Many Teachers, Few Fathers – 6/21/2015

Just about every pastor or apostle who has a big megachurch, they try to say,” You’re my son.” Well guess what? I’m going to show you from scripture that even though they might be a teacher, they not necessarily your father. A lot of times people will try that to manipulate you like they’ve got trophies on a shelf. Well, it takes more than just teaching somebody to become a father to them. It takes sweat equity to be a father. Let’s go to 1 Corinthians 4:15
This is a scripture that a lot of pastor or church leaders will try to use say that you’re their son. Basically, they try to jerk authority over you.
1 Corinthians 4:15 KJV
15 For though ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers: for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel.
The Apostle Paul Himself, even though he wrote 2/3 of the New Testament, there was only three men that he called his sons. He called Timothy, Titus, and Paul had something to do with their conversion to Christ. He said,” You have thousands of teachers or people that are spiritual leaders, to teach you about Christ, but you only have one spiritual father. “ He said,” I’m your father because I taught the gospel to you.” Do you know what a spiritual father does? He illuminates his son and he brings him to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. He prays for him for Christ to be formed in him. That’s what a spiritual father does. It takes sweat equity.
Jesus is the master and He is the head of the church, but when He walked the earth, He only had 12 disciples. He poured into their lives for 3 1/2 years while he walked on this earth. He only had 3 people out of that 12 that were in his inner circle. Peter, James, and John. Anytime He did any miraculous miracle, like healing, He would usually call out all of the unbelievers, but would always have Peter, James, and John with him. Why did He have Peter, James, and John? Because they loved Him more than the other disciples. It wasn’t that Jesus love any other person more than the other, but Jesus said,” If you hunger and thirst, in the beatitudes, after righteousness, you shall be filled.”
It doesn’t mean that Jesus is playing favorites. It means that they want Jesus more than they want anything else. That’s how they got close to Jesus. Anytime Jesus did things, he trained those three people. A lot of people say that they were Jesus camp. Peter, James, and John. Anytime He did any tremendous miracle, they were there on the scene. And He only poured into twelve men. Jesus being the Son of God, couldn’t father more than twelve men. For somebody, just because they’ve got a radio ministry, they’re heard all over the world and everything, they’ve got a teaching ministry, and just because you read their tapes, teachings, and podcasts, that doesn’t mean that person is your spiritual father. In order to be a father, you have to have a relationship.

Bishop Martin and Pastor John Henderson have the right say that they’re my spiritual father. They have a relationship with me. They care about me. They never made merchandise out of me even though they had the right to do it. They never made merchandise out of me. They never made personal gain because of our relationship. So I know they love me. That’s how a father does. A father loves his son. And he’ll only want what is best for his son. He’ll train up his son.
In order for training to happen, there are certain requirements that are need to be made before training actually happens. First of all, there’s got to be exposure.
I went deep-sea fishing a couple of weeks ago, because Junior set it up for me. It really surprised me. It was a really awesome birthday gift. Thank you, son. If I sat on that boat and watched everybody fish, and told D, to throw his line out there, and when he gets a big fish, call the people over there to help you hook, and that’s how you fish, he’s not going to learn by that.
You know what he’s going to learn by. I’ve got to take him out on a boat and let him put hands to it and let him learn it. Then when he learns it, he’s got it. Unless he gets sweat and salt water on his glasses, saltwater in his eyes, a little sweat because the sun’s on him, he’s not going to learn how to deep-sea fish. So I’ve got to take him, and I have to spend time with him to make sure he’s got it. Then it’s got to be repetition. Just because he’s done it one time, doesn’t mean that he’s got it. It’s got to be repetition.
Then I’ve got to take him again. I’ve got to train him. Then I can say that I taught D how to deep-sea fish. I can’t say,” D, here’s a book on deep-sea fishing. Now I’m your spiritual father. Now teach some other people how to deep-sea fish.” If you say,” My spiritual father taught me how to fish, now I’m going to quit my job, I’m going to go be a fisher. “ You’ll come back many days hungry. Nobody really put sweat equity into it and took the time to actually teach you how to fish.
There’s got to be repetition, comprehension, and revelation. Do you know what revelation comes from? It comes from when they put their heart into it and they have a passion about it. God doesn’t reveal things to people that don’t hunger for it. You’ve got to have a vision. The vision has to come from God. When you get the vision from God, you’ve got to incorporate that vision as your own. You’ve got to be passionate about it. Then, you’ll be able to see stuff that other people can’t see. In a vision, if you can’t see it, you can’t make it come to past.
