Living Word Church with Pastor Dwight Hicks - Brisbane Australia

The importance of honoring and obeying parents, even if they are not saved.

The power of faith and speaking the word of God to change one's life and circumstances.

The significance of the commandment to honor one's parents, as seen in Ephesians 6:1-3.

The relationship between honoring one's parents and experiencing God's blessings and long life.

But it is Mother's Day and I thought it would be good to, we'll talk about mums, that would that be, every one of us have got mums. And you know, you say Mother's Day or Father's Day and quite often, you know, it can, in some families it can not be such a, bring up such a nice thing, you know. But in some families it's like, oh great, you know, we had a really, really good Christian upbringing and that. and and you should be very thankful for that um you know some didn't have very very good upbringing my parents were crumbs but i honor them uh and that that's for sure you know they weren't just crumbs they were the whole loaf but uh but i remember a passage that the lord took me to years ago and i want to uh bring this to you just for a short time before we just read something else here and it's found in ephesians um and it's found in ephesians 6 and it was something that i dealt with years ago, I mean a real long time ago you know, but only after a few years that I got saved and after I got filled with the Holy Spirit, sorry and it's found in Ephesians 6 and it says here, children obey your parents, well, it would have been I think I probably obeyed my parents the amount of times the fingers I got in my hand and that, but they were still my parents and you know they didn't give me good examples, my mum was okay you know, but she wasn't a good example to marry she was on to a fourth third marriage on to a third marriage and you know and she was going to we spoke about it once and said you know you're going to divorce dad because of all the other crap that was going on and that and she said no I've made too many mistakes now I'll just leave this one out and he died later on so I was wondering about that but anyhow she didn't kill him and that but you know I had to come to the place in this passage here Ephesians 6 verse 1 children obey your parents in our Lord you know when my children when my parents were telling me things that were right to do I would be I was I should have obeyed them because even though they weren't saved when they were telling me to not do certain things and do other things which were right I should have obeyed them and I didn't obey them and I found out later on that in verse 2 it says that this is the first commandment with promise it's the only commandment actually that there is a promise behind it that it says this is a commandment with promise and it says here honor your father and your mother you know it didn't say if they were good mums or good dads or whatever and it was hard for a while because it said here the word honor means high esteem and with great respect so I had to see them in the Lord because they got saved of course later on years I was really happy about that and they're both in heaven now and that and but but I had to learn to honor them and to respect them and to greatly esteem them in the Lord and that was the key and that's what I saw them in God and I and I realized that that if I spoke good about my parents even though it was early years I spoke good about my mum and good about my dad even though my dad was a terrible example of that in many ways and that that things would turn around and they did turn around because I learned the power as far as faith is concerned and speaking the word of God because you there are most things in life you can't deal with in a natural way but the world does and the world crumbles but as far as spiritually is concerned we can we can honor our parents honor our mums because it's mother's day whatever type of months we can honor them in the Lord because it says there in verse 3 that it may be well with you wow that's pretty interesting too and if your mum and dad died and you you know you can't do anything about that if they were saved or they're unsaved but you can you can you can deal with you who is alive in the Lord and it says here that it may be well with you and I always wanted life to be well with me and that you may live long on the earth and I always really wanted to live long on the earth not too many people want to live short on the earth you know not too many people out there confessing that they'll live short on the earth and that my mum thought she was going to die every day but she didn't she lived 86 and so you know I proved that the confession of the mouth was wrong she should have died early but no she just said well today I'm going to die but it was just a saying that she used to say all the time you know and she'd say you know when the hairs on her hands with uh on her arms would stand up she said oh someone's walking on my grave looks like I'm going to die today well she kept waking up all the time but eventually she well of course she got saved filled with the spirit and that and is in heaven now my dad's in heaven now too which is great even though they may not have been good examples the fact is that i believe i believe that if