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Come here let me tell
you something, a lot of the behavior that our young boys are into is self-
destructive behavior. You are destroying yourselves when your disrespectful at home it is self-
destructive. and momma and daddy, make sure you do everything that you can to teach your
son,
your daughter to be respectful at home because if they disrespect you at home they'll disrespect
the teacher at school and soon enough they'll disrespect the police officer in the street.
Respecthas to begin at home. Self-destructive.
This boy also had no sense of identity, sense of identity. He throws himself in the water;
he
throws himself in the fire he's destroying himself. What school is going to want to invite
this boy
to join them and give this boy a scholarship? What job wants to have a boy who can't even
stand
by the water fountain without trying to drown himself? What job wants to have somebody who's
always playing with matches and trying to start fires and burn themselves up. He has
no sense of
destiny. No school will take him, no job will take him and a lot of our young boys now a
days,
church, they have no sense of destiny. Listen let me tell you this I don't mind speaking
ebonically. I don't mind ebonics. We can talk ebonically all day long and all night long.
But on
the job, does anybody know? You have to understand the English language and be able to talk to
somebody like you have some sense. That you got to be able to string some sentences together
string a paragraph together and articulate as though you can follow a thought process.
And if you
don't know how to talk church then you are destroying yourselves. Our young boys walking
around here with their pants down, lower than their behind, you destroying yourself. Who
wants
you on a job with your pants down? Who wants you a job with your sleeves rolled up? Who
wants you on a job with you hat turned backwards? I don't' mind it out in the community, you
can do that at home all day long, but you got to learn to live outside of that so that
the
community will want to help you; some job will want to hire you. I wish I had a witness
in here
today. This boy, this was a child with a problem. But there is something else in this text that's
interesting to me. Because I have a child with a problem, but I also got a concerned
parent. A
father here who brings his son. Jesus had been up on the mountain of transfiguration
and he
Peter, James and John have now come down to the bottom of the mountain, the crowd runs
over
to where Jesus is. The commotion is on such a nature that Jesus has to ask the question:
what inthe world is going on? You know there's some commotion that you can just walk right
on by.
But sometimes something is happening where you stop what you're doing to look up over
the
crowd and the group that your speaking to is trying to find out what's happening and
that's
what's going on with Jesus. This incident, this commotion is of such a nature that Jesus
has to
turn his attention to it. What's going on? And out of the crowd a man steps up and says
I brought
my son. Now prior to getting Jesus to his son, there are some other groups in the crowd.
The
bible talks about the Scribes, and the Pharisees. Whenever you see Scribes and Pharisees in
the
New Testament, just think to yourself this is the legal community of the New Testament.
And
the Scribes and the Pharisees the text says they are arguing with each other about this
boy's
problem. In essence what they are doing, is they are debating together about what the
boy's
problem is. Can I tell you what society is doing today? Society today is debating about
the
problem. I thank God for the legislators that we have at our church. I thank God for those
that
are of the legal community that are a part of our congregation and a part of our church.
And we
got to pray for them that when they go that they can go and offer solutions because whats
happening here is their just arguing with each other. Watch out when all we do with
the
problems that our young people are facing and all we do is just argue about why they
are the way
they are. I don't know how you feel about it church, but there come's a time when I'm
tired of
arguing. There comes a time when I'm tired of debating; there comes a time when I got
to do
something to make a change in the life of my child.
Then you have the disciples. The disciples, I brought my son to you, Jesus. Let me just
admonish
you church , that if you trying to get your child to Jesus, then don't you let some disciple
stop
you from getting your child where your trying to go. If you want Jesus to help your child
don't
stop with some dirty disciple. Don't stop with some ugly usher; don't' stop with some
trickytrustee. Don't stop with some devilish deacon; don't stop with some perverted preacher;
don't
stop with some misguided member. If you're trying to get your child to Jesus, you push
elbows,
you push fold aside, you do everything you have to do and tell somebody I'm trying to
get my
boy to the Lord. The disciples the text says, the disciples, he says to Jesus, he tells
on them. He
says I brought to you but your disciples couldn't do anything for my boy. Couldn't do anything.
