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I can't see you, that's okay.

I'm pretty sure you can see me. - Just a little. - Just a little, okay.

It's a good thing I spent some time at the pool yesterday afternoon.

But last week after service, we had a family meeting and a part of that family meeting, we talked about missions and we talked about a portion of our desire to not only do the missions outreach for the local people in our local area, Norman Moore, Oklahoma City, but we also talked about our desire and our calling to also take care of the widows and the orphans, not only in the United States, but also overseas.

I, like most of you in this room, grew up a mutt in Christianity.

I was a Presbyterian, I was a Baptist.

I was all over the map.

And so during that time, one thing was consistent though in the church and that was that they did missions and they did missions in outreach to other countries as well as to their cities.

Well, last week and into this week, the Lord always does awesome things like that.

So Jennifer Strickland, who I've known for a little bit of time and her son Daniel are here with us.

They oversee an organization that they're gonna spend some time talking about this morning that actually is building and working with orphans in Uganda.

We had the opportunity to actually help some youth in Uganda go to a summer camp this summer.

I know like sometimes we take that for granted 'cause like 10,000 people go through Falls Creek Falls every year.

But in Uganda, it's not that easy and the finances aren't always there.

And so HFF had the opportunity to partner with other ministries to help with that this year.

And hopefully more in the future.

We do have, I believe it's hff.church/missions.

Well, we have some information on that as well.

So I'm gonna have Jennifer and Daniel come out, share a little bit about their organization, share a little bit about the heart and what's happening in Uganda.

And then we'll go ahead and dive into the message.

So Jennifer and Daniel, go ahead, come on out.

The microphone pops on. (audience applauding) You're way ahead of me.

You don't need me.

All right, I'll get out of your way. - All right.

Yes, it's working, awesome.

All right, so happy Sabbath, Shabbat Shalom.

So thank you so much for welcoming us here to your church community today.

My name, as Chris said, is Jennifer Strickland, and I am blessed to serve as the Executive Director of Uganda Norfin Child Care Ministries.

It's a US-based organization with our namesake in Jinja, Uganda.

So this is my son, Daniel Strickland.

He has been in Uganda twice with me.

And most of his life, he's known us to be working with this ministry.

So thank you again for helping us to send our kids to, it's also called Kampi Shua in Uganda.

Thank you for doing that.

It really blesses them.

They love it.

They have so much fun.

So it's both a privilege and a profound responsibility to stand before you.

We are united here by our faith, our shared values, and our beliefs in transforming the transformative power of love, compassion, and community.

Today, I wanna speak to you about a cause that is close to my heart and to the heart of God, providing hope and a future for the older children of our orphanage as they transition into adulthood.

So our journey began with a calling, calling to embody God's love and caring for the most vulnerable among us.

So at UOCC, we call it UOCC because that's a little easier to say than the whole name.

We have created like a sanctuary for the kids who have been, they've been faced with unimaginable hardships.

These children, most of whom have lost their family, well, all of them have lost their families.

They are true orphans.

They have no living family that they know of.

They've lost their families to disease, to conflict, just poverty in general, and have found a place where they have been loved and nurtured and given the opportunity to dream again.

So we've witnessed the miraculous transformation of these children.

Just last year, we brought in a 13-year-old girl named Tracy who was living with an elderly woman, and the woman was not able to take care of her anymore, so she put her out into the streets.

She had no living family.

We got to see her shortly after we arrived, and she was just very closed to everybody, very scared.

And six months later when we came, she was a completely different child, open and happy and playing like any of our kids here, right?

So we've gotten to see some of that transformation.

And from the moment that these kids enter our care, often burdened with sorrow and uncertainty, they begin to heal and flourish, and so we've gotten to witness that.

They discover their potential and their worth.

They discover that they have a purpose, and there's boundless possibilities that life holds for them.

Through the grace of God and the unwavering support of our staff and volunteers, these children have grown into resilient, ambitious young individuals with dreams of becoming doctors and lawyers and engineers and teachers and leaders, and that's what we're training them up to do.

But as they approach adulthood, their journey becomes more challenging.

While our orphanage has been a pillar of support during their early years, we now face a critical task of ensuring that they have the tools and opportunities to succeed into their adult lives.

This brings me to the heart of this message today.

The vital need for support for these older children as they transition into university and career paths.

Higher education in Uganda and any developing country is what opens up these possibilities and makes it like a powerful catalyst for change in their communities and empowers individuals with knowledge and skills and confidence, enabling them to break free from the cycle of poverty.

How many times have we been like pouring into, you know, these countries and just feeling like, gosh, it just feels like it doesn't end, right?

So how do you break the cycle of poverty?

And that's our main mission, is to not only rescue these kids off the streets, but to empower them to change their communities and change generations in the future.

So providing them with education gives them the skills and confidence enabling them to break free from this cycle of poverty and to build better lives for themselves and for their communities.

With support from multiple sponsors, we have them all over the United States, Canada, Australia, but in groups, communities like yours are where we see the most prayer coverage and support.

This is what makes such a difference in their worlds.

We've been able to start several of the oldest kids in university education.

And this is often an insurmountable barrier for orphan children who lack family support.

Our goal is to provide full education that covers tuition, books, accommodation and living expenses as they go through.

And we're also committed to offering multiple, or offering mentorship programs, career counseling and internships to be sure that our children are not just academically successful, but also well prepared to move into their adult lives, into their workforce, which looks very different from ours.

These kids are not able to just go get a job at McDonald's.

They actually have to go out and start their business of their own, or they have to have a high level career.

So they can't do that without a trade school or a university education.

So I'd like to share with you a story that kind of encapsulates the impact that all of us have made in our efforts together.

So Amuna Isaac, and for those of you that know Hebrew, Amuna, anybody know what that means?

Faith, right.

He did not know that his name meant faith.

I had to let him know that.

And he's like, how?

How did I get a name that means faith in Hebrew, right?

Because we're talking about Uganda.

So that's very interesting.

