Guest Speaker: Eran Holt

What an honor it has been for my wife and I to be with you, not just for your services this morning, but all weekend. We were a part of the fuel weekend for your students, many of your sons and daughters in middle school and high school. And so we spent the whole weekend here. I just want to say what an honor Pastor Jim and Tamara has been to be a part of your house and your family for this weekend. What an incredible, warm, healthy, vibrant church with the evidence of the presence of God just the moment that you step onto the campus anywhere. How many of you are grateful for your pastors and their leadership, the legacy of what you have built over 3 decades plus of ministry here? Such an honor, such an honor. Do me a favor real quick. Turn and look at your neighbor and talk to him. Say neighbor. Neighbor. Okay, hang on a second. I'll just coach you real quick. You're going to need to act like you like this person. You chose to sit next to them, okay? So let's try it again. Look at your neighbor, say neighbor. It's an honor to sit next to you. There you go. That's not bad. Okay, now look at your other neighbor, the one you just ignored. Yeah, look at your other neighbor, say other neighbor. It's an honor for you to sit next to me. Yeah. I'm the best neighbor you've ever had in church, best looking neighbor. You must be living right to get it to sit next to someone like me. Okay. Yeah, Let me, my wife, you already met her, but we know this year we celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary. And And so you can meet some of the most important people in our life. I'll introduce the rest of our family by way of picture. They're going to help us out and they're going to put a picture. That's our family right there. That's the whole family. You missed your moment. You're supposed to go, oh. Okay, yeah, there you go. So obviously my wife and I in the middle. Our son Caleb is our oldest and his wife Jessica, top left, that's Caleb and Jessica. Bottom left in the green, that's Emma. She's our middle of our three kids. Caleb is a worship leader and a songwriter, graphic designer. Emma is a youth pastor at our home church. Park Church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I'm from Pittsburgh, Steelers fan. Don't hold that against me. Okay, it's all good. It's all good. And then in the top right, that's Ellie. She's our youngest. She's our baby. How many of you are the babies of your family? I'm the baby of my family. Come on. Hey, do you know the Bible says the babies of the family are the best members of the family? The best looking members of the family, pastor? Come on, you feel that, you know? I don't know where that verse is at, but I'm going to find it and preach it one day. The real babies of our family are the three grandbabies, the three grandkids we have. So we got Heather James, our oldest granddaughter at the bottom, Levi John in my arms, and then Molly Brooke, we just celebrated her first birthday right before we flew out here, and Molly Brooke in her mother's arms. So that's the Holt family. The only one missing from the picture is my beloved dog, my wife would not allow it. Do I have any dog lovers here? Yeah, anyone? Okay. I'll clarify just briefly. By dog, I mean dog over 50 pounds. If your dog's not over 50 pounds, that's not a dog. If you can carry it in a little purse like this, you don't own a dog. You have a football, punt it. I'm just saying, I'm just, I'm sorry. I was hanging out with your young people all weekend. I'm sorry, okay? But such an honor, such a privilege to be here. Your next Gen. team here at the church is phenomenal. Pastor Jason, Pastor Taylor, Pastor Jr. had such a great time just investing in them and your students all week long and honored to share in this moment with you. I'd love to meet you, my wife and I'd love to meet you after the service out there in the Connection Center. We have a table set up. I have a book out there that you might want to pick a copy of up. It's on Psalm 23. It's my favorite passage of scripture. The Lord is my shepherd, right? 109 words, depending on the translation you read it in, and just talk about how to go through the valley. And so feel free to pick that up. If we run out of copies, we'll take your name and we're going to drop ship however many we need to the church and you can grab it next week. So Let's jump into this. We're going to be in Mark chapter 4. Mark chapter 4. How many of you got your Bible with you today? You got your real Bible, your old school leather falling apart initials on the front Bible. All right, awesome. And then some of you cool kids got your iPhones. That's awesome. And then some of you have an Android and that's embarrassing. You should just put that away probably. You don't want people to see that probably. Let me set this up real quick. Okay, so in 2011, my father and I decided to have the most epic father-son journey of all time. We were going to climb Mount Kilimanjaro together. in Tanzania, Africa. It's the highest peak on the continent of Africa, 19,320 feet. We weren't just doing this for the father-son experience. We were also doing this in partnership with a missions organization called World Serve. World Serve has drilled hundreds of freshwater wells, water wells, to provide clean water all throughout East Africa. And so the money we were raising as a part of this was going to go towards several different well projects. But we had to train and prep for about a year, and part of that process involved interacting with some different professional guides and professional mountain climbers. And on one of the conference calls, they were advising us and coaching us on the correct gear that we should purchase in order to successfully go on the climb. And so, the right boots and the right pants and rain gear and cold weather. Kilimanjaro is interesting. It's not like don't envision climbing Kilimanjaro like you've seen pictures of people scaling an ice wall with pickaxes going up Everest. That's not Kilimanjaro. Kilimanjaro is more like the world's most difficult hike because of the high altitude as well as you hit almost every