(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

and no man was able to answer him a word. Neither just any man from that day forth ask him any more questions. Let's pray to the Lord God, I just thank you for your word. I thank you for this opportunity to assemble here to hear preach, just ask that you would bless Pastor Maria with your Holy Spirit. Please just strengthen him, please just use the preaching to edify us and equip us to be better Christians and in Jesus name we pray, amen. Amen. Okay, we're in Matthew 22 this morning and I wanna be as practical as possible this morning on Father's Day and I wanna talk about the priorities of a father, the priorities of a father and so I'm gonna go over a couple points this morning regarding that particular topic and what it is that we as dads, we as fathers should put first. Now, you know, I don't want us as Christians to adopt, God doesn't want us to adopt this attitude that the world has that dads aren't really that important and whether he's there or not, you know, the household can just go on fine without him and he's just not that important. You don't understand how important a father is in the life of a household and the life of a child. Even in the presence of his wife, he plays an integral part and in fact, that's the reason why essentially God put him as the head of the home and he plays a major role in the life of a family and so it's for that reason that the father has to wear many hats, right? And if dads aren't careful, they can often get those hats mixed up and not necessarily put that which is most important first to get out of order and then what happens? There's conflict in the home. What happens? There's conflict with their kids. There's conflict in marriage. There's conflict just in life in general because of the fact that the priorities are out of whack and so this morning I wanna talk about what are the most important things a father should do? Okay, the priorities. What is it that precedes other tasks in order? What should be the most important things for a father to do? What are the priorities for a father? What should he do? Well, the reason we started off in Matthew 22 is because of the fact, if you look down at your Bibles at verse 36, it talks about the most important thing for anybody to do, right? Especially as a Christian. It says, master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. So obviously, the most important thing for a father to do, number one, before anything, before loving his wife, before loving his children, before providing, before doing those things which we believe to be very important is love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Now, if you don't have that down, everything else in your family, your life, your marriage, your children, work, is just gonna come to naught, okay? Because of the fact that we as Christians recognize that the greatest commandment is for us to have communion with God, to love God, and if we love the Lord as he commands us to do so, everything else basically falls into place. We essentially see everything through the lens of how does that affect my relationship with the Lord? How does that affect my love for God? Or we can also see it as, well, if I love God, I'll love my neighbor, which our immediate neighbors is, what, our families, right? And so the number one priority for a father is not that you work 40 hours a week, it's not that you take care of your wife and your kids. Those things are important. The number one important thing for you to do, though, is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And obviously, that is a task that is unending, right? It's essentially a task that really never gets done this side of eternity, but it's a task that God wants us to fulfill and essentially aspire to do so every single day of our lives, to die to self daily, and make sure that we are keeping our first love for the Lord. Now go to Colossians chapter one, if you would, Colossians chapter one. Of course, Matthew 22 is a quote from Deuteronomy chapter six, where it says, And now shall love the Lord thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soul and with all thy might. And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart. This is a reminder to your heart today to love God. And if you feel as a father, you've strayed from the path of loving the Bible, loving the word of God, loving Jesus Christ, take this as your weekly reminder, hey, make sure you start loving God today, okay? Make sure you put that first today in order for your week to go good, in order for your marriage to go well, in order for raising your children, the task in raising your children goes well. Let me read to you from Colossians chapter one, in verse number 17, it says, And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. And he is the head of the body, this is referring to Jesus Christ, the church who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he might have the preeminence. Did you know that Jesus is way more important than your spouse? You know Jesus is way more important than your job, it's way more important than any one of your kids. Now we don't encourage for you to have favorites in your household as far as kids are concerned, but you know what sometimes parents do? It's more important than your favorite, okay? More important than your hobbies, more important than any task you have to do this side of eternity, he is the preeminent one. So the number one task for you to do is to make sure you please God. You need to make sure you please God. Now don't get that mixed up and think, well, because I need to please God, I need to forsake my family or something, right? Because I need to please God, I need to forsake my spouse or my children or anything else that I do. Those aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, okay? And in fact, when we love God, we end up finding out that we are capable or God gives us the capacity to love our spouse, to love our children, to be better employees and just become better Christians, but we need to make sure that he becomes the preeminent one in our personal lives. Go to Matthew chapter 10, Matthew chapter 10. So he says there, make sure that he is the preeminent one and all things he might have the preeminence, not just in church, not just in your daily devotionals, it says in all things. So even that, which is carnal at your job, in your household, it doesn't matter where, he's supposed to be the preeminent one. Look at Matthew chapter 10, verse 37. We're gonna look at the remainder of Matthew chapter 10 tonight. We're gonna talk more about persecution tonight, actually. You know, it's just very, you know, ironic that I preached on Matthew chapter 10 on Thursday night. And then, you know, we get pizza ordered to us by the alphabet people, and if that's not enough, they ended up breaking our windows and breaking our van windows or whatever and all this nonsense, but hey, that's what it is, right? Talk about persecution, it's just like, God wanted us to have a real life illustration, you know? In case you didn't get the memo, you know, it's just like, now you understand. Look at Matthew 10, verse 37, it says, he that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. Those are strong words. And he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Now, that second part is hard for parents, because to us, we love our children. I mean, we have an immense love for our children. It comes from the Lord, obviously, but to think that, you know, we need to make sure that we love the Lord more than our children, I mean, that's a powerful statement. Now, what is Jesus Christ saying here? He's saying that he wants complete loyalty. You put no one before him, even those whom you love the most, Jesus Christ is supposed to go before them. And in fact, if you don't choose Jesus Christ over your children, the Bible says you're not worthy of Jesus, it doesn't say you're not worthy of