Mother's Day at One Church

Happy Mother's Day, everybody.

I'm really excited to be here with you today.

You know, I uh if you look up the definition of a of a mother or the definition of mom in the dictionary, obviously the first thing that comes to mind is that it's someone's female biological parent.

Um, but the second definition is actually really kind of cool.

It's it says it's a term of endearment used to refer to a woman who is admired.

And I love that because I think there are so many women, whether they were specifically your biological mother or not, really have poured into the lives of the people that, you know, in us personally and the lives of the people we love.

I'm sure everybody in this room could stand up and tell a story about someone that they've admired, that they've been able to go to.

And so I just want to say thank you to everyone, every woman in this room, regardless of where you are in life, yes, for pouring into other people that way.

And everybody online as well, uh, across the world.

Thank you guys for joining us today.

Um I'm really excited about this message, and and Greg, thank you for entrusting me with this opportunity to stand up here and share with all of you.

I I don't take that lightly because personally I don't think there's a better communicator on the planet than Greg Ford.

I know I'm a little biased, but like he's, yeah, you can clap, it's okay.

Yeah, he's he's amazing.

So it's like huge shoes to fill, and I can't even try.

Um, but I'm excited because I feel like this is something that God really spoke to me and was really impactful, and so I hope it holds the same type of value for you in some way.

Um God speaks to us in a lot of different ways.

So uh for some people it's their time in prayer.

Like you really feel like you hear from God in that moment in prayer, it's so clear, or um, the time in a worship service like we just had, where you just feel like open and he's speaking things to your heart.

And and I know sometimes this has even happened to me where people will come up and say, I just feel like God told me to tell you something.

Or somebody just shares something with you that you're like, God sent that person at like the exact right moment.

This is what I needed.

But one of the ways that for me personally, and and I know this is for some other people too, that God really speaks to us is through nature.

For me, I just get so much out of spending time out in God's creation.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and and so when I open my eyes and I I look at the things that He's created, it's just it speaks to me, and I get lessons from things about the character of God in ways that I never got them from anything else.

And so that's for me, I'm gonna share a little bit about a lesson that I learned through nature.

One of my favorite scriptures is in Roman 1.20.

Uh, Romans 1.20 says, For since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made.

So the things around us, the people that are around us, the nature that's around us, so that people are without excuse.

Uh, if you were here last week, you remember Greg had this graph up on the screen.

And if you weren't here last week, by the way, I highly recommend going back and listening to the whole uh series, top three, that he just did the last three weeks.

You can find it on the website at one.church.

Uh but he had this graph up, and it was every Bible verse that has ever been written and put in the Bible, and then it had all of these links back and forth where they showed verses that talked about other verses, or that somehow they had this correlation in subject matter.

And it was just like back and forth, back and forth.

It was really beautiful.

And and he talked about how if you spent every day of your life, hours and hours of your time, from the time you were a teenager till the time you were an old man, you would never get through it all.

And you would not, and that's even just assuming you get through it, much less actually understanding it like at depth, what God is trying to get to you through a singular scripture.

And so it can be a little bit demoralizing because you look at the vastness of the word of God and you're like, well, then what is the point of having the Bible here and if I can't get through it all?

And he's going, I don't expect you to.

I don't expect you to somehow extrapolate every possible thing that has ever been written down and apply it to your life.

I'm just gonna put it all around you.

That's what he's talking about in that verse.

He's going, I'm gonna put it in the face of a newborn baby, and you're gonna see it in the detail of their tiny little fingernails and their little veins.

And you're gonna see it when you look at snowflakes and you see them hit your hand, and there's that detail in every single one, and some, but there's millions falling from the sky.

He's giving you little clues when you listen to someone you love laugh.

He's giving you clues to his character, and you're gonna get theology, perfect theology, through the things that he's made that's around you.

So that's the foundation of when I talk about how God speaks through nature, um, that's one of the things that it, the ways that it really hits my heart.

Um, and if you know me, I am endlessly fascinated with one particular animal.

It's like my favorite thing in the world, and I could talk to you about it forever, and that's sharks.

