Pastors Brian and Jacque Lother
Jacque: God has been so present with us today. What a present. I love how everybody has their part to bring. It's just been so fun to see all the different people part of the service today. Thank you all. And we all just bring something, don't we?
Pastor Brian: I have something for you.
Jacque: Thank you. Then I have my--
Pastor Brian: Your scriptures.
Jacque: My scriptures, yes.
Pastor Brian: Happy Father's Day to all you fathers. You are supposed to say thank you. You are welcome. I had a wonderful dad. My dad had a terrible dad. My father immigrated to Canada with his family when he was about five. By the time my dad was six, his father had already abandoned his family in a new country where they didn't know how to speak the language. It's amazing what God can do in somebody's life when you give your hearts to Christ. I still think that my dad had, I would call some issues because of the abandonment that he experienced, but he got so healed up in so many ways when he came to know Jesus that I couldn't have asked for a more wonderful Father. He broke the curse that was put on his family and that's what Jesus brings to all of us. That's what Jesus brings to this world. The older I get, the more frustrated I become with how God is perceived.
The year was 1989 and a dictator who I came to know more clearly after Catalin Dima came to work here at Hope a number of years ago and he was on staff for many years. He now pastors Influence Church with his wife, Kelly. He came from a country called Romania. And in 1989 the dictator, Nicolae Ceaușescu, reign ended in 1989 in Romania. Catalin was I think 13 or 14 years old, somewhere in that category. He was part of, some people might call it, an insurrection that basically overthrew the terrible government that Romania had been under.
While under Ceausescu dictatorship, he passed a law that on the surface most pro-lifers would have embraced it, which was he prohibited any birth control in the country. That's a debate for another time. I just know that one of the things he didn't do was he didn't address the poverty and the need to have a strong economy so that these children that were being born would be wanted and cared for. As a result of the greed and selfishness at the top and very little wealth being poured down to the rest of the culture of Romania, the population of these children grew dramatically and most of them ended up being abandoned and put in what we would call an orphanage.
But an orphanage in America was a lot different than the orphanage under Ceausescu reign in Romania. Most of these children were unwanted and abandoned. Their fathers didn't want them. Their mothers couldn't handle them. They didn't have enough money. They were institutionalized. Many of these starving babies were actually chained into their cribs. Some lived there for five, six, and seven years chained to a crib. Many of these orphanages resembled child-sized versions of Nazi prison camps. That's really what they resembled. 1989, the overthrow of Ceausescu government happened, and the West became aware of what was transpiring in this relatively small country of Romania compared to a lot of other countries in the world.
As is our custom in the West, we try to help and fix problems. America is good at coming to the rescue of people. God has blessed us with that in our hearts to be a nation that wants to help. Many westerners rushed in to adopt these love starved children. Some years later these adoptive parents learned firsthand what many psychologists had predicted and that was these children who had never known the love of a father had been so mentally and emotionally crippled. They were beyond the human capacity to repair them. There was nothing that a human could do to repair them. The psychologist defined this phenomenon as reactive attachment disorder or detachment disorder. They just were not capable of trusting someone in authority because their early years they had suffered nothing but abuse because they had been neglected for so long. They lost their ability to trust. And many of these young children died from lack of love. They just died. How's that for an introduction to a Father's Day message?
I appreciate what Bill had to share this morning about being made and created in the image of God. Love should come naturally to us. We were created in the very image of God and in his likeness. And the scriptures tell us that God is love. God is love. Not that God is loving, which he is that, but his lovingness comes out of his nature on who and how he is. God is love. Isn't it amazing? I said this to you just the other day, how we can read these scriptures, God is love and for God so loved the world that he gave. We can read these scriptures, the scriptures that we learn may be before we learn anything else, and yet we struggle with the image of God in our own minds. Jacque even said earlier as we sang, the face of God that she has often seen is the face of frowning and anger.
