The Cold Beans Misunderstanding

The Cold Beans Misunderstanding

by Tom Jacobs

Transcribed from the original recording; may contain errors.

Thinking as we were worshiping this morning, back to the first CFO. And a lot of people have this mixed up. The first CFO was not started by Glenn Clark. A lot of you have assumed that that was the case. The first CFO had 120 in attendance. Met in Jerusalem.

They were in one accord. It lasted a little longer than a week. And fellowship together. Together. We’re separated from the rest of the world. Meeting together in an upper room. And I’ve often thought about what happened. What took place in that time. You know, they had several days together. And they were praying. Now, we have our prayer groups for… what do they last? An hour and 15 minutes. We say that isn’t long enough. But if we came and all week, all that we did was pray together. There comes a time when you stop talking to the Lord and you take a break. And you start talking to one another. And after you’ve spent that much time in prayer together, you begin to say things to one another. Like, I need to ask your forgiveness for this or that or the other thing. You know, that’s how you get into one accord. We get this idea that they were all piously gathered together. A bunch of bald-headed people. Because bald-headed people are more spiritual.

All together in the upper room. And piously praying together until finally the Holy Spirit fell. And folks, I don’t think that’s the way it happened. Because all those people were human. And they were just like you and I. And you get together for a week. And you learn about one another. You see each other in less than desirable situations. And you grow together. You come into one accord. When you sing a song that talks about being in one accord at a camp like this, it means something different, doesn’t it? There’s something that happens here that doesn’t happen. I was going to say it can’t happen. I’m not sure that it can’t. But it doesn’t typically happen in a church setting.

There’s something that’s different here. It’s exciting. I’m glad I’m here. Are you? Amen. Amen. Just by way of introduction, somebody is… I have to say it this way. Somebody has asked… Nobody’s asked me. Somebody’s asked me if I had any pictures of my children.

Thank you. Somebody has asked me now if I have any pictures of my children. I do. Just a wallet-sized photo. It will be on display after the service. It will be too distracting right now. But I love kids. I love my kids. I love my wife. God has given us a great family. I love kids because they are much more spontaneous than we are. They don’t know all the rules. And I’ve managed to learn a lot of rules in my life. Now I’m trying to learn to break some of them and not feel guilty. The church that we were associate pastors in before we came to Omaha had an incident that happened long before we came. But they had a little boy who was two or three years old. And his mother was singing in the choir. And as is the gift to every church, there was a lady in the church that took care of her little boy while she was singing in the choir. And the setup was that the babysitter and the little boy were about where Rhea is. And the mother was here on the platform sitting in the choir. They don’t really have a choir loft. It’s a platform kind of like this. And in the back of the church, the pews go back much like these seats do.

And then at the back, in order to get out, we didn’t exit right out the back. He had to take a left. And as the service progressed, the little boy was being held over the shoulder of the babysitter. And while he was facing the rest of the congregation, was making faces at the rest of the congregation. The only person in the room that didn’t know what was happening was the babysitter. Because she was facing the front and enjoying the service and everything else. The rest of the congregation was totally distracted by this little boy making faces and sticking out his tongue and doing all kinds of things. And the mother, meanwhile, was on the platform fuming. She was… with each passing second, moms, you know what I’m talking about, just getting furious. The rest of the church is kind of giggling and smiling, happy it’s not their child.

And the mother finally has all that she can take, and she just comes right down off the platform. There were little steps, a couple of steps down, snatches the boy away. The babysitter still doesn’t know what’s happened and begins to exit out of the church. She makes it back to the back and goes to turn and go out the doors. The little boy, meanwhile, is still making faces over his mother’s shoulder. He’s got an audience. He doesn’t want to give it up. And realizes, finally, as she turns the corner, that she’s exiting the room with him. And suddenly, shock comes across his face. And he screams out as he realizes that he’s headed for punishment. He screams out, “Dear God, somebody pray!”

I love kids. As a pastor, when that kind of thing happens, you might as well just pack it up and go home. Because whatever you’re going to say doesn’t fit anymore. I had things planned out for this morning. And as I was shaving this morning, God began to speak to me and change things. And I asked, I have to admit, “Lord, why does this always happen?”

