Should've Been a Cowboy - Father’s Day: Proverbs Pt. 5
Sermon Summary
In this Father's Day sermon, Pastor Carl Gully uses the metaphor of natural horsemanship to explore how God pursues relationship with His children through love rather than force. Key themes include God as Father, trust and trauma healing, steadfast love and faithfulness, the character of true authority and the difference between slavery and friendship with God.
Drawing from Proverbs 3:3-4, the message teaches that God does not coerce obedience but transforms hearts through patience, gentleness and unconditional love. He covers topics like father wounds, broken models of authority, receiving love after trauma, mental and emotional rewiring and the gospel as the ultimate act of bonded love. This message calls believers to move from performance-based faith to a relationship of oneness with God as a safe and trustworthy Father.
Key Scriptures
Proverbs 20:28 (NIV) "Love and faithfulness keep a king safe; through love his throne is made secure."
Proverbs 3:3-4 (NIV) "Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. Then you will win favor and a good name in the sight of God and man."
John 15:15 (NASB1995) "No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you."
Proverbs 25:15 (NIV) "Through patience a ruler can be persuaded, and a gentle tongue can break a bone."
Romans 5:10 (NIV) "For if, while we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!"
Instructions for Personal Study
Choose a few of these questions from the various categories to go deeper in the sermon and put the truths of Scripture into practice. You don't need to answer every question. Select the ones that will best help you engage with God's Word and apply it to your life.
Discussion Questions
Scripture Study and Deeper Understanding
1. Proverbs 20:28 identifies steadfast love and faithfulness as what preserves a king and upholds his throne. What does this reveal about the nature of true authority and how does it challenge the way we typically picture people in power?
2. The Hebrew word hesed is used throughout Proverbs and the broader Old Testament. Based on how the sermon described it, what are the key qualities of hesed?
3. In John 15:15, Jesus makes a striking distinction between a slave and a friend. What does it reveal about what God is ultimately after in His relationship with us? How does this reframe the purpose of obedience?
Encouragement, Challenge and Personal Reflection
4. The sermon described a barrel racer who has to do significant internal work to calm herself before entering the arena, because the horse mirrors the rider's emotional state. In what ways do you think the people around you, your family, your coworkers, your community, mirror your own internal state? How does that frame how you show up with others in your life?
5. The horseman did not define the horse by the kick, but rather who she was created to be or how she was created to be. Are there people in your life, or your own perception of yourself, that have been defined by the worst moments rather than seen for who they truly are? How does God's way of seeing us in Romans 5:10 challenge that pattern?
6. Are there areas of your own life that you sense a gap between knowing God's love intellectually and actually being able to receive it? What has contributed to that gap? This could be moments of reflecting on trauma; if so, you can pause and give those to the Lord to help you process and ask for help in receiving His love in those areas.
Putting It Into Practice
7. Proverbs 23:7 says that as a person thinks in their heart, so they are. The sermon suggested that many of us are living from mental maps formed by wounds or broken models of love and authority. Take a quiet moment to identify one specific mental map you carry about God, yourself, or relationships that may need to be rewired. What would it look like, concretely, to begin replacing that old map with the truth of hesed?
8. The sermon called the gospel itself an act of hesed, with Jesus kneeling before creatures that could reject Him. Who in your life right now needs you to respond with patience and gentleness rather than force or reaction? What is one specific way you can choose this week to reflect the hesed of God toward that person?
Prayer
9. We're going to take a moment to listen to the Holy Spirit and what He wants to speak to us personally based on our time in Scripture and reflection. Sit in silence for 60 seconds and ask the Spirit to speak to you.
What do you sense the Holy Spirit highlighting or speaking to you as you prayed?
10. What prayer requests have surfaced for you through this Scripture study and reflection? How do you want to bring these before God as you seek to apply what He has shown you?