Amuna Isaac, he's from the Lira district, which is Northern Uganda.

His parents were kidnapped by the Lord's Resistance Army.

That's an interesting history lesson, go look it up.

And they were kidnapped when he was seven years old.

And then he and his grandmother were picked up by something associated with that and taken to a camp.

They escaped the camp and got a ride to Jinja, Uganda.

His grandmother was elderly and crippled.

And so she was trying to take care of him on the streets of Jinja.

She didn't survive very long.

She got sick and she passed away.

So young Isaac was left alone on the streets of Jinja, Uganda to fend for himself at the age of eight years old.

So this is not uncommon in Uganda and several developing countries like that.

So Daniel Kanu, the director of our orphanage in Uganda, went and rescued him, brought him into the orphanage, and took him off the streets.

And now he just graduated from engineering school.

And not only that, he had the top scores in the nation.

So we're talking about the lowest class, because they have a class system, lowest class, no orphan is able to surpass that level of poverty.

And he just graduated at the top of the nation.

So we are super proud of him.

For anybody here that sponsors a child, we have sponsor chats once a month.

He leads those now.

He's part of our staff.

So we are super proud of him.

And we have a couple of other stories just like that as the kids are coming into their adult life.

So this story is really a testament to scripture that I like to think applies to all who keep the instruction of Torah, to the best of their ability and understanding.

For I know the plans that I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

And this is of course from Jeremiah 29 11.

When we invest in the lives of these young individuals, we are not only helping them to realize that they have a God given potential, but also fulfilling our calling to serve and to uplift the least of these.

However, I must share a critical and urgent challenge that we are currently facing.

So recently, the government came down really hard on us.

And it was because we have multiple kids.

We actually have 30 kids that are 18 and up now.

And we had no idea that they would restrict that as heavily as they would in the United States.

It wasn't really a problem because our oldest one, Isaac is 23.

So we've had them for several years.

And they wanted to shut down the orphanage unless we moved those older kids out into a home that they could transition into the world, which was our plan.

We came to find out that there were some jealous neighbors that had been reporting on us, unfortunately.

And it's so heartbreaking to know that there is jealousy that would cause people to want to force children back out on the streets from where they came.

So it's been eye-opening.

And the ultimatum really threatens the futures of all the kids that we have in our care.

So we must act swiftly on this and raise the necessary funds to construct.

So on the, I think we have a map that was up there on the previous slide.

I'm not sure what the order is here.

Okay, so here's a map of what our property looks like.

You'll see over there on the right, that is where our UOCC property is.

And the big building on the right side of that is the dormitory.

And then over on the, let's see.

Okay, that was the left.

This is the right.

On the other side, you see where the Empowered Generation Campus is.

That is where we're building now.

And we're building very hastily.

The reason you see Grumpy Man on there is because those are the men that we're praying for that have been causing some problems.

So we're praying for them and their families, for God to just break their hearts for these kids.

So, so on the next slide, we have a couple of pictures of what, like our progress is on the Empowered Generation Campus.

And again, I know it's a mouthful, just call it the EGC.

We're good at that.

And so this is Valor Hall that is being built.

And we're gonna stuff 15 of the boys here.

We're working on the second floor to get 15 of the girls there as hastily as possible.

The government has given us like two weeks.

So we need lots of prayer.

We need prayer for favor.

We need prayer for them to also say, you know what, we're gonna give you an extension 'cause they've given us some extensions and apparently that's unheard of.

So on the next slide, you'll see more of a view looking down.

Yeah, this is where the girls are gonna be staying right here.

So it's a lot of work.

Now, Daniel has been with me to Uganda.

I'd like to allow him to share.

He has met some of you like Camp Yeshua.

We've attended Sukkot up here.

And so he may be a little bit familiar.

So I'm gonna hand over the mic briefly so he can share his perspective on a highlight from our trip. - Sure.

Hey, y'all, it's nice to be here tonight.

Thank you so much for having us.

So one of the most impactful things from my experience in Uganda was getting to know the kids.

There are 74, I believe, kids in our orphanage currently.

And it's very interesting to me to see the contrast between how they act and how they love versus how our own kids act and love.

Isn't that loud enough?

Okay.

So the kids there are the most genuine, warm-hearted, loving people that you will ever meet.

It's hard to even explain the feeling that you have when you're around them.

Even if they don't know English, some of them don't.

They're learning in school, but some are too young to know.

They show it in by just giving you as many hugs as possible.

We get at least 1,000 hugs per trip.

It is incredible.

And my dream for the orphanage is to allow them to continue going down this path of love and learning and enjoying the things that we're able to provide for them, such as school, food, shelter, water, these things that we as Americans are very fortunate to have, but not everyone is so fortunate.

So I want us to be grateful for what we have as well.

Just to be thinking about not everyone is as fortunate as we may be.

But yeah, the kids there, my dream for them is to be able to progress past the orphanage into college, whatever their dreams may be, and to be able to fulfill them.

So thank you very much, and I'm gonna hand the mic back over now. - All right, so how can you help?

Well, first of all, pray, right?

That's the most important thing.

So your prayers are super powerful if you don't know that already.

So pray for the children at UOCC for their growth, for their dreams, for their futures.

Pray for our staff and our volunteers that they may continue to be instruments of God's love and compassion.

And then secondly, donate.

Donations are what makes things move.

So your financial contributions directly impact this campus.

So as we know, there's lots of references in Devarim and Deuteronomy about giving to orphans and widows, caring for them and all of that.

And so Malachi 3.10 says, "Put me to the test," says the Lord, "See if I won't open the floodgates of heaven and pour out for you the blessing far beyond your needs."

And he was, you know, of course, talking to the Israelites at the time, but I also believe that that refers to anybody that follows through on some of the instructions from the Lord.

So thirdly, you can sponsor.

We have a fabulous sponsorship program.

You can come see us out.

We have a little table out here.

Come and see us to talk to us about that.

And then advocate, spread the word.

So we have little flyers and things that we can give to you so that you can do that.

