The Retreat 2021 - Kingdom Of God, The Family Business - Tyler Behel

This series of teachings is recorded live from The Retreat by AeroNova 2021. To find out more about how to attend the annual Retreat visit theretreat.aeronova.org. 
​What does it mean to be- like Jesus- about the Father’s business? Jesus' model of being about Father's business requires imitating Him and spiritual fathers and mothers on earth, then entering God's observatory to learn and imitate God's character.

Full transcript generated by ai (please excuse errors):

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​All right, so I want to begin by thanking all you ladies that shared testimonies today, you, you really touched me and you touched a lot of people. And I want to thank you for your transparency in your vulnerability, because it helps for people that experience these things, that that wouldn't normally say anything about it, to give them a voice, and to give them a means of going and seeking healing to seek restoration and know that that's impossible. So I wanted to say thank you. For everything that you shared this morning or this afternoon. It's it's been, it's been a true blessing. So when when rod asked me to share, and told me the theme of the retreat for this weekend, you know, a weekend in the Kings observatory, you know, and then the verse that goes with it, it's the glory of God to conceal a matter. And it's the glory of kings, to seek that matter out. And made me think, you know, you know, from my perspective, God says that we're kings and priests. So is this our observatory? Is it is looking into heaven to look into the deep things of God. And I think that's part of it. I think that's part of it for sure. The way that we relate to our spiritual fathers and mothers here on Earth, to get close to them to see how they see God, and how they use the observatory, to us using the observatory ourselves, but then it got me thinking, you know, the Kings observatory, Gods are the king, does God have an observatory? If God has an observatory? What is God's observatory look like? You know, what is he looking at? When we think observatory, we think about telescopes. We think, looking deep into outer space, though, I started thinking about God's observatory. And I said to myself, you know, I don't know that God's necessarily looking into outer space. What Does God care about? Where is he orienting his gaze. So they make all sorts of different types of telescopes, they do all sorts of different things. And my new job that it just got, after getting out of the military, I'm actually designing some telescopes and building some new telescopes. So it kind of sounded kind of some cool inspiration for this, because I were thinking about all these different things, you know, like, what kind of objects in space? Are we trying to look at? You know, where are they? What are the what are the sky conditions, we want to be able to see those things and, you know, and all those things are important. There are a bunch of different kinds of observatories, you have some that are space based, you have some that are land based, you have some of them that are air based. You know, there's just a lot of different options, you have different things that look for gravitational waves, you have ones that look for antimatter, for radio waves from microwaves, you have some that are just taking pictures. You know, take the take the James Webb telescope, for instance, anyone know what that is? Or am I just the am I the only nerd in the room that likes techy stuff? Oh, there's at least two more nerds in the room. And they're like space stuff. So the James Webb Telescope is going to be the space based telescope it hasn't launched yet, I got to see part of it out in El Segundo, California, that was really cool. That's going to augment what the Hubble was currently doing. So Has everyone seen the Hubble telescope pictures, you know, those beautiful pictures of the deep galaxies in outer space. So the James Webb Telescope is an infrared telescope, it looks at different frequency waves, and frequency bands in order to get different types of data that can augment the information we've already gotten from the Hubble telescope. So the whole idea behind this is that they're going to be able to look closer to the beginning of time, there, they're going to be able to look at the first galaxies that were ever formed. And then they're going to be able to see the planetary systems and stars that are that are in the process of being formed. Now. I mean, it's it's super exciting when you think about the implications of what that actually means. But you know, when you think about that telescope, the pictures from that telescope are not going to look the same as the pictures from the Hubble telescope. It has a different mission. And they're both beautiful. They both tell a story, but they tell it differently. They're oriented differently. They're looking at things differently. So I asked you again, when you when you think about this, you know, what is the king observing? What is the king's observatory actually looking at? Where is the king's heart inclined? You know, what is he find important? And then finally, if we enter the Kings observatory, how are we supposed to approach it? What do we do when we're there? So I'm going to