Father’s Day at Eagle Creek!

Good morning, Church. Great to have everyone here on Father’s Day. I’m Matt. I’m the pastor here. If you’re visiting with family, we’re so glad that you came to join us today.

Really cool thing to note, tomorrow morning we’re sending about 75 kids and teenagers to youth camp tomorrow. So be praying for them and for all those that are working with them. But I love seeing a bunch of teenagers grow in Christ. Amen. That’s cool. I love what’s happening.

And as we talked about with Kids Craze, boy, I’ll tell you what, one of the most evangelistic opportunities. If you know people that have kids and you love them and you want to see their family come to Jesus Christ, this is the number one opportunity in the year to see people come to faith in Christ that have little kids, because they do. They show up here by the hundreds, and by the hundreds they get saved and give their lives to Christ. And so we want to encourage you to be a part of an evangelistic effort to reach our city through what we’re doing here with our Kids Craze that’s coming up. So if you see those invites, you see a friend, you talk to a friend, let’s bring them out and let’s see God work in their lives.

Now on Father’s Day today, what I want to focus on for just a little bit, I want to talk to the dads for a minute, and of course everyone else, you can listen in for just a moment, but I want you to hear this. I want you to hear this.

Whenever you walk into a home, think about this, dads, for just a moment. You walk into a home, someone invited you over to dinner. Have you ever walked into a home environment where someone invited you in, and it wasn’t long, within a couple minutes of you being there, you sensed some tension in the air, and you’re like, “Yeah, mama and papa are not getting along. Someone had some words right beforehand, and then we arrived on scene, and they’re being friendly to us, but when they look at each other, it’s cold.” You know, she’s snapping at him. Can you just grab that and put that on the table for me? He’s like, yes, I got it. You know, you’re like, uh oh, I don’t know what went down here, but everyone’s tense.

Let me tell you something. Every home has an environment. It does. It has a temperature. You can tell when you walk in. Is this a warm, loving, connective home, or is this an ice cold home? Is this a home with a lot of tension going on, and everyone’s walking on eggshells? Or is this one where the kids are kind of free to be expressive and fun and kind of playful, and you’re kind of getting a hoot out of watching them all interact together, and you’re like, “What a fun environment. What a good environment to raise a kid in.” You can tell these people are loving and connected.

And so then of course, what’s the obvious question? What story does your home tell? What temperature do people sense when they walk into your environment?

Now, I’ve learned something about cold homes. Cold homes are typically closed homes, meaning there’s not a lot of invitations for people to show up. It’s closed because they know people are going to read them, and they don’t want the world to read them. They would rather project an image of their home than to actually be a home where people know what’s going on. So typically a cold home is a closed home. And so then I ask, is your home an open home or a closed home? I’m not saying every cold home is closed, but I’m saying there is something to that. When people are warm, they tend to be hospitable. They tend to be like, “Come on over. Sure, we’d love to have you. We got enough food for you.” And so you can just kind of sense that. You can get a feeling for that.

And I want to say this as well to the dads. Dads, I want to tell you, you have a massive impact on the temperature of your home. You don’t build it alone. You and your spouse build the environment of your home. But I will say, growing up in a home where we all kind of hid when my stepdad walked in, because we didn’t know he was a bit sort of up and down, a bit manic, depressive, and so you didn’t know if he’s coming in cold or if he was coming in hot, angry, or if he’s coming in happy. And so you would sort of wait and kind of let mom talk to him downstairs until you could sense how he was responding. Is he responding cold? Is he hot, upset about everything? Or is he kind of just right? Like, you can be okay around this guy. It’s going to be an okay evening.

And for a lot of you, you think, well, that’s a lot of pressure on me to have to create the environment of the home. Well, here’s the other option. You don’t create the environment of the home, and so then the kids have a free for all with your home. And how many of you know when kids get to set the environment for the home, it’s often a little chaotic and a little bit critical and a little bit whiny and a little bit of too much putting each other down, right? Come on. I’m sure someone knows that kids can be a little less selective about what they say at the dinner table than mom and dad, right? You’re like, “No, no, no, no. We’re not going there. No, we’re not going to talk that way. No, we’re going to be positive. We lift each other up here. We’re going to be an encourager. Say something encouraging.” So you can set the tone. If you don’t, then someone else, or nothing else, is setting the tone. And that’s not good either.

