Service with a Smile - Peti Szabad

Sunday sermon recorded on June 21, 2026   

Father's Day Message includes a sharing by Kelly Nganju and Rich Evans. 

Part of the "Better Together" series.   

Slides used in the sermon: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mo4Teh0D3YRUvy6LnLqug1acKUmH4cAt/view?usp=drive_link

https://linktr.ee/northpointema

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Let's get to Father's Day. Today's sermon is entitled Service with a Smile. And one of the things we're gonna I got two points. The first part of our service is a Father's Day tribute. Not necessarily just to the encourage the dads, but also just to celebrate fatherhood as God designed it and created it. And then my second point is uh leading by serving. So I'm gonna I'm I'm gonna explain all of it in a great, great way. So let's get to the Father's Day tribute. You guys remember Mother's Day? It wasn't that long ago, just a little over a month ago. Uh I showed uh a video of some Mother's Day text messages from teenagers. There's a Father's Day version for the same thing. You guys ready? Yeah This is gonna be a little lighthearted.

SPEAKER_05 1:00

I didn't have it.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Feel free free feel free to laugh. Uh it should it should work. The perfect Father's Day gift that can you not? A dad's guide to being less cringe. Anyway, so uh I I hope you guys got a good good laugh out of that. Uh and uh if you know if you're a teenager, you probably do better than those texts. Uh but happy Father's Day to all the dads. Grandfather is a great grandfather among us. Uh we actually got a couple people sharing uh about Father's Day. Uh first we have uh Kelly Ganju share a little bit about Kelly. Ganju her dad has uh well come on ask Kelly. And then we'll uh Kelly's gonna share about her dad. And then we have uh Rich Evans share uh about how God uh has fathered him in some some some different ways as his original dad did. So go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 2:55

Hi Kelly! Good morning, my name is Kelly, and happy Father's Day. When I think about God, many attributes come to mind, but I especially think about how he cares for me. One of my favorite verses to remind me of this is Psalm 4, verse 8, which reads, In peace I will lie down and sleep. For you alone, Lord, make me dwell in safety. This verse reminds me that God is always protecting and watching over me. I never have to worry if he is with me or not. One thing my family knows is that my dad will always be there waiting for us when we come home at night. He won't sleep till we're home, even if he's tired. The security I feel knowing this makes me think of God because God is always watching over us. I also think of how God values relationships with all of us, regardless of our sin. I see this quality of God in my father because he makes an effort to know all our neighbors. Even after we moved across town, he still keeps up with our old neighbors too. Many people might see a sign on their lawn that they don't agree with and never want to talk to their neighbor. But my dad doesn't care about their political views or if they know God. He truly sees them as a person and values every conversation. If he sees them at the grocery store, he won't hesitate to talk to them for a few minutes. Or if the little girl down the road with her grandma wants to see our animals and then come inside her home, he invites them in warmly. Then, when it comes to me and Makue, his daughters, I know that our relationship is very special to him. Every year for his birthday, he asks for the same thing. Two good girls. Nothing else. We try our best, but of course we might come up short sometimes. However many times I mess up, my dad never holds a grudge. And when he falls short with one of us, his immediate response is to ask for forgiveness. I know that he truly values his relationship with me and my sister because he continues to better himself as a father every day. He listens to us with patience and responds with wisdom and guidance. Another trait that comes to mind when I think of God is how he's purposeful. He created every tree and thought of every bird to live in them. In this same way, my dad does everything with purpose and judgment. He makes decisions after a lot of thought and doesn't leave anything to be be decided too late. He does his work diligently, and whenever and whether it is in the farm or at his work. He's orderly and carries out tasks with efficiency. I strive to have his same godly worth ethic, and he inspires me to be purposeful with everything I do. There are a million more qualities of God that I can think of that I see in my dad than the three I talked about today. I'm so grateful to have him as Father. Thank you for letting me share.