attempt to dress to address these. And I think I'm going to talk about the first one, or I'm sorry, the last one first. So, so how do we approach the observatory of God? And what sort of posture? Do we go into the observatory of God? Do we need, what do we need to do to understand the purpose, and then, and then the expectations of what we do with that once we're there. So I apologize, there's gonna be some overlap between some of the other speakers this weekend, I didn't do that on purpose. There's a lot today, and obviously, I didn't write this all today, at least not during the speaking that was going on. And then And then throughout the, throughout the entire retreat, you know, there's been a lot of overlap. And I don't know if that's thematic, or if that's the Holy Spirit trying to highlight certain things, maybe a little bit of both. So there's going to be a little bit overlap. And, and I, I encourage you to look at this, look at the stream, that the Lord is like threading through this weekend, and try to see what your takeaway is from it. So when we enter the Kings observatory, we don't go into the observatory as a guest. You know, in the military, we had to do these things we call dog and pony shows a lot. So so we we bring people onto our site, we make it look all pretty, we show them around, you know, they come in, they look at things, they can't take pictures, usually, because it's all secret stuff, and then they leave. So So that's, that's typically how that goes. But when but when we bring a new unit, into those same systems that's going to be taken over from us, it's totally different. They don't come in as someone that's just going to observe and then leave. So the way that we show them things is different, the way that they come in is different, because they know they're going to have to own this, eventually, it's going to be theirs. So that's kind of the way we come into the observatory, we don't come in as a guest, we don't come in as an outsider, we don't come in as an enemy. We enter the Kings observatory, as if we're sons and daughters. We are sons and daughters of the King that owns this observatory. And that's the way we come in, we come in, in this special space as family. And those who are one day going to take ownership of the family business in some respect. So we come in there with a purpose. When we go in there, and we look, we're looking with a purpose, we have a goal when we're in the Kings observatory, we're not just going in there to idly watch and look around, but we're in there, and we're looking with a purpose at what's going on. So in Galatians, four, one through seven, it talks about this status that we have. And Paul says I mean that an heir, as long as he is a child is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, but he is under guardians and managers, until the date set by his father. In the same way. We also when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principals of the world. But when the fullness had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman under the law, to redeem those who were under the law so that they might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son and to your hearts, crying out Abba, Father. So you're no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son than an heir through God. So I want you to notice what Paul's saying there he says, But when the fullness had come, God sent forth his Son born of a woman under the law, to redeem those under the law that we might receive adoption as sons, you know, what's already happened is the fullness had come because Jesus has already come, he's already sent his son born of a woman. So we're on the other side of this. So we've received that adoption. We've, we've received the status of sonship and heirs, that event already happened, the blood of Jesus changed our status. We have now been adopted. So how do we know? So Paul says, and because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Have you ever felt the Holy Spirit crying out Abba, Father, do you know that you have the Holy Spirit in your heart? If you know that, then you know the status that you have when you enter the Kings observatory, and you know that when you go into the Kings observatory, you go in as as as your observatory to as one that's under God as his heir. If you don't think Paul's a trustworthy source, and I get that he's not divine. Listen to what Jesus says. Listen to what Jesus says in John 17. He says, My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message that all of them may be one father, just as you're in Me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you've sent me. I have given them The glory that you gave me that they may be one as we are one I in them, and you and me, so that they may be brought into complete unity, then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them, even as You have loved Me. King Jesus prayed to God, the Father asking for us to have his status with the Father. So if you need any more, any more proof of your status before God, there it is. There it is. So whenever we enter the Kings observatory, that's the posture that we need to take, we take the posture of a son, we take the posture of a daughter, not of an outsider, not of a friend, I mean, a friend to but not only a friend, it's more than