we do what is right that god will do what is right in the word of god and he honors us it says here that if i will honor my mother because we're talking about mums today not leaving dads out but if I honour my mother that it will be well worth me and that I will live long on the earth so I'm interested in that very very I remember quoting this to Dwight once it was so funny and it says here and parents do not provoke your children to anger and bring them up in the in the discipline and the teaching of our Lord and he said to me once he says dad you're provoking me to anger and I'll beat the crap out of you to get angry so you know but but it was just a funny way and that was I used to quote this to the quote this to the kids a lot and especially when we when we were going to discipline them we'd quote passages to them just before and we'd always say that thing every parent does this it's going to hurt me more than it's going to hurt you yeah but and it did a lot of times we didn't like disciplining our kids but we're glad we disciplined them in the Lord it was the right thing to do whatever you think disciplined is okay but we found out what worked it's interesting in this passage here and I want to go to don't need necessary turn to it but there's a passage in Luke down here in Luke 1 verse 26 to 38 and it was interesting when when you look at when you look at Mary as a young 16 year old that's how old she was they used to say and they used to believe that Joseph was a lot older and that it was a ranged marriage, but it actually wasn't. They found it through the process of, however they find out things, that Joseph was about 18 and Mary was 16. Why don't you think about this? Because every young girl in Israel at that time their endeavour was to be a virgin when it came to being married And that she would only give away once what she could give away to the person that she loved. And you can't give it away a second time because you've given it away the first time. Now whatever your lives and our lives have evolved, let's just move on from that, you know. This is not about condemnation in any way. But anyhow, but she was already a spouse to Joseph and Joseph loved her and they were ready to get married. So think about this. Of all of the virgins, why did God choose Mary? Well, I don't know. But he chose Mary anyway. And what happened was that an angel came to Mary. I want you to think about this, you know, that you've got, your life is so planned up. And all of a sudden an angel turns up and says, Mary, hi, there you are, Gabriel. you know uh no she was fearful straight away now there wasn't a fear like frightful it was a respectful reverential fear and all awesomeness about what what was happening and the angel said that you cut it short you're highly favored of the lord you're going to bring forth a child you're going to call his name jesus which is manual with us or god with us immanuel which is god with us and then he shall be the son of the most high god now mary kept those things within her she hid those things within her for years and that because that's what the bible says so not only that that an angel also appeared to joseph and told joseph what to do as far as mary was concerned too now i'm sure there were probably some questions and that you know just imagine your girlfriend comes to you and she says oh look an angel turned up last night now i'm gonna it's gonna come upon me the holy is gonna come i'm gonna bear a child yeah right for sure you know but he trusted in god and she trusted in God. But life didn't always go right because they trusted in God. A lot of things went wrong as far as their life, but the Holy Spirit always led them. But there was a fear there. But Mary was a very, very good mother to Jesus and she followed Jesus all the way right through his life and his ministry and that. So, you know, at the next stage that we have, as far as the Bible is concerned, we've got Mary and Joseph. They've just gone. jesus is 12 they're at the they've gone to the temple to worship the lord which they did every year in jerusalem and they're on their way back they've been back for a few days i think four days and all of a sudden they turn up say oh where's jesus you know now it was they traveled in the companies and the kids all played together and that and it was everyone protected everyone but jesus is not there so they got fearful they asked around you know where's jesus well you know wonder where he is so they go back to jerusalem they look they look everywhere for where jesus eventually finds him in the temple he's there talking to the wise men listening to them and asking them questions and they were incredibly astounded at his wisdom and Nicodemus was there at that time too that's the reason why Nicodemus came later on in Jesus ministry to be born again he was watching him right through because the prophet test came at that time and said about the child also on the um uh when he was taken there for circumcision too on the eighth day so we we find that Mary has got all of these thoughts going on in her life, they're looking for Jesus. At that time, so that's 12 years later, so 12 years later, probably about 13 years later, Joseph is now 30 to 31. Mary is now 28. So now here's Jesus 12. So later on, Jesus in his ministry