Your Time Has Come: The Mantle of Spiritual Fatherhood

Sermon outline

Those who have been trained must take the baton and become spiritual fathers and mothers to God's people, loving, nurturing and releasing others, so the church and its ministry can reach further.

1. The beginning of great things for the children

   He prophesies that God will raise the children up to be sharp, intelligent and bright, shining like stars and rising to high places, and that the wealth God gives them will be for the kingdom's sake. Their parents are to protect, guide and remind them. He prays that they will be men and women after God's own heart, hearing and answering the voice of the Lord from childhood, and has the church pray the grace and anointing of God over them.

   Illustration: Looking at one boy, he says the picture that comes to mind is bridges and high-rising buildings.

   “It's the beginning of miracles. It's the beginning of great things.”

   • Acts 13:22

2. Invite someone: don't become a dam

   Announcing a single communion service on Good Friday and a celebration on Resurrection Sunday, he urges everyone to invite friends, family, the backslidden and the unchurched. Television reaches many, but one-on-one evangelism still matters: people will not come unless they are invited. Believers lose their joy when they become like a dam that only receives, and they get it back by giving of their lives, because he who wins souls is wise.

   Illustration: A dam receives water and then closes up; so do believers who stop giving of themselves.

   “We do too much here to have empty chairs.”

   • Proverbs 11:30

3. Your time has come: take the baton and run

   Before the whole church he tells Pastor Wesley and Yajna that after years of training and impartation their time has come to take the baton. Teams must be built to run the local church and to go into the world, because unused gifts are lost. God has called him to write books, attend conferences and engage with other ministers, so he asks the church to release him to that destiny without asking where the pastor is, since church will still be church. He declares that the mantle of spiritual fatherhood is coming on Wesley, with a pastoral heart, and that Yajna will become a mother to adults as well as to her children.

   Illustration: Like David taking care of God's flock.

   “Today is a day of release. We're releasing you to your destiny.”

   • Psalm 78:70-72

4. An anointing to father and mother God's people

   He calls the elders, board members and senior leaders forward to receive the same anointing: to love people, overlook their faults, forgive, give them room to grow and make mistakes, and pray them through. Where there is envy and strife there is every evil work, so they must not feed that fire but celebrate one another. Miracles flow through compassion and a soft heart, as with Jesus, so they will weep for God's people like Jeremiah, say little and see much, and receive 20-20 spiritual vision, their eyes opened like Elisha's servant's to see beyond the natural.

   Illustration: Elisha's servant saw only the Syrian army until the prophet prayed, 'Lord, open his eyes that he may see.'

   “Miracles don't work because you're hard-natured and coarse. Miracles work because you have a soft heart.”

   • James 3:16
   • Jeremiah 9:1
   • Matthew 14:14
   • 2 Kings 6:17
   • Ephesians 1:18