You Can Fly

3:47 Help me welcome him. Happy Father's Day, fresh life. Happy Father's Day. I've always had a great relationship with my dad. I know that is not everybody's experience. We grew up outside of the church. We kind of came in the church together. And, you know, there's been some ups and downs. But thank you, dad, if you're watching. It's amazing. If I can be half the dad to my kids that my dad has been to me, I will be satisfied. Speaking of my dad, when I was 15, my dad and I started taking golf lessons. I think it's a pretty standard thing for a father and son to do. And I was into it. It was a local driving range. We never actually went on a golf course. But, you know, I do that now with my son. And I hear over the dining table one day that we're not doing golf lessons anymore.

4:47 I'm thinking, what? Dad has bought himself a hang glider and is going to go off the next weekends and learn to fly. And I'm thinking, shoot, I mean, nobody asked me. Well, 15-year-old kid, who's going to ask me anyway? Anyway, fast forward, the next summer we're watching my dad fly his hang glider and crash his hang glider and fly his hang glider a bit higher and crash a bit less. And as we're on the hang gliding hill, I see a stolen hang glider. I'd read about it in a magazine and there was a reward out for this stolen hang glider. And I'm like, Dad, that is it. That's the make, model, the colours and everything. It had been stolen from a hang gliding school. And I got a reward for finding it. What do you think the reward would be from a hang gliding school?

5:42 Hang gliding lessons. Yes, my poor mother now has her 16-year-old son and her husband flying around the sky. And Dad and I did. We went off every weekend with the hang gliding club. And we were flying above the British hills where I grew up. We were either flying or we were in the pub waiting for the wind to pick up or die down and just wish we were flying. And I got a few pictures here of the early hang gliding days. This is me when I was 20 years of age. It was taken five years ago.

6:25 Just about to run down that ramp. If you notice that yellow thing on the bar, I'll come back to that in a minute. Well, in a few minutes. And then the next picture. The next picture is a few seconds later. I'm running down this ramp. And you see the hang glider is starting to lift me up. My little spindly legs there are just about to leave the ground. And if you go on to the next picture, this is not me. This is my dad. and he mounted the camera on his wing. And I just want to point out one thing here for those of you who think this because I know a lot of people do. I've had people say to me, oh, I could never go hang gliding. I could never hang on that long. Well, you don't hang on, you hang from. You see, he's attached to the hang glider.

7:19 He could let go of that bar that he's holding onto, the control bar. He could let go. he wouldn't die. Okay. There's going to be lots of parallels in this message between hang gliding and flying and the gospel and parenting. And a hang glider gives you physical wings. Yeah. You can, and if you believe that those wings will hold you up, you can run down that ramp and you can fly and you can go places you could never go on foot. And just the same, God has given each of us dads. He's given us spiritual wings. And if we believe those wings will hold us up, we can go places other people cannot go. Pastor Levi read for us there, Ephesians chapter 1 and verse 3.

8:13 I wanted to go over it again. All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us, has blessed us with every spiritual blessing. Has is past tense. When we became a believer, God downloaded into our hearts everything we need for living a Godly life. Actually, Peter said that same thing. That was Ephesians 1.3. This is 2 Peter 1.3. It says, by his divine power, God has given us, us believers, he has given us everything we need for living a godly life. He's given us wings. Just let that sink in. Everything we need. Our wings are invisible. Faith is invisible. But friends, you can fly. Dads, you can fly above the craziness of this world with the wings God has given us. And that's the title of the message.

9:16 You can fly. Dads, you can fly. My whole purpose in the next few minutes is to convince you that you can fly as a dad. You've got this. You know, obviously the title came from Peter Pan and he said, all you need was happy thoughts and pixie dust. And then you can fly out of the bedroom and off into your dreams. But Isaiah tells us, and I like this version better, those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. That's a lot like flying to me. Wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. You may never fly a hang glider. Although in the first service, we found somebody who did. So if you did, come and see me. But I'm going to go in the next few minutes, we're going to go over five ways you and your kids can soar. We're going to use hand gliding to shine a light on different aspects of being a dad. The first one is watch out for overreaction. Well, that's a strange start, Paul. Yes. In my early 20s, I was working for minimum wage in Salinas, California, putting hang gliders together. And that wasn't really the joy. The joy was at the weekend, we got to fly all these brand new high performance hang gliders. You take one out of the bag and we'd fly it. And I was at Fort Funston, just south of the Golden Gate, San Francisco.

