Live Sermon | The Trophy Dad

Fatherhood can feel like a test you never studied for, and that’s exactly why Ephesians 6:4 lands with such power. We open with God’s simple, direct charge: don’t stir your kids toward anger, but bring them up with discipline and instruction that points to the Lord. From there, we talk plainly about the pressure men carry, the quiet questions dads ask, and the hope God offers when you want to lead your family with real faith.

We break down three vivid pictures of biblical fatherhood that make Christian parenting practical. First, a dad is a trophy, not for ego, but as a public sign of integrity that kids can share in with pride. Second, a dad is a trainer, raising children the way a coach prepares an athlete, shaping character as much as behavior. Then we walk through four parenting phases (bonding, training, coaching, bleachers) to help you know what your child needs now and how to let go without checking out.

We close with the image of a tiller, cultivating an environment where the Word of God can take root, and we hold space for anyone who didn’t have a dad to look up to. The good news is simple: God is Father, and through Jesus there are no orphans in the family of God. If you want a Father’s Day sermon that’s both Christ-centered and deeply usable for raising godly children, hit play, then subscribe, share with a dad you love, and leave a review so more families can find it.

Transcript

Welcome And Father’s Day Scripture

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Kid Us Off First Podcast, where we're building transformed lives one message at a time. Each week you'll hear Christ-centered sermons from Dr. J. Perry Fowler, rooted in the truth of God's Word. This is where real faith meets real life, because a life built on truth is a life that lasts.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

Happy Father's Day. What a great day this is. If you'll take your Bible, turn to Ephesians chapter 6, verse 4. Verse 4 reads this way: It says, Fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath or to anger, but to do this. But bring them up. Say that with me. Bring them up. Bring them up in the discipline and the instruction of the Lord.

A Funny Story About Fatherhood

SPEAKER_01 0:53

I was reading about these three gentlemen back in the day when you had to kind of guys had to wait in the waiting room, you know, in the uh while their wives were in the delivery room. I was reading about these three guys that were in there. They're a little anxious. They were a little anxious. Because what they were doing is they were waiting to find out about the birth of their child. Wife was back in the delivery room. And one man was up and he was kind of pacing back and forth. He was a little anxious, a little nervous about the situation. And fortunately, it didn't take long until finally two nurses come in and uh they have two babies in tote, one on one arm, one on the other, and they said, Hey, guess what? You are the now the proud father of twins of two little boys. And the man looked at him, he says, Isn't that ironic? I can't believe it. Because I pitched for the Minnesota twins. He says, How appropriate this is. And it wasn't about five or ten minutes later that finally what happened was is that there was another disruption. These other two men are in there waiting, trying to find out when and their wife is going to give delivery to the baby. And here they come in, one lady, the same nurse, has two babies, and then a nurse has an additional one. And they walk in the door, and and the the they said, Hey, guess what? You are the proud father now of three children. He said, This is amazing because I am the CEO of 3M. That's my job. He said, How ironic that is. And then the other man fell on the floor, passed out. They finally woke him up and they said, What's wrong? And he says, I work at 7-Eleven. Being