salvation. Okay, this has nothing to do with salvation. You know, salvation is believing on Jesus Christ, you know, placing your faith in him plus nothing, minus nothing, you have eternal life, and it's a gift from God, and you can never lose it. I'll never leave you nor forsake you. And in fact, the Bible specifically says that, but as many as receive them to then give you power to become the sons of God, even unto them that believe on his name. So salvation has nothing to do with this particular passage. This is referring to you loving the Lord. And no, you don't have to love the Lord to be saved either. Okay, a lot of people say out there, oh, you know, you gotta love God. Well, how can an unsafe person love God, if loving God requires them knowing the Bible? Loving God requires them keeping God's commandments, okay? So obviously, loving God is not essential for salvation. Receiving and believing on Jesus Christ is essential for salvation. Thereafter, he wants us to love him, and part of loving him is making sure you put him first, loving him more than your children. Now again, those ideas are not mutually exclusive, okay? He's just saying there, look, he needs to be number one in your life, okay? Go to John chapter eight, John chapter eight, if you would. And you know, sometimes people put a different definition of what it means to love God. We'll talk about these passages where God requires 100% loyalty, and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me, and you know, they'll come up with their different definition of what it means to love God. We're like, well, I love God, you know, and I don't need to do all these things that the Bible says to love God. He knows that I love him. But you know what, we need to love God on his terms, not on our own, right? And not be like, well, you know, I don't care what the Bible says and whatever the commandments of God are. That book is written by man or whatever. It was like, well, this one's made by a printing company, first and foremost, okay? But yes, man did write the Bible, but man was inspired by God to write the Bible. And here's the proof that this is a book written by God is the fact that, you know, there's no mistakes in it. There are no errors. It's in there, it's infallible, okay? And all books throughout history written by man without divine inspiration have some sort of discrepancy to them. Well, the Bible doesn't, okay? And here's the thing is that at the end of the day, you have to accept it by faith, right? But the point that I'm trying to make here is the fact that we cannot love God on our own terms. We need to make sure that we go according to God's definition of what it is to love him and love him based upon those things. And you know what? Part of loving God, listen to this, it's not just an emotional love, although he wants us to love him emotionally. He wants us to feel deeply about him and think upon his name and actually have a heart that loves the Lord. But you know, it goes beyond that as well, okay? And it goes into the realm of just being a disciple of Jesus Christ. You see, to love the Lord, man, is to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, to be a student of God, to be a follower of Jesus Christ. And not like the cliche way that people use it, well, I'm a follower of Jesus, you know, but they don't read the Bible, they don't go soul winning, they don't know anything about God's word, they don't necessarily have, that's a superficial love. God wants us to be a disciple. Look at John chapter eight, verse 31, it says, then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, if ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed. What does that mean? Well, we have to continue in God's word, read God's word, obey God's word, and then we're qualified to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. It's not just words, my friends. It's not like, well, I'm a follower because, you know, I believe in Jesus, I got a relationship with the man upstairs. Well, the fact that you would call him the man upstairs shows us that you don't have a relationship with the Lord. Because anybody who actually follows the Lord has a reverential attitude towards God. I'm not gonna call him the man upstairs, he's God Almighty, okay? But also, they continue in his word. So here's the message to dads this morning, is, you know, number one priority for you as a father, read the Bible. Read the word of God. You say, I struggle reading, then learn how to read. Okay? Or put on an audio Bible for you to listen to as you're reading along. But you should be reading the word of God every single day because that's your number one priority, is to walk with God, is to read his word, is to get something out of the Bible, to learn the word of God. The Bible says to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. The Bible says that this book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night. Sounds to me like the Bible needs to be a priority to a father, right? Seems to me that the word of God should be the preeminent one in our lives. You say, well, I thought Jesus Christ was supposed to be the preeminent one. Well, Jesus is the word of God. He's called the Word. And so, make reading the Bible priority. Look, I know that you're busy, I know you gotta work, I know you got all kinds of responsibilities, but don't get them mixed up. The number one thing you're supposed to be doing is reading the Bible. And obviously, we live in a world where reading isn't necessarily popular. Although, sometimes I beg to differ on that. Because people are like, oh, I don't really read. It's like, what do you mean? You read like 10 Facebook posts today. You read enough Facebook and Instagram to finish a novel if you wanted to. That's not even including the comments section that you're clicking on and reading and participating in. Don't tell me you don't read. Now, obviously, the English in those posts isn't necessarily the best, but we're just saying reading in general. Like, well, I'm not really used to reading. You read a lot. Everyone reads, to a certain extent. Especially if you're on social media, you read quite a bit, you read captions. And obviously, I know there's videos or whatnot, but people do read the posts and all that. And so, read the Bible. Stop making excuses why you're not reading the word of God. Like, I don't have enough time, then make time for the Bible. Because your number one priority as a father is you gotta make sure you love God, and part of loving God is continuing in his word. Well, I'm tired. Then get some exercise in. Do whatever you need to do to situate your mind and your heart to sit down, crack open the Bible, and read it. Now, I'm not saying that you have to read for an hour a day or something. I mean, it wouldn't hurt, but maybe you can start with five, 10 minutes. Start with a couple chapters. Tell your wife and kids, I need no distraction right now. I'm gonna go into this closet, I'm just gonna read for a little bit, and just make that a habit. Don't undermine the importance of reading the Bible. Be a disciple of Jesus Christ by reading God's word. Jesus said, if you love me, keep my commandments. He didn't say, if you love me, call yourself a follower of Jesus Christ. He says, if you love me, you gotta keep my commandments. And so, the number one priority for a man, for a father, isn't necessarily to be a father. It's to read the Bible. It's to love God's word. You may think to yourself, yeah, but my kids, they're already grown, and I just don't know what kind of impact I can have on my children now that they're grown, and I just got saved, or I recently came and got right with God. I just don't know, see what significant difference or impact I can make in the life of my child if they're teenagers, or we all just kinda got into this thing at the same time, and so I just don't see how I can make a difference. Well, think about this. The Bible says that Enoch, it says that he lived 