Well friends, we have a treat tonight. We are really excited. There are certain voices in our nation that are kind of spearheading this movement of activating fathers and activating men to actually represent Jesus in their homes. And we as a community, we care deeply about this.
And we're willing to admit we're not experts. There are people that are giving themselves to this full time. And our speaker today is one of those leading voices that we are so excited to learn from. Would you stand and welcome Jeff Zog up to the front?
I've never felt so small in all my days. Stay standing because we're all going to pray. But just wanted to let you guys know that Jeff and his wife Michelle there. They were at every day.
And then the Lord called them on this crazy journey. You'll hear a little bit about this. But they are as a staff. We would say they're some of our biggest cheerleaders.
Not just as a staff as a community. The times where I'll just randomly get a message from Jeff being like, service was great last night. Like were you here? He's like, no, I was on the other side of the planet.
But I was streaming and praying. I'm really here the notes that I took on them. Like they're so hungry and so plugged in with what God's doing here. And so I can promise you that what Jeff's going to bring today is not just his own thing.
He's been praying for you. I was thinking for a service, funny story. Do you remember when I ran into the woods up in Wisconsin? Yeah.
So I went on a solo prayer retreat in the woods like an hour and a half away. And I leaned in hard. So I had like a walking stick and I had like a wide brimmed hat they provided. And I was like, just, well, I'm like, I'm just going to lean in hard to this retreat thing.
And I turned a corner and Jeff is just standing there. And I was like, what are you doing here? He's like, what are you doing here? And we had booked cabins at the same time, a ways away, but ran into each other's prayer walk.
So he's been praying. I can promise I saw him up there in the prayer cabin. But let's pray for Jeff as he brings the word, extend to hand if you will. And we are so grateful for your ministry through Jeff.
We are so grateful for the way that you fathered him. And Holy Spirit, we are so ready to receive your wisdom through him. We're so grateful for him. We receive him as a teacher, as a communicator, even as a prophetic voice into what you're doing in the church.
With Father today, for right now, we just say, soul, wake up. It's time to receive. Mind, open up. It's time to receive.
God wants to speak. And so we bless Jeff and we bless the preaching of the word. In Jesus' name. Amen.
I love you. Have a seat. I have to jump down. I've got to start down here.
So our family, we've been so grateful and excited to come back to every day. We actually booked our flights before I was invited. It's a preach. We come back to every day.
Heroes. Let's go. We're back. So grateful.
Good to see you guys. My wife Michelle and I. We have four daughters. Girl dad, times four.
We have 11, 8, 6, 4. And I had a daddy daughter date with my six-year-old. This afternoon, actually before lunch, we needed a veggie platter for Father's Day lunch. And so we made the grocery store trip into a daddy date.
And as we were driving and walking and I said, what should I tell everyone? In my message. You love every day. What should I say?
She said, well, tell them happy Father's Day. Happy Father's Day for my six-year-old. And then secondly, she said, tell them how excited I am for everyday heroes. And so my oldest daughter, tomorrow is year five.
Year five of everyday heroes are oldest daughter the first two years. Then the last few years I've had two daughters. And I got to serve actually as a leader for two years there. And one night, okay, this is great.
The first night, tomorrow night, we get to follow Jesus. Next night, we get to see like Jesus. The next night, we get to stomp on fear. The next night, we're going to serve radically.
Thank you. And then the next night, we're going to go change the world. Right? That's what's going to happen.
But the first night, follow Jesus. I'm a leader. I'm sitting on this side of the room. My daughter is sitting on that side of the room.
I didn't know anything significant happens. But I say, with me, in prayer, fighting on our knees for miracles this week. Yes? Okay, amazing, amazing.
Here we go. So speaking of men, dads, dads, when was the last time, just think about the last time you were feeding your children, feeding them a meal. And they looked at you and said, no way. They looked at you and said, not only will I not eat what you're serving me, but I'm going to dig my heels in and won't even give it the smallest taste.
And I don't care. Right? Have we experienced this? Okay, so this was, this was looking fashion.
This was me as a child. And the food that I would not eat, I'll describe it for you. This food is green in color. It's a greenish brown, kind of crusty, hairy.
When you cut into it, my backyard, there was a pond, and there was frogs, and frog eggs were stringy and black. It's disgusting, stringy, tadpole type eggs. When you open this, it's a kiwi. I would not, I would not try this disgusting fruit as a child, as a college student, as a young married man, all the way into fatherhood.
I would not try the kiwi. And then my wife had a full day plan. We had a nine month old daughter, and Michelle, I mean, she's came up, strategic meal plan, healthy eating. She leaves me the exact plan.
This is what you're going to feed our daughter. I have no problem. Anything else on the list? Now I got to kiwi.
It's just you look full. Maybe I can skip it. No, she wanted to kiwi. My nine month old was sitting in the high chair next to me.
I chop up the kiwi. I scoop it onto her little high chair, and as I'm scooping it, a small piece of kiwi sticks to my finger. This is not good. Usually, I would run for the sink.
Get this thing off of my hand. I want nothing to do with the kiwi. I'm 32 years old. I look at my daughter.
She looks back at me. I took a small taste of this kiwi. I pause. I look at her.
She has very few words. She looks back at me. I look back at her. I'm so tasted.
Amazing. I'm 32 years in the life and I missed the kiwi. The past? Here's why the next.