We were all born into this sinful world, and we all have experienced, because of Adam's fall, fallen natures and our fallen natures have created in us a bent towards believing the very worst about God rather than the very best. Let's just all say to God, I'm so sorry for how I've thought about you. We have believed the very worst about God. Rather than choosing to know him as the loving Father that he is. We often find that accepting his love and giving it away to others is a struggle even after we come to know the Lord. Because most of us came to know the Lord for one reason. We were desperate. We needed forgiveness. We were at the end of our rope and someone told us that there was a God that cared about us and we took a risk to believe it.
Many of us tried everything else before we tried God. We found that nothing works quite like Jesus. That should be a song: nothing works quite like Jesus. We often find that accepting his love and giving it away to others is a struggle. It's a struggle. John the apostle writes in first John chapter 4, verse 16, this really incredible verse that if we would begin to get this, it would transform our whole lives. Let's read it.
Jacque: We have come into an intimate experience with God's love, and we trust in the love he has for us. God is love. Those who are living in love are living in God and God lives through them.
Pastor Brian: We have come into this intimate experience. I think a good way of thinking of the word intimate, because in our culture, when we think of intimacy, we think just sexually. But intimacy is a much, much broader word. But to think about it correctly, think of it as into me, see, into me, see That's intimacy. John is saying here that this experience, that into me, God saw my need, and that we trusted his love for us. We believed him. We trusted him because God is love. And it goes on to say that those who are living in love are living in God because God lives through them. Notice that this scripture doesn't say that God lives through people who preach eloquently. How many of you know this? There've been many eloquent preachers that have preached an incredible message. Move people. People have given away houses and homes and everything else under the influence of an eloquent preacher only to find out that preacher was having multiple affairs.
My father took over a church many years ago that was in shambles. The reason it was in shambles is two women were speaking to each other at a Sunday school church picnic on a Sunday afternoon, and one of them confessed to this lady, "I just have to tell somebody but I'm having an affair with the pastor." And the other lady said, What? He is having an affair with me." To find out there were 26 women in that church that the pastor was allegedly secretly having an affair with. And we wonder why our churches lack the power and dignity that we claim we should have.
Jacque: And that's why God's name, that's why people think so bad of God because his representatives.
Pastor Brian: Because God's face to so many people was that pastor. You probably want to know a little bit more of the story. These two women faced the pastor that afternoon. That night, he left town. He left his wife, his kids to face the music. You might say, Brian, you sound a little angry about that. I am. I am angry about that kind of stuff. My father was living in the state of Minnesota. This happened in a whole other state. The district superintendent of that denomination called my dad and said, "I have a mess for you to clean up." And I said to my dad, "Why is it your job to clean up all these messes? Can't you go to some nice church one of these years?"
Jacque: He did a good job.
Pastor Brian: But he did a great job. He did a great job.
Jacque: Do you know when I was reading this verse, those who are living in love are living in God and God lives through them. That sounds like us.
Pastor Brian: I think so. That's what we are trying to be here. But it doesn't say that God lives through people who preach eloquently. Because this guy could preach. This guy could preach. It doesn't actually say that God lives through people who even attend church regularly. As much as I would like more regular attendance from everybody to come to church because there is not quite something like it is when we are all together. There is something wonderful about when we are all together as a community. Just like if you have multiple kids and they are adults and they are married and there is nothing quite like it when all your kids come home at the same time,
Jacque: We miss their faces.
Pastor Brian: We'll find room for you. Six of you. I'll sleep on the floor. Just come home. We do that. God abides or lives in the person who is at home with love. That's where God abides. So let me ask you the question, are you comfortable with love? Are you really aware of the Father, our father, our father in heaven? Are you really aware that our father takes delight in you? He takes delight in you. I say to my sons, it is so good to see you. It's so good to be with you. I hug my grandchildren. Charlie, it's so wonderful to see you. Let's read Psalm 1:39, 17 and 18.
Jacque: I hope I can read it.
Pastor Brian: I'll help you.
Jacque: Every single moment you are thinking of me.
Pastor Brian: Wow. Every single moment, God, you are thinking this is the scriptures, this is the word of God to us. Every single moment you are thinking of me.
