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Ephesians 6:4 -Fathers- Pastor Rick Beaudry 2026-05-17
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Fathers today, a little bit before Father's Day, but you can listen to the tape on Father's Day. Ephesians six verse four, would you please stand with me? We've got a lot to cover. Ephesians six verse four. And you fathers provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord. Father, thank you so much for your holy word. And Lord, as you are our heavenly father, Lord, we thank you for, the family. We thank you, Lord, that we can be an extension of your love and your authority and the nurturing and raising up of children that you've put on loan, that you've loaned on to us, Lord. And we pray evermore that we, Lord, as we model the Christian life as as parents, as moms and dads, Lord, that our children would embrace the God that we profess to love, and that, Lord, they, in spite of all of our failures, all of our shortcomings, Lord, that they would embrace you with all their heart, Lord, and love you all their days and pass on to their children this faith, Lord. This precious, precious faith in God the Father, and God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. One God in three persons, Lord. And so we pray evermore, Lord, that you reveal yourself unto us, reveal yourself this morning, build us up, strengthen us, equip us as spiritual heads in our home as as leaders within the home that you've appointed to oversee, to protect and and to be the spiritual priest within the home. Lord, we pray that you would anoint and teach us and help us and Lord forgive us. There's there's so many of us here this morning that feel like we blew it. But Lord as Kathy always says, Adam and Eve had a perfect parent, a perfect father and they still chose to rebel, Lord. So in spite of our weakness, Lord, reach our kids. Finish that work that you've begun in them. Bring them all the way to that place of of us all being raptured into heaven, In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Would you please be seated? Fatherhood, to be a father, to hold your infant child when Jessica was first born and and they let me hold her, you know, and you bring her close and and, just amazing. And then later, Britney, you know, and then now my my grandkids, you know, they when when I wash my hands and I make sure I'm real clean, they let me hold one of these little infants and and it's very exciting and, you know, you're waiting for their first word that comes out and nowadays, the first word out of the grandkids is papa, papa. No. No. They typically they say dad dad, don't they? But, Toby will come running, papa, papa, papa, you know. And it's your your heart is just so flooded flooded with joy when you see these little toddlers and these infants, you know, coming to that place and daddy, Abba, Papa, the joy of later watching them run to you, calling out daddy. Last week when I was, out front there, Gideon, who's not a little toddler, he's a big kid now, He come running after me, you know, you gotta be careful with these kids. But he come running full speed and then he launched into the air like I I gotta catch him. And so I catch him, pull them in, and I'm like, dude, that was a good move. How'd I pull that up? That's a big kid, you know. But, there's times where, Evie thought I was gonna catch her and she's ready to jump out of the swing into my arms and I wasn't ready and she fell down, you know. That's a that was a bad one. And another time when Jessica, we're at a playground, she's a little girl and there's this rocket ship thing there in a platform. Well, there's also a hole in the floor where the ladder goes and whoop, she went down it. You know, I should have caught her. I should have been there. I wasn't paying attention. And there were no phones. There was no excuse. I should've been right there watching everything. But, you know, they they take away privileges from you when you're a dad if you don't do it right. When they'd let me babysit every now and then, for some reason, she fell into the bubbly water and got all immersed. When she used the restroom, her little body went all the way down in there. I guess there's this insert you're supposed to put there for him and and she she was I was home watching her and one of our friends came over and I took the kitchen sponge and and I wiped her mouth with the kitchen sponge and I didn't think anything wrong with that. Then I find out that Tanya told Kathy that he took a dirty, filthy kitchen sponge rather than this totally, you know, cloth, the cloth, you know, the perfect sterilized cloth, you know. But I did that. I mean, they survived, but but she gets your privileges taken away. They don't ask you anymore to watch the kids or to babysit. I'll take them to my mom's house and all, but you do the best you can with what you got to work with. But it's always such a joy and a blessing to be around these kids. I just cherish it. I can't imagine not being a father, not being a papa. It's one of the greatest privileges. It's just priceless. It's incredible. I just love it, you know. So what a tremendous blessing and privilege it is to be a parent, a mother, a father, but also a sobering responsibility, in that we're gonna get give an account because these children are on loan to us. These children belong to God, And he's put them, he's placed them in a Christian home. And in this Christian home, we as Christian parents have the responsibility of raising them the way God's prescribed, the way God has told us. Not the way the schools tell you, not the way the psychiatrists tell you. We need to do this biblically because it's worked ever since the very inception in the Garden of Eden. God's plan, God's way of interacting as a family, the headshift and all, the spiritual leadership, it works. So four part responsibility of a father. Number one, use restraint. Notice verse four. You fathers provoke not your children to wrath. That word provoke means to a repeated ongoing pattern of behavior that eventually causes the child to boil over from resentment. And so you can break a child's spirit. You can just sew beyond the muscle, sew just legalistic and a very tight leash upon them. A lot of different ways to bring them that place of boiling over. And, they're trying, they're trying, they're trying to please you and all, and, and they just can't seem to please you. Colossians three twenty one says, fathers provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged. That word discouraged means spiritless, disheartened, a broken spirit, and and so provocation to provoke is an abuse of power. It's a means where you are, in some cases, I would call it, you're treating your child like he's a dog and you're breaking him, purposely breaking him, breaking his spirit like you would a dog. You'll take your knee and put it on their neck, hold them to the ground, let them know you're the alpha male. And then in that psychological brainwashing and training, then you go feed the dog. You hug the dog. You bring back the positive side of it. And it's a cycle. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. You're breaking your child's will. You're breaking their identity. You're trying to build them in your own image. You're provoking them to a point where why try anymore? I always get yelled at, screamed at. I always get blamed for everything. It's never good enough. One of the greatest things my dad, Ralph, who adopted me, one of the greatest things he ever said, and I can still hear it to this day, I can still see him. It was simply Rick, I'm proud of you. That's it. That's all it took. He's a huge encourager. Always encouraging. And here's the key issue with fathers and kids. Be fair. If you're fair, I know when I deserve a spanking. Give me the spanking. But don't give me a spanking for a brother or sister who's lying and you're playing favorites. Don't don't don't spank me for something I didn't do. Don't spank me just because you're angry about something. You wanna take it out on me. My dad never did that. My dad was fair. He was fair and because he was fair, I'd cooperate with him. And even as I got older, there were times where, man, I was he told me I couldn't play football in eleventh grade and my whole family blew up. And man, was so angry. I played every year. He said, couldn't. His life was so blown up that he couldn't and then he moved away. He moved to Minnesota and to steal my little brother from my mom in San Diego. And all my mom did was call the sheriff in the city where my dad's mom lived and picked him up. Got my little brother back. But what about me? What was I gonna do? Well, I wasn't gonna live in Minnesota. Eleventh grade? Man, there's no beach there. So thank God he I had this whole stack of surf magazines that I took with me to help move him there. And I just dreamt about the beach and he let me move in with my buddy Andy and his family for the senior year. But but I remember when he