I ate over half of her serving of kiwi. I stole back from her tray and I kept getting these odd, like what are you doing? Since then my daughters, they know I'm the kiwi stealer. I got to make up for those 32 years of no kiwi.
So I'm going to steal back the kiwi. Here's the flip that I made. I made the flip from avoidance to awesomeness. I made the flip.
I switched from nowhere to no way, okay? I made the shift from disgusted by the sliminess freaked out, by the sliminess to freaking out by the I almost missed it. Here's what I'm praying for. Tonight.
Could we be open and can we lean in and can we pray for a Kiwi tasting surprise from heaven tonight? Yes, are you with me? God, we pray that you would surprise us. God, we want a surprise from heaven.
And like all dads, all of us are nodding, the journey of fatherhood is just a series of surprise after surprise after surprise. We're not ready for any of these guys. These surprises, some of them are delightful, like the Kiwi, some of them are disappointing. Some of these surprises are flat out devastating in fatherhood.
And just to pause for a moment, for a moment before we dive in, like the, I mean, just in the last two days, I'm having conversations with a friend, reconnect with a friend who said, his 11 day old is in heaven now. And this is unimaginable stuff. This is dad life that you just can't even, there's nothing you can do to prepare for some of the things we experienced in dad life. And my dad, my dad's in heaven.
He went to heaven five years ago. That's not what I want today, stirs up, right? All of us are at a little different angle, a different mix between some of us it is, there's the lights, there's disappointment, devastation, some of us are like, I thought it would be this timing, and there's been some delays, I'm gonna agree with that. Some of us are just walking in here, or drains the dad life, it's just like, I am tired and I'm not even sure I'm open to a surprise from heaven.
Would you lean in with me tonight? Would you lean in for that surprise? I know that our father in heaven has something for every single one of us. And this is what I found in the journey of the last seven and a half years of fatherhood ministry, a repeated discovery that I continue to hear is around the theme of wonder.
I'm gonna talk about wonder. We're gonna talk about wonder tonight, but here's the discovery, it's tell your kids that you enjoy being their dad. Tell them, tell them with your words and show them with your eyes that you enjoy. We honor God in heaven by treasuring the gift of fatherhood and we use our words to make sure that our kids know it.
So this is the phrase, you look at your down on the level, it's right in the right, I love that I get to be your dad. We tell our kids and this is transferable to all of us. So before we dive into wonder, Pastor Josh, I got a chance to have a phone call with him a day or two before he took this sabbatical break in Pastor Katie and he said, make sure you tell our church about dad awesome, this ministry. I'm like hesitant to dive in and tell you about the ministry, but Pastor Josh said to do it.
So what do we're gonna do instead of a commercial for the ministry? This is remembrance, I get to share a little bit about what guy has done. So let me just take a couple minutes to give you a fly over. Seven and a half years ago, an experiment launched, I was certain as a children's pastor at the time, we launched an experiment around intentional fatherhood, called Dad Awesome.
Last Thursday was the 386th weekly episode of the Dad Awesome podcast. So that experiment expanded a little bit over seven and a half years, six years ago, right here. In the Twin Cities, we invited this campaign of like, what if we invite men to take action, to do something hard on behalf of kids that don't have a dad. So Dad Awesome launched the Fathers for the Fatherless Campaign and the prayer was, could we raise $10,000 for ministries who directly serve the Fatherless?
And 27 dads said, yes, so we tried this experiment and I got a chance to huddle with my four daughters. So in the course of these past years of Dad Awesome, I added, I doubled up to Dad Life, added two more daughters. And I huddled with my daughters last August and I shared with them my vision and my hope with my friends was to raise $10,000. We celebrated today passing a million dollars raised for our partners who directly serve the Fatherless.
And we were like, the girls, they got it, they got it. And here's what I told them, I had a vision, I felt like God was blowing on something. I said yes, a bunch of friends joined me. And then other churches took notice and a thousand other dads said yes to the mission and 30 events later, that's how we got there.
It wasn't just a dad, it was a team that came around that mission. Our family actually hit the road four years ago when we lived in an RV for 550 nights, traveling through laps around the country, hosting these events, hosting conversations and meeting with partners and, yeah, we did count. So 550 nights, we were like, well, our daughter was like a newborn at the time and that took our family into just a year and a half ago when we relocated. So we live in Florida now, there's a little bit of like, ah, we love, we love this community, but God relocated us and our headquarters of Dad Awesome is in Northeast Florida.
So we are so grateful, our mission is this. We activate dads to lead with wonder. And that's what we're talking about today, is leading with wonder. We dream about the church every day, other churches, so many other churches being famous for how they resource, encourage, train, celebrate dads.
The church being known, when you're talking to another dad on the sideline of the soccer field, it's like, hey, regardless of where you're at with your faith, you've gotta come to every day because we're helping young dads get a vision, a mission, get activated to pursue the hearts of their kids. Come over, so that's our dream, is to help churches. And we're grateful, there's a team of men right here. And every day, last week that we came around, about 16, 17 of us, and we prayed into, what does it look like to build a more expansive fatherhood ministry right here?