You could just as well tell me this weeks ahead of time. I could do all the research that I love to do. I’m one of those… I don’t know how it works. I think it’s the left side of the brain. That’s more methodical when it comes to ministry. I like to have things typed out. And I like to have them outlined. And this is it for this morning. So, now somebody… you’re thinking, oh, good, it’s going to be short. The fewer notes I have, the longer I go. So, it may run over into this. I don’t know what’s going to happen. But we’ll just let the Lord do what He wants to do. We’ve been talking this week about walking… By the way, I did ask Him, why You can’t tell me things weeks in advance? And He says, why don’t you listen weeks in advance? So…

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Reminds me of one fellow… This will be it. One fellow in the church that… Yeah, I’ve got a million of them. That… He said, “At home, I always get in the last two words in every argument. I always finish the argument with the last two words. ‘Yes, dear.’”

And I… Typically, that’s the way I finish all of my discussions with the Lord. Yes, Lord. We’ve been talking this week about walking in love. And… Jesus talked a lot about that. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Love your neighbor as yourself. And as I contemplated that, we’ve been… We’ve been working along these lines in our church over the last several weeks. Talking about how we can love one another appropriately. Love one another in meaningful ways. I’m reminded of a story. It’s not a story. It happened when I was growing up. I had a neighbor two houses down that my mother… And she were very close. And… I remember one day she came over to our house and she was angry. She was very, very angry at her husband. It was their anniversary. And for their anniversary, he had given her what I thought was an extremely appropriate gift. A set of floor mats for her car.

Why are all the women laughing here? And she… This is the truth. She did not talk to him for two weeks. And I thought to myself as a child, maybe eight or ten years old, I thought, now… This makes absolutely no sense. He was thoughtful. He went to the store. We lived in a small town. You had to go out of town to find cheap floor mats.

He had taken the time, had gotten her a gift that was very practical. Was very long lasting. Every time she hopped into the car, she would think, oh, my good husband, Bud. But… But… It reminded me of… This one is a story. The little boy that was Christmas shopping for his father. And for Christmas, bought his dad an electric train set. Because he couldn’t imagine anything in the world that would be more meaningful to a person than an electric train set. And, you know, we laugh at those stories. But oftentimes, we love each other in inappropriate ways.

And we… We make light of those kinds of difficulties. But folks, marriages are breaking up today because people don’t understand how to love one another. Men don’t understand the needs of women. I’ve never been a woman. I don’t understand what that’s like. Things don’t make sense to me that make sense to my wife. And we need to begin to… If we really want to be serious about walking in love, we need to begin to become students of one another. Students of what makes you tick. Students of what makes other people happy. When Jesus said, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, that principle is ingrained there. Not give people what you would like to have. But if you were in their place, what would their need be? Do that. Do those things that are appropriate for them. When we were first married, my wife’s name is Lori. We’d been married for a few months. She was working full-time. I was working full-time. She was making more money than I was. She was very frustrated in her job. She was secretary for 11 dentists in the School of Dentistry at ORU. And that’s a little bit of an exaggeration. There was one other lady in the office that was secretary to the head of the department.

And Lori basically took the other 10. And there was just a mountain of work that she waded through. One day she came home extremely frustrated with her job and the situation. And all of the things that she was doing. And so, before I went to bed that night, I knew that something was wrong. And I am a believer in getting things out in the open and talking through things. And so, we sat down and I said, “Obviously, there are things that are happening here that aren’t pleasing to you. Is it something here at home?” And she said, “No, it’s at work.” “And so, what is it?” And she gave me one of the situations. And there were several of them. And I listened attentively and was trying to be a good husband. And she told me what the situation was. And I said, “Well, you know, it seems like if I were in your position, I would do thus and so.” She nodded her head and kind of acknowledged that as a good idea. And I knew that she was still upset. And I said, “Well, is there anything else?” I thought, I’m on a roll. I’ll go ahead and solve the rest of her problems. And she said, “Well,” she gave me another situation.

I said, “Well, you know, I wonder if you would try to do this. If that wouldn’t maybe solve that problem.” And she nodded her head again and kind of acknowledged that that might work. But I sensed that she was getting angrier as we went. Angrier as we went. I said, “Well, is something else wrong?” I thought, maybe we’re really getting to the root of the problem here. And she gave me another situation, which seemed about equal to the other two. And we did that about five situations deep. And each time I would say, “Well, would this work?” She’d acknowledge it. And she’d be angrier. And finally, I said, “I don’t think we’re getting any place here. I’ve given you some really good solutions. And you seem to be upset.” And she looked at me and she said, “Tom, I don’t want solutions. All I want is somebody to listen to me.” See, I was loving her in a way that would have been very appropriate for me. When I get a problem, folks, I want a solution. You don’t have to listen. If you’ve got the solution, just give it to me without hearing the problem.