told me no to football, that that really really hurt me and and but I understand now, I understand how messed up his life was. He used to take two six packs of beer for him to get to sleep during that time. And and the next year, of course, living with Andy, I I had to work. I I had to work. I I couldn't I couldn't be on a ball field after school. So there's some things that went on, but as a as a young guy, he was fair. My mom, not so much. My mom my mom could just just be mean just to be mean and that could provoke a kid to anger. And so fathers provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged, the spiritless, disheartened, and a broken spirit. We're to be used of God to encourage them to come under godly authority and, and headship. And not psychotherapy. As I said, it's not training a dog. It's not Pavlov's dog with bells and salivation, you know. Be fair and don't play psycho psycho psycho with them, man. It it it breaks my heart to see a person, any person, be ruled over in such a way that you're breaking their spirit. Husbands love your wives. I hate when husbands are so insecure that they wanna lord over a wife. And I'm so thankful that wives don't put up with it anymore. I like that. I like, you know, this is a reminder. She's not gonna put up with it, you know. So they got they got skills, man. I'm telling you guys, they got skills. And and the kids, we don't wanna lose the kids. We don't want the kids to, you know, be so anxious to get out of the house as soon as they can because the totalitarian rule, the tyranny at home, you know, was such that, you know, they just gotta get away, you know. I'd like for them to stay longer. I'd like for them to be there as long as they want. And so when they demand candy, give it to them. Don't say no. That's how you raise a kid. And give it to them quickly before they cry. If they throw a temper tantrum, know that that temper tantrum's caused because you told them no. Don't use the word no. Give toys, clothes, money, pacify them with more money. Entertainment, just entertain these kids. Keep them busy with switches and television and phone games and all the other electronics to keep them zombied and a form of babysitting nowadays. And and just try to appease them. Try to try to give in to their selfishness, to their selfish will, you know. And provocate provocation stems from over control, favoritism, empty promises, criticism, criticism, comparison, comparison, and indifference. So the over control, breaking their spirit, favoritism. If you've got a Jacob and an Esau, you've got a Rebecca and an Isaac. Isaac, he likes the savory food and his favorite is Esau. And Esau is a hunter and he goes out and he gets the venison and he comes home after watching the cooking channels and he's got a five star rated pot of stew, venison stew for papa Isaac. And and Jacob, he's a stay at home guy with mom and he's getting to learn to cook too, you know. And so you got your favorites, you got the twins vying for control and fighting and all that or or you may hear Abraham say, oh, that Ishmael might live before you and you got Isaac in the house. You've got Hagar there. You've got Sarah. You got a whole big mess going on. And you as a spiritual leader, as a father, are supposed to work that out. And again, one of the things is not to play the the favoritism, but treat treat each sibling, each child, fairly. And, that'll go a long way in, not creating this environment where where, they're provoked to anger. They just get angry. They just fed up. They they can't please you, you know. Every now and then, you gotta tell them they're doing good. So four part responsibility of fathers. Number one, use restraint. And secondly, use your riches. It says, but bring them up. It means to nourish. It's a verb. It's found in five chapter five verse 29 where it says, be nourished and cherishes it even as the Lord of the church speaking of his bride. And so this cherishing, this nurturing is a building up, a bringing them up. So guys, because of the curse, because Adam and Eve received a curse, part of the curse is work. And the biblical work week is six days. There's nothing unholy about you being a good worker, a good provider for your family. There's nothing wrong for that. Don't ever let anybody make you feel guilty cause you work so hard to provide for your family in this day and age. It takes a lot of effort, a lot of sacrifice on your part. Now, how are you gonna raise your kids? Well, in their society, they had more of an agrarian society of farms. So the kids come out and work on the farms together as a family, a family farm. Jesus had a family business, you know, a wood woodworking shop. Right? So he could be near his father and so you're you're you're you're showing interaction with your kids. They're with you. They're watching. They're observing all day long. You're not typically shipping them off somewhere else. They're they're observing. And so you as a father, you can work hard. You teach a strong work ethic to the kids, and, pretty soon as a family, you've got a garden, you've got a means of producing food and taking care of livestock and animals and all. And sure, there's some traveling salesmans mixed in there, and Lydia, she was a seller of Purple. She had her own business of selling purple, and so you've got the business women, the people women entering the the workplace too. But husband and wife, if you're both working, you both work together to instill the spiritual riches, the unsearchable riches of Christ. You know, you've done your job. They got their bedroom. They got their bed. They got their quilt. They got everything they need physically, you know, to keep them safe. And you've done that part. Lots of food in the fridge. My mom always had food in the fridge. Never never missed a meal. And but the most important is the spiritual. So you come home from work dog tired and there's where there's there's the hard part. The hard part is, are you gonna go outside and throw the ball with them? Are you gonna go play basketball? Are you gonna do, you know, volleyball? Are you gonna are you gonna sit down and read a book? You know, what is it how much time do you need to decompress once you get home? How many beers do you need before you calm down, you know, Or no beers maybe in a Christian home. But in any event, you still have time. We all have time. And you're not working twenty four hours, so you're gonna have to take your leisure time, time that you would do something else to to to, you know, like you might need to not be golfing right now in this season of your life. You might need to be there in the formative years with your kids doing baseball or whatever else it is to gain this bond with them and to model the Christian life, to get them to church, to get them to Sunday school, to have home devotions and bible reading and prayer on a regular basis, putting them to bed with prayer and bible reading. Now, you moms and dads here, you're doing a phenomenal job because Kathy tells me how much scripture your children know. She tells me. She reports on you. Well, you know Rick, their kids really know the Bible. I immediately know. Wow. That's a mom and dad that are actually listening. They're actually taking the time to make sure that their children are nourished in the greatest riches, which is the word of God. And so we attend a church that teaches the Bible. We're learning the Bible. We're teaching our children the Bible. The word of God transforms and changes the way we think. We're not as inclined to follow the mores of society, the existential humanistic relativism of the age of feeling good. We have absolutes. We have clear boundaries. And there's a security in that and knowing right and wrong. And that's our job to teach our kids in this way. And it requires money, and that money comes from working. And there's nothing wrong or about working. It's a very dignified thing to do. A lot of us a lot of us derive a great deal of, pleasure from accomplishing something, from, bringing home a check that then can go into the checking account and buy groceries and fix the cars and pay the pay the rent, pay the mortgage and things like that and get the kids clothes for school and all those other sorts of things. It takes money. And, so bring them up to nourish, to cherish, to rare up to maturity. And boy, it's gonna cost. You got seven kids, it's gonna cost a lot of money. Wayne and Brittany go to store to buy food, that's a lot of money. It's and you gotta you gotta try and feed them good. You gotta be careful this day and age. I mean, when I was growing up, I don't think there was anything wrong with a McDonald's burger. I I mean, ignorance is bliss. I don't wanna know. Don't tell me. But we ate a lot of those. Today, I wouldn't. Today, I wouldn't. I I don't eat fast food because I don't trust the source. I don't trust the source. Is that really meat? Is is it what oh. I don't even wanna go there. If you eat there, all the power to you. Just make sure