And I am so grateful to be on that team, praying into and gathering things we've learned and bringing right here to the dads. So super grateful, super grateful. So we do a weekly podcast, we do activation events, we do group coaching for dads, we do six week coaching cohorts, we help churches launch fatherhood ministries, and we're taking the 400, soon to be 400 episodes, and we're distilling them into a book. The first dad awesome book launches actually in this room on Thursday, September 18th.
So we're right here, right here. We're gonna take, you know, to partner with the church and take, oh, listen to 400 podcast episodes. No, that's like, give us a tool where you bring the key dad awesome discoveries, and they're like six or seven minute reads, these little chapters, and the men here, all of you men, 13 years old, 103 years old, you're invited, come launch, it's not a book launch, it's a celebration of what God's done, and it's an activation event to get men on missions. So that's happening right here.
Okay, so remembrance portion to celebrate what God's done, finish, let's dive in, let's dive in. This is now, we're going after the theme of wonder, and if you are a dad, you're in the right place, but this message, your mom, absolutely God has something. If you're a future dad, a future mom, God has something for you, if you're a grandparent, yes. If you're someone who fathers, who mothers, who teaches, who mentors, who nannies, who babysits, who serves in kids ministry, this is, I'm glad you're here, God has something for you today, and specifically if you're a young man.
So if you're in the, let's call it 16 years old to 46 years old, if you're a young man, this is for you. God had wont young men to grab ahold of a vision for fatherhood, and it's for their future family, or people you're influencing today, in ways you do not know, young men. Listen to this for a second, this part comes from X2 and Joel 2, same exact words. In the last days, God says, says your old men will dream dreams, and your young men will see visions.
I will pour out my spirit in those days, and I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth. There is a direct connection between young men having a vision, and God pouring out his wonder. So let's lean in, young men, let's lean in, God wants to plant vision, it will make a difference to your great-grandkids, you have no idea today. So lean in with me.
Here we go, wonder, everyone say wonder. We're gonna start Genesis chapter one. Let's start at the beginning, wonder. Here we go, I have a wonder map, I think it's on the screen, five stops, we're not gonna spend that much time in each one, but we're gonna start with God experiencing me, the first wonder, I call it from God's first wow to ours.
In Genesis chapter one, seven times, God pauses, He looks at what He made, and with delight, and gladness, and wonder, God says it was good. And when I did a little deeper study, I have not studied extensively Hebrew, in fact, these two words I'll introduce you today, either blowing my mind, but I don't even understand all the facets of them. And then God loves that, He loves that hunger to dive in. The first word, say, tove, T-O-V, tove.
Tove is a Hebrew word that's explosive. This is the word God said, and He says it was good. He's saying tove, and tove is a declaration of delight, of beauty, of life-giving purpose. When God says tove, He's expressing profound satisfaction in what He's made.
And just right there on Father's Day, what if we, with dads in the room, or leaders, what if we just pause, and we express profound satisfaction in the children that God has uniquely created and gifted into our family? What if we just say that, it's just copied God in that way, of this brilliance like deeper meaning of tove. So tove, when God pauses, these seven times, He's saying, wow, look what I made, right? That's just like this joy of gladness and wonder.
And after verse one, so this is Genesis one, verse four, after creating light, He says tove. Verse 10, after separating the water from the land, He says it again, tove. Verse 12, after creating plant life, He says that same expression, that deep meaning tove. Verse 18, after creating the system for lighting the earth, He repeats it, verse 21, after creating water in air animals, verse 25, after creating the land animals, and then, verse 31.
When God sees everything that He made, He pauses and he says tove meowed. Meowed, meowed, that's how you say that thing. Tove meowed is mighty good, strongly good, powerfully good. We see God, and this is just a little sliver of the expansiveness of His wonder.
We see Him being the first to experience wonder. So now let's take a second stop to our wonder map, and we're gonna look at wonder and how it multiplies. And this is directly like, we get to step into this. Wonder that multiplies, there's a ripple effect to tove.
Tove appears when something not only has life, but contains the potential to create more life. So think of a seed becoming an orchard, right? Or a sunrise. You're taking a sunrise, this goodness of God in creation, and you wanna tell somebody else, you want someone else to experience it with you.
God's wonder at creation wasn't just about what was there, but about the endless possibilities of what could come from it. So for fun, I wanna go back to two messages right here, and we're gonna talk about the ripple effect of tove through a parable and a story about Jesus with little children. So these are both small things that God values enormously. Okay, so let's look first.
We're gonna jump into Jesus teaching about the parable of the mustens. Let's go, Pastor Ben. Pastor Ben hit this one, Mark, chapter four, verse 30. He preached on this four months ago, three or four months ago, but I wanna just take a sliver to help us understand the multiplication of God's goodness.
So Mark four, verse 30 goes like this. And he said, Jesus said, with what can I compare? What can we compare the kingdom of God? Or what parable should we use for it?
It was like a grain of mustard seed, which when sown in the ground is the smallest of all the seeds of the earth, yet when it's sown, it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants, and it puts out large branches so that the birds of the air can make their nests in its shade. So this was my takeaway from Pastor Ben. In my takeaways, a bunch of what's that apply here, the mustard seed was actually considered a weed. It's not what people wanted.
It was an invasive species that farmers would never intentionally plant in their field. And Jesus was likely, he was saying the kingdom starts with what looks insignificant and even unwanted. That's where the kingdom, we gotta be curious right there about the kingdom. The kingdom, this is an example of the multiplying tove that ripples God's goodness in unexpected ways, through unexpected things that are likely small.