that it's familial relationship. And we have the friends to his to we're not like extremely strange brothers and sisters that don't want to talk to one another John 1515. No longer do I call you servants for the servant does not know what his master is doing. But I've called you friends, for all that I have heard from my father I've made known to you. So not only are we brothers and sisters of Christ, we're also his friends, we have a close family, we have a close knit tight family. So that's the way we go into the father's observatory. So when we gain access to the observatory, and we approach it as children, we're not going to approach it with an orphan spirit. We talked about that orphan spirit yesterday. And I know that the experiences that we have here on Earth, especially from our earthly parents, can cause us to have an orphan spirit. You know, because we don't have the we don't have this picture necessarily of what a good father is, and what a good father does, and how a good father interacts with our family, or how our family supposed to interact with one another. But God can redeem that, how many of you have children, you have children. So quite a number of people in the room have children. So if it's not marred by sin, there's very something very special about the way kids relate to their dad, especially sons. Growing up, I always wanted to be with my dad, I wanted to be just like my dad, it was it was such a huge deal for me to be with him. That's, that's really all I wanted to do. You know, and it wasn't necessarily just like going out and doing fun things. Well, then we did that we go rappelling we go fishing, we go hunting, but what was really special to me, is whenever he put me in the truck with me with him and take me to work whenever he takes me to work. So, you know, I'd go and he would put his, his energy and attention to his business that was like the big deal on his life, you know, so for, for me to get to be a part of that was something super special, because it was something that was close to his heart that he poured a lot into. And he would go and he trained me, he would, he does remodeling type work. So it contracts with these companies that install appliances and things like that. And he will let me be a part of it. So we go, he put me on the truck, we get to a job, I get to uncrate the dishwashers, you know, and take the panels off of them, put the little copper elbows on it and everything, you know, things that, you know, I could kind of screw it up and not too bad. You know. At the end of the day, though, you know, he was he was training me and showing me the things that he was doing to provide for the family what the family business was. So in a way it made me feel like he was training me to be a man to take over for that. He was training me to to know how to provide for my family. He was training me to be involved in the family business. And that was super important. That was super important. When I look at my own kids, I see the same thing. I see the same thing. Little Ezra, every single day like this little boy wakes up at the crack of dawn so that he can meet me before I go to work in the morning. And since I've gotten out of the military, he's had some weird, like identity crisis a little bit because every day he's like, Dad, you're gonna put on your fighting clothes today. You're gonna put on your fighting clothes. I'm gonna put on my fighting clothes too. And I'm gonna get my lightsaber, and we're gonna go fight the bad guys together. He's a little warrior. He's a little warrior. But you know, that's his memories of me from the time he was born. That's that's the reality of it. And he wants to be a part of it. He wants to be a part of it so bad. He wants to be a part of the family business. And so he looks to see the things that I'm doing. And he tries to mimic me. He tries to be just like me, and it's it's scary sometimes, you know, and it's humbling to watch that. as parents and as fathers we have to really be careful with really be careful with the way that we that we interact with our children. It can be really damaging whenever you say certain things too. When whenever you treat them a certain way, but at the same time, because of the voice that you have in their life, you have an amazing opportunity to shape someone, and to have a great amount of influence over someone, and to push them towards where they need to be. And this is true for spiritual parents as well. And so, you know, I see my kids doing that, and it makes me think, you know, am I doing things right? And, you know, I find them in the office, I'll find him. And as we're in the office, you know, they're going through my stuff. Sometimes they're putting on my boots, and they're walking through the house, they want to be part of what I'm doing. And they want to know what I care about. And we as spiritual children, that's the way we interact with God to, you know, that's the that's the way God ingrained our children to react towards their parents. Because there's something spiritual, he's trying to show us in that if he's going to call us sons and daughters, he kind of expects us to behave that way towards him. He expects us to seek him out. He expects us to try to find the things he cares about. And to love those things, too. Jesus wasn't indifferent. Jesus