The Weight And Joy Of Dad

SPEAKER_01 2:48

a dad is never really easy. You know, I talk to a lot of men, I talk to a lot of guys. That's kind of what I do. And while I talk to men, what I find is a lot of times men struggle and they wonder, am I doing well? Am I doing okay as a dad? Am I doing okay as a husband? How am I doing in the God department when it comes to me being the man that God called me to be? And it's never easy. We kind of wonder, okay, can I make can I satisfy everybody? Furthermore, we sometimes wonder, can I even satisfy God with this? Is this something that I'm doing right? Because yet, listen, this is a huge job. We bear a title that God Himself only bears. And that is God is a father. And it's a lot of pressure as a man to pause and to say, you know what, I'm gonna bear the same incredible title. And I want to do it, I desire to do it. It's something I find joy in, but do I do it well? Because I have so much to live up to when it comes to God being the father. But listen, God is here to encourage you today. He's here to kind of give you some assignments to help you kind of look through this biblical portrait of joy and the joy of being a father, and to tell you how important it is that you're a dad. And maybe today you're a grandfather. Maybe you're here, maybe you're watching online today, and you say, you know what, I'm a granddad. I've kind of outlived that. I know what that feels like. I mean, I have seven grandchildren with one on the way. And uh seven of them are boys. I'm like, why couldn't they have been girls? Because then it could be all the pressure could be on the ladies, you know. It seems like, but boys look to their fathers and they look to their grandfathers. The Bible says the glory of a child is in their father. And whether it's a boy or a girl, either way, but yet here it is that we often are given this responsibility of looking in Scripture, at least every Father's Day, to say, Am I doing this well? And a lot of men pause and they say, I don't know if I want to go to church on Father's Day, because you know, on Mother's Day they tell women how great they are, and on Father's Day they tell us how horrible we are. That's not what today's about. So, so just relax for a minute, guys, and let's pause and let's just celebrate this incredible gift of fatherhood. And let's celebrate what it means to really be a man of God. Guess what? It is okay to call yourself a man of God. It's okay to say, Lord, I am a man of God. I want to be a man of God. I want to live out what it means to be a man of God. But never do we do this better than with our own children. God already gave us the inclination and the desire to love our kids, to raise our kids, to do a lot of what He gives us an assignment to do. So this morning, I want to encourage you. I want you to know that God has a special place for you guys. If you're a dad or you're a granddad, listen, that's wonderful. Maybe you're thinking about being a grand a granddad. Maybe you're thinking about someday being a dad. Maybe if you're even just thinking about getting married today, I would highly, I would highly encourage you to do so. It's worked out good for me. But yet, let me just say this: God loves men. And with this, what he does is he says, Listen, let me encourage you. You know, sometimes it does get discouraging. We stop and we listen to little boys like this. There was a little boy one time that I was hearing, he said, listen, he looked at his mother and said, Don't yell at me, I'm not your husband. And sometimes it feels that way. Sometimes we kind of laugh and we say, Hey, am I doing this well? Well, listen, these are the three things that God gives to us that He says, I've called you to do, guys. And this is something that God gives to you as a gift. It's a responsibility. With having children or having grandchildren comes responsibility. And we're used to that. That's what we understand. We signed up for responsibility.