at 30, we don't hear any more about Joseph. Joseph had died somewhere between the age around about 47 to 50. Could have died earlier, we just don't know really. But he died at some time before Jesus went into his ministry. He had passed away. And so I'm sure that, just think about this for a moment. Here we've got the Son of God. Here we go, he knows who he is and that the power of God is in his life. But his father dies, he can't do anything about it because of the process of what's happening here. And I'm saying this because there's a lot of things that happen in our lives that while we are in control, some things can't be changed. Isn't that sort of like a question and a doubt, faith thing? No, it's not. We don't have time to teach on that at the moment. But you are in control of you and how you handle things. And this is the most important thing. And while a mother can direct children, children still will make their own mind up if they're going to follow their mum or they're not. You know that. And they do that from a very, very little age. You know what the first thing a child learns to say? What was it? No. Where'd they learn that from? That's just part of the rebellious old nature that's in them. They didn't learn it from anyone. And we, actually, only one of our children ever said no to us. because we were learning in the early days Dwight was the whipping board and we were learning how to be a parent and we asked a lot through council and through very good Christian friends of ours who were a lot older and raised children of how to do things and pray and do a lot of praying and Dwight was only a little critic and said no to me and I said well you never say no to me again and I said I said to the Lord one day in this, I said, why did he say no to me when I was trying to tell him what to do? There's only just a little squiggle. He's not sort of like 14 or 15 and that. And the Lord said to me, what do you say to him all the time? What do you say to him when he does things? No, no, no. Don't you do that? No, no, no, no. So they learn it from us and they respond back. so in that in a negative way in a negative way he was responding back to the way I was responding to him so I never said no to our children from that moment on never used the word no but I used sentences never used the word it's not good to do that now you know if I said something to him he didn't turn around and say as the little kids well it's not good to do that because they didn't learn that part of it but why I'm saying this to you as mums and as dads and just as Christians and that, is that in our lives we are in control of us, but we cannot be in control of other people. But our faith is, we can put faith in God that we can affect other people, our children, our mums and dads, our husbands and our wives, and then life generally We are in control of us What we as humans try and do we can try and control other people But we never think about controlling ourselves because we want ourselves to be all good and everything okay. So what we try and do, we try to control the environment of other people or what they're saying to us so that we won't be offended. But God's saying that's the problem. We are not about to try and control the environment of other people. We can't do that because it's people's choices. And a mum and a dad, a mum especially, knows that it doesn't matter how many times you can tell children something, they will still do the opposite thing sometimes. And they'll do that even as they get older. Where do they learn that from? They learn it from us. Because God continually tells us to do certain things and we do it the opposite way. so we transfer these things but we don't need to spend time on the negative side of it we need to spend time on the positive side on the faith side of it we continue as mums or as Christians to have a positive confession of what is right not what is wrong not bringing to God everything that is wrong and that is happening and I want you God to do this for me but how can I be a blessing? I love what Brother Hogan said once. And he said, God, later on in his years, and it wasn't until later on in his years that he actually really had a major of finances to be able to do the things that he wanted. You know, when he died, he had sold over 400 million cassette tapes. It's a lot, isn't it? Even if you get a dollar for each one, it's a lot. But he says, I never wanted to be a millionaire. I never ever thought of being a millionaire. there. He says, all I wanted to do was be a blessing. And because he wanted to be a blessing, God blessed him. That's all. He didn't think about everything. He said, I didn't think about owning this or owning that. He said, I just wanted to be a blessing with what I had. So I learned a lesson from that because I thought that that's a faith that I could follow. That's a faith that I could follow. As the Bible says it, whose faith or whose men's faith follow? Because that was successful. I'm not following the man, I don't follow all of his teaching or anything like that, but I can follow his faith. And if I find people whose faith is proven in God, not in the world system, but in God that works, well, I'm not silly about that. I mean, I was taught to be a carpenter. There's a reason why I was taught to be