Now take that mustard seed principle, and we're gonna set it alongside a three verses for Matthew, Matthew chapter 19, verse 13, pastor Avi. It's a mashup, pastor Ben, pastor Avi, right? Pastor Avi took us into three verses that I could spend, there's so much time we could spend in these three verses, they're beautiful, but let me give you a fly over. Pastor Avi talked about under Mother's Day message, these three verses, let's go to verse 13, this is of Matthew 19.
Then people brought little children to Jesus, for him to place his hands on them and pray for them, but the disciples rebuked them. And Jesus said, let the little children come to me, do not hinder them, but the kingdom of heaven belongs to you such as these, and when he had placed his hands on them, he went out from there. But Jesus, he emphasized the multiplying, tove, the explosive goodness and awesomeness in these little children, and he treasured these little children. Look at these three action steps, Jesus, he modeled three things for us that are critical.
So Proximity was the first one, he brought them in close. There was closeness, let the little children come, don't stop them. And then he placed his hands on them, gentle touch. He took the children in his arms, he placed his hands on their heads.
And then the third thing, he prayed for them, he spoke identity and blessings, he said, the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these. That's how he spoke, he beamed when he said it, I'm sure. Both the mustard seed and this parable, or the story of Jesus with the little children, they reveal how the kingdom of heaven is actually a flip of what the world's system looks like. And this is how the unwanted were celebrated.
The pushed away were pulled in close. And we're invited, we get to, this is simple, we can copy and it had expectation, this is a multiplication copy, when we copy Jesus like this, we can expect the kingdom of heaven to multiply. So here's again how we're gonna copy Jesus. We're going to follow his example with proximity with children, we're gonna pull them in close, gonna pull them in close, don't stop them, don't let the children be hindered.
We're gonna place our hands with gentle touch. I'm the children that have been entrusted to us, gentle touch, he took the children in his arms. And then the third part, we're gonna pray for kids, we're gonna use our words, that God gives us to speak life, speak blessings, and remind over and over the kingdom of heaven belongs to these kids. And that's gonna happen in profound ways, it's happening all over these next five days, my anticipation, man.
Yes, okay, one more example of multiplication of wonder. And this comes from a conversation just a few weeks ago with Dr. Ken Sandy, he's an expert in the peacemaking and relational wisdom space. And he has this vision of heaven.
And this is his vision, that I'm sharing with you that's blowing my mind, okay? So his vision is he gets to heaven and there's a screen. And on the screen, you can scroll through, this is each of us our own life, we can scroll through and any interaction, conversation, moments, service, or ad, like I'm picturing the kids sitting in that seat right there at Everyday Heroes, can scroll back to that moment on Tuesday nights, learning about seeing like Jesus. And what you do is you pick a moment in your life and you hit the ripple button next to it.
And what happens is the screen floods with the cascading ripple of the goodness of God because of that moment in that chair and how it changes countless lives. If we could do that, just imagine with more wonder that this interaction, that conversation, this moment of prayer has a ripple button attached that would absolutely blow our minds as it cascades over time, we would live differently, we would. So I could wrap up in that for a long time, I wanted to share it with you. Let's take a third stop in our wonder map this evening.
So the third stop is wonder was built into everything. And I think that creation is tugging us back towards wonder if we give it a chance. And there's just four examples, there's so many examples of wonder and how creation, being outside in God's creation, can stir us, but I want to share a couple sounds that stir me to wonder that are straight up God saying here you go in creation. So here are the two sounds.
The first one is when we were pregnant for the first time, 11 years ago, we're at our appointment to hear, it's the ultrasound appointment. And as a rookie dad, you don't know how long this is gonna take and I'm holding my wife's hand and I'm waiting. And there's someone we've never met that's using the machine, trying to find a heartbeat and I'm waiting and I'm praying and I'm not breathing. I'm so, like there's so much anticipation and so much like God, I want so bad to hear my little one, I didn't know if it was a boy or a girl at the time.
And then the silence in the room, you hear the heartbeat. What a gift, that is a moment that forever will be like, wonder this baby has a heartbeat, right? The next sound is similar but louder. The next sound, the day our daughter was born.
I'm sitting with my wife, I'm helping, I'm helping, she's doing her thing and we're praying. And I'm holding her hands, I'm praying. And then we know, the two of us know, our baby girl has been born. But there's a pause between knowing the baby girl has been born and hearing that she's been born.
And then our precious daughter's voice fills this room and that voice was like her, it's this beautiful cry saying, I've arrived and I'm alive. And that cry will forever wonder, it's like God's creation, like it blows my mind, these two sounds. And I wish that today when my youngest is now four, when she's having a rough day and using her voice loudly, does it serve me with the same wonder? I wish, but it doesn't, okay, it's attention.
But this is like our kid's voice the first time. And even knowing, like those two examples of a heartbeat and first cry of a baby on Father's Day, I mean, there's people in this room, people watching, like this is the tenderness God knows. If that, those two stories moved you to be like, that loss actually is what I feel in this moment. God knows, God loves you.
God promises nearness, he's so near the brokenhearted and he's the God of hope. He's the God of hope. And there's beauty that is, he just, he treasures and he is so close to you. So please know, like those two sounds beautiful and devastating in some sort.
