The Secret to Being a Great Dad

Today I want to share with you, and obviously we're in a series called Summer of Salt, we kind of do random messages during the summer season. See, we've entered into the summer, the unofficial start of the summer was a couple weeks ago, so you guys are rolling in the summer vibe, right? I saw some board shorts in here, some flip-flops. So we're in the summer vibe, right? So we're kind of slowing it down a little bit.

We'll have some more series coming up that we'll roll back into as we hit the fall season. We'll do some more Felt Need series, but I felt like maybe we'll just allow God to speak to us during this season, and we'll have different people speaking up here on stage as well. We'll run this all the way through July. Heck, we may even go into August with this, just depending on what the Lord feels and leads us to do. But today I want to tell you the secret of being a good father, the secret of being a good parent.

I'm going to share that with you today, and I'm going to let you know that at the end of the message, okay? Now let me just pause for a second and say that if you are a father here today and you have not filled out a raffle ticket, we've got a lower number today, so man, you've got a good chance of winning, okay? So make sure you get that raffle ticket, and Dave's going to come up at the end of the service, and we're going to raffle off that grill sitting right over there. So make sure you fill that out. I see some people over there, oh, wait a minute, I haven't done it yet.

So make sure you do that before the service is over. But I'm going to give you the secret to being a great father, the secret to being a great father. So hang in there with me, because fathers, the direction and quality of your life is determined by the people that father you. I don't know why it is, but men, your words mean more than anybody else's words. The things that you say, yeah, mothers have their words, siblings have their words, friends have their words, but there's something about a father that their words really carry with us.

And grown children, small children, people who are fathering, wherever you are in life, you have grown children, you have small children, you have power in your words, and it's really important how we speak to our children. And at the end of this message, I'm going to give you that one secret to being a great father. But as we go down that road, I'm going to take you on a tour through the Bible. I want to show you some values, five values that really help us be great parents. Wherever you are in life, just take these down.

If you're young and you don't have family yet, or you're older and you don't have family yet, wherever you are, take these down, learn them, use them. So the first one I want to give you here is accept their uniqueness. You need to accept your children's uniqueness. There is a misquoted scripture that's misquoted all the time in Proverbs, Proverbs 22. It says this, Train your child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not turn from it.

So what are they saying here? Well, first of all, I want you to understand that this is a proverb. It's not a promise, okay? It's a proverb, not a promise, because people feel guilty because maybe their children went wayward and they're blaming themselves. But this is a proverb, not a promise.

But proverbs are important to us. And in the way they should go really means according to his or her way. It isn't necessarily about, oh, I'm going to make them go to church. I'm going to read the Bible. All that's important.

We need to teach them how to read the Bible. We need to make church a priority, being here today a priority, you know, and train them in that way. But more than anything, we are leading them in the way they should go, who they are, identifying who they are and sending them on their way. One of those things is according to their stage in life, okay? Now, let children be children.

Protect their innocence. Don't try to move them to the next stage of life too early, because if you do that, they grow up too early. The things they wear, the things they listen to, you need to protect their innocence. They don't need to know everything right away. Let them play.

Let them be children. Also, according to their personal strengths, we need to raise children according to their personal strengths. Discerning their capabilities, you know? Everyone has different strengths, right? Not everybody has the same strengths.

Some are good at math. Some are good at verbal reading. Some are good at literature. Some are good at music and arts. We all have different capabilities, and your job is to help and guide them to learn their capabilities.

Now, you're with them all the time, right? So sometimes it's hard to see their capabilities when you're with them all the time. As parents, sometimes that's hard. What do we do? Well, we need to ask others in their lives, teachers that are with them all the time, learning their skills, or mentors in their life, or people that spend time with them, what do you see in my child?

How can I help them learn and identify their capabilities? The other thing is according to their style that fits them, okay? Now, temperament and personality are everything, and you can't raise a child in the same way as another child. You don't raise all of your children the same way. We treat them differently according to their personality, according to their type.

You treat them fairly, let me just say this, you treat them fairly, they're equal, you love them the same, but they have different personalities. They're different. Just because you're raised in the same family, just because they're raised in the same family doesn't mean that they're to be raised the very same way as their siblings. You have to learn and identify those personalities. And listen, you're never going to make an introvert an extrovert, okay?