Jacque: How precious and wonderful to consider that you cherish me constantly in your every thought.
Pastor Brian: Now listen to this. Not just some of your thought, that you cherish me constantly in some of your thoughts. No, in every thought. So let me ask you this: If God cherishes you constantly in every thought, does he have any room for disdain of you? No. There is no room in God's thought process for disdaining you. If you cherish me constantly in every thought.
Jacque: Oh God, your desires toward me are more than the grains of sand on every shore. When I awake each morning, you are still with me.
Pastor Brian: When I awake each morning, you are still with me. Many of us because of a deficiency of parental love like these Romanian children or because of some form of rejection that maybe we went through, maybe an abandonment and marriage or something of that nature, what we do is we set up boundaries. We set up walls. We do that to protect ourselves from the pain of more rejection, don't we? But at the core of this fear of rejection is really in the core of this wall building, at the core of all this is a lie that we believed. It's a deception. We believed a lie that was told to us from the father of lies that God won't love us unless we perform up to a certain standard, that we need to perform well enough to earn his love. And that this enemy has told us that God is really abusive, he is angry, he is aloof, he is impatient and he is constantly disappointed in us.
It's amazing to me. And I know that I'm going to offend some theologians out there when I say this, so I just ask you to forgive me. Walk in love. But it's amazing to me that one of the best well-known sermons that has ever been recorded in the annals of history was a sermon entitled Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. That sermon has gotten more airplay and more referencing than any sermon that has to do with Psalm 139, 17 through 18. And no wonder when that message is continually reinforced in our mind that this is what our dad in heaven is like, our father in heaven is like, he is abusive, he is angry, he is even aloof, certainly impatient and constantly disappointed with us, the only result of all of that is going to be an increase in all of our shame and our guilt can never measure up.
Jacque: And loss of hope.
Pastor Brian: Loss of hope. I read story after story with fathers who tried to motivate their children by never giving them a compliment. You suffered under that.
Jacque: I had a wonderful daddy. I loved my dad.
Pastor Brian: You loved your dad.
Jacque: He could not communicate tenderness. He couldn't; he just didn't know how.
Pastor Brian: I know we are going a little past our normal time today, but I just have to get this stuff out to you today because it's Father's Day and I need to get this message to you. Here's some wonderful things to learn and know this Father's Day: you were created in God's image as our wonderful friend, Pastor Bill said. You are created in God's image and God is love. And if you are uncomfortable with God, you will be uncomfortable with love. And if you are uncomfortable with love, you'll also be uncomfortable with yourself. And if you are uncomfortable with yourself, you are certainly going to be uncomfortable with others. And if you are uncomfortable with others, that's going to create a real challenge in loving other people.
But it all gets back to our value system on, how do we know we are loved? It all gets back to that. In whose image do you walk today? The image you have of yourself will determine the depth of "into me see". The image you have of yourself will, will completely determine the depth of intimacy you will have with God, the depth of intimacy you will have with your spouse, with your family and your friends, the view you have of yourself. And if your image is based on how well you perform, I'll just tell you right now, you are headed for a disaster. We are all headed for a disaster because should you live long enough, you won't be able to do the things you did when you were 20.
Jacque: No matter what you do, it's not enough, always striving for more.
Pastor Brian: Let me tell you, ladies, there is no fountain of youth out there. The longer you live, the more caulking in the cracks you are going to need.
Jacque: Move to your next point.
Pastor Brian: Jacque wants me to move to my next point.
Jacque: You are getting feisty today.
Pastor Brian: I'm getting feisty today. Don't let your self-esteem be based on things that don't include how God looks and feels and treats you.
Jacque: Absolutely. Very good. Very good.