Let's move to the next sound. Let's move to the next sound here. This sound for my daughters is one that they just are so curious about. The sounding creation is thunder.
When thunder goes off, my heart is like, whoa, and then it lights up the sky and my girls are just like wondering, well, thunder be in heaven, well, thunder will lightning me in heaven. I'm like, I don't know, but let's see. And we've taken in a little bit of an exploration into the book of Job around thunder. It's one of those areas of creation that's just tugging me back towards wonder.
Job 37, 38, and 39, there is so much of a reset that helps us frame how big God is with these three chapters. But I wanna focus on Job 37. So feel free to turn there with me. Job 37, verse one, says this.
At this, my heart pounds and leaps from its place. And then if we move forward to verse five, God's voice thunders in marvelous ways. He does great things beyond our understanding. And then if we fast forward a little further to verse 14, he says, listen to this Job.
And this verse to me is if I could have this verse on repeat, like five times a day, it would be so helpful because I need this. So I'll just use my own name right here. Listen to this, Jeff, stop and consider God's wonders. How much could we all reframe that to our own name?
Like listen to this, stop and consider God's wonders. If we could just do that, his wonders are all around us, we're missing it. I think we're missing it so way too often. So stop and consider this Job's, stop and consider God's wonders.
Verse 15, do you know how God controls the clouds or makes his lightning flash? Do you know how clouds hang poise? Those wonders of him who has perfect knowledge, thunder, lightning, these sounds from birth. There's many other examples that tie into reminding us of God's weakness and reminding us that, wow, I don't understand everything, but I'm thankful that God does, right?
So here's one other example in creation that anchors me back towards wonder. It's built into this, is marriage. So Michelle and I, next month is 19 years of marriage. We're celebrating and we're so thankful.
Thanks for celebrating with us. We're still learning, my goodness, but one discovery that we've made together is around this idea of staying, and having eyes of wonder versus familiarity. So I've had the choice to grow in my marriage towards familiarity or towards wonder and amazement. And dads, if you're married, the second greatest force multiplier towards being dad awesome is being husband awesome, okay?
It is, it is for sure, for sure. So, and I'm gonna pause that to say, you're curious probably, well what's the first greatest force multiplier of being dad awesome? And it is, it's this, it's worth taking a moment on. My friend describes the process as, you gotta be son awesome before you try to show up as dad awesome.
And if we just use, let's use that, like imagine there's a waterfall over here in that waterfall. So as a young dad, as dad, I have the choice, I could go to that waterfall and it's a waterfall of God's love. He's lavishing love. And if I choose, instead of just trying to figure this dad thing out of my own, if I go and get soaking wet with the love of God, the lavishing love of God, and I know my identity, I know that I'm loved.
I know that he is, he's proud of me as a son. I can show up over here as a loving dad in exponential, like the way, basically, you get soaking wet over there with God's love, and then you go give your kids a hug, you're gonna give your kids a hug, they're gonna get wet, okay? So that's the first greatest force multiplier. The second greatest force multiplier is being husband awesome.
This does not mean perfect at all, but this is what it does mean. It means that you treasure your wife, you pursue your wife, you're curious, you're fascinated by your wife. And I actually, I think that this framework of delight and awe and fascination, a tool to help all of us, we're all looking for new tools, new ways that I can step into a new chapter of my marriage. If we take this framework of tove meode, meode, if we take this framework of saying, how in my wife do I see the multiplying goodness of God?
If I pause and say, where do I see the multiplying goodness of God in my wife, through her motherhood? I see it there all the time, through our marriage, and the way that she pursues me, through friendships, through her leadership, through her prayers, through her generosity. I can move from being familiar to saying, look at all the ways that she is taking, receiving the goodness of God and multiplying it, all around her, right? This is a clear example of us multiplying wonder by just changing our frame of reference, changing this lens towards I see wonder, and I'm going to be curious and I'm gonna celebrate it.
So this is how we span out of husband mode into supplies to every single one of us. When we see with shiny eyes, instead of dull familiarity, we become carriers of God's wonder-filled delight, spreading this tove meode through our lives. So we can actually be kind to it. We can be part of the multiplication process if we choose to see differently and celebrate differently, and then we can multiply it forward.
It's a beautiful thing, but we have to look forward, we have to step into it. So this takes us to our fourth stop in this wonder tour that we're doing this evening, and we have to look for a moment at what's gonna steal our wonder, what are the thieves of wonder? I came up with four, but I think it'll be helpful for us. So the first thief of wonder is pace.
Our pace robs us a lot. There's no space in our day to gaze, to celebrate, to pause enough to, like we can't encounter the goodness of God. And then that means we can't multiply it forward if we don't experience it ourselves. Our pace is robbing us of wonder.
Jesus shows us so many places that he went a different path versus the hurried path. And here's a few examples of Jesus taking a different route when it comes to pace. Jesus heals a man with leprosy, and then he's off to a lonely place to pray, Luke 516. Another one is he's feeding the 5,000, and then Jesus is off on a mountain side by himself, John 615.
And then before choosing the disciples, instead of building out this gantt chart, the strategy, the prose consolist, he spends a whole night on a mountain side in prayer. This is Jesus modeling pace. And this promise in the book of Psalm 4610, be still and know that I'm God. There's a promise attached to a different approach to our pace.
