Well, I was sure I would do all this without crying, and then that song... My goodness, I was thinking about my dad's dad. Now, if some of you are newer here, you may not know my dad's dad was the pastor of this church for decades before he was the senior pastor of this church. And thinking about him watching this from that Hebrews 11 great cloud of witnesses, I think of him as being in a sports stadium, you know, that great cloud of witnesses. But they're looking down and they're watching us live for Jesus. And to think of Grandpa Dickerson watching my dad, my dad probably thinking of his dad, me sitting there thinking of my dad, oh my goodness, okay. Well, if you knew me as a kid, you would really be laughing that I'm up here because I was not an easy kid. I was not a good kid. I was a pastor's kid, a stereotypical pastor's kid. And God got a hold of my heart and has done miracles in my life. And if you're here and you are a kid and you're not well behaved or, you know, you're not quite yet sure what you believe, I just want to encourage you that this God that you hear about is real. And I've seen him in my dad's life. I've seen him now in my own life. And, you know, my dad is so in touch with God that growing up, a lot of times I'd get kind of annoyed. Because when he would pray, I mean, for dinner, for anything, it was always an epic prayer. And some of you guys know what I'm talking about. There were times, especially when I was in middle school, that he'd start praying, and I'd just be sitting there, and my blood would just be boiling. I'm like, how can a person pray this long, you know? He's just so in touch with God that sometimes, you know, actually one of his Dan-isms, a dad-ism, a pastor Dan-ism is, you know, they're so heavenly minded, they're of no earthly good. Sometimes that happens with him, you know? And I just remember growing up thinking, like, is this guy even normal, you know? And so the coolest thing happened. I have proof that he's normal. And some of you are going to be delighted to find out proof that this kind of walking godly saint of Dan Dickerson is a normal dude underneath, OK? So my mom and dad had their 50th wedding anniversary this year, which is amazing, by the way. Can we just celebrate that? 50 years of marriage. We were all gathered out in Arizona where two of us four boys two of the brothers live out there I live in Indiana now and we had all the grandkids there we were over at my brother David's house and mom and dad were at the table and we were just Asking them old stories and I said mom, you know, tell us about the time that you and dad met I don't think I've ever heard that story I know he got engaged and some other things but tell us about how you met and And she said, well, back at Bob Jones University, we were in the Dateline. And I'm like, whoa, hold up. Dateline, is that not a news show from NBC? Is not Dateline, what is a Dateline? So they explained this Dateline thing. And that, I don't know fully how it worked, but essentially, mom was in the Dateline with some other guy. And dad kept like staring at her, like looking her up and down, I guess. And because this is based on accurate testimony, okay? So she gets back to her dorm room and her roommate says, that Dan Dickerson was looking at you. And then, and I quote, her roommate said this, and if he wasn't a preacher boy, I'd say something about the way he was looking at you. Who's that there? Finally, after 36 years, I have proof he's a normal guy underneath. He's a normal man. There's a picture of mom and dad back in those days before the lunar landing, by the way. You know, when you grow up in a small town like Midland, you wonder what the rest of the world is like. And when you grow up in such a tight-knit spiritual community as Calvary Baptist is, it's normal to wonder as a kid, is all this stuff true? You know, what's the world really like out there? And so, for my undergrad, I studied journalism and I spent the first five years of my professional life working as a news reporter and journalist. And in that time, I saw every possible way a person can live a life. I profiled heroin addicts. I profiled immigrants coming across the border from Mexico into Arizona, wandering dehydrated through the desert. I profiled celebrities, Grammy award-winning musicians, NFL athletes, Super Bowl champions, millionaires, even billionaires with a B. And you know what I saw in all of it? Is that the way my mom and dad described human nature and the world to me, which is the way the Word of God describes it, is absolutely true. I met a guy who was 41 years old who was worth almost 1 billion dollars and at age 42 he took his own life. multiple homes all over the world, Aston Martins, Bentleys, everything you'd think would make a person happy, every kind of pleasure a person would think would make them happy, and internally, he was completely depressed to the point of taking his life. And as I lived in the world as a follower of Jesus at that time, but fully documenting how people live their lives, I saw not only that everything my mom and dad had taught me from the Word of God was true, but I also saw that all these athletes and all these celebrities and all these millionaires and all these heroin addicts and all these immigrants were all searching for what my dad had all along. They were searching for true internal peace. They were searching for a lifetime of rewarding relationships. They were searching. It's so interesting. If you meet people who've really gotten everything this world offers, then the next thing they start to say is, what will my legacy be? How will I be remembered? And so many people who get the check boxes that this world says will fulfill, then they say, well, I'm going to name a hospital after me, or I'm going to do something to try to have my name live on. But they aren't able to achieve the kind of legacy that is in this room right now. Hundreds of us who know Christ because of a man who has followed Christ, Dan Dickerson, my dad. Thousands of people in a lifetime who have heard about Christ, who've heard the gospel, who've believed in Christ because of the faithful ministry of a man of God. And so while we're talking about my dad today, I actually want you to think about yourself. I want you to think about you when you're in your early 70s. What will you look back on? What will your life have been? In fact, we could put it this way. What can you do now to have decades of blessing and fruitfulness? What can you do now to look back on your life and know there are people who care about me. There are people whose lives were changed because of me. Here's another way to ask