Pastor Brian: Your self-esteem has to first and foremostly start there. I'll be honest with you, I've been a pastor for almost 50 years and we've suffered a fair amount of rejection. People come; people go. It's hard not to feel rejected when people leave. It's hard not to take it personally. But let me tell you something. The reason I'm still here as a pastor, and I'll still be here tomorrow much to maybe some of your chagrin, but the reason I will be here tomorrow and the reason I'll be here next week and the reason I'll be here next year, should the Lord will it, is because I get my value from what God leads me to do and what God says about me, not about what anybody else says about me. And you know what? I like how Jacque and I sound when we sing. Now you don't have to like it, but God likes it and he wants us to sing. So even though my voice probably isn't what it was when I was 25, and even though I may not be able to play the keyboard like I did at one time, I'm going to play the best I can. I'm going to sing the best I can because he smiles when I do it.
Seeing as this is Father's Day, I have to say something about men. Men in general struggle with the lie that says this: men don't need to express love. They struggle with that lie. I'll tell you something. The last class a man wants to sign up for is how to nurture your relationships. That's the last class a man will sign up for. If we had a men's breakfast, didn't announce what the topic was going to be, when someone's going to share, we have all these men there, and then we say we are going to start talking about how to be emotionally vulnerable and tender and intimate, everybody there in that room would have to go to the bathroom at the same time and leave the room.
Jacque: There might be a couple that would stay.
Pastor Brian: They would be frowned on. That's for sure. The reality of things is this, guys, many men have become numb to love. They've become numb to it. They believe the lie that says men don't cry, and men don't get in touch with their emotions. Some men have even thought that it's not masculine to be tender or loving. I know that most men would say it's okay to show your emotions as long as that emotion is anger. That's a masculine thing to do, throw things, let off steam. But the fact of the matter is, there are broken people in this world because fathers never learned how to say I love you and hold their sons, give them hugs and say, "I'm so proud of you just because you are my son."
Those broken boys grow up to be broken men who then don't know how to have real relationships with other people. They find themselves in a place where they have to control everything. And because of that, their relationships begin to crumble around them and they perpetuate the cycle over and over and over again. First Corinthians chapter 13, we know the scripture very well, verses one and two says this:
Jacque: If I were to speak with eloquence in earth's many languages and in the heavenly tongues of angels, yet I didn't express myself with love, my words would be reduced to the hollow sound of nothing more than a clanging symbol.
Pastor Brian: How many of you would go to a symbol recital? Huh? There is none of us would go to a symbol recital.
Jacque: Good point.
Pastor Brian: Nobody will go to a symbol recital. The scriptures say that if we can speak so eloquently, and even as it says here the language that the angels used to talk in heaven, but we didn't actually walk in love, all of these eloquent words that we have would be reduced to a symbol recital.
Jacque: And if I were to have the gift of prophecy with a profound understanding of God's hidden secrets--
Pastor Brian: How many of you have been impressed with someone with the gift of prophecy? I have been.
Jacque: And if I had possessed unending supernatural knowledge, and if I had the greatest gift of faith that could move mountains but have never learned to love, then I am nothing.
Pastor Brian: I'm nothing. I'm nothing. Without love, we have nothing because we are not abiding in God. If we aren't loving, we are not abiding in God. That's the scriptures. Let's look at verse three.
Jacque: And if I were to be so generous as to give away everything I owned to feed the poor and to offer my body to be burned as a martyr without the pure motive of love, I would gain nothing of value.
Again, Paul goes through all these comparisons and he continues it. We don't have the time to do that. Read First Corinthians 13. It's a short read, but let it sink into your heart. One time a very successful guy came to Jesus to find out how he could earn his salvation. What must I do to be saved? What can I do to be saved? And here's what Jesus said. Matthew 22:37.
Jacque: Jesus replied, you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important. Love your neighbor as yourself. The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.
Pastor Brian: Jesus said it's all about love. It really is all about that. But you know what? We've actually wanted to make it about everything else except love. We want to make it about church attendance. How much we pray, how much we fast, how often we go out and stand in front of an abortion mill, how often we go out and preach the gospel. We've made it about everything else except love because love requires vulnerability. Love requires transparency and love requires giving up control. And who wants to give up control? So we would rather focus on other things than give up control.