SPEAKER_02 6:03

Thank you. Thank you for letting us in. And you'll, you know, you'll you'll understand in a second. Um my upbringing was very, very different than people's upbringing, uh, than many upbringings. Now, obviously I've seen worse. But um, yeah, I mean, I want to share just as scripture get us in the right frame of mind. Um, Luke 15, 11, we know the story of the prodigal son. There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to the to his father, Father, give me my share of the estate. So he divided his property between them. Not long after that, the son got together all he had and set off to a distant country where they squand there and squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, um, who sent him in his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything. When he came to his senses, he said, How many of my father's hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death. I will set out and go back to my father and say to him, Father, I've sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants. So he got up and went to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him. He ran to his son and threw his arms around him and kissed him. The son said to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and against you I am no longer worthy to be called your son. But the father said to his servants, Quick, bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let's have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead. But he is alive again. He was lost and is found. So they began to celebrate. He ran to his son, threw his arms around him, and kissed him. This concept is was impossible for me to understand that a father could be that way. I'm the youngest of ten. Um my dad was a World War II vet. Uh he died in 1996. Um he was an alcoholic. He uh he came from a severely broken family, and he brought that into our family. Uh and this isn't, I'm I don't want to bash my father. I'm giving you an insight into me. Um he uh one of his one of our chores was to make his beer. It was literally on the wall. That was one of our chores that we had to do, and we would get punished if we didn't do it. Um because of his alcoholism, all that stuff. He was twisted, he was abusive. Uh there was incest in the family. There was just so much absolute bizarre stuff. Uh, four of us got thrown out, the the last four of us got thrown out of the house before we were through high school. Uh I was 16, living on my own, had my own place, and uh all that comes with that, you can just imagine. Um and the result was I had a very warped view of love and family. You guys know the show The Brady Bunch?

SPEAKER_05 9:39

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:39

I hated that show. I hated it because it was like, this is ridiculous. You know, if if Greg did that, Greg would get his butt kicked. You know what I mean? You know, Greg from the show. I mean, that's to me it was just like I saw the world as a cruel place because my world was a cruel place. I saw God as cruel. I saw his intentions for me as cruel. I saw him as a God who put his thumb on me on a regular basis, and I hated him. And there were many times I cursed him to his face. I looked up to heaven and I threw F-bombs right at him because I hated him. I hated him. Um that was my default, that was my baseline. Um, don't minimize uh the fact that our childhood view of God comes from our father. It does. I'm not the only one. I've talked to dozens, if not hundreds, of men. Our default view comes from our dad. Think about that, dads. Uh and you know, there's that's that saying, what goes in early goes in deep. That's my struggle for the rest of my life. That's what I've had to struggle with. It took years to start straightening out my view of God. It took replacing my view of God with what the tea with what the scriptures teach. You know, there's a there's a meme out there. It says, God is not who you think he is, God is who he says he is. And that is true. We think God's this, and we we believe this, and we feel this, and it means nothing if it doesn't match up to who he says he is. Because he's 100% clear on who he is. You know, Jesus, the the scriptures teach in in Hebrews, Jesus is the exact representation of God. If you want to know how he thinks, how he feels, how he feels about people, look at Jesus. Exact representation. He's a mirror. Um but it took godly men, you know, the scriptures, yes, that really started straightening me out, but it took godly men in my life for me to see that this is livable, that somebody could be like dad, like uh God as a father, men like Dave Michael, Jim Lenahan, Gordon Ferguson, Wyndham Shaw, and many others, spending time with them and talking with them and understanding how they think, and them counseling me and having grace and mercy on me, that taught me who God really is. And they did this because they were simply trying to be like Jesus, who is again the perfect reflection. And the journey doesn't end, you know what I mean? Like I for me, um it took it also took professional counselors who helped me understand that the trauma that I endured had warped my default view of God and the world. And to me, it was like counseling, uh, therapy. It's this man thing. I don't know what it is, but I just I resisted it. I didn't want to do it. And as soon as I did it, I was like, oh, thank goodness. Because it started opening up who I was and helping me understand that the way that I behave isn't because I'm evil, it's because I was broken and I had a really rough default. Um so changing. You know, we hear a lot about change in church. It's like, you know, you can go to some places and they tell you, well, you can change overnight. There ain't no overnight changing. Sorry. I mean, maybe there is, I don't know. I don't want to, I don't want to um limit the power of God. All right, but everybody I know has to put the work in. And I've put a lot of work into it. And and it does not end. It is still my default. I sinned on the way over here in traffic. It it's it never ends. Um stuff that really helped me, the rewired class. We talked about it, you know, one class in here, and it's been talked about how many times? If that thing comes around again, don't miss it. Um I've I've done things like best bioenergetic synchronization technique, super helpful energy release stuff. Uh I got certified in it, it was so good. Mind change, there's there's stuff we can do to help us to deal to go back in time in one sense and kind of help deal with those things. But it's wherever God leads us next. And he will heal us and he will help us to understand the father that he is rather than the father that we think he is. Because that father in my head is messed up, and I still hear his voice, and it ain't good stuff. But when I listen to God, when I listen to the Holy Spirit, I hear a different voice. I think about what Paul said in verse 318. That's a beautiful translation of it, uh, the Phillips version. Sometimes that version goes way off. But anyway, I don't encourage you to read it all the time, but this is a good. Uh it's when I think of the greatness of this great plan, I fall on my knees before God the Father, from whom all fatherhood, earthly or heavenly, derives its name. And I pray that out of the glorious riches of his resources, he will enable you to know the strength of the Spirit's inner reinforcements, that Christ may actually live in your hearts by your faith. And I pray that you, and this is key, that you, firmly fixed in love, yourselves, may be able to grasp with all Christians how wide and long and high is the love of Christ, and to know for yourselves that love so far beyond our comprehension. May you be filled through all your being with God Himself. What am I trying to say? To know this love. When we replace what we have here with what's real, what who God is, it changes everything. I've never had a father. There's no one like God. He replaces everything. And he can take all the gh and get rid of it and give you good stuff. Now the gh is always trying to get in. But he is the ultimate dad.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

