The Seven Pillars (Part 27)-Pillar 7-A Call To The Nations And Discipling As Spiritual Fathers And Mothers - Rod Mills

This is a series on the 7 Pillars of the AeroNova spiritual family, the DNA markers of who God has called us to be as a people. 
 The seventh pillar is a call to the nations. This is a deeply relational call to many cultures, many nations, with truths being imparted through relational means within a spiritual family.

Full transcript generated by ai (please excuse errors):





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​Lord, we're thanking you for this time together, I thank you, for this spiritual family, and spiritual giants and visionaries we walked along. And Lord, I pray today, we asked you to speak to us we pray, Lord, for you to breathe through us the words of life. Tenderize our hearts. We pray, break up the fallow ground. That the years of religion has produced the hardness that legalism has produced. We pray, Lord, that you will dissolve the cliches of life so that we can come in to encounter you in a fresh and powerful way. And Lord, I pray for each and every one of us here in those listening, that you will open our eyes to see those we walk among, and open our eyes to see who you're calling us to be the vision of who we are. In your eyes in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Well, we're talking about the seven pillars. I think this is part 27. Today, we started about a year ago, believe it or not, with a lot of other little teachings sprinkled in there. But today we're going to, we're going to probably finish or close to finish we're talking about pillar number what? Okay, there's some people who No, you're right, pillar number seven. And this, these are the seven pillars that we recognize as part of our own spiritual DNA. But what we've also begin to find is that there is an emerging move of God in the earth. In many spiritual families. This is not something we made happen. It's not something we're not the catalyst for it, the Holy Spirit is. And what we're noticing is that these DNA markers we're finding in the spiritual families around the Earth, in the United States and overseas. And we reckon I call I just gave it a name, I call it the Friends of Jesus movement, because the of the qualities that it entails. And so we've been talking about the seven pillars, or what I would call DNA markers, that characterize these spiritual families and, and how they live and how they serve in the kingdom of God. And I believe these families guys, listen close, I believe. These families are carrying the fires of an extraordinary revival that will come in its appointed time. You know, the Olympic torch is always burning, burns, and then they hand it off to someone else, and they hand it off to someone else. And they hand it off to someone else. We are carrying a torch and the Olympic torch, we're carrying it. And the fire that we've been given them talk about the fire of God, the the fires of knowing God and encountering him in walking and closeness to him the the closest of grace, power, passion, the fullness of God, this fire, we are caretakers of this revival fire of God. That's that's literally the Holy Spirit's activity with people in the earth. And we're carrying these flames. And let me say, we've all been in enough churches in enough places to know some carry them in some don't. They love God. But that doesn't mean they're carrying that, that revival fire in their hearts and encountering God in their lifestyle on a on a regular basis and encountering him. There are times when all of us got to a place where we weren't carrying that. And we were going through the motions. We were just checking the blocks, but we weren't really carrying the fire, the passion, the fullness and activity, interactivity with the Holy Spirit. I'm gonna tell you, you know this, but if you live your Christian life, without a sustained interactivity with the Holy Spirit, you will become a board person, your spirit will not be satisfied in the human spirit. What happens is the human the human beings start looking to fill those gaps in other places, and pretty soon, they find all kinds of hobbies and things and sometimes not such good things to fill them. But God's calling us to carry this fire. And just like the Olympic torch is carried from place to place and passed on. We're carrying this torch that will light the forest fires of the Earth, the spiritual forest fires of the earth that will bring the revivals of God that are prophesied in the in the final generations. At the same time what's prophesied in the final generations, a great falling away. And so that is we're seeing this happen. We're seeing what Jesus said would happen. He said, Let the wheat and the tares grow together. And then at the appointed time, they will be harvested. So here we are, we're all in this field together. And the wheat is growing and it's becoming plentiful, and it's because it's producing its fruit. But so are the tears. You know what tears are, by the way? That's an old King James word for Darnell. How many of you know what Darnell is? Yeah. Darnell, is weeds that look like, look like wheat. People have said, I think I have wheat growing in my front yard is like, no, that's Darnell. Those are tears. That's fake wheat. And so right now in society, we see the righteous growing more righteous, and the wicked growing more wicked. You see it before your very eyes. Some are blind to it. But here's what happens. As righteousness increases in in the midst of those who walk with God. And as unrighteousness increases in the midst of those who don't, it becomes clearer and clearer and clearer. This