weather pattern possible, right? So you start at the bottom of the mountain, it's hot and humid like it is outside right now, you get to the top and it's freezing Arctic. And so you got to have all the gear for all the different environments. And so on the one call, the professional guy, he kept using this phrase over and over again. He kept saying, hey, listen, guys, remember when you get on the mountain, there's no such thing as bad weather, just bad gear. He said it multiple times. There's no such thing as bad weather on the mountain, just bad gear. I'm going to tell you, I didn't fully understand the meaning of what he was trying to communicate until I got on the mountain and I had all of the wrong gear. I had not bought what I should have bought. I had just tried to make stuff do. I've gone hunting my whole life with my dad. And so I was just like, I got stuff. I'm fine. I'm going to make it through. And so I found myself on the mountain in the middle of a lot of bad weather. and it's raining and I'm soaking wet because I didn't buy the right rain gear and it's freezing cold at the top and I should be warm, but I'm cold and I didn't buy the right boots, the right socks. I mean, by the time the climb was over, I'm telling you, I had the world's largest blisters on both of my feet. Yeah, just to prove it to you, I got a picture real quick. No, I'm joking. That would just be terrible. But I realized when I was en route, I realized, oh, now I understand what he meant. He didn't actually mean there's not going to be any bad weather. He meant if you get the right gear and you prepare accordingly, you will be able to face and endure whatever the mountain throws at you. Okay, there's a lesson for life in there. And I actually think that in the text we're going to study today, Jesus is actually, in a very similar way, saying to his disciples, hey guys, there's no such thing as bad weather, just bad gear. Let me help you gear up for what life is going to throw at you. This text represents a moment that happens right at the very beginning of the disciples' journey with Jesus. We won't read it, but if we were to go back to Mark 3, you'd see Mark 3 is where Jesus calls and commissions his disciples. And then scholars would tell you timeline-wise, it's just a couple weeks or maybe just a couple months from Jesus' call and commission of the disciples in Mark 3. That happens right around verses 12, 13, 14. It's just about maybe two weeks or two months before you get to Mark 4, verse number 35, which is what we're going to study here. So Jesus and the disciples are just starting their journey. Jesus has chosen these young men. All of them are, or most of them are teenagers or young adults. So when we look at this text, I want to look at the text through the lens of how does Jesus raise up the next generation of leaders? How many of you love the next Gen. that you have here in this church? You love your sons, you love your daughters, you love your grandkids, you love the young adults, right? So when we look at this text, look at it through the lens of what is Jesus doing to raise up the next generation? How is he helping them gear up, so to speak, to prepare for what life is gonna throw at them. This is actually even more significant than what you might realize. Jesus has chosen these young men to be the future leaders of the early New Testament church. They're gonna go on to be the apostles that establish the New Testament church, of which you and I are now a part of the legacy of that continuing thousands of years later. So Jesus is like, I gotta get these guys ready. I got to help them grow up. Everybody say, grow up. Everyone look at your neighbor and say, he's talking about you right now. I did that for all the wives in the room that have been waiting to say that to your husband for a long, time. So Jesus is going to help them. And I think there's three specific things we see in the text where Jesus is trying to help them grow up. We'll go through them one at a time. Let's read the text together. Here we go. Mark chapter 4, verses 35 through 41. That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, let us go over to the other side. Everybody say other side. Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along just as he was in the boat. There were other boats there with him. A furious squall came up and waves broke over the boat so that it was nearly swamped. And Jesus was in the stern sleeping on a cushion. let's pause there for a second. Have you ever had that moment in life where you're in the middle of a storm and you feel like, is Jesus taking a nap right now? Like what? Hey, I'm right here. You know what's going on? Okay, this is apparently happening to the disciples. Jesus is sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and they said, teacher, don't you care if we drown? Okay, this storm, this furious squall, this must have been pretty significant because the disciples, most of whom are experienced fishermen, They're shook at this point. Like there's enough fear in them that they need to wake up Jesus from a nap. I'm really curious how this whole conversation went. Like I'm really curious if the disciples are like, no, you wake him up. No, you wake him up. That's Jesus. I'm not waking up Jesus. I'm going to tell you, if I'm in the boat with these dudes, I'm like, no way. No, I would rather put on my swimmies and my life preserver and jump over the side than wake Jesus up from a nap. But these guys are shook enough that they wake him up and they say, teacher, don't you care if we drown? He got up, verse 39. He got up, he rebuked the wind. He said to the waves, quiet, be still. I'm trying to take a nap out here. It doesn't, oh, it doesn't say that. I'm sorry. Maybe it should. I don't know. Then the wind died down. It was completely calm. And he said to his disciples, why are you still afraid? Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith? And they were terrified and they asked each other, who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him. Okay, let's just take this like one section at a time. There's 3 areas here where I feel like Jesus is helping this next generation of leaders, the disciples, grow up. There's 3 areas in which they need to kind of gear up, right? And these three areas are not just for Jesus and the disciples in this moment. I think these are actually 3 commitments that you and I make as parents. Three commitments we make as grandparents. Three commitments that every church in America and around the world needs to make to the next generation. Three commitments that I believe I'm actually seeing Faith Family Church has already made. And I want to come alongside of you today and encourage you to double down on these commitments and continue to invest and pour into the next generation. Here's the first one. Number one is grow in faith. Everyone say faith. We've got to help the next generation grow in their faith. Here's where I see it in the text. It's right at the very beginning. Jesus says to the disciples, let us go over to the other side. So they've been doing ministry for a couple weeks, a couple months on one side of the Sea of Galilee. And now Jesus says to them, hey, let's go over to the other side. He gives them this command. And I don't know if you've experienced this in life. I'm going to assume that you have. But I've often experienced that when God speaks to me, it's very similar. There's a pattern here. When Jesus gives this command, let's go over to the other side. Often when God speaks to us, He speaks to us in a way that helps us grow in our faith. This would be an example of that. Let's go over to the other side. That statement there, that command there from Jesus is what I would call both specific and vague at the same time. So have you ever noticed in your life that there are times that God speaks to you in a way where you're thinking to yourself, well, God, I understand a little bit of it, but there's a lot more of it that I don't understand. Anybody been there? God gives you one step, but He doesn't give you the 5th step or the 10th step. God gives you enough information to trust Him with the first step, but not enough information that you end up replacing Him altogether because you no longer need Him. This is faith. You actually see this template of how God speaks to His people often throughout all of Scripture. I'll give you one more place. We could go to the Old Testament. Genesis chapter 12, verse number 1. This is where God speaks to a man named Abraham. He says this to Abraham in Genesis 12.1. He says, Abraham, leave your country. Okay, that's very specific. Leave your family. That's specific as well. And then he says this, and then go to a place that I will show you. Okay, that's all kinds of vague. I mean, imagine Abraham and Sarah in the packed U-Haul, just driving, and Sarah's like, now where are we going again? And he's like, I don't know. He's just gonna tell us at some point. and we'll just know. But this is how God helps us grow in our faith. Everybody say faith. God puts us in situations, especially as parents and grandparents when we're trying to raise up the next generation, He puts us in situations where He gives us enough information to take the first step, but not enough information to replace Him. Enough information to trust him and to trust his character, but not enough information that we no longer lean and depend on him. Here's one of the things I've learned in my life about faith and about following God. God will never speak to you incompletely, but he often speaks incrementally. He often speaks one step at a time and he's doing this because he wants us to grow in our faith. Say it again, everybody say faith. So let's ask a question here to make sure we're all on the same page. What is faith? Because we use this word all the time. I mean, faith, family, church, we use this word. So what is faith? Let me tell you what it's not. It's not a feeling. It's not good vibes. It's not optimistic thinking. It's not an emotion. I actually love the way Dr. Tony Evans defines faith. He says it like this. He says, faith is when you and I act like, everybody say act like. is when we act like everything in God's Word is true, even if we don't understand it. It's when I act like everything in God's Word is true, even if I'm not feeling it. I act like it's true even if I've got questions about it, or even if I have some doubt about certain things in my life. I'm acting in faith. Everyone say faith. So it's an action. It's not a feeling. And Jesus is trying to help the disciples understand that because right now what they're feeling is fear. They're feeling terrified. They have questions. They have doubt about Jesus. Why did you tell us to go to the other side? We could have stayed on the shore over there. We were doing good ministry. We had a crowd of people. We had miracles taking place. Like everything was going great. Now you've given us this command. Why does Jesus do this? He wants us to grow in our faith. Okay, let me take it a step further because here's what the Bible says about faith. This is actually how the Bible tells us to grow in our faith. Romans chapter 10, verse 17. You probably know this verse. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the what? By the word of God. You know it. So what are we learning here about faith? We're learning that if you're weak in the Word, then you'll always be weak in the faith. If you're weak in the Word, you'll always be weak in your faith. This is so important that you understand this because when we talk about making a commitment to help the next generation grow in faith, what we're really talking about is a commitment to help them become lovers of the Word of God. help them learn the Word of God, study the Word of God, memorize the Word of God, apply the Word of God to their life. In our family, in our home, one of the ways that My wife masterfully did this with our three kids. My wife, every morning, I mean, every morning, the first thing, when I roll over and I look at her, she's got her phone and she is in the Word of God. She's in YouVersion, and then when she heads to the bathroom to get ready, she hits the audio button and it just starts playing. I've lost kind of how many times I've woken up to some