That listening stuff, that’s no big deal for me. That’s not a blessing to me. Unless it’s going to produce something. But for Lori, she functions differently than I do. And conversation in its own right is important to her. I was loving her in an inappropriate way. And again, we laugh about those kinds of things. But as those build up over time, they destroy marriage relationships. They destroy relationships between parents and children. Children and parents. They destroy relationships between best friends. Loving each other in inappropriate ways. Ways that really aren’t loving. We just think they are. And it’s a little bit selfish, really. Because we’ve never investigated the needs of the other person. We’re doing a study right now at our church from a book called His Needs, Her Needs. Has anybody read the book?

Is there one? Yes. Tremendous book. It’s by Willard Harley. If you get a chance to pick it up, I encourage you to do it. What he does, he’s a counselor. He’s counseled over 20 years. And he takes the five primary needs that men and women have listed who have come in with marital problems, those needs that were not being met in their lives, that have caused, typically caused affairs. The subtitle to the book is How to Affair-Proof Your Marriage. It’s a great idea.

Do you want to know what those top five needs are? How many ladies would like to know what the top five needs are? Men? Scratching your heads? Oh, boy. These are the needs. Now, like them or not, these are the needs that he’s collected over 20 years. And they may not apply to you. You may say, well, I got three out of the five.

I’ll give you a second to get your pens out. I’m seeing people move. Folks, this will revolutionize your marriage. If you’re a married person. It really can. It really can. I’ll give you just a… We’ll just wait a minute. No.

The top five needs… I’ll start with the men. That men listed. Now, let me say before I give these to you, the temptation that you will have is to say, those are the most materialistic, dopey needs I’ve ever heard in my life.

It’s only natural that you would say that, being a member of the opposite sex. Because we don’t understand each other. We walk through life thinking that we understand each other and understand how things work. One story. Husband and wife were a missionary couple starting out their married life. And the wife, they were in a situation where she couldn’t warm the beans she was serving. And her husband, they were newlyweds, the husband said, “Well, that’s okay. I, you know, really, I like cold beans better than warm beans.” Just being nice. And the wife thought, well, I like warm beans a lot better, but if he likes them cold, I’ll serve them to him cold. 20 years later, there was somebody’s home and the lady had warmed the beans. And the husband said, “My, these are delicious.” The wife said, “I didn’t think you liked cold or warm beans.” He said, “I love warm beans. I thought you liked them cold.” For 20 years, they had made assumptions about the needs and likes of one another, didn’t understand each other. So often we don’t understand you. Top five needs that the men reflected. Okay, now men, wives, take it back to your cabin and talk to them, you know, see if it’s true. It may not be.

The number one need that men listed was sexual fulfillment in marriage. The number two need was recreational companionship. The number three need was an attractive spouse. Men like to have an attractive spouse. Now, I’m not saying that you need to be whoever the latest love goddess is, but that you need to take care of yourself as a spouse.

Number three need that men… Or number four need, I’m sorry, that men listed was domestic support. That they appreciate the work of the wife, making a house a home. The number five need that they listed was admiration. This will surprise many of you, but men have egos.

On the women’s side. Now, men… Yes. Now, men, get something out to write with or have your wife write these down. That’s the way it always works. The wives always write it down. “Honey, see this? See this?” Number five needs that women listed. Affection.

And in parentheses, put beside that, not sexual, but affection. Affection. Number two was conversation. Let’s get out the end game. Number three was honesty and openness. Don’t tell your wife you like cold beans if you don’t like them cold.

Number four was family support. And we’re seeing a generation raised up that desperately, desperately needs a father to love them and support them and discipline them. And the fifth need that was listed and was a cause of marital strife was financial support.

We’re going through this as a church and it’s changing our marriages. A couple of years ago, we did something a little bit unique in the church. While we were having a vacation Bible school, we hooked on to this concept of loving in appropriate ways, loving in ways that mean something to our families. And while our kids were in having their activities, we just got all the parents together and brought in specialists and talked about how we can love our children at various age levels in ways that are appropriate and that mean something to them. We brought in a pediatrician the first evening. We brought in… My father has his master’s degree in educational psychology. And he talked to us about grade schoolers. And then we brought in a gentleman who works at Boys Town. We have a blessing of having that facility close to us in Omaha. And Christian, one of our board members in the church, talked about the needs of adolescents. Learning how to love in appropriate ways. And I discovered something. That when my daughter was three years old, the most appropriate way that I could show her that I love her is by sitting down and playing a game with her. Now that she’s six, one of the most appropriate ways that I can show her that I love her is to sit down and read a book with her.