Be A Trophy Dad Of Integrity

SPEAKER_01 7:04

And the first responsibility that we have is simply to be for our kids when we read this passage, we're to be a trophy. We're to be a trophy. Just write that down. Here's the picture. If you want to look at God's picture of the album of what it looks like to be a godly dad, to be a godly man in your home, what it looks like is this looks like a trophy. See, the Bible says in Proverbs chapter 17, verse 6, grandchildren are the crown of old men. In other words, you get a reward after this, guys. And I will say this grandchildren are the most amazing thing in the world. How many can I get a witness to that? Can somebody at least say, Amen? You know what I'm saying? Grandchildren are great. And they are. I just spent a week with three of them, and really four, because one of them's in vitro, you know? So the daughter-in-law was there. But while I was there, and I have the blessing of my grandchildren living across the street from me. And we enjoy it. I would say, this is my crown, man. Every time I look at my grandchildren, I pause and I recognize what a gift this is to my life. And somebody said one time, if I knew grandchildren would be so great, then I would have just skipped kids and gone straight to grandkids. It doesn't work that way, though, does it? But because grandkids are amazing. So the Bible says, being a grandpa, here's what you know: your children, your grandchildren are like a crown. But before that, what we see is this. We see, and the glory of sons is in their fathers. Now, what does this say? The word glory there is the word doxa. It's a word that gives picture of. It gives us a picture of what a man is to his kids. And what he is, is he's like a trophy. I want you to see what a trophy looked like back in Paul's day. This is what it looked like. Yes, grandfathers are like around, but this is what a this is what a trophy used to look like. Now, what's interesting about the trophy is the trophy was not usually put on display in your home. Now, you could take it home. If you were in the Roman days and Paul's days, you could take it home, you would enjoy it. But most of the time the trophy would be set out in public for everyone to see it. And what he did is he said, Listen, we're so proud. Like if you're from the community, that trophy would say, we're so proud this guy lives in our community. And also what we know is it's kind of like this. This trophy would be set out in public places where maybe a Roman wife would say, Listen, that's my husband. But have you ever heard anybody say, that's my dad? Of course you have. People love this. Children love this. They love to find glory. But why? Because they want to share in the glory of their father. They're so proud of their fathers. And that's why it's so appropriate that we have a Father's Day today so that we would have that in America, so we could agree with God. And God says, Listen, guys, you're a trophy. So if your dad is sitting around, or your husband's sitting around right now, just look at him and say, you are a trophy husband. Just do it real quick. You're a trophy husband. All right. Or maybe you're a trophy dad. You know, we're always hearing about trophy wives, and it means something totally different. But listen, what we find about trophy husbands is this and trophy dads. It's not something on the outside, it's something on the inside. There's something on the inside going on in a person's life, and what it says is I am a person of integrity. I'm a person that works hard. I'm a person that gives of myself so that I can sacrifice for the family so I can be what I need to be. I know my role, I know my place, I am a trophy. And gentlemen, today, you need to just say, I'm a trophy husband. I'm a trophy, I'm a trophy grandfather. There's nothing wrong with saying that, listen, God, I am going to be a godly man. And I am going to be like that trophy to my children, to like time grandchildren. We're going to pass that thing down. And we're going to see my boys and my girls that I raised, we're going to see them rise up and bless. And then we're going to see this glory of honor that becomes a legacy of our life and a legacy of our family. That we can look back and we can look back with pride and say, listen, there was a change that happened back then in my dad's heart, in my dad's life. Or my dad stood up for Jesus. My dad was a man that said, I'm going to be a man of integrity. What I say will be true. How I live my life is really going to matter, and I'm living my life for Jesus. And you know what the result of that is? Your kids will want to be with you more. And that's what it always is. Kids love being with each other. I was studying this week to try to find out how much money is spent on Father's Day in America. Now you might be surprised at this, but uh listen, get this. $199.38 will be spent. This is what the glorious internet, that's never wrong, told me. It says $199.38 will be spent on Father's Day on every man that receives a Father's Day gift. Now that's interesting. Because what your kids are doing right now is this, oh, we just bought him a pair of socks at Walmart. That's what we did. Oh no. We're lagging behind. No, it's not that. The reason why that amount of money is being spent in America by 66 million people, is because of the fact that they don't just want to give their dads a gift, they also kind of want to receive one theirself. Now let me explain this to you. Mother's Day is completely different. I found this very intriguing. Mother's Day, the number one gift that women get in America today, mothers get in from on Mother's Day, is they get a gift to the spa, a place to go get their nails done, place to go get their hair done, stuff like that. You know what moms get a gift for? They get a gift so that they can get away from their kids. But what happens is this amount of money is spent on dads because the kids want to get with you. So the number one gift in America today for dads on Father's Day is actually an experience. I mean, it is number one. They say, I want to take dad to the ballpark, or I want to take dad maybe over to a concert, or I just want to go out and eat ice cream, or I just want to go out and eat, or I want to just do whatever. Kids love to be with their dads. They love it, you know, and part of it is because a lot of our situations is, I know it was my situation. My mom spent a lot of time with me growing up, and my dad worked a lot. But what what our kids crave is they say, well, listen, on Father's Day, let's spend the money so that in turn we can have a special moment in memory with our dads. You know why that is? Because whether you know it or not, you're a trophy. You are a trophy. Guys, you are a trophy husband. You are a trophy parent. You are a trophy to God because God says, listen, I place you in the home, I place you in the lab, so these children, these grandchildren can look up to you so they can find value, they can see love in you, and it's going to impact the rest of their life and their eternity. So the first thing, our assignment, guys, is to simply just be a trophy. Just be a trophy. And by the way, ladies, we need to tell our husbands that. We say, listen, you are a trophy husband. I know it's kind of hard to just give it on out, but it's okay to do that. What is it? Why would it be that we would not give that encouragement? It's a very, very important thing to say, I am proud of you. I'm proud of the godly man that you're becoming, you're become or that you've become and that you're continuing to become more and more like that. Give such honor to your husbands. Give that kind of honor to your dad. So the first thing is we see that the Bible teaches us that men were a trophy.