is God's order, he has decided to do it this way. So that the contrast becomes so drastic, that you know, the decision you're making. And if in the heart, we'll make decisions of what's in the heart, right. And this is why it's so important for repentance to walk in with God. And so here today, we find ourselves in the midst of these early tremors of this move of God that's coming to the earth. When we go to these when you guys went out to minister, just the last couple of weeks in Central America, you saw exactly what we're talking about the hunger for God, the moves of God, you see the hunger for the seven pillars that we talked about. We didn't invent these, these are things that have been in the kingdom for a long, long time. We're just calling them out. We're just putting a highlighter on them and saying, but you saw them, I sent out the message of all these revivals that are flowing among the Micronesians, and among the Pacific Islanders right now, both in the United States and the islands. Same thing, if you pull this, if you pull this, this study out and just look at the seven pillars, they're there, they're happening in those communities. That's how 70 people come to Christ in two weeks and get baptized and two people are miraculously healed. This happened in January, the folks that were investing into, just and I put in there just last week, we we had prayed over them, and I had met with their leaders and doing some coaching and mentoring. They just came back from Guam. 19 people gave their lives to the Lord were baptized. Listen, and these are not these are this It'd be different if it was a big church, and there's like 10,000 people, but this is happening all over the place in their communities. It's not just like a big church as a big program. These are happening everywhere they go here they go there. These are happening. And right now what's happening is God is birthing. These, I just talked to one of the leaders, God is birthing. These, I call them starfishes of mission houses. Now, they are not they don't call a mission house like us. But it's what we do. And so what will happen is, God will start this fire in this place, and then suddenly they have these multiple mission houses are my terminology, doing what we do. We didn't tell him to do it. But you see that what's happening with these, the Holy Spirit is the orchestrator. He's the conductor of what's happening. And so here we are, on the seventh pillar. I want to read the Great Commission again. Now, here's the danger for those of us that have been in the church a few years or a few decades. When we read a Scripture, we know, we tend to just go into the cliche mode of seeing it. And I asked you to ask the Holy Spirit, to search your heart with the words of Jesus, because He will speak something He has not spoken before Jesus came and He spoke to them and he said, All authority has been given to Me in heaven and earth. We spent a whole week or two talking about the importance of authority in the in the sixth pillar, and God's calling. Go therefore, and make disciples of all nations that phrase right there is the seventh pillar, make disciples of all nations. And then he says, baptizing them name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. I liked the King James, the Holy Ghost. Yeah, there you go. And teaching them to observe all things that I've commanded you, lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. God has really pointed out to us our primary call and our primary focus is to the nation's. If you notice, when we began, seven years ago, God spoke to us vividly saying, I have called you to the nation's this is your bullseye. This is your calling. If you wonder why we don't go out to this neighborhood and that neighborhood and try to get 10 mission houses in each city. This is why our call is to the nation's. So Mission House is sort of like the nucleus of the spiritual family that goes out and does ministry in the nations. And you so many times we've had so many interactions that you many of you have heard me say this 1000 different ways to Sunday, because I feel so strongly This is our call. This is our focus. It doesn't mean we neglect people who have a hunger where we are, but it means that our focus is the nations. So Jesus Commission's us here to make disciples of all nations. Now I'm gonna say this different churches, different ministries obey this in different ways. And they have different emphases, they don't have the same emphasis we do. We recognize that that's, that's okay. It's not like everybody has to be like us, or we have to be like other people. All I'm saying is, is that the way we do it is different than not everybody, but many different spiritual families. And this is part of our primary call. Now God has called us to take this friends of Jesus message, and this kingdom culture because guys, this is what it is. This is the culture of the kingdom. When when the Lord began to first talk to me about this. You know, first of all you have to you, there's a turning away from those other models and things that are very attractive to the flesh, and they're impressive to people. But Jesus says, Why don't you do what I did? And I said, Well, Lord, what did you do? And he said, Just invest your life into a dozen people, and their extended friends and families, take them out, do ministry in the nation's. And I thought, Wow, that's so simple. It's so simple compared to all the things I've been doing in my life. And we've had some great fruit in our life. Some of you have been with us through the decades. And notice, I mean, I've known some of you we've known each other over 1520 years. And