Or an extrovert an introvert. You're not going to transplant a personality, right? We often do that as parents. We try to transplant those personalities, right? But we can't do that.

We have to identify who they are, their personality type, and treat them fairly. I love how Scripture says it in 1 Corinthians 12. It says, and there are different ways that God works through people. God works through different people in different ways. Paul is speaking about the church.

We all have our gifts. We all have different people in here. We have different ways of working. We have different skill levels. We need to help them identify those things.

And God intentionally makes us different. Why does He intentionally make us different? Well, just take a second and think about it. If everybody was like you, what kind of place would this be? Some people say boring.

Maybe some people say, well, it wouldn't be boring, but it'd be very interesting, you know? It'd be a little crazy maybe, you know? But God makes us different for different reasons. But the reason He does that, He makes us different so that we can accomplish what He has in the world. It's actually a great commission thing.

That we all have different gifts, different abilities. Your kids are different. They're different in different ways. My son responds differently than my daughter does to certain discipline. My son responds to encouragement differently than my daughter responds to encouragement.

Your mother goes back to encouragement and from encouragement, And you learn their personalities and you learn where to do that. So you need to help your children recognize their uniqueness and that they are not in competition with each other, okay? They should just learn to be themselves because here's the pressure of the world. The pressure of the world is two things, to conform, to be like everybody else, I want to be like everybody else, and to compare. And we have made it American pastime to compare, right?

We got social media, we got all the things, let me be like this person, let me put this perfect picture online, and we compare ourselves. Well, I'm not there yet because I'm not like that person. We've made it a sport, and we compare IQs, we compare looks, we compare clothing, we compare our grass and our yard, right? We compare, right? We compare our clothing, you know, look at this shirt, you know?

It fits. We compare our muscles, right? Right, guys? All you guys in the gym, we got a whole section of gym rats here. You know, they're like, yeah, we compare our muscles.

We got the, you know, the mirror, you know? We're looking around, and we're like, okay. And I look over at this, I'm at the gym at One Life, and there's this guy in there, and he's always working out by me, and I think his bicep's about that big. And I'm always looking at, I'm always proud of myself, you know, I'm looking in the mirror, I look kind of buff, you know, when you're working out, you look a lot buffer than you do like two hours later, right? So you're like, wow, I'm really ripped, and I look over, and I'm like, oh, okay, this isn't working.

Yeah, I kind of pick at him. I kind of walk over there and say, man, I'm getting there, aren't I? I'm getting there, and I put, you know, his big arm, my little arm, you know, it's right up next to each other. They're like, ah, you know? But we compare, we compare, and marketing's even tapped into this, right?

They love to just compare. You can have this, and our kids are unique. It shouldn't matter what other people have or what other people look like because they are created uniquely. In fact, IQ scores, for instance, we build people's intelligence based on their IQ scores, but here's just a thought about IQ scores. You know what IQ scores and tests are good at?

They're good at knowing how well people test, okay? Because there's a lot of people who do well on tests but fail in life, and then there's those who do poorly in tests but succeed in life. Can I use my wife, for example, here? She's not. She's not a great test taker.

She just isn't. But she's probably the smartest person in this room, honestly. You know, she is. Now, she took her LSAT when she went to law school, and she didn't do as well on her LSAT as a lot of other people that got full scholarships. So she walked into the recruiting office and explained everything.

She's saying, listen, I've been valedictorian of two different classes, salutatorian, and this one class, I've been this, I can do it. And they're like, well, we just don't think that's a good judgment, you know, because you didn't make good on your LSAT. Well, she said, I'm going to go out and I'm going to prove them wrong. So she rock and rolled that first year, was third in her class, came back in the next year, sat it down. And they're like, holy cow, you did do well.

We're going to give you more scholarship money. Because really, it doesn't really matter how well you test, it's how you succeed in life. It doesn't really determine how well you do. There's a lot of smart people out there that never have been good at tests, and I've never been good at tests either. I hate taking tests, but that doesn't really define who we are.

So don't allow them to be put in the comparison trap, okay? Your kids don't need to be put in a comparison trap. Here's what Galatians says, each person should judge his own actions and not compare himself to others, right? Then he can be proud for what he himself has done. Now, some of you are like, well, isn't pride a sin?