it. How can you secure a legacy that shines in this life and then a legacy that is not just a hospital named after you, but it continues to last into eternal life? Or to phrase the same question in Bible vocabulary, how do you live a blessed life? This Hebrew word blessed that we're gonna see in God's word today, literally means how happy. So it says blessed is the man or the person, means how happy is the person. And this word blessed, it's actually a plural word. And so it's like happy, happy. How happy-happy is the person? And God's gonna tell you how you can be that person. You don't have to be a pastor, by the way, to be blessed of God. You don't have to be a pastor to leave a legacy. That's a high calling. But every one of us were created by God as a master engineer. And from eternity past, He created you to perform good works that no one else can do. Dr. Bob can't do them. Dan Dickerson can't do them. There's no one else who can do the specific good works, Ephesians 2.10 says, that God prepared in advance for you to do. So how can you live a happy, happy or a blessed life? Anyone else want to know the answer to that question? I do. Let's look in God's Word. He answers this for us in Psalm chapter 1. And this is a kind of a family passage, and I'll explain why in a moment. But let me read verse 1 of Psalm chapter 1. We'll just go through this very short chapter. And we're going to find God's answer to the question of how can you leave a legacy, how can you live a life that's fruitful and blessed by God's definition. Says, blessed is the man or the person that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. And then the passage goes on, it says this positively. But this blessed person, verse 2, his delight is in the law of the Lord, that is the Word of God. And in His law, He meditates day and night. In other words, He's looking to the Word of God as His guide. Now, as I was praying about what passage to preach on as we honor a faithful man of God and as we, my prayer for you in this message is that you would be inspired, possibly provoked, that you would be encouraged to keep being faithful. And, you know, I thought about so many passages. I thought about David, the man after God's own heart, because that would be a true and accurate description of my dad. I thought about Hebrews 11 and the hall of faith and those who have just been faithful through difficulty, and that's true of every senior pastor who serves for decades. But my mind kept going back to Psalm 1, because when I was a kid, my grandpa and my dad, they had this little, really corny, gimmicky thing they would make us do. When we were on family vacation at the cottage, which the family didn't own a cottage, by the way, it was a rented cottage, okay, but we'd be at the cottage, and my dad and grandpa, around the dinner table, they would have us all recite Psalm chapter 1. And I'm gonna get the hand gestures wrong here, but it kind of went like this. is the man," this is a stick figure, okay, who walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners. And I always remember, because grandpa and my dad, they both have big hands and really long fingers, and then my dad would go, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. I'm like, how's that a sitting person, you know? But his delight is in the law of the Lord. And in it he meditates day and night. And, you know, it goes on, it goes on. So, and I just thought, you know, what's amazing is my dad has lived that out. You know, I've now met pastors at some of the largest and most well-known churches in the country and even in the world. And, you know, Some of them are really smart and they're effective leaders of organizations and they're dynamic communicators, but very few of them, if you hang out with them for a long time, would you say, I saw Jesus in you? That's just the reality. I don't mean to be negative. And that's probably true in churches of all sizes. to have a pastor who genuinely, you know what, I have to tell you this, when I was in middle school, I was hanging out at a friend's house, and we went to lunch or something after the service, and the parents didn't think we were listening, but I was, and I started to hear kinda how they were talking, and then as I got older and older, I realized that, you know, most people, they kinda put up a front, and then when they get in the car, you know, the smile sags, and they say, blah, here's what I really think, you know? That was so surprising to me because in 36 years of life, I have never once, I kid you not, never once have I seen my dad do that. I mean, just like what you see is what you get. He is 100% who you see. I mean, the authenticity, the integrity that he has, I have yet to meet anyone anywhere that I feel is an equal in that way. And how has he lived such a life? Is it just through self-discipline? Is it through willpower? Is he just inherently a moral person more so than the rest of us? It's not. He'd tell you that it's not. I know that it's not. I know that what it is is the Word of God. Because what you have in Pastor Dan is you have a pastor, you have a shepherd, you have a brother in Christ who literally, he just breathes and eats the Word of God. And he just allows it to shape him. And what I got to see growing up, and I didn't really understand it until I left home and started to live life for myself, but what I saw is a man who opens his heart first. and with authentic vulnerability says, God, here's where I don't know what to do. Here's where I'm insecure. Here's where I'm afraid. Here's where I'm tempted. Here's where a relationship is broken. And then he looks to the word of God to say, so tell me how to handle that. And so for my dad, for anyone who lives this blessed life that Psalm 1 promises, by the way, this passage we're looking at is a promise. These are people who don't just read the Word of God, but they're people who open up their hearts and they allow the Word of God to speak like a love letter or to work like a medicine and to heal what's broken in them. So if you want to live a blessed life, a happy, happy life. It's not found out there in things. It's found in here in our brokenness when we present it to God. And then by faith, we believe that this book isn't just some ancient book. It's actually a love letter from your creator, from your perfect heavenly father. And everything you need for life and godliness is found through your relationship with Christ. And the living word of God speaks to you. And it speaks to your need. almost all my memories of my dad are him reading his Bible or praying. And as I mentioned, as a kid it frustrated me, but now I look at my