So as we look to the future, we envision a world where every child, regardless of their background, has an opportunity to achieve their full potential by supporting our mission.

You are investing into breaking cycles of poverty and making way for future generational blessings.

So in closing, I just wanna express our heartfelt gratitude for everything that you've prayed for and given.

May God bless you abundantly for your kindness.

Thank you. (congregation applauding) - Thank you, Pastor. - Thank you. - Also, for those of you who know Nick and Lizzie Spring, they sit on the board as well and are also pastors in our DFW campus.

I was talking with one of our elders this morning, and it seems like every week, there is some sort of email or phone call or text message or 35,000 Facebook or Instagram DMs from those who are just reaching out.

They're looking for help.

They're in poverty state.

They need Bibles.

They need food.

They need all these different things.

And it's hard to know who to trust, especially when it's in a foreign country.

And so the Lord is sovereign in how He does those because then He'll bring people who you actually have a relationship with, you actually have seen do like.

I like this word.

This word has popped up a lot the last couple of weeks.

They're prolific.

They bear fruit.

And so when you see people who bear fruit, it's a place where you feel like you can invest in as well because you can trust them with the investment 'cause you've seen that they've taken the investment, they've sowed it into the soil, and it's produced more fruit, which then again has more seed and produces more fruit and more fruit and more fruit.

Oh man, how was your guys' week this week?

Was it good? - Yes. - Thank you, Eden.

I'm glad to hear your week was good.

Otherwise, I'm a horrible father and I should stop preaching the message I'm gonna preach today.

So thank you for being in it to win it today.

So I thought long and hard about the topic of the office gift of the pastor because I've met a lot of people over 17 years and very few of them actually say like, "I wanna be a pastor."

I'm actually one of them.

Never once did I said, "You know, my life's goal is to be a pastor.

"I want the title, "I want the responsibilities of a pastor."

I liked the other side of ministry far more than I liked the shepherding or the overseer ministry.

And I've had the testimony over the last year and a half that I had met with the Lord and I had asked the Lord to, "Hey, just release me of being a shepherd, "release me of being a pastor."

And his response to me was, "I can't release you from something that you've never done."

And I'm a type A, anybody who knows me knows I'm a recovery narcissist.

That's not exactly the greatest thing for the Lord to say is I can't release you from something that you've never actually done.

And so I started on a journey over the last year and a half to say, "Okay, Lord, "if I've never actually walked in this position, "if I've never walked in this calling, "if I've never walked in this office, "then you're gonna have to teach me how to do that "because obviously I stink at it."

And so over the last year and a half, I've been doing that.

And so today in talking about the office of a pastor, I would venture to believe that not everybody in this room is like, "You know what, I'm gonna quit my job, Michael.

"I'm gonna quit my job as an electrician "and I'm gonna become a pastor."

Tyson, like, "You know what, I'm gonna quit my job.

"I just wanna become a pastor.

"I just wanna shepherd in a congregation every day."

I don't know that a lot of people is like, "That's exactly the first thing I wanna do."

Like if I had a bucket list, I wanna quit my job and I wanna go oversee individuals and help shepherd them.

I don't know that that's exactly what they would do.

So this sermon in this office gift is a little hard because how many people actually want to be in that position?

Like I said, I didn't either.

Yet the terminology for pastor is very simple.

It's an overseer.

It's that simple.

So it's a pastor sounds like, "I'm senior pastor.

"I'm global senior pastor."

Anybody seen those reels on Instagram?

It sounds very official yet when you break down the Greek word, when you break down what it actually means, it's actually just an overseer.

So the reality is, is you should look around there, not up here, because anybody who's sitting around you has been called to be an overseer as well.

Whether that's an overseer of self, welcome to the office gift of being the pastor of yourself.

You're supposed to oversee what you do.

If you're a husband or a mother, you're an overseer of your children.

If you are in a job, like let's say you're in management, let's say you're the assistant to the regional manager of Dunder Mifflin.

I'm gonna use that joke every week, all five weeks, until somebody laughs at it.

Thank you.

Okay, now I don't have to do it anymore.

So he took one for the team.

So if you're the manager of some, whether it's McDonald's or it's a corporation or you're a business owner, then you're an overseer.

So by the most basic of terminology, almost everybody in this room is an overseer of something.

And so today I want us to look at it from that perspective.

I don't want us to look at the office gift of the pastor as in, well, I have no desire to ever step on a stage or shepherd or counsel individuals.

You're already doing it, or you should at least be doing that in your own home, in your own life, and in your own business.

And so today I want you, even if you say, "Hey, look, I can go ahead and take my nap today.

"It's cooler in here than it is outside.

"I can take my nap 'cause I don't wanna be a pastor."

I want you to start thinking about the heart of what the office gift of a pastor is.

It's an overseer of what God has entrusted you with.

And the principles are far-reaching, more so than I get to stand on a platform and I get to share a message.

So what is a pastor called to do?

In 1 Peter 5, he's called to first mentor the church.

For you, your church might be your family, it might be your coworkers, it might be the people who work underneath you.

You're to mentor them.

Two, Acts chapter 20, a protector of the church.

Men, we like this.

We're protectors.

We like to protect.

We're to protect the church.

We're to protect our family.

We're to protect those around us.

Number three, an equipper of persons, Ephesians 4 and Titus 1.

Last week at the family meeting, we talked about how can we be a family fellowship if we don't have an environment that allows for grandparents to be here?

We talked about, well, what would be an atmosphere for grandparents to be here and for individuals to be here and be welcome in this church?

Well, we said an adult who would stand up and start yelling and screaming in the middle of the service, nobody would accept that.

Nobody would be like, yes, that's great.

Like, great behavior, that's kind.

Well, how does an adult get to a place where they know that that behavior or think that that behavior is acceptable?

Well, they weren't trained as a child to do it.

So number three, an equipper of persons.

Moms in this room, a lot of you spend most of your time equipping little persons, little persons that have the attention span of a little person, but you're an equipper of persons and an overseer.