60 and five years and begat Methuselah, and it says that Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah. And then later on, we see that Enoch was not for God took him, so he walked with God so closely that he ended up getting raptured and translated to heaven, but this was after he begat Methuselah. And so if Enoch could do it, now given Enoch had a little more time to walk with God, but the point is is that he did it after he begat Methuselah and let me say this, often in the Christian life with people who get saved later on, having a child is a great motivator to start walking with God. Getting married, having children, or the fact that you already have kids that are grown up, that's a great motivation to say, you know what? I need to start reading the Bible. I need to start getting some wisdom from God's word, getting some direction from the Bible because I have a household to lead in the ways of the Lord. Therefore, I need to start reading the Bible. See, the worst thing you can do is like, well, it's already too late, my kids are already grown and I'm already married, it's just too late for me or whatever, and just kind of throw out the idea and the commandment to read the Bible. It's better to view it as, well, I gotta make up for lost time. And now that I'm a Christian and I run a Christian home, I need to start reading the Bible to see what does the Lord require of me as a father and as a husband and find out. Yeah, but that book's so big though. I was like, how am I gonna get through the whole thing? Well, obviously, little by little. And aside from that, how about preaching? Preaching can often accelerate the growth of a Christian when you couple it with Bible reading, okay? This accelerates your spiritual growth and helps you to get knowledge within you at a reasonable pace as you read the word of God. You need both of these, right? And so, don't make that excuse to say, well, my kids are already grown, it's no use in walking with God. No, you need to walk with God more now. Especially if you have teenagers, amen? Or you have grown adults, even more of a reason. I mean, there's all types of reasons why we should start walking with God. The fact that you don't walk with God now, that's a good reason to start walking with God. Because it's the number one responsibility for a Christian and it's the gateway to loving the Lord, okay? The Bible tells us, go with me if you would, to go to Ephesians, if you would, Ephesians chapter five. The Bible says in John 15, verse five, I am the vine, ye are the branches, he that abideth in me and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit, for without me ye can do nothing. So according to the Bible, in order for us to accomplish anything of eternal significance, to make any eternal significance in the life of our children, in our marriage, we have to abide in the vine. That means we have to walk with the Lord, we need to stay attached to Jesus Christ through prayer, through obedience, through keeping his commandments. We need to be like, you know, Christians. We need to be disciples of Jesus Christ in order for us to bear fruit. And the Bible says, for without me ye can do nothing. But what's another way of loving the Lord? Obviously reading the Bible, let me say this, when it comes to the family life, centering your life and the life of your family around the Bible. See, we as Christians, we can't compartmentalize Christianity and say, well, you know, we're all gung ho about Christianity while we're at church, but then at home it's just a different story. At home it's just a worldly life. At home it's just the world is in there, at home there's no order. We should be Christians at all places, no matter where we're at. And the way you can assure that is by making sure that you center your life and the life of your family around the word of God. Meaning you make every decision based upon the Bible. Not based upon our own understanding. Not based upon your experience per se if it's contrary to God's word. It's based upon the word of God. It's like, man, that's like a lot though, you know? That means like I gotta be like a Christian like all the time. Yeah, that's exactly what it means. Don't take this microwave version of raising kids and having a great marriage. A microwave version is without the Bible. It's like going to your famous podcast of marriage counseling or how to raise your children or how to be successful in the home. No, go to the word of God. Let that determine the decisions you make and the direction that your family's gonna go. Center your life on the Bible, okay? And I'll say more about that in just a bit, but you know, a great way to think about this is, Lord, not my will but thine be done. What is God's will for your family life? What is God's will for your family life? And you know, once you find out what God's will is for your family life, there's a lot of decisions that you no longer need to make. There's a lot of decisions that are already made for you. This is what's great about being a Christian is that a lot of decisions that you'd be stressing about are already made. You don't even have to worry about it. So what do you mean? You're like, well, you know, should we go to church? Hey, I got you. A decision's already been made. I was supposed to go to church. You don't have to make that decision. You know, we don't wake up in the morning and say, hmm, today's Sunday, barbecue, church. Nah, not barbecue. I'll choose church. No, it's already been made for you. If you're already centering your life around God's word, there's no question about it, you go to church on Sunday. If you're centering your life around the Bible, around God's word, there's no question who's in charge. Now, if you ask your wife, if you ask the husband who's in charge, but the Bible's not the center of your home, oh, it's gonna create all kinds of conflict. But if we say, well, what does the Bible say about that? You say, sorry, honey, the Bible says I'm in charge. Sorry, but not sorry, you know. I came out winning on this. We don't have to do rock, paper, scissors to figure out who's in charge here. That decision's already been made. A lot of things are already made. You know, should we allow alcohol into our home? Should we allow worldliness into our home? Don't worry, if you're a disciple of Jesus Christ, the decision has already been made for you. That's the great thing about Christianity, a great thing about the Bible, is as long as you're a disciple of the Lord, certain things you don't even have to worry about, you don't even have to think about it. It's like, what does the Bible say? Oh, okay, we can't do that. Oh, this is what we're allowed to do. This is, you know, this is the way we're supposed to live life, because you're centering your life around the Bible. But you know what, too many homes center their life around the Bible when they're at church, but then they go outside of the Bible when they're at home. We need to make sure we center our entire life around God's word. Every aspect of our lives should be centered around God's word. And so not my will, but thine be done. What is God's will for our family? What is God's will for my wife? What is God's will for my children? What is God's will for my family unit? What does God want us to do? How do we glorify God on this earth as a family, as a Christian family? And so, priority number one is loving God. And I can't emphasize that enough to make sure that you love the Lord. Because when you love the Lord, everything else essentially falls right into place. Your relationships will be that much better. Your marriage will be that much better. Raising your children will be a delight. Working will be a delight. Just living life will be a delight if you love the Lord. And here's the great thing about loving God. Because loving your wife and raising your children and doing all those other things, we're not gonna do them perfectly. Because we're fallible. We're