10:59 And there's a beautiful hang gliding hill there. The wind was perfect. I got a whole bunch of hang gliders to test fly. And on that picture you saw, there was no wind that day. You had to run, run, run, run, run, run, run, and eventually it lifted you off. But if there's a good wind blowing, you only have to take one step and you're up and you're off to, and you're sore above the ridge and you go backwards and forwards. And I was going through these hang gliders, test flying them. Yeah, that one's good. Land back on top, get the next one, unload that, fly that one. Yeah, that one's good. Land, talk to a tourist, grab a snack, do the next one. Just live in the dream, you know, 20 years of age, having a blast. I get to the last hang glider and it's like, oh man, this is an XL. This is a huge hang glider. You know, I'm not a huge guy. You can see that. It's like, what do I do? It's like, oh, I've got to finish the job. So I start setting this thing up. I wasn't paying attention to changing conditions. I was distracted by this huge hang glider. Anyway, I come to take off and I realise now I have to run, run, run, run, run, run, run, because the wind had died down.

12:13 Should have noticed that beforehand. But as I take off and I get off the ground, the front of the hang glider, that we call it the nose, it tilts right up. And I'm thinking, yikes, if you stall on takeoff, you know, it hurts when you hit the ground. So I pull that control bar down and I go into a big dive to pick up some speed. And I'm thinking, whoa, this glider is crazy. And then I realize, oh, now I'm not above the ridge like I was on all the other flights that day. Now I'm halfway down the ridge. And I'm thinking, oh, I'm going to have to land this thing at the bottom and carry it up. So I looked down to the beach for the landing zone. and there is no beach. The other thing I hadn't noticed is the tide's now in.

13:08 We have ocean, we have waves, and we have rocks, and we have the hill. I'll finish the story later. Just in case you attempted to go. So obviously I overreacted on takeoff. And as parents, we can overreact on takeoff as well. If we were raised super strict, yeah, and then when we get to be parents, it's like, oh man, we couldn't do anything as kids. We're going to give our kids some freedom. We're just going to let them explore the world for themselves. Well, those kids grow up. And then when they come to be parents, they're like, our parents to this day don't know some of the things we did. We're going to have some rules in our house. And you get this generational pendulum thing going. And counsellors who counsel parents, they actually have a name for this.

14:05 They call it pendulum parenting. Because if both parents were raised with one extreme, they will usually go to the other extreme. So I just want you to, when you get a little bit of time on your own, which could be today, could be three years time, I don't know, just ask yourself, hey, are we overreacting to the way we were parented? So no pressure, no condemnation going into it. You're just asking a question. And if you are, you can make some adjustments to the big picture of your parenting. If you're not, that's fine. If you're making little adjustments, that's great. There'll always be little adjustments. The other way we can overreact is in the moment. We have any dads, any honest dads in the house who have overreacted in the moment dealing with their kids? I see a lot of hands. Yes, I have. I know I have way too many times. I know Pastor Levi has, because this was in my notes when he read them and he didn't cross it out. So he could have. He could have said, Paul, I've never overreacted, but obviously. And even the Pope, if he had kids, he would have overreacted as well. We have all overreacted. And I just want to encourage dads, you're not the only one. You're not the only one. Sometimes we sit here in the house and we think, wow, look at all these dads. They've all got it together. And then there's me.

15:38 I mean, if they knew me, God knows you. He loves you anyway. There's a crazy story in Luke 9, the end of Luke 9. I'm not going to read it, but it's only a few verses. It's only in Luke. And you can read it Luke 9, 54-ish. Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem for the last time. and he sends some of the disciples ahead of him to get a room for the night. And the disciples come back and they say, hey, the Samaritans won't let us stay in that village. They refused. And when James and John hear about this, they say to Jesus, we got an idea. And the idea could be, hey, let's just do some random kindness on the way through or let's kneel down now and have some prayer for them. But no, James and John, get this. James and John who had been interning with Jesus for three plus years, eating and drinking and traveling with him, listening to all his sermons. This is James and John. How to solve the Samaritan problem. Let's call fire down from heaven and burn the village alive. Great idea. Yeah. Great idea. And you think you've got problems. Here's the thing though.