Become A Trainer Who Raises Up

SPEAKER_01 15:23

The second thing is we're a trainer. Now I want you to write that down because that is really, really important. Think about this in Paul's day. When Paul was writing this in the book of Ephesians, he understood that one of the goals of an athlete was to be a trophy, or to just to get a trophy. It's just like in our day. Uh, what we like to do is we like to win, you know, and we like to get a trophy. And uh back then there were no participation trophies. I mean, you just got a trophy if you won. And so the bigger thing than getting a trophy was to go beyond that and help somebody else get a trophy. Now, understand this. This is where Paul's coming from here. This is the picture he's painting in Ephesians chapter 6. By looking at the language that he uses there in Ephesians chapter 6, he says that this is what we're supposed to do. It says in verse uh in verse 4, fathers do not provoke your children in anger, but bring them up. And notice what he says in the discipline. Does this sound like athletic terms? Of course it does. And in the instruction of the Lord. In the instruction, what's this mean? This means you're gonna become a trainer. Bring them up. It gives the picture of compassion and coaching at the same time. Now understand this. I've been to uh Olympia, Greece. I went several years ago, and when I went, one of the things I noticed was as I noticed outside of this, the ruins of the stadium there, I noticed that there were some columns that were there. And I wondered what those columns were, and I looked at those columns and I asked uh our guide, I said, What are those columns? He says, Oh, that's the column of shame. I said, What do you mean? They said, Well, if you cheated or you had no integrity, what would happen would be in back in those days, they would raise a column to your disgrace or to your dishonor. So what they what they saw was is they saw, listen, we're going to, we're gonna put all the cheaters on display. And so what they would do is they would, they would, you would not want, by the way, you know, almost 2,000 years later, you wouldn't want some guy from America to go over there and some preacher and say, I'm gonna run the Olympic track and come out and say, What's that all about? And they say, Well, see this guy, his this was his name, and he was a cheater. You know, you wouldn't want that. So what we know is is we know that integrity really mattered in the Olympic Games, in the original Olympic Games, along with with what Paul was talking about, the imagery he's using here. It's very important to be a person, it's a person of honor. But you would get a trophy versus a pillar outside, of course, the the Olympic Stadium. The one outside the Olympic Stadium was dishonored. The trophy would be what you would take home and you would put it on display in your community. But what would even be bigger would be that you would become somebody that could train somebody else. I mean, it was like the biggest thing of all. It would be the most exciting thing. It's like, okay, yeah, that guy got a trophy, brought it back to the community, but guess what he did? He trained up three or four other people so that in turn they could get a trophy and they could bring it back. He multiplied himself, he multiplied his influence, his integrity was perfect to the point where he taught them not only to run well or to do whatever Olympic game they were training for well, but yet to be a person of character. Now, understanding this very imagery, this is why Paul says this. Fathers, do not provoke your children's anger, but raise them up, train them up, show them, Lord, show them the Lord, bring them up in the discipline admonition of the Lord. Now, the Greek athlete, what he understood was that he understood this language. Bring them up. The word is the word ek trefo, which ek means to come out of, and trefo is a picture, of course, of compassion and training and so forth. So bring them up, bring them out of out. And how do you do it? You do it through discipline, through instruction. The idea is to train with award and encouragement in mind.

