David Hughes - El Poder de la cercanía

Caballero, caballero, vamos a dar un buen aplauso por todas las mujeres. Vamos a hacer algo. Aquí tienen, les estoy regalando pelotas de ping-pong. Las van a necesitar luego. OK. Aquí tienen. Vamos celebrando a todas las mujeres, especialmente a las madres. Aquí está Lisa, mi esposa, una gran líder, una madre sensacional. Es una líder en la iglesia. Tenemos tres lindos hijos buenos y si me preguntan por alguna fórmula, le digo que la bendición de Dios, porque conozco grandes personas que tienen chicos no tan buenos y viceversa. Pero una de las cosas que hace falta es una madre brillante. El Ministerio Estudiantil también ayuda que vengan a eso. Vengan, tengan pelotas de ping-pong. Para decirles, mi mamá está mirando desde Indiana. Todos dicen, hola, mamá. Hola, gusto de verte. Bendiciones, mamá. Ojalá estuvieras más cerca. Pero estamos celebrando a las madres y estamos en el medio de una serie. Serie. Que se llama Rompiendo Hábitos Malos. Alguien tiene un hábito fastidioso que le trae problemas o a lo mejor están tratando de darse cuenta cuál es su hábito malo. Vamos a ver cómo hacemos para tomar de la mano ese problema. No has podido romper ese ciclo. Has tratado antes, pero hoy vamos a decirte cómo romper esa cadena. Si es algo muy malo o totalmente tóxico o simplemente problemático. Quizás a ti te tocó ahora, pero has estado en tu familia por generaciones. Esas disfuncionalidades generacionales han sido algo increíble.

Entiendes que si siguen su madre. Tu madre lo hizo y ellos de sus madres y sus padres. A lo mejor no es nada grave, pero el simple hecho de vivir de cheque, cheque, lo cual no es un pecado, pero es estresante. Cómo puedes romper ese ciclo para ser libre? Porque mi dios es un dios de libertad. Y si te preguntas por qué las pelotas de ping pong, les explicaré al final si el tiempo nos lo permite para la gente que están mirando en línea que se van a quedar conmigo también hasta el final. Les prometo que va a tener sentido. Vamos a la Biblia. Vamos a dos de Reyes, el capítulo 22. Esto es una persona que rompió cadenas que se llama José Díaz. Un hombre, un líder remarcable, un descendiente directo de David y un líder joven increíble que debe de ser estudiado más profundo. Pero él entra en una situación de una disfuncionalidad generacional. Yo no creo que debamos pagar por los pecados de nuestros padres, pero creo que malos ejemplos dejan una marca de ejemplos negativos en tu familia por generaciones. Y cómo podemos romper ese ciclo? Bueno, veamos. José hace eso exactamente. Dice el padre. El nombre de su padre era Amón y era un mal padre. Todo lo que hacía era valo. Él se convirtió en el rey de Judá en sus veintes, pero era tan malo y tan diabólico que hasta su propia gente lo mató después de dos años mandando. Y el papá de Amón, el papá de José, es Manasa. Este es el peor.

Verdaderamente el peor. En sentarse en el trono de Judá es profundamente pagano, sensacionalmente pecador. Es diabólico. Ponen dioses paganos en lugar del verdadero Dios. Sacrifica a su único, a su propio hijo para este Dios pagano. Es horrible. No solamente es el peor rey en Judá. Es uno de los peores líderes en la historia del mundo. Ponlo junto con Mussolini, con Saddam Hussein, con Hitler. Es el peor de los peores. Pero manda por cincuenta y cinco años. José viene al trono, un hombre joven, después de seis décadas de disfuncionalidad. Pero él rompe el ciclo. Él rompe el ciclo. Déjeme enseñarte. Déjeme explicarle cómo nuestro joven héroe José. Vamos a empezar en Segunda de Reyes, 22 capítulo 22, verso 1. Dice, está muy joven. Dice, cuando tenía ocho años comenzó a reinar y reinó por 31 años. El nombre de su madre era Jedidah, hija de Hadaís. Ella era de Bozca. Él hizo lo recto ante los ojos del Señor y siguió completamente los caminos de su padre David, sin apartarse. to the right or to the left. Josiah is not perfect, but he's directional. He has his flaws, he has his problems. We all have them, but the direction of his life is to follow God with passion. His father didn't do it.