Number four, 1 Peter 5, Titus 1, and 1 Timothy 3, to help lead and steer, to guide, to move.

Like a shepherd, I'm not a good shepherd.

I've never been in a field with sheep.

So I can't exactly tell you, but I'm practicing for one of these days when somebody tells me that we're gonna do another one of the children's play and they need a real shepherd, I'm practicing because by that time, my beard will grow out and I'll have the long hair and I'll hold a staff and I'll lead and steer.

But we're supposed to lead and steer the people God has entrusted with every single day.

And number five, James 5, but the book of Acts, Luke's writings in Acts tell us over and over again in chapter 2, 13, and 20, that an overseer, a pastor is to pray and cover in petition.

So a lot of times you'll hear, pray for your pastor, pray for your pastor.

Your pastor better be praying for you too.

And it's not just when you call and say, hey, I really screwed up and this is gonna bring a lot of shame on the church and I need your help.

No, the majority of the time for praying is like what you would see a mom or dad do, where the kids would never even know that they were on their face or on their knees praying and petitioning to the Lord.

And that happens before they go to bed every night.

That happens when wild and crazy things are happening.

And rather than mom and dad always being there, they're in their room with their face down on the carpet, or I think vinyl, now I hear vinyl, like carpet's gone away.

So like vinyl, it was a lot comfortable when you had the prayer carpet, thick, plush carpet.

But they're on their face and they're saying, God, please don't let my child do the same stupid stuff I did when I was a kid, protect them.

And if they're saying, please don't let my child do stupid stuff, we need to turn our prayers because we all did stupid stuff.

It's now just, don't let them do the same stupid stuff, let them be protected, Lord.

Although it's too common in our 21st century for people to look at the office gift of a pastor and say that this is somebody who has to be a visionary.

This is an executive, this is somebody who's got marketing and it's got this grandiose, like, hey, I can really execute a business plan, or hey, I can really execute a marketing plan.

That's pretty common for us in the 21st century.

It's very popular for people to say, man, that guy's got a vision, I really wanna follow that vision.

And ultimately what the vision is in most scenarios, it's a business plan, it's a marketing plan, it's a financial plan.

Man, in America, we love some plans.

Right to the top of that little triangle, we like some MLMs, we like some plans.

But ultimately, like we talked about with the office of the prophet last week, if a pastor or an overseer is only executing a visionary marketing financial plan, then where is God?

Husbands, wives, if you're only executing a plan, where's God?

If it's an office gift, like Brent talked for multiple weeks, if it's a gift given by God's grace for God's righteousness for you to walk in it, then where is God?

And where's the Holy Spirit?

If you can just read it in a book and apply it to your life without any inspiration.

Remember, the Bible tells us that the Holy Spirit, the ruach ha'qodesh, is to lead us in all understanding, wisdom, and knowledge.

If you can do it without the Holy Spirit, without the ruach ha'qodesh, then it's not of God, it's of you.

And it's of you, then you're making yourself your own God.

And there's only room in Yahweh's kingdom for one God.

And that's not us, that's Him.

However, I wanna also point out that while we're not here to bash Omega Church or anything else, because the truth is, is we don't know the intentions of why some of these people are, no matter what TikTok says, not all plans are bad.

Not all systems are bad.

The Bible also says that older women are to teach younger and older men are to teach, and there's wisdom in the multitude of counsel.

So centuries over centuries over centuries, if there's a way to say, hey, if you wanna get a building fund, this is the best way to go about do this.

So if I am praying and the elders are praying, and all of a sudden there's this confirmation, this is what we need to do, and so we said, the Lord told us we should do something.

We know this, it's been confirmed.

There's no reason to go seek counsel from those who are wise.

Just like there's no reason to accept counsel from them who aren't.

I've said it multiple times before, you wouldn't go get financial advice from somebody who is broke and filed bankruptcy.

You wouldn't go get physical health advice from somebody who is not in the greatest of physical health.

You wouldn't go ask for, hey, how do I learn how to play guitar from somebody who's never played guitar?

So not all systems are bad, but the systems of the world cannot be the primary function of an overseer.

Otherwise, the overseer is not operating in the office gift of the pastor.

Last week, we talked in Paul's letter to Ephesus in chapter four, but today I wanna read out of chapter five, starting in verse one.

Be imitators of God, therefore, as beloved children, and walk in love just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant, sacrificial offering to God.

There is proof in the New Testament that doterra should exist.

But among you, my wife laughed.

I'm not telling you to get rid of the oils.

But among you, as it is proper among the saints, there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality or any kind of impurity or greed, nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk, or crude joking, which is out of character, but rather thanksgiving.

For this, you can be sure no immoral, impure, or greedy person that is in idolatry has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.

Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things, the wrath of God is coming on the sons of disobedience.

Therefore, do not be partakers with them.

We're all put on this earth to be imitators and image bearers of God.

The image bearers are only to reflect his nature.

You are not the image bearer of God if you are reflecting your nature.

You're image bearers of yourself, which we already know, we've talked about in the taboo series that there is two natures that beat with inside of us.

There's the Yetzirah, the Jewish sages call, which is that fleshly appetite that we're constantly wrestling against.

And then there's the divine nature of Yahweh Adonai, Lord God.

To be as image bearers, we cannot be engaged in sexual sins, impure thoughts or actions.

A lot of times people will lump the two together, and there is a bleed over that comes with that.

But impure thoughts can be a lot of different things.

If you are thinking about how you could cheat a system, how you could take advantage of something, that would be considered impure in thoughts as well.

Be greedy for financial motives or other spiritual giftings.

This is a big one I like to hit home.

Most people can say, oh man, I'm not greedy over, I'm not coveting what you have financially.

But a lot of people will struggle and it's like, man, oh man, I wish I had the spiritual gift of this.

Or I, oh, I wish I was a prayer warrior like you.

Like everybody has been given a gift according to Ephesians 2.

God gave every person in this room and every person who's listening online a gift before they were born.