The disciples were dormant.
Can I talk about the church, just for a moment? And I need everybody to give me your attention
because it's time out for the church being impotent as it relates to helping our kids.
Here's the
problem church, the problem is the same in here as it was out here. And the problem is
we are to
busy gazing at them. And looking at them and we're trying to change by telling them you
ought
to pull your pants up; by telling them you shouldn't have those earings on; by telling
them you
need to turn your hat around; by telling them you need to put different clothes on your
back;
by telling them you shouldn't wear those kind of shoes in church; by telling them you ought
come out the kitchen you ought to come in the sanctuary. And we are so busy telling
them what
they ought to do that we forgot the old adage, that you can't clean a fish until catch the
fish...I
wish I had a witness in here today. And our problem church is we are looking at them from
the
outside, and trying to get them to act like there's a change on the inside. But they will
change
on the outside when we help them change on the inside. Preach Pastor. And if our focus,
if our
focus was more on what's going on on the inside of our children and less about what's going
on
the outside; if we'll help them get in touch with Jesus on the inside, Jesus will change
them from
the outside. If you don't believe it just look at me. Just look at me. I hadn't been
in the church
all my life. I didn't dress like this all my life; I didn't walk like a walk; talk like
I talk all my life.
But when Jesus got a hold of me...Oh what a wonderful change in my life has been wrought
when Jesus came into my life.
Well Jesus comes down from the mountain and you got the Scribes and the Pharisees, they
are
debating the problem; you have the disciples, and they are dormant about the problem. Jesus
come down the mountain, there is another group...the text call them the crowd. And they run to
Jesus. And what they are doing church is they are distancing themselves from the problem
. And
that's what a lot of us want to do and that's what our society is doing today... distancing
themselves from the problem with our boys. Because he gets in trouble at school and they
him to the dean. He goes to the dean and the dean sends him home. And what's happened is
the
school has distanced themselves from our child. We get in trouble in society and they arrest
him
and take him down to juvenile. And so what has society done? It has distanced itself
from our
child. They come to church, we don't like how they look, so we start talking about them
making
them feel uncomfortable and they don't want to come back to church and what have we done?
We have distanced ourselves from our children. But some of us got to get the attitude of
this
fourth individual in the text...not the crowd, not the disciples, not the Scribes and Pharisees,
but
this father and this father said I have brought you my child. I like this daddy. I like this
daddy.
This daddy steps up and he is unashamed. Look at what his boy is doing; his boy can't talk;
boy throws himself in the fire; he throws himself in the water. But daddy is not ashamed.
Daddy
says I brought my child to you. I don't know how you feel about it church, but I think
it's just
time out for us worrying about what other folk think about our children. If we could
just push
what ya'll think and what they think and what other folk think about our children to the
side, and
let our children know no matter what state; no matter what condition; no matter what position,
you are ...your momma, your daddy, will always be there and be by your side. Daddy steps
up in
front of everybody in this crowd and everybody in church. The disciples, and he says I brought
my child. I know you don't like the way he looks but I brought my child. I know you don't
like
the way he sounds, but I brought my child. I know his dress is distasteful to you but
this is my
boy. I know you got problems with him, but this is who God gave me, this is my child
and I
brought him to you. Now the text and the movement of the text moves now to a Christ whose got
some power. What Jesus does, he does two things: he corrects the man's faith and he corrects
the
disciples' faith. He says I brought you my child; and these are the things he's been
doing. Jesus
looks at the boy and raises the question How long has he been like this? Daddy said wait
a
minute let me text his momma. What I like about this text church is that it doesn't
give us the
condition of this man's family. I don't know if he's got a wife or if he and his wife are
separated,
living together, raising this child...I do know this much. That as long as this boy has
been in the
world, regardless of the relationship with his momma, his daddy has been involved in
You do understand church, that you don't have to love his momma in order to love him. You
don't have to get along with his momma in order to get along with him. If you had a
child that
has come into this world then we have the responsibility from the time their born to
the time God
comes to get them we are still their mother and still their father. I brought him, how
long has he
been like this? Been like this since he was a child. You can't help but to love this man
and look
at what he says to Jesus. He says, but if you can. If you can do anything for us, help
us. I
imagine, that that spirit of desperation is not just embodied in this man in this text
this morning,
but there's some of us here who if we had an audience with Jesus face to face would
say to the
Lord, my boy is got some problems, and if you can do anything for us help us.
