Forward to Zion: Ohio Hometown Camp Meeting 2011

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Forward to Zion

Marriage & Family Seminar

Gerry Wagoner

Passing Your Parents

I'd like to begin with prayer as we talk about some topics that are very important to all of us.

Our Father in heaven, we thank you this afternoon for the opportunity to pause and to come together to discuss things that are important to us and that are also important to you.

We ask, Father, that you would open the doors that you want us to walk through.

We ask that you would give us safety and protection inside these walls, and the enemy would be kept at bay.

Teach us, Father, give us your Holy Spirit, for we ask it in Jesus' name, amen.

Passing Your Parents, that's an original title.

Believe it or not, I thought about this 1 day sitting out in our large shop building.

And I was contemplating questions that many young people have asked me.

And older people alike, and that is, How do we do it differently?

How do we do life differently than my parents did?

And I've talked with a lot of hard cases, people who have struggled with different kinds of things.

I had 1 young girl tell me 1 time, she said, Mr.

Wagoner, my parents have done everything wrong.

And she meant it, she said it with tears.

But for her, there was a lot of truth in that.

She'd had a lot of turmoil, a lot of pain.

Her parents were separated and she was balanced from 1 unpleasant situation to the next.

So what we want to talk about today is how much are we affected by our parents, by our genetic material.

Sorry about that I'm gonna have to Get used to being tethered to this I'm afraid I've got David Asher ik syndrome a little bit.

We were in Norway, Scottsdale, Norway, back 3 weeks ago, between 2 and a half, 3 weeks ago.

We'd been invited to go over there and conduct a week of prayer there at the European Bible School, the college.

Wonderful, wonderful country with a lot of neat people and they're just like you and I really when you get down to it.

Fairly cheerful people but inside they all struggle with some of the same things that you and I do.

As soon as we got back from that, we went up to Michigan.

Within a few days, my wife's niece was getting married.

And it was my honor to conduct my first marriage ceremony there in Michigan a week and a half ago.

We've counseled with quite a number of them.

And in a little bit, I'll share with you some of our experiences that we've had in the counseling ministry.

But as we go into this topic, passing your parents, I'd like to open with a verse of scripture, 1 that you've all read.

For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me.

There's a segment in that Scripture that troubles some people.

Yes, punishing the children right there we stop and we say, God, that's not fair.

But the scripture does go on and it provides a disclaimer to those who hate me.

If you love God, my friends, If you love God, you're not vulnerable to this curse.

But each of us have this genetic legacy behind us.

We've all got parents, grandparents, great-grandparents.

Some of us may know a little bit about them, some of us may not know anything about them, but they're out there.

The Bible tells us plainly that all have sinned, come short of the glory of God.

There may be times when we feel trapped inside.

I'm part of a long genetic line of iniquity.

Am I condemned to repeat the same sins of my father's as many of the Old Testament patriarchs did right?

Abraham lied about his wife, Isaac comes along what happens?

Almost a similar identical pattern there.

There are 2 types of sin issues in our lives.

I ask you to ponder these types as we go into the topic here this afternoon.

Number 1 is inherited, number 2 is cultivated.

A very notable distinction between the 2, inherited and cultivated.

It's a tendency that we inherit from our parents.

If I have a father who struggled for, I'm just throwing this out, this is not necessarily my situation, but if I have a father who struggled with pornography for 31 years, and I have seen that case, by the way, I, as a son, have a very, very high probability that I will struggle in that area if dad doesn't resolve his issues.

I may very well struggle in that same area.

It'll be a little bit worse for me, just a little bit.

Cultivated sin are issues that we've picked up and we've made our own.

Maybe our parents set things in motion, but we've picked them up and we've made them our own.

Now right here I need to make a very necessary distinction.

You're not held accountable for the sins of your parents.

I hope we're clear on that, I'm sure we are.

But there are tendencies that you inherit and I have inherited from our mother and father that tend to follow us around through life if we don't resolve them.

Let's take a look, number 1, at inherited tendencies.

Kissing His Toes Off

Why don't we have a seat here, we'll get started with our second presentation.

1 of my biggest challenges in presenting some of these topics to people is where do I begin?

We've got so many areas that we can talk about.

And back a month or 2 ago, when Dave asked me for topic titles here, I chose these 3 that we're going to be presenting.

Number 1, Passing Your Parents, and number 2 is Kissing Their Toe Off.