16:57 I bring this story up because how did Jesus respond to that overreaction? Does he put his hands on his hips and say, guys, we've been doing this for quite a while now and you're still not getting it? I mean, we just don't burn people up because they don't let us stay the night. This is not how we do things. Remember the Sermon on the Mount? Do you remember that? Anyway, this is James and John. James and John, who in Luke 9.1 were given power to heal people. Remember, he sent them out two by two and they were healing people. In Luke 9.28, they're on the Mount of Transfiguration with Moses and Elijah and Jesus. And then in Luke 9.54, let's burn them up.

17:53 Let's burn them up. Jesus could have said to them, you know, I'm done. I'm done with you guys. I'm so glad you didn't sail your boat. And we had that conversation because you need to get back up to Capernaum and start fishing again because I just can't deal with this. I mean, I'm going to die for the sins of the world and you're still trying to burn people alive.

18:14 So that's When we overreact, I just want you to remember, God does not abandon you. What did Jesus do with those overreactors? They went on to Jerusalem together. And when they get to the Garden of Gethsemane, probably the pinnacle of Jesus' ministry, who does he take in the garden with him? James and John and Peter. Unbelievable, with a God like that. We can fly, dads. We can fly. Going back to Fort Funston. So I'm halfway down the hill. There's nowhere to land. I can see people up on top all peering over like, what is going to happen to this kid? Anyway, backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards.

19:07 And there was just enough wind. Just enough wind to get me soaring again. And dads, there's always enough wind. to get you soaring again, even after a big overreaction. There's enough Holy Spirit for all of us. Point number two, there's magic in the mundane. The dream of most hang glider pilots is to find a thermal, we'll talk about that a bit in a minute, and go round and round and up and up and all the way to cloud base. But the reality is most of the hang gliding that we do is what's called ridge soaring. Let's just imagine for a minute that this stage is a hill and the wind is coming right up the hill. Okay, so the wind's coming up. I can take off and I can fly in that updraft. That's what I was doing there at Fort Funston. And it's a lot like parenting.

20:11 You're just going backwards and forwards on your hang glider. And in parenting, you just feel like we're just going backwards and forwards. I mean, we just, we get up and we go to work and we come home and we eat and we make a mess and we clean up and we go to bed and we get up and we go to work and we take the kids to school and we just go backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards.

20:39 But parents, you've got to know there is magic happening in the mundane things of everyday life. You can't speed it up. You can't bypass it. You can't substitute it. It's just part of giving your kids a great childhood. You know, every time you manage to sit down and eat a meal together, relationships are being built in every aspect of family life. Character is being formed every time you press through something difficult. Security is being developed every time you tuck them in at night or every time the little one just hangs onto your leg. It's like, who is that stranger? It's like, yeah, they know who to trust, mommy and daddy. Deuteronomy, this is Old Testament 6 and verse 7. And this is talking about the commands of God.

21:33 And it says, repeat them again and again to your children. Repeat them again and again. Do you get the message? talk about them when you are at home, when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you get up, when you're going backwards and forwards, just in your everyday life, there's magic happening in the mundane. Embrace the opportunity. Before you know it, they'll be waving, driving off in their old clunker of a car and you'll be like, enjoy college or enjoy your job or whatever they're going to. There's magic in the mundane. Number three, there will be conflict. You probably figured that out already, but I just want to bring a point out of the conflict. My dad and I were flying our hang gliders together off the coast of Wales. And it was a really windy day.

22:28 So you could almost hover above the beach because the wind was so vigorous. And dad is here and I come over and I'm by dad. And dad shouts to me, he says, Paul, I've got the camera. Let's take some pictures. I thought, okay, that's neat. We've never done that before. So I fly off like this. Dad pretty much stays where he is. And I come in for a big bank up and I bank up. It's like, yeah, take the picture, Dad. But I realized I blew it. I banked up way too soon. I would have been just like a spider on the wall sort of thing. So it's like, okay, let's try that again. So I fly further away and I gain a bit of elevation. I come in, come in super fast. I'm going to leave it. I'm going to leave it. You probably know where this is going. But, and then I bank up and then my uppermost wing just clips my dad's hang glider enough that he lost airspeed and stalled. And I just fell. I mean, just 200 feet. I mean, hang gliders are supposed to go like this. My hang glider was going like that. And I was weightless for a moment. I thought I was going to die. I could have died, but the hang glider pulled out. Yeah, scary. Collisions happen. Collisions are going to happen in your house.