a carpenter, because I did what other carpenters told me to do. They were good things. Now today I don't think about it, but it's automatic as a carpenter. So it is the same in your Christian life in that. It's just automatic, automatic, automatic response. What? How can I be a blessing to someone? Oh, but I want to be blessed. No, no, no. How can you be a blessing to someone? And God honours that because that's the first commandment. It says that not only should you love the Lord, the new commandment of the New Testament, you should love one another as I have loved you. Sometimes it's not as easy, but it is biblical. So back to Mary and that and Joseph. So we find eventually in Jesus' situation one of the last things that Jesus said to John at the crucifixion was it said to John, your mother Mary. We have a responsibility. John wasn't a son to Mary and Mary wasn't the mother to John but John was to look after Mary but Mary was also to look after John. Now these are older people. Mary is close to somewhere around about nearly 50 now you know so so here it is we have a responsibility as men and women to look after each other we as a church have a responsibility I'll say this respectfully we're talking about women at the moment not men and we're not leaving men out but we as a church have a responsibility to look after our I use the word aged we have a responsibility to look after this Mary here Frank and Mary No, Frank can get help. But we'll look after Mary. No, that's not true. We have a responsibility as a church, not to be the complete supply, but we as a church, while we can, as this size, we look after our elderly people as best as we can. If they have a need, it's a church's responsibility to meet them in that need, if for some other way that they cannot meet it themselves. That's the reason why it says, if there is a woman who is a widow, that the church has a responsibility to look after the widow. If she doesn't have children, look after her. So it's the church's responsibility. And it's not the government's responsibility, even though the government can do that. It's the church's responsibility. And this is where things have got so twisted around a lot, is that we let the government do the things that the church should be doing. And the government lets the church do the things that the church should be doing too. So if we keep things in its right perspective, as mums, we can look after our children as pastors, we can look after our church and our congregation and that. And this is what it's all about. So that it will be well with us. That's what the Bible wants us to be well with us. And as we, through the years, and I could mention many people in our church who have been faithful for years, you know, why do they be faithful? Because they're faithful. Because they're faithful people to what? to the Lord. Yes, they are. But they're faithful to the church too because and I can show you and I can prove to you, it has been well with them in their lives. Have they experienced trials and tribulations? Yes, they have like all of us. But it is well with them. Why? Because they put what is first first. It's an interesting passage that had a choice. They used to say, well, you know, you put the church first and God first, everything else will work out right. Well, we found that that didn't happen. We found pastors sacrificed their lives for their churches and their personal lives for their children. It was shocking and terrible. And I wanted to learn by those experiences what was... This is what the Lord said to me. It was really, really easy. Because in the early days, I made life in our marriage really, really hard for Geraldine. I expected her to be this person that I thought that she should be as a wife and also a wife to our pastor and that, that she should do this and should do that and all that and the Lord said to me once he said why don't you just look after your own life and let her look after her life she's my wife she needs to submit to me because the Bible says that don't you read that Jesus haven't you read that lately you know and that so you know I had to come to the place of the Lord says I tell you how to work I want you to let her look after her own life and you look after your life I don't know if I want to do that because that's not what we're taught. That's not what the tradition tells us to. I want her to pray with me. I want us to read our Bible together. I want us to do this together. I want us to do all this together. It never worked. It was terrible. It was just awful. That was the devil. I have to take authority over the devil. The devil's on her. It's always on her. never on me you know do this you know but never worked the lord when the lord when i finally woke up didn't take me long to wake up wake up and he said you're not even responsible for her salvation oh you're not responsible for her prayer life you're not responsible for her reading the bible you're not responsible for anything you're responsible for you if you will look after you i will look after her and when we started to do that i started to do that it was amazing how much she changed? No, it was because I changed. And I find that I have the authority to change me. I don't have the authority to change anyone else. I love pastoring. Do you know