strange male voice in our bedroom, but he's reading the Word of God. And then when the Holy Spirit just kind of highlights a verse for her, she writes it on a Post-it note. She just writes it out and then she slaps it up on the mirror because she's, and so the phrase we've used in our marriage and with our kids is, when you get a word from the Word, write it down. And when you get a word from the Word, pray it over yourself. And when you get a word from the word, prophesy it over yourself and preach it to yourself. And so sometimes in our bathroom, I'll go into the bathroom in the morning and it is just a sea of post-it notes. It's like revival has broken out in the bathroom. And I'm just like, I'm like, I just want to brush my teeth, I want to do my hair and get on with the day. You laugh, this is a lot of hard work. God only made a few perfect heads. Everybody else got hair, okay? So all the bald guys said, amen, I see you brother, I see you, I see you. But I gotta get a word from the word. This is how we have to pass this on to the next generation. We gotta help them understand if you're weak in your faith, then if you're weak in your faith, it's because you're weak in the word, right? Let me say it like this. Let me say it like, if you're taking notes, write this down. We only learn to trust God when we know God. And we only know God when we know his word. Because faith is not a feeling. It's not an emotion. When I was 18 years old, my dad, he took me on a missions trip to Russia, Moscow, Russia. This was January of 1992. I'm dating myself here a little bit, but some of you know your history in that it was December of 91 that the Soviet Union collapsed. And when the Soviet Union collapsed, the USSR collapsed, the borders were open for missionaries to come into the country. And so I was a part of a group of about 50 or so leaders and pastors from across the country. My dad had gotten me onto the trip because I was interning with him. My dad's a pastor, he's retired now, but he was active at that point. And so we go on this trip, and a couple days before the trip, my dad breaks the news to me, hey, one of the things we're gonna do is we're gonna smuggle Bibles into the country. Okay, initially I was like, this is awesome. I was like, I'm going to be a Bible smuggler. They're going to write comic books about me one day. This is going to be in Sunday schools. Then I realized, we're going to Russia. I had just watched Rocky 4. I was like, man, this is. And so my dad's plan was we're gonna hide them in the bottom of these army duffel bags. We'll put them all the way in the bottom. But I'm worried they're just gonna dump it out like this. And so I don't know where my dad got this tip from. Maybe it was the Holy Spirit. But my dad said, here's what we're gonna do. On the top of our army duffel bag, we're gonna pack a bunch of pre-packaged hickory farm smoked sausages. Now I don't know where my dad got this information. There's no internet in 1992. There's no ChatGPT. How do we bribe Russian soldiers to get into the country? Here's the crazy thing. It actually worked. We just start, we're out here like Oprah, you get a sausage, you get, we just like, and so we smuggled the Bibles in and then we end up having a private meeting with leaders from the underground church in Russia. And in my mind, as an 18-year-old American kid, this is not really that big of a deal. It's just a, in my mind, it's like, it's just a Bible. Okay, I'm gonna give someone a Bible. And my Bible's falling apart, I'm sorry. You know, they say if your Bible's falling apart, your life is not. Woo, that'll preach. So I go to give this Russian study Bible to this pastor, and this is, in my mind, not a big deal. When I hand it to him, he's so overwhelmed with emotion that he falls to his knees hugging this Bible and he's sobbing. And when the interpreter comes over to explain what's happening, the Russian pastor, this is what he's saying. He's saying, I never dreamt of a day in my life that it could be true that I would be able to hold an entire copy of God's word in my own hands. And then he goes on to explain. He reaches into his suit jacket. He goes on to explain. And he holds this up. This is obviously from my Bible, not his. He holds this up and he says, I've only ever had one or two pages of scripture at a time. He said, that's all any of us have, Russian pastors. We will memorize all of this and teach all of this and then we'll trade this page with someone else's page. We've not had Bibles here in Russia for over 70 years. that we would pass on to the next generation a love for the Word of God. Oh, that we would give them a passion and a desire to be young people in the Word. One of the ways that we challenge your students, your sons and daughters this past weekend at Fuel was I said to them at the end of the message, I said, if you're willing to make a 30-day commitment to publicly stand up and you're making a 30-day commitment to read God's word every day for the next 30 days. I want you to stand to your feet. Almost every single one of your sons and daughters stood up in that moment because they're hungry for the word of God. They're hungry for what God wants to do in their life and strengthening their faith. And then your next Gen. staff, Pastor Jason and Taylor and Jr. brilliantly came along and gave every one of your students, your sons and daughters, a summer reading plan in God's Word that will last them past 30 days all the way until school starts again. So if you want to make a commitment to something as a mom and dad or as a church, you commit to being a lover of God's Word so that we build the faith of the next generation. Everybody say, grow in your faith. Okay, here's the second thing that I see. Here's the second thing I see. I'm gonna clean up my mess here as I'm preaching. Okay, here's #2. I gotta grow in obedience. Everybody say obedience. I gotta grow in obedience. So go back to the text here just for a second. Verse 36, leaving the crowd behind, they took him along just as he was in the boat. There were other boats with him and a furious squad all came up and waves broke over the boat. It