gonna make all kinds of mistakes, right? And I'm sure many could attest here, yeah, I've made some mistakes. But here's the great thing about loving the Lord. The Bible says that if we love the Lord, he'll work all things together for good. So there is this supernatural fixture of our situations, no matter how bad of a mistake you make, as long as you love God, God always fixes it. But here's the point, though, is that in order for him to fix it, you gotta love the Lord. So it's not like, well, you know, yeah, I love him on my own terms. It doesn't work that way. You have to love him on his terms in order for it to work out. So it really doesn't matter how big of a mistake you've made, how deep in the hole you've gotten, how bad you've strayed and maybe done wrong or sinned or made a mistake or made a bad decision in your home or whatever it may be. It doesn't really matter as long as you love the Lord. Because when you love the Lord, he always redirects you in the right step, in the right way, on the right road. But you have to love the Lord. So that kind of guarantees us that we're gonna be okay. So for me, it's just like, you know what? Honestly, there are bad decisions that I can make in this life. But at the end of the day, as long as I love the Lord, all decisions will still lead me in the right way. You understand what I'm saying? Not to say there's no consequence or ramifications to my decisions. But if I decide, okay, I got three choices here, A, B and C, I go with C and C is the worst out of them all. C is the worst. C will still put me on the right track eventually, if I love the Lord. Why is that? Because if we love the Lord, we're willing, we're submitting to God, we're willing to be corrected. God uses that bad decision to essentially correct our steps, teach us a lesson, and get us back on track. But we have to love him. So what's the second priority for a father? Well, notice I said for a father, and not for a husband. The second priority for a father is to love his wife, actually. Because in order to have children, you have to be married, amen? At least that's how God puts it. Not saying that that doesn't happen outside of marriage, but God's will is that two people get married, and the byproduct of that relationship is children, okay? How many? As many as the Lord gives you. There's no, we're not supposed to put a cap on it, okay? Because God's will is for two people to come together and just enjoy each other, and then just produce fruit. I'm trying to do my part to repopulate the earth, amen? Our church is trying to do their part, amen? To preserve and spread Christianity by preaching God's word, getting souls saved, and having a bunch of kids. But you know what? It starts off first with loving your wife. You're like, that's too practical. But you know what? This is the most practical things that we need as a church. And the number two priority for us as fathers is to love our wives. Look at Ephesians 5 21. It says, submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, and he is the savior of the body. Oh man, I reverted back to what I thought I was gonna preach, and I just put submit. I forgot the verses on loving your wife, actually. It's in there, though, but let me find it. That's my life verse, so that's why I put it on there. Five 21 here. 25, thank you. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. So, a responsibility of a husband is to love his wife, okay? And not just loving her emotionally, but loving her intellectually, loving her physically, loving her as she would desire to be loved. And that's what God actually expects of us. So it's not just like a natural byproduct of marriage, it's actually something that God commands for us to do. Now, if you're newly married, you may think to yourself, easy, that's cake. Because of the honeymoon stage, right? But you know, the longer you're married, the more sometimes discipline it takes to actually love your spouse sometimes. Not because they become less lovable, but it's just because the nature of the beast, the nature of man, is for his love to dwindle sometimes, and now character has to kick in, discipline has to kick in, until the next wave of emotional love kicks in. Doesn't mean you're never gonna love your spouse emotionally, it's just that it comes in waves sometimes. And you know what, life hits, amen? And life can often dwindle our love for our spouse, and the romance is no longer there as it used to be, but you know what, be disciplined, have character, keep God's commands by loving your spouse, and you know what, that romance will end up kicking in. You'll find yourself buying a candle or something, and having a romantic dinner or whatever, just loving your wife and making sure that she recognizes she is the one and only, that you love her and that you can't do life without her, amen? She is your significant other, my wife completes me, and I love my wife emotionally, but I'll be honest with you, if my wife wasn't in my life, I'd fall apart, I'll just be honest with you, even with loving the Lord, okay? You say, why is that? Well, because of the fact that she's my help me. I need my wife in a lot of areas, especially even as a pastor, but as a father, I need my wife, and you know what, your wives need to know that you need them. Your wives need to know you need them, and just because you express to them that you need them, doesn't mean you're less of a man or something like that, because they are your help me. So express to your wife, hey, you don't realize how much I actually need you in my life. You know, if it wasn't for you, I'd be living outside of my car, eating pizza every day, and just destroying my life, and not doing any laundry, just buying underwear and shirts every day at Target, because I don't do laundry or something like that. We need them! This church will never be a Mid-Tow Church. Bunch of men who despise women, and these wicked podcasters out there, who want to make excuses for committing adultery, and just demonize the Western woman. These passport bros who say, you know, you gotta go to a different country to find yourself a good woman. Well, it looks like the husbands in here found themselves a good woman here. All the husbands should say amen on that one, all right? Looks like we found good spouses here. It's like, oh, the Western woman has been defiled, you know, we need to go to the Philippines, we need to go somewhere else, to go get a mail order bride or whatever, mail in order bride. Find one at your church. Amen. But love your wives. And I'm not gonna give all the practical steps on how to do so, because this is very surface level principles that I'm giving this morning. We're just talking about priorities. I'm reminding you of your priority, okay? And so, and by the way, your wife does come before your children. Your wife comes before your children. And I don't know if you knew this, but you knew your wife before you knew your children. That's right. Okay, some of you will get that after lunch, but it's true. And you know what? One day your kids will grow up, and they'll leave the home, and it's just gonna be you and your wife again. And you know, unfortunately, sometimes because the focus is so much on the kids, it's so much on the kids, it's all about the kids, and they're the most important thing, they grow up and they leave, and then they're left with just a husband and wife, and it's like they don't even know each other anymore. And they realize the only thing that held them together was the kids. But folks, this ought not to be. You know, I love my kids, and I'm enjoying this season of life that we have, but one day they'll grow, one day they'll get married, and it'll be my wife and I, and it's just like, finally, some peace and quiet around here, you know? I'm just kidding. You know, it's just like, it's my wife and I again, and you know, that's how it should be, okay? Love your wife. Tell her you love her. Show her you love her. Make her a