So today, we’re going to focus on four things. And if you have your app, you’ll find these four things on the notes. So you can grab your app, open it up, and get the four things, because these are the four areas where you need to set the temperature in your home. Everyone say four areas.

Okay. So you’re going to find out four areas where you can set the temperature in a really God-honoring sort of way. These are all supported biblically. And I want you to walk through this and say, “Okay, I’m going to focus on that.” In fact, I hope that by the end of this that everyone says, “I have to own the temperature of my home.” I hope that everyone says, “I have to own the temperature of my home.” And then I hope you’ll find at least one of the four areas where you’re like, “I’m going to target that. That’s my area that in the next week I’m going to change.”

And I do want to mention this on the side. Our kids are grown now. So is the environment of our home still important for our adult children? Yes. It’s the welcome mat to them to come back into our home. We are welcoming them by our environment. Or it’s the closed door where they’re like, I just don’t want to be around them. It’s so heavy. It’s so negative. And so if you’re creating a bad environment, you don’t wonder why don’t my kids want to visit. You know, you create an environment that says don’t show up. So are you rolling out the red carpet by the environment? I hope that you are with your adult children. If you’re like, I haven’t done that, maybe that’s why they’re not showing up so much. You can change this. These are four things you can do to adjust the temperature for your adult children where they want to be around you and in the environment you’re building.

So here they are.

Set the Temperature on Safety

Number one, we’ll jot it down. Number one is this. Dad, set the temperature on safety. Now, I want to say this. Everyone say safety.

Okay, safety is different for a mom and for a dad. The way a dad establishes safety and the way a mom establishes safety, they kind of are, they’re a nice blend. They work really, really well together, and they’re meant to be. How many of you understand that God created male and female and said to the male and female, “Be fruitful and multiply.” Ideally, having a mom and a dad, not perfectly, but ideally, you know the world we live in is not perfect, but ideally, if you can have that, then there’s strengths that a mom brings.

I look and say, it says God created male and female. He created male and female in his own image. Meaning the female is created in the image of God. The male is created in the image of God. But I believe that there are parts of the father’s heart, of God’s heart, that are represented more often better in a female than they are in a male, and more often better in a male than they are in a female. Amen. Okay. And I know, I just want, this is our culture, so frequently a pastor could say the first half, parts of the father’s heart represented better in a female, and people would be like amen, than you say represented better in the male. How many of you know that God created both, right? Amen. Let’s honor some fathers today. Okay.

God created dads in his own image, and there’s a unique role. Now, by the way, there’s truckloads of sociology studies that actually prove that to be true. And I’ll give you an example. I was just reading a large summary of the studies, and there’s a lot of them. But they do find, on the playground, that men play very differently than women do with children on a playground. Isn’t that surprising? It’s like you’re just making that up. It’s like, no, there’s truckloads of studies. You can just read them one after the other after the other.

But here’s the summary about men on a playground. Dads on a playground with their kids are much more physical. Like they swing them, the kids in tears coming down, they’re like screaming, and the mom’s like, you know, so it’s different. They get on that little merry-go-round and dads are like boom. The kids are like holding on, walking along beside them, you know, it’s very different what they do on a playground. And you can see it. Dads are much more unpredictable in playground play. You don’t know what they’re going to do. It’s like, “Oh, we can climb up on top of that.” No, it’s not meant to be climbed on top of. Don’t teach them to climb on top of that. It’s like, well, it’s there. Why wouldn’t you? You know, it’s just let them try. They’ll be fine if they fall. You know, it’s just wood chips. They’ll get a splinter. They’ll be fine. Challenging play. Now you can go across the monkey bars this way, or you can get up on top of them and see if you can step from rung to rung. Be careful how you fall though, you know.

So it’s just different. Well, how’s that safe? It’s an interesting thing that it builds in a child. Literally, children that are raised this way feel much safer about challenging situations in life. They’re like, “Yeah, I could do that. I could do that. I’ll take that risk. Yeah, I’ll ask that girl out. Yeah, I’ll apply for that job. Yeah, I’ll join the team. I’ll be on the play. I’ll try out for the part. Sure, why not?” They believe they can. They feel safe about it.