And then we get to choose whether we should walk in it or not.

So we should not be coveting the gifts of other people.

We should not be trying to, man, I, Vicki, what do I gotta do so I can get a little bit more of your gifting, of your anointing?

I'm not to covet, I'm not to try to take your gifting.

Why?

Because your gifting is necessary just as much as my gifting is necessary.

Why?

'Cause all gifts are given what?

To build up this entire body.

And every other body that meets on Sundays or Saturdays or Wednesdays or Tuesdays or Thursdays, they're all given to build up the body of Christ, not to tear apart the body of Christ.

Number four, you need to watch your mouth.

This is one that I struggle with forever.

One of the worst mouths out there, literally.

Horrible mouth.

You have to watch your mouth.

You have to watch what comes out of your mouth and what representation.

It's like I said last week, I can wear Jesus all over my T-shirt, but if everything else in my life doesn't give the example of Jesus, I need to shut up.

Practice rejoicing in an attitude of gratitude with the Lord.

Again, sometimes it can be hard to rejoice.

Sometimes life is tough, whatever.

But if you practice an attitude of gratitude and rejoicing in the Lord for the things he's given you, it's funny how many more things you'll see he has given you.

We aren't to speak empty words or mindless divisions.

We gotta be careful about what comes out of our mouth, not only from impure talk or coarse language or whatever, but if we're sowing mindless divisions, if we're tearing down others, if we're speaking about things that don't build up the body of Christ, we need to be careful.

And we aren't to be drunk.

When you lose control over your ability to think and act, a couple years ago in the Roots of Christianity, there was this wide debate on what earthly drugs are acceptable and not acceptable in accordance with the scripture.

They would talk about whether you could put mushrooms on a pizza.

The kids aren't in kids' class today, so I'm gonna say this very vague.

Whether you could put mushrooms on a pizza or whether oregano could be put in paper in a fragrant aroma.

We started to talk about the semantics of the scripture to say like, is this important or is this not?

And while everybody knows I like cigars and I like bourbon and I like to have IPAs and cams constantly giving me these new IPAs to try and all that, the moment you start to be impaired in your ability to think and function, the moment you have lost control over yourself and you've given yourself over to the adversary.

Paul continues in Ephesians 5 with the juxtaposition in what it means to be a child of God versus a son of disobedience.

He goes so far as to tell us that if these things continue in you or around you, that we are to actually break fellowship.

It doesn't mean because your Hebrew understanding is different from theirs or one practice on the Sabbath is the different or all of a sudden we found another calendar and we can break over the calendar.

It actually tells us, Paul tells us that these are the things we're to break fellowship over with.

Again, we can't say we're doers of the word and lovers of the word if we're not actually listening to the entire word.

And so when we break fellowship so easily over small, minute things, that should be second, third, fourth level of conversation.

But we got no problem in hanging out with people who are puking down their shirts and doing silly stuff because they're abusing substances or they're talking about just mindless genealogies and speculation and that.

Like there is a time and a place, the Bible says to break fellowship and there's a time and a place not to.

We don't get to pick and choose what portions of the scripture we get to apply to our life.

If we're truly followers of God, then our goal is to learn, again, the Holy Spirit, all wisdom, understanding, knowledge, and power to lead us.

Because if I'm all you've got, you're in trouble.

If you're all you got, we're in trouble.

We need the Lord.

It says in Ephesians, it says, "Wives, submit to your husbands, ask the Lord, "for the husband is the head of the wife, "as Christ is the head of the church, "his body of which he is the Savior.

"Now as the church submits to Christ, "so also wives should submit to their husbands "in everything, and now I can close the sermon."

I'm gonna take a real quick sidebar here.

There is Bill Gawthard, and he's not the only ministry who's done this, but there is this picture of an umbrella.

And I'm just gonna paraphrase it 'cause I don't have it in front of me, but there's a picture of an umbrella that they use to use this portion of scripture, and it says Christ.

And then there's rainfall, and under Christ, there's a smaller umbrella, and it says husband.

And then under that, there's a smaller one, it says wife, and then it says children in that.

I need us to think for one second, take every bit of things you've been taught, 'cause I've, you know, my stepfather grew up in a Mennonite community, and I've been in mega churches, I've been on both sides.

So I've literally been on both sides of the concept of what it means to wives submit to your husbands, and husbands submit to your wives, and all those.

And I've been married 20 years, so I haven't been married as long as some of you, but I've made some doozies of mistakes in those 20 years of my life.

But I need you to think about an umbrella for a second.

Take the whole spiritual component out.

What do you do to an umbrella, whether it's small or it's large, if you walk outside and you put the umbrella over your head, the function of the umbrella is to do what?

To make sure the water doesn't come upon you, it's to go off you.

Well, if you walk outside with an umbrella, and the umbrella puts water through it, what do you need to do to the umbrella?

Thank you, Eli, it was rocket science.

You throw the umbrella away, 'cause the purpose of the umbrella is to keep water off of you, and yet water is getting upon you.

So again, follow me.

If Christ was the perfect human being to ever walk on this earth, He wasn't created, He left the heavens, came to this earth, Yeshua HaMashiach, took on flesh, was the perfect temple of God in the flesh to show us.

So you're telling me Christ is an umbrella that doesn't function properly, because when we say this umbrella is Christ, but somehow water still comes through that umbrella to the husband, so the husband needs to protect the water, who then needs to protect the wife, that analogy just doesn't hold water, literally.

That was Holy Spirit inspired, 'cause I am not smart enough to have that one in my notes.

So then what do we do?

Do we turn around and say, well, the husband doesn't have any oversight of the wife?

Surely not, but what we don't do is we don't minimize Christ.

We don't minimize Christ.

As overseers, we don't minimize the one who is our overseer, all of us, which means if Christ is an umbrella and he is the head of a family, of a church, of a body, he doesn't have the deficiencies where water comes through that umbrella.

If we're under his covering, he functions properly.

If we think he doesn't, then we should readjust.