you pray over your food that's sanctified, you know. God bless this pink sludge. Bless it, Lord, you know. It's just it's bizarre. But now when I was growing up, it wasn't like that. There was real food. And, and we didn't have all these allergies and all these sicknesses and things from the glyphosate and the Roundup and all the different pesticides and the the spraying of everything, the toxicity, you know. We had real food which is medicine and, and my mom and dad made sure that we had real food and plenty to eat and we, by and large, were a very healthy home and and just as everybody else around me, the same thing, meat and potatoes and and all that and it it requires money. It takes a lot of money. Now, we didn't have a brand new Schwinn bicycles. We didn't have all the extras. It was hard at at school time in in the summer to get some clothes to start school. It was really difficult. As I got older, I got to, you know, do paper routes and stuff to buy my own because I couldn't go to school wearing Sears tough skin jeans. And if any of you guys had to wear those, I'm sorry. They had already patches on the knees and all. It would be social suicide, so I'd rather wear a a pair of Levi's from the thrift store that didn't fit me quite right than than, roll into school like that. That that that that that So anyway, I I was willing to work. Go clean some houses with my mom in Balboa Island, earn some money to buy my hang 10 shirts. That was the thing in the day, hang 10, and and you had to have a pair of Levi's. And but again, it was it wasn't easy. It was it was difficult. It just it didn't come. It didn't come easy. And so you're working real hard, you do the best you can and but it's gonna require work. And don't feel guilty about working. That's a lot of your jobs that you take, your boss wants you to, you know, sell your soul to your to your business, sell your soul to the job you've taken. It requires six days a week. It requires a lot of hours and somehow within the family, we're not prioritizing that the physical, the money's the most important, but it needs to be there. The most important is the spiritual. The spiritual is the unsearchable riches of Christ and you can do that. You can still do that each day and with your wife, even if she works, both of you working, you can figure out that you're gonna invest your time, your talent, and your treasure into these kids. They're gonna be huge sacrifice. Again, it may mean that you can't go golfing or buy a new set of golf clubs. It may mean that some of the hobbies and the things that you do, you're gonna have to set aside because the family can't afford it at this at this juncture, at this point in time. Especially if you lose a job. What's it like to lose a job? My dad lost a job once. It's a horrible thing. It's a it's a frightening thing for watch your mom go through divorce and and for her to be on food stamps. And, I went to a, tenth grade. I had to move after, ninth grade football. They moved right around December. So I moved down to San Diego to Lakeside to went to El Capitan and the Vaqueros and I I got to play football tenth grade. And they were some big boys, man. That was a brutal year. But but it was it was who we are. We played sports from a little kid all the way up, you know, it's what you do. I hadn't stopped doing it yet. And I remember going to a father son. Well, first of all, I won an award in ninth grade. And nobody take me to the awards ceremony. They were so messed up with their divorce. I didn't get to go receive my defensive player of the year award. That's okay. The next year, I'm just illustrating about how important it is to be a father. The next year, they had a father son steak and bean to kick off the season. I'm a new kid. I don't know anybody. I'm on this new football team with a crazy helmet that didn't fit my head. I should have got the nice Riddell helmet like I had in Pop Warner in ninth grade, but they gave me a strap helmet. Do know what a strap helmet's like with big guys? It's like, it's crazy. So anyway, I'm there and I remember I'm gonna go to this father son baked bean thing by myself and I needed to go buy a steak and so I went to Great Scott Market in Lakeside and I went with one of my mom's in the day, they didn't have EBT cards, they had welfare things, you know. So I brought the welfare certificates, whatever there. And I went over to where the steaks were and I didn't know how to buy a steak. And so I saw this one that was being marinated and it was in sauces and cellophane over it and all and I thought, that looks pretty good, know, I'll buy that. And I didn't know that that's the meat that's getting old that they're just trying to get rid of, you know. And that's the way they do it to so you can do that. And so I went there and and I I'm at a barbecue with a father and a son, you know, a couple of them. And I set that steak on there. They've got these big t bones, you know, going. And the the father who who must have been an idiot. Right? He must have been a real idiot because he said, what the hell is that? And I wanted to crawl into a hole. I realized I made a mistake that hey, this this isn't good meat, you know. But where am I gonna go? What what am I gonna do? And these are the things as fathers, when your marriage breaks down, we all understand that's when it breaks down. Now my dad was a coach and he was there for me. He was there for me. Sixteen years he was there for me. And he said he was proud of me. But when they go through a breakup, when they go through stuff, you as kids, we as kids, you know, there's some scars there and all. So when we get married and we have our kids, we wanna try and make sure that that never happens to them. That we've prepared, we've done our due diligence. We're gonna be there at that father son stake thing. We're gonna make sure that our son, if he wants to play eleventh grade in football, that he's gonna finish up his high school playing football, you know. And but sometimes there's things that happen that are beyond the control of our parents and they're in survival mode and and the beautiful thing is all that hurt and all that pain led to me getting saved and led to my dad getting saved. He got saved right after I did. He he told me I led him to Christ when I was 20 years old and so all that weirdness and all that stuff, God God all along had my name in the lamb's book of life. All along, he was he was putting people into my life, mentors and people that I had a guy named Mike Hickey that I went to work for when I was 17 and and he treated me really really good, brought me into his family. My dad wasn't there anymore and all that. I had a mentor. I had a guy that was treating me fairly. And and all I had to do is just work hard. That's it. Working hard is easy. That's an easy thing. You get rewarded when you work hard. Do you know what's harder, more difficult than working hard? Is working hard and not being rewarded. Spending thirty one years here, pouring my whole life into something when I've achieved and prospered and could advance the ball simply by working hard, people appreciating and giving you a check when you're done, you know. When I was carpet cleaning and all that, I work out in the yard. I can I can trim some trees? I can paint something. I can clean something. I can go to the gym and I can I can expand the energy and get stronger? I love working hard. I love putting forth the effort. I was never told I get to have something just just for being. One of the greatest freedoms I ever got was getting that first job when I was 16. No more poverty. Bought me a car, paid my insurance, gasoline. So don't be afraid of working hard. And whatsoever you do, do it heartily as unto the Lord, not unto men. The false prophets get enormously rewarded around here. And they don't teach God's word. It's a business and they work people. So you can be in a situation where people don't recognize, they don't they don't understand what goes into what you're trying to provide and all. They don't they just don't care. They have itchy ears and they wanna have teachers that tell them what they wanna hear. So the rewards are deferred. You still don't wing it as a pastor. You make sure that you pour your whole heart into it and and you recognize that much of the reward's gonna be deferred. You're gonna when you see the Lord, he's gonna reward you. So you may have a a a calling of poverty. I believe God wants me poor. Now that that that that makes people afraid when they hear that. Because maybe God wants me poor. Oh, no. No. No. He wants you rich. Donald Trump's gonna make you rich. Oh. Oh, thank you. Thank you. That's what you wanna hear. Well, what if God called you to be a person where godliness is contentment? Godliness with contentment is great gain. Maybe you don't have all the material things for your family, but they're spiritually rich. They're growing in the grace and knowledge of the Lord. Maybe they're a little humbler. They're from a lower socioeconomic