That’s why Habakkuk said ‘write the vision and make it plain’. If you can’t write the vision and see the vision, it won’t come to past. Revelation comes from not just scratching at the surface. When you’re digging deep, that’s when you’ll find revelation. It’s like logos and rhema.
Read Habakkuk 2:2 KJV
Before you just take off running, you’ve got know why you’re running, right? Some people go around church, and they run around shouting because they see somebody else doing it. They don’t know why they’re doing it. You’ve got to have a revelation about why you’re running. One person said,” You can’t tell it like I can tell it, what the Lord has done for me.” I know what God has done for me. I know why I’m running around in church because I know what he delivered me from. But some people just run around church because they see everybody and they don’t have a clue why they’re running. There’s nothing wrong with running and everything, and getting caught in the spirit, but the thing is, you’ve got to know why you’re running. So the vision has got to be written down, so that those why read might be able to run with it. Revelation comes with people who have vision and insight from God.
Then once you get the vision, will the vision ever come to past if you don’t act on it? No. You’ve got to act on it. So all those steps are required for somebody to be trained. A father puts his time and his energy into training his son. I’ve trained Junior as much as I can. Even now I train him, but you know what? He has to allow me to speak into his life. There’s a song from the seventies about a man whose son didn’t have time for him. It says’ cats in the cradle/ silver spoon/when you coming home son/I don’t know when/we’ll have a good time again/ we’ll have a good time then’. So his son didn’t have time for him. So his father said,” When are you coming home? When are we going to get together?” He said,” I don’t know. We’re going to get together soon.” He didn’t have time for his father. He didn’t allow his father to speak into his life because when he was young and he needed his father, his father was too busy to spend any time. So they didn’t have any relationship. Even though he was his natural, biological father. The story went on to be that he never had a relationship with his father and the father never had a relationship with his children.

Apostle Paul encouraged his sons in the faith. When he couldn’t go himself, he sent them. That’s what a spiritual father does. He trusts his son. Because he taught his son. He knows his son is not going to make merchandise of the people.
But Paul said,” My time is at hand and there will be grievous wolves that will devour you. They don’t have your interest like I do.” He warned them. He could send Timothy. He could send Titus. He knew that they wouldn’t make merchandise of the people and they would love the people just like he did. He birthed them. He became their spiritual father because he poured into their heart and trained them. He took them where he wanted to go on the missionary journey. They followed him. He trained them. He discipled them. Jesus only had 12 disciples. Three of them were in his camp.
You have not many fathers. Even if you don’t have a natural father, do you know that God can actually become your father and then he’ll put flesh to it and cause Godly men that will pour into your heart and not make merchandise out of you, to love you and teach you, and discipline you, and train you?
It’s not like you’re sitting on the throne next to Jesus, your Spiritual Father, and your down here sitting down grumbling in the dirt. No. You have a relationship. There’s correction at both ends. A lot of times people say,” Touch not mine anointed. Do my prophets no harm.” Do you know what that is? That’s a smokescreen for “I don’t need correction”. A lot of times people that are bishops will do stuff that will make merchandise out of people. But then all of a sudden, you can’t say anything to the bishop because you’re out of order. You’ve got the Jezebel spirit. That’s just a smokescreen for “I don’t need correction”. If you’re in relationship, you can talk to somebody. You can even correct them.
Do you know what a son does? A son will not expose his father’s vulnerabilities and nakedness before the people. He will not bring shame on his father. Remember Noah got drunk, and one of the sons, instead of covering his father’s nakedness, he went and told his other brothers, and laughed at Noah. He made mockery of Noah. One of the brothers wouldn’t even look at his father. He got a blanket. He saw he was in a cave and he walked backward so he wouldn’t see his father’s nakedness. He covered his father up. It was Shem. A true son will not expose the shame of his father to another person. He’ll go one on one and have counsel with his father and get correction. He can speak into his father’s life because the father knows that his son loves him. Because he showed him through example.
Paraclete. If you go to the amplified bible and you see one of the attributes of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is a paraclete. In the Roman government and the Roman army, you were always assigned a buddy, and that is where that word actually comes from. If you became under attack, and then all of a sudden you were outnumbered, you know your buddy would protect your backside. You couldn’t see in the back. So every time you fight, I realize that I don’t have to watch my back. He’s got my back. That’s what a son does to his father. He doesn’t expose his father’s nakedness. That’s what a true son does. He authorizes his father to speak into his life. The father knows that he has his back and the son knows that the father has his back.