As an infant. Now they’ve done research. Okay? This always just amazes me. They do spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in research and then discover something that your grandma knew. You know? They discovered that the most appropriate way after hundreds of thousands of dollars in research, the most appropriate way that you can love an infant, okay? Is to lay them down, maybe when you’re changing their diapers or when there’s just no activity going on, just lay them on the floor and play with them. Isn’t that profound?

We love each other in so many different ways. And sometimes we find ourselves with an inability to love. Sometimes we find ourselves having grown up with hurts, having never been loved appropriately, and growing up in that mindset that makes us disabled. I had a friend who just returned. He’s a pastor. Just returned from Minirth-Meier Clinic. Some of you are familiar with that ministry. Came back and he said… I asked him what he learned. He said, “The first thing that I learned is that there are over five billion people on the face of planet Earth.” And I said, “I knew that.” He said, “And the second thing that I learned is that there are over five billion people on the face of planet Earth who have emotional problems.” All of us are in the same boat. All of us have hurts. All of us have disabilities. We’ve prayed. We prayed in our prayer group yesterday. Lord, let us see in the spirit realm. Let us see spiritually. Let us get past the facade of the body and who You are and that temple casing that we talked about in meditations this morning. By the way, that was just wonderful. Tremendous meditation this morning.

Get past that and see into the spirit realm. And I think if we could do that, that folks, the room would be cluttered with crutches and canes and wheelchairs and seeing eye dogs. We’re disabled. Most of you have probably read the book or at least are familiar with the concept of I’m okay, you’re okay.

Insightful. Insightful. Transactional analysis is just an insightful facet to understanding relationships. And there are several different modes that you can function in. I’m okay, you’re okay is supposed to be the optimum mode. There’s a mode of I’m not okay and you’re not okay. Those people are miserable and make everybody else around them miserable. I’m not okay and I just want to make sure that you know that you’re not okay and both of us are going to be miserable by the time I get done here.

There’s the mode of I’m not okay and you’re okay. And let me testify, that’s my mode, that’s my natural, my flesh tends toward that. I’m not okay and you are. I’m the kind of person that in the lunch line as a child somebody cut in front of me and they’d say, “You don’t mind if I cut in front of you, do you?” I’d say, “Oh no, no it doesn’t. That’s okay because I’m not okay and you are.”

There’s a mode that says, I’m okay and you’re not okay. And folks, this just boggles my mind, I can’t understand it, but there are people that function in this that I don’t understand because it’s not me. That they feel like they are just basically God’s gift to planet Earth, and they have truth that nobody else has ever understood and probably never will, but I’ll try to share it with you. And you walk away from those people always with the conversation having taken a twist and you always feel less of a person when you walk away from that interaction unless you’re very careful on how you interact with that type of person. And then there’s finally the mindset or the perspective that says, I’m okay and you’re okay.

And that is the genius of CFO. It really is. That we have discovered… And folks, the concept of I’m okay, you’re okay doesn’t go quite far enough. The book doesn’t go quite far enough because it doesn’t rely upon a spiritual base enough. Okay? I’ll recommend the book to you, but take your Bible along with you as you read it. Because there is a biblical basis that gives us our okayness. Too often our evangelism… We were talking this morning that there is a new evangelistic wave that’s coming across the church. And I believe that in the 1990s we are going to see in the kingdom of God a tremendous evangelistic wave. And I believe that we’re going to see it toenail to toenail, eyeball to eyeball, person to person, evangelism. You’re my friend. Let me demonstrate to you what the Christian life is all about. I think we’re going to see a move away from the media, although there are tremendous blessings in the media, but I think we’re going to see a shift away from the media and into that localized one-on-one. I believe we’re going to see… CFO has gone through a dip number-wise, and I believe we’re in that part of the movement that has just slowed down a little bit. But I think we’re going to see a tremendous rise because people are going to be looking for a relationship.