brothers and I look at myself and I, you know, there was a time, this is how selfish I am in my human nature. There was a time, you know, when it got time to go to college, you know, my parents were like, if you're gonna honor us, you will go to Bob Jones. And by the way, we don't have any money for it, right? That was the deal. You know what's amazing? All four of us boys graduated college more or less without debt, and God has provided just abundantly for each one of us. They never had a 509 college savings plan. They had a kingdom of God, seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. I'm not saying it's wrong to save for your kids for college, that's great, but I remember in those years being so selfish and being like, ma'am, why are my parents, I'm never gonna have an inheritance, I'm never gonna, wah, wah, wah, I'm this entitled millennial kid, right? And now to be a little bit older and to see some of my friends who got all those things but they didn't get the godly legacy that my parents gave me and realizing I've got the most valuable inheritance. I actually know how to live life. I know how to stay out of addiction. I know how to have a marriage. I know how to raise my kids. I get to do what I'm good at and what I love doing. And so many pitfalls that so many people fall into, God has spared me from, not because of me, but really because of the way I was raised, because of the blessing that just showers down from one generation to the next. His delight is in the law of the Lord, and He meditates in it day and night. That is the truth of Dad. Verse three, he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that bringeth forth his fruit in his season. His leaf also shall not wither. And whatsoever he doeth shall prosper." You know, it was so interesting. When I finished my undergrad, I moved to the Phoenix area. And Arizona, you know, is mostly desert. When I first got there, I thought I had, like, landed on the moon. I mean, it looks so like you're on Mars in some places. And having grown up here where things are so green, there were a lot of times where I just longed for that greenery. And so I would try to find rivers to walk by. And most of the rivers there are kind of seasonal. When there's a flash flood, there'll be a river. So there's these tiny trees. And I remember here walking near rivers and lakes. And on the banks of rivers or at the edges of lakes, you get these big, massive trees, right? These big oak trees. And why are they so big? Why are they so healthy? Why are they so green? It's because they're planted by the water. And they're just constantly feeding on that water. And every day they're taking in water and they're digging down their roots deeper. And what God says is this. He says, a blessed life isn't a life that's free from storms. Jesus said, in this world you will have trouble. Because of what Adam and Eve did and the fall of sin, we'll all face things like cancer and drunk drivers and difficulty and injustice. It's a broken world. Jesus said, in this world you will have trouble. But take heart, I've overcome the world. And God's promise of a blessed life isn't a life that you'll never have a bad day or you'll never have a difficult time. What it is is that if you'll feed on His Word, you will have such deep roots that when the storms come and the smaller trees and the brush and everything is swept away, you'll be one of those oak trees that stands firm. God wants this for you. God desires this for you. God wants you to live a blessed life by His definition. How do you do it? You feed on the Word of God to meet the actual needs of your soul. Well, in contrast, verse 4 says, the ungodly are not this way. But they're like the chaff that the wind drives away. I don't know if you've ever husked corn. We used to do this at that same cottage that we would rent where we'd do Psalm 1. We'd get fresh corn and we would, you know, husk it. Wheat and grain have a similar husk, but it's much smaller. And the way back in the time that Psalm 1 was written, the way they would kind of harvest the weed is once they got a big bushel of it, they would actually kind of smack it in their hands like this or roll it through a mill and then they would throw it up in the air in a windy place and the wind would move the husk or the chaff away and the grain would fall back down. And what God says is this, don't be fooled. You'll see people in this life who choose to reject God. And they might have a season where it's like, oh man, look at the car they're driving. Look at my, it just seems like their life is going great. But don't be fooled. In the end, without God, a life is only chaff. You know, Isaiah wrote that all men are like grass. The flower fades and the grass withers. All of our bodies will wither away eventually, but the Word of God stands forever. And the eternal Word of God, you can actually take it into your soul the way that an oak tree takes water in through its roots. And you can strengthen your soul so that you live a blessed life by God's definition. Well therefore, the ungodly will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous, for the Lord knows the way of the righteous. But the way of the ungodly shall perish. Now a very short psalm, but I just want to point out a few things. One, look at the contrast here. The final word of this psalm is perish. You might remember the first word of the psalm was blessed. And there's this dichotomy in this psalm that there's not actually 50 ways of life or 5,000 ways of life before you. There's really just two. There's God's way which leads to blessing, and there's every other way which leads to perishing. This is why God so loved the world, that He sent His one and only Son, Jesus, so that whoever believes in Him will not perish. God doesn't want you to have a life of chaff. He doesn't want you to have a life that ends with perishing. He wants you to have this blessed and fruitful life, but you do have to use your free will to choose to believe in Him. So how do we answer this question of leaving a legacy? Well, I believe from Psalm 1, we could answer it this way. You leave a legacy by loving God's word and by seeking him to be your God. I mean, that's the difference to me about my dad and some of the other pastors that I've met in churches of all sizes, is this personal relationship with God. Looking to God to meet your needs. Every day we have needs, right? You walked in here and you have needs. They're either physical or they're spiritual. They're financial, they're emotional, they're relational. We all have needs every day. And it's looking to God every day to be the one to meet those needs. And