Now, what mom does is whenever they try and they bomb, they come home and mom makes them feel safe. You’re okay. And dad’s like, “Oh, they’ll be all right. They’ll be all right. Just go back out there. You just try again.” And mom said, “Stop it. Stop it. They just need this right now.” And so there’s a place for both kinds of safety and helping kids to grow up and feel safe in their life.

But kids also feel safe when there’s a God confidence exhibited in their parents in the home. And they’re like, “God’s got us.” Like God, mom and dad think everything’s all right because God’s on our side. And God’s got us. We’re on God’s side. Life is going to be fine. Don’t worry about the finances. We’re going to be fine. God’s got us. Don’t worry about the sickness right now. God’s got us. We’re going to be okay.

This is what it says in Proverbs 14:26. It says, “In the fear of the Lord.” By the way, in the Old Testament, when you get to Proverbs, it talks about fear, it’s different than we think of fear. This means such a massive, honorable respect for the words of God that today you would almost view it as a fear, but it’s like it’s a heavy reverence for obeying what God says. When God says it, whoa, you got to do that. That’s big. God said that.

It says, so when someone is living their life, mom and dad are living in the fear of the Lord in honorable respect of God’s word. The Lord has, in the fear of the Lord, one has what? What kind of confidence? So, wow, it’s like I am honoring the things that God says. So I feel really confident about what I’m doing, the choices I’m making, the way I’m handling my finances, my marriage, my parenting, my morals, my career. I feel really good because I’m doing it God’s way.

The fear of the Lord says what happens? The children will have a refuge. They’ll say, “Wow, mom and dad have created a really safe home here, a refuge.” How’d they do that? Well, they’re so honoring of everything God says to do with a home, with a marriage, with their life, the morals, their finances, their career, that they’re just going to be safe. God’s going to watch out and protect and guard over our home. Our home is a safe place because of the way mom and dad have honored God. You create a safe refuge in the way that you honor God.

Another way you create safety in kids is you just don’t freak out when they blow it. How many of you know when dad loses it every time the kids mess up, you get a kid who’s afraid to mess up, right? Being afraid to mess up is a really rotten thing, because we’re all going to mess up. We’re going to try, and we’re going to fail at a lot of things. But what do you do? You try again, right? Unless you have a dad that beat you down every single time you messed up, in which case you don’t try anymore.

And so the first three seconds of a kid messing up, they dented the car, they dented their little sister, the first three seconds kind of tells them what dad is like. Is dad, I mean, he’s still going to be in trouble, but how’s it going to be? Is it going to be freakout trouble, or is it going to be controlled, disciplined instruction for your life?

In Ephesians, it gives us a picture of what this should look like. Ephesians 6:4, it says, “Fathers, do not provoke your children into anger.” Now, what else could you provoke them to? You could be provoking them towards fear. Your behavior provokes fear in your child. Your behavior provokes anger in your child. What else could it be, though? Your behavior could provoke confidence in your child. Your behavior could provoke trust in your child. What’s it provoking?

Here’s what you’re going to do though. “Bring them up in the discipline.” So that’s the clear, and it’s discipline here is not so much like corporal discipline, but it’s more like a disciplined behavioral lifestyle, and the discipline and the instruction of the Lord. So in those moments, you’re saying, I’m not provoking in the moment, I’m instructing. If you could just pause in those three, and those three moments, and say, am I about to provoke an emotion in my child, or am I about to instruct them in a discipline? What am I going to do right now? It happened. I got three seconds to take a deep breath and decide, am I provoking an emotion by my reaction, or am I instructing them towards the disciplined lifestyle that God has for them?

How many say you’ve kind of messed up and you’ve provoked emotion on more occasions than you wish you had? Right? And so as we grow, we’re learning to slow down, take a deep breath, and instruct them towards discipline.

Set the Temperature on Warmth

Now, here’s the second area. Dad, set the temperature of warmth in a room. And everyone say warmth. Remember what I told you, you can feel the environment. Is it cold? Is everyone walking on eggshells? Is everyone really nervous at home right now? Or is there warmth in the relationship?