I love these tender words. Jesus spoke over Martha. When Martha was racing around, this is in Luke chapter 10. And I need this.
I need this on Father's Day. Right now I need this. The phrase in the middle here is, you are worried enough sets about many things. How many of us is that true?
We're just, we're operating at a pace that we're caring. We're worried enough set about many things. And Jesus gently says, Martha, Martha, you're worried enough set about many things, but few are needed. Indeed only one, only one.
So this invitation around pace is come away, be still, slow down. I want to move to the next one. So pace is key as far as the thief that will steal our wonder. The next one is around pain.
In pain, it dims our capacity to see beauty. We can't see an experience, ah, because maybe there's some way pain has a hold of us. And God has so many promises around. And pain is real, but the way to attach to it, it's not ours to carry, because we have a good Father who wants to carry it.
I'd like to share a story from a couple of years ago. In Southern California, my family, we were traveling for the ministry, and we knew we were headed to Southern California in this time frame. We realized our partner church was synced up with 30 other churches to host worship nights at the Oceanside Amphitheaters. Outdoor, 30 churches, and it turns out that worship night was on my wife's birthday.
And at this point, we're traveling with four little girls. Date nights are not happening often. And my mom was flying in, perfect timing. My mom's flying in, she says, yes, you guys do a date.
You dinner, go to the worship night. We're pumped. Like this is all coming together perfectly. We picked my mom up from the airport, and we had a few hours before the date started.
So we go to the beach. It's beautiful. November day, our little girls are wearing their little wetsuits and they're learning to surf. And I'm looking at the waves, one or two foot, glassy, low tide.
I'm helping my girls delightfully learn how to surf. Perfect, right? This is one during this point. And I push my four year old daughter into like her second or third wave.
And as she's taken off, I'm like, pompt, I'm watching her ride. I get hit with the worst pain I've ever experienced. In my foot, it hits and drives in so deep, this pain. I'm completely like this.
I forget that I'm even helping my girl surf. I'm entirely focused on the deep pain in my foot. And I start hobbling my way back to the beach. My girls are looking at me.
I'm like anger and furious in my face. I'm confused, but I'm also experiencing such levels of pain. I lay on my back on the beach, looking in the wound, trying to figure out what happened. I'm like, this is right at the edge of colonial ambulance.
And I figure I can get back to the RV. So we're about a third by the way. I can bike down on a beach towel. And I'm hobbling this tall dude.
It's hobbling back. I don't even know where my girls work. I was so focused on myself in this moment. But I get back to the RV.
And as I approach one of the neighbor, there's some fun, interesting neighbor people in our deep arts. This guy though, he's like, are you OK? And I explain what happened. He's like, dude, you just got stung by a stingray.
And he's like, hey, boil a pot of water and put your foot in it. That's what you want to hear from a stranger, right? It's like, so I did. I did.
And it worked. The pain went away. It's not quite boiling. I got the bubble stop.
It's hot, hot. The pain went away. But every time I took my foot out, so I didn't need to get to the hospital. But every time I took my foot out, it's the pain came rushing back.
And we knew pretty quick. We knew our date nights, the worst night. That's not happening. The level of pain, this is serious.
It's not happening. My pain from this injury caused me to not be able to think about my family at all. And my pain actually transferred to my family. They felt the weight of dad experiencing this pain.
And there was a lot of sorrow, sadness just bummed out. And there was also a lot of this, like, is he going to be OK? Our pain spreads. Our pain also, it took my emotional capacity.
If you want to experience wonder, you have to have emotional capacity. It was gone. It stole it away. Let's look for a moment before I finish the story.
Isaiah 61 verse 1 is the passage that Jesus opened up the first day. He went to his hometown city. He opens this up. And Jesus says this.
He reads Isaiah 61. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives, and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn. My three youngest daughters and my mom and Michelle, they went to the beach for sunset. It's like, well, best case, I'm OK.
They went to the beach to watch the sunset over the ocean. And my oldest daughter is nine at the time. She stays with me. And they had been praying for me.
But this is a one-on-one moment. She said, I'm going to pray for you again. She prays for me. And then she looks at me with a little extra boldness.
And she says, Dan, stand up. And I stood up and took a couple steps. Usually that's how far I made it. I'd get back to the boiling water.
I took a few more steps. I didn't want to get her hopes up. But I knew I was ill. And I looked at her.
And I said, my foot is completely. The pain's gone. She's like, call a mom. So I call her.
She rushes back. We hop in the car. We're off for our date night. We stand for three hours.
We're shipping. So if anyone ever brings up, I mean, stingrays. I still have a little bit of, don't talk about stingrays. If you bring up Oceanside, if you say Oceanside, California, that is a moment marker for our family of God answering prayer.
And it being the immediate answer to prayer into the celebration of God's goodness with 30 churches and thousands of people at the amphitheater. This is what the next verse says. Verse three. And provide for those who grieve in Zion to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, a garment of praise, instead of a spirit of despair.
My daughter knows this passage. And she knows the garment of praise. We went and experienced that garment of praise. And instead of that despair that we were stuck in next to the RV.
God can transform brokenness into something beautiful. And this is key here. Wonder isn't the absence of pain. But it's the ability to see God's beauty and his goodness and his purpose even in our suffering.