Four Phases Of Parenting

SPEAKER_01 19:52

Now, to do this, we have to understand there are different phases of raising up a child. Now, when I was in college, I got a degree in sociology and we learned these four different phases. And I want you to just take a minute, because I think it's worth our time, to kind of go over these phases. So then in turn, we say, okay, where am I out first off as a dad with my kids? Second off, how am I doing as far as what that particular phase should look like? So sociologists have looked at this. The Bible gives a picture of it as well, but the first phase is first off the bonding phase. Now, the bonding phase is when your child is born. Uh when your child is born, so from birth to five years old, what dads do is establish their place in their life. Any of you guys ever rocked a baby to sleep? Uh I hope you have. If you have, you understand what this phase looks like. And what they're doing is they're hugging up to you. There's closeness, there's bonding that's taking place. And by the way, women already get nine months ahead of you. So guess what? Maybe we should do that more. But we should just take them and we should hold them, we should love them, we should know them. Listen, there's a here is a place in my arms, here's a place in my in my world you belong. I'm gonna secure you, I'm gonna take care of you, I love you. And listen, that is a bonding phase that listen is so imperative for every child. It will make a difference for the rest of their life. Those few years are so imperative, especially when it comes to dads. And one of the things I love about what dads are doing today, you know, back before it, there was kind of a this kind of a little idea, you know, that okay, women are supposed to raise their children, I'm supposed to go to work. No, we're guys, y'all are doing so good in our day and age. You're getting involved. You're getting involved in the home, and it's so good to see it. And I see guys even say to their children, I love you. And they'll communicate that verbally, and it's so important. It's so important that children hear this, they hear the blessing of their father, and there's a whole nother sermon I could preach on that. Because in Hebrews it talks about that, about blessing our children. But that's what you do in first off, this bonding phase. You do that. And then the second phase is the training phase. And it goes from six to 12 year old. And it's an encouraging phase. What we're doing is we're beginning to kind of train them up. We're kind of uh we're we're we're training them. It's kind of a uh a phase where we're saying, okay, this is right and this is wrong. By the way, you need to tell your kids that this is right, this is wrong. You don't just say, okay, if this makes you feel good, we're gonna do it. Y'all don't know nothing about that, do you? All right, but that's something we're seeing in our world today. It's like, okay, just hand them a tablet or something, just get them quiet because he can't handle this. But what we have to do is it takes effort and it takes energy, guys, and it's and it's such an important thing to be able to come together with our wives and to say, listen, and even as grandparents to come alongside and say, I'm gonna back up my children and my grandchildren. I'm gonna help grow them. And what we do is we understand the six to 12 years old, this training phase that involves learning. It involves discipline. And that's why it's so imperative that we understand this, you know, that children need to be disciplined. It's it's an athletic type event. Life is more than what we're feeling right now. What we have to do is we have to sometimes say, yes, you're gonna do your homework. Yes, you're going to go to church. Yes, you're gonna get a good attitude. Sometimes I think God does that to me personally. You know what I'm saying? Yes, you are going to study. Yes, you're see, God does this in our life all the time. The Bible says the one the Lord loves, He disciplines. Doesn't mean He's taking us to windshed all the time. No, it means He's encouraging us. He's growing us, He's training us. But then the next phase is coaching, the coaching stage. Now, what happens sometimes is I will just be honest, I really didn't mind phase one and phase two. Phase three became harder for me. And I'll tell you why. Because I still wanted to instruct my kids. And you do have times when you instruct them, but what you're doing is you're starting to let go. And when you start to let go in the coaching stage, what you do is remember what coaches do. Coaches get off the playing field and they go to the sidelines. Now, are they important? Absolutely. Do they have authority? Absolutely. Children obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Listen, but they're in this coaching phase. And in this coaching phase, what you do is you start to let go. Now, this is the problem. Sometimes what we want to do is have you ever heard of a helicopter parent? You know what a helicopter parent is? Somebody that got stuck in phase two. And they're saying, I want to protect. I don't want my kids to ever experience anything hard. I don't want them to ever, you know, struggle. I don't want I don't want them to be bullied when we come up with all this language and the stuff that we do. But listen, it is an important part of their life that we coach them and say, okay, that person is just not being very nice. How do we act when somebody's not very nice? How do we respond? What do we do? You answer all those questions. That's this coaching phase. Because they're gonna get out on their own someday. And when they get out on their own, listen, in coaching phase, we're helping them to move on forward. And as we're doing this coaching phase, it's a little hard for mama, especially mama bear and mama daddy. And there are papa bear daddies like that to say, I just don't want anything to happen to my kids. Listen, your children will have to experience the ups and downs of life. So the best place for them to do that is with you coaching them through that process. And so, yeah, you have to say, listen, we're gonna do this, and you can do this. I believe in you. I believe in you. And I can tell you story after story. Uh I want to tell you just a personal story that's so important. When I was growing up, I had some hard times really reading, and a really hard time with math. And uh there was a certain point, maybe you might appreciate that I'm telling the story, or maybe you won't, but there was a certain point in my life where I was actually taken and tested. And they came back and said, okay, he has some learning difficult difficulties and some stuff. I mean, that's kind of embarrassing, I guess, to some people to admit, but it's not embarrassing to me because I have a doctorate. You see what I'm saying? So if you think your kid can't do something, don't stamp them with something that says, you can't. Tell them they can. Somebody, please, just tell them they can. Uh, don't label them. Because my parents did not label me. They encouraged me. They told me, listen, you can do this. And my my sister was she was salutatorium. And I can tell you, she finished, she finished high school and she went to college, and she finished college in three years, and she got her master's degree from the University of Virginia in one year. She's super smart. And that's what I lived. I was 13 months after her. And you know what? Some of my brothers and sisters say, he's the dumb one. Until one Thanksgiving we're sitting, and my wife is sitting there, and they said, Yeah, he's the dumb one. And my wife says, He's the only one with the doctor at the sitting at the table, and they all shut up and hadn't said a word since. I'm just telling you, maybe you're one of those students, maybe one of those people, and if your daddy and mama have told you you can't, I want to tell you, you can. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Now, with that said, we need to coach them in that direction. Just because somebody has a little bit of a difficulty doesn't mean they can't. It means that God has given them an opportunity to extend their faith and believe that He can do great things through them. And he can help them achieve goals. And listen, whatever it is that God wants you to do, He will get it done if you walk with Him. I can tell you that. He is a good God. So the coaching phase is very important, and we have to kind of stand back. It's hard because I always wanted to kind of be in the middle. Anybody else in here a fixer? Nobody else in a fixer. Praise the Lord. I will be sitting out there next Sunday, and y'all can all come up here and preach to me. So coaching says I'm gonna stand back, but if you think that's a tough one, how about the bleacher phase? You what the bleacher phase looks like? Have you ever been to the nosebleed section watching the Georgia Bulldogs play because you didn't only you only had like 30 bucks to pay for a ticket? Now they're 130, but nonetheless. Or maybe Georgia Tech, I definitely want to call that one out, uh, you know, uh for sure. Uh or definit definitely Auburn and Moore Eagle. But nonetheless, I've sat up there. And if you ever sat and you know, we we have a tendency as parents, we just cannot stand to get out of phase two. And I want to prove it to you right now. How many of you have ever just, you know, you're in the bleacher phase? This is a little distance, but listen to me about it. How many of you have ever yelled at your television set and said, go for the pass? Do you think those people are hearing you on the field?