Well, not in this context. This is a godly pride. There is a right pride, a right way to be, and that's the pride that says, you know, I'm proud of what God has done in my life and what I'm capable of doing for God. And that's what he's getting at here. It's a legitimate kind of pride, the kind of proud, I'm proud that I can do this for my father.

So don't mold them into you. This is important. Don't mold them into you. Mold them into who God made them to be. Kids are not clay to be molded.

They are human beings to be unfolded. And as parents, we need to do that. Love does not demand its own way according to 1 Corinthians. It does not demand its own way. We want kids to be who they are.

The second point, the second value is affirm their value. Affirm their value because everyone is starving for affirmation. Everyone is. Affirm their value. Why is this important?

Why is this important? Because God values people. God values you. God values his people. God values his church.

God values the world that he gave his only son for the world. It says this in Matthew, Jesus is talking and teaching. He says, Not even a sparrow can fall to the ground without your heavenly Father knowing it. And you are much more valuable to him than a whole flock of sparrows. So you have value.

God has value. Now I realize that some of you didn't grow up with great parents. I realize that some of you didn't receive that value. And let's just set the record straight here today that you are valuable. No matter what your parents said to you, now what your parents did to you, you are valued.

You are God value. And this is what it says here. And many of you are familiar with this. The psalmist says this in 139. God made all the delicate parts of your body and knit me together in my mother's womb.

Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex. Your worksmanship is marvelous. So you have any doubts about your value? There you go right there. God values you.

And we value also, we are a pro-life church, okay? I just want to set this straight. This right here tells us, in the mother's womb, we knitted together, he knitted together every child, every child that born and unborn has value. He had a plan from the very beginning for you have value. We all have value.

And our job as parents is to pass that value down to our children. That's what we do. And if you grew up in a home where parents showed you value, you understand what this means. And if you grew up in a home where parents didn't show you that value, you really understand how important this is, right? Because value is important.

Now, how does our Heavenly Father do it? Just a few sub points here. Paying attention. He pays attention to us. In fact, it says this in Scripture, God pays great attention to you down to the last detail, even numbering the hairs on your head.

He knows every hair. Every time I lose a hair up in this balding spot up here, he knows exactly how many hairs I have on my head. He notices me. He knows who I am. And he notices you.

And he's... So, with your children, you need to wear that responsibility. Make eye contact with them. Stop for a second. Max, he likes to talk about Minecraft and video games all the time.

And you know what? I'm not into Minecraft. I've tried, and I've tried really hard. But when he starts talking to me and really going into detail about, I mean, he relates everything. He can look at this drum set and call it a Minecraft piece or something.

You know, there's like an animal or something on Minecraft. That's just like the so-and-so. He's like learning stuff in the world through Minecraft. It's crazy how that works. But I just sit, and I listen, and I say, yeah, mm-hmm, really?

You know, I'm just like really getting into it, really. I'm not, and sometimes I'm not really into it, but I want to share that into with him so that I can really get into his head, he can get into mine, we can share that. And Savannah came to me just the other day, and she hands me a piece of a picture that she colored in her class. She says, Daddy, aren't I so creative? I'm so creative, aren't I?

And I looked at it, and I was like, oh, you are, because she desired that affirmation, right? She wanted that value, and we need to give that value. We need to pay attention. And showing affection. God showed affection.

That's another point. God showed affection. He drew me to him with affection and love and picked them up and held them to my cheek. So he loves affection. He's like, in some sense, he's holding us in his arms.

He's loving us. He's kissing our foreheads. He's kissing our heads. And we need to do that with our children. I realize that many of you probably aren't very affectionate people, especially you men.

You men, maybe you didn't grow up in an affectionate environment, but this can be learned. It can be learned. So your homework assignment, maybe in the next few days, just take an opportunity. Grab your kid up. Hug them.

Kiss them. Let them know. Show them affection. That makes a great parent. He also expressed appreciation.

God expressed appreciation. And Isaiah says, God says, you are precious to me. You are honored, and I love you. So he shows appreciation. Appreciate your kids because it raises their value when you appreciate them.

It gives them value. And sometimes it's just a simple word. Sometimes it's just a simple word of encouragement. Sometimes it's a simple, I love you, and I honor you, and you are the man. You are, go get it, Max.

Go get it, Savannah. You are so good at this. They just need that appreciation. And Paul constantly encouraged the church, right? He was always looking for the church, right?