And I'm not gonna go into a whole husband and wife thing, I'm gonna let my wife teach that sermon at some point in time in the future.

She said she's never gonna preach, you just wait and see. "25, husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved "the church and gave himself up for it, "to sanctify her, cleansing her by the washing "with the water through the word, "and to present her to himself as a glorious church "without stain or wrinkle or any such blemish, "but be holy and blameless."

Just like we talked about last week, and you're gonna see every week, there's some themes here.

They're almost the same, even though the office might change a little bit.

Last week, we talked about the fact that when we look at office gifts, or we looked at the gifts and the manifestations of the Holy Spirit, a lot of times people will say, well, like, I wanna be the head, or I wanna be the heart, or I wanna be one of the major body components that are there.

The scripture makes it abundantly clear that Jesus is the head, Jesus, and only by Jesus can Ezekiel tell us we can have a new heart and a new spirit.

So we're all relegated to hands, toes, other parts.

Just let that know.

Well, also we see that Jesus is the head of the church, Paul tells us.

So as pastors, pastors will say, well, you just wanted to become a pastor 'cause you wanted to be the head of the church.

Then you're not a pastor.

By the biblical definition, if you just became the head of a group, home group, Saturday group, Sunday group, whatever, you're not a pastor.

If the goal was I wanted to be the head of that group, I'm the ultimate authority of that group.

No, Moses was not the ultimate authority of Israel.

He was the mouthpiece in the earthly realm, but it was God who was the head of Israel.

Moses had to go to the top of the mountain at Sinai to meet with God, to get the instructions and to bring them back.

When there was deficiencies from his, Moses's understanding of the Torah, or there was things that weren't there, i.e. there are no sons in the family and there's an inheritance.

Moses didn't get to unilaterally make a decision as the head of Israel.

This is what this means.

He had to go ask the Lord.

Hey, Lord, there's no provision in the Torah for this.

What would you like for us to do?

And then the Lord would speak to him and he would bring it back to Israel.

The Lord is the head of the church, just like the Lord was the head of Israel.

Not any man, not any woman.

We are to submit ourselves in our homes, in our churches to Christ and Christ's teaching.

It is his spirit that gives us understanding, wisdom and knowledge.

It's not a marketing scheme.

It's not whatever deems to be politically correct.

If this week taught us anything, they're both stupid.

Being politically correct, that is.

If Christ is the head of the church, then it's not man's responsibility to fight those battles.

If Christ is the head of your house, it is not your responsibility to fight those battles.

It is God's responsibility to fight those battles.

What is your responsibility in the battle?

It is to stay connected to Christ.

Husbands and wives, it is to stay connected to Christ.

And in staying connected to Christ, you will understand what God is doing to fight those battles for you.

There's nothing that we can do on our own.

There's not any walk I can do that can provide holiness for myself apart from Christ.

It's in him and through him that we are to mentor our homes and our churches, protect our homes and our churches, equip the persons in our home and in our churches to help lead and steer the people in our homes and in our churches, and to pray and cover the people in our homes and in our churches.

I wanna go back to Genesis chapter one.

And I wanna point out something that popped off the pages to me a couple of weeks ago while I was studying on this.

And I know you're saying, "Well, how do you go from Paul to Genesis when you're talking about the office gifts of the pastor?"

Well, if we truly believe that the terminology of an overseer is not just relegated to somebody who gets to stand on a pulpit and preach, if we believe it's an overseer, if you believe like I believe that the extension of this community, this church, is actually a family that's made up of many little families of which you're the pastor of that family, the overseer of that family, then shouldn't we just go back to the beginning and just see maybe what God has to say?

The first day, God separated light from darkness.

Is there a spiritual principle from separating light from darkness that we could learn in our own life, in our own walk, maybe in the church?

Or am I just out on a limb here?

I can be out on limbs.

Y'all know I can be out on limbs.

But we're called to separate light from darkness, right?

What fellowship does light have with darkness?

We're to be separate from it.

Light, if you are, if the light of Yeshua is in you, in your home, in your life, then what are you to do?

Are you to go take on the darkness of the world and to interact and allow them to transform you?

No, you're to transform them.

So there has to be a separation between what is considered to be light and what is considered to be dark.

Oh, wait, that's the first thing God did.

Made a distinction between the two.

Number two, day two.

God separated the heavens and the waters below.

So he separated the waters of heaven and the waters below.

And if anybody goes flat earth with this, Brandon will talk to you when he comes back from vacation.

He separated the waters from the heavens and the waters below.

Well, what do we see symbolized through the waters throughout Scripture?

Baptism, right?

So he separates the baptism of the flesh for the cleansing and the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the holy waters.

You need both.

You need the baptism of the cleansing of this life, the outward sign of an inward situation, but there's not a single thing in Scripture that tells you that any man can give you the baptism of the power of the Holy Spirit.

Only God can do it.

We see that in Mark chapter one with Yeshua as well, before he even starts his ministry, before he even starts shepherding anybody, he goes into the water, comes out.

There's an audible voice from heaven of Yahweh saying, "This is my son of whom I'm well pleased."

At the same time, a dove falls down.

Wasn't a pigeon, it was a dove, falls down.

Holy Spirit comes, he gets cast out to test in the wilderness with the adversary.

Still one of my favorite chapters is Mark chapter one.

To see the fact that Yeshua could have taken like the gravy train, he could have had the family namesake and gone straight to Yale on a four-year ride, and he decides he's gonna do all the hard things to prove to the people that everything that was written about before was here in the flesh and the blood, was here now.

The third day, God separated the lands from the seas.

Spiritual principle here, he's preparing and tending a home for us.

"My wife cannot swim.

If he did not separate the land from the seas, she would not be my wife."

She would have drowned.

Or we all would be Aquaman, which actually might be kind of cool, I'm just saying.

But I have to trust God's infinite wisdom that we weren't all supposed to be Aquaman, so he separated the land from the seas.

He's preparing and tending a home for us.

Day four, God created the sun and the moon.