why? Because I don't have the authority to change you. I don't try and change you. Are there things that I think you should do? Yes, I do. But I think there's things that I should do that I don't do at times too. But that's irrespective of what we're talking about. So if I'm going If I will allow you to grow, if mothers will allow their children to grow, yes, we need to nurture them, yes, I need to guide you as a pastor, but there are certain cares that we take that are not our responsibility. The care of the church is not my responsibility. You might say, you don't care? No, I care for the church, and I love the church very, very much, but I don't care about your grace at all. I don't look at you and think you're growing in God, or you're not growing in God, because it's not my responsibility. and that relieves me in the same as what I have done and Geraldine and I have done for our children we leave them grow up in the Lord even when they were younger but as a dad I had to learn to release them as teenagers to you know they're only so long only so long you can belt them when they get over six foot it's really hard to belt them you know when I stand there and look up to Dwight because he was six foot something at thirty you're not doing too well, is it? Sun wave and the little wand there, you know, not the wand but the belt. And I said to each of our kids, if you start to act as humans, as adults, then I will no longer discipline you word-wise even. And you know what's amazing, how much my kids learnt really quick? That was because I grew. We try and make other people grow. You know, a mum can't make a child grow. Do you know that? we can instruct them they can put them in the right direction but you can't make them grow you can feed them but you can't make them grow you can breast feed them then you can put them on the next lot of food and the next lot of food but you know what you've got to you've got to let them grow and when you let them grow themselves that is I didn't say without discipline but when you let them grow it seems like that God does something incredible I don't have to protect Geraldine from the world God does that no one has to protect me from the world because God does that because my faith in God what about everything that's happened it's irrespective what about when you're sick don't you think God's letting you down no I don't think God's letting me down it's my body it's not letting me down it's my body but I have an answer to it there's healing I've been healed of everything that I've had. How do you know that? Because I'm not dead. So I'm thankful for that. I could have been dead quite a number of times. But it says this in this passage here, and this is the most important thing, just as we start to close now, because it's the cake out there. We don't want no one sneaking out there and eating our cake. I've got my cake and I'm going to eat it. So it says here that this, actually honour your father and your mother. So whatever your relationship has been with your mum and dad, it says honour them in the Lord. You see, that's the way the Lord says, even if you have a crummy boss, that you are to honour your boss as though your boss is the Lord and the Lord will bless you. And he may bless your boss if he'll let him be blessed, but it's about your life is the most personal thing and you honour your mum and your dad. You honour your mum in the Lord. Okay, she was a good mum. Well, honour her. Okay, she was a bad mum. Honour her in the Lord, not in what she has done. So as a pastor, we honour you, not by what you do, because we are told to honour you and to respect you and to believe in you, and that's what we do. Do we as pastors think that you should do things different? I hope that you think that I should do things different, because that's the flexibility that we have. And that's the growth that we have. That's the faith that we have in each other. So honour. The word honour means to have a high respect and to have a great esteem for them in the Lord. So how am I to look at my mum? I am to look at my mum, I look at her and think, I tell you what, I learned how to use the F word from my mum at a very young age, you might think, oh, that's terrible. This is the world I grew up in. I grew up in very, very easy. If she went down to the wharf, she would embarrass the wharfies. But that was just the life. I grew up thinking that that was just normal. I never ever felt guilty about it until I got saved. I thought, that's not probably the best word to use. It took me a long time until I got filled with the Holy Spirit to give up really bad, foul swearing and that, you know. But anyhow, the desire was there and it's all over and done with. And that. Do I use the F word today? Yes, I use the word faith all the time. As much as I'm telling you anyway. I might think a lot of words to say, but that's okay. But in this, so we are to honour our parents, honour each other, honour the people in the church, in the Lord. Look at this, I tell you what, they should be doing this, they should be doing that. You know, what right have we got to do that? What right have you got to do that? You know, so what does that mean? You just love people. It's as simple as that. How do I love them?

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