wasn't any different as a kid. You see that in Luke two. So so his parents had gone to Jerusalem for the Passover. You see that and in Luke two, and whenever he was 12 years old, and they had gone to the feast, Jesus decided to stay there. And he went to the temple, his parents left. And they thought, you know, like, Oh, he's with mom, while he's with dad. He's with he's with Aunt Sally, probably not sadly. But you know, he's with somebody else. And they left like every parent's nightmare. You look at your kids, not there. But Jesus wasn't there. They had to turn around and go back to Jerusalem, and they look for him for three days. And then when they finally found him, when they finally found him, he was in the temple. And everybody was astonished by the things he was saying, by the questions, he was asking by the wisdom this little boy had. And when his parents asked him, What in the world were you doing, dude? Why did you give us so much anxiety? And he's like, why are you looking for me? Did you not know that I'd be about my Father's business. But they didn't understand the statement. So if we look at Jesus's model, how a kid supposed to act, the kid wants to be about the father's business. He wants to know what the father's business is. He wants to look like dad. He wants to try to be like, Dad, if we're heirs, if we're sons, we must be about our Father's business. We must be about our Father's business. And how do we know what that is? The Holy Spirit Spirit reveals that to us, the more time we spend with him, the more time we're watching our father at work. The more time we're spending in his observatory, watching how he conducts himself is king, we start to learn how to be a king to Paul encouraged his spiritual children to do just that. So there's numerous references. I've got a few, you know, First Corinthians 11. One, he says, Be imitators of me as I imitate Christ. First Corinthians 416, I urge you then be imitators of me. Philippians 317, join one another and following my example, brothers, and carefully observe those who walk according to the pattern we set for you. And then, in Philippians, four, nine, he tells him to put that into practice. So that's the way we relate to our spiritual fathers here on earth, when we're looking through their observatory up at God, we're mimicking them, we're mimicking the way that they live their life. We're mimicking how Dick has lived his life. You know how Pastor rod how everyone in here, that's an example of spiritual father and mother, we try to mimic those things, when we're looking through the observatory towards God and see how they relate to it. But then, when we get into God's observatory, we got to approach it the same way. If we're going to be hit about his business, as our Father, we need to enter the observatory with the idea that we're going to learn who he is, so that we can learn to participate it and imitate in it. You know, a practical way that we can do this is when you're reading scripture is to read it in is read yourself into the story. Read yourself into the story. internalize what Scripture is saying, and don't be a passive. Don't be a passive reader, be an active reader, be engaged, and what you're seeing, you know, when you go into the king's observatory, imagine to yourself like, what is it like when I'm there? What do you see? What do you see in the king's observatory? What do you hear? What do you smell? What do you feel? What's your father doing? How does he have his observatory set up? You know, which direction is he looking? What is he looking at? And what does that tell you about it? Does anybody in here have a man cave? No, yeah, maybe. So I don't I'm too nerdy for a man cave. I have a study. But there are a lot of people that have a man cave. You know. I talked about this a little bit. Last time I talked at Mission House, kind of when I was preparing for this, but you can tell a lot about a guy, whenever you look at his man cave, you can tell the things that he cares about. And your kids can tell a lot about you, by the way, you have your mancave setup. You know, that tells a story about who you are to your children that they're gonna want to follow. So my kids found an old box on my toys and had a bunch of Batman stuff in it. So now as he wants to dress his Batman all the time. So they it influences them know when when they see what you care about, they want to be just like it. So God has has a man cave of sorts. He has a place, he spends a lot of his time and it says a lot about him too. I asked my dad to write something down for me that he had told me in one of our conversations about the book of Revelation, because I really liked the way he articulates this, like he's, he's one of those teachers that can take things and make it very practical and understandable. I'm not quite there yet. I hope to be that way. Someday, I'm trying to, you know, mimic my dad and figure that out. But but he wrote this down for me, and I really appreciated it and it was some of his reflections on God's observatory. So I'm gonna I'm gonna read this to you hand wrote it down and sent me a message of it. It's pretty awesome. So it says man caves, a place to hide our favorite chair, taxidermy creatures on the wall, a big screen TV, music fridge, full of our favorites, a lock on the door to keep everybody