place and and that may be where the Lord places you, but the greatest objective is to cover the basics with food and raiment, there with be content. Food and shelter, you provide the food, the shelter, the the the protection, and then the most important is to pour the spiritual into their lives. The Lord may give you a guitar. He may give you a old piano that everybody's trying to get rid of. Nobody wants them anymore. And you got one for free and you don't have a whole lot of money for the switches and the TVs and all the entertainment stuff that people are addicted to, but you guys spend time learning music. Learn how to play the piano and play guitar, an old guitar. And you spend time worshiping the Lord and singing and things that don't cost anything, taking walks, going to the beach and things like that. Just spending time camping and things like that. And so use the riches God has given, the wealth of your time, your talent, your treasure for the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs God holds us responsible. No deadbeat dads. What's a deadbeat dad? Well, we all know what a deadbeat dad is, and and we need to be careful here too because dads are denigrated. Dads are beat down in our culture. We need to build the men up that have been through divorces and stuff and and acknowledge how there's booby traps everywhere for them and in a lot of ways, the system's against them in many ways. But a dad that doesn't pay child support, that tries to evade his responsibilities, having these babies with a with a gal and and not continuing to be responsible is a deadbeat dad. You come to the Lord, you go back and and do what you can to make sure that that the kids that you have, that they're that they're provided for. Pay the child support, make the sacrifice. I met my, my real dad when I was 18 and spent about an hour with him, but, I just kinda needed to get a look. He he's six foot two, two ten, a marine. He's a roofer. He served, lived in San Diego and I'm there talking to him and he he, you know, he's a partier. I'm a partier. And and so I'm thinking he's kinda cool and and his new wife with three kids said that she didn't want him to develop a relationship with me because they had their three kids. And you know, I didn't wanna break my dad's heart Ralph either, so I didn't care of not developing a relationship with him. But it can sure be convoluted. It can I mean, kids can fall through the cracks? This can get really weird, this kind of stuff. And so a father has tremendous amount of power and influence and authority from God and just a kind word. Just Rick, I'm proud of you can have enormous enormous implications, enormous influence when you hear that sort of thing. It's it goes a long way. In first Timothy five verse eight, if any provide not for his own, especially those of his own house, he's denied the faith and is worse than an infidel. So one of the grounds for divorce besides unrepentant adultery is abandonment. You abandon your family. Can we make a case that a a guy that doesn't wanna go out and work, he's abandoned his family? Doesn't wanna take care of his family. What's a wife to do? How long is she to live with all those kids in that poverty? Granted, she can go out and get a get a job and become a great provider in that way, but should she take care of that lazy guy that won't get out of off the couch when he's capable of working? He's he's he's not sick. He's not handicapped. We understand that. We'll take care of the handicapped, the crippled. But he's just lazy. Well, he's he's only 35. He thinks he's gonna retire now. Thinks he's gonna use his time to be a gamer, a big gamer. What's she to do? What would you do with your daughter? He's as bad as an unbeliever. It's a bad witness to say you're a Christian and to be unwilling to work. Your child's greatest needs is the spiritual to know God, his father. And I do know some stay at home dads and they're taking college courses at night. They're not lazy. In fact, I know a guy at the gym, Corey, he stayed home to watch the kids while his wife finished her degree. But he kept studying at night at two in the morning, to get his, degree in software engineering and he's working now for Oracle. He graduated, she graduated. And I thought, wow, what a tag team. What a way to work that out, you know? Where one parent is home with the kids, but he sacrificed his and got to be called a stay at home dad and kinda chuckled about it, but he didn't boast, but he was he was finishing his degree the whole time. That's pretty amazing. That's a pretty good plan, you know. The way that we can do that nowadays, from home. And in Luke eleven eleven says, if the son shall ask you for bread, you fathers, if the son comes up to you and says, dad, can I have some bread? You gonna give him a stone? Here son, here's a pet rock. Pet this rock. Write your name on this rock. Color this rock. This is your rock. He might throw it at you. If he asked for a fish, would you give him a serpent? If he asked for an egg, would you give him a scorpion? These are kids coming up to you asking, daddy. Now now Ruthie, she can ask me anything she wants and I don't even know the word no. Papa, can I have some gummies? Papa wants some gummies. Where are the gummies? They're in the church van, papa. Grandma has them. They're the organic ones my mommy lets me have. And I'm like, alright, girl. Let's go. And we go out to the church van, we sort through the tubs, pretty soon we're getting gummies. But one pack of gummies, that isn't enough. And she she recently went to the dentist and they had to sedate her and put her to sleep to fix some cavities and pull a couple teeth and cap some teeth and all. And I told her, says, you know, Ruthie, that's why I sleep with one eye open because I'm afraid grandma's gonna pull my teeth while I'm sleeping, you know. And she reminded me of that the next day. Papa, you sleep with one eye open, you know. But it's really hard to say no. It's super hard to say no to your grandkids. And but as parents, you know, you know that. You just like, hey, we got a strict diet for these kids and we we got it here. We don't want red dye number 49. No red dye. No red dye. I heard that so much. No red dye, you know. And there's so many different things these moms and grandmas are looking at all the labels and making sure that these kids don't get sick from what comes in. So if your son asked for, you know, an egg, you're gonna give him a scorpion? And then Jesus goes on to say, if you then being evil, I thought I was good. I thought I had my best life now. I thought I thought I was more than adequate to be a father. You just hurt my self esteem, Jesus. The psychiatrist says, I'm good. I'm a good person. That it's my mom and dad's fault I'm such a loser today. It's my mom and dad's fault that I'm such a rager and can't control my temper and drink so much and smoke so much and drugs so much and all that. It's my mom and dad's fault. You hurt my self esteem, Jesus. If you then being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children. How much more shall your heavenly father give the holy spirit to those that ask him? Teach our kids to pray, to bypass us and go right to the source. That's what we're learning as we're becoming more independent. We're learning to rely upon God. We're learning to trust in him. We're learning to look for him to be our provider. That's how Kathy and I walk. We walk by faith. We walk by faith, trusting the Lord day by day. Matthew six in it. Give us this day our daily bread, you know. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. All these other things be added unto you. We put the spiritual first. We trust the Lord that he's gonna provide for us. And everybody's retiring right now. Everybody's retiring. Everybody's worked their whole life to build that retirement up and get ready for the glory years, the golden years with golden dawn, you know. And what happens to that retirement? What happens to that social security? What happens to all that? Some of you might need to learn what it is to walk day by day by faith like Cathy and I. Day by day. No safety net. There's no plan b. There's no safety net. There's no going back. There's nowhere we can go. We're in Lord, we're committed, here am I, send me. And God has been so faithful in providing for us in every way, in every way. And the most importantly is that Brittany and Wayne and the kids would embrace the true riches, which is Christ. That their lives would be changed on a daily basis, that they live and operate in the power of the holy spirits. Be not drunk with wine wherein it's excess, but be being filled with the holy spirit. I need the help of the holy spirit. My children need the help of the holy spirit. They're facing temptation. They're like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in a foreign land if they're in the public school. They need the power of the holy spirit to say no to evil and right to that which is good. Don't abandon