And some of you would say, here’s the thing though, Matt, I didn’t actually grow up in a home with any warmth. And because my dad was not warm, my mom wasn’t warm, and they were busy, they both worked full time, and there was not a lot of connection. It’s kind of like we fended for ourselves and that sort of stuff. So I don’t actually know a lot about how to create the environment in a home. You’re just at home. You’re not creating something at home. You’re just there if you’re there, you know, and everyone does their own thing. Everyone goes their own direction. And there’s no intentionality about this.

And so I want to give you a really short equation. Here’s a really short equation. If you don’t know how to create warmth, it’s just this. It’s presence. Okay, you’re there. Everyone say presence. Plus interest. Okay, one more time. Presence plus interest. Presence plus interest. That equals warmth.

I’m with you. I’m interested in you. Do you know what a kid feels when dad is sitting down with him and talking to him about them? A kid feels warmth, like, “Wow, I matter. I’m important to my dad right now.” And you’ll see them for a little bit kind of talking hesitantly, but by your second or third good question of interest, they start to relax, and they’re like, “Oh, he’s not going to tell me what to do. Oh, he’s not going to get on my case about what I should have done different. Oh, he’s just wanting to hear from me. Oh, he’s just interested in my life.” And then you’re like 30 minutes later, a little too much interest and warmth, I got to go do something else now. You know, they just light up. They just lean into that moment.

And this continues as part of life. It’s not just something that you do when they’re little. It’s part of your relationship. I have to remind myself now and then, when I’m talking to my wife, presence plus interest equals warmth. That means my phone has to be turned over and put down. My computer has to be closed. I have to sit down and turn towards her and focus and listen. And that is part of our ongoing relationship, is to say presence plus interest equals warmth.

Whenever my son walks in from work right now, having worked a long day, and he sits on the couch and we start talking, if there’s a phone or computer, if we’re still working at the end of the day, they get closed. They get put away. And it’s present plus interest equals warmth. And it’s still part of our life.

That’s what we’ll do this afternoon when we all hang out this afternoon in the living room with all of our kids, because we’re cooking out, because Sherry bought me a new grill yesterday. Oh, way to go, baby. All right, I have to tease you just a little bit. I said this because the kids were like, “Oh, oh.” And I said, “Now here’s what a new grill though means for dad.” And they’re like, “Huh?” It means dad gets to cook food on the grill. And who’s he cooking food for? Oh yeah, for you. For all you kids. So it’s a little like a vacuum for mom, but we needed a new grill, because it was rusted out, it was in bad condition. So I’m excited though to cook on the new grill. It has wheels on it too, so I can roll it up to my back door. Someone’s like, “So you don’t get rained on.” I’m like, “No, I have a covered back porch. I just am lazy. I don’t want to walk all the way across the patio.” Like, just pull right up there, you know, why do that? It’s got wheels on it. Might as well.

But you know what? What we’ll do is we’ll put the phones away and we won’t turn the TV on ever tomorrow afternoon. It will never come on. It’ll be there in the room, and it won’t be on, because it never is when the kids are over, and we won’t be on our phones. We’ll be present and we’ll be interested, and there’ll be warmth between all of us. That’s the way we’ve lived our lives, and that’s the way we live with them as an adult. So it’s an ongoing thing to create warmth.

I think our father God creates such a beautiful picture of this. In Romans 8:15, it says this. It says, so you’ve come into the family of God. Think about this. You become a child of God. What’s that going to mean if you’re in God’s family? What’s the environment like of God’s home? Dads create the temperature of their own home. Well, father God creates a temperature of his home. What’s the temperature of his home that he creates?

“For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into” what? That’s not the environment of the family of God. If you have that, you brought the environment from your past life into your present, and it’s not the environment that is part of the family of God. It should never be. And so you fall back into fear. That was the old, before this. What do you actually have though? What does God actually give you? “But you have received the spirit of” what? Adoption as sons and daughters, “by whom we cry” what?

So what’s the environment? Adopted. Saying God’s just like saying, jump up on my lap and call me papa. You know, I’m, that’s who I am. I just don’t want you to be fearful. Want you just, and how many of you dads understand that if there were ever a father we could model, it would be our father God. Wouldn’t that be the environment of your home, to say the environment of my home is definitely not fearful? No, no, no, no, no, my kids are not going to say my home is fearful. My kids are going to say my home is warm. My home is connective. My home is present plus interest. And that has made me feel warm. And it still does.