so this was this is a commitment to something different. Now, this word nations does not mean countries. Most some of you know that this word nations, F nos, means ethnic groups or people groups. Now these people groups sometimes are in in certain geographic areas, but usually, in today's world, because of transportation because of airplanes, and because of communication, the internet, we have multiple nations in one place, almost everywhere you go. That didn't used to be that way. It used to be that man, you get somewhere you had to go on a ship across the ocean, 3040 days, 50 days, 60 days, if you didn't get shipwreck, you made it there. But you didn't call them on the telephone. You know, it's so my point is that this idea of the F Nasr nations now is very different. You may encounter people from five ethnos, or ethnic groups or nations in one day at Walmart for 30 minutes. Right? Are you tracking with me? So the Our call is to the nations and this is not just to the countries we recognize this, this is the seventh pillar. This is a central focus of who? And how can you say that who? Bunch of owls out here bashful owls, who, how, how, who and how we disciple Now, here's where you do I want you to say this because I really want to get the wheels turning here, who we we disciple, because our focus is on the nations. So we are focused not on just Okay, let's cover this neighborhood over here in this neighborhood over here. We don't, that's not our focus. We are We are literally called to the nations and we'll talk about how those connections happen. But here's the how and here's what I mean by how it determines how we disciple people. Listen, if you if someone comes in As you guys are going out and starting your mission houses in Northern Alabama and Southern Mississippi, you start a mission house, if someone comes in, and they're like, you know, they're all about reaching the truth, the traditional way of doing things, you'll find a struggle there, it will be difficult. What you'll see is the people who have a heart for the nations, they'll gravitate to you. You ever noticed that? That already, there's a gravitation that you have felt of people who are sensing this call to the nations. Now there's an old saying birds of a feather flock together? Have you heard that before? Yeah. And so usually, if you have this call, and you walk in this, people who have that same, they're sensing that same, that same intensity or desire, even if they're not really walking close with the Lord, or even know him, but God's doing something there, they will gravitate to you, they'll gravitate to the Holy Spirit's work inside of you. And so we want to be sensitive to that wherever we are. Because how we disciple and raise leaders, is to the nation's also. So in other words, if someone comes alongside you, Marina, and they're like, hey, I really want to learn more about this. And before long, you're gonna have them in Central America. Before long, you're gonna have them on zoom in one of these leader trainings, or pastor training is going to happen, because that's how we disciple that's how we raise up spiritual leaders. Now, we're not saying that this is the only right way to do it. However, this is the way God has been moving in us now for years. And we love here's another part of this, we love to do this through partnerships. So you know, have you ever been involved in a ministry or church? And when you go, they got something going, but what they have going is just their program? If if you go and say, Hey, can we join with you? And we've got our program over here, and we want to hook up and do this with you? A lot of places will say no, right? Have you ever been, I mean, I've seen this 90% of the time in places that I go. But the when we are doing what God's called us to do? Have you noticed that most of what we do, is in partnership with another ministry, almost always, and that ministry doesn't treat us as a superior or as a subordinate to them. We come alongside them to serve them, but they treat us with respect his colleagues, whoever, and we treat them the same way. Why does this happen? Because this DNA is flowing in those spiritual families. And so we operate this way in the partnerships that God's called us to. And so we recognize God's already raising up spiritual families that are moving in this message and in this DNA. And actually, guys, they are not hard to find. Now, if you just get on Facebook, you might have a hard time finding them. It but if you just be sensitive, the Lord will show us how to find them. Now I like to call this Holy Spirit chemistry. You guys know what I'm talking about this. Whenever you we connect with certain people, certain ministries, there's a Holy Spirit chemistry, this is critical right here, get this if you if you if you're not tracking, Holy Spirit chemistry is when you feel that chemistry that kindred spirit, and then we go, You know what, I think we could work with these folks, I think we could do something together. And so we cooperate together in the kingdom. And God begins to manifest this call to the nations. And this is the way it's worked in every place. And every people group where we've ministered. God has brought forth this Holy Spirit chemistry, and this kindred spirit. And even as we're sending you guys out, I just want to encourage you look for the Holy Spirit chemistry. And don't look through the eyes of the flesh. Now, you guys know this, but I'm saying it for the benefit of everybody here. This is really funny. Because the people you often think will come alongside with you and walk with you. And really co labor with you. Many times are not the people