them as impoverished orphans. Pour into their lives the unsearchable riches of Christ. Read God's word to them and with them. Pray and sing. You know, last year, the Lord blessed me and I was able to buy the kids some bats. Do you know how much baseball bats cost? Metal bats? When you've got four grandsons playing at the same time? Now, if you can't afford those bats, you can go old school. I couldn't afford all the best sport things when I was growing up, but you know what? I can still stand outside and shoot free throws all night long with a spotlight on it to be ready for the game the next day. I could still use the school's football to throw and that sort of thing and a lot of that stuff's free and you know what? It's free for you to open your bible and simply read your bible to your children. You may not be rich, but you've got a bible and you've got adequate lighting and you can take them through the scriptures and that will pay more dividends. That's a greater investment than any investment you've ever made because the word of God will not come back void. So it's not a socioeconomic thing, the primary role of a of a husband, although he is a provider physically and all that. All we understand that. We all want houses and we wanna have them in safe neighborhoods. We we got it. We got that. But what's it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what would a man give in exchange for his life? Is all that material stuff, can it be a ruse? Can it be a distraction from the true riches which is the spiritual? Can you go to bed at night thinking, man, I'm a good provider. Look at all that I bought them, but you didn't spend any time in prayer and in the word of God with them? Many of us measure our lives based upon what we produce at work, how much money, but are we investing spiritually in the lives of our children? And if we miss that boat and then you're still alive, you're still breathing, you still got time. You still got time to say, I'm proud of you. I'm sorry. My dad, nobody ever needed to say they're sorry to me. I wasn't that kind of kid that needed to hear sorry. I was excited that we could put things behind us and move forward into the things of Christ. Didn't care about the past. Didn't care about it. I don't need a pound of flesh for what happened to me. I'm just using it as an illustration here to try and show you the struggles that we have as parents and as siblings and divorces and all that kind of stuff. It's not time for me to tell my story in that sense of just tell my story. It's time to relate. It's trying to step in to the the role of a of a of a son, a daughter, a husband, a wife in the family. How do we navigate this? What do we do here? The bible's telling us the most important things guys to bring them up. Bring them up. Four responsibilities of being a father. Number one, use your strength. Number two, use your riches. Thirdly, use your rod. Use your hot rod. No. Use your rod. In the nurture in the nurture, which means the word nurture means to chasten, means training through discipline. Now, in reading the proverbs, we're gonna go through some proverbs here. I I'm glad I wasn't raised in a Jewish home implementing this hardcore stuff. I mean, they say stuff like beat him often, he won't die. I mean, who talks like that? You know? Guys scare me a little bit. They even have the authority as parents to take their kid out and stone him to death. I mean, that's authority, parental authority, I'll tell you. Man, my dad used to get my attention. You know, I told you last week, he used to say drop them and then he'd he'd spank you with a belt. But he never overdid it, you know. And he never did it in this huge anger, raging fit that the neighbors, everybody could hear, you know. Some people do. Brittany told me the other day when we're talking about this, she says, dad, one time you broke a you broke a brush on me. I broke a brush on you? Must have been a really wimpy brush, honey. Because we only use like a little ruler on you. Can't even get any leverage on that, you know, honey. But he would spank, but he wasn't that that raging lunatic, kind of a guy. As I said, he was very very, very fair in it. So to chase in the training whom the Lord loves, he chastens and he scourges every son whom he receives. If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons for what son is he whom the father chastens not? But if he be without chastisement, you have all where of all are partakers, then are ye illegitimate, not sons. So this is a proof text for me to determine whether or not you are a Christian or not. This is one of the ways I can, as a litmus test, I can gauge whether or not you're just a professor or a possessor. If you think you're anointed by the Holy Spirit and your objective is to take this church down, if I can watch you without you being chastened and I've tried to reconcile, I've tried to calm you down, I've tried to win you I've tried to win you over as best I can, but you are so angry. You've got this penchant that I'm evil and you're here to take this place down, and I've dealt with that before. How do I know if you're a Christian or not? Because I believe the Lord will defend me. And if he allows me to be run out of town by you, then maybe that's what he wanted all along. But if I stand my ground and I stand for truth and I'm not gonna compromise and you're angry because I told you no, then you're like a petulant child that didn't get his way and now you're angry and you're gonna take 30 people away. And so what I do then is and I watch and I say, well, let's see if the Lord spanks them. I'm not spanking them. It's the Lord's job. If I have people professing that they're Christians and they're messing around, overt sin, and if I don't see God chasing them, then I know they're not a believer. They're getting away with it. They continue to get away with it. But if the Lord spanks them, if they're convicted, if they repent, then I know they're a child of God. That's true of my own kids. It's true of my life, your life, all of us. If you're gonna if you're gonna do something wrong that you know is wrong and you don't get spanked, then you know what? They went out from us because they weren't of us. It's the proverb of a dog going back to its vomit and a pig to the wallowing in the mire. Your nature is not changed from within. And I'm watching you exercise your fallen nature for the pigpen. But as a Christian, if you go toward that stuff of the world, the Lord's gonna spank you because he loves you. He's not gonna let you get away with it. He's gonna put you on a short leash. He's gonna put a bit in your mouth. He loves you too much to watch you destroy yourself. And that's one of the earmarks, one of the ways that we we can gauge of whether a person's a Christian or not because all his children receive chastening, spanking. And we're not general general spanking that all of us get in the world of general sin. We're talking specifically for something where God is not mocked, whatsoever man sows that shall also reap. That the Lord He gives you space to repent, but you refuse to repent. He sends the pastor to say, hey, you gotta stop doing this, but you refuse to stop doing it. He sends another person, stop doing this, you won't do it. Won't stop doing it. Then at a certain point, we give you over to Satan for the destruction of your body, for the saving of your soul, of your spirit. God brings chastening. And we as fathers, we use the rod of chastening, God does it. And and I have to say this here. There's nobody in my life that has ever spanked me as hard as God. There's nobody that's caused more pain in my life than God my father. Think about that. Now you think I'm gonna get to slide into the book of Job and argue my case? I'd be a fool. Because at the end of that book, Job's abhorring himself from repenting and dust and ashes. Right? Who am I to say why? Why? Lord, all we're doing is trying to plant a church. All we're doing is trying to serve you. And you brought in the most demonic storm, the most demonic season that anyone could endure, and I can't reconcile it. If it's because I did something wrong, tell me. But Lord, it says in Psalm 138, if the Lord's remark if he were to mark iniquities, who could stand? Can you run a perfect law practice? Can you run a perfect medical practice? Can you run a perfect anything? You can't. We all sin. We all blow it. I'm not professing I ran a perfect church. But man, we really got our butts kicked. Every way, shape, and form. And so whom the Lord loves, he chases and scourges every son. Hey, may maybe it's I'm just too proud. Rick, you're too proud. Rick, I couldn't I couldn't let you succeed any further. It would have destroyed you. Well, there's a lot of stuff up ahead we don't see. And when we get to heaven, we'll realize it. I can't reconcile it. I I you know, I differentiate between sinning and rebellion. If you're a rebel, man, you should expect the hand of God to come hard on you. But simply not being