A few people just said it.

You guys know me already.

Uh I've probably bored some of you with talking about sharks already, and now I get to bore all of you.

Happy Mother's Day.

Um, I actually, they, I don't know, did you guys put up the graphic already?

I don't know if I saw it.

We're gonna talk about one kind of shark in particular, which is Mako sharks.

And uh sharks are uh by the way, when that when they asked me for graphics for this week, I was a little hesitant.

I'm like, guys, don't don't put that on the screen right away when I come up because everybody will just walk out.

It's like, happy Mother's Day, sharks.

Uh but I but I think there's there is actually something really valuable that we can get from this.

And so I I hope that you are able to get some of these same lessons that I was.

So there's two types of Mako sharks there's long fin and short fin.

I'll only talk to you about one kind.

We'll talk about short fin Mako sharks.

They are the fastest shark in the ocean, incredible speed.

They can jump up to 30 feet out of the water.

You should go just check out a YouTube video for yourself, it's incredible.

Um but one of the wildest things about Mako sharks that I think is incredibly cool, and it was just like this light bulb moment for me, was this process of growth that they have.

So they have something in their DNA that they start out kind of as a mid-sized shark.

A lot of them never get beyond that.

But if they stay alive long enough, they keep taking on bigger and bigger prey, and they get to a point where they weigh a thousand pounds.

Something changes when they hit that thousand pound mark in their DNA, an actual biological change, and they become something else.

They become something called a grander Mako.

And they can't achieve this until they hit that thousand pound mark.

It's like just not possible.

But things change, and so they they are suddenly able to pack on length and size and speed like they never could before.

And um, one of the craziest changes, their their teeth actually change shape.

So they look completely different, they get broader and longer.

And and the wildest thing is that their bite force changes in such a dramatic way.

So when they become a grander Mako, their bite force becomes the strongest thing in the ocean.

And in fact, it's only the second strongest thing on planet Earth.

More than tigers, bears, great whites.

If you're if you're not a shark person, that's the shark from Jaws.

Uh they have the second highest bite force in the entire animal kingdom, second only to saltwater crocodiles.

So, what does that have to do with you and me?

Hopefully, I can find something for you here.

There are three really powerful lessons that God taught me about himself, about how he made us, and about our relationship to him through grander Mako's.

And I hope you get a lot more than a marine biology lesson out of today.

So the first point is this it's already in your DNA.

A Mako from the moment it's born is a Mako.

They have everything in them.

Every Mako is born with the capacity to grow into a grander Mako, too, given some time and lessons.

You know, they come out fully equipped, they have all these wild things like ampullae de Lorenzini, which doesn't that just sound like a great like Italian dish.

But it's it's these little jelly-filled pores all over their nose.

And then they also have these things called lateral lines that go all down the length of their body, and those two things that work together help them detect things as minute as your heartbeat in the water.

And they can detect subtle electromagnetic cues from the earth that help determine their migration patterns.

They have vision like a cat where they can see in the dark.

They have all these things, they have speeds up to 45 miles an hour.

For context, that great white jaws, 16 miles per hour.

You, two.

Good thing that statistically you are more likely to die from a vending machine falling on you than one of these.

It's actually true.

Look it up.

So the point is that you have all of the same things in you, not the same things as a makeup, but you have all the things in you that you need from the moment you are born to do what you are born to accomplish and to face what you're gonna face.

Go for it.

You have everything in you.

I talked about it a little bit at the women's night the other night.

There's this Latin term called Imago Dei.

Imago Dei, it means in the image of God.

And every single person in this room has imago day in you.

It's ingrained in the DNA, the spiritual DNA of who you are.

You don't have to try to be something else.

I think a lot of times we feel like we have to be good enough, right?

Like somehow, if I live up to this standard, if I hold myself to this place, then somehow God will think I'm good enough and then he'll give me this gift or he'll make me more, whatever.

No, it's in you.

You are in the image of God.

Your boldness and your kindness and your generosity and your humor, those are all characteristics of God.

It's true, they're all characteristics of God.