unknown 29:25

Never know.

SPEAKER_01 29:27

You'd have to be pretty loud. You're back at home in Kennesaw and they're all the way in Athens or down in Atlanta or down in Auburn or wherever you're whatever you. But listen, in the coaching phase, yeah, you're still on the sidelines, but up in the phase, up in the bleachers, you're just sitting back and you're cheering your kids on. And yeah, there's times when they'll come and they'll say, Hey, I see you way up there in the nosebleed section. Can you come down for a second? And you come down and they look at you and they say to you, Dad, you went through this yourself. What I need to know. And after they hear it, you know what they tell you to do? Go back to your seat. Get comfortable with that seat up there. If you're doing a good job as a parent, you'll be up there a lot. Because that's a seat where God intends you to end up. And ultimately, the Bible says we're surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. And some of you have lost your dad this year, and they're a Christian dad, and they left you a legacy. But I want you to know they're still in the bleachers. We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, and they're cheering you on. And they're saying, Go, go, go. You got this, you got this, you can get through this. I've been there, I lost my dad. I know what this is like. Greater things are gonna come. But listen, those are phases of life. And yeah, sometimes, dads, you're sitting up in the bleachers and you come down and you just want to get on the field and you want to help them, and you want to say, Let me do it for you, and you can't. They do it because God has given them their life to live. You just got the gift of taking them through the phases and the athletic arena of the world, of the spiritual life, the physical life, and the realities of living. What a blessing. Maybe some of you have never had a dad, but I have good news for you. You have a father who loves you. Years ago, I lived in Auburn, Alabama. There was a guy named Cadillac Williams. Some of you probably know who he was. He was a great running back, he was amazing for Auburn. I don't usually tell sports stories because I'm not very good at it, but I will tell you this one. What I know happened to him is he didn't know who his dad was. He said, I don't really have a dad. And what we know is Chet Williams, who was an incredible man of God that I knew personally, I knew his wife personally. She used to play basketball for the University of North Carolina. And what uh he did is that he was a chaplain for the Auburn football team, and he looked at Cadillac Williams one day and he says, You don't have a dad. Yes, you do. If you'll accept Jesus, you're gonna get a father, the father you've wanted. I never forget at Greensky Hill Baptist Church, he was baptized there in Auburn, and the number one thing he said is, I now have a father. Listen, no matter what your background is, no matter what your situation is, God says, I'll be a father to you. There are no orphans in the family of God.