perfect is doesn't seem to me to be a reason to have everything wiped down. People dying all around you and just just horrific demonic stuff. It's just mind boggling. The bible says train up a child in the way he should go when he's old, he won't depart from it. So we're hoping our kids that we've trained up that they're not gonna they're not gonna run away, That they're gonna come back to the things of the Lord. Proverbs thirteen twenty four says, he that spares his rod hates his son, but he that loveth him chastens him often. You love him, you chase on him often. Rick, go get the belt. Go get the paddle. My girls used to hide the paddle. They used to hide it all over and you couldn't find the paddle. And sometimes when we knew when we're out in public, that's where we're most vulnerable because doctor Dobson taught us with some of the books we read in regard to him of of Dare to Discipline and all, that you could grab your kid's trapezius muscle when you're in the store or in public and you could squeeze a little bit and kinda let them know, knock it off, be quiet, stop it. Well, my daughter would go, stop it. Stop it. You're hurting me. She'd be super loud in the store and all and and, you know, she knew that when she was in public, she if you're at if you're at swimming lessons, she'd run around the pool. Kathy couldn't get her, know, come over here. You know, so so she'd take great liberties in that way and I'm speaking to Britney. Jessica, you just look at her and she'd stop. She'd be fearful. Britney, she'd look at you defiant, you know. And and that gave Kathy such a run for her money that she told me she didn't wanna have any more kids, that two is all she could handle. So I said, well, okay. Alright. And she's done a great job with the two of them. Now Britney's got seven. And boy, it it really puts her back to the wall, you know. That's amazing thing. But curbing their rebellion, their riotous, you know, how you gonna do that? Now with my dad, it didn't when he really wanted to go for the juggler to really get my attention to curb my behavior, all he had to say is, Rick, if you don't knock it off, I'm taking you down to the barber and he's gonna take you down to bare metal. Now, how did my dad know that my hair meant so much to me? How did he know that having long hair around them girls and hang 10 shirts on and all? How did he know that that groove I was in? He he looked so funny, daddy. I don't even know how he could know how cool I was. But he knew he knew because he had a he had these these trimmers, you know? He'd cut the other guy kid's hair and I'm like, no. No. No. I'm afraid he's but he'd buzz them buzz them bald, especially in the summertime. Oh, that's that's suicide. That's social suicide back in the day. Nowadays, nothing matters. You can buzz these kids, nobody cares. And I look at them, like, you really like your head buzzed? You like that? And, oh, yeah. But my dad, Rick, it's going down to I I man, that would I would I would behave. He got me. He knew my so there's privileges. There's things you can withhold from kids to gain their attention. And, typically, it has to do with their peer groups, you know, of, time and access to their peer group and and so we if they told me that, hey, don't get to go to your ball game on Saturday, that would be another one. That would just break my break my spirit. And but they'd get my attention. So I'm not I'm not saying that it's always the physical part of it, but get to know your kids as they get older and deny them privileges. Take away some of the privileges till they start to act more like an adult. Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child, Proverbs twenty two fifteen, but the rod of correction shall drive it from him. Susanna Wesley, she had 17 kids and notice her quote. She said, the parent who studies to subdue self will in his child. So you gotta study. Each child's different. In each child, all of us have a self will. The problem's the will, the selfishness. It's not that you have slow self esteem, it's that you are selfish. You're in love with yourself. The world revolves around you. So that's gotta be broken. We've gotta get it to where we're living for Christ. No longer me living, but Christ living through me. So the parent who studies to subdue self will in his child works together with God in the renewing and saving of a soul. So you're given unbelieving kids unless you got a John the Baptist who's filled with the holy ghost from the womb, you know. Most of us have kids that four, five, six years old that we're gonna lead to Christ. Right? We wanna lead them to Christ. So you gotta recognize, study them, get to know them, what makes them tick, and try to develop a way to subdue the self will and surrender unto God to save their soul. The parent in contrast who indulges self will does the devil's work. Isn't that amazing? Does the devil's work, those that indulge the self will. You never say no. You're always giving in, always giving them the candy. And now, papas papas and grandmas, as I said, they don't spank. We don't spank grandkids. And and they know it. They're like Britney out in public. They know it. They can get away with it. And I just laugh, man. It makes me laugh. It's pretty funny. Proverbs twenty two thirteen, withhold not correction from the child for if thou beat him with the rod, he shall not die. Listen to that. You wanna be a Jewish kid? This is brutal. Solomon. Hey, Solomon. What are you doing? Withhold not correction from the child for if thou beateth him with the rod, he shall not die. So your kids are in public school. They're in public. Are we even allowed to spank anymore? You know what I mean? Don't we have to give them time out? Don't we have to give them drugs? Ritalin or whatever to try and calm them down? He says, thou shall beat him with a rod and shall deliver his soul from hell. So it's drugs and thugs or it's the rod and a hug. So after you spank your child and you subdue that selfishness, then it's a time to pray with them, hug them, build them up, tell them you're proud of them, and make sure they understand the importance of of obedience, of walking in obedience to Jesus, Walking in obedience unto him. Four responsibilities of father. Use restraint, use your riches, use the rod, and use your relationship. It says, in the admonition of the Lord. And so putting in mind, correcting, right attitudes and principles of behavior. So you're gonna build them up. Children are stimulated by our relationship with the Lord. So you're gonna develop your relationship with the Lord in public, in home that they can see. They're gonna see if Jesus is a priority unto you. They're gonna see the master passion of your life of what you're really in love with, that's your real God. They're gonna see if you're a poser. If you only go to church because you're a hypocrite, you act hypocritical, you, use profanity in the home, in the car. They hear the bad words and you forbid them to speak in that way. And, it's like that classic classic, Christmas Richard or no, you shoot your eye out kid. The dad, and Ralphie go outside and there's a flat tire and Ralphie wants to help, you know, and everything and all the lug nuts are in the in the hubcap and and the dad's timing himself, it's a big deal and all that and all of a sudden Ralphie hits the hubcap and lug nuts go and Ralphie blurts out profanity. And the dad says, what did you say? It's a big deal. Gets home and mom's like, I'm gonna wash your mouth out with soap. I got my mouth washed out so much, they started using liquid soap, know. Shouldn't have said that maybe, but I know what that soap tastes like. I wanna wash your mouth out with soap. So then you get home, then the mom is trying to figure out where you heard that word. And you're like, I better I better rat on somebody or this is gonna get worse. So now you tell on one of your friends that's cussing with you as you're outside that that he's the one that taught you. And then the commentary behind the thing is, as if I didn't hear that word by my old man 50 times a day. The hypocrisy. Where do you think he heard it? And then you're the Christian guy, the Christian parent, and you don't want that profanity. You want your kids saying that around your Christian friends? No, you don't. You don't want people using that profanity. And, we don't want our kids talking that way. And so if you want your kids to do what's right, then you do what's right. You lead by example. Now parents in my day, they used to have a saying, do as I say, not as I do. The tragedy is it's the complete opposite. They're gonna mimic us. They're gonna do just as how we do. They're gonna talk just like we talk. They're gonna act like we act. And so we need to we need to set a better example. And when we blow it, we need to admit it. We need to say to them, yeah, mommy shouldn't talk like that. No. Not mommy. Daddy shouldn't talk like that. Yeah. I'll get in trouble for that one. Grandma should talk like that. No. Not