Calling Gen X to Arise
As a final act of the gathering, the Lord had instructed us that He wanted a declaration made over the Gen X. The fathers and mothers positioned themselves on one side of the Alberta map with the Gen X standing on the other 3 sides. Then the fathers and mothers acknowledged that God is raising the Gen X to be part of the company of leaders entrusted to carry His heart for Alberta by giving us several ‘charges” (even as Paul did to his spiritual son Timothy in 2 Timothy 4) from the wisdom they have gleaned through their many years of ministry.
Rick shared first:
“One day I had been doing my fast and it had been relatively uneventful. I was about to go to bed at 11:30 when I saw my 14 year old son was still up and I told him to stop gaming and go to bed. 'Yes dad,' he answered. I then woke up at 3:00 am only to find the lights on downstairs and someone still gaming. We had some 'insightful dialogue' and I chased him verbally to bed. I tried to go back to sleep but instead I lay there stewing 'Why can’t he listen to me? I don’t understand.' "
And in the midst of this, the finger of God came and touched something in my heart.
'Thirty years ago ,' He began, 'revival touched something in your heart. And because of that you have placed it above everything else. It was so deep in you that you used it as a measuring stick. If someone/something would bring you closer to that goal, you would embrace them. And if not, you would make them secondary.'
And I realized I had done this with everything in my life. And this deep sense of grief and sorrow came over my heart. The next morning when I was waking up out of sleep I heard the Lord say: 'The highest name I give myself and the foundation stone of reality is 'Father.' When God wanted to fully explain and express Himself He sent forth His son who fully explained His Father. That’s the highest manifestation/revelation of God. It’s that of Father. We hold him as King and that is His position – but as to His person and His Presence, it is Father.
The day after this experience, I woke up from a dream where we had to burst through an old foundation that was cement. And the last image I saw before waking up was a jumble and tumble of cement with re-bar sticking out. And I had a sense that 'We did it.' And somehow, in some way, I believe the heart of what we will walk out is that the Father will reveal Himself in a fresh new way and that will help us understand ourselves as true sons and daughters of the King.
There is a great movie called ' Kingdom of Heaven.' It’s about a young man whose father is a baron but he had a tryst with a maid and so the illegitimate son was born. The father comes and finds him and rescues him, but in so doing, the father is killed. Just before dies, he commissions his son by passing over the symbol of his authority and his ownership, which is his sword. Then later the son repeats the same process with others who are fighting to defend Jerusalem.
We feel there is a sword the Lord has given us - His word, His precious promises, that we’ve been walking in and in so doing they have produced divine nature in us. And what we want to do is take from our life and commission and challenge you and say 'If you will take this from our lives, it will help you to fulfill all that God has put in you and that we have prayed for. Because we recognize you are the fruit of our labours and prayers. And as we have cried out and others like us, God has brought you here for such a time as this. You have come into the kingdom for such a time of this. This isn’t a passing of a baton, this is simply out of our own life, we want to give you these instructions as Paul wrote to Timothy so that you in turn can find other faithful ones and give them instructions as well. And together we will see the Lord gain His glory that His name might be renowned and held in fear and awe in this place and space that He has given us to establish His kingdom.' "
So before God and His elect angels, because I believe the balustrades of heaven are crowded now and the angelic hosts and the saints who have laid down their lives are all watching. And the enemy is watching too and I hope it brings fear in him because God is shifting something. So I want to say to you, please, out of what God has shown me, never never never put vision above people. Take deeply the passion, take deeply the vision God puts in you but realize people are the vision. God’s kingdom and his people are the vision. It’s always about that and if you do that your burden will be light and God will add strength and speed to your feet."
Mark shared secondly:
“You all remember when Jesus was baptized and the most significant thing that happened was a voice that came from heaven saying: “This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.” And just as the greatest revelation about God is as a Father, the greatest revelation we can have about ourselves is of our identity as sons and daughters. Jesus heard the heavenly voice and so did the people around him. And what happened next? He went to the wilderness and was tempted by the enemy in what? His identity. 'If you really are the son of God, if you are…' But he knew that He didn’t have to prove a thing, He knew exactly who he was. And I speak over you tonight, your identity first and foremost as sons and daughters of the living God. And the voice of heaven speaks over you tonight, this is my beloved son and this is my beloved daughter in whom I’m well pleased.”