Tilling The Soil For Growth

SPEAKER_01 33:14

The third thing we become as a tiller, let me show you this quickly. As a tiller, what we do is we cultivate, the Bible says, bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. And uh in that, what we find is we find that uh that the Bible talks about this idea of discipline, this idea of this final snapshot of marrying together discipline with this cultivation. Maybe you don't realize it, but your children are like little seeds that are planted in the ground and planted on the earth, planted for a little bit of time here up on this earth. And they're planted, and you're saying, okay, here's what I do. Now let me just explain to you. Your children will decide to do what they're going to do. But do you know what the Bible says? The Bible says, raise them up, train them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and when they grow older, they will not depart from them. This doesn't mean that they will not depart from it. What this means is it will not depart from them. You have placed into their mind, into their heart, the truth of God's word if you're raising kids today. Raise a child in the way he should go. And when he grows old, the word old there literally is a picture of getting hair on your skin. And it's an idea of puberty. When a young man gets puberty, he starts growing facial hair. When he gets growed, it won't depart. In other words, so you have a period of time to put God's word until they get to purity, and it goes right along with what I just taught you a minute ago. You've got a period of time to really deeply plant those seeds. And then when they get to that point, that third stage, what happens is you start stepping back and you're coaching, and then you end up in the nosebleed section. But what you get to do is you have to know that no matter what they're playing on the plating field, whether you would say they're winning or losing, they have not lost what you put in them. That's your job. Your job is not to live their life for them, your job is to show them how to find life, and it's in the person of Jesus. Now, I ought to give you a little encouragement today, especially if you say my kids are kind of off-center right now. They're not where they need to be. Keep on praying, keep on planting, keep on believing, keep on cultivating, keep on knowing that you're tilling soil. Yesterday I went home. I'd been gone a couple of weeks, and went home and I have a garden in my backyard. Now that might be hard to figure out. It's not a very big garden. Okay, seriously. We extended this this year. Uh, what I have is a bunch of tomato plants, and I have four uh stalks of corn and four set of beans and some strawberries. Hallelujah, thine the glory. But what I noticed is I noticed on the vine while I was gone, there were some little red tomatoes. I already have tomatoes that are vine ripe. It's amazing. Uh but you know what I did to get there? I went to Lowe's and I bought $180 worth of dirt. I know you're laughing because that's crazy. I could have bought all kinds of tomatoes for $180, right? But I want to raise my tomatoes, mind you. I invested in my tomatoes, and no matter what, even though I put $180, I made the environment so it could be so they could produce those little tomatoes. But do you know what happens? Stuff starts creeping in. It's called crabgrass. And I'm like, crabgrass, get away from my tomatoes. And I started plucking it out and pulling it out, and I said, the environment's gonna be right for these to produce what they need to produce. And you know what? That's what we do. We create an environment. We don't make their life. We help create an environment for them and God to make their life. And what we do is we keep putting the right stuff into place. Yeah, when your kids are going the wrong way, you grab, you say, I want to get rid of that crabgrass. That's not good for you. What did I tell you back in the instructional phase? What did I tell you in the coaching phase? And when they hit the wall, you know what you do? You don't turn away from them, you put your arms around them like Jesus did in his story of the prodigal son. You say, Okay, come on home. And you love on them. I could preach this all day long. You know why? Because it's real in our life. But it's a gift that God's word has given to us of the instruction and the care of the Lord. I'll