And the red carpet’s been rolled out, and I still want to come back in. I remember night after night after night, whenever I’d finish up work, and we had an office at a different location when the kids were little, and I’d come home at the end of the day, and a lot of times she would be trying to get dinner ready, and it was before we had all the childproofing locks all over everything. Man, our grandson, he can’t play with anything in our home. We’re like, “Hey, there’s some lint on the floor, have fun.” We locked it, the rest of it’s locked away. I say that, Sherry actually goes and grabs the Tupperware out, gives it to him. She grabs all the plastic silverware and throws it out. She goes and grabs the paper, anything that’s non-breakable, paper plates. I’m like, I got to eat with that stuff. She’s like, not anymore. There he is. Wesley gets everything. I get nothing anymore. No, I’m kidding, I’m kidding, that’s not true. He has his bin of all that stuff. So he thinks he got into everything. Someday he’s going to figure out he’s not really getting into everything.

But I don’t know where I was going with that. But the point is, I walk into the kitchen, she’s trying to get dinner, and we got four kids. And so when I’d walk in, so frequently, as soon as I walk through the garage door, I’d have one kid on one foot, one on the other. You know, when they’re toddlers and you got to walk around with the kid on each foot. So you’re doing that, you’re coming in, you’re giving your wife a kiss. And then I’d be like, “Do you want me to take over?” And she’d be like, “No, take them and go in there.” It’d be like, I’ve had them all day. And we go in there, and of course, what do you do as dad when you walk in, the kids are climbing all over you. So you’re wrestling around with the kids and you’re tickling them and trying not to hurt them so they don’t cry to mom, you know? So you’re just having fun and all that sort of stuff.

And that’s intentional. That’s like, has warmth been scheduled into your life? Or have you not scheduled it, so that every night you walk in and you disappear for a while, and when you come back out, you’re on your phone, or the news is on, you’re on your computer, laptop, whatever, a screen is on but the kids are off.

And I think about that, and I say, how do you create warmth if there’s no interest and no presence? It’s like technically you’re in the same room, but there’s no interest in their lives. You’re just watching something. You’re interested in something more than them while they sit right there. That is a statement of value to a child. It says, that’s more interesting than I am to dad. That’s valuable, I’m not. And so you have to take really definite steps to say to discipline yourself. I’m going to pick on us too, because I’m part of this culture too. How many of you find yourself in the ebb and flow between addiction to a screen and breaking addiction to a screen? You’re in the ebb and flow. Some of you are like, I’ve completely unaddicted myself, unless you ask my spouse, in which case they would say I’m totally addicted, right? Everyone’s like, no, I don’t have a problem. Can we talk to your spouse, please? Anyway, but the reality is, you have to be forcefully disciplined to focus on your kids. You really, someone give me an amen. You know it’s true. You know that’s true. And so you’re being intentional about it.

Set the Temperature on Faith

The third thing that I just want to hit here is dad, set the temperature on faith. Okay, this is an important, critical thing that I think dads just don’t quite get at the level that they should. Some of these, I’m like, you can get that to some degree, especially safety. They’re like, “Yeah, I have a role in safety, I totally get that. Warmth, I need to get focused on them.” The faith thing, I think, is more of an ideal for guys than it is a reality for guys.

And so kids can tell, like, is dad, is Christian faith, what is part of our daily life? Like, we pray at dinner, we have devotions before we go to bed, or devotions in the morning before we’re going to school, or mom’s doing devotions while we’re going, or mom and dad actually have a Bible and read it sometimes. And you know what, what is Christianity to our family? Or is Christianity something that is only scheduled for Sundays when it works? What is Christianity? Because your kids are going to identify with your form of Christianity.

Here’s how I know that. There is a Swiss study that was done. It’s over 30 years old, and so, and it’s in Switzerland, so it is not apples to apples, I know that, I know it’s not apples to apples, but the numbers are so significant that they have to say something at least to us today.