then you look to his word to say, how do I find him to be my sufficiency for this need? That's what leads to this kind of legacy. You know, I'm not gonna preach too long on that text, but I just wanna point out in verse one, there was this progression you might've noticed. It said for the blessed person, the person who's blessed by God, what they don't do is really what normal people do. And that is, you know, they walk in the council of the ungodly. Who are the ungodly? Well, the ungodly are just people who live like God doesn't exist. They're not necessarily bad people by the world standard. They might even be moral people. But there's this progression. And you actually see this modeled in Lot. You guys remember Abraham and Lot? Abraham and Lot are, you know, they're agrarian, they're out there with their herds, and Lot sees this really fancy big city, two cities actually, Sodom and Gomorrah, twin cities, and he looks at them and he sees the wealth and he sees just the lavishness and the comfort, and he's drawn to that, but he knows those cities are very evil. Very immoral. And at first Lot just kind of walks around, but he starts to get advice. You see, Psalm 1's all about where do you get your advice? When you have a decision, who do you go to? And what God is saying to us in the path to a blessed life is to be very intentional, be very decisive where you get your advice from. Don't be happenstance about it. If your advice is just whoever happens to be on Instagram or the celebrities who are the most followed on Instagram, if your advice is just, well, whoever kind of happens to be in my class or in my neighborhood, or God says, if you start getting advice from people who act as if God doesn't exist, Then the next thing is you start to stand with the people groups who are actually sinners. What's sin? Well, it's very simply God saying, these are things that will hurt you, don't do these things. And you start to, as you're getting advice from people who live like God doesn't exist, you'll start to stand with people groups who overtly live in sin, and then it says eventually you'll be seeded with the scornful. Who are those? Those are the people who don't just live like God doesn't exist, don't just overtly sin, but they actually mock God. They scorn God. I've experienced this in some of the industries I've worked in as a news reporter, as well as living in large coastal metropolis cities. There are many people in America today who aren't content to just live like God doesn't exist or to sin. They want to scorn God. And it's not surprising. Psalm 1 says that's the natural trajectory. You're either going to go that way, or you're going to look to God to meet your needs. You're going to make His word your standard for what you do and believe, and you're going to follow Him, which will lead to blessing. So I just want to point out that contrast, because that's really what that chapter is all about, is who do you look to for advice? Who do you look to for counsel? And I can't say it enough. It's true for all of us, but especially those of you in here who are under the age of 30, If you're in middle school, high school, college age, you're in your 20s, you are in the most important years of your life where you decide for yourself, do I believe this stuff? And you know what has rescued me from a life of addiction and just terrible, terrible things that I would have gone into in my own nature is the Word of God. You know, there were times where I said, I don't know if I agree with mom and dad on everything, but they say it's all from the Bible. So I've got to decide, do I believe this book is actually from God? And it was when I finally decided that for myself that my life started to make sense and have purpose and have meaning. You can leave a legacy by loving God's word and seeking him personally. Well, dad, because of you, me and all three of my brothers, are part of a generation here at Calvary Baptist where we have pastors all over the country. We have missionaries all around the world because of you. So thank you. Thank you. I'm going to not cry. And I forgot to start my timer. Goodness. I kid you not. Right before I came up, dad leans over and he goes, don't worry about the time. Classic pastor, you know? And the irony is my whole staff at my church, we've got about 75 on our staff, and that is like my biggest issue. They love me unconditionally, but I'm always over on my time. I'm gonna try to not be too bad about that today. Okay, point number one here, he brings forth his fruit in his season. And I just wanna talk about what are these kinds of fruit? Because here's the thing, and most of you know this, if you know Dan Dickerson very well, we're going to look at five kinds of fruit, and these are all fruit that you can bear. You don't have to be a pastor, you don't have to look like Dan Dickerson to bear these categories of fruits. Now, I'll mention some specific ones from his life, but these are categories. You know, when I was between my semesters at Bob Jones, trying to make money to pay for college, I worked at Moore Orchards, Apple Orchard, out by Dow Chemical. And I learned at More Orchards that there's all sorts of different kinds of apple trees, not just one. I mean, I was that ignorant. I thought there was like, there's an apple, right? Turns out there's a bunch of different kinds of apples. And so in a similar way, we're gonna look at some categories of fruit that God wants you to bear, almost like apples, oranges, bananas. It'll look different in different followers' lives. So I'll point out some from my dad's life, but God, God's will is for you to bear every one of these kinds of fruit. Now, here's what I know about my dad. When I stand up here and say, look what God has done through Dan Dickerson, he's going to say about three things. First, he's going to say, praise God. Then he's going to say, God gets all the glory. And then if you really push him, he'll say, well, the workmen labor in vain unless the Lord builds the house. He did it. And then if you really keep pushing him and try to give him any ounce of credit, He'll quote Jesus and he'll say, we are at best unjust stewards. That's just the way he sees it, that it is 100% God who does the work. But here's what I know from studying the word of God and from walking with God. God does the work, but God uses faithful people to do the work. Does he have to? No, he's fully sovereign, but he chooses to. From Abraham and Moses, to David and Samuel and Jeremiah, to Peter and Paul, to Mark Dickerson, to Dan Dickerson, to you, to your kids and grandkids, God chooses to use faithful people. And the choice for us is will I make myself a faithful person who can be used by God? God does the work. but he chooses to use faithful people. Look at this passage from 1 Timothy 5. Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honor. especially they who labor in the word of doctrine." What does this passage mean? This is talking about what we would call the deacons here at Calvary Baptist Church. Let the deacons and the pastors, the ones who are faithful and they take good care of the flock, let them be honored. And then it says, especially those whose gift and calling is to teach the word of God. Doctrine means teaching. They should be given double honor. And so, you know, after 40 years in ministry, I mean, that's longer than I've been alive. I cannot believe 40 years. If you'd like to honor this faithful servant of God, I wonder, this is a little unconventional, but would you stand with me just to honor Dan and Cheryl Dickerson? And church, knowing that it's God who gets the glory, it's God who does the work, but that he chooses to use faithful people. Would you just join me in saying thank you, Dan and Cheryl, for being faithful? You can grab a seat. You should have seen him. He's sitting there and he's pointing up. It's like a Teflon pan, you know, trying to give him a compliment is like trying to stick something on a Teflon pan. As we honor Him, my hope is that each of us will be inspired to be like Him, because like I've said, you don't have to be a pastor. It's all about being faithful to your Creator, trusting His Word more than you trust yourself, trusting that He loves you more than you love yourself, trusting that His words don't lead to a smaller life, but to a wide open life. I love the verse in Psalm 119. It says, I run in the path of your commands, for you have set my heart free. And you can go out there and you can learn it the hard way or you can believe the word of God and just watch other people live and watch the people who learn it the hard way. That if you do what you think will make you happy, it will make your life smaller and more contained and more alone. And if you do what God says, even when it's very hard, it will make your life bigger and richer and full of relationships. So I wanna talk about these five fruits of a blessed life. And as I mentioned, they'll look a little different in each of our life, but fruit number one is calling fulfilled. Calling fulfilled. Now in dad's case, Pastor Dan, this is 40 years serving the bride of Christ with the self-sacrificing love of Christ. You know what I saw growing up? I saw a dad who didn't really have a retirement plan. but always tithes 20% of his income as a minimum. I mean, that was just, he said, the word of God teaches 10%, I'm the pastor, so I'm gonna tithe 20%. That's my base. Now, when God leads me to, I do more than that, but that's my base. This is a man, he loves this church more than he loves himself, because that's how Christ loves the church. And that's a choice. And guys, that's just so rare. That's so special. That's such a gift that you've been given as a church. You know, Ephesians 2 verse 10 says, right after Paul the apostle writes that you're saved by grace through faith, not of yourselves. We don't earn our salvation. We're saved because of what Jesus did on the cross. But then verse 10 says, so that you might really accomplish or walk in good works that God has prepared in advance for you to do. It's this idea that from eternity past, before Adam and Eve were even created, God had you in mind. He knew how He would create you and when He would create you and nothing about you is an accident. And He knew the time in which you'd live and He has specific good works for you to do. For some, it's the Sunday school teacher. The Sunday school teacher who leads to the Lord a young person who ends up and grows up to be an evangelist and lead millions of people to the Lord or thousands of people to the Lord. For some it's the gift of hospitality and when people come into the church they feel loved because that person is fulfilling the good works God prepared in advance for them to do. God has specific good works for you. And I've got to say, next to meeting Christ as your Savior, the most fulfilling thing in life is to find out what He created for you to do in the body of Christ. Might be the gift of giving, might be the gift of administration, might be the gift of teaching and preaching as it was for my dad and as God has called me to do. You have a gift and God wants you to use it for decades in a way that will bear eternal fruit. And so every one of us, we can have this fruit of calling fulfilled. You know, the weight of ministry, I've learned now that I'm a senior pastor, There's something about being a senior pastor. For a while I was a teaching pastor. There's something about the senior pastor, there's a weight that, you know, it's kind of like how they say president's age and you see their hair turn gray except for the ones who die it, you know. You see a president in like four years, they'll age 10 years. And there's a similar weight to being a senior pastor that really, I think other people can appreciate it, but I don't think anyone fully knows it or understands it other than a senior pastor or a senior pastor's wife. So I have to say, knowing that weight, thank you for your faithfulness for 40 years, both of you. There's a second fruit that all of us can bear, and it's this, culture defied. This isn't about being a culture warrior and being angry and hostile against the world, but this is about those two ways of life that Psalm 1 describes. And in a culture where divorce is no longer a surprise, but it's the norm, being married for 50 years is defying the culture. And what an amazing church family we have here, where Dan and Cheryl Dickerson are two among dozens and dozens of marriages that completely defy the culture with their faithfulness. Marriage is such hard work. It's not easy. And even if you're called to a life where God has called you to a single life, we're all called to follow Christ in ways that defy the culture. And we do this, Romans 12 says, by renewing our minds. How do we renew our minds? In the Word of God. Funny how it all ties together. God's constraints are for our good. And as we see our culture throw off those constraints, we'll see more and more people confused. and depressed. Did you know that suicide is the fastest-growing cause of death in the United States? Opioid addictions continue to skyrocket. Suicide is not only the fastest-growing cause of death for all people, but among young people. Because the more we throw off constraints in any constraint of God's Word, the less life