And so when we look at each other, we get this fuller and fuller and fuller picture of who God really is because he instilled pieces of himself in you from day one.

So start exploring that.

You know, I'm pretty confident that a Mako doesn't come out of the womb just knowing what it's capable of.

You gotta start stretching your muscles.

You gotta test your teeth.

Don't be afraid to do that.

Don't be afraid to go for things and try things because you don't even know yet what's in you, what you've got.

You gotta branch out and try it.

I showed Greg a video this week of uh there's this animal called a tapir.

It kind of looks like an anteater with his nose half cut off, and uh he's not that exciting to look at.

He just looks like this boring land animal in South America.

And someone caught a video of a tapir running on the ocean floor.

Running, like pew, fast by so fast you could hardly tell what it was.

I thought, man, how often do we just write people off and think they're not capable of something based on what we see on the surface?

You don't even know.

Don't judge what you see in other people, and don't judge what you see in yourself just based on the surface.

You don't know yet, so test it out.

You know, stop waiting for some external thing to happen to make you ready.

I love this.

You're you're ready because of who is in you.

John 14, 18 through 20 says, I will not leave you as orphans.

I will come to you.

Before long, the world will not see me anymore.

And by that he was talking about his ascension.

This is Jesus talking to people before he goes to heaven.

So he's going, physically, you're not gonna see me anymore.

But you will see me.

You will see me in the people around you, in the nature around me.

Because I live, you also will live.

On that day, you'll realize that I'm in my father and you're in me, and I am in you.

He's in you.

You've got what you need, you're ready.

I'm preaching to me because I'm the type of person that's like, I should probably read another book, should probably like make another plan, you know, I should probably sign up for another course because I never feel like I'm ready or I'm gonna be good enough.

Just go.

Just take a baby step.

You're probably gonna make some mistakes.

That's okay.

That's part of the process.

It's not a big deal.

Just take a step because it's in your DNA.

The second lesson that God taught me through Makos is that there's no shortcut to maturity.

I mentioned that Makos have this specific tipping point before they can become a grander Mako where they have to hit a thousand pounds.

Um as they grow, you know, they start off with little fish and then they graduate to something a little bigger, and then eventually, when they get big enough, they start taking on things like swordfish or dolphins.

And you've got to imagine the first time that a Mako tries to take on a swordfish, it might not end well.

Um, that's okay.

You're gonna have swordfish in your life, and it it's probably not gonna go well the first time.

Maybe not the first ten times.

Don't think that that means that you're not qualified.

Remember?

It's in your DNA.

Just keep going.

I saw some heads nodding right away when I said there's no shortcut to maturity, because anybody that's been on this earth for a hot minute knows you gotta go through some stuff, right?

I I decided to spare you the pictures uh because they're just like so grotesque and you already, you know, bore with me through the first couple, but there are actually pictures on the internet of Makos with a swordfish sword through their jaw or in their side.

There are things in life that are gonna leave you with scars.

They're gonna stick with you for a while.

It's part of the process, it's part of maturity.

It comes a little bit at a time.

It's gonna come through mistakes that you make.

It's gonna come through times that people hurt you.

It's gonna come through seasons of life that feel like I am going backwards, not forwards.

This is not what I want.

But I promise you, if you stick with it, it is growing you.

If you allow God to show you what he has for you in that season, right?

When you're when you're starting to get to that point where you're taking on a swordfish for the first time in your life, he's going to mature you and grow you in some really incredible ways.

Uh boy, I got I got a little excited now.

I'm going off to the side.

James 1 through 4.

I love this.

Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything, not lacking wisdom, not lacking patience, clarity, gentleness.

There are gonna be things that are swordfish in your life.

Things that are part of your journey to grandeur that you don't love.

And sometimes it's gonna feel like it makes no sense.

Like your teenager that makes every dumb decision known to man, and then five more you never thought of.

That's part of going to grander, baby.

You know, if if you lost your job and and maybe you uh you've been out of work for a long time and you finally get a new job and you're so excited, and then the pandemic hit two weeks later, and now you're out of work again.

Part of the journey, part of your journey to grander.