Let's look at people. The third thief of wonder is people. And specifically, I want to talk about unforgiveness. The older we get, the more people we encounter, the more people we encounter, the more opportunities we have for hurts and resentment, unforgiveness, it's impossible to live with awe and wonder while harboring unforgiveness and bitterness.
This unforgiveness dims our eyes from shiny and glowing to downcast in dim. And I love the statements. And for four and a half years, when I think of every day, I think of this statement from Pastor Abby. She said this as some kind of kids training or maybe it was a message of hers.
She said, I want to get to the rocking chair with love on my heart. As we get older, as we get older, we have this choice. It's experience, God's goodness, his grace, his forgiveness, his joy, his delight, or we can add hurt to our journey and hang onto it. I love this like, and I really believe this is an area God wants to highlight for us, is having a soft heart.
I want to get to the rocking chair with love on my heart. Ephesians 4, verse 32, be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other just in Christ. God forgave you, we've been forgiven much. We can love much, we can be fast to have grace, I heard one mentor say, like a Teflon pan, just slides right off because of God's goodness and comparison, like we're not holding onto this, we're not holding onto it.
Matthew 7, I'm not gonna read the whole passage, but this Jesus highlights in Matthew 7, verse 3, He highlights sawdust spotting. So we can look and spot sawdust in other people's eyes. And we can actually add, because of spotting sawdust, we can add a lot of like, just frustrate with other people because look at these things that people are doing. Or we can look at the two by four plank that's in our own eye and this is what Jesus gets a little passionate about.
He says, you hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye and then you will be able to see clearly to remove the sawdust, help others, the sawdust out. And this is the gift that we get to give. All of us can give this to the next generation. We can give this to our kids and our grandkids.
The gift is keeping a soft heart, keeping it tender hearts, being quick to forgive, being full of grace. It's a gift that we can wrap up and it's contagious. Our kids will grow to have soft hearts, tender hearts. And men, we can lead the way.
We can lead the way in this area. Malachi, Malachi 4, verse 6. This is the Malachi mandate, the last verse in the Old Testament. It's about the turning of hearts.
And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction. So that's a pretty strong exclamation point in that verse. But the core, the core, man, the punch here is the turning of hearts from fathers to children to fathers. If we have a hard, jaded, unforgiving, offended heart, that heart cannot turn.
It's stuck. And the turning of the heart is everything. So we're going to fight to be the sons and daughters of God that can walk with soft hearts. And we're going to just over and over.
In comparison to God's love, I can choose soft heart here. I can choose to move towards tenderness. The last thief is perspective. And we already mentioned this briefly.
But familiarity diminishes our wonder. And our perspective is critical here. Familiarity keeps it and it steals our capacity for awe. And on Father's Day, I think some of us might have grown familiar with our own dad.
And let me, a dad who, for five years on Father's Day, my dad's been in heaven. I want to encourage you, if you can reach out to your dad with wonder instead of familiarity, that can be a treasure that you'll be really thankful you did. Also to our kids, we can move towards annoyance or we can move towards gratitude. And familiarity will amp up the dad annoyed, the annoyance.
It's a real thing. But if we move towards wonder and curiosity, we can return to treasuring our children. And this is all perspective. I want to steal our wonder.
Matthew 621, the Amplified Translation, it gives some texture to treasuring. What am I treasuring? And if I treasure something, what is the cascading effect of treasuring? So if I treasure, here's what Matthew 621 says.
For where your treasure is, there your heart, your wishes, your desires, that in which all life centers will also be. There's a following of treasuring. We get to choose to treasure fatherhood or to endure fatherhood, to be familiar and drift towards just being annoyed or angry or to see this multiplying goodness of God, the tove meode. We get to see that in our kids.
We can choose avoidance, like me in the Kiwi or curiosity. God's wonder, it's waiting to be found and we get to multiply its others around us. So here's where we'll land is with the challenge. Father's day, we don't want to leave with just intent.
I want to help tee up a specific Father's Day challenge for all of us. And I call it the Father's Day fight or flight challenge. So give me a little nod if you're with me for this challenge. Are you guys with me?
OK, here we go. Here we go. Let me start with explaining the setup. So my daughters will go from not mentioning their water bottle or a cup of water at all.
Things are good. Things are peaceful. And all of a sudden, one of my daughters will mention I'm a little thirsty. And then within one and a half seconds, all four daughters are screaming because of how bad they need a drink of water.
They're like, it's crazy. Something about water in kids. You go from not even thirsty at all. If I don't get water now, I'm going to die.
Like it's wild in water for me. This is the specific moment. And we're not great at water bottle management. It's a real struggle.
We at Bedtime, I buy a year and a half ago, I took over. Bedtime is my domain. Like Michelle, for sure. In and out helps, but I get to own Bedtime with my four girls.
And in Bedtime, it's 40% delightful. It is. It is. I really enjoy.
I'm going to slice of it. But from chamis to brushing teeth to cleaning the room to story time to another story time to prayer to songs. We land. We land.
Usually, it's light. I mean, I really love that I get to pray over and sing over. And then there's this back pedal. I'm like, to have life is great.
And then I shut the door. Crack the door. It's not perfect. The margins there.
It's perfect. Guys, I, one of my daughters, there's no whispering. Dad, I'm thirsty. And like that, the wonder has evaporated in four monsters are yelling at me for water.