makes sense and the more depressing it is. The fruit of culture defied. I mean this in a positive, healthy way. God will bear that fruit in your life as you make his word your guide. Fruit number three, generations equipped. This is the fruit of children and grandchildren who walk with God and who bear fruit and who might even raise the next generation for God. I remember this time when I was in, I must have been 14 or 15, and I had a BMX bike, and I thought I could make this jump on my BMX bike. I mean, I had no understanding of physics. So, literally what I did was I rode my bike off of a ravine and fell down, and in my mind, In my middle school mind, I thought I was just going to gracefully land. It would be the coolest thing. Instead, I landed on my face, and I had to get a bunch of stitches in my mouth. And my face was all swollen. And I remember after the surgery, then I was allergic to one of the antibiotics they put me on. And so I started throwing up, but I couldn't open my mouth. I could only open it about this far. And it was just this time, you know what's so interesting? It was right at the time that I was deciding for myself, do I believe God actually exists? Did this Jesus guy even live? What if the Bible is just a bunch of made up stories? What if this was all made up 200 years ago and my parents were duped into believing this? And I think my dad knew that I was wrestling with all these things because somehow a copy of Josh McDowell's Evidence That Demands a Verdict, I don't know how it ended up in my room, But it did. And God was using that book to intellectually assure me that, you know what, there's validity, there's historic validity. But as I was in what was at that time in my short life, the most suffering I had been through. I remember just laying there. I couldn't go to school started and for a week or two, I couldn't go to school. I remember just laying there and just being like, you know, God, if you exist, show yourself to me. And in the middle of that, I just remember dad coming alongside me. And given just one of his other words of wisdom, he said, this too shall pass. And at that age, I'm like, what in the world does that mean? This too shall pass. Like, lo, behold. I don't know. What does that mean? And it was just one of those moments where even though I didn't fully understand what it meant, now any time I go through suffering, I think back to that. And I know, you know what? This too shall pass. Miscarriages. hardship in workplaces, all sorts of things that you encounter as a grown-up. Hard times in marriage, everything else, this too shall pass. This life is a breath. Your suffering is temporary. Your deliverance is sure in Christ. And here's the thing, when you as a parent or grandparent or as an aunt or uncle feed on the word of God, you've got the fruit ready so that when the crisis hits in your child or grandchild or niece or nephew's life, you don't have to think, oh, what do I do? The fruit is right there. The fruit is right there. You know, I think of this with my Aunt Diane. This applies to everyone. My Aunt Diane, this is true. Children walking with the Lord because of her. You know, when I was a seventh grader here at Calvary Baptist Academy, she did this thing to bribe us to read the Bible. She said, if you'll read a chapter a day and write a little bit about it, then at the end of the semester, if you never missed a day, you can go with me to Ponderosa Steakhouse. Okay, now this is how kind of like we never ate out. We never ate out. I mean, I guess, obviously it shows. I was so motivated. I read a chapter every day and wrote something about it every day just so I could go to Ponderosa. That was it. And you know what, in that time, even though my motives weren't great, God started to build in me a love for the word of God. God wants you to equip generations. No matter what stage of life you're in, we're all called to raise the next generation. Here's a picture of us when we were in Arizona celebrating mom and dad's 50th wedding anniversary. There's the generations, the four boys, four of us boys, our wives, and the grandkids. I just have to read you guys. We had a night in the living room where my brother, well all of us brothers said something about mom and dad. And my brother David had written his up. And his was so kind of poetic and profound I felt really insecure. But his was so good. His was so good that I just want to read it to you guys. Keep in mind, this is the fruit of a life that feeds on the Word of God. You can do this in your life. You can feed on the Word of God and have the same fruit. He writes, Dear Mom and Dad, Some experiences in life are difficult, perhaps even impossible, to completely describe with mere words. Words can say so much, yet at times they can feel so inadequate. Finding the right words to convey my gratitude and respect for you is proving to be a challenge. Perhaps descriptions will work better. Then David writes this, he says, Watching you support Dad in his endeavors and join him in steering our family toward loving God and others gave me a crystal clear picture of partnership at a heart level. Knowingly or not, you modeled for me how to empower and support another. and inspired me to build relationships balanced on that strength. In all my life, I've never questioned whether or not you love me. And finally, your heart to treat others with kindness, no matter the resulting effect to you personally, has influenced how I perceive every relationship in my life." David writes this to dad. He says, dad, your commitment to know and serve God, your ability to love others even when they're not easy to love. I mean, there were times in my childhood where this church was going through hard times and there were divisions and there were people who were against my dad. I never would have known it. I had to go to my friends' houses to find these things out. My dad, he was like, he would just take these bullets. He'd just take them. He'd just take them in love, and he would just keep loving and loving. You know what? A lot like a man who kept taking beatings and said, Father, forgive them. They know not what they do. A lot like a man who said, I will willingly suffer because I love God's people so much. David writes this, he says, Observing your quiet yet unending pursuit of the personal God is likely the most singular significant forming event in my psyche. I'll read that again in a second, but you know, here's a guy now who's very successful in business, who's an elder or deacon at a very large church, who's on the board of a seminary, who's on the board of a Christian school, who is engaged in the work of God