But as we evangelize, we need to understand that there is more to evangelism than just bad news, good news evangelism. The bad news, good news kind of evangelism starts out by saying, “By the way, did you know that you’re an ugly sinner? Do you know that God is not pleased with you?” That’s where we start our evangelism. Now, folks, that’s very offensive. That’s offensive to the flesh. And I think it’s also offensive to God. Because then the good news is, of course, that Jesus has come to redeem us. And that is great news. You can’t get any better news than that. I get excited about it every time I think about it, that Jesus came to redeem me. Folks, I was in trouble, and He came to redeem me. The Bible says, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. I’m so glad for that, that He didn’t say, “Well, Tom, you know, put out the cigarette and I’ll accept you. Clean up your language.” I was a wonderful curser. I was in junior high. I gave my heart to Christ just prior to my 14th birthday. But I had almost perfected the ability to curse. In fact, I learned sign language so that I could do it in sign language. I was a heathen.

That was me. But there’s more to the gospel. There’s more to the good news than just bad news, good news. There’s more to evangelism than bad news, good news. It starts out, folks, it starts out with good news. The Bible begins, and it tells us at the very outset, that when God created man, He created man in His own image. And folks, there’s something about you, about you, individually, you, that just… I don’t know how better to say it than to say, it just trips God’s trigger. There’s something about you that just turns God on. And I don’t care what you have done today, or in the past. What your experience has been, the good news at the beginning of the good news, bad news, good news scenario is, that you were created in the image of God. Oh.

So there’s something intrinsically valuable about you. And about every person on the face of planet Earth. Something intrinsically valuable. So valuable, in fact, that in the Psalms, the psalmist writes and says, precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of one of His saints. Precious, why? It’s extremely valuable to God. Life is extremely valuable to God. This is the very area where the church and the world are coming into conflict in the United States today. Because the premise that stands behind all of those political issues that we’re talking about, not all of them, but the great majority, is that there’s one mindset that says, the human being is not the most valuable person, or the most valuable thing on the face of planet Earth. There are other things that are more important. In fact, I just heard, and I encourage you to listen to the news, and listen, put your spiritual ears on, and listen to the news. I listened to a commentary a couple of weeks ago. The commentator was saying, this whole issue of pornography and art has consumed so much media attention. And he said, it’s not a valid issue to be lined up against those issues that are much more important. And I thought, well, this is going to be good.

What’s more important here than morality? And he said, the more important issue, the greatest issue facing us in the United States today, is the national debt. Now, folks, the national debt is important. We’re living on credit. I just heard yesterday, two days ago, that the average American lives on 110% of his income. It doesn’t take very long to go into debt that way. You can’t spend 110% of what you got.

It doesn’t work that way. The national debt’s important. He said, the second most important problem that we’re facing is the drug epidemic. And I had to agree with him. That’s an important problem. But as I listened to what he was saying, what he was saying to the youth of the United States, is that it really is not that important that you live a moral life. It’s important that you get your financial situation in order. In fact, he was saying, morality is less important than materialism. And that’s our culture. Because morality, you see, if we don’t start out with the good news, that we are intrinsically valuable. That you don’t devalue people by pornographic art. That you don’t devalue people by illicit sexual relationships. You don’t devalue people. Morality is based on the value of the individual in the eyes of God. And so, I might just start preaching here. So, our basis for all that we do has to be lined up on that. And we’re going to see greater and greater political fights over this one issue. Because there are people that are involved in leadership today that don’t believe that human beings are more valuable than other things on the planet. Watch. Soon you will see animal rights. In fact, we’re already seeing it.

Animal rights taking precedence over human rights. And folks, I’m not one that says we should go and destroy every endangered species. Don’t misunderstand me. But, beloved, animals are not more important than you are. There’s something about you as a human being that does something in the heart of God. It grips the heart of God. That’s why when we come to understand judgment takes on such a broader spectrum when we understand judgment in the light of God’s inestimable value and love for us. And I don’t know about you, but I’m awestruck by that. I don’t understand why or how God loves me that much.

I can’t fathom it. But He does. That’s why you’re okay. You’re valuable. You are valuable. I want to just stop for just a minute. And I want to have you… Sometimes when we say these things with our mouths, it makes a difference. You know, the Civil Rights Movement had a statement that they made. “I am somebody.” You remember when that happened? They get whole crowds shouting that. “I am somebody.” Folks, that is truth. You are somebody.

I am somebody. To make a confession with me. Okay? Before the Lord and before one another. Simply to say… I’ll say it. You say it after me, okay? I am somebody. I am somebody. Now, here we go. God thinks I’m somebody. God thinks I’m somebody. So I am somebody. So I am.