Here’s the numbers. Okay, the numbers are, they did test and studies, and they said, okay, it was a massive study, tens of thousands. So they did this study, and they said, okay, if the father goes to church on a consistent basis and is a believing believer in Christ, in Christianity, but the mother does not attend and does not believe, she is irreligious, what is the likelihood that kids will grow up and connect to the father’s faith? They said the likelihood that that would happen would be 44 percent. If the father was practicing and believing, and the mother was not, the likelihood of that happening was 44 percent.

Then they reversed it. They said, okay, let’s look in at the mothers right now and see what the trajectory tells us. If the mother is practicing and believing and following, but the father is not, he is irreligious, what is the likelihood that the children will follow after the mother? In Switzerland in the 1990s, the answer was 2 percent.

That has to mean something. It has to at least mean something. Now, Sherry and I would speak the opposite of that. We would say we had practicing, believing mothers that followed Christ, and our fathers were not the spiritual influence in our home. And we both followed Christ. So can I say that a mother’s influence is impactful? Personally, absolutely, no question about it. But can I say it is critically important that a father steps up to the plate and he lives out faith. Not just brings kids to church, but he lives out faith in his home. I would say absolutely this is critically important for fathers.

Now, this is what Joshua says related to that in Joshua 24 and verse 15. He’s talking to the Israelites as they’re coming into the promised land about making some choices, tough choices, big choices for their families. And he says, “And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods of your fathers served in the region beyond the river, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

Now this is an interesting declarative statement, because it doesn’t involve a vote. He just simply says, I am making a choice for our household to follow God. That is unusual in our culture to process. It’s an unusual statement for Americans to, I’ll say, reckon with, because we look and say, well, everyone has the free will, we all have our own vote, it’s a democracy, we each decide for ourselves.

Now, how many of you know that a child has to come to a place of faith where they make a decision that they will follow God? Right, so they have to decide for themselves, I don’t deny that. But how many of you know that a four year old shouldn’t be telling you whether you’re going to church or not, or whether you’re going to read the Bible that night or not. And a 15 year old should not either. Okay? Now you can’t tell them to be a Christian, but you can tell them where they’re going to be at a certain hour and a certain time. How many of you know that you tell them that they will be at their practice, and that they will be at school, and they will get on the bus, and they will be home by a certain time. You tell them where they will be and what they will be doing on a recurring basis until they leave your home. So why would you do less so with faith?

Do you believe more in the power of their education to transform their life, or their sports team to transform their life, or God to transform their life? I believe that God is the most transformational force I can offer to my children. So it will be a scheduled part of our home. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Amen.

And that’s a challenge for some people, because you’re like, you’ve got it. Okay. The excuse that is so poorly understood is, I don’t want to cram religion down my kids’ throat the way my parents crammed it down mine. Cramming is different than positioning. Okay, I’m positioning my kids to experience God by keeping them in church, by keeping them in youth group, by sending them on a missions trip. I insisted they all went on missions trips and they all went to camp. Why? Because I could not make them experience God, but I could put them where God was moving. Amen. I couldn’t make them experience God, but I could put them where God could touch their lives.

You cannot make your kid listen during class and learn math, but you can make sure he shows up or she shows up. It is where math is being taught. You cannot make them a great volleyball player, but you can put them on a volleyball team and let them listen to a coach and be put out on the field of play, right, or the court. So you can put them where good things can happen. They have to make choices on their own. But to say, I’m going to put them on the field of education and sports, but not in the field of spiritual growth, I don’t think any Christian father should allow that in his home.

I’m going to say that one more time. I don’t think any Christian father should allow that in his home. I think every Christian father in this room should say, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Right, right. And so you set the environment. That’s your decision.

Set the Temperature on Trust

The final one is dad sets the temperature on trust. Why? Because if you do not have a trusting relationship with your child, you make it incredibly difficult for them to trust God and to trust a future spouse. And if I can teach my children that I am trustworthy, then they can leave my home with an open, trusting relationship of God, their father, and their husband or their wife.

And how many of you know trust is a great gift in those two relationships, and the lack of trust is a great harm. So how do I build trust in my relationship? I believe trust is kept one word at a time, one promise at a time. If I said I’m going to show up to your game, by golly, I better show up, I better make it. If I said I’m going to take you out driving, my 15 year old, then I’m going to take you out driving. If I said we’re going to go camping, then we’re going to go camping. If I said we’re going to do it, then I have to do my very, very best to pour everything into keeping that promise.