grandma. Nobody should talk like that. Alright. So we make mistakes. We do that, but the kids are watching. They're watching for validity. They're watching for the proof of our profession of faith. Are we cruel? Are we legalistic? Do we hold them to the letter of law? Do we give them a, you know, a standard of behavior that's impossible to live? Is there grace? Is there mercy? Is there love? Are the things of Christ there? And and again, do we desire the things of the Lord? Kids are gonna pick up on that. Do we wanna mix the world? How much of the world do we wanna mix in with Christianity? How much of the world do we wanna Christianize? Make it look like it's Christianity. Or are we gonna be hardcore against the things of the world, recognizing the world, the flesh, and the devil are our enemies and to be not conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of our minds? That we may prove was a good and acceptable and perfect will of God. That we're to teach our kids to love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. All that's in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, the pride of life, is not of the father but of the world. And the world passes away in the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God is gonna abide forever. Do we teach those values or do we Christianize all the world? With Golden Dawn, is that what he's offering me? My best life now, MAGA's gonna be great, make America great. Does that mean more material things? Or does it mean we're just gonna beat those democrats? I hate them democrats. It's mind boggling. So is our life salty? Do we make them thirsty? They do they wanna know our Jesus? Do they see us in prayer? Do they see us cracking the bible, reading the bible? Do they see the desire on Saturday to get the clothes washed, everything ready, and be ready to go to church Sunday morning? Or is there a sabotage going on that every time you think you're gonna go to church on Sunday, something happens on Saturday or even Sunday morning and you can't make it? Well, who's in charge? Who's the leader in that home? Where's his leadership to make sure that this is a priority? You think you can put it on cruise control? You think you can live from yesterday's manna? Last week's manna? Ten years ago? Well, you know, I used to go to church ten years ago. I used to go all the time. I used to pray and I used to go bible studies and all. What where you at now? What happened now? Oh, we just got so busy. Got so off track. Well, what's it gonna take? A divorce to get your attention again? Don't you wanna insure? Don't you wanna protect not only your marriage, but the minds and hearts of your kids? Do you want someone else raising them? Do you wanna watch the the your children walk away from the Lord and embrace the value system of this world? Or do you want your kids being able to stand up like Daniel and say, not on my watch, not gonna happen. Not gonna eat the king's food. Not gonna give into that. Children are to be stimulated. We can only admonish them as far as we are in the Lord. Salty, make them thirsty for the things of the Lord. Can they see Jesus in us? Is their understanding of God the father obscured because of hypocrisy? A hypocrite's an actor. They see dad's just acting or cruelty or legalism. I would hope that my kids are observing, Cathy and I, that they see that we're still in love with Jesus. Forty five years of marriage, maybe forty six, forty eight years of being Christians, and that we still love Jesus. That we still love the things of the Lord and we're falling more in love with him because it's close. He's coming soon. He's coming for us, his bride. I don't wanna finish lukewarm and in the things of the world. I wanna finish strong. In Matthew eighteen six, it says, whosoever shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. We're responsible. We're accountable. If we don't raise him in such way, if we stumble them, then God's gonna hold us accountable because again, they're on loan to us. That's why when we do a baby dedication, we're holding this baby up to the Lord and we're asking like with, Hannah, with little Samuel, we're saying, Lord, please influence this child. Lord, I'm gonna do everything I can in the nurturing admonition of him, but Lord, we ask that that you help us. Lord, that you equip us and help us to raise this child in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. In Matthew eighteen ten, he says, take heed that you despise not one of these little ones, for I say unto you that in heaven, their angels, they have an angel, Guardian angels, their angels do always behold the face of my father which is in heaven. That's pretty serious. Their angel, your child's angel, guardian angels beholding the face of God. And you represent God the father under your children. They're calling you father, abba, papa, father. And you don't wanna skew or hurt that imagery. You don't wanna hurt that view. And I've had people come up to me and say, you know, do do do you understand that some of us as kids don't view God the father in a favorable way because we had such bad fathers? Well, I'll say, hey, welcome to the human race. There's no perfect father, no perfect home. You can't do that. You have to put old things are passed away, all things have become new. Your relationship with God the father is between you and him. You are not to blame anybody for your lack of progress, your lack of love. You're to love him with all your heart, all your mind, all your soul, all your strength, and you're to forgive your earthly father. Comprende? Proverbs seventeen six, children's children are crowned unto, and I won't say it, a crowned unto papas. It says old man. I won't say that. Children's children are a crown under their papas. We wear them like a crown. Look at I'm posting pictures of my grandkids all the time. Look at these kids. Look at them. They're blowing my mind. And a little Toby and Ruthie and all of them. The glory of children are their fathers. Jessica and Brittany came. I came home from work one day and Jessica asked me a question out front. She says, dad, are you so strong that you could pick the house up? Now, that's a pretty cool thing for a kid to say to you, you know? Now picture their minds, their minds in thinking that like like you're big in their eyes. You're you're strong and you're big and you're important, authoritative and all that. And and that's an exciting thing when our kids think that we're strong, you know. That we're good, that we're noble, that we're kind, that we're loving. You're their hero and they believe in you. My dad's better than your dad, you know, get into all that. You're their hero. They love the things that you love. They've learned to love the things that you love. For a while. Then it'll break your heart as they become teenagers. They are kinda put on hold for a while. Their interest and such, you can't even hey, you're trying to talk to him. Hey. It's like it's like they're somewhere else. They're somewhere else like la la land, you know. That's what happens like with Judah. He's like gonna be 16 a couple weeks and he goes into that la la land. Hey, back. Come back here. Reel him back in, you know. But that's that's just part of being a teenager. There's so many things going on in their heads and everything. But, boy, it's so beautiful when they when you see them respond. So use your relationship, admonish, stimulate, influence, develop, and feed their appetite for God by being real. And so you can go on a fishing trip with them. My dad took me fishing a lot as a kid. Lot of fishing trips. And they talk about guys that are in prison that one of the earmarks is that they never went fishing. They never had a dad. As I was trying to describe some of the later things that broke down where I needed a dad, early on, my dad was there. We went fishing, we went camping, we did things, boy scouts and sports, and he was a coach and a manager, and all those things were intertwined and it was it was a normal, you know, childhood, memorable, good. And you know, he wasn't a believer, so he never talked about Jesus on any of those trips. So don't make the mistake of just thinking those kind of functions or the goal or like those work in and of themselves. Those are opportunities when you're in a boat fishing or walking or on the shore or whatever, driving around a campfire. One of the things they used to do up in the High Sierras when when it was cold in the morning, my dad and my uncle, we'd be up at Reds Meadows and it was it was cold and you're gonna go out there to Socher Lake and catch trout. They actually started giving me blackberry brandy, shots of it to warm my insides up, you know. That's part of fishing with my dad and my uncle, you know. It made me feel old, made me feel like one of them, you know. I'm not saying you need to do that, but one thing they could have done is talk to me about being fishers of men. They could have let me know that, you know, that Rick that that