The sun and the moon are markers that mark our daily calendars, daily reminders of seasons, and they set in motion times for us to, again, what?

To tend and prepare.

After 17 years, a lot of us will say, "Oh man, I forgot to coach next week."

And the Lord's like, "It wasn't my fault.

Gave you every single day with the sun and the moon and the stars, and I even gave you calendars.

I gave you iPhone alerts.

I gave you voices that will talk to you every day at 4 p.m. from a little dot plugged into your house."

My daughter likes to schedule things that I'm no longer technologically advanced enough to stop.

So code is coming in 321 days and four hours and five minutes.

It started with the sun and the moon as markers for daily times and remembrances of things that are happening, so that you could tend and prepare.

I didn't even think about Passover.

He gave you daily reminders to tend and prepare.

As overseers of your house, this is to tend and prepare your home to be ready.

No different than in a church, we're to be preparing daily and remembering daily to be ready for the second coming of Christ.

The fifth day, God created sustaining creatures and he set a system in place for cultivation and sustenance.

He created sustaining creatures.

Now, for those of you who don't eat meat, Cam, there's a day coming for you too, bro.

But again, a system of cultivation and sustenance in the garden and in the earth.

The sixth day, God created man and woman.

He created image bearers to bear his image on the earth and maintain his creation, steward his creation, be prolific to bear fruit and to protect his creation.

And then on the seventh day, God, love on his creation and rested with him.

God placed overseers of his creation, Hava and Eve, or Hava and Adam.

It's almost July.

God placed overseers in the garden and instructed them to do what?

To oversee the garden, to protect the garden, to equip the garden, to lead and steer the garden and cover the garden with love through actions and the obeying of the instructions of the Lord.

So why Genesis 1?

Because ultimately the first pastors were the pastors that were ordained by Christ in the garden to protect the garden and to protect that household.

Everything from there is then us learning from the fall of man, the good decisions man has made, how the Lord has interacted with them.

But ultimately the first house was actually a house built by Yahweh.

The first people to dwell in that house was Yahweh.

And so in this room, you are all here with one thing in common.

You love to some degree the Sabbath day command.

I don't know everything about all of you, but I know you love that, why?

Because it's Saturday in Oklahoma.

There's a bazillion other things you could be doing, but you're here.

However, before the day of the Sabbath, before the instruction of the Sabbath and the day by which God rested with his creation, he had instructed them to do something.

He had instructed Adam to protect, maintain, oversee, lead, steer, pastor, shepherd this house well.

One of the number one things I have seen in the year and a half that I've been on this bootcamp of the Lord to become a shepherd, to learn how to do that, is we put so much emphasis on the Sabbath day that we forgot that before the Sabbath day, there was a commandment.

To work in the office gifts of a pastor or an overseer.

It starts first in your home.

It doesn't start first here.

This is a home made up of your homes.

I can name all the names of the homes that are here.

Some multi-generational that are here.

The first instruction was to protect your home, to lead your home, to tend to your home, to cover your home, to do those things.

We spend more time arguing over what is appropriate on the Sabbath, what is appropriate in dietary, what is appropriate with everything that came afterwards.

And first and foremost, homes are being destroyed.

Can I let you in on an opinion?

I'm gonna make sure I clearly say that again, opinion.

Which means it's not in the scripture and it's not me trying to read from the text of the Bible.

It's just my experience.

The adversary isn't out there trying to get you to stumble by eating pork.

He is trying to destroy your home.

And most of the time, he's doing so by making men apathetic.

And if that hurts, I'm sorry.

It is what it is.

It's my opinion of my experience.

The home is the first and foremost place that God instructed Adam and Eve to be together with him in a home.

If you think that the adversary is worried about what you put in your mouth or what day you worship or some of the others, that's the least of his concerns because he's getting you to destroy everything else.

He's getting you to destroy your home.

He's getting you to destroy your marriage.

He's getting you to destroy your relationship with your children, which causes generational curses.

And then what kind of an overseer are you?

You're probably like me, where I'm wrestling with the Lord on the beach and I'm like, Lord, I've built cities for you.

There's been 600% growth in every ministry I've been a part of.

He's like, that's great.

That's a beautiful city.

But what good is the city if nobody lives in it?

What good is your financial bank account if nobody is there to live the life with you?

I was having lunch with a close personal friend and mentor of mine this week, and we were talking about the whole concept of stopping and smelling the roses and finding a balance in your life.

I've made well over six figures in my life.

I've worked well over 80 hours.

I've done so for what I believe was for the kingdom.

I've done so with people who I thought the anointing of the Lord was upon at that time.

And what I've realized is there's far more.

Why is there far more?

Because the truth is, is that becoming a slave to anything in this world does not make you a bond servant in Christ.

You can say that you're working for ministry.

You can say that this is intentional, but when you do things specifically to cover yourself and your desires and people's impression of you, I don't care what your impression of me is.

I care what God's impression of me is.

And if I'm right with God, then I would think that your impression of me would reflect that.

Because the truth is, is what are you looking at?

A guy who refuses to get up and work out?

I refuse to work out.

I get like five reps in a day.

A guy who could fast more and eat less sugar?

My daughters are on the sourdough kick.

I'm not gonna stop eating it.

I'm just confessing to you.

Now I know where gluttony's line is, and I'm not there yet, but like this is the best you get if I'm your spiritual leader.

My job as a pastor and overseer is to push you towards Christ.

It's not to make carbon copies of Chris.

I don't get to put a gift in your life.

I don't get to put an office in your life.

I get to walk alongside you for you to find the one God already gave you.

And his husbands and his mothers, that's your job for your children as well.

Protect your home first.

Can I let you in on a secret?

I have a motive for saying this.

There's an agenda.

There's an agenda.

I should just go ahead and tell you what the agenda is.

The agenda is, is I've told you this is a house that's made up of a lot of different houses.

I only really pastor and oversee when there's a conflict in your house, 'cause you'll say, "Hey, I kinda need some advice," or, "Hey, kinda got myself into a pickle."