Family will fight and act a fool and fall out with each other. But let somebody down the road come starting something. I don’t care if your daddy is a drunkard, and every time he gets home, he drinks all the paycheck in liquor and stumbles down the road. He can be the town drunk, but you better not say anything about my daddy. We’re not going to let anyone say anything about him. You cover his nakedness. A son that won’t protect his daddy’s back is a hider. When a son won’t protect his daddy’s back, he has to find somebody else that is worthy of passing down the legacy to that is not even his biological children. The father will pour that out to them.
Somebody that doesn’t love their dad, doesn’t care, is there for what they can get, and they think that just because they were birthed biologically, they are going to be passed on the legacy. No. If you’re out there running women and acting crazy and on drugs, do you think your daddy is going to give you enough money so you can buy enough drugs to kill yourself and have an overdose? No. He’s going to keep that from you. He doesn’t want you to die. He’ll pass it on to somebody else that will protect his back. You can become a son even though you’re not a biological son, if you have the heart of a son. In Proverbs, it talks about that.
For Father’s Day, traditionally, a lot of people come together and they have a Father’s Day message to say what the bible says about being a father. Being a father is an awesome responsibility because you have to train your kids. You can’t pass it on to your wife, to grandma and granddaddy and them. You have to train your kids up. God holds you responsible for training up children. In Proverbs 22:6, it’s talking about father son relationships. A lot of times, you’ll see children going to church, but the daddy is too drunk to even get up in the morning. So he’ll send his wife to church and the children with the wife. But is that Biblical? No.
Proverbs 22:6King James Version (KJV)
6 Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
Does it say,” Dad’s turn your children over to your wife, so that they can be saved.”
God holds up the responsibility of the children to the man. The children belong to the man. Kerri would be emotionally attached to her children because she would hold them for nine months. When Junior and Alexis were crying in the crib, I didn’t have to get up at 5 in the morning, I was sleep. A little whimper, and she would get up. Sometimes I would be sleeping like a log, and I’d say,” What you getting up for?” She’d say,” Don’t you hear Junior crying?” I’d say,” No. I didn’t hear anything. ZZZZZ”
Do you know why I didn’t hear? I wasn’t emotionally attached to him. You know what pushed my hot button? She did. I was in tune with her. She’s my helpmate. If she needed something. What you need, Baby? If she knew how to honor me, then guess what? Junior was going to get that new pair of tennis shoes. He was going to get that pair of cowboy boots.
The father has the responsibility of training up the children. He can’t pass that responsibility over to the wife. It’s good that his wife helps him and everything, if she will, but God’s going to hold the man responsible if the children get to acting a fool. When a man gets saved, the whole family gets saved. Abraham started following God. He didn’t even have any biological children, but when Lot got captured and everything, Abraham got 300 trained men as servants. Abraham trained the servants. The trained servants were warriors and they recovered everything. He had to take time to train them. Every servant followed everything he said. He passed it down and he said,” This is the way it’s going to work. This is the way it’s going to happen. “ It takes time to do that. It takes time for a father to do that. If the father doesn’t do it, that boy is going to get trained by somebody else. It will be just like that song, ‘cat’s in the cradle’.
What you sow, you are going to reap that harvest. If you don’t have time to sow into your children, they’re not going to have time for you. They’ll be more successful than you could even dream of in your life, but in their business of life, they’re not going to have time for you. They’ll have time for their family and their kids, but they won’t have time for you. You’ve got to have a relationship with a person. If you don’t have a relationship with a person, then you’re not going to put any time into it.
On this Father’s Day, we thank God for the Godly father that spend time with their kids. Adrian, Junior, and Alexis turned out to be halfway decent because of their mom, because I was on deployment a lot of the time in the military. I couldn’t have passed that authority on and say go raise them and take them to church. When I was in, I did take them to church. I made them go to church. If they didn’t want to go to church, they had to go to church. I didn’t just sit back and say,” I’m tired. You take them to church.” No. I went to church with them. They saw that I led by example. They saw me in church. They saw how important it was for me to sit under the word of God. How can you say you love somebody, but yet you don’t spend time with them?