priority in your life, and make sure she knows that she's the most important person in your life this side of eternity, because she is, okay? Bible says, husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them. So part of loving her is not just having an emotional desire for her, a physical desire for her, but it's even loving her beyond that to recognize that if your wife offends you, if she does something to disrespect you, that you oughta forgive her for that, because it says don't be bitter against her. Love her. So part of the expression of love is the willingness to forgive over and over and over again, even if those offenses come repeatedly. And let me say this, the best way to show your children that you love them is by loving their mother. The best way to show your children that you love them is actually by loving their mother, and I don't wanna get ahead of myself, but children actually find security in their mom and dad loving each other. That's why divorce homes, those who come from a divorced home, they struggle with a lot of insecurities. They have a lot of trauma, mental trauma, emotional trauma, because their security is just completely stripped away when that takes place. And you say, did you come from a divorced home? No, but I came from a single-parent home, and I know firsthand how important it is to have a father present in the home. How much insecurities I had growing up and the things that I struggled with growing up and just the trials and traumas of growing up without a father, I recognize the importance of having a dad in the home. And also by the fact that I know and I can see it in the eyes of my children that when I love my wife and I express my love to my wife, they love that stuff. It makes them feel secure. It makes them feel like everything's gonna be okay because that's what they need. That's God's order. When there's dissension in a marriage, that creates disorder in the heart of a child. It causes them to be insecure because we are their security, okay? Along with loving your wife, you're teaching your sons how to love their future wife based upon how you treat yours. So keep that in mind. Like, oh, you know, I'm just gonna love my kids, and my wife, she just gets the leftovers or something. Well, you know what? Your kids are gonna treat their future spouse based upon how you treat yours currently. So keep that in mind. You're teaching your daughter, listen to this, what type of man to be attracted to. You say, what do you mean by that? Your daughter's gonna marry a guy like you. That's how it is. Your daughter will be attracted to and end up marrying a man who's just like you because we exemplify to our daughters what they should be looking for in a spouse when they're older, who they should be attracted to in a spouse when they're older, okay? And so that should be a wake-up call, amen? If you have daughters, to say, you know what? I need to buckle down as a father and make sure that I'm masculine, make sure that I love my wife, make sure that I'm the best that I need to be as a father to exemplify what kind of man my daughter should be looking for, not these effeminate dudes out there or whatever, and these guys who are gonna treat her badly. You know, we need to make sure we exemplify what it is to be a dad because that's who they're gonna attract. Go to 1 Peter chapter three. Now, I say this jokingly, but it's actually, I'm being serious, but it's kind of like a joke too. And that is loving your wife is the pursuit of peace. Why are you laughing? It is. Loving your wife is the pursuit of peace, believe it or not, okay? Now, we can apply that in a lot of different ways, okay? You know? But let me explain to you biblically why it's the pursuit of peace when we love our wife. 1 Peter three verse seven says, likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge. Meaning, you know, learn your wife. What kind of food does she like? Does she like coffee or not? What's a particular chocolate she desires? You know, what makes her tick? What makes her giggle? What makes her laugh? What makes her mad? What are the buttons? Like, do I gotta know all that? Dwell with them according to knowledge. What hurts them? What doesn't? What makes them feel special? What doesn't? What restaurant does she prefer to go to? What restaurant does she not prefer to go to? Okay? You know, knowledge of your spouse in every facet, okay? Giving honor to the wife as unto the weaker vessel. Like, oh man, that's a lie, you know? It almost sounds like, you know, she has to be like catered to or something. Or it says we have to give honor to them as unto the weaker vessel. As being heirs together with the grace of life, that your prayers be not hindered. So that's another great motivator to have a good relationship in your marriage. Do you want your prayers answered? I don't know about you, but I want my prayers answered. So I always have to make sure my wife apologizes to me and gets right with me, you know what I mean? Because we gotta get these prayers answered. So she has to get right with me all the time. It says finally be ye all of one mind, having compassion one for another. Love his brethren, be pitiful, be courteous. These are a lot of great principles here. Love his brethren, what does that mean? You know, she should be your best friend. He should be your best friend, right? Be pitiful, be courteous. That means don't accentuate the weaknesses of your spouse. Be pitiful, okay? Don't criticize your spouse in front of others. Don't criticize your spouse, period. Okay, now if you have to criticize them, criticize them to their face, behind closed doors, not in front of the children, not in front of anybody else. But the best thing to do is just not criticize them at all. Okay, be pitiful, be courteous. Okay, what does that mean? Open the door for your wife. Not rendering evil for evil or railing for railing. What does that mean? Don't be vengeful towards your spouse. Railing for railing is just like, you know, it's when you have a really good comeback. You guys know what I'm saying? Like your wife says something to you and you're like, I got one that'll just destroy you right now. Don't do railing for railing. Don't try to one up each other. This is but contrary, wife's blessing. Knowing that ye are there unto called, that ye should inherit a blessing. In other words, the area that you should try to outdo each other is in blessings. So if your wife blesses you, I see your blessing. All right, I'm gonna one up you on that one. I'm gonna be a bigger blessing. That's what God wants us to do. He's like, act like you're Christians. For he, listen to this, verse 10. For he that will love life and seek good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil and his lips that they speak no guile. Let him eschew evil and do good. Let him seek peace and ensue it. This is all in context of marriage here. So he's like, you want peace? Don't go to that reel, by the way. I do not want peace. I want problems, you know? No, no, no. If you want peace, follow these directions and these instructions on how to have a godly marriage. Love your wife if you want peace. And look, someone like me, I'm always dealing with war. So when I go home, I don't want more war. I want peace, okay? I'm always dealing with war, warring with others, people warring with me. And by the way, I am for peace, but when they speak, they are for war, okay? So when I go home, I want peace with my wife. And the way that I can assure myself that I'm gonna have peace and pursue that peace is by making sure that I love my wife, that I dwell with her according to knowledge, that I render blessings unto her, you know? And make sure that I have compassion for her. I love her as my best friend. I'm pitiful, I'm courteous. And sometimes people will come up with this argument and just say, yeah, but what if it's not reciprocated, though? You know, what if it's not being reciprocated? And what about me and my