In Luke chapter 16:10, it’s referring to another topic, but the concept is valid here. “One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much.” Faithful in the small promises, the small words, the small statements, when they’re little, we’ll do this, we’ll do that, that person can be trusted, they’re faithful in much. “One who is dishonest in very little is also dishonest in much.” It’s just, you can get a real clear picture of someone’s heart, of whether they’re trustworthy, whether you can rely on them, whether you can lean on their word or not.

And so living with character also builds trust. It’s just the ability to admit that you’re wrong when you’re wrong in front of your kids, and say, “Oh, you’re right, I was wrong.” Kids love to hear dad say he’s wrong. And I love to not be wrong. But when I’m wrong, I have to have the character to own it. And when I’ve messed up, I have to have the character to say, “I’m sorry, I messed up, what I did was wrong.”

In Proverbs 20:7, it says this, “The righteous who walks in his integrity, blessed are his children after him.” That’s pretty incredible thinking right there. When a man, and it’s talking about his children, it would be true of women, but right here it’s talking about the dad, his children. It says, so if you’re walking, dad, in righteousness, and you have real integrity, you know what? Literally, that’s a blessing. Your kids are going to feel the blessing of that on their life. Your integrity becomes a blessing to your children. They learn from that, they grow from that, they model that. They learn to trust in that, to say, “Man, if dad says it, it’s probably the right thing.” Because dad’s got total integrity. He’s not going to tell you something if it’s not true, if it’s wrong, if it’s false. You can pretty much lean on what dad says in that regard. You know, he may not know everything about everything, but I’ll tell you what, he tries to do what’s right, that’s for sure.

He said, that’s a blessing when your children can count on your word. Is going to be like, I think this is the right thing to do here, I know it’s hard, but I think it’s the right thing. They’re like, you’re probably right, why do I know that? From a lifetime of watching integrity, you build trust in your kids. And that basis is so incredibly important.

I know I’ve mentioned this before, but it was just before I was four years old that my dad passed away. One of the interesting things for all you that have little kids, I want you to think about this, kind of cool. So it’s a month before, less than a month, it’s a couple weeks, two and a half weeks, three weeks, something like that, before my fourth birthday, when my dad passed away. And it’s interesting, because I look back at that little kid now, I’m like, “Oh my gosh.” I look at kids that are that age, I’m like, “They’re just little babies, you know, they don’t know what’s going on, they’re, you know, maybe a little bit.” But I remember going camping with him at Davisville.

So I was closer to three and a half when that happened. I remember going camping with him and floating down the river and falling off the little raft. There were four of us little boys at that time, they had four boys in five years, and then they’d had Mike and Liz about five and a half years before us, so they were quite a bit older. I remember falling off in the water and dangling under there and seeing this tree in the water over there, and the feet of my brothers kicking, and panicking, and thinking, “Oh no, I’m going to drown.” And about that time, someone caught me from under the arm and threw me up on the raft, and we floated down safely.

I remember my first spanking from my dad. You know why I remember it so well? Because I was just a brilliant kid, and I figured out how to steal the Brock’s candy off the top of the refrigerator in the kitchen, which ain’t bad for a tiny three year old. I scooted the chair up to the kitchen cabinet, I climbed up on it, I walked over to where the fridge was, scooting along until I got to the fridge, and I reached up on my tippy toes and was getting the paper. And can I tell you, for the rest of my life I have a Brock’s candy bag memorized, because about the time I got a hold of it, I had a whoop on my backside, and I was like, yeah, I remember Brock’s candy the rest of my life. It didn’t ruin me on it, I still like Brock, I like the soft caramel chews, you know, that’s my thing. But I remember that moment.

I remember walking out one morning, and I was so puzzled by my dad, because we had one of those little short metal, you know, the old swimming pools you’d put up in your backyard with a little ladder that went up and down. My dad was out there with his boat, paddling the swimming pool. And I’m like, why is he paddling the swimming pool? And I went out and climbed up, and he, he was a fisherman, so he caught a bunch of catfish, put them in the pool, and was making a whirlpool for the catfish. I have no idea why he’s done it that way, but it was the most interesting thing in the world.