Ah, yes. Thank you. Thank you, Kelly. Uh thank you, Rich. We need godly fathers, and uh thank thank God for him being the ultimate father that all of us that are fathers are trying to imitate and emulate for our children uh at the same time. And you know, one of the aspects of fatherhood is serving, and that's what I want to focus on today. Uh because whether you believe it or not, fatherhood comes with a lot of serving. And and I think God designed it that way. So before I get into that, uh and get more deeply into the Bible and what the Bible teaches on this topic, I wanted to show you guys a video. Uh I saw this uh this is a this is an advertisement for a car company. Uh I don't think I ever had I I did have a Toyota once. Uh it's for the Toyota, it's a Japanese company. It's a Japanese ad from 2015, a different era. Uh and uh and it's a Father's Day ad. And uh but it highlights uh fatherhood from a very unique perspective. So let's watch this together. You wanna buy a ten a twenty twenty fifteen Toyota. Sharon has one, right? Yeah. They're good ones. But uh I love I love the theme of this uh ad. It's very moving ad, right? Love works invisible. In many ways, that's the role of a father is to serve and work and love in ways that might not be mentioned, celebrated. Although, amen for Father's Day. I actually grew up in a culture that does not even celebrate Father's Day. Um but uh it's uh but that's that's a calling from God, uh whether you have a toy or not. The Bible teaches that the husbands in the home have a very unique, God-given role of being the head. It says in Ephesians chapter 5, verse 23 to 30, talking in a relationship with a wife, but then going on in chapter 6, talking about the father's relationship with the children. It says, the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the savior. Now, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church without stain or wrinkle, any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church, for we are members of his body. And just a few verses down in chapter 6, verse 4, it says, Fathers, do not exasperate your children. Instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. So the Bible describes husbands, fathers, the male figures in the household, as with this role of being the head of the household. But this head, this headship that the Bible describes is a headship of love and of service. But it is something that's given us from God. And interestingly, in this passage, it does not list the chores and the activities that a father or a husband must do to fulfill this role. You know, the Bible isn't a fathering or a husbanding handbook. Many of us guys wish it was. If it was just listing all the things that I need to do, and once I've done them, I've gone through the check marks, I can just sit back and feel like, okay, I've done my my job. No. It actually, right? Sometimes you maybe you don't, but sometimes, especially as a young husband or young father, I wish you know life came with a manual. And I'm the kind of guy that reads the manual without ever turning the thing on. I know never everybody's that well, you know. Some people always just try it, I'm sure we'll figure it out. Don't buy furniture in IKEA if that's who you are. So, but but what these passages talk about is that we actually need to care, serve, love, protect, and provide for our wives and families by looking at the outcome of what we're doing, of how it is impacting them. That means that we got to be very attentive and listening. It's it I'm not a good husband, I'm not a good head of the household, I'm not a good father just because I've done certain things. I am one when my wife is radiant, when my children are not exasperated, but are growing up in the training and teaching of the Lord, becoming who God intends them to be. That's so much harder of a job description than a certain list of things to do. And uh, but it it takes a lot of service. I like this, uh, like this quote. Uh, I found that a man doesn't choose headship, God assigned it. Headship is not a cultural idea, it's not a Western idea, it's not a church tradition, it's not a male uh invention. It is it is God's design. Now, have man in throughout the history of mankind done a really good job with being this this role? No. Many men have abused it uh and and and did not live up to this. But a failing to lead in godly way is actually a man leading in failure. So there's there's this picture that the Bible paints. That the father, I like this quote from uh Angus uh Buchan, uh missionary and a preacher. He says, the father is the head of the home, the mother is the heart of the home, the children have the reward, the joy, and the life of the home. We need we need that. Now I've got an interesting interesting statistics for you guys. You guys ready?

unknown 27:07

All right.