out except for our best buds. So we have them we dream of them a room to chill without any distractions. But did you know that God has a man cave to a room like no other. He has a favorite chair, his Arts on the wall, a rainbow. His door is not locked, but it's open to the host of heaven. In the creatures are very much alive. Music harps, the sounds of thunder, the crashes of lightning, incense smells that are the prayers of the saints. Under the altar are the souls of martyrs crying for justice, a portal to view us night and day, day and night. Never sleeping. Angels continually praising him. The patriarchs are all sitting around his chair, and beside him, his son, the lamb in a sealed scroll. It's not a relaxation room, but it's a war preparation room. God's man cave is a war room. And a room that's made of promises. It's got promises that are kept. And it has promises in it that are yet to be fulfilled. It's a room which centers around his passion, us His children. Here he plans for our salvation. Here he plans for our eternity. And here he plans for the end battle and the war that's already won. Here he worries about us. And here he calls us home. It's not a room for leisure. But it's a room of a devoted father. So his his reflections there are God's throne room and revelations four through six. So this is the place that I see is God's observatory. You know, for you military folks is more like His command center. It's more like His command center. And his observatory is not oriented upward to the stars, and of the heavens. He's not looking away, his observatory is looking down at us. His observatory is looking over the kingdom, as a king should do. When we enter the king's observatory, we see what his business is, you know, Second Chronicles 69 says For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong on the behalf of those whose heart is loyal to him. It's like all those movies. And those war movies like Troy, you know, are Lord of the Rings. You see the king and he's up there in his in his tower, and he's overlooking the kingdom. He's overlooking the battle. He's managing things. And that's God, except for God isn't just up in the tower managing things, God reaches down and he touches it, you know, he affects it. And that's the king that we have to observe in the observatory. As he's looking over his people. That's the business that he's about. And if we're going to be about the father's business, as Jesus said that he was if we're to follow his example, then we need to incline our hearts the same way. We need to incline our hearts the same way to God's people that those people that love him. We're here to serve them. We're here to serve them. We're here to love them well as heirs. We put on our fighting clothes, and we go to war with dad. We put on our tool belt and we jump in the truck and we go to work with them. And when we enter the Kings observatory, we understand that his heirs we have a responsibility to his kingdom out of Low for our father and family. You know, it's it's not an obligation that we do out of anything other than love and a love for our father. Because we want to be like him, it's a call to action. So that's kind of how I see God's observatory and I, I kind of wrote, I don't know, if you want me to open it up for for, for sharing or comments or, you know if anyone has any reflections on God's observatory, but I know it really touched me when you start looking at what God is looking at. And you start thinking about that, like, man, it's, it's really profound the way that he has his observatory setup. Where I have to say that, Tyler I don't know how many 1000s of hours of teaching I've listened to in my life. But I think you're the first one who has given us a lens of the kingdom as a family business. I don't know that I've ever heard that before. But it opens up. It's really got me thinking like, I'm back there, and the wheels are just turning. I'm wanting to shut this thing down. So I can go home and look into this. I mean, really, that is just profound. I'm looking forward to hearing what your thoughts are on this as you meditate on this because wow. Like, that's exactly what the kingdom is. It's, it's the family business. And we're heirs in that and I'm like, Lord, I'm gonna just like wow. So thank you very much. And you've just opened up something I think that's going to go into bear much fruit in the coming, at least for me in the coming years, and I believe others. Thank you for joining us today. Aaron ova is raising up spiritual leaders in many nations through our spiritual enrichment events, syndicated NetCast international prayer Council network, and numerous international seminary scholarships. Together, we are lighting the fires of revival, fueling prayer movements and raising up friends of Jesus in the nations. We invite you to partner with us in this extraordinary movement. You can sign up as a prayer and financial partner today by going to evernote.org and clicking give. Please include your email address so that we can send you updates. That's era nova.org. Click give and become a monthly partner today. Invest in some of the most fertile spiritual soils on the planet. And give the gift of faith and love today, to those with a deep need and hunger to know God. 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