was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern sleeping on a cushion and the disciples woke him and said, teacher, don't you care if we drown? Question, have you ever done exactly what God told you to do at the exact time that he told you to do it, in the exact way that he told you to do it, and found yourself right in the middle of a storm? Anybody? Come on. Come on. I mean, this is life. This actually breaks down one of the most common lies of culture today, which is that if I follow Christ, I won't have to deal with any storms in my life. And the Bible never promises that. And if anything, Jesus here is modeling, listen, I need you to gear up for the storm that's about to face you. Like life is gonna life on us sometimes. And people are gonna people. And storms are going to storm, and there are going to be times where I head right into it. Even though I'm growing in obedience, I'm doing exactly what God has called me to do, I find myself right in the middle of the storm. And so Jesus here is testing the obedience or the willingness of the disciples to do the very thing that He's asked them to do, even if they have questions about it, even if it doesn't make sense, and even if it leads them right into the middle of a storm. And the disciples got questions. we can see that in the text because what do they do? They wake up Jesus from his nap. Okay, pause for a second. I tend to think that everything Jesus does is completely intentional. Like nothing is done by accident. How many of you would be like, I probably would agree with that. I probably would agree with that. So that says to me that if Jesus is taking a nap, that Jesus loves it when I take a nap. Somebody say amen to that. Come on. Somebody's here is like, that's all I needed to hear today, preacher. Like, we can pray and go home and take a Sunday afternoon nap, right? There's a lot of good naps out there, amen? Post-Thanksgiving dinner nap, that's a good nap. And then as a Steeler fan, if I wake up and see the Cowboys lost, that's a great nap, right? It's, I love, I love you. It's all good. It's all good. It's all good. It's OK, but If they're disciples, they're confused because they don't understand the storm. I've been in many storms in my life that I don't understand. I'm like, I don't know what's going on. I don't know why I'm here. I don't know why you've allowed this to take place. I'm doing what you told me to do. And then here we are. I won't go into a lot of detail, but my wife and I have been living through a storm over the last four months. It was about four months ago. I was playing, I'm A musician, and I play in the band at my home church whenever I'm not out of town for the weekend. And I was playing keys on a Saturday night. We have a Saturday night, and then Sunday morning service. I was playing keys for the weekend, got done with the service, walked into our little green room behind the stage, and my pastor, our beloved pastor of 35 plus years, was laying on the couch in the green room having a heart attack. And 2 hours later, he passed away. Three weeks after that moment to the day I had a heart attack. So I'm laying in a hospital bed now, the same hospital my pastor was in, and I'm thinking, Jesus, what is going on? What is happening in this moment? I'm in the middle of a storm. I'm grieving the loss of my pastor while I'm going through this health crisis of my own. Sometimes life lives. Sometimes people people. Sometimes our health fails. Sometimes we do exactly what God has called us to do. This is what I was thinking. I'm like, God, I'm doing what you called me to do. I'm being faithful. I'm being obedient. We're doing everything. And here I am in the midst of a storm. Here's one thing you need to know about storms. Here's one thing you need to know about obedience. Write this down if you're taking notes. Obedience to God does not insulate us from adversity. But it does mean that our welfare becomes God's responsibility. Why do I say that? Because Jesus is in the boat. And if you're with Jesus in the boat, how's the boat going to go down? And so even though you don't understand the storm you might be facing right now, or even if you don't understand the storm that's happening in your son or your daughter or your grandkids' life, you can know that if Jesus gave me a word on the shore and he told me on the shore I'm going to make it to the other side, then I'm going to make it to the other side because I got a word from the Word himself. This is obedience. And here's what this really is. In the same way that faith is an issue of being a lover of God's word, because if you're weak in the word, you'll be weak in the faith. This right here, obedience, this is an issue of what I would call biblical worldview. Okay, can I take you to class just for a second? All right, I'm going to take you to class just for a second. This is one of the things I teach on across the country as I'm training youth pastors. Biblical worldview. What is biblical worldview? you look at or you learn to look at the world through a lens. So I'm wearing glasses here, right? I've worn these my whole life, right? So I see everything through this lens. When you have a biblical worldview, you look at everything in your life and everything in culture around you through the lens of God's Word. So how does Jesus see this situation? How does God think about what's happening in our world around us? I'm not looking at it through the lens of my feelings. I'm not looking at it through the lens of my past. I'm not looking at it through the lens of my preferences. I'm not looking at it through the lens of my preferred political party. I'm looking at it through the lens of what does God's Word have to say? I look at it through the lens of what does Jesus think about this? I don't look at it through the lens of what do I want. I look at it through the lens of what does God see? And what does God want? Why is this so important? Because when we talk about Gen. Z and Gen. Alpha, here's what Barna says, George Barna, who does tons of data, he says this, only 4% of Gen. Z and Gen. Alpha have what we would call a Christian worldview. That means