Lifting up the church, even when he was getting on to them about some of the things they were doing, he always started out, you are this, you are amazing, I love you so much, and I've seen what you're able to do, I love you so much, but then, and he also encouraged specific leaders in the church, Timothy, and Silas, and even John Mark, after John Mark was not his friend for a while, you know, he went back, he says, I miss John Mark. He encouraged people all the time. And people live up to what is expected of them. So if you put expectation on people, they live up to that, because here's what the Proverbs says, it says, in Proverbs 12, 25, a word of encouragement does what? Wonders.

A word of encouragement goes a long way. And often we remember the negative words, but we don't remember the positive words. We forget easily the positive words that are spoken to us. So it's important that we give a lot more positive words than negative words, right? Because it takes a lot more positive words to counteract those negative words that were spoken to people, as vice versa.

So it's important for us to give encouraging words. Number three, number three, the third thing, the third value you need to hold on to is trust them with responsibility. Let me just dig into this for a second, okay? Trust them with responsibility, because nothing is better than being trusted. Nothing moves you further than being given trust.

And Jesus spoke to this, he spoke to his apostles, he says, whoever can be trusted with a little can be trusted with a lot. And if you cannot be trusted with things that belong to someone else, who will give you things of your own? So people respond to responsibility. So we give them responsibility, we give them the ability to respond. We give them the ability to respond.

And this is, I'm not saying start throwing people in the fire, especially your young kids. We've got to incrementally, and Jesus did this with the disciples. He gave them incremental responsibilities. I'm not going to give Max my checking account and say, hey, Max, why don't you go and manage my money, right? I'm not going to do that.

I'm not going to tell him, hey, here's all the bank account information. Here's my banker. Why don't you just take this on right now at nine years old, where he doesn't even have a bank account yet, and tell him to do it. I'm not going to do that. It just doesn't make sense.

All of you in here are like, absolutely not. But what I can do for Max is I can give him allowances as he works, as he cleans his room, as he cleans the kitchen, as he does his chores, and he can have a bank, and he can put that money in the bank, and this is what he does. He puts the money in the bank, he saves it, and I teach him about saving, and I teach him about tithing, and I teach him about responsibilities with money, and I can do that. Incrementally, I'm giving him responsibility. I'm entrusting him with that.

And as a child, your father trusts you with certain things, but ultimately, he's given you more responsibility because one of the most important skills in life is responsibility. And nothing in society is teaching our kids how to be responsible except you parents. Nothing in society, in fact, society does the blame game. Society points the finger at someone else. Society points the finger at everything else around them, the environment, the situation they're in.

That's what society does. It teaches them a responsibility, and we do that with our sin, don't we? When we're, you know, it's my father's fault that I'm this way. It's my mother's fault that I'm this way. And that might be true, but we're quick to point to that.

It was the church I grew up in. That's why I fell out of church, and I'm not with the Lord now because they did this, and they did that. And we point the finger at the past, right? We point the finger, and our kids are being taught this, and if we're not careful, we're going to teach our kids that, right? And as good parents, we want them to learn responsibility because everyone needs to be trusted.

Everybody wants to be trusted. I want to be trusted, and you want to be trusted, and I want to build that trust with you as a pastor of this congregation, and I'm sure you want to build that trust with me. It's just a need that we have. And Jesus gave the responsibility to the 12, and he said, hey, here, I want you to do this. I want you to do that.

He walked with them. He showed them how to do it. Then he released them to do it, and then one day when he rose from the dead, and he came back, he was meeting with them. He says, guess what? I'm going away forever.

Not forever. I'm coming back, but I'm going away for a while. I'm going to send the Holy Spirit, and he's going to guide you, but I've given you full responsibility. He called it authority. I give you all authority in heaven to go out and do the work that I've told you to do.

He entrusted them. He trusted those 11 outside of Judas, and they added another one in later on. But he entrusted the 12, and obviously Paul bought out of due season. He was brought in out of due season. But regardless, He entrusted them, He left them there, and what happened?

What happened? We are here today because of that, right? The church is still alive, this church is flourishing, the church and the Holy Spirit anointed men that were sent out in the authority of Jesus Christ, and guess what, He's doing the same with you. There are roughly 2 billion Christians in the world because Jesus entrusted 12 men, and He gave them the ability to go out. And as America, we have, and Americans, let me just say this, because I can speak directly to Americans, because everybody in here is American, probably.