It's like, how can I go so fast? Like, we were really experienced in delightful moments. What does this have to do with the fight or flight challenge for Father's Day? Would you turn to Second Samuel?
Second Samuel, chapter 23. I want to land with us very specific, a cup of water, being an activator for all of us today. Not just the dead, all of us, a cup of water. Second Samuel 23 is about David's mighty men.
Sam, thanks brother. Appreciate you. Second Samuel 23. Verse 13.
And three of the 30 chief men, these are the David's mighty men, went down and came about hard as time to David at the cave of a dulem. When a band of Philistines was encamped to the valley of refuge, and David was then in a stronghold, and the garrison of the Philistines was then at Bethlehem. And David said longingly, oh, that someone would give me water to drink from the well of Bethlehem that is by the gate. Then three of the mighty men broke through the camp of the Philistines.
It's worth a pause. I have never fought through a garrison of armed soldiers to get a cup of water for my daughters. But look what his men did. They broke through the camp of the Philistines, and they drew water out of the well of Bethlehem that was by the gate, and they carried it and brought it back to David.
But he would not drink it. He poured it out to the Lord and said, far be it from me, oh, Lord, that I should do this. Should I drink the blood of the men who went to the risk of their lives? Therefore, he would not drink it.
And these things, the three mighty men, did fight or flight. With the ministry dad awesome, every dad that we get a chance to serve, we help create a fight or flight list. And this is simply, what does it look like to be a dad who fights for his family? Not against fights for his family.
And what does it look like to be a dad who takes flight from his family? For me, what does it look like? And even as I give that set up, there is the idea of a dad who fights for a family. There's amazing single moms that maybe the husband has to weigh, maybe a divorce, maybe whatever the situation.
You don't have a dad who's fighting for your family. You do, you do. All of us have a god in heaven who is the Lord of Heaven's armies. And he is fighting for your family.
So as much as this little example today is going to be for a dad who fights. You have a father in heaven who fights perfectly and never gives up and is pursuing your hearts and loves your kids more than any earthly father could. So we have that conference. So this is a quick example of my fight or flight list.
Other than I said, every dad creates their own. But my fight or flight list anchors on three words that my daughters, they know these words. Michelle knows these words. These are part of our family.
Their words are loved, learner, leader. If I'm a dad who fights for my girls, fights for my family, I know that I'm loved. It's identity. I know I'm loved.
I go to the endless well of God's love. I get on my knees in prayer. I'm confident in God's love. I know he's for me.
I can show up full of his love for my family. I'm loved. I'm a learner. Means that I'm humble.
I apologize often. I'm growing. I'm teachable. I have a soft heart.
I'm moving in the direction of a soft heart. That's a dad who's fighting for his girls. His family. And then the last one, a leader, means I'm going to pursue connection.
I'm going to pursue dating my wife, pursue connection my girls. I'm going to lead by serving. I'm going to lead by loving. I'm going to build culture.
And I'm going to build friendships with other men. That's a direct gift to my family. So that's what it looks like to be a dad who fights for his family. A dad who takes flight.
Some things on my list are past city. Selfishness. When I'm powerless. Because I'm disconnected from the source.
Short term perspective. The world, the stream that we're all swimming in, guys, the world, the culture is pushing us towards being dads who take flight. And God has a plan for us to be dads who fight for our family. David said, oh that someone would give me water to drink from the well of Bethlehem.
Three mighty men, they heard differently. They heard this longing request. They heard their king's voice and they went and they took action. They did something extraordinary.
They risked their lives. The mighty men. They heard differently. My prayer for all of us is that when we see a cup of water when we get requested to bring a water bottle, when we think of taking a sip of water, this could be for ourselves tomorrow at work, you go fill up your water bottle.
At the office, this could be tonight when your kids ask a cup of water can activate us to leave with wonder. This could be an anchor point to nudge from the to say I'm going to see differently. I mean, I realize that wonder has come and I get to multiply it out. I get to step into that water, can activate us to wonder.
Water can remind us to fight with our words. We're gonna use our words to bless, not curse, to fight with my eyes. I'm gonna treasure my girls. I'm gonna watch what I look at with my eyes.
I'm gonna fight with my prayers. I'm gonna fight with my curiosity. I'm gonna fight by turning with a soft heart towards this family that I treasure. I'm gonna fight by pursuing my wife.
I'm gonna fight with three other dads. Massive. David's Mighty Man should not go after that adventure alone. They risk everything in brotherhood.
That is a direct gift to our children when we pursue deeper friendships with other men. I'm gonna fight with my identity sure as a child of God. And lastly, I'm gonna fight as the worship leader for my home. And when I could move towards annoyance when I requested a cup of water, I'm gonna allow that cup of water to remind me of wonder.
And when I go fill up that water bottle of that cup, I might even dump a little out. If I dump a little out of this with David, he was so in awe of God and he couldn't even imagine taking that gift himself. We can actually use that as a reminder to stuff. I'm gonna worship you even if reward right now doesn't look like I'm being told thank you.
I'm gonna choose to fight for my family. I'm gonna choose wonder. I'm gonna choose to multiply wonder to those around me. A cup of water can activate us to lead with wonder.
Remember that Kiwi? The Kiwi moments? I almost missed it. I almost missed 11 years of enjoying the Kiwi.