Whatever you’ve heard, whatever the tapes are that run around inside of your mind, lay them aside. And keep reminding yourself of this. I am somebody. Now, this is an issue of faith. It’s an issue of faith. We need to begin acting like I am somebody. Now, what tends to happen here is we swing on the pendulum. And we had the women’s rights movement. Right? Women were treated unfairly in our culture. They’ve been treated unfairly for decades. And folks, it’s just true. I mean, we can’t argue it. Women have been in some cases. There are some cases where I think women’s rights has swung over. There’s a place where we need, as women and as men, to come to a place where we realize I am somebody just because of who God made me. That makes me somebody. Now, what’s happened in the women’s rights movement, and I see it happen in the church also, is that we swing from being put down and kind of walking in that, having that whole mindset of, well, I should be put down because I’m really not a good person, swinging over to turning that into some kind of an aggression. “I’ll show those turkeys. Those men aren’t going to get the best of me anymore. Just let one of them cross me, and he’ll wish that he never had because I am somebody.”

No, that’s not what we want to do. We want to come, and I don’t think that you have to swing on the pendulum every time you make a change in your life. Let’s just come to the realization that I am somebody. And along with that realization, we realize that you are somebody. That’s the body of Christ. We’re flowing together, realizing, no, I don’t estimate myself more highly than, don’t think more highly of myself than I ought, but I also realize that Jesus gave up His life for me as a demonstration of how much I mean to God. And so, I’m somebody, and you’re somebody. So say it with me. I am somebody. I am somebody. And now look at somebody else and say, you are somebody. You are somebody. Good. Yes, you are. A few months ago, we were watching the earthquake via television in California. And as the ground trembled in California, something began to shake in our house. And my wife said, “Honey, I think it might be time to go to the hospital.” We went to the hospital, and several hours later, my wife delivered a little boy, Austin. He’s named after his great-great-grandfather.

Great-great-great-grandfather. He came into the world in some difficult circumstances. He was, as Lori would have a contraction, his heart rate would drop dangerously low. And of course, you know, if you’ve been involved in… I don’t know what happened here. We used to just tell the ladies, go ahead and go on in. Doc, knock her out, and we’ll have a baby in a little bit. Now they bring the husband in, and we go through that whole process. And they, like, turn us into pseudo-doctors. You know, they put on the cap and gown. And the bad part about it is if there’s ever anything that goes wrong, your wife looks at you and says, “Honey, is everything okay?” And I confess to you today, I’ve confessed it to my wife already, I lied. I lied, I lied, I lied. She was having very hard contractions, and Austin’s little… We didn’t know it was Austin yet. A little heart rate dropped down. It was running 170. You know, they just kind of fibrillate almost. They just beat so fast in their low. And it dropped down a couple of times to 17, 18.

Lori couldn’t see the monitor, and she said, “Is everything okay?” He said, “Yeah.” It wasn’t okay. Austin came into the world with the umbilical cord wrapped twice around his neck. And a full-term baby weighed 4 pounds 15 ounces. And the doctors were afraid that he was hydrocephalic because his head was so large in comparison to his body. And the picture will be on display after the service. He is a very normal, healthy little boy. He caught up. Everything was fine. The doctor… I remember after the cord had been unwrapped, Austin was green. He was just green. He was covered with a green…

Well, they call it meconium. He had had a bowel movement in birth. And the doctors didn’t know that because his head was already in the canal and it held everything up. But it was extremely serious and he had ingested a large quantity of that.

And they brought a… It just so happened they had a specialist two doors down who was helping with the premature delivery. And that was on hold for a little bit. And so they called him and he came. And we discovered when we received the hospital bill later. Hospital bill. Thank God for miracles.

That there was one… One portion of the billing was just called resuscitation. We were happy to pay that part because he… Basically was suffocating. And the doctor came in and resuscitated him. The doctor… Before they put him on the table to resuscitate him the doctor held him up as is his custom.

Held Austin up and handed me a pair of scissors. Has any dad done that? Cut the umbilical cord? Oh my. As I cut it the thought went through my mind, I’ll be giving him the car keys pretty soon.

I’ll be sending him off to kindergarten. I’ll be sending him off to college. I’m going to cut this cord a thousand times. My brother works as a paramedic and he said he let you cut the cord. And I said yeah. And he said did you cut it in the right spot? And I said yeah. I knew to cut it between the clamps. He said good because if you cut it on the wrong side of the clamp between the clamp and the baby if you cut that cord they just go all around the room.