happiness or whatever? And it's just like, and I say this as kindly as I possibly can, but stop being a weenie. You're a man, okay? Men are kind of like made to suffer a little bit. So we're a little stronger, got a little more testosterone, and that might hurt some of you, but I'm being completely honest with you. Put those emotions aside and deal with this. And often what you'll find is that when you take the focus off yourself and you put it on the object of your love, which is your wife, you know, you won't feel like that anymore. You only increase feelings like that when you continually focus on yourself. When you want to be vindicated. When you want to make sure that you're justified. When, you know, you want her to apologize and you want her to admit that she's wrong, and you want, folks, put that aside. Allow yourself to be defrauded, men. If you've been wrong, then you're the one who's in the wrong, be defrauded. Because you'll still get a blessing from that from the Lord. And if you feel so hurt about it, take it unto the Lord, cast your care upon him for he cares for you. He sees that. You know, if my wife and I ever get into a loud discussion, we don't get into arguments, we don't yell, loud discussion, we don't even do that. But if we get into a disagreement of some sort, you know, and it's starting to get into the late hours of the night where it's time to go to bed or something, at the end of the day, I really don't care who's right and who's wrong. I don't care. It's just, what do you do? I just apologize. I say, you know what, I'm sorry. Because I'm carrying this on. And you know what, you say, was that sincere? Well, it is because of the fact that I look for reasons why it's my fault. That's what I do. I'll look for reasons why it's my fault. I'll say, you know what, I had a bad attitude towards you. I said this and I shouldn't have said it. My spirit isn't right towards you. And I want you to forgive me. And luckily, my wife always forgives me. You know, you say, why? Because I always forgive her. You say, why do you do that? Because I'm pursuing peace. Because I want to go to bed with my wife. I want to be able to lay down and go to sleep with a clear conscience. I want peace in my home. So priority number two of a father is to love his wife. Do not undermine the importance of that. And I'll talk more about that, of course, during our family nights. I'm gonna preach a series entitled Preventative Medicine for the Home. We're gonna talk about some of those things. And so I wanna encourage you to be here during that time. Now turn with me if you would. Let's see, where should I have you go here? Go to First Timothy chapter five. What's another priority of a father is to raise godly children. Notice I didn't say raise good children. Raise godly children. Godly is different than good. Good is just, you know, functioning members of society. Godly are those who love the Lord, okay? Now, how do you raise godly children? Well, let me say this, in general, of course, I'm just giving general principles here. Make the objective clear in your home what you're about. What do I mean by that? This is a Christian home, kids. We are Christians. Dad is a Christian. Mom is a Christian. You're a Christian. We follow Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is our God. We worship the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the most important thing in our lives here is the word of God. Loving the Lord is the most important thing. Make the objective clear. Don't allow, don't create a home where there's confusion. Right? This confusion is like, so what are we doing? Are we going to church or not? Are we Christians or are we not? The objective should always be clear on who we are as a family unit. We're Christians. Raising godly children. Now, here's even more practical than that is, how do you do that? By disciplining your children. And I don't mean discipline as in help them to have character, wake up early in the morning, make their beds. I'm talking about spanking your children. You know what? This needs to be preached more often in 2023, more than ever before, because so many brats are being raised today in our society that have clearly not been whooped. That derelict who threw a rock through the window, I guarantee you he's never been whooped. I would not dare to throw any rock through anybody's window growing up, because that lady over there would whoop me if she ever found out that I did. She wouldn't think twice. If she found out that I did that, I'm pointing to my mom, okay? They're like, man, Miss Mejia does that too? Shh. Discipline your children. You know, if you love your children, you're disciplining them, and if you want to create, let's just say at base level, you want to create good children, or even to create good children, raise good children, you have to discipline them. Not give them their way, not allow them to throw fits and be disrespectful, actually chastise them in a biblical manner. And we're not talking about the manner in which maybe some of us got whooped growing up, okay? We're talking about the biblical chastisement of the bottom, okay? And it's necessary because it teaches children that life has consequences, decisions have consequences. And ultimately, if you chastise your child early enough and long enough, they'll end up somewhere down the road getting saved actually. That's actually an important element for salvation for a child is for them to be disciplined early by their parents. Because they recognize that life has consequences. So when someone comes to them and talks about salvation, that they deserve hell, they're not going to be like, well, I'm non-binary. I'm not going to bring that nonsense. They're going to be like, oh yeah, well, that's true because my dad whooped me when I did something wrong. So lo and behold, yeah, God the Father would have consequences, you know, for my actions. And so yeah, that makes perfect sense. Well, I don't believe in that sky, daddy. There's people out there like that. They weren't whooped. You say, what do they do? The parents probably put them in a corner. Probably gave them a time out. Probably took away their PlayStation for an hour or something or their Xbox or whatever. You know, that's not discipline, my friend. Well, yeah, but that really gets to them though. That really hurts them. No, it doesn't. It just makes them mad at you. That just gets them bitter at you is what it does. Disciplining your children actually brings conclusions and it resolves conflict between you and your child. Okay, because they realize, you know, this needs to come to a head and needs to close. Sometimes we as people, human beings, we want to essentially be punished for things that we did so we can have a clear conscience. It's just like, I just want to suffer the consequences because I know that I did wrong and I need to alleviate my conscience. That's what disciplining does, okay? But other ways to raising godly children is being in church with your children. Reading the Bible with your children. Listen to this, talking about the Bible with your children. That's important. Not about your favorite TV show, you know, or your favorite sports team, actually talking about the Bible with your children. Like, that's a little excessive. You know, how am I supposed to talk about the Bible if I don't really know the Bible? There you go. Read the Bible so you can know what the Bible says. And, you know, I can't say that my wife and I have done this on purpose, but there are instances when we're riding, we're going somewhere, we're going out to eat, and my wife and I are just talking about the Bible. Just talking about different principles in the Bible. And, you know, our children are there. We're not like, all right, are they listening? All right, go, now you go first or something. It's just part of the atmosphere of my house, not just in our van, but even when we're home or we're talking about the word of