We have we have a man in this church that had cancer and COVID at the same time.

That's part of your journey to grander sometimes.

You know, another thing to remember is that pretending to be grander, just acting like you're grander than everybody else, is actually a sure sign of immaturity.

You don't need to throw that weight around and prove that you're better than everybody else.

Real granders, the people that are like really maturing and going the direction they need to go, they're just about it.

They're just about their business.

In fact, they're using that power, that newfound strength, those newfound skills to start benefiting the people around them instead of just making it about them.

That's a big difference.

So you don't need to act big, just start getting big.

You know, I know sometimes that process, a thousand pounds, can sound like a lot.

You're going, if I picture my own life and where I think I am in that journey, I feel like that is a thousand miles away.

I'm not there, I'm nowhere close to where I think God wants me to be.

But I would encourage you to focus on how far you've come.

Because it's so easy to get so you know one-sided on what's coming that you forget everything that you've been through already in all the ways that you've already grown.

Don't give up.

Sometimes growth happens, yeah.

Sometimes growth happens a pound at a time.

And it, you know, you're in your job for 10 years and you're going, all right, God, I thought I was gonna be farther along than this right now.

This ain't it.

It's part of your growth.

A pound, a pound, a pound.

And next thing you know, you look up and you're a hundred pounds ahead of where you were.

I also want to encourage you with this, because sometimes you will lose weight.

Sometimes you will look up and you go, you know, I can drop scripture, just the drop of a hat, but I also just like dropped some bombs on that barista at Starbucks this morning.

Down a pound, right?

You you judged that person that's dealing with an addiction or that made like a life-altering mistake, or the single mom on your block is like, oh, I mean, by the grace of God, like I'm so far past that.

No, that's not grander.

That's not maturity.

Real maturity is using the power you have to help those people that are still far, not as far in the process as you are.

Don't give up when you've lost a pound here or there.

We all have.

We've all had those moments.

Just get back up, go tussle with a swordfish.

The next thing, the last thing is that you were made for grander things.

You didn't get this far just to get this far.

You already have greatness in your DNA.

You can stop here if you want, where you are in your journey and just kind of live out your days like that.

That's fine.

It's still Mako status.

You're still a Mago day, right?

Made in the image of God.

Still beautiful in so many ways.

But I don't think you came this far just to come this far.

He made you from day one with the capacity to get to grandeur.

He has a specific grandeur for you.

John 21, 18 through 22 is this really interesting portion of scripture to me because it it reminded me that my grandeur doesn't necessarily look like my neighbor's grandeur.

My journey is gonna look different than theirs.

So if you step back and you picture it for a moment, Jesus is walking down a dirt road with Peter.

It's just the two of them.

He's getting one-on-one time with Jesus, it's just incredible.

And if you know the story of Peter at all, you know the things that he's been through in his life.

He's this big, loud, boisterous personality, and he's kind of always known deep down that he's made for something big.

Like he wants it.

He's been desperate for it.

You see it through his whole journey as he's following Jesus.

And so he tries to do big things like when they came to take Jesus away and take him to the cross.

He cut off someone's ear.

He was trying to be bold.

But then, like an hour later, he's turning around and he's denying Jesus three times because he's still kind of immature.

Like he's got this and that.

Kind of sounds familiar, right?

He's a little bit of both.

And so he's got this moment where he's walking down the road with Jesus, and it's just the two of them, and Jesus is trying to like really dig deep and impart some things to Peter.

And Peter sees, I'll read you this first part.

Peter turned and saw the disciple that Jesus loved was following them, meaning John.

By the way, I think it's hilarious that John is the author of this book and he describes himself as the disciple Jesus loved.

You know, like we know it's you, John.

Like you didn't hide it.

Your name's in the title.

You calm down.

But I digress.

Peter turned and saw the disciple that Jesus loved.

We know Jesus loved John.

Following them, and he says, When he Peter saw him, he asked, Lord, what about him?

So Jesus is talking to Peter about Peter's life, and he goes, Well, what about him?

And Jesus answered him, If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you?

You must follow me.

I love that Jesus gets a little bit sarcastic with him.