And secondly I give this charge to you. It’s an obscure thing that Paul says in Colossians at the end of his letter: 'Tell Archippus: Make sure you complete the work you have received in the Lord.' So I give you this charge as well: Make sure you complete the work you have received in the Lord. As Paul said: ' I wasn’t disobedient to the heavenly vision.' It has to be a heavenly, vision, a work in the Lord. Whatever it is, raising your kids, preaching the gospel – make sure it’s in the Lord and make sure you complete it. Many of you have received the work of the Lord, the call many many years ago but the charge is still there to you make sure you complete the work you received from the Lord.”
Thirdly Jim shared:
“In my life it hasn’t been so much sacrificing people for vision but the opposite: The desire to perform for people. Keeping in mind what Rick said, I would strongly urge you: Don’t perform for others, for what people expect of you, what your parents expect of you – listen to what God says. I urge you in connection with this to embrace humility and obedience. The thing I have done since the first day in my ministry in 1982 – is to pray for humility and wisdom every day. And I encourage you to pray for those two things and you know God will answer that. You may not like the way he answers the 'humility' part, but remember it is in these times you will learn the wisdom that you need.”
Danyele was the fourth one to speak:
“One of the things that I would say to you is 'endure hardship as a good soldier.' Don’t bow to pressure or circumstances, don’t bow to the right or the left or to the sound of the enemy. Don’t bow to enemy, don’t bow to anything but your Lord! Bottom line: It is about the will of God. Do what is right in the sight of the Lord. Every time you are to make a decision – if you are tempted to be angry, ask yourself 'is this right in the sight of the Lord?' Put Him first and you won’t become a man pleaser and you won’t’ fear man.
And the word of the Lord says, Jesus said, “I have come down from heaven to do the will of God who sent me not to do my own will. In 2 Cor 10:5 in the Message Bible, it says “fitting every loose thought, every emotion and impulse into the structure of life shaped by Christ.” What is that structure? He did the will of the Lord. So as a good soldier, endure hardship because the kingdom call is about being a good soldier. Be totally committed and consecrated to that – lay down your life for your King. If you do that first God will honour it.”
After Danyele, Brenda (from the national team of Women’s Aglow) spoke as the fith speaker:
“I would charge you that obedience is better than sacrifice. It is a broken and contrite heart that God will not despise. It’s ok to be broken. And the last thing, because I’ve overcome people pleasing in my life, this is who He esteems: He who fears and trembles at His word.”
And finally Barb shared:
“A word that came to me today is Isaiah 50:7 - I have set my face like flint. Because of the things I have had to overcome personally and in ministry that has had to be built in me. But it was from God. God did it and I didn’t have to work it up. So my word to you is perseverance. We are overcomers. Set your face like flint to the call God has on your life. God will be more than enough for each one of you."
As they completed these charges to the Gen X, the fathers made this declaration from one generation to another: “Because He is, we can. And we are standing before you saying: ' Yes you can, Son. Yes you can, Daughter. Rise up, yes you can! Despite circumstances, rise up, yes you can! Because He is, yes you can. And your response is 'yes we can!' "
Then they took a large sword that they were holding in their hands and passed it across the map into the hands of the Gen Xers.
The Gen X responded saying, “We feel so humbled and honoured to be here. We’ve heard 'take the baton and run' and how many times have we felt we do want to run, but not alone. We think of the verse in Malachi 4 – the hearts of the fathers will turn to the sons and then the hearts of the sons will turn to the fathers. And there is a promise that goes with that, a blessing. So we say: 'We receive your wisdom, we receive your wise counsel and take it to heart. We will be found as 2 Timothy says, as faithful men and women who receive it and pass it on to other faithful men and women. That is our commitment and we will endeavour to do by the grace of God through faith.'
It’s important also for us to say we understand that we have left you for a long time carrying the sword alone. And tonight as we stand here, we say 'No more.' No more will we stand as critics, in judgment, pointing the finger and saying 'You should make it a better church.' We are going to stand alongside you, even as you have invited us to. Because it’s our church, not your church, it’s our church. It’s our province. And you are not going to labour alone. We are going to lift up your arms, you will lift up our arms and together we will run like the wind.”
As a final act we gathered all the children and Millenials (Generation Y) and asked them to stand inside the circle that had been created by the Gen X and fathers and mothers standing together. The kids, ages 5-12, had spent the whole gathering in a special kids equipping school where they had been learning about waking up spiritually, how to hear God, what does it mean to live in the kingdom and how do we walk as one body and one family. And that very night, they had learned about the righteous foundations of the province and about the righteous seeds in the ground and about how we need to call those seeds to life. So as we stood together, representing all the generations (Builders, Boomers, Gen X, Millenials and even the little kids of whom we don’t even know the name of their generation yet!) we leaned over the map of Alberta and shouted for the righteous seeds, planted by the generations that have gone before us, to WAKE UP!!!