The Titles That Matter Most

SPEAKER_01 38:06

close with this. What's the most important title you'll bear in your life? Some people say, well, the most important title I have in my life has something to do with maybe what I said yesterday or this morning, I got my doctorate. You know what? I could care less. I had a professor in seminary that said I'd rather be a DAD than a PhD any day. And he was right. He had a son that died without Christ. Titles like that are temporary. Maybe you say, well, I'd like to be a millionaire, or I'd like to have this in my portfolio. But let me tell you, how much of that are you gonna put in the hearst when you're going to heaven? When you've gone to heaven. What are you gonna do when it comes to titles? I don't know about you, but I'd rather bear the title of Jesus. I'd rather bear the name of Jesus. I'd want to be a Christian. I want to bear the name of Christ. I want that to be done with integrity. I want it to be real. I want it to be something that people don't say, yeah, he's plastic. No, thank you. That makes me sick. And I hope it does you too. Say, I want to be the real deal. I want to be the real McCoy. I want to be somebody that everybody looks at and says, you know what? They're not perfect, but I know who they're pursuing. They're not perfect, but I know who they're pursuing. And they're pursuing Jesus Christ. And it's not about just wearing a cross necklace around your neck. It's not about just like coming to church on Sunday every now and then. It's not about just like saying I read my Bible, you know, a couple times a week, or, you know, I do, I'll do Bible recap, or I read open windows, or whatever it is that you do. Or I listen podcasts about God. The most wonderful thing in the world is to bear the title of Jesus. And that goes beyond any other title you ever live. To call yourself a Christian and be the real deal is what God's looking for in the world. And by the way, it's what your kids are looking for, it's what your family's looking for, whether they even know it or not. It's really what your wife's looking for. She's looking for a man of integrity. She's looking for somebody to love her, genuinely, that admits his mistakes, that comes alongside the family and says, we're gonna do this together. The second thing title for us as men, I can't think of no better title, is the title of dad. See, I carry the title of pastor, but one of these days I won't really be probably be an active pastor as far as preaching and preaching in a church and so forth. That'll be a really long time. A real long time, just in case you're wondering. Longer than y'all will ever live, just so you'll know. But what's the important title that we will take into eternity? Think about this for a minute. George H.W. Bush. He had the title, man. He had so many titles. I wrote them all down here just so that I could tell you what they were. He was the congressman, he was the ambassador of the United Nations, he was an ambassador to China, he was the director of CIA, he was the vice president of the United States, and he was ultimately the president of the United States. And somebody asked him when he went out of office, they said, What are you going to do without a title? And you know what he said? And I'm going to quote what he said, and we're going to close with this. He says, I retain three the three most important titles that I've had for some time now. Title number one is husband. Title number two is father. And title number three is grandfather. Those are my greatest titles. I don't need anymore. Godly dads. Godly dads. We'll do like what we saw Kurt today do and watch his son be baptized. One of these days, Kurt will be in heaven and Kurt will hear this voice. And all of a sudden, what we will have is his son, Nick, will say, Hey Dad! Hey Dad! Dad, I'm home! Dad! Dad, I'm home! And they will run and embrace. Nothing is more important in your life. Nothing's more important than one day hearing your kids say, Dad, I'm home. And that home be a heavenly home. I love it. And always loved it when my kids come home. I love that. I'll be honest with you. It's kind of after they leave and they go back home, it's kind of a little bit of a reboot for me every time because I just want them to be with me. But you know what? We're not in that phase anymore. But I will say this. One day I'm grateful. Because I know. I'll hear my kids yell. I'm at that gate watching and waiting for them. Hey Dad. I'm home. And we will be at home forever. And forever. And forever and forever and forever and forever. And we'll never be apart. And we'll be a family together. And one thing we will never ever quit saying is we'll look to the throne and we'll say, Dad, Father, thank you for Jesus. Because he got me home. And today we gather to celebrate. No matter if your dad's at home today with Jesus, or no matter if you're going home today alone, you have a father that has a home waiting for you if you'll receive it. So

Prayer, Invitation, And Farewell

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Lord, we thank you. We thank you for Jesus. Thank you for the title of Savior, Redeemer, and Lord that we can call upon today. Thank you for the Father who loved us so much. Thank you, heavenly God and Father, for sending your Son. We celebrate you today on this Father's Day. Because you have made a way for us to come home. And Lord, in this place, if there's someone that needs to do that, help them to call on Jesus. Say, Jesus, I've sinned and you died for my sin. You rose again. The Father gave you for me. And you gave your life up for me so I could receive this gift of salvation. I receive it right now. Others that are here today that say, you know, I'm looking for a church home. Listen, this is a temporary home. But we welcome you to it. It's a spiritual home. It's the Father's house on earth. We invite you to come and join it. Come and be a part of us. We love you. Come on home. Whatever God's saying to you today. Let's think about home. And let's respond to it. And let's come home now as we sing.

SPEAKER_00 46:53

We're glad you joined us for today's segment. We believe a life built on truth is a life that transforms everything. To stay connected, share this message, subscribe, or visit us online at Kennesaw First.church. We'll see you next time. Keep building your life on truth.