You'll see in a minute why I've named it that way.

And the last presentation that we have tomorrow for the adults is called 3 Words.

Communication Wirings, another title I've given it.

And that 1 will be talking about the difference between men and women and ways that we complement each other.

Our Father we thank you for this time together.

We ask that you would teach us as we spend time with your Holy Spirit.

Is there anything more important than your salvation?

I've tried this question out on a number of audiences, most recently at 3ABM.

Moses was willing to give up his salvation for the children of Israel.

Christ could not be on the borders of the tomb if he was not Christ.

And although our salvation is very important, Are we actually willing to do that?

You just pulled the curtain back on the answer.

The salvation of others is more important.

And like you described already, Phil, those who come closest to the heart of God, you're absolutely right, I'm glad you brought that out.

Those who come closest to the heart of God want the salvation of them more than others.

If you have a wayward child, Very often a parent will say, God if you would just save that child, I'd be willing to forego my own salvation.

If you're that kind of a person, many parents are.

Yes, there are 2 things more important than your salvation and mine, and that's God's glory.

In Judges chapter 17, there's a brief little account there that just fascinates me.

The 17th chapter of the book of Judges, there's a man named Micah that were introduced early on in the chapter.

And in the setting of that story, there's been a theft in the family.

The mother has had 2, 000 talents of silver or 2, 000 coins, maybe it wasn't talents, but 2, 000 units of money have been stolen from her.

Whoever took it, I hope their arms drop off or something like that.

Didn't say what the curse is, so I'm kind of inventing 1 there.

He brings the money back to mom and said here it is.

I had set this money aside to build an idol.

The whole chapter starts out with this brief story and what follows there is the narrative of this man Micah, how he has inherited this generational problem of idolatry.

He takes the money, she gives it back to him, said, thank you for returning it, now you're not a thief, I give it to you.

He goes and he builds an idol, and he puts it in his house, he declares his house a sanctuary, a temple.

Everybody can come in and worship, but he needs a priest.

Makes him a priest, so the son does that for just a little while, and then he, his heart wasn't in it, So he goes off and does something else.

1 day, there was a traveling man who was a Levite, came into town, a young fella, by the way, the Bible's very clear on that.

Micah meets this man and said, hey, come to my house and live there.

You can be a priest and a father unto me." That's an interesting statement, isn't it?

Because Micah was old enough to have a son acting as a priest and here comes a young man through town and he says, I want you to be my daddy.

I don't know what the story is behind that account there in Judges chapter 17, but as you go down through the rest of the chapter, you'll find this man Micah continually looking for a father.

And it's that way in many young people's life today.

If we go into a black community, and we have a number of times, we went in there to present seminars on either marriage or relationships, and we've counseled a lot of people, dear people, And you can count on going in there that there's going to be probably 7 or 8 cases out of 10 Where the father will be absent or there'll be no relationship with the father You have to be prepared to help someone like that How to encourage that person how to get them connected to the God of heaven, their heavenly father.

It's not just people who've never had a father.

All of us need to be connected to our heavenly father.

We were in 3ABN last week leading out in the youth department there.

We had anywhere from 15 to 27 young people, youth.

They were probably from 15 on up to 20 some.

And as we closed out on Saturday night, the very last session, a note was passed to my son, who was also helping with his fiancee, leading out in these meetings.

And the note said, I'd like to talk to you in private if I could.

Okay, so after it was over, he went out and talked to him and his girlfriend.

And then I was called over pretty quickly by my wife who said, Come here.

I shut the light off in the room, shut the door so we could have some privacy, and there were the 5 of us standing around there, a young lady, a nice young lady, sweet spirit.

She began to describe how she'd been raped, sexually abused a couple of years ago, several years ago, and never knew how to resolve it.

And so we sat down there and We began to work with that girl to encourage her and help lead her to freedom and peace in this area.

And as we led her to Jesus Christ, I watched her.

There was just enough light coming through the window I could see the silhouette of her face as I was leading her in prayer to Jesus to help disconnect some of that pain.

I saw for the first time a smile come on the face of that young girl.

That is the mighty power of God at work in healing the heart of a young person.

And we're lucky to have those kind of experiences from time to time.

Micah was looking for God but he was looking in the wrong place and in that 1 sentence we've just described the entire world except those who have already found him.

The entire world is looking for God, steps to Christ tells us.