His grandmother taught him how to do it. But he's the one who breaks the chain. We're on Mother's Day. We're talking about a lot of men. Why? Today is Mother's Day. We're talking about these men. And you ask me, what does it have to do with mothers? Here's a mother. In verse 1, Josiah was 8 years old. When he began to reign, he reigned for 31 years. His mother's name was Jedidah. I want to study Jedidah for a little while. It's barely mentioned in the Scriptures. But the name means beloved by God. And the rest is the name of where he was from, his region. But the mother of this little boy is a single mother. Her husband died when he was young, 8 years old. And she does the best she can. She does an incredible job. What do we know? We all need help. That's the number one point here. She needed it. We all need help. The Bible calls us the first line of defense for our children. It is not God who raises our children. It's not the school. It's not the principal. It's not the counselors. No, it's the parents who have the responsibility to raise their children.

Whether it's a house with two parents or just one. But you know what? We all need help to do it. Here's Jedidah. She's a single mom. When she was 8 years old, she was a widow. She's 8 years old. And she's in a very precarious situation. Why? Because she could be killed too. The kings were not chosen. Most of the time, the result of someone coming to the kingdom was violent. Murder or things like that. What does she do? Well, she looks for people. People like Stephen. Good people. We all need help. And she looks for it. We all need help. We have a tremendous staff in our church. A lot of them are young people who come from good families. But we have a lot of them where their parents weren't around. A lot of them came to the church without their parents. And they got their spiritual family here. If your family is weird, get yourself a new family. And the church becomes a spiritual village. What a brilliant thing. I'm here thinking, how did she marry this bad man at the beginning? You know, people have very good women.

How did that happen? They marry horrible men. In those days, marriages were chosen. So this man chose the name of his daughter. And he chose the name of his daughter. So this man chose the name of his daughter. But he gives her a name that means, my daughter loves God. She's God's favorite. But she marries a terrible man. You can tell when you say something with your mouth and do something else. So she ends up marrying this horrible man. He's evil. He's selfish. Imagine that. He kills him. I understand. When he's killed, do you think she was sad? Or was she calm? Or happy? But she still has her 8-year-old son. He's very vulnerable. So she looks for people around her to help her protect him. You have to find a way to do the same. You have to come to the church. Here you will find your spiritual family. And when you get involved in the church, here you will find family. People like you who want change, it's always something that leads you to a need for community. Find that. If your family is weird, find a new family.

I am so grateful for my family in the church. And for what they do. And well, these people that she got, what do they do? Well, they protect him. They probably limited the access to young Josias. Many times the leaders of Israel had public courts, and anyone could come and expose their case. But Josias is only 8 years old. He begins his public reform of government when he is 20 years old. So for these 12 years, they limited his access. Everyone wants a piece of you, but they are part of the problem. You have all these dysfunctional people that want a piece of you. You know what? Multitudes followed Jesus. However, he only chose 12. And sometimes he would choose 3 out of the 12 to present himself as the transgression, the transformation, to only 3 of them. I'm not sure what Nathanael or Bartolomeo thought of what he taught the other 3 when he took them to the transformation, the transfiguration. But he chose. Why? He protected. Jesus protected himself from these multitudes. It's the same thing here. Josias begins his reform when he was young. And maybe he thought, I wish I was more popular. I wish I would have sat with the cool guys at school. And maybe you pray to God to help you to be a part of these things. But God not letting you be in all these things,

being popular, being the best athlete. Maybe it's God protecting you, hiding you to protect you, instead of presenting you in front of everyone and exposing you. You can grow a platform in the spotlight. You can grow popularity when you're in the public eye. You can do a lot of things when you're in the public eye. But the character doesn't develop in the public eye. God is not reforming you. He's refining your criteria, your character. Usually all of that is done outside of the public eye. So when you're exposed to the public eye, you're prepared. What did they do? What did they do with Hosea? They protected him. They limited access to him until he was ready. And in 2 Chronicles, it says this, in verse 3 of chapter 34, it says, In the eighth year of his reign, 8 times 8, which is 16. Let me stop right there. He's 16. That is young. They want to change his license for a driving license. But he can't drive past 11 at night. He can't even go to Junior Prom.