23:46 As you're soaring backwards and forwards with your kids, just going backwards and forwards, you're going to bump into each other. It's a pity. You know when you buy any kid's thing, it comes with a thousand labels on it. Even if you just buy an extension cord, it's like, do not remove this label. This product might kill you or whatever. Wouldn't it be good if when babies were born, there was some kind of warning attached to them? I don't know, a tattoo on the thigh or something? It's like, I'm a nine on the enneagram and I know you're a three, so we're going to have some conflict. Wouldn't that be helpful? But no such thing. God obviously knows best. The thing is, when you clash, even though I was going that way, I was still flying. I was still in the air. I hadn't hit the ground. The world hadn't ended. And I want to bring out a point here for when we clash. We're still flying. Sometimes it doesn't feel like we're flying. After a clash, there is something that we can do as dads that only we as dads can do for our kids. Moms can as well and uncles and aunties, but primarily dad.

24:54 And it goes like this. Hey, son, I am so sorry. Daddy lost it back there. Do you forgive me? Do you think you could say that, dad? They're hard words, huh? I had to say that the other day to my 29-year-old daughter who's living with us at the moment with her kids and her husband. And that's a long story, but it's unfolding. They'll be in their place soon.

25:27 When God gave you a new heart as a believer, he put humility in there. You've got wings. You can apologize. You can fly. You can go places that other dads can't go because you got Jesus. And you can say, hey, I'm sorry. Take ownership, dads. You will save your kids from so much pain. If they don't learn to apologize and they go around with a chip on their shoulder or worse, life's going to be hard for them. Confess your faults. Take ownership. Eat humble pie.

26:04 You can do it, dads. You can fly. Next time there's a bus stop, I hope the Holy Spirit brings this little moment to you. I'm sure he will. I'm sure he will. Point number four, blessed are the spiraling. I borrowed this from a friend of mine. You might know him. You can get the book. If you're flying your hang glider in ridgelift and all of a sudden the air gets really turbulent, you probably just flew into a thermal. A thermal is a bubble of warm air that's rising faster than all the air around it. And you've seen the birds circle. They're circling in a thermal because the thermal's only so big. If you just fly straight through it, you miss out on the elevation gain. so thermals the thing about thermals though is they're crazy turbulent you you can be flying along in smooth air and it's bouncing and you're trying to get into it and it's like you get into it and then you're out of it and then you then you're back into it and you're fighting with this invisible thing bumpy and scary and all those things listen to me when your 10 year old daughter comes home from school and she says, Dad, the cutest boy in the school.

27:20 I mean, the cutest boy in the school. We kissed today for like 30 seconds. Oh, it was so good. Dad, you just flew into a thermal. You were just going backwards and forwards to school and dance class and soccer practice. and all of a sudden, here is an opportunity for you to gain some elevation really quickly. Or your son comes home and is like, Dad, your pickup was really nice. The cops said it's a write-off. I'm sorry. We can go and look at it if you want. Yeah, the dads are groaning. Or they left the burners on the Blackstone when you told them to switch it off. It's been going all night. Ouch. you see when you fly into some of those crazy things they just hit you out of the blue you can fly straight through them but if you start circling in that and figuring it out and working it out and praying about it you will gain some elevation you will gain some traction with your kids that you wouldn't gain any other way my dad and I were flying our hang gliders in fact the day of those pictures were taken, I think, because I was flying that hang glider. And dad and I are flying. We're not going up and we're not going down. We're just bouncing around. And all of a sudden I see dad starting to circle and I go over there and whoa, we start going up. And that little yellow thing on my hang glider you saw, that's an electronic instrument. It starts beeping.

28:53 I look at the dial and it's pegged. It's like, whoa, this thing is going up fast. So I get in and I start circling and I fall out and I get back in and it's a bit of a fight. Anyway, after five minutes, my dad and I are 5,000 feet above where we were a minute ago or five minutes ago. You can see all the other hang gliders down there, little tiny dots, because we worked with it. We got in there and worked with it. Don't ignore those crazy things that come into your life and say, why me? Why me? Why us? Yeah, it's an opportunity. Blessed are the spiraling.