all over the world. And then you've got another brother who's a Christian school teacher. You've got me who's a senior pastor. You've got Mark who's a pastor here. And this is so true, what my brother David wrote. It's a little wordy perhaps, but listen to it, okay? Observing your quiet yet unending pursuit of the personal God. He's a personal God. If you haven't experienced him, call out to him and say, God, I wanna know you. I wanna experience you. That's where the magic happens, okay? Seeing that. is likely the most singularly significant forming event in my psyche. In other words, in his whole way that he views himself and the world and everything about his identity, his security, his purpose, his meaning, his significance, the stuff that everyone out there in the world is hunting for and is found in Christ, we four boys have the privilege of knowing to look to Christ to find it because we saw our dad live it out. I mean, you know, I'm going to keep moving here. I'll just talk all day. But fruit number four is this. Souls eternally saved. Thousands of souls. I mean, dad, you think about you getting the soul winning award back at Bob Jones in 1965. You should have bought some cars back then and hung on to them, you know. You think of the thousands, I mean, as a youth pastor, as an associate pastor, here for 40 years, but at other churches prior, and it's not just thousands of people, but it's me. You know, I remember, I remember I was four years old, and we were at the Bill Rice Ranch. We were at the Bill Rice Ranch, and we were loading up the station wagon, and I had a temper on me that you would not believe. I was a bad kid. And my older brother Paul, he had upset me and we were packing up the back of the station wagon. And I remember I just kicked him right in the bottom. I just kicked him as hard as I could. I was just so mad at him. And I remember, you know, my older brothers, they did beat up on me at times. So, but man, when I would go on, I would just go crazy. And dad found me and he, you know, had me sit for a long time. I remember the wood paneling and the little cabin room that we were in. He walked me through John 3.16, and as such a little guy, he was able to explain to me all of sin and fall short of the glory of God. John, do you know that you're a sinner? Yes, I do. So does my bottom. And he walked me through John 3.16. And you know, even though there were moments in my life later where intellectually I doubted or I wandered, I believed that God was holding me in His hand in a way that I couldn't lose my salvation because I'd been adopted into His family because of that moment praying together at the Bill Rice Ranch. You know, Paul says in Romans 6 and 7, all of us, after we trust in Christ, we have an old nature that is in a civil war with the new nature. And if you don't know that in your life, you're probably deceiving yourself. I know it very well in mine, and I just look at who I would be and the choices I would make if I didn't have Jesus in my life. And if I didn't have Jesus in my life, I mean, it only happened because of you. So I'm one of the thousands. So thank you for bearing that fruit. And that's a fruit that God wants all of us to bear in different ways. Dad didn't lead me to the Lord because he's a pastor. He led me to the Lord because he's my dad. That's a fruit that all of us can bear as we feed on the word of God. Well, fruit number five is a supernatural life. Supernatural life, this is the stuff of superheroes. But it's not levitating buildings and tossing cars around. It's the fruits of the spirit. It's the ability to be loving in a situation where humanly it would be impossible. And I've seen my dad do that so many times. It's the ability to have joy and peace and patience and self-control. And you know, one of the remarkable things to me as I got out and really saw the world was I had no idea how discontent people are. including people who have a whole lot of stuff and a whole lot of accomplishment. I had no idea how discontent and unsatisfied people are because I grew up in a home where my mom and dad, they're just so deeply content. They're so deeply satisfied. And I remember as a kid, I mean, we were always driving these hand-me-down cars. that families in the church would donate to dad. And they'd be rusty by the time we'd get them. And then he'd use them to tow the boat. And so the back suspension would be ruined and would drag on the ground. I was always so embarrassed. And I always just thought, man, God, couldn't I have been born into a family that is not so embarrassing? I had no idea that people are so discontent. Because mom and dad, they just find so much fulfillment in their relationship with Jesus and in serving him that all their needs are met. I mean, they're normal people, but they don't have that nagging discontentment that so many people have. Man looks on the outward, but God looks on the heart. And time has a way of revealing the heart. And dad, I've seen your heart behind the scenes so many times, and I wish mine were half as pure and half. as consistent for a nation where the pastors were like Pastor Dan. I mean, it would turn the country around. So, how do you live a life that produces these fruits? All five of those fruits, God wants you to have them. They might look a little different, might be a different variety of apple or orange, but He wants you to have them. How do you do it? Well, God's Word told us, you delight in the law of the Lord. You delight in the law of the Lord. His dad wrote in the front of my Bible and probably many of your Bibles, this book will keep you from sin or sin will keep you from this book. And it's true, but it's, you know, especially if you're younger, please hear me. This isn't just about like doing right and wrong. This is about living a life of slavery or a life of freedom, about living a life of emptiness or a life of fulfillment. You find that fulfillment and freedom in the God who made you. He knows what you need and he's written out what you need in his word. I want to show you a cover of a life application study Bible, because in God's providence, it was when my Aunt Diane bribed me to read the Bible that my dad gave me my first life application study Bible. We now have given out about a thousand of these this year at our church, and I just love seeing people walk around with a life application study Bible, because what I know is that if they will use the tools in that Bible, they will understand the Word of God. So if you're here and you're like, okay, John, I get what you're saying, but every time I open it up, it just seems like this old book that doesn't make sense, then