He is 16 years old and look what he says and what he does. When he was young, he started to search for God. This teenager is searching for God. He's hungry for God. He's thirsty for God. He's not hungry for power or money. No. He's the king. He's hungry for God. What changes the game for this young man who wants the favor of God, that's what it is. He searches for God. And he didn't grow up like that. His father and his grandfather were beasts, imbeciles, sinners. However, he breaks the cycle. The best and first thing you can do with your life is to be a seeker of God. While he's searching for God, he's only 16 years old, he starts to reform the people of God. He renews the temple. The temple has been without doing anything for 60-something years. It's desecrated. He cleans the temple of God. He says he pays for everything. And while he cleans the temple of God, as you see here, it says 12 Kings 22,

and Isaiah, the high priest, said to Zaphan, the secretary, I have found the book of the law in the temple of the Lord. So, he's searching for God, but there's no Bible. We here in this church, we love the Bible. I put it everywhere. I put it here on the podium. I put it on the display. I put it everywhere. It doesn't matter who's teaching. We do everything by teaching the word of God. God's word is transformative. If you take what the Bible says and apply it, God will change your life for the better. But here is a young man who is seeking God, but there are no Bibles. The story of Manasseh was so intense before in destroying the word of God that they tried to destroy all the copies of the Torah. You see, later in this story, the synagogue would have the copies of the Torah, the first five books that we have in the Old Testament. But all these copies are in the temple and there are not many. Why? We have the Bible now in our cell phones, smart phones, laptops, all that, right? And if you're smart, you have the Bible on your smartphone. Okay, but this is before the printing press, so each copy had to be transcribed by hand. But Manasseh was so diabolical and so bad that he tried to burn, erase, and eradicate each of those copies. So he's still looking for God. His people and his mentors are looking for God, but they don't have access to a Bible. Okay, and do you know that the Bible is indestructible? Do you know that the Bible says about itself that it is indestructible? In Isaiah chapter 40 and in Matthew 24 it says, Heaven and earth will pass, but the word of God will never pass. And you see this pass through history, not just in Manasseh. The Nazis in Germany, the communists in China, in Cuba, the Jihadists in the Middle East. They've all tried to destroy the word of God, but it's still there.

And it's one of the best-selling books in the whole world, in the whole history of the world. Now, if you're looking for God, what do you need to do? You need to look in your heart for the word of God. Here's the young king. He says, wow. They got a Bible. And he says, no, he says, they got it. And he says, take it into the museum. And they say, we got the Torah. Oh no. He says immediately, please, bring it immediately and read it to me immediately. All of it. And they read it to him. All of it in one sitting. By the way, if you're not impressed with that, there's 5,000, I don't know how many verses in the Torah. It's like 125,000 words based on your language. That would take 14 to 16 hours to read in one sitting. This young man says, I want it all now. He didn't say, let's read 15 minutes a day. Let's read an hour a day. He didn't say an hour a day. He said, I want it all now. Wow. That's a heart. I love that. He was so hungry. And he says, not only did he hear, he heard and he cried. He realized that they were so misaligned with the word of God that neither he nor his people were doing. He breaks all his attire. His heart is broken by the word of God when he hears what they should be doing. A teenager looking for the word of God. And he says, in verse 13, he says, he asked. He asked. He asked for an explanation. I want to understand it. Not just hear it. I want to understand it because the word has to be applied.

So, it was like he said, well, look for teachers of the Bible. Bible studies. So, he went to talk to the prophet Uldah, who was the wife of Salome, daughter of Tikva, son of Harash. This is part of what I understand why we don't read the Bible. Here they throw us this bunch of names. This genealogy. His daughter. His wife. I don't know what. I don't know if it's Uldah or Shara. Wow. It's not amazing that they invented the surnames. Because, wow. It's incredible. The surnames help us a lot. Because we can't say, oh, this is Jenkins, this is Jones. It would be so easy. In the Old Testament, they would say, oh, this is a Weinstein, or this is a Jose Weinstein or a Jose Goldberg. Why is this young king making all these references to people? Because he wants to understand the word of God. interesting that of all the prophets, they chose Huldah. Jeremiah had just begun his ministry, but I think they chose Huldah because she was older. Jeremiah was contemporary to King Josiah. They wanted someone older. Why? Because they wanted to understand. Remember that Manasseh finished with almost all the copies of the word of God. For 55 years this man was destroying all of this. So we had to find someone who could predict all this destruction of this king of Manasseh. So she listened to the word of God Huldah from a young age, and then despite all this time spent in the destruction of his word, she already had it implemented. This young man is in high school, but he is hungry for God. He brings the energy of a young man. He brings all this energy, this passion. So they look for an adult, an older adult, who brings the inner part, personal experience.