God, I want our children to see that mom and dad actually do love the Bible. We do. And it's not like my wife knows all types of, it's not like we're discussing end times Bible prophecy or something, and it's just like, so what do you think about the 1,260 days? What kind of calculations do you, you know, who's the Antichrist or something, you know? I'm not saying those are bad topics to talk about, but, you know, often we just talk about Bible characters or principles or things that we learn in our Bible reading. Like, you know, I saw my Bible the other day. I thought this was really interesting. And you know what, my wife comes up with some good stuff, by the way. A lot of my sermons I get from my wife, actually, believe it or not, and I say that unashamedly, just to be honest with you. She comes up with a lot of good ideas, and in fact, many of my pastor friends have said the same thing. Not about my wife, about their wives. They get, hey, sometimes our wives actually come up with really good ideas, because they're walking with God. And, you know, we just discuss the Bible, and our kids know, hey, the Bible's important in our home, because they obviously talk about it. Because what you talk about obviously shows what's important in your life, right? You're always talking about your car, talking about money, talking about jobs and yourself and all these things. You know, obviously we're not going to be talking about the Bible 24-7, but the element of the word of God should be in those conversations at one time or another to raise godly children, okay? Let me say this. Here's something really important about raising godly children. Please do not forget this. This is very important, okay? All of them are important, but if you forget anything, don't forget this. Do not, fathers, listen to me. Do not make serving God grievous to your children. Don't force them to serve God with you or to serve God. Make serving God enjoyable to them. Well, we're going to go soul-winding for five hours, and no play, no fun. That's a recipe for disaster. You may, you know, think that you're all great by doing that. That's a no-go. That's a no for me, dog. You know, because your little ones, you're making those memories today, and they will remember these things. You know what they'll remember? I remember when I went soul-winding with my dad or with my mom, and then we went to eat ice cream afterwards and then we got a soul saved, and it was just so fun. But you know, there's a lot of churches that have parents that enforce serving God in such a way that it's like no wonder they get away from God when they're older, and they don't want to serve God. Or it's no wonder why they go to these liberal churches where there is no accountability, because you know, they love the Lord, and they know they should be in church, but they don't want to be in a strict fundamental Baptist church, because I remember when my parents did this, and they forced me to do this. You know, obviously, we are the parents. We're to enforce rules, but we also have to recognize that you don't want to cultivate an atmosphere in your family where it's just like serving God is a chore, not an activity that produces blessing and is enjoyable and it's fun. Don't make serving God grievous. Go have fun with your kids. Go soul-winding with your kids. Go for an hour. Go eat ice cream afterwards. Smile with them, laugh with them, have a good time with them. That's how it should be. Don't make coming to church grievous. Cultivate, you're like, well, my kids don't have fun when they come to church. And then you do something about that. And by the way, don't say, you have fun today, all right? You better be smiling. You have fun when you smile and laugh, and you better laugh when the pastor says, you know, no, just make it enjoyable. And part of it is just like the ride over here. Should be no like fighting on the way over here. And then you park and you're like, all right, everybody, everyone put on your smiles on. We're a happy family, happy family, you know? Now, obviously, when we have little ones, there's always gonna be some sort of conflict. Someone's just getting a spank or something. Some kid's acting up, they didn't sleep well last night or whatever it may be. But that should not be the norm, okay? And by the way, I've learned, and you can disregard everything I'm saying if you don't believe any of this, but I've learned, listen to me, in order to have a great Sunday morning, you have to prepare very well on Saturday. Right, yep. That means Saturday evening should be you at home, getting your kids a good night's rest, eating a good meal, simmering down. Why? Because church is tomorrow. We've always had the philosophy, you know, and don't wonder why your kids are just losing it on Sunday morning when they went to sleep like at two o'clock in the morning, Sunday morning. It's like, I don't know why my kids are just, they're just having a hard time. Maybe it's because you gave them a bunch of sugar and junk and they've been up all night or whatever and then you're forcing them to come to church. We have the philosophy, we always say this on Saturday, kids, we're going to bed, it's time to go to bed, it's time to wind down, you know why? Because tomorrow's church. We're teaching them the importance of recognizing we prepare for church not on Sunday morning. We prepare for church on Saturday night. What does that mean? Getting the clothes ready. And look, your Sundays can be so much better if you just take this advice, I'm just telling you. Okay, it's like everyone's ironing on Sunday morning and bathing and they're just getting all things all over the place, you know, and then you're just all flustered and then you come to church with just a really bad attitude because you had a rough Sunday morning. But you know, a lot of that can change if you just prepare all that on Saturday night instead of going out and doing whatever and keeping the kids up all late at night and no one gets any sleep and then every, dad, you can hack it coming here, but then your family is just like tired and they're grumpy and they're falling asleep and they're cranky and you know, all those things. Disregard all that if you don't believe it, but I'm just telling you it's worked for me and my family and we've just recognized, you know, the weekends are for the Lord in a sense of Saturday night, we want to make sure that our minds are ready for Sunday morning. We want to make sure that we are mentally, spiritually prepared for Sunday. Oh, you're making it seem as though like Sunday's like that important. Yeah, I mean, for me it is. And I want to communicate to my kids that's how important it is. So that when they grow up, I don't have to tell them, you know, when they're older, are you going to be going to church when you're, this is like, that's just what we do. Saturday nights is to prepare for Sunday morning. Yeah, but you're infringing on their fun, they could be doing so many more things on Saturday and having so much fun. Oh, oh, the horror of just taking that away from them so they can have a godly life, character, and, you know, have a decent Saturday evening so they can have a great Sunday morning and please the Lord and serve their family and serve the Lord. Oh, the horror of that, you know. And so I'm being facetious here. Don't make serving God grievous to your children. The Bible says in First John five, verse three, for this is the love of God that we keep his commandments and his commandments are not grievous. Colossians 3 21 says, fathers provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged, okay. And then lastly, when it comes to raising godly children, listen to this, I know I said the other one was really important, but this is also important, okay. Probably a little more important than the previous one, actually, now that I think about it. Listen closely at this point right now, what I'm about to say, be genuine. If you wanna raise godly