who do I don't know why that's just, you know, maybe it's because we evaluate according to the flesh, I don't know. But many times the people you think will will surprise you and they won't. And then the people you don't think will you're like oh, they're probably not very interested. Then they're like, Hey, I let's do this. I want to be a part of this. And there's that Holy Spirit chemistry that happens. And whenever that Holy Spirit chemistry has happens. It's a God thing. It's not. You know, we say this a lot when the when Jesus called the apostles, he didn't give them a big long contract and say, here's what you're signing up for. And here's your job description. Or here's, you know, how many church how many times have we done this in the church was I want to be a part of this ministry where we'll show you the job description, can you sign up for three months or whatever, and I'm not knocking those. But Jesus didn't do any of that. Jesus looked for who the Holy Spirit was bringing that chemistry and that kindred spirit to say, call John Cole James. And it's also interesting how many disciples and apostles he called, who were brothers, and how many disciples he called, who were sisters, or brothers of those people, because God moves along the lines of relationships and families. This is a call to bring the people of the nations and to an extraordinary close friendship with Jesus, and to raise up spiritual leaders in the mantle of Elijah, what is the mantle of Elijah, we're going to be talking more about that this later this year, and then retreat, but especially spiritual fathers, spiritual mothers, this is critical. The church has got to get back to spiritual fathers and spiritual mothers, we have to get back to this, we have to get back to the followership models of the of the New Testament, follow me as I follow Christ programs and administration of programs will no longer be enough to reach the nation's God is calling us to move along the lines of families, and spiritual families. And I'm preaching to the choir, because most of you know that, but for the benefit of the people who listen to us teach on in the nation's and to those who, you know, that you may minister to just to remind you, this is how God moves and works in our midst and how it manifests in our spiritual family. So I want to do this, I want to review, we've been talking about the seven pillars, we're on the seventh one to the nation's, I want to review a little bit about us as we summarize this whole series that we've been doing for a year. This is probably a good place and a good time. So first of all, you know, this is something that we kind of struggled with for a while. And if someone that we do you guys know the elevator answer of what we do anybody hear? The elevator? Answer is if they go to you, if they say, Well, I understand you're involved with Aaron Nova, what do you guys do? And you're like, man, we do a lot of things, you know, and we're like, we do this. And we do that we do this, and we do that. But really, we were like, well, what's she likes that that's good? What's the elevator answer of what do we do? And what I found was, is that many of the people we ministered to, already knew it, whether we did or not. Because I would ask them, I said, Well, how would you describe us? And so I want to just say, this is what we do. If if if you think about this as a as a spiritual family, Aaron Nova in our, in our basically our spiritual ecosystem, which is far beyond the states and into the into other countries. We train spiritual leaders, and we raise up spiritual fathers and mothers. You think about this? What do we do? We train spiritual leaders. Now, we're going to define this in a minute. Because a lot of people when you say spiritual leaders, they think you're talking about pastors. And the answer is yes, that includes pastors too. But it's not limited. So we train spiritual leaders, and we raise up spiritual fathers and mothers in the nation's. And we do that to achieve extraordinary generational transfer in the kingdom of God. Now, we do that through spiritual family, we do that through all these other DNA markers that we do. But when you think about it, our DNA is to raise up people who know and walk with God. And when I say spiritual leaders, it's those who influenced the world through the resources of their relationship with God and the kingdom of heaven. Literally, what you know, if you boil the word leadership down to one word definition, what is it? Some of you know Maxwell stuff. He says leadership is one word influence. He does nothing more, nothing less. leadership is influence. Well, what we're talking about with spiritual leadership is influencing the world with the king out of the resources of knowing God and the Kingdom of God literally influence Seeing and discipling and training up spiritual leaders. So someone says, Well, so So we talked about what do we do we train spiritual leaders, and we raise up spiritual fathers and mothers. So if you if someone says, What do you do in your? How do you do that? Well, we do that through mission houses, we do it through prayer councils, we do it through spiritual family, we do it through the other through the seven pillars that we talked about. But in essence, this is what we do. Whether we realize it or not, we've been doing this. And now it's multiply, multiply, multiply and to the nations. So if we were to say if you were to say, Who are we now I've talked about this one before. And someone says to you, who are we? Like who like who are you? And this is the way I would describe it. We're a grassroots can thereby agree with grassroots? Yeah, it's