there's a crisis brewing in the next generation. That means that we're raising up a generation of students who don't know how to see the world through the lens of God's word. And it's almost as if Jesus knew this about the disciples as well. And this is why he puts them in a situation where their obedience is tested. Will they be obedient even if they don't understand clearly? Will they do exactly what God's called me to do? So as moms and dads, this whole growing obedience, this is actually about you and I as moms and dads and grandparents in how we raise up the next generation. Because when we pass faith on to the next generation, one of the things that we're passing on is worldview. How do you see the world? Do you see the world according to the lens of God's Word? Barna did this research too. He studied Christian parents who are raising Christian kids and came to the conclusion, sadly, that among Christian families, only 10% of Christian parents are actively engaged in discipling their own kids. That means that the majority of Christian parents in our churches across America are depending primarily on the church and the next Gen. department of the church to do the heavy lifting when it comes to discipleship. My Bible says a triple braided cord is not easily broken though. And so if you'll partner with your church and you'll partner with the Holy Spirit, but you as a parent or as a spiritual parent or as a grandparent will take the primary job of passing on faith to the next generation, you will raise up a generation of world changers. You'll raise up a generation of young people who understand what it means to live a Christian worldview. I gotta grow them up in their faith. Everyone say faith. I gotta grow them in obedience. Everyone say obedience. Okay, here's the last one. We're done. I have to grow them in authority. Everyone say authority. Okay, say it again, but you got to say it like real deep voice, like authority. Okay, that was a little better. It was actually kind of scary up here on the stage. Okay, back to the text real quick. Verse 39. He got up, this is Jesus, he rebuked the wind. He said to the waves, quiet, be still. And then the wind died down and it was completely calm. Then he turns to his disciples. So he speaks to the storm first. Now he engages with his disciples and he says to them, why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith? Everybody say faith. They were terrified. They asked each other, who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him. They're right at the beginning of their journey with Jesus. They don't yet have a full understanding of who Jesus is. They're not sure. He's just a good teacher. This is why they call him teacher in verse number 39. They don't refer to him as Lord or Savior or even Jesus Christ at this point. They just call him a teacher. They see him as a rabbi. They don't necessarily see him as like the promised and prophesied Messiah at this point. And so when he can speak to the wind and the waves and it calms down, now they're confused and they're terrified and they're like, who is this? And so this becomes really interesting. Because you gotta actually go back to the Greek, the language that the New Testament was written in. And when you go back to the Greek, this one word, when it says that he rebuked, that's a very unique Greek word right there. There's lots of different options for a word that Jesus could have chose, but the word Jesus chooses here, when he rebukes the wind and the wave, this is a very unique word. Jesus only uses this particular Greek word nine times throughout all the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. He only uses it nine times. And every time Jesus uses this specific Greek word for rebuke, it's used in relation to spiritual warfare. or it's used in relation to something that was demonic in nature. So you actually see Jesus use the same word in Mark 5, the next chapter, when he rebukes the demoniac or the demons in the demoniac, right? So what this tells me then is that when Jesus wakes up and he observes this storm, he must recognize in his spirit this is no normal storm. I mean, these are seasoned fishermen, a normal storm that they don't even wake Jesus up, but they're scared to the point they wake Jesus up. And so Jesus recognizes with his spiritual eyes, this is no normal storm. And when he rebukes it, he uses the same word that he would use to cast a demon out of somebody. Now, isn't that interesting? That's fascinating. Because what that tells me is that in this particular text, the storm was not just life life in. The storm is an act of the enemy trying to prohibit Jesus and the disciples from getting to the other side. That was the mission in this text right here, right? Jesus said, we're going to go to the other side. Okay, so real briefly then, let's just ask the question, what happens when they get to the other side? we don't have time to read it, but I'll just tell you what happens. In Mark chapter 5, they get to the other side. The first thing that happens is they encounter a man who in the region is known as the demoniac. The Bible says he has a legion of demons, Roman military term for 1,000, a legion. It says he has a legion of demons living inside of him. Jesus rebukes the man that's demonized, sets him free. That man goes into a region called the Decapolis, 10 small cities, and he spreads the gospel and within several days, Jesus and the disciples have a crowd larger on that side of the lake than where they came from. Then Jesus runs into the woman with an issue of bleeding for the last 12 years and she's healed as she touches the hem of his garment. Then Jesus heads to Jairus' daughter who has died and he brings her back to life. I don't know about you, but Mark 5 sounds like the revival that I've been praying for and believing for among the Church of America and the next generation. So now it all makes sense. It all makes sense. The storm. The storm was about helping them or prohibiting them to not get to the next site. Let me just apply this to your life real quick. Sometimes the storm in your life, it's not even about you. It's about