Father’s Day 2022 A Man of God is A Free Man

Good morning, CHURCH!

(Opening joke)

Mommy Ate It

For weeks and weeks a six-year-old boy kept telling his first-grade teacher about the baby brother or sister that was expected at his house.

He was so excited and just couldn’t stop talking about the new baby that was to come. One day his mother allowed him to feel the movements of the unborn child through her stomach.

The six-year-old was obviously amazed that he could feel the baby kicking through her belly, but he never said a word about it to his mother.

He even stopped talking about the baby to his teacher at school.

His teacher wondered why he no longer mentioned the baby. The teacher finally sat the boy down and asked, “Tommy, what has happened with that baby brother or sister you were expecting at home?” Tommy burst into tears and said, “I think my Mommy ate it!”

Are you ready to be equipped today?

Let me see your Bibles.

Let’s go to the book of Philippians 4:8 for this week’s wisdom Vaccination.

This Week’s Wisdom Vaccination

Philippians 4:8 ESV

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

No, but what do we often do?

We think on what we want to change in someone else or a situation.

We think on what we don’t like about someone.

We think on what is unlovely.

The #1 predictor of failed relationships is negativity.

God knows that if we think on good and positive things, we will have good and positive consequences.

But, if we think on things that are negative, we will have negative consequences.

It’s almost kind of like we’ve been classically conditioned.

Are y’all familiar with classic conditioning.

Many events are neutral in and of themselves, but you may have been conditioned to take something that is neutral and to either get positive feelings or negative feelings from it.

Fear of dogs

As a child you came to fear dogs because you walked by a fence that had a mean barking dog inside it.

When you got older and you see a sign that says beware of dog, you automatically get the same feelings you felt when you were a child and that dog barked at you.

Tests have been done to show that you can program fear or fun into a human from something that is really neutral.

(e.g. the baby and the dog, gerbil and rabbit)

Smartphone ringers or vibrations are neutral.

The aroma from certain foods is neutral.

A good report card (anticipating the positive consequences that your parents showed).

Today’s message title is:

A Godly Man is A Free Man

A free man is free from negativity.

A free man is re-conditioned to feel what’s positive.

A free man doesn’t spew out negativity.

I’m going to address the message to the fathers in the house or watching us today.

A lot of the message will be personal in nature.

But everyone can take the principles and learn something from them for yourself.

Point #1

The son has set us free, but we have to walk away.

Have any of you seen the experiment they do with monkeys who are free but they’re able to catch them because they won’t let it go.

(They stick a banana in a cage.)

I was set free over 30 years ago when I gave my life to Christ, but because I was not aware of certain things, I continued to hold on to some of them.

When give our lives to the Lord we are spiritually born again but our minds still have to be renewed.

There are some things right away you know that you need to let go of.

But there are also things that you are not so aware of, that you need to let go.

Many times when I was told that I was holding on to some strongholds, I couldn't hear it because of different factors.

Maybe I was focused on the strongholds in the person who was telling me about mines.

Maybe I didn’t want to hear it.

Maybe I believed I was okay just as I was. (Destroying relationships all around you.)

I would get defensive because I felt attacked.

I felt my identity was being attacked.

I felt like, in order to believe and accept what you’re saying about me, that I’m not good enough.

I felt at times like, you’ve said you loved me or you were rocking with me, but if this is how you feel about me, maybe you’re not rocking with me.

The truth is, they were not attacking me, they were attacking those strongholds in me.

But we have to be careful how or when we try to tell people what we see in them, or they may feel as if we are attacking them.

As if we are being negative.

As if we are being unloving.

As if our thoughts about them are not good.

I thought because I was faithful in the house of God and because I read and studied my Bible, I was exempt from anything in my past really causing serious issues with my current life in Christ.

Let me share just a little about my history.

At the beginning of my athletic career in my teenage years, my parents got divorced.

I was already used to my dad being gone quite a bit for work.

My mom started working two jobs to pick up the slack from my dad not being there and not providing.

At the time I didn’t think that it bothered me.

I still had my mom and my brothers.

I still had my friends at school and in the neighborhood.

I started playing baseball in the 3&2 league.

I played basketball for my grade school team.

By the time I got to high school I ran track, played a little football and played basketball.

Everything seemed okay.

Point #2

I’m free but I’m still broken.

Psalm 34:18 ESV

The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.

But he can’t save you if you don’t think you need saving.

What I didn’t know was that I had developed a major stronghold from my past.

I lacked intimacy.

I didn’t want to feel pain and I didn’t want others to feel pain.

My wife would periodically ask me, “Do you feel anything?”

As I got closer to men of God who had intimacy and who were in touch with their feelings, I realized that I was lacking that.

Well guess what?

Just recently, Holy Spirit let me know that I also dealt with abandonment issues.

I suppressed the fact that I felt abandoned by my father when he and my mom divorced.

Although Christ had set me free from the pain and trauma of my past, I hadn’t acknowledge some of it and I hadn’t let it go.

I hadn’t walked away from it.

Point #3

In Christ I can be healed from all that was broken.

Freedom comes from knowing the truth about who you are and what you should believe.

Bondage comes from believing something to be the truth that is actually a lie/deception.

John 8:32, NIV

"Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. '"

Galatians 5:1 NASB

"It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery."

In order to have freedom you have to have the correct Identity.

Identity – the characteristics determining who or what a person or a thing is.

2 Corinthians 10:5 NIV

We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

Philippians 3:13-14 NIV

Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

This word for forgetting doesn’t mean not to remember anymore. It means to not care for it or give it over to oblivion.

Thus, not letting it affect you anymore.

Neglect the past in a way that it loses its power to hold you back.

(Closing illustration)

Take a moment and think about what people that really know you, have been complaining about. And then ask Holy Spirit “Is this true, and if true, what in my past caused this?”

Forgive anyone who is attached to it.

And begin the process of letting it go, or walking away from it.

Treat it as if it yells at you to behave or think in a way that brings negative feelings.

Get so far from it that if it tries to yell at you, you can’t even hear it.

And if one day you find yourself hearing it again, even if only a whisper, get up and begin running from it again.

If you’re watching online or here in the room, I have a very important question to ask you.

What is Holy Spirit saying to you right now?