grassroots. This is not the what we do is grassroots. Everything we do is pretty much by relationship. And let me say this has been intentional. We have had many opportunities to advertise our, our podcasts and our teaching libraries, and advertise, and we cut down all of that. Remember, when we actually transition from the conference to the retreat? Well, guess what we didn't, we could have done advertising. We didn't do it. Everything is by word of mouth. What we do overseas is by word of mouth, all of the things that we do we do by relationship, because we're grassroots. But we are multinational, aren't we? Because we're God has us in many nations. So if someone says Who are we, we're a grassroots, multinational mission. We're a mission. In other words, we're the church. But we're also a mission. We're also on mission with God, we're doing the work of God. So that's why we say we're a grassroots multinational mission. And then we just say what we do, training up spiritual leaders raising up spiritual fathers and mothers, this is what we do. This is so important to know who we are and what we do. How do we do it? How would you say it? How do we do it? Someone want to speak up? Living life, someone else? It's louder. Investing in the 12, impartation, impartation. Anyone else? How do we do it? All of these are right. All of these are right. We do it by living and deep spiritual, French friendship and close spiritual family. Because this impartation has to happen along relational lines. We believe this, it's so important that we go beyond just stage ministry beyond just right here. When I'm doing microphone ministry. It has to be relational in nature, it's the difference between a small power line and a giant power line. You guys don't talk about the little power line that carries electricity to a house is much smaller than those huge power lines that are on those giant towers that have massive insulators, because they hang so far from the tower so they won't arc electricity. What am I saying? The giant power lines can carry way more power than the small powerline power lines. Why is that? What are we talking about here? These relationships if we do it in spiritual family, what Jennifer said the impartation can be much greater than just giving everybody a few ounces. I was very moved. After we start doing this. I started reading Francis Chan's story. Have you ever read that story of when he left his church, Francis had started a church it had become a fairly large church at the time. And one day he says, You know, I realized I'm coming in. And I'm ministering to all these people, and I'm using my gift. But most of them are not using their gifts other than the few people doing the gift of helps. He said this is something's got to change. This is not this is backwards. And so he literally left his church and started doing what we do. Now he does it in a little bit different model, but he does what we do, and basically a lot of the same qualities. So So literally, all of the things you're saying are how we do it. We do it through spiritual family, and we obey the Great Commission to the nation's but how do we obey the Great Commission? We say this over and over, out of the overflow of the great commandments. Literally, we love one another love God loved one. one another. And there's so much fuel in that fusion, if you will, in that nuclear reactor. So there's this nuclear reactor of relationships. And it's producing an extraordinary amount of divine power that comes from the Holy Spirit and intimacy with God. So when you and I are intimate, we walk with God, we pray, most of the people in our spiritual family, either either have developed or are developing a spiritual prayer life. And most of us our prayer life is much better than it was then when we began. And that prayer life is the nuclear reactor with that we have personally with God, and then our spiritual families, that nuclear reactor, if you will, that spiritual nuclear reactor we have through relationships, and it creates enough power to fuel a city, it creates enough spiritual power to literally fuel the Great Commission. But now it's not driven by duty. It's not driven by some great program. It's driven by this intense love that we have for God, and for one another. And so our hearts are moved by the Holy Spirit in this. Can I get an amen? And so I said, we love to do this through partnerships, and relationships. Now, I want to just throw out some questions to get you thinking for a minute. Why are spiritual friendship and close spiritual family so important? To the Great Commission? I kind of just gave you the answer. Why are they so important? Because the great commandments at the forefront are given us the spiritual energy to do this the equipping the anointing, the power to do it. Well, I'll tell you what, guys, I It's hard to tell you how many friends I've had, over the years, peers, colleagues, friends, who have burned out in ministry, and many of them with good success, they burned out, because they didn't have this right here. And literally, there's just a lack of refreshing, and a lack of that, that intense passion and grace that we've walked and lived in. So here's another question. How do we raise spiritual fathers and mothers in the faith and in the nations? How do you raise spiritual fathers and mothers? Any Are any of you the fathers and mothers and fathers and mothers? In the natural a buy here? Yeah. How do you have kids who have kids? Is there anybody here who has kids that have kids? Okay, we got one. How do you raise spiritual fathers and mothers? That's it. That's it by being a spiritual father, a mother, you know what we