Now here's what Jesus does, he corrects the man's faith. It almost sounds like Jesus becomes
indignant for a moment. But I don't think he's being indignant, I think he's trying
to be
informative. If...I can? But I rather believe the issue daddy has here is the issue some
mommas and daddys have here. And that is we think the problem relative to the deliverance
of our
children is what the power of God if you can. And some of us don't necessarily have a problem
that God may not have the power, but if we told the truth, the problem would be that
we don't'
believe that God would exercise the power for us. If...I can? Jesus is saying the problem
is not
with me, I got the power. The problem is not with me, I'm Lord of creation, Lord of the
church,
I'm Lord over you could question the problem is not with me. I hung every star in space
I got
the power. I formed the planets in space, I have the power. I know how many universes
there are
you just discovering it. I have the power. I situated birds aerodynamically so that they
could fly,
I got the power. I situated fish aquatically so that they could swim, I have the power.
I situated
the beast so that they could run upon the face of the earth, I got the power. I put
the bow-wow
in the dog, I got the power. I put the meow in the cat, I have the power. I put the ooh-ooh
in
the monkey, I have the power. I'm the one that created the brown cow and told them to
eat
green grass and told them to give white milk that turns to yellow butter, I got the power.
Does
anybody in here know that God's got the power? The issue is not do I have the power, the
issue
is do you have the faith? I like what Jesus says...bring me the boy. The boy comes to
him, the
spirit shrieks. Jesus tells the spirit to come out of him, the spirit comes out of him,
he lays on
the ground, the crowd says he dead. Jesus reached down and pick him up. I don't know
if you
ever been a situation where the only thing that would make a change in your life is if
God would
touch you. I've had a doctor to say ain't nothing I can do; but the Lord touched me.
I've had folk
walk out on me; because they didn't believe in me; but the Lord touched me. I've even
been in
church sometime preacher preaching, music singing, nothing doing it but somehow mystically
in
that service God touched me. Won't he touch you? Come on, won't he touch you? Anybody
here know what I'm talking about? Won't the Lord give you life when you're dead, he'll
bring you back when nobody else can, he'll move you forward when you're unstable. Jesus
touched
him. Healed the boy gave him back to his daddy. They went home.
The text says privately, and my time is gone, that the disciples got with Jesus and they
raised the
question to him...you did that Lord, you did that. How come we couldn't? And Jesus corrected
their faith. We have a textual problem here. The textual problem is if you have a King
James
Version like some of you do, the text says, this kind only comes out by prayer and fasting.
If you
have an NIV, like I carry and study from, the text says this kind only comes out by
prayer. Now
the textual problem is this: that the NIV is right. proseuche. Proseuche, and it's just a single word
it's not a compound word nor phrase. This kind only comes out by prayer. But it's a
specific kind
of prayer. It's an earnest, single-minded, focused prayer. And what the writers of the
King James
was, they wanted to give you an illustration of what
the text was trying to tell you. And so they
said, this kind come about if
you get on your knees and turn your plate over, this kind can only
come about if you have a single-minded focus and everything about you is driven toward the
success of whatever it is
that
you are praying for. The reason that some of our young people are
not delivered momma is that we stop praying; daddy we stop praying. But if we want to deliver
the baby, you gotta push. Can't deliver a baby unless you push. Can't go in the delivery
room
unless you're ready to push. Pushing won't be easy. But that's how the baby going to
come, It's
going to be some pain involved, but that's how the baby is going to come. Some blood is going
to come out of you, but that's how the baby is going to come. It's going to be uncomfortable,
but you have to push. You got to push if you want to deliver your baby because PUSH stands
for Pray Until Something Happens. Your child about to drop out of school, Push! Your child
on
drugs, Push! Your child running away from home, Push! Your child won't study, Push!
Pray
Until Something Happens!