They need each other. I know that our church is multi-generational, and you know what? We all need each other. And it gets better. And after they explain the word of God to him, he calls a national assembly. You know why? Well, because he's the famous, the obscure, the poor. They all come. And what happens in these meetings? King Josiah, at 20 years old, he stands up and he reads the word of God to everyone. Fourteen hours in that service, he reading the word of God. Don't you think it's remarkable that a political leader would do that? Can you imagine America? Think about your favorite president since you were alive, that's your guy, or pick him. He's on the White House platform. He's going to do a service. He has all these people together. And he says, I'm not going to read what they prepared for me. Instead I'm going to read to you Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy. What do you think of this? Imagine your least favorite president. And God is doing the state of the nation. You're praying for him until he's the one you least want. And then he goes to the front of the congress. He picks up a Bible. He picks up a Bible. He picks up a Bible. He picks up a Bible. He picks up a Bible. He picks up a Bible. And you can tell he's moved, and he's resolved, and he says, America, this is what we're going to do from now on. This is our plan. This is our nation from now on. Wow, that would bring a change, right? And we need that change. Our city needs a change. Our state, our state, the world, our country needs a change. And it starts with us, with you and me. We can talk about freedom and equality and great values, but if we walk in slavery, it's no use at all. That's where breaking these cycles comes from. If you're a Christian, all of these biblical principles are transformative. If you're a person of faith, you have an advantage, because if you're a saved person, you have the Holy Spirit living within you. And if you're not, we can change it at the end of this service. And acceptance of God's family is the Holy Spirit of the Holy Spirit that lives within you. When you choose Christ as your Savior, okay? So if the Holy Spirit lives in you, he brings his characters and his qualities to you, okay? Like the fruits of the Holy Spirit. Like he says, all the things that the Spirit of God adores. Peace, patience, freedom, good adventure, being faithful, kind, and personal control. How do you change?

Ah, God, our God has... a perfect personal control and now his spirit lives in you we walk in the spirit and you will not surrender to the desires of the flesh that gets complicated so i'm going to give you i love what it says in santiago 4 8 very simple come to god and he will come to you simple what does it mean don't overly complicate it you have a heart for god a heart for his word a heart for the house of god you like church but you miss too much don't tell me i like church but you miss it this needs to be a protected habit in your family you have to come 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 weeks in a row ok you don't do anything without a spiritual foundation we need the church a heart for his word for his house, for his people you come to god like this and when you come to god his choices become yours imagine you're camping you're climbing and it's bitterly cold well it's hard to imagine

that with this heat but suddenly you find yourself in a camp and there's no one but there's a very hot fire lit up how do you take advantage of this candle how do you do it do you meditate do you look up what the fire means in wikipedia and you do all this search but what do you really have to do you have to get close to the fire to get warm and the hebrews say that our god is a fire lit that if you want his power and his transformation you get close to that fire it's like maybe you want to save people but you're too far from god you need to leave space god can't bless you if you're leaving space between you and him that's why your habits are not changing example, ping pong ball imagine the ping pong ball represents a habit that you can't change

whatever it is, a substance, alcohol or your bravery or your character divorce work that cycle goes on and on and you can't change it imagine my cup that I have here is usually hot water and you want to change ok so demonstration if you're in the front line take your ping pong ball and I want you to put it in my cup of water coffee, but right now it has water wow, horrible pathetic wow, how bad wow, but no one has been even close, please someone second, third line someone my god how horrible, terrible, terrible I feel so bad close

let's see, let's see, girl it's not that hard, look obviously I'm the most athletic in this room obviously I'm what? close I'm close God loves you so much that Jesus died for you to adore you and love you just like you are aren't you tired and sick of being sick and tired he's going to break that generational dysfunction today you were born in a house where they loved you but your mom and your dad were so tired of losing that they passed it on to you break the chain Judea sought her mother sought the right people to put her around and Hosea changes the game he's the one who makes a generational change

that didn't happen for 60 years how are you saved everyone who calls the name of the Lord will be saved so everyone come and come back next week please come back all that freedom you want to enjoy is in Christ love Love, joy, faith, kindness, give us self-control, give us your self-control in Jesus' name. Amen.