He's like, Listen, if I want this guy to live 3,000 years, what's it to you?

We're not talking about him.

We're talking about you.

I I think it's really powerful because it's like, here Peter is, he's getting this one-on-one time with Jesus, and he's so distracted by Jesus' love for John that he can't even focus on what Jesus is saying to him.

He's like, what about him though?

You can't focus on Jesus and John at the same time.

You've got to make a decision where you're gonna put your focus.

If you're so worried about what Jesus is doing in John's life all the time, you're gonna totally miss what he has for yours.

Because John is different than Peter.

And that's true for you too.

John, or Peter was so obsessed with making sure it was fair, because he's like, I feel like Jesus really, really loves John.

Like they have this really loving, sweet relationship.

And and Jesus is kind of like critiquing me right now and correcting me in the middle of our conversation.

So he's feeling like he's less than, and he's going, This isn't fair.

How come John gets this and I get this?

But but the reality is that fair is not the same.

Fair is custom to you.

Fair is what you need in your journey, fair is what's getting you to the next step.

So stop thinking so much about what John is getting and what Jesus is doing in John's life, and just listen to what Jesus has for yours.

The first time that I ever read this verse, I was like, geez, Peter, you are an idiot.

And then I realized I've done it.

I've done it.

I I've looked around at the people around me and been like, but God, how come you're doing that in their life and not in mine?

I'll make it applicable for a minute and I'll go first since I started this conversation.

I guess it's my responsibility.

And um, and I'll tell you a little bit about one of those moments for me.

So most of you know uh we have three children, uh, a girl and two boys, and both of our boys are on the autism spectrum.

And our son Hudson is 11, and he's pretty severe.

He he's got quite a few issues going on.

Um he's really big.

He's 11, he's already up to here.

I'm wearing his socks today, actually, because I couldn't I couldn't find mine.

Um and and he's got the same size feet as me already.

It's like when you look at a great great Dane puppy, you know, and they've got like massive paws, and you're like, oh boy, he's gonna be huge.

That's Hudson.

He's he's probably gonna be like six, eight or something.

But he's already up to here on me, he's 11, and it's kind of like having a big toddler in the house with Hudson.

Because even though he's this big and and as strong as he is, and and and he's older, he doesn't understand danger the way that he should at his age.

Um, he doesn't understand consequences of actions, and so you have to watch him all the time.

So, like I sleep with a baby monitor because I I need to know what my 11-year-old is doing if he gets up in the middle of the night.

So I've got a little video monitor next to me.

All of our doors have alarms because we're like, oh, I heard it.

He's gone, you know, he's out hidden, and he'll just head to somebody else's house in the neighborhood with no clothes on.

So that's you know, that's kind of where we are.

Um Hudson had an has been having this issue with school.

He didn't want to go to school.

So first we couldn't even get him on the bus.

So then we finally get him on the bus, and the bus is back at my house.

Beep, beep, five minutes later in my driveway.

Take your kid, have a nice day.

So then we're like, all right, let's let's talk to the school, let's try out something else.

So we're like, what if he wears this harness?

So he's got this like five-point harness that's uh looks like he's about to go skydiving that straps him to the seat.

And they bring him back and they're like, we've never had a kid figure out how to get out of this.

But he got out and he started pulling the emergency brake on the bus.

We're like, okay.

So the school says, you know what, he can ride the bus if we get uh like a bigger man that can be a bus aid, because we can't just have one of the ladies doing it.

So, no lie, Hudson has an ex-cop as an aide on his bus driving him to school every day.

So praise God, we've finally gotten him to school, right?

So that's like our pound by pound by pound journey.

And um, and it hasn't really been ideal.

Well, now he's at school, but he hates it, so he's trying to figure out ways to get set home.

So he's, you know, busting out some words that are colorful.

I love uh getting those reports from his school, and I'm like, I don't know where he learned those.

I'm so sorry.

It's fun when the pastor's kid is like saying things that people are like, I'm not even sure I know what that means.

It just sounds bad.

Um or he'll hit people.