That’s not true. I lied. I lied. My brother did tell me that. But it was a fascinating thing and the Lord taught us so much in the process. And I should have brought the original pictures because they take a picture when they take them into intensive care. And Austin was there for quite a while and we had an opportunity to bond there. As a dad I went down and stuck my hand into the incubator as he was all wired up and some of you probably had premature babies or problem babies. Special kids they call them. And things did not look good. I took the picture back up to Lori and it was a difficult time. But Austin’s head was larger than his body because he wasn’t hydrocephalic. We discovered later they did the sonogram or ultrasound whatever they call it now and everything was fine. The brain was fine. But his body shut down. What the problem was was the placenta didn’t work right. And it stopped feeding him in the last trimester.

Very little food. And his body shut down and said we know that the brain is the most important thing. And the rest of the body just knows this. That a kid has trouble if he doesn’t have a brain. And so I just won’t grow for a while. And I’ll send all of the food to the brain. The rest of his body shut down. And so we got this little green boy with a special little collar around his neck whose head was too large for his body. All in the plan of God. And that’s how the body of Christ really does work.

When we’re okay we can honestly and from an absolute total open pure heart say it doesn’t matter if my need is met right now. I will not take the food and I’ll give it to you. I’ll bless you. Because I know there’s going to come a time in the providence of God that I’ll be in the same place and I’ll need the food also. And Austin was… he came into the world, the doctor said, now look out when you take him home, he’s going to eat just like a little horse. And he did. The doctor said this is just insanity, wake him up every two hours to feed him. Even if he’s sleeping through. He didn’t. He just went ahead and ate. But he ate all the time. We have a little boy in the church that weighed in at nine pounds ten ounces just a week or so after Austin was born and they’re the same size now. God just works miracles. He really does. Sometimes we lose kids. And I know that’s a difficult, difficult time. We lost two in between Ashley and Austin during the pregnancy. That’s a difficult time. But God works in those situations. And even in the midst of that sorrow we saw the same plan of God demonstrated in our lives as the church rallied around us and said, for a while we’ll just lay aside our needs and we’ll bless you.

We’ll bless you. Some of you have been loved inappropriately. People didn’t understand your needs growing up. Because of that you’ve developed that mindset that says I’m not okay. Maybe your mindset is I’m not okay and you’re not okay either. Maybe you have a mindset that says I’m not okay but you’re okay. So as hard as you want to beat on me, that’s okay because I deserve it. Maybe you’ve been loved inappropriately. And I want to… we don’t have very much time, but I feel like I need to share this this morning. I want to give you something that is the solution, and it’s not one of those, you know, cure-all fix-all, do it this morning and the rest of your life will be great. But it’s the biblical solution to that problem of generational sin. We’ve touched on it. Rhea has so beautifully ministered.

The solution to that is forgiveness. It’s forgiveness. I said a little while ago that love is an act of faith. Forgiveness also is an act of faith. We veer off when we begin to think of forgiveness just as some kind of an emotional or a mental exercise that we go through. We lose contact. Folks, for forgiveness to take place it needs supernatural empowering to take place. It’s an act of faith.

Imagine if you would that we were going to pour a concrete sidewalk out here. Now the first thing you do when you pour concrete is not to back the truck up and just dump it out there and kind of swish it around. The first thing that you do is you set forms and you make those forms very strong and stable and those forms go exactly in the direction and the place that you want that concrete to be formed and poured into. That’s faith. Faith is setting the forms and saying, God, come in and pour in the concrete of reality into this form that I’ve set. Forgiveness works the same way. We come to a place in our lives where we decide as a matter of our will, and in our hearts we may say, I can’t forgive, I cannot forgive, I cannot forgive. And when things come up and they’re a new reminder and you think, I know, I knew I hadn’t given that to the Lord. See, I knew I couldn’t forgive. No, we set the form and we say, God, by an act of my will I forgive. Now come in and fill the form. There’s a man that spoke to Jesus, talked about healing, and the man’s confession to the Lord, you remember it, I believe, “Help thou my unbelief.” And when I first looked back, I thought, this guy is mixed up.