SPEAKER_01 27:09

According to the Life Way Research Group, Father's Day is the holiday with the single lowest average church attendance, statistically lower than Labor Day, Memorial Day, and even the 4th of July weekend.

unknown 27:24

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 27:25

This is interesting, especially when you consider that Mother's Day tends to be the day with the third highest church service attendance after Easter and Christmas.

unknown 27:35

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 27:37

Whoa! What is that selling, huh? Mother's a day.

SPEAKER_01 27:44

Yeah. So that's crazy. Current, current, as Oscar mentioned, current service is uh is an illustration of that statistics. You know, why don't we think that fathers could be celebrated by us going to church with them? Our society has separated fatherhood with from spirituality. When you think of a father, and even Father's Day, you think of uh you know taking them out to eat, getting them some manly tools or some sport activity stuff, a gift, uh, and and maybe doing their favorite activity. Football is not on a Father's Day, so you're not watching a football game with them, but but something like that, but most people don't even think of fathers. You know, how are we gonna celebrate Father's Day? We're gonna go to church with that. That's just that just doesn't even enter the thoughts of most people. But fathers should be the spiritual leader in the family, it's God's design. And that that's a high calling for all of us fathers, and and you know, you know, this Father's Day service starts to feel like you know I'm I'm challenging the fathers. The Bible does challenge all of us fathers, but I also want to celebrate because you guys are here on this Father's Day. You guys take your spirituality seriously, you guys try to live up to this high calling of the headship of Jesus towards the church and imitating that as you're trying to be that that that head, that protector, that servant, that caring presence, provider for your families. And every time you do that, something amazing happens. You don't have to be perfect, but there's a daughter, there's a little girl's or a little boy's perspective growing up. And every time you show up or you showed up, that matters. And it matters. You know, there's another another study that was done on uh on how children, when the children grow up in a family, what helps them adopt the faith of the parents? And the study conclusion is that the single most important factor in that whether a child adopts a faith of the parents is the quality of the child's relationship to the father. Now that doesn't mean that mothers aren't important and they don't have a role to play, they do. And many moms are many of many many single moms do a heroic job raising kids and providing spirituality. And kids do choose spirituality, but those that have a close, intimate relationship with father are those that are most likely to choose the faith of the parents. Fatherhood is from God. And I know uh, you know, on a Father's Day, uh we we celebrate fathers. I know some of you miss your father who cannot be here anymore because they departed. Uh but their memory, hopefully, is something to be celebrated. Uh, some of you did not have excellent fathers. Uh, and and thank you, Rich, for sharing some of the challenging parts of growing up with a father that didn't most most of the time did not portray these spiritual qualities and wasn't a protector and a and a Christ-like head in the family. Fatherhood is a challenge to be served to be serving. Because in the Bible, leading and headship, that's what it's assigned with. Leading means serving. Jesus had a couple of his apostles come to him and ask for some of the high positions in his kingdom. John and James ask, if we can sit on your right and your left hands, the places of authority. Uh, you know, if you have a they understood that Jesus was a king. Sometimes we need to understand that ourselves a little better in this 21st century. He wasn't just a uh, you know, a person that will give you salvation, you know, if you do certain religious things. He's a king that that requires submission. But he also has introduced a different way of leading and a different being we way of being ahead of whether that's a country or even just a family. In Matthew 20, verse 25 and 28, after the after these guys express this, Jesus tells them, you know, you can't take those spots, but then they get jealous of each other, all the apostles, and Jesus corrects their not their ambition of wanting to lead, but corrects their worldly way of looking at leadership. Jesus called them together and said, You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them and their high officials exercise authority over them. This is how the world practices authority and headship. If I'm the head, I'm telling you guys what to do. But that's not, he says, not so with you. We're called to a complete different paradigm of leadership and headship by Jesus. He says, instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant. And whoever wants to be first must be your slave, just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. You know, we we have a crisis of masculinity in our culture today. Uh our society has reacted, overreacted, and got confused about what's the role of a man and a woman. And uh we need the Bible to help us come back to how God defined and created these roles. Uh and you know, I don't necessarily want to talk too much about it, but uh here's here's a quote by uh uh Bobby Harrington, who does uh uh lead a uh group of theologians trying to help people come to healthy conclusions. Says, what does it mean to be a man? Jesus calls man to and models a servant-hearted hatch, showing us how it is based upon service to others. How do you lead? You don't tell