- Well, welcome back.
Week number four in the Warrior life groups,
and again, I want to express my most sincere gratitude
to those of you that are leading life groups,
and then congratulate the rest of you for coming together.
This is so important.
We were not designed by God to do life alone,
and the fact that you're coming together,
iron is sharpening iron,
and we believe that you're gonna become
more like Christ because of
your time around other strong believers.
This last week is very complicated,
and I'll just tell you a little bit about behind-the-scenes.
I wrestled and wrestled and wrestled with this message
because I couldn't quite figure out
the best way to present it.
We're talking about what some have called the father wound,
and it's often written that there's a father and a son wound
and that's pretty common,
but the truth of the matter is,
there also can be a father-daughter wound,
there can be a mother-son wound,
and a mother-daughter wound as well,
as well as great strength, healing, and victory
between parents and their children.
So this is really complicated, because I couldn't decide,
did I want to listen to this message,
if I'm hearing it as Craig the son,
or am I hearing this as Craig the dad?
And what I decided to do is kind of gamble
and just say I'm gonna leave it open-ended,
that I wanna listen to it both ways,
because I am both a son and I am a father.
As well, you might be both a mother and a daughter as well.
And so, I'm gonna ask these questions kind of open-ended,
and we're just gonna trust that God can do
whatever He wants to do in your life.
The first question is this,
and the answers could really vary,
because I know people grew up
in a lot of different types of homes,
some broken homes, some with a single parent,
some not raised by their parents,
and so just feel free to apply this, your answer,
in whatever way best fits how you were brought up.
Every parent, every guardian has strengths and weaknesses.
If you ask my kids, "What's great about your dad?"
They could tell you some things.
If you ask them,
"What's not so great about your dad?"
They would all have different opinions,
and they'd probably all be right
in the varying ways they experience it.
Let's start with being very, very respectful
and as honoring as we can,
even though I know some of you grew up
in complicated homes.
But let's talk about either a mom or a dad,
whatever you'd like, a guardian, whoever took care of you.
What was something that was really valuable and meaningful
that you took from the relationship,
and what was something that created a challenge?
So we're gonna talk about the positive,
and then very respectfully,
what might have been a little bit more difficult.
And so let's go ahead and talk about that
around the group.
What was something that was a big blessing
from your parents or your guardians,
and what was something that created a challenge?
In our message, we looked at two different
father-son relationships.
We looked at the relationship between David, the father,
and his son, Absalom, a very tragic and sad ending.
And we looked to the relationship between
the Father, God, and Jesus, the Son,
a very special and intimate relationship.
What's interesting is David,
he didn't know how to say he was sorry,
didn't know how to reconcile.
Neither did Absalom.
There was this head-butting that goes on.
Oftentimes, we see that between parents and children.
Then, with God the Father and His Son Jesus,
the Father affirmed Jesus very publicly,
and there were essentially three things
that the Father said at the Son's baptism,
and He really said this.
He said, "I believe in you, I'm proud of you,
"and I'll always love you."
Here's what I know about all of you,
is all of you either grew up somewhere
where one of those things really, really ministered to you.
A parent that said, "I believe in you.
"I'll always love you."
Or, you would give anything to have had one of those
said to you by someone important in your life.
I would have given anything to have someone say,
"No matter what, I'll always love you."
Those are really emotionally affirming words
when we hear them, and we can feel very, very desperate
for that kind of affirmation when we don't hear them.
Rather than looking toward the past,
what I'm gonna do is look toward the future,
and I'm going to assume that some of you are parents.
You've got a son, or you got a daughter.
All of you are influencers, meaning, in the church,
you could influence people in Life Kids,
you could influence people in your small group,
you're coaches, you're teachers, you're leading in Switch.
There are people out there
that really, really need affirmation from you.
If you look at these three different things,
which one should you say to the people in your life?
Maybe it's difficult for you to say, "I believe in you,"
because maybe, sometimes, you don't.
Maybe it's difficult for you to say, "I'm proud of you."
You, maybe you're like me,
you can kind of be hard on yourself
and hard on the people around you.
Or maybe it's difficult for you to express
that deep, heartfelt emotion, just to even say it,
"I really, really, really, really love you."
I wanna encourage you to grow in affirming
the people that you have influence over in your life,
especially your children,
maybe even the children of your friends.
I'm so thankful for other parents
who helped influence my friends.
I know that in the lives of my children,
when they're had other influencers say things like,
"You're special, you're gifted, I believe in you.
"Yeah, I really care about you.
"You have something that God can use
"to make a big difference,"
it's really impacted my kids.
Let's think about those.
Which one do you need to grow in expressing
to someone in your life?
You may be very specific and say, to my daughter.
To my son.
To some other people that I'm influencing.
Which one would you pick?
I'm proud of you,
I believe in you, and I really, really love you.
Let's go ahead and discuss which one do you need to grow
in expressing to those around you?
Well, warriors, here we go.
Final question of the four-part message series
on the warrior.
Let's look back at what we've covered
over the different weeks.
In the first week, we looked at the reality that,
of all the different attributes of God,
and He has so many,
one of the attributes is that He is a warrior.
Jesus was full of love, grace, mercy, and peace,
and yet, He's the greatest warrior that ever lived,
and we tried to establish the principle
that you have the heart of a warrior.
Both women, both men, there's fight inside of you.
What do you have?
You've got someone to protect,
you've got a kingdom to advance,
and you've got a battle to win.
The second week, we looked at the insecure warrior.
God says, "You're a mighty warrior,"
and we say, "I don't feel like it sometimes."
We looked at how do we become confident,
not in our own abilities, but in Christ in us.
Week three, we talked about the warrior's weakness.
The warrior can be distracted.
If we're not where we're supposed to be,
but engaged in the battle,
sometimes we can be very vulnerable to lust.
We had incredibly intimate and really powerful discussions
about how we can safeguard our lives,
let any sexual wounds of the past
be healed by the presence of God,
so that we can fight in purity and integrity as warriors.
The final week, again, a very emotional week.
We talked about the father wound, or, in some cases,
it might be the mother wound.
Perhaps we felt like we should have received
something different from our parents, and there's a wound,
or maybe we recognize we can do better
in raising young warriors in our own lives.
What I'd like you to do is think back
through the last four weeks.
If there is one takeaway, one application,
one thing that God showed you that stands out the most.
I will be different because God showed me this.
Or this is my assignment, and it's from God.
There may be a principle, there may be a line,
there may be an application.
What's the one thing that stands out to you most
in the four weeks, and what are you gonna do about it?
Now, before you answer that, just remember,
you don't surrender.
You have the power of the risen Christ in you.
A warrior's not a warrior because a warrior always wins.
A warrior is always a warrior
because a warrior never stops fighting.
(uplifting music)