say kids don't do what you tell them. They do what you do. If you father them, they will father. If you mother them, if you lead them as a father or as a mother, you they will be a father or mother. That's the way that the that's the way reproduction happens. That's right. That's exactly right. If you're a parent, how did you learn to be a father a mother? Now this, this is interesting, because this is looking at it from the other side. If you Okay, okay. So sometimes by not making the same mistakes, you're like, Okay, you know, I remember my dad saying, Son, I want you to learn from my mistakes, so you don't make them you don't make the same mistakes. So we learn from our spiritual fathers and mothers one, by learning from their mistakes. And that's good. That's important. What's another way we learn from from our fathers and mothers? How to be a father mother? That's it. That absolutely, I'm amazed how many times people have wisdom available to them, but they don't seek it out. A lot of times in my life now, I must say, both in my natural family and in my spiritual family. I have had some treasure to give. But there's not enough drawl to give it. How many of you know what I'm talking about? Anybody raise teenagers. Anybody here raise teenagers. And when they're, you know, here's us when you're raising a teenagers. It's not like when they're younger, hey, you need to do this. You need to do that. Now, sometimes you didn't do that. But there are times when you have counsel, and you can't give it to them. You got to wait for the right time. You have to wait until there's a draw or Are they want it, or you know that counsel just gonna bounce right off of them? Now I'm the kind of guy sometimes I'd give it to him anyway. I'm like, Okay, I'm gonna plant a seed, maybe they'll get it, you know, maybe later on, they'll it'll come to him. But here's my point. We do this, not just with our kids, we do this with our spouses, we do this with our friends, but many times we have counseled to give. But if they're not seeking it enough, it cannot be given. Now I'm going to put myself in that situation like you just gave us. Now I'm in the situation. Am I asking for wisdom? Am I asking for counsel, and you've heard me tell this story. My father, he was a good dad, he made a lot of mistakes. But my dad did what he could. He gave me what he had. He came to the Lord later in life, or what I would consider later than I did. But when I came to the realization, he can only give me what he has, he can't give me what he doesn't have, right. And then God provided other spiritual fathers and mothers. And it was a great day, I still remember the day. And I didn't look at the date. But I was in my 30s. And we were at home visiting. And I was still wanted, there still certain things I wanted my dad to bless me or give me or do, and he didn't do it. And I realized, and the Holy Spirit spoke to me that day says, Rod, your dad can't give you what he doesn't have. Quit trying to get it out of them. And that was the day I didn't even realize it. That I was set free. And I didn't know I needed to forgive my father. I didn't know that it was unforgiveness. But what I was saying in my heart was Dad, I really need this. And I really need this. And I really need this forgiveness is when you in your heart say, You don't owe me anything. You're debt, there is no debt. If there was a debt, it's canceled. You owe me nothing. That's forgiveness. Forgiveness says you don't owe me anything. And what God showed me was rod, I've brought all these other spiritual fathers into your life, to give you what your dad couldn't give you, mother's to give you what your mother couldn't give you. And so what you're saying Chazz is so important, because it requires us to seek wisdom to seek from them counsel. And so that's another way that we receive. What's another, someone else? No more. Well, that's probably enough. Are you guys tired of this subject? Any thoughts on how to this is important because all of us need now, you guys, I don't know if I told you this. But I just became a senior citizen. Did you know that? Do I look like a senior citizen? At least that's what McDonald's told me. I got this thing. I know, you're right. But I got this thing. And it was given me all the senior citizen discounts I want. It says you have turned 55. And you can receive all the senior citizen discounts. And it's a big list, Tom. And so I was like, what free coffee, I like coffee, and I can take some free coffee. And so and so most of my spiritual fathers have gone to be with the Lord. But I have a few left. And they're a lot older than me, most of them are about my dad's age. And, you know, I, in fact, on this last trip, I met with two of them, I spent I try to spend time with them and communicate with them, at least monthly, and, and really spend some quality time and one of them is Brother Dick Dungan. And you know, we spent several days with them. And, and I'm just telling him, hey, this is where my heart is, this is what I'm going through. This is what I'm understanding these are, these are other things going on. And so he's pouring into me, pouring into me. And then before we left, he gave me a book assignment. I told you guys about that. He's like, here, you need to get this book and read. I was like, okay, and But Beth and I both have read in it's, it's a good book, we're gonna probably go through it three times. But my point is that we're never too old to be fathered. We're never too old to have spiritual mothers. Now dick is 80 years old this year, I think is his birthday this year. I don't know if I'm allowed to tell it. But I'm telling the whole world