people what to do. That's not how you lead if you follow Jesus. You lead by serving, and and I'm sure as a dad, sometimes that service went with a smile, sometimes it went with a little grumble, quiet or loud or something, but somebody had to take care of some things. And you you showed up as a dad. You know what are some ways that uh you know that we imitate this type of Jesus type leadership? Uh when a godly man sees his wife has a need and he serves her in that need, we're actually living out this servant-hearted leadership. Whether that's a physical need, an emotional need, or a spiritual need. When a godly man knows that his wife desires security, he watches over her and gives her that safety. That's a way of exercising Jesus-like hatch. When a godly man sees that his children need help, he serves and helps his children. When a godly man knows that his children require his guidance and training, he invests his time and energy to train and equipment, equip them. That's presence, being present to our children. When a godly man sees trouble at work, he steps up and seeks to provide solutions. When a godly man realizes someone must take responsibility and God is calling him to it, he says, Here I am, I will serve. That's the model we have from Jesus. And you know what? That's not necessarily the model that I grew up with. Although my dad is an amazing servant, he he served and served our family amazingly. Uh but one of the things that I kind of grew up with, and and it was also my view of this, is I serve, and when the job is done, I rest. I lay back and I enjoy some some of my me time, some of my pleasure time. But when the Bible describes godly leadership, it is just just you, it doesn't say you serve, and then you get your rest. It just says you serve. And that was uh that was an adjustment to me, for me. Because I was like, okay, I serve, but when is the time? When is the space for me to do what I want to do? And uh and becoming a dad was probably the biggest thing that that that kind of confronted we me with some of those worldly, selfish, self-centered ways of thinking. We live in a society that seeks comfort over godliness. And I had to come to terms with this that that I just gotta keep serving. And you know what happens when we follow Jesus in and and this this happened to me a few times. When we have the heart of Jesus and we actually lose ourselves a little bit, when we have the mind of Jesus and we serve as a father, as a as a as a man, you know what it sometimes it just it just this feeling of flow that I was created to do this. Have you ever felt that? And it's not that that doesn't only happen for men, but but but it's it's this this you know it's kind of brings meaning to our lives by serving. Now, most of the time I probably serve out of duty, uh out of just you know, what's the alternative? Everybody's grumbling that this isn't done. You know, alright, better better get it done. You guys know the drill, right? But but the times when I am actually able to have the heart and the mind of Christ in serving, I enjoy it tremendously. And I feel like this is what God created me for. This is amazing. That's what I want to encourage not just the men in the room, but but all of us to get in touch with how God created us to be able to live a life of service for others and really live that life and enjoy that life. In 1 Peter 4, we're gonna look at a few passages in 1 Peter because it seems like Peter was trying to help this church to embrace this idea to serve even in the middle of challenging circumstances. He's teaching in 1 Peter 4 verses 10 and 11, he says, each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others. So you have some talents, they're not there for you to just develop them for your sake. Now, you know, I'm sure there's enjoyment when you're you have some self-expression. There's nothing wrong with that. But those talents, those gifts you have are there to serve others. Faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms. If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God. If anyone serves, he should do it the strength God provides. And this is something that I was missing. I was doing a lot of serving from my own strength, and you know what happens with my own strength? It gets depleted. I get tired, I get grumpy, I get I get selfish, I get when is my time to be served? Right? But when I rely on God's strength and I spend the time with God and I feel with fill up with God and connect with God, I am actually able to serve in a way that doesn't deplete me. So that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen. Interesting as we look at these passages, all of them kind of tells that there's glory when we fulfill this way of living. There's praise, there's there's amen. You know, like everything, you know, things are right this way. We we go on in 1 Peter chapter 5, uh it's it's addressing older men, uh and the shepherds of the congregation. Those are the men that we all strive to become like. But here's what Peter tells them. To the elders among you, I appeal as a fellow elder, a witness of Christ's sufferings, and one who also will share in the glory to be revealed. Be shepherds of God's flock that is under your care, serving as overseers. Not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be. Not greedy for money, but eager to serve. Not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock. And when Chr when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the clown of glory that will never fade away. You know, the context of this passage is a church community, and the elders, the shepherds of the church are being encouraged to do that shepherding with a good heart. But when you read it, you know, whatever God entrusts us to a responsibility, whatever we have a hatchip over, we can apply this passage to. That we love our wives