And I remember trusting him. And I remember every night he came home, he gave my mom a kiss, and he laid on the living room floor, and six kids climbed on him, and he tickled us and rolled us and played with us. And he did that before I had turned four years old. Before I was four years old, he had formed the man I would become.

My mother has said so many times to me and my brothers, it’s the craziest thing, you hardly knew your dad, and yet you all are just like your dad. You love your wives well, you’re warm and loving to your kids, you’re creative adventurers, you’re like your dad. What he gave to me, I’ve given to my kids, to my wife, and now to my grandkids.

So don’t tell me you don’t have enough time, dad. Because my dad did it in less than four years. You got time. All you got is time. So pour it into their lives and make an impact and change them for the glory of God. And let them become the men and women that God created them to be. Amen. Amen. You can do this. You can do this. You got this, dads. You got this, because God is at your side, walking with you.

I want to pray in a moment for anyone here. Listen to this. You may not yet be adopted into the family of God. You’re not a Christian. And whenever I read that verse in Romans 8, “It’s not given us a spirit of fear again under slavery, but the spirit of adoption whereby we cry out and call Abba, Father.” You’re like, “I wish I had that, but I feel like I’m afraid of God. I’m afraid of his judgment. I’m afraid because of my sin. I’m afraid because of my past and all the stuff that I’ve done. And I would be so terrified to die today and meet him, because he’s not my father, he’s just the God who judges me right now.”

Well, Jesus came and he died for your sins. Son of God, Jesus came because he loved you, and he paid the price for every sin you ever committed. So that when you would believe, I believe Jesus was God’s son, and when he died, he paid for my sins and rose from the dead. Because God is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living. So he’s a God of Jesus who rose from the dead. He’s a God of everyone who follows Jesus, who Jesus will raise up from the dead as well. God is a God of living children, eternal children.

If you’d say, “I’m ready to become a forever child of God, not in fear, not in bondage to my past, but free and loved, a child of God, adopted into his family,” in a moment when we pray, I’m going to just lead you in a prayer right where you’re seated. But I want you to do a bold, courageous, don’t play it safe kind of thing. In a moment when we pray, I’m going to ask you to raise your hand. Jesus said these words, “If you confess me before men, I’ll confess you before my father in heaven.” When you raise your hand, you’re confessing, I confess Jesus as my savior and my lord, I’m believing in him. And so when we pray, I want you to be a little bit bold, and I want you to confess, I’m following Jesus.

Let’s bow our heads for prayer now, all across the room, with every head bowed and every eye closed. If you’re here and you say, “I choose to confess Jesus as my savior and my lord, I want to pray this prayer and be forgiven of my sins and know God as my father, not as my judge,” then will you put your hand up right now and say, “I am praying with you.” Amen. Others that are raising their hands, amen. Just raise your hand up high and say, “This is my prayer, I’m praying with you.”

Church, would you be supportive of everyone who raised their hand? Would you pray with us? Let’s all pray together right now.

Jesus, I believe you are the Son of God who gave his sinless life for my sins. Forgive me. I choose to follow you, to believe in you, to make you my Lord and my Father for the rest of my life. I’m coming home today and I’m following you. Thank you for saving me. Amen.

Would you give a hand for everyone that just prayed today?

A Blessing for Fathers

Would you all stand with me as we go today? I want to do this before you go. Fathers, I believe this is going to be a banner year for dads here at Eagle Creek Church. I believe that you’re going to live with a spiritual confidence and a spiritual conviction that is not only transformational to your children, but is transformational to the world around you. That the light of God is going to start shining so brightly out of your life that people will be drawn to the light of God shining through you and saying, “How do I live a life of integrity? How do I live a life of warmth? How do I build a world of safety for my home the way you built it for yours?” You’re going to be a light to the world. Amen.

We want to pray for you. If you’re here and you need prayer, we’ll have a prayer team come up. We also will be taking time for those that are newer to connect down here at Connect 15 right now. Let’s worship as we go. Let’s honor God.

Happy Father’s Day. I love you guys, and I pray God will bless you and give you the best year as a dad of your life. I’ll see you next Sunday as we start our new series in the book of First John. Take care, everyone. God bless you. Amen.