You know, there might be a few people that aren't yet, but you're living the American dream because you're here, right? And here, let me say this, you've been given responsibility because you are wealthier than most of the world. Even the poorest person in here, even the person with the lowest income in this room, you make more than most of the world. Most of the world lives off a dollar a week, maybe. Sometimes places live off a dollar a month.

I mean, it's a very, it's an impoverished world, and you are blessed, and you have been given responsibility. God has entrusted you with the responsibility financially, influentially, intelligence. All those things have been given to you, and how are we doing that? How are we managing those things? Are we living responsible?

Are we teaching our kids to live responsible with the responsibility He's given us? And no matter where you are in your life, whether you're wealthy, or whether you're just a college student here today trying to make it by, you have been given something. You have been given some type of responsibility, and you need to hold on to that responsibility, wear it well, and what will God do? He will entrust you with more. Whether it's giving, tithing, generosity, loving people, giving to others, laboring for the Lord, whatever that might be, your time, your treasure, your talent, whatever it might be, He's given you something.

He's given responsibility. They did a survey of parents. It was a few years back. It was probably about 10 years ago, so it's a little dated, but they said, what would you do differently with your kids now if you could go back and do it again? And they said, overwhelmingly, I would do less for them.

Do less for them. I would do less for my children and teach them to do more for themselves. I would do less for my children and teach them to do more for themselves. Because when they are babies, you are responsible for them. But when they're adults, you're responsible to them.

So whatever they choose to do, wherever they go, we are responsible to them. And allow your children to fail because failure is not fatal, okay? Failure is not fatal. We often pick up our kids, and reasonably so. I mean, we want our children to succeed.

We want to protect our children. We don't want to see them fail. But failure is not fatal. Failure just teaches them the art of recovery. And they need to know the art of recovery because successful people fail, but successful people get up again.

Successful people fail, but they get back up again and again and again. That's why the Proverbs says this, though a righteous man falls seven times, he gets up again. He gets up again and again, and we need to teach them the skill of learning how to recover. Recovery is not failure. We don't need to be helicopter parents, guys.

And a lot of us are, and I get it. I've been there. I mean, I'm concerned about my kids, right? But what you're doing, you're saying, I don't trust you when all you do is hover over them, when you're walking in to their interviews with them, when you're belling them out every time. What you're doing, you're ultimately saying, I don't really, I trust you, and it makes them very insecure about their lives.

And when they're out on their own, we're not teaching them how to live and how to recover well and how to fail well. It's good to fail early, too. So let them fail a little bit while they're younger. It's like a scrimmage game, you know, football game, preseason game. What happens?

You go into that game and everybody's like breathing easy. Why? Because, you know, it's preseason. It doesn't really, you know, there's time to learn. And all the failed things that happen, you just go back to those failed things and the real game's coming soon.

Let's get them right, right? And that's what we need to do with our kids. It's good that they fail well. And when they fail, don't allow them to blame others. Please don't allow them to blame others.

When they fail, help them understand that they are responsible. And it doesn't matter how much it was somebody else's fault. They fail. They fail. They fail.

Responsibility because Galatians 6-5 says it like this, we are each responsible for our conduct. We are all responsible for our own conduct. The fourth thing is correct without condemnation, okay? This is a big one because everyone needs correction, okay? Nobody's perfect.

Nobody's perfect in this life. Everyone needs correction, but none of us are perfect. God does this with us, right? He corrects us. He's pretty stern with us at times, too, right?

I mean, some of you shared conversations with me just recently about God really challenging you on some things. He corrects us. But we need to be careful how we use our words because God, there's something about how God corrects us that's so gentle but so stern. And we need to be gentle, but we need to be stern, you know? And we need to watch our words.

On the other hand, it does them a disservice if we don't correct them while they are young enough to learn. So help them. And when you don't correct them, you set them up for failure. That's why Proverbs says it like this in 19-8, Proverbs 19-18, excuse me, discipline your children while they are young enough to learn. That's good advice, right?

That's good advice for anybody. If they don't, you are helping them destroy themselves, okay? Learning is a part of life. And while they're young, we teach them at an early age and we help them learn. And if you don't correct them, you don't really love them.