But what he was saying was, Lord, I want to want to. I decide that I’d rather have forgiveness than this yucky bitterness that I’m struggling with. And so I’ll set the form. God, by an act of my will, I don’t have the power to do it, but I forgive. I don’t feel like I forgive. Nothing is, there aren’t any firecrackers going off, but I forgive. I just do it. Now, Lord, help my unbelief. And somehow come in and fill this thing up with real forgiveness. This thing that I’ve decided. Come in and fill it up with unforgiveness. And let me say, this does not happen just typically. It just doesn’t happen. And you say, oh, good. Boy, I can go home from camp now and everything’s good. And because I’ll guarantee you the first time you run into the person, if they’re still living, it’s going to go, and you struggle with it again. I’ve got a couple of people that I struggle with it. Unforgiveness. I struggle with it. But I keep going back to the Lord. Jesus talked about it. He said, those who ask, receive, those who knock, the doors open. The same thing is true. That is, the verbs that are used there are ongoing verbs. Those who keep on asking, those who keep on seeking, those who keep on knocking. And that is the walk of faith. That when we come up against that, and we realize again, boy, I haven’t… the concrete hasn’t been poured into this forgiveness yet. That we say, Lord, by an act of my will, I forgive them. I need Your help. I need Your help. I need that supernatural in-pouring of Your Holy Spirit to flesh this thing out. Maybe you’ve been loved inappropriately. Maybe you’re one of those cripples. Join the crowd. Because all of us are. It’s part of being in the world. If nobody has told you yet, let me be the first to tell you. I won’t be the first to tell you. Life is just not fair. It just isn’t. It just isn’t.

But we know this, that there will come a time when justice will rule. When Jesus returns and establishes His kingdom, justice will rule. And I can guarantee you this, you can do better than take it to the bank. There will come a time when Jesus will make it right. He’ll make it right. That’s a source of great joy. And it’s also a great source of great trembling and fear and awe. Law. Because Jesus will make it right where we’ve been wronged. And He’ll make it right where we have done the wrong deed. He’ll make it right. He’ll make it right. Personally, I’ve opted for forgiveness.

There are two fires that we can choose. The fire of repentance or the fire of judgment. And I would equate that this morning. There are two fires that we can choose. The fire of forgiveness or the fire of judgment. This morning, let’s set some forms. Let’s set some forms.

Say, Lord, I want to, want to, I believe, help thou my unbelief. Lord, make it right. By an act of faith, I make a decision. And I leave it in Your hands. And you may need to leave it in His hands again 15 minutes from now. If that’s the case, go ahead and do it. We’re going to talk, I believe, tonight, unless I shave again.

We’re going to talk about the second touch. And Jesus’ touch upon the inner man as well as the outer man. And we’ll talk about, right along those lines, of taking it back and back and back and back. It’s okay to do that. It really is. I think it’s pleasing to the Lord. When we make that an act of faith. Would you stand with me?

Let’s close with a word of prayer. We need a supernatural touch this morning. We need a supernatural touch. Father, we thank You so much that we don’t go through this life on our own. That we aren’t dependent upon our own strength. That it’s not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts. We thank You that in it, in Your eyes, You’ve made us to be okay.

That we’re precious in Your sight. Before we make any step toward You. Before we commit our lives to You. Before we sense the infilling of Your Holy Spirit. That we’re precious in Your sight. We pray, God, that that would be such a living reality in our lives this morning. That by an act of our will, we would be able to say, God, I forgive.

Those hurts, that individual. If we can’t say, God, I forgive, we can at least say, God, I want to want to forgive. Right now, it’s not in me to even want to. I need a supernatural touch. I want to want to.

This morning, we set the forms for You to come and to fill them with the power and the anointing of Your Holy Spirit to make our decision reality. To make our faith promise come to fruition. That forgiveness would reign. I pray in each life of every individual where these generational sins and problems have come down, that the blood of Christ would come across that line of sin and snap it in two.

That we would stop the process and send on to our offspring and to those people whose lives we touch. Send on the blessing of the Lord Jesus Christ. The fullness of the Holy Spirit in forgiveness and in restoration. Break the line of sin by Your Holy Spirit. Jesus, come and bring forgiveness and wholeness and peace.

And we want to stop right now and simply tell You by faith that we give You all the praise and all the glory, all the honor that’s due Your name as You work in each one of our lives. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Hallelujah. We thank You for Your forgiveness. We thank You for the power to forgive. It’s not in ourselves, but Jesus, all things are in You. We love You, Jesus. I love You, Jesus. We thank You for Your grace. Your precious name. Amen.