what's in you. It's about what you carry. It's about the anointing and the purposes of God in and through your life. And when you and I look at the next generation and we wonder what will happen, will faith actually get passed to the next generation? Why is the enemy attacking the next generation with the level of attack that's coming? It's because the enemy is intimidated by your sons and by your daughters. He's intimidated by our grandkids. He's intimidated by the Mark 5 anointing that's on their life. We have to be the ones to help them get to the other side. How do we do that? We got to help them grow in their faith. We got to help them grow in obedience. We have to help them grow in authority. You know the best way to help young people grow in authority? Teach them how to pray. Because if you're weak in prayer, you're weak in all things. That's what Ian Bowne said. If you're weak in prayer, you're weak in authority. That's actually one of the things that your next Gen. team asked me to do on Friday night. They said, would you just specifically teach young people how to pray? And so at the end of the message, we walked them through five different ways to pray. We talked about the prayer of invocation, inviting his presence, because in the presence of the Lord is the fullness of joy. We talked about the prayer of gratitude when we submit our prayers and requests before Him with great gratitude. And then the peace of the Lord comes that passes all understanding. We talked about the prayer of intercession when we stand in the gap and we pray for other people. The prayer of supplication when we boldly come before the throne of God and we present requests to Him. And then at the end, I taught them how you can pray with authority. Because you and I are heirs and co-heirs in Christ Jesus. We stand as sons and daughters. That means I have a level of authority. I said this to you young people this weekend. Here's how if you're praying in authority. With the other four prayers, you pray to your God about your problem. When you pray with authority, you speak to your problem about the God that lives inside of you. I'm not praying to God about my giant. I'm talking to my giant about my God. I'm not praying to God about my storm. I'm talking to the storm about the God who lives inside of me. That's what Jesus just models in this text. The prayer of Authority. Okay, come on, band. Come on and join me. We're going to be done here. We're going to pray. Let me just walk you through real quick what this looked like in my life as a teenager. Five months after my dad took me to Moscow, Russia, my youth pastor took me all the way into Siberia. We went to Krasnayar, Siberia. Every day we would go to different schools, different universities. We'd present the gospel. I mean, the doors were just wide open for us to take the gospel into the Soviet Union for 70 years. Atheism was their God. Bibles were banned. The gospel was banned. And now here we were just freely, freely talking. And about halfway through the trip, my youth pastor pulls me aside. He says, listen, there's so many schools we need to go to tomorrow. We're gonna have to divide into smaller teams. I'm gonna put you in charge of one of the teams. I know you're only 18, but I think you got this. There's a call to God on your life. And he said, just go to that school with the driver, with the interpreter, with a couple of your team members, and whatever they tell you to do, just do it. And so we go to that school and all day long we're going classroom after classroom after classroom after classroom. It's a long day. It's a lot of pressure on me. I'm 18. We finally finish in the last classroom. We're packing up. We're getting ready to go. The principal, who was an outspoken atheist, but still allowing this to happen, she comes over to me and she says, listen, across the hallway in an empty classroom is one of our students. She's 14 years old. She didn't come in to hear your presentation at all, but she feels bad that she missed it. The reason why she didn't come in is because she was born with a massive physical deformity on her neck and her back. She's bullied by the students. They make fun of her appearance. And she lives in so much pain. Most days she can't even walk. And I thought the principal was just going to say, so could you just go over and say hi to her real quick and give her one of those books that you're giving everybody else? But that's not what the principal said to me. This woman, an outspoken atheist, says this. So if the God that you just got done telling all of my students about is actually real, I want you to go heal her. Okay. I'm going to grow in faith, obedience, and authority right now. We walk into that room. She kind of drugged me, and I'm going to be honest. We walk into that room and we start praying with this little girl. Her name was Olga. She's 14 years old. And I'm telling you what, the moment we laid hands on her, you felt the manifest presence of God just, come on, have you ever been in a setting like that? You just feel, you know. It's like, there's God's omnipresence, he's everywhere. That's like oxygen, it's everywhere, but you don't really always feel it. It's just there. But when his manifest presence shows up, it's like the wind hitting you, right? You know how when you walk outside right now, there's that nice cool breeze outside? Yeah, okay, I'm trying to be prophetic right now, but it's not gonna, okay. I'm telling you, God showed up in that moment. And I just started crying. That's what I do often when I feel God's presence like that. And we're praying for her. And I look and my other teammates are crying. I'm like, oh, Jesus is here where two or three cry. There he is in the. And when we get done praying, little Olga lifts her head and she just tears streaming down her face. And she says to us through the interpreter, she says, the moment you touched me, the God that you, she didn't even know how to say it. She said, the God you prayed to, hit me from the top of my head and went all the way down to the soles of my feet. And she's like, I feel like I need to get up and walk around this room