So his new thing that he just started doing because they he figured out like they'll just go put me in a quiet space if I do those things, but they have to send me home if I pee myself.

So I was like, oh ne, nay, here's six outfits to the school, you know.

And he's like, watch me pee through six.

So, you know, he's he's one step ahead of me.

So I I guess like in his process de grandeur, he's innovative, right?

Like that's that's one of the things God's working in his life.

It's like a chess match.

Uh, Greg and I compare trying to parent through autism kind of to like boiling a whole pot of spaghetti, and you throw the noodles against the wall and one sticks, so you're like, yeah, you're so excited, and then it falls.

And you're like, go boil another pot, babe.

Let's try this again.

My point with all that, by the way, I had to take Hudson and go uh buy adult diapers this week.

So here I am with my 11-year-old kid, and I'm like thinking about all the things that my friends with 11-year-old kids are doing.

And I'm taking mind shopping for adult diapers to try to get them through a day full of school.

So my point is this it's really easy to get distracted by what God is doing in John's life, but it's not for you.

I have friends, like people I actually know in person, not just some story I've heard online, of people who have had kids with autism and God has healed their child.

They went to bed one night.

Yeah, we can celebrate them.

It's incredible.

They went to bed one night and somebody prayed a certain prayer over them and they woke up whole the next day.

It's incredible.

And it's easy for me to go, why not my kids, God?

Like, what about them?

Why do you love my kids less?

Do you love me less?

But I have to get to the point where I realize that my journey to grandeur is different than their journey to grandeur.

I need to be able to get to a point where I can celebrate what God is doing in John's life over there instead of going, but why not me?

You know what God's done through me or done in me through the journey with my sons?

I have a level of empathy for other moms that I see having a meltdown with their kid in a store like I never would have had before.

I have a different patience.

I have a different walk with God.

It's driven me to my knees because I had nowhere else to go.

I'm a whole different person because of what he's worked through me.

Yeah.

And I can get discouraged by what I don't have, or discouraged by when I look at how far my journey is to a thousand pounds, and I'm not there yet, but I go, look at how far he's taken me.

Look at what he's worked in me, and also what he's working in my voice.

I don't know everything that's going on in their mind, but I know Jesus is meeting them where they are.

I've seen it time and time again.

So it's okay, it's actually more than okay, that my journey doesn't look like everybody else's journey with their 11-year-old right now.

I don't need to be jealous of what Jesus is doing with John because I'm not looking at John.

I can celebrate what he's working to bring grandeur in John's life because I can see where he's trying to take me, and I'm focused on that.

I'm focused on the fact that Jesus is walking with me.

I'm not alone.

I'm not lonely.

And you know what?

Maybe for you, yours is something totally different.

It could be something like, you know, that time in jail, your divorce, your bankruptcy, and you're going, I feel disqualified.

I feel like I weigh five pounds.

I like there's nothing.

No, you are uniquely qualified by the journey that you've had, and you're going the grander, and it's going to bring things about in your life that are different than the person next to you, but that are equally imago day in the image of God.

You know, your grander might look like a level of empathy for others you never would have had if you didn't go through what you went through.

And your grander might be that your business grows and you've got 5,000 employees that are reporting to you, and you're able to lead something, and you're like, whoa, God, I never saw it getting this big.

Maybe for you, your journey is that there are five people who are still alive today because you invested in them and you cared enough about them to remind them they're not alone.

Those things are equally grand, just totally different.

Fair is not the same, fair is customized to you.

So I want to leave you with this last thought, just a recap that it's already in your DNA.

You don't need to go try to manufacture something, it's in you.

That there's no shortcut to maturity.

Let it run its course.

Let God do the work in you through perseverance.

It may take a long time, but that's okay.

It's about the journey, not about the destination.

You'll get there when it's your time to get there.

And that He has grander things for you.

Don't sell yourself short.

Don't think this is all I am or this is all I can do.

Keep testing out because you might have things in you you don't know are there yet.

You already have everything you need ingrained in your DNA.

It is who you are through who is in you.

You have the capacity for grander things, and you're not just capable of it, you are made for it.