29:33 Last one, number five, enjoy the smoother times. I left this one till last. Last hand garden illustration. If the wind is going over the mountains and then sinking over the valley and over the next mountain and sinking, you can actually get this phenomena called wave lift. and the wave has clouds on the top of the waves. You've seen lenticular clouds. I saw some the other day. And if you get your hang glider into some of this wave lift, it's not like a thermal, which is really bumpy and bouncy. It's super smooth. It's like being in the elevator. You just lie there and your little vario is going beep, beep, beep and you're just going up and up and up and up. And some people have not hang gliders, but regular gliders have gone to 40,000 feet with no engine, just going up in this wavelength. I got my hand glider into some wavelength one time and my buddy and I just went up and up and up until we were a mile above the ground. No effort, just in the right place at the right time.

30:38 And dads, you can put your kids in the right place at the right time. You can set up some wavelength for them. And all the dads are saying, tell us, Paul, tell us. Right, I will. Thanks for asking. You just sit them down. Maybe you're going somewhere and they're in the back of the vehicle. Maybe you're sitting watching the World Cup. And you say, hey, just tell me what's on your bucket list for this summer. What fun thing would you like to do this summer? And just let them talk. Just let them talk. Just let them say anything they want. Don't guide the conversation. You want to go fishing in Alaska in Daddy's new boat? Yeah? Daddy hasn't got the new boat yet, but if you're on board, we could sell it to Mommy that we get the new boat. We could go to Alaska. No, just let them share their little hearts.

31:33 Maybe all they want to do is go camping in the backyard. Maybe they want to go to the ocean and collect shells. Maybe they want to rent a jet ski and see if they can do 60. I don't know. Whatever it is, just let them talk. And then, Dad, this is your homework from this message. make it happen. You can make it happen. Your five-year-old can't rent a jet ski. You can. You know, your 10-year-old can't book a flight to LA to go and watch Peter Pan. You can. Make it happen, dads. Our son, Caleb, when we were younger, when he was younger, he was like, and we were younger as well, I guess, he was like 10, we listened to a book about the Wright Brothers, To Conquer the Air. And Caleb, as he listened to the audio book, he was just enamored. He was like, wow, this is so cool, Dad. And we finished the audio book. He went back and listened to it a couple more times. And anyway, we flew out back east to do some church meetings. And instead of coming back straight back to Montana as we normally did, we surprised Caleb by renting a vehicle and we drive down to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, and we go to the Wright Brothers National Memorial. We get to stand on Kill Devil Hill where they took off and where they glided to, because they didn't put an engine on their Wright Flyer until many years later. So it's essentially a hang glider. And where they landed, and we take a family selfie, it was a special time for Caleb.

33:11 going back to pastor levi's intro about how biographers look at the life of the father what do we know about the wright brother's father well we know his name was milton wright he was a preacher a traveling preacher of all things and coming back from one of his trips he bought his boys this wooden toy helicopter and you round up the rubber band and the rotors went round. This was before aeroplanes were invented, remember? This is the Wright brothers when they were kids. And this thing would shoot up in the air and hover for a while and then fall down to the ground. Who would have known? Who would have thought that little simple toy would set those two boys' minds whirring and thinking, and eventually they would change the way we travel? What little thing is it that you could do this summer, dads, that would make a huge impact in your kid's life and maybe even for the world.

34:10 You don't have to preach like Billy Graham to be a great dad. You don't have to earn like Elon Musk to be a great dad. You just need to believe that you have wings and you can fly. You can go places, dads. You can go places other dads can't go because you have wings. And in case you haven't figured it out, Jesus Christ is our wings. You can fly, dads. You can fly. let's close with prayer Father happy Father's Day what a joy to be in your house thank you for giving us wings thank you for being our wings in faith we believe we can fly it's by faith thank you for not throwing us out when we overreact like James and John thank you for reminding us there is magic in the mundane of everyday life.

35:08 Help us to recognize the opportunity and grapple with those crazy times and to plan something fun for our kids this summer. Father, we love you. We love you. If you're here and you would say,