and serve and love our children, not because we must, but because we are willing. Not because we get something out of it, but because we are eager to serve. You know, that's the image the Bible paints. Service with a smile, service with joy filling up from you. And you know, what's the reward? The reward is when Jesus comes back. That the reward is down the line. The reward is not an immediate satisfaction. There's not, maybe there is not a patimpe, there's a pat on the back, maybe on a Father Day there is, but most days there's no one. And that's that should be okay. Now, I think we can grow in encouraging each other and acknowledging the good that we see in each other and what we do and all that. There's nothing wrong with that. But but but we when we embrace our God given space and and role and and and and who we are in God's eyes, we get to do this. Then we don't need the appreciation of people. Because we are honoring God with our lives and our responsibilities. Romans 14, 17 and 18 says, For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking. And sometimes that's what Father's Day is about, or some of the some of our celebrations. And there's nothing wrong with eating and drinking. But the kingdom of God is so much more than that. But of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. Because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved my man. You know, we get to be pleasing to God. And that brings a sense of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. That's the model. And it is something that is pleasing to God. And when we do this, it is approved by man. It blesses the people around us as well. Here's a few questions that I came up with as a result of this sermon. And I actually had the slide from last week, so I still have table discussion. Sorry about that. We're not sitting at tables. But we still, these are thoughts and questions, and we can have some discussions about them. So, first question as a father, do I embrace my God-given role in my family? Do I see how important this is? Or if you're not a father, do I have a health respect and support for those who God has placed in that role? How can I express my appreciation for the good they do? And third, how can we all imitate Jesus and serve with joy and enthusiasm? Those are challenging thoughts overall. Going back to this passage that we read already, Matthew chapter 20, the Bible says Jesus called them together and said, You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lorded over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you, instead, whoever becomes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be the saved. Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. Jesus served us and he modeled service for us. Not just by how he went on the cross, but how he left his life. You know, when you read the Gospels, you know, Jesus wasn't a father in that sense, but can you imagine what kind of father Jesus would have been? Pretty amazing, right? But you know, Jesus served day in and day out. Uh he he filled up with God and and then and then his life was about other people. But you don't see him kind of grumbling, and nobody ever thanks me for my serving. You know, another task. All right, I'll add it to the list, take a number, whatever. You know, sometimes we have some of these things. Jesus had this, he embraced this role of I'm here to serve people, and I'm actually here to die for them. Now, that's very challenging. That's called the way of the cross of Jesus. And this is our calling as well. All of us, whether we're fathers or not, as followers of Jesus, we are called to this. In 1 Peter 2, verse 21, the Bible tells the Christians, to this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving an example. They should follow in his steps. So this is what we're called to. As Jesus lived, served, and died for others, that is what we're called to imitate. That's the steps we should follow in. Husbands, a little further down in the Bible addresses certain situations. One of them is husbands. He says, in the same way, referring back to the way Jesus went on the cross. Be considerate as you live with your wives and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers. We're called to follow in Jesus' footsteps. God's given fatherhood to some, and let's let's praise God for that, and let's celebrate fathers today. Let's look at this unique role of service as something to be embraced. Not something to be done so I can rest. But let's let's try to be more and more like Jesus. That's a high calling for me personally, I feel like. And let's follow Jesus on the cross as followers of him and keep serving with joy, finding meaning, finding purpose, realizing that the gifts that we have are not just for us, they're gifts for everybody else. Let's pray. Dear God, thank you so much for Jesus. And thank you for the way he lived, a life of service, of caring, healing, teaching, preaching, bringing good news and hope in uh very challenging situations. And thank you for the way that he died on the cross, willingly, voluntarily, going on uh suffering for our sake. Thank you for the gift that this is to us, and thank you for the model and example he is to all of us. God, we want to follow him, even if it's not easy. Uh and uh and and but there's so much blessing in following Jesus and becoming this way. Thank you for the dads, God, uh, who display so much of that uh servant-hearted attitude. Uh help all of us as dads to continue to do that. Give us the strength uh to serve not from our own strength, but from the strength that you provide. Uh, even as we take communion today, help us to remember that you gave Jesus the strength to go on the cross. And you can give us the same strength as we serve, love, and give to others. And in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.