right now. Little Olga starts walking around the room. Now the principal's crying, the taxi cab driver's crying. I mean, 10 years later, I'm sitting in our annual pastors' meetings for the Assemblies of God, that's the movement I'm a part of, I'm sitting in our annual pastors' meetings in the state of Pennsylvania, and the missionary who had organized all of those trips 10 years prior was speaking one night. And he starts telling a story about how teams of people went all the way into Krasnayar, Siberia. I'm like, oh, I was one of those teams, that's great. He starts going on and on. He says one team, they went to one school, they went to every single classroom on that day, and on that day they met a little girl named Olga. I'm sitting on a, I'm like, come on. No shot, are you kidding me? Then I'm thinking to myself, it's Olga. Every other girl's name in Russia is Olga. Like there's no way. And then he holds up a picture of her and he says she was born with a physical birth defect. She was not only healed that day, but she found Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior. And now 10 years later, Olga is the leading missionary spreading the gospel in that part of the world. Listen, When you get this in your heart as a mom and a dad, and when you get this in your DNA and your spirit as Faith Family Church, that we're going to pass faith on to the next generation, you know what you're doing? You're setting up the next Olga. You're setting up the next generation. You're helping every one of your sons and daughters and grandkids make it to a Mark 5 moment in their life that wherever they set foot, they take ground for the kingdom of God. And the storms you're facing right now might not not just be life, but it might be the enemy working against you saying, I can't let you as a mom and dad, I can't let you as a grandparent pass on that kind of faith and that kind of obedience and that kind of authority to the next generation because I know what's waiting on the other side. I can't let you have a Mark 5 moment right here in Victoria, Texas. I can't have that happen. I believe I'm speaking though. to a house of faith right now in this moment where there's moms and dads that would simply declare it's going to be different in this moment. It's going to be different for my generation. It'll be different for my kids and my grandkids and my great-grandkids. Mark 5 is coming to Faith Family Church. I'm telling you. Mark 5 is on the way. I'm speaking it prophetically over this house right now. Mark 5 cometh nigh. Get yourself to the other side. Fill your boat with with every teenager, with every child, with every young person you can, and get them to the other side. Everybody stand to your feet right now. Stand to your feet. God's doing something so significant, Pastor. He's doing something so significant under your leadership in this house, over the focus that you've provided this year for the next Gen. over the team that you've built. God's doing something so different. He's doing something so new in this church. Would you just lift your hands I just declare this over Faith Family Church. I declare this over Pastor Jim and Chairman. I declare this over the Next Gen. staff here. You are taking a generation of young men and young women on the boat through the storm, and you're taking them to the other side. Mark 5, signs, wonders, supernatural. Mark 5, the kingdom of God expanding in new territories, in new regions. Mark 5, those that have been bound for years, those that are spiritually dead coming to life. Mark 5, I'm prophetically speaking in over this house now. You're going to see signs and wonders in and through the next generation. You're going to see signs and wonders in and through the parents and the grandparents of this house and the way they raise up the next generation. You're going to create a next generation that loves God's word, that loves to pray and be in his presence, sees how God sees. Let it be so, let it be done in the name of Jesus. Everybody said amen. Amen. Amen. God is good. God is good. Would you bow your heads? Would you close your eyes with me? Stay standing just before Pastor Jim comes and closes us out. You're here in the house today and you would say, Pastor Aaron, I can't even take the first step. because I've never placed my faith in Jesus. You might even resonate in your spirit with what we were just preaching from Mark 4, but in your heart you know I can't even take the next step because I've never placed my faith in Jesus. I want to give you an opportunity today to make that decision. The Bible says today is the day of salvation. That means don't wait, friend. I'm going to count to three. On the count of three, if you're here in the house and you say, I need to place my faith in Jesus today. I need to take that first step. Before I think about anything else, I just got to get things right between me and God. I'm going to count to three and I want you to slip up your right hand. I want you to get ready right now. Get it out of your pocket. Get it loosened up. Do some stretches if you have to because as soon as I get to that number, I want you to shoot it up in the air right now. We're going to celebrate with you and we're going to pray together. But you're here in the house and you say, I'm giving my life to Jesus today. I'm putting my faith in Jesus. One, two, three. Come on, raise it up. Raise it up. Raise it up. Yeah, come on, look at that. Yeah, there's people that are giving their life to Jesus right now. Come on, amen. Everybody in the house, repeat this prayer after me. Not just those of you that raised your hand, but everybody repeat after me nice and loud. Dear Jesus, today is the day of salvation for me. I place my faith in you. I believe in you, Jesus. I believe you are the Son of God. I believe you lived a perfect life. I believe you died on a cross and shed your blood. for the forgiveness of my sin. And today, I receive the gift of salvation, and I receive your forgiveness for all my sin. In the name of Jesus, I pray. Everybody said amen. Come on, can you applaud those who gave their life to Jesus right now? Pastor, would you come?