're reaching out to.

And uh we want to, I just want to say on behalf of our team, and uh, you know, your engagement is still so significant within the society, uh, but you set such a strong foundation for us.

And we honor you for doing that, not just as uh we honor the sacrifice, we honor the generosity, we honor the the the bulldog tenacity to push something through when we always encounter obstacles and barriers in the way and and we keep going, and for the legacy you're leaving for us, and for the prayer that we we are jealous for, that we just want we desire so much, because I believe that we are in this end time, we're closer to the return of Christ.

That was also uh uh a message that Pappy had in his heart.

He was constantly reminded of that time that our days are temporal on this earth, but our our our life in terms of our spiritual life will become will be eternal, and and we're waiting for that day, and we're we're looking to that day when Jesus will come again.

And uh He'll come back and the Bible says there'll be this incredible harvest, and this harvest will happen when people are loving and praying and forgiving and and the hearts of the children are turned back to their the fathers, and fathers are turned to the children.

And if I could have a vision, if I could paint a picture for Father's Day, it would be to have this picture of peace in the earth where fathers and children, and children and fathers are walking together hand in hand, and and I'm just believing for that.

I believe that's what this world needs, and it's what will make a difference to in our world.

It's not our world isn't gonna be saved by money or the economy or or a political rule, it's gonna be saved because of God's intervention in our lives.

And would you just pray with us today and just close this time together and just bless us with this Father's blessing?

Okay, Father, as we look through the Word of God, spiritual fathers blessed their children and their spiritual children, and the blessing of the Lord at times took on generational impact.

And so today, in Jesus' name, I bless my children and spiritual children and the relationships that we have to families and fathers and mothers in their own right throughout the entire organization.

We release the blessing of a father and ask, Lord, that if there are obstacles that are interfering with the restoration of relationship, that you would bring those obstacles down through a commitment, a renewed commitment to pray and to watch you do the miraculous and turn the hearts of fathers to children and children to fathers.

We know it's not just a gender issue of father, there's mothers that are out of relationship, there's children that are out of relationship with mums too, uh, but we know that your heart is like that Christmas song of joy to the the world.

The Lord has come.

Peace on earth.

And Lord, we want that.

Not just in our own family, in our church community, in our local city, but we want to see that peace extended globally.

Amen.

We speak that peace over our nation right now.

And and Lord, we ask for fathers to rise up with their authority and responsibility that they have, to love, to serve, to come under with their authority and lift up their families so that the family is strong.

And it can be the strength of a nation.

I ask that, Father, in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.