right now. At least 60 countries and, and his spiritual father, one of his spiritual fathers is still alive. And still they talk on a regular basis they interact. Now I'm telling you If an 80 year old man can have a spiritual father, so can I. So can you. Now, here's one thing I noticed about him. And I've talked about this before. I've had many fathers and mentors in my life. And so some of them, many of them, most of them, are you with me. Most of them retired in their 70s. And they're just kind of coasting. Now, I'm not criticizing that. I'm just saying, I don't want to do that. I'm like, Lord, wait a minute. I want to, I want to have more spiritual energy than that. I want to have the spiritual energy and passion. Do you guys remember? The retreat? Many of you were at the retreat last year. And we did a brand new song I had just come out. I forget the title, but it goes, I think God, it's called I think, God. Remember what happened when we start singing that song? Do you remember Dick Duncan? Do you remember what he did? He said, Man, that guy turned it loose. I'm like, man, I've known Dick since 1993. I've never seen him dance. And he just starts dancing. And he's dancing to the song. And I said, Lord, I want that kind of passion and grace, and to hunger for you, and hunger for your word and hunger for your people like that, when I'm 80 years old, if you allow me to live on this earth that long, I want to still be going with that kind of passion. And so those people get my attention. Another one of my spiritual father, 76 years old this year, he's been my spiritual father since 1983. DIX since 1993. And he's still pastoring, still up on the stage playing the keyboard in the worship, and still speaking in a start sharing, and he's crying, and he's full of energy. And he loves God with all of his heart, he's not perfect. He's just like the rest of us. He has faults like all of us. But you know what, if you look for people's fault, you'll never find a father or a mother or a mentor, or anybody. But if you can look past them, and see them for who God sees them as, then you will have spiritual fathers and mothers, and then you will have spiritual sons and daughters. I'm gonna tell you now, this is another side of this, as spiritual fathers and mothers, if you start looking at mistakes in people, you won't mentor anybody. Are you with me? You won't invest into them, because you'll see their mistakes. Don't do that. As a parent, don't do that, right. So this in this, this is our call to the nations, I'm bringing this up, because God didn't just call us to do that our focus is not mission house. Jennifer, how many times have you heard me say that? I've probably said it 1000s. I'm like, Oh, our focus. We love the families and mission house. But we are here to take you to the next level to help you get to the next level. And in some cases, I'm not even at the next level. But what I've found is if we stretch out and obey God, He takes us both there. Right? He does it. We do it together. Many times the next altitude, the next elevation, the next level, the next season. We're not even there to get there. Sometimes it's just a matter of obedience. And we get there together. Right? Amen. This is God's call upon us to the nation's. Well, I'm going to stop there. There's a lot more here. I'm going to, I'm going to share a little bit more next week. And that will probably I won't promise no, I'm not sharing next week, I think, someone else's teach. I'm gonna share it the next time it's my turn to teach, which is going to be two or three weeks, I think. So we'll continue and we'll close this series out. For those of you that are leaving, we'll publish it, you can hear it online and what have you. And that's something else. By the way, I'll tell you, many of these communities like the Micronesian community we've been investing into, they have been taking our series like, like Bible college courses, and studying them, and investing in really learning what they can. And so we try to give them the notes and things and I'm telling you something's working because they're playing a lot of churches, there's a lot of people come into the Lord. So we're grateful for them and grateful for that. Let's pray. And then we'll enter into any discussion. Lord, we thank you so much for your call to this spiritual family. And, Lord, we thank You that You've called us to do life together. I thank you for friendship. I thank you for family. Lord, we thank You that Lord you have blessed us with one another. What an honor it is to know your precious people, not to just sit in a pew next to them, but to know each one and to do life together. Lord, we pray for the many people in the nation as you've called us to already, as well as those who will call us to. And we pray a special prayer for them today, that you will put them on our hearts, that you will put the call of God like a fire in us, so that we cannot sit still that we declare, like Jeremiah Shut up like fire in our bones, and we must proceed into the fullness of the will of God. And Lord, we give you thanks in Jesus name. Amen. 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 Aaron nola.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. Their lives will be better because of your generosity, and Heaven will be greater because of your love. We pray that you will be drawn ever closer in your walk with God and that you will see his dreams unfold in your life in extraordinary ways. Thank you for your faithful prayers and gifts that enable us to take the Friends of Jesus movement to the nations as we watch the rise of the presence of God in His people throughout the earth.