"Hey, kinda screwed up."

If the pastors and the overseers of their home rise up, get closer to Jesus and follow exactly what God said, you make my life easier.

I don't wanna say it too loud.

You make my life easier.

What would it be like if we could just, we could just go have a beer together?

It's not like, "Hey, I need to talk to you."

It's like, "Hey, what are you doing on Tuesday night?"

"You know what?

"I didn't have a pop-up counseling call this week.

"Let's go get some chicken and beer.

"Let's get to know each other.

"Let's co-labor."

The more we take responsibility, and then people get sideways, they'll say, "Well, why are you stepping in?

"Like, I'm the leader of my house."

And it's like, "Are you really?

"Oh, is that how you lead?"

'Cause I don't see that in the Bible.

All of you in this room have the opportunity to walk in the office gift of being a pastor and overseer.

It doesn't mean that you have to shepherd a church.

You get to oversee yourself and what you do day in and day out.

When you pick up your phone and refuse to read your Bible, you're making an overseer decision.

When you choose to do something, eat this versus eating that, it's an overseer decision.

Then when you get married, your responsibility as an overseer grows.

Your responsibility is first and foremost to your wife, not to her parents and not to yours.

Establish your home, protect your home.

Why?

Because all the junk we see around in this world is because Adam didn't do it in his first home.

He didn't oversee it properly.

And I know there's theologies and teachings on, did Eve see it, sin, or why did Adam do what he did?

I don't know.

I'm gonna wait for the autobiography in heaven to come out and then I'll let you know what my opinion is on it.

Until then it's speculated whether Adam knew or what, we don't know.

Mentor your family, protect your family, equip your family, lead, steer, and guide your family, and pray and cover your family.

Michael and the worship team, you can come back.

It's a miracle it's not 12.

Being a pastor isn't an office or a gift for selfish glorification or ambition.

The stories in the Bible make it clear that we're derelict of our duties and operating in that role, if that's even 1% of why you do what you do.

If you get married and have kids just so you can have authority, you're derelict of duty.

You're derelict of the calling.

We have a lot of extremes.

We have the super passive masculinity that happens today, and we have the toxic one where people are abusive in what they do.

The Bible doesn't outline either as being appropriate.

There's a happy median.

And guess what, guys, you wanna know how to find it?

You wanna know how to find it?

You're gonna have to walk with other men who love the Lord, who are in prayer with the Lord, who can speak into your life, and you better love your wife.

Wives, I'm really struggling with the oversight and all these things in our house, and I'm struggling as being a pastor and walking in the office gifts of our home as a pastor.

Work cooperatively with your husbands.

Husbands, work cooperatively with your wives.

Wife.

I told you, I've been in the Roots base for 17 years.

That's not a thing I really wanna have to deal with, but it's out there.

Again, I said, if you fix your home, you make my job easier.

This is one that's not gonna make my job easier.

Stick to one, please.

Thank you.

I wanna leave you with a challenge today.

Self-examine yourself.

All of us have fallen short.

This isn't about trying to beat you up or feel like, oh, I'm imperfect.

We all have fallen short of the glory of God.

We've all sinned, every single one of us, myself included.

But what areas have we been derelict of duty in our home as overseers?

Whether it's husbands to your wives or wives to your husbands, or maybe it's fathers to your children, or maybe it's mothers to your children.

What areas have we been derelict?

'Cause whatever areas you've been derelict duty as a pastor or an overseer of your family, I can promise you that's the area that you need to go home today and put a Google cam up because that's the area that the adversary is coming in and out of your life like nobody's business.

Oh, the adversary, like, I can promise you they are.

They're having a tea party in your backyard and you don't even know because you don't even got no cameras up 'cause you've been derelict of duty.

They're in and out and you don't even know it.

What areas can you sure up to remove the foothold of the adversary's ability to affect your marriages in your home and your communities?

'Cause honestly, it starts in your home.

It doesn't start in this church, it starts in your home.

The practices that you interact with and the behavior you interact with in your home creeps into every other area.

Your job, your fellowship, extracurricular activities, they all stem from the decisions and the behavior that are made in your home.

It's important because if you haven't turned on the television, our world is in complete chaos.

It has been for a really long time.

So this isn't like, this isn't some doom and gloom message.

It's in complete chaos.

People don't even know what a baseline of anything is anymore.

We just watched the worst presidential debate I've ever seen in my life.

The part that made the most sense was when they were arguing over their golf scores.

If you don't think that God isn't waking us up and giving us an opportunity to stand up and rise up as overseers, it's blatantly in front of us.

And this isn't so that you can go prep and hide in the woods.

It's so that you can make a difference for generations to come.

It's so that you can make a difference for the ones around you in the life.

This isn't about hiding away in the woods.

I can see you.

I wish it was true, but the Bible says that that's a lie, Daniel.

You do not have a three handicap.

We must start to take responsibility for the actions that we have, because you can say, oh, well, this week I heard about another pastor stumble.

Oh, another testimony came out about another individual.

And all those are horrific.

The things that we're reading about that have taken place from people in leadership are absolutely horrific.

But yet the Bible doesn't say that I'm any more of a pastor than you are.

You're an overseer of your home.

You're an overseer, some of you, in your workplace.

You're a pastor.

If you took the name manager out or the title out and you put, I'm the pastor of regional sales, would you approach your life differently in that place?

Probably not.

But you should.

We talk about an elder.

What could be an elder?

Well, an elder is also an overseer, and each one of you are an overseer of something.

So today, as we have this response song, I want you to think about those areas of your life that you could pastor better.

I want you to think about those areas of your life that you could sure up.

And I want you to get before the Lord.

Again, this isn't about me.

Like you don't have to come down here and say 25 Hail Marys and 45 Rosaries.

You have the ability to speak to the Lord.

But it starts with repentance first.

Then it starts with the changed actions.

And if we're not changing our actions, then we're truly not repentant. (gentle music) (gentle music)