Simon Peter and Andrew, his brother, had a fishing business with James and John on the Sea Of Galilee. They used to catch fish. That's that's what they did for work until Jesus came along and said, hey, I'll make you fishers of man. You can tie in so many so many truths or Peter says, casting all your cares upon him for he cares for you. That casting is like fly casting. It's like throwing that that lure out. I was watching the other day on one of the social media things and the guy came up with a little thing there. Remember the Garcia Mitchell 300 reel? And I'm like, yeah, that was the cool reel. I had two of them, you know. And remember the Zebco and and other showing in the day. Those were cool. That's how you went fishing. That's how you'd catch a six or seven pound bonita was with that little freshwater reel and pole. Man, it your arm would hurt. It'd be so at the Long Beach River Jetty's, the water was pumping out really warm at the power plant. And man, that place was loaded with Beninna. And that's me and my friends used to go there fishing. But we were cussing and swearing. We didn't know Jesus. Nobody ever told me about Jesus till I went to that concert when I was 20 years old. So you seize the moment. You take your kids on all those things and apply Jesus to the equation. Let them get to know Jesus. And tell them about your walk with the Lord. Tell them about your testimony. Tell them about your mom and dad. Tell them about what how hard or how good or whatever your childhood was. You don't need to hide it. Don't need to glamorize it either. Just be real. Let them get to know you and how you became a Christian and what Jesus means to you. Admona, stimulate, influence, develop, and feed their appetite for God by being real. Wouldn't it be cool? I've always wanted to do this, but I I had the opportunity, but to take a mission trip with your kids. To take them to The Philippines, to an orphanage, and show them a missionary family that's been there for thirty years from The States. Show them show them the the pictures of the so many children that they've watched and cared for and how they can participate and be a part of something like that. We did short term mission trips to Mexico that I got to go on with the girls. Taking them I've always wanted to have a bigger bank account, be able to do more for them and do more like that, but it's all we could it's all we could do to go to Mexico. When we went there, we had loaves of wonder bread with peanut butter to feed all the kids. This church has never had an abundance of money and we're we're going down the road and the church van 16 people in it and and we're just trying to make it work financially to get there and get back. Feed everybody. But you know what? Nobody complained. Went to the beach and built a shelters for the battered women and and, you know, those things stay with the kids. Those are mission trips. And a good healthy youth group that recognizes that would take the youth periodically on some of these servanthood type mission trips that are available. Bible College, Brittany really the Lord got ahold of her that interim period between high school and going to a regular college, she had two years there where she could go to bible college. And she went to, Israel for four months and was attending bible college in Israel. She attend bible college in Marietta for three semesters and her friends, some of them went to England and Hungary and all over the all over the world, Calvary Chapels had bible colleges for the young people, to go in that time of transitioning from and they call it the bridal college. The majority of them meet their spouses at these colleges, know, which is true of many of the kids in the youth group. So we come alongside as parents and we try to help them in their walking relationship with the Lord and that's what I did at the Roxy. I came alongside them and I tried to set the stage in things that they enjoy and they love with music and outreach and evangelism and bible study and try to just come alongside them and and make that season in their life a very exciting season for reaching people with the gospel. Not a boring Christianity. Not a boredom kind of a thing or a theoretical or a historical Christianity, but real active presently. What are you doing? What are we doing to stimulate our walk and relationship with the Lord in the lives of our kids? He says, suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not. So show them the way. Jesus said, I'm the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the father but by me. Psalm a hundred and three seventeen, the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him and his righteousness unto children's children. That's that's the goal presently, that our grandkids get saved. And we as grandparents, what a great opportunity as grandparents to be a part of the family that we're not all moved all over the planet, but we're close enough that if mom and dad are working real hard to make ends meet, that grandma and grandpa can step in and do some homeschooling, bible teaching, prayer, food, meals, clothes. If the budget's low for clothing, grandma and grandpa can pitch in. You know, we're we're there to help. We wanna help. We just we just need the opportunity to help. We we wanna bring them Jesus, you know. And thank God for Wayne and Brittany. They allow Kathy and I to to to help and to be there. I actually get to babysit sometimes. I get to not very often, but but grandma's nearby and she's the sheriff. She's always barking orders and I'm one of the kids. And his righteousness on the children's children are grandkids saved. Abba, daddy, papa, our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory forever. Amen. Jesus taught his disciples to pray to their heavenly father. Right? Praise the lord, the relationship that we have, to be a spirit filled father. Pass it on. Keep the faith. Don't be and I and I say this, don't wanna hurt anybody's feelings. This is something I know can be really touchy and I'm not pontificating. Don't be a deadbeat dad. A deadbeat dad would be a dad that's living for himself and not taking the time to lead his children to Jesus. That would be the greatest deadbeat there is. Not the financial stretching of the income and all. No. Just neglect. You're neglecting your role. I mean Let's pray. Father, thank you so much for the dads you put in our life. The fathers, the mothers, the grandparents. Lord, if some of them have a hard time and they drop the ball, Lord, I've learned that you raised up somebody else in our lives. For me, you raised up a a mentor, somebody to help me. You let me live with another family. You sent me lots of adults that help me, Lord. People that fix my car and let me live there and taught me things and gave me a job and so many ways that Lord that that leadership that I needed in my life, Lord was there. And Lord, as you patch my dad up and help my dad get through his hard season, Lord, as you saved him, he became an even greater dad and a greater grandpa and a greater friend. And I thank you that he's in paradise now, no more suffering. But I I thank you, Lord, that ultimately you caused that pain to go away. If there's anybody here still suffering with the pain of their dysfunctional family, Lord, or background or past or whatever, we pray in the present tense, Lord, that we could lay all that at the feet of the cross of Calvary, that you give us the capacity to forgive one another, to not harbor resentment or bitterness or be be hindered in our walking relationship with you because we would have the audacity to say that we don't see you as our father. Lord, Lord, help us to humble ourselves and to appreciate in your desire to communicate to us that you chose that of a father to be God the father. And then Lord, to manufacture, to engineer, to make a family, to have God the son and God the holy spirit and and a mother and a sister and a brother and grandparents and all. Lord, we get it. You want to be one. You want the intimacy. You want a relationship with us. And so Father, we thank you so very, much and we pray evermore that you would be well pleased, that you'd smile upon us and Lord that our lives would be lived out in obedience unto you. Help us Lord to not just love you just in word, but but in deed and in truth. Not just to worship you with words, but but being spirit filled from our hearts. Lord, help us. We need all the help we can get in our families. All the help we can get with our siblings, with our kids. It's a rough time, Lord. It's a rough, rough time. We need your help, Lord. We need to be being filled with the Holy Spirit. Help us, we pray. In Jesus' name, amen.
About This Podcast
Calvary Chapel Bremerton - Sunday Service
Listen to Rick Beaudry, Pastor of Calvary Chapel Bremerton, teach the Word of God cover to cover, chapter by chapter, and verse by verse. Be edified and built up in your faith with solid Bible teaching. New episodes on Mondays in the Pacific Standard Timezone.