children, be genuine. Like, I don't really know what you mean by that. All right, let me put it in a different way. Don't be a fake phony. Don't be a phony of a Christian. Don't be a phony of a father. Make sure you are genuine, not a phony. Let love be without dissimulation. It may work for a little bit when the kids are little, but you know what, kids are smart. Even when they get into like five, six, seven, they're smart, they start catching things. Be the same person you are here at home. Don't put up a front here, and then take the front off at home. Just be, you say well the guy at home is not that good, so I wanna be the guy that I am here. Well then be them both everywhere. Just be a genuine person. In other words, don't be a hypocrite. If you're a fake person, a fake Christian, and I'm not saying a fake Christian is that you're not saved, you're just kinda like living the Christian life in a fake type of a way. That's the kind of kids you're gonna produce. You're gonna produce phonies is what you're gonna do. Insincerity is the worst thing you can possibly do in a household, okay? And look, you can ask my family, I'm the same here as I am home, with the difference being I'm not preaching at home. I'm gonna like, ah, going off, and right now I'm doing my job as a preacher, okay? But how I am to you face to face after church, that's how I am at home. The way I'm funny in person, I'm funny at home too. I'm serious, you know? I take pleasure in making my family laugh. I'm not like all joyful and jovial here, and I'm just like a grump at home. Like, mm, just like mad and you know what I mean? Obviously when I go home it's just like, all right, I'm kind of exhausted, but in general, I wanna be the same person everywhere. And I want my kids to see, I want my wife to see that I do love the Lord even at home when no one's watching, that I do read my Bible, that I do pray, that I do believe these things even when I'm at home. I wanna be genuine as I possibly can. And your kids can sniff out when you're being a fake and a phony. It'll destroy your home, okay? And these are just surface principles. I wanna get more into these things. I probably will during family nights, but I must hasten because we're almost done. Number four, provide for your households. First Timothy five, verse eight says, but if any provide not for his own house, especially for those of his own house, he had denied the faith and he is worse than an infidel. Being the sole provider of your home is the priority for you, okay? So loving God, loving your wife, making sure that you raise godly children and also providing for your home. Go to Joshua 24, if you will, Joshua chapter 24. Number five, leading your family in serving God. By the way, by example, okay? Leading your family in serving God by example. You should be the example of your home or what it is to serve God. Bible says in Joshua 24, verse 15, and if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your father served or whether we're on the other side of the flood or the gods of the Amorites and whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Not I will serve the Lord. Sometimes it gets to that point, but you know what? In general, we wanna say we will serve the Lord, okay? Have a vision for your children. Have a vision for your household. And the vision should not be I want my kids to just make all kinds of money and be rich and famous. And I don't even think that's necessarily bad except for the famous part. But honestly, the goal should always be I just want my kids to love the Lord. I want my kids to love the Bible. I want my son to marry a godly spouse, a godly woman. I want my daughters to marry a godly man that they would be in the house of the Lord all the days of their life, that would win souls to Christ, and that they would just kinda use their lives to glorify God. That's what we should want. Like, yeah, but what about like fame and fortune? Those things are vain. And yeah, we want our kids to be hard workers and to be successful, and that's good, but not at the expense of being godly, okay? Again, don't raise good kids, raise godly kids. And then lastly, priority of a father, protecting the family and establishing boundaries. The Bible says remove not the ancient landmarks which thy fathers have set, referring to stones that they would place in order to indicate where the real estate of the home was, where it ended, but in like manner, we should also set those boundaries and standards from a spiritual perspective, okay? We're to protect our families. And a priority of a father is, I'm the man of the household, yes, I'm the one in charge, but that also means that I'm gonna put myself in danger if my family's in danger. Even if that means me dying. There should be no father in this room who would not feel that way, okay? And we need to make sure that we continue to raise godly men who realize the importance of sacrifice on all fronts, okay? Providing for our families, providing for our spouses, providing for our kids, but if need be, providing our own selves. If danger is near our family and if someone threatens our family or threatens our spouse or if there's physical danger for our kids, that we put ourselves on the front line and say, you're gonna have to do that over my dead body. And raise men who are not afraid of death, who do not fear dying, right? Recognize, I mean, I'm saved. So if I die, I go to heaven, and you know what? I'm in charge of this household. If danger's ever posed to my family in the day and age in which we live where, and the reason I'm saying that is because, you know, unfortunately, there's a lot of fathers out there that are not like that. I mean, I've seen horrific videos of, you know, a dog running up to a kid about to like maul the kid and the dad's right there and the dad just runs away. I've seen multiple videos like that where the dad just takes off, just leaves the child to fend for themselves or something. It's like, you weakling, what in the world is wrong with you? You know, it's like, what would you do? Tell the kid to run and just jump on the pit bull and let him maul you. That's what I would do. Say, I got more meat on me, come get me. I can spare some fat. You don't want him, that's not enough, right here. You know, sacrifice yourself. Don't just run, what about your kids? But you know what, this is the kind of generation that's being raised up today, self-centered society, narcissistic society who doesn't even care for the wellbeing of their own children. Not on my clock, not on my watch, you know. I love what I do and I want to be here as long as I possibly can, but if it ever comes down to it, I'll die for my family. I will die for my wife and I will die for my kids, no questions asked, you know. And so protecting the family, establishing boundaries, making sure that we fulfill our roles. I hope this helped this morning, just a simple reminder of what our priorities of a father should be, us as fathers. And you say, well, I'm not married, you know. You better take notes, fold this up and bring it up at a later time because you're gonna need this later on. And much of this may have gone over your heads, but it will come to your mind one day. I promise you that. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for your word. Thank you for the fathers in our church, Lord. And the mere fact that they're here in church shows that they're making a considerable effort to walk with you, to love you, to go in the right direction. None of us are perfect. We all make mistakes. We all have flaws, Lord. I pray that number one thing that we need to do is love you with all our hearts, our mind, and strength so that you can redirect us in the right path, Lord. And I pray that you'd help us to fulfill our responsibilities and keep these priorities intact and in their rightful order. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Song number 169, Come Thou Fount. Song number 169. Song number.