This hit me this week as I was sitting up north enjoying our anniversary time away. It's so much easier to focus on the great commission than it is to focus on the great commandment. But I would say to you today, my friends, what good is it for us to walk in the great commission if we are not walking in the great commandment? Thousands upon thousands of Christians grew up singing the little kindergarten chorus. Do you remember what it was? Jesus loves me, this I know, and yet they have not truly experienced the deep depths to the core of their being what that really means that John was speaking about in First John 4:16, that we have come into this intimate experience with God's love and we trust in the love he has for us because God is love.
Most of us struggle with this thought. It's the thought that we have of God and this is what we think God is thinking: What have you done for me lately? What have you done for me lately? I loved your dad. I could get along with your dad really well, but your dad made some big mistakes in raising you. He didn't know how to nurture you. He didn't know how to say "great job." He didn't know how to say, "I'm proud of you." He said that to me one time and he said it to you.
Jacque: He kind of said it to me one time.
Pastor Brian: And he kind of said it to you.
Jacque: Yes, it was wonderful.
Pastor Brian: And you melted.
Jacque: At his funeral, people came up to me and told me how proud my dad was of me. They said, "Your dad talked to me about you all the time." They said that. I said, "Oh, what did he say?"
Pastor Brian: That was a consolation to you. It was, it helped. Ted was proud of you. He was very proud of you and I have a suspicion he was proud of me too although he'd always just call me a piano player that was good for nothing.
Jacque: He was the only boy I ever--
Pastor Brian: But I was the only guy that you ever brought around that he said--
Jacque: That he liked.
Pastor Brian: That he liked. So I have no complaints in in regards to that. But isn't it better to look in the eyes of someone that you are proud of and tell them, I'm proud of you than just go tell everybody else you are proud of that person and hopefully someday through the chain of command it'll get back to him? See how we have to love differently than we have?
Jacque: That's what the Lord gave me you for a husband because he gave me a gentle kind man who would nurture me. And there has been so much healing there, so thank you.
Pastor Brian: Well, God gave me you too for obviously similar reasons back to me. One thing we need to correct is the idea about God. What have you done for me lately? God does not ask that of us. You know what God says? What can I do for you today? We are always coming to God with what we think we need to do for him. He does include us in on so many wonderful things and I'm thankful for that, but the best thing we can learn about God is he is not trying to exact anything out of us.
Our image of our Father in heaven has been so skewed by earthly fathers who have not learned how to nurture, not learned how to get in touch with their feelings, not learned how to actually cry in public, not learned how to be masculine without being angry, and all of that has created a huge brokenness in our world today. Just like these little orphanage kids from Romania, they had a detachment disorder from being able to actually connect with the parent who later on began to love them, we have had a detachment disorder from God that he wants us to allow him to heal. Nobody can do it for you. Those of you who are watching by livestream, those of you are here, nobody can do it for you. You have to say yes to God. You have to trust him. We have come into an intimate experience with God's love and we trust in the love he has for us.
Jacque: One of the things that really helped me understands God's love for me was when we would say that statement: God loves you 100%. He won't love you any more if you do more. And he won't love you any less if you do less. He loves you 100% all the time. And God loves you because he loves you, because he loves you, because he loves you, because he loves you, because he loves you on and on.
Pastor Brian: So if you find yourself struggling to love the neighbor next door or another person, let's go back to the source. Let's go back and get the well filled up. Let's go back and get that encounter, that intimate encounter with Jesus because it's not what you've done for him lately that matters. It's how his attitude is towards all of us. His attitude towards you. Let's pray.
Jacque: Can I say one more thing? And I think just practically-- when I was trying to change my thinking about God's love for me, I read every scripture I could find describing God's love. I just let the word just sink into my heart, into my mind, and, and then I also would just sit and say, God, I receive your love.
Pastor Brian: And sometimes, we have to take this attitude when we are reading the scriptures: I choose to believe this. I choose to believe this regardless of what I'm feeling. Regardless of the lies that seem to be so true in my head, I choose to believe this.
Jacque: And then speak it out of your mouth. God loves me. He loves me. Yes.
Pastor Brian: Pastor Robert, would you come? Thank you for letting me go long today. God bless you.