Communication Wiring

I trust you're all having a meaningful time here at camp meeting.

Nancy and I have met a lot of neat people already.

And we've also talked to the adults, and here we are, our third time together.

We're here to talk about relationships, things that matter to us.

No matter who you are, where you are, you have relationships.

Maybe they're good, maybe not, I don't know.

But we're gonna talk about good ones here, and we're also gonna specifically talk about the difference between male and female in this particular presentation.

Our Father in Heaven, we are grateful for the beauty that you have placed in male and female.

Together, Father, you've called us to represent Heaven, to bless 1 another, and to be used by you.

We ask that our marriages, Father, and other relationships that you have given us would be a product of your will.

I was in Boise, Idaho a number of years ago participating in a marriage seminar.

First time I'd ever been to Boise, kind of a neat place.

Afterwards we went out, looked at the Snake River Canyon where Evel Knievel tried to jump over it and didn't make it.

There's a lot of people who are trying to jump over another kind of canyon in their life.

They're trying to jump over the canyon of bitterness, maybe the canyon of resentment, or maybe the canyon of some kind of infidelity, something that is ripped like a knife through the home.

But whatever the problem is, I'm here to tell you tonight there is hope.

We know where the answers are, and we'd like to present some of those to you by God's help from the Bible I am amazed at 3 things I'm amazed at how accurate the Bible is to give answers to everything that we struggle with Number 2, I'm also amazed at how sin binds and destroys people, how it binds and destroys their life.

And number 3, I'm amazed at how repentance and cleansing can free a person.

How a couple who've had barriers between them for 20, 30 years can find freedom and happiness, can walk hand in hand down by the creek after releasing bitterness.

There in Boise, Idaho I was approached by a young lady 1 afternoon after a seminar.

I had given a talk and she came up later and she said could my boyfriend and I talk to you and I said sure.

I said I don't have a lot of time though when would suit you and she said well he works till 6 or 7.

I said okay I've got a little slot of time between 7 and, or between 8 and 10 p.m.

I could tell right away when they walked in the young man was angry.

You don't have to open up the stove to know there's a fire in there.

He had a hat jammed down over angry blue eyes.

So I asked him to sit down, I asked her to sit down, nice young kids, didn't know much about them yet, but I knew they wanted to talk.

And so as we sat there, I asked him to tell a little bit about themselves, I got them relaxed, I told him just a little bit about myself, try to get everyone relaxed, and I asked them if I could pray.

He shrugged his shoulders, I don't care, I guess.

So I prayed, he kept his hat on the whole time.

I didn't challenge him with that, I just accepted him where he was.

And then we got to know each other a little bit better and I asked the girl, I started with her first because she was the 1 that asked me to sit down and talk.

So I knew that she had a desire, she wanted to be there.

And I wanted to find out why they wanted to come and talk to a guy like me from Ohio, just a country boy.

She said, well, my mother tried to commit suicide when she was young.

She said, dad provided for me, but I could never connect with him.

He's what we call emotionally detached in the counseling field.

I turned to him, and I said, would you be willing to tell your story?

Yeah, he was, and I wasn't asking too much of him.

He said, my father was in Vietnam, and he came back deeply damaged, traumatized by things he experienced in Vietnam, and he brought that with him back into the States.

He looked okay on the outside, but not so good on the inside.

His mother had an ongoing struggle with her sanity.

She ended up in a home for the insane is what they called it back then.

He ran away from home to get away from the craziness of life.

And thus far, his life has been punctuated by these two-year intervals, 14, 16, 18.

And out here he was sitting in this office, and he was in his late 20s, a landscaper.

I found out they weren't married, they'd been living together for 2 years.

They had a daughter who was about that old, maybe a year and a half, a beautiful little red-haired girl.

They wanted to know should we get married.

That was the first question they asked me.

I shudder when I get those kind of questions right off the bat.

I'm not sure I like them after I know a lot about the couple, let alone when they ask me that right up front.

I turned to the man and I said, do you believe in God, my friend?

The same shrug, the rolling of eyes, I don't know.

And when he said that, I looked at my watch and I had an hour and 59 minutes.

I had committed 3 hours to these young people and I had an hour and 59 minutes left.

I thought, what will I do in this 1 hour and 59 minutes?

If I did nothing else, I wanted to leave that room knowing that I had led them to Jesus, let them make the decision.

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Marriage & Family Seminar

Passing Your Parents

Transcript

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