for your personal study, get a translation, a new translation that makes sense, and get this Life Application Study Bible, because it is like having a pastor with you. And what I love about it, especially in my high school and college years, is in the back of the Life Application Study Bible, which, by the way, Dad uses all the time, you're going to start to show up and kind of know some of his sermon outlines. You can look up any topic. So you can look up, you know, money, sexuality, greed, taxes, forgiveness, shame, guilt, regret, anything you're feeling. You look it up in the back. It's got a topical index. So it's not just a, you know, normally Bibles have a chronological and it's like, how do I find sexuality in the back of my Bible? Well, in the Life Application Study Bible, it's there. And then it'll take you to the passages that talk about that. And then underneath you get the commentary and it's like having Pastor Dan with you. I mean, it's like he wrote this thing. It's so balanced. It's full of grace and truth. And it'll say, here's what the Word of God says about this. And that particular life application study Bible has shaped me as a man. I know it's true of my three brothers. It's probably true of many of you in here. And I just want to say, especially if you're younger and you're like, I get this, but I've not experienced it, then tell your parents to buy you one of these. And if they love Jesus, they will, OK? So I have to show you a picture of one of these cars that I described to you. Here's the Buick Electra. You can see the rear suspension because the boat is hooked up and I'm in there with my buddy Nate Forbes and we're about to drive up to Canada, scraping, sparking on the highway the whole way up. And then we'd get up there and, I mean, backing in, I was always so embarrassed. I was just so materialistic and immature, you know. The other people at the lake, they'd have like, you know, a brand new truck or Suburban, brand new boat, and they go to the lake every weekend, right? For dad, it's like once a year, because every weekend he's here. So they pull up to the boat ramp and they just kind of like, boop-a-doo, you know, they put it in reverse, they just glide down. They've got it all set up, the boat just kind of drifts off the trailer, not so with the Dickerson family, okay? We're in the Buick Electra, we're jackknifing, going back and forth with the trailer. Meanwhile, there's a backlog of people who know what they're doing, waiting to use the only boat ramp. And man, I remember in middle school just being like, oh, this is my family. This is my life. But I gotta tell you, once dad would get his 30-year-old boat that had been in a car accident, and so he got a deal and had someone in the church repair the fiberglass, and we just kind of crossed our fingers that it would never sink. With the Evinrude outboard motor, he'd get cruising over the waves, and this is just him. This is like him at his core. And he just loves being in nature because he just sees God in it. He sees God's handiwork. And he'd get cruising over the waves, and I remember as a kid thinking it was so silly, but now it's so beautiful. He'd just belt out at the top of his lungs. Oh Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder. And I got to see as a kid. this dad who just didn't care what people thought about him and just found so much meaning and purpose and joy in worshiping God. on vacation. I mean, he'd read his Bible more on vacation than I'd read it in a year, you know? Like, it's just who he is to feed on the Word of God, and that's where these blessings come from. And so I just want to encourage you, whatever season of life you're in, you can bear these fruits. God wants you to bear them. And whatever your calling is, you can bear these fruits. And God tells us for every one of us, no matter your height, your name, your job title, your position in life, the way to bear those fruits is to delight in the law of the Lord or in the word of God. I just know Grandpa Dickerson is looking down right now in that Hebrews 11 cloud of witnesses. And you know, you got this from him. And you carried it along. 2 Timothy 2 says, the things you've heard from me commit to faithful people who will teach others also. And dad has done that. And what I want to say, I'm so thankful that dad is still so healthy and so strong. But I want to say to my generation and to the younger generations that one generation declares to another the faithfulness of God. And what will keep you fulfilled and free in a world of slavery and bondage and darkness is the Word of God. It's what has protected this church. It's what will continue to protect this church. So I just want to provoke you, exhort you, to never drift on that. And if you haven't really decided that for yourself, I'm going to make the Word of God the standard for what I do and believe. When I don't know where I should go to college or who I should date or what I should do, I'm going to look to the Word of God. If you haven't decided that yet, I would exhort you today to put a stake in the ground that says the Word of God is going to be the standard for what I do and believe because I want to live a blessed life. Could I pray that for you right now? Father, we are a room of people who you love so much, Lord, so much. And God, I just pray for every person in this room. You desire that when they're in their early 70s, they will look back on a life of fruitfulness. God, not looking back on a life of divorce and pain and regret and debt and addiction and temporary pleasures that led to brokenness, but instead a life of freedom, a life of fulfillment, a life of genuine fruitfulness. So Lord, I just thank you for the dad you've given to me and the spiritual father you've given to this church. We pray, Lord, that you would keep him healthy and strong in every way. And Lord, we pray that as he is committed to us, this way of life that draws on your word, that we would be faithful in our generation, that we would never stray from your word. Lord, it is what leads to freedom, that we would run in the paths of your commands, for you've set our hearts free. Jesus, we love you. We commit because we love you, we love your words. I pray, Lord, that everyone in this room would experience you as the personal God. And just like I've seen my dad live for my 36 years of life, that they would know that every need they have every day is met in you, that they would feast on your word, that it would nourish their souls, that their roots would grow deep, that they would bear much fruit that remains for your glory and for your praise. We pray it all in Jesus' name. Amen.