Jacque: Lou told me this morning that she has a big group of people coming over for Father's Day and she was up at two in the morning and she was kind of thinking maybe of preparing, and she said the Lord told her, oh, you don't want to miss Church tomorrow.
Pastor Brian: Thank you for being here.
Pastor Robert: Praise the Lord. You know, oftentimes we have an offense towards something cause of a lack of representation. Like some people are seemingly offended by love, but they haven't had a good representation. They don't really know what love is. Because if you knew what love is, you wouldn't be offended by it. My prayer is that you truly get the revelation of what love is. The Bible is replete with all of the answers and revelation of what love is this starting with just one word: God.
And then we hear things like God so loved and so on and so on. But going back to first Corinthians 13, it tells us what love is. So if you haven't experienced the things that Paul writes about, then you haven't experienced love. My prayer, in unison with Paul's words through the scripture, my prayer is that we both exhibit and experience these things. He said love is patient and kind. Lord, my prayer is that first of all, we thank you for you being patient and kind with us. We ask you, Lord, to allow our hearts to be patient and kind to all those that we have relationship with. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud. Lord, we ask that you would remove every bit of jealousy, every bit of pride in our hearts so that we can be freed up to love others freely, unrestricted.
Love is not rude. And Father, we pray that those that have offended us in their behavior towards us that did not represent love, we know that even through the words of love, that was a lie. But we in turn, Lord, know what the truth is. And so whatever temptation comes in our heart for illicit behavior, we will be kind to people. Father love does not demand its own way. And so Lord, when our flesh rises up and wants to demand our own way because of love, we will put it in check and we will choose others before us.
Love is not irritable. Lord, let us be pleasant, pleasant in our conversations, pleasant in our fellowship. Let us be teachable. Let us be approachable. Love doesn't keep records of being wronged. Lord, every one of us in this building, everyone watching on the stream, on the screen has been rejected, has been wronged. But this is one time, Lord, we want to have memory loss. We don't want to keep record of the wrongs that have been done us because it holds us back. It keeps us in, it paralyzes us and it gives power to people over us that don't deserve that power. So we release those wrongs that have been done against us in the spirit of love.
And love doesn't rejoice about injustice, but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. And Lord, because of love, let our heartbreaks, when we see those that have been served in justice, when we see those less fortunate than us, when we see something that is not right and doesn't represent you out of love, let us speak up, let us give, let us pray and let us reach out. Lord, whenever we think there is no hope, remind us that there is always hope because of you. Because love never gives up. Love is always faithful. Love is always enduring. Give us a heart of endurance because of love. Let us be motivated to keep going because of love and let us strive to speak encouragement and hope to others because of love. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.
Pastor Brian: Let's stand together, shall we? Thank you for being here today. Thank you for those of you who are watching by livestream. It's a joy to be able to just bring the word of God to you, hopefully encourage you. Thank you for your love and your grace. And Lord, we just thank you for your constancy. There is no shadow of turning in you. Lord, you are always good all the time, trying to bring good out of all of the fallenness in this world, all of the brokenness in this world that crashes into our lives at times. Yet you are constantly trying to bring good to us out of it.
We give ourselves again to you, Lord. I give my life to you again. Give my family to you. I give this church to you. Lord, I give our future dreams to you. I give everyone and everything to you Jesus. Because in your hands it will come to completion. In my hands, it can get broken. So we give everything and everyone to you. Let's raise our hands together.
And now may the Lord bless you and may the Lord keep you. May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. And may the Lord turn his face towards you. May you hear these wonderful words, well done. Good job, my faithful one. This we pray in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Have a wonderful day together. God bless you. Look forward to seeing you next week. And thank you, all of you online. We just pray, pray a special blessing over you, your family, your futures. God bless you. Have a wonderful day. Bye-bye.
Jacque: We will be over, serving communion, Shawn and Sherry Jones. And then come look at these wonderful prayer warriors waiting to pray. Thank you. Thank you.
Transcript taken from the Sunday morning service 6-18-23. If you would like to watch the full service, click the link below.