That's why scripture even says this in Proverbs 13-24. There's a lot of Proverbs. There's all this wisdom going out, right? Yeah, God's given us all kinds of wisdom. If you refuse to discipline your children, it proves you don't love them.

If you love your children, you will be prompt to discipline them. But when we do it, we never want to do it in anger, right? We never want to do it in frustration because anger is just getting back at somebody. And maybe you even feel like they deserve it, right? They shouldn't do this.

That's why scripture says this, don't keep on scolding and nagging your children, making them angry and resentful. Rather, bring them up with what? Loving discipline. Discipline them in a loving way with suggestions and godly advice. Sit them down.

Talk to them about these things. Discipline them. And it's easy to get angry, especially when you're... You're frustrated, and especially when they deserve it. And you don't deserve what they've done, right?

It's easy to do that, but what we say in anger doesn't necessarily reflect who we are. Because when we're angry, when we're frustrated, and when we're emotional, what do we do? We say things we don't mean. We have attitudes that don't necessarily reflect our normal selves. And we do things, and we don't want to do that to our children, because discipline and anger is just getting even.

It's just getting even. And in the end, we don't want to create resentment, and we want to watch our words. That's why Ephesians 4.29, I know I've got a lot of scripture today. There's so much good stuff in scripture.

Don't use harmful words. Use only helpful words. The kind that build up. The kind that build up. Because put-downs and harmful words, they may get results into short-term, but it forms long-term resentment.

It results in long-term frustration, or divisiveness, or whatever those negative words you may be saying in anger. But speak the truth in love, and it has the ability to change our children's heart. And then lastly, love them unconditionally, okay? This is super important. Love them unconditionally.

Why? For two reasons. And I want you to do two things, actually. Offer them forgiveness, because why? Because Christ first forgave you.

I come back to this scripture almost every week. Be kind and loving to each other, forgiving each other, just as God forgave you in Christ, right? So we offer them forgiveness. Because godly parents keep loving just as we have been loved and forgiven. And you are going to need massive doses of forgiveness yourselves.

I need massive doses of forgiveness in your marriage, in your life with your friends, at your job, wherever you are. You're going to need forgiveness from time to time. Massive doses of forgiveness in your marriage and your parenting. So, and also do this, never give up on them. This is what unconditional love is.

It's never giving up on the people you love. Never giving up on your children. Love always believes the best in people. Love always believes in the best in people. Yeah, there's times.

No. Don't take off on the slide. That you're going to have to release them for a while so they can learn. There's times that they may take advantage of you or use you, and you've got to recognize those things and know when to cut that off because you're not ready to handle that type of situation. But you never give up on them.

You continue to pray for them. You continue to love them. You continue to offer advice to them in whatever way you can. Never give up on them. Because love knows no limits to its endurance, as Scripture says in 1 Corinthians 13, 7.

No end to its trust. No fading to its hope. It can outlast everything. Love can outlast everything. Even when there's addictions.

Even when there's bad relationships. Even when there's poor choices made as adults. You never give up on your children because Jesus never gave up on us. And all of us need someone who doesn't give up on us. All of us need someone that's there for us regardless.

A great dad doesn't rub it in. He rubs it out. A great dad doesn't rub it in. He rubs it out. And God says, he gives us, or God gives us second chances over and over and over again.

Why would we not give our children a second chance? Why would we not give those who we are mentoring and fathering a second chance? I love how Isaiah says it. The mountains and hills may crumble, but my love for you will never end. So says the Lord who loves you.

And you may go through all kinds of earthquakes. You may go all kinds of things, but your heavenly father, your heavenly father accepts your uniqueness. Your heavenly father affirms your values or your value. Your heavenly father trusts you with what he has in his hands. He's given to you.

Your heavenly father corrects you without condemning. And your heavenly father loves you unconditionally. And God just wants you to love others as he loves you. God just wants you to love people as he loves people. God just wants you to love the people of this world as you, you to love the people of this world as he loves the people of this world.

He wants you to love your children. He wants you to love your wife. He wants you to love your husband. He wants all that for you. So as I land this plane, as I land this message here, let me just give you something here.

The U.S. News and World Report gave a study in the 21st century what it cost to raise a child. He added up what it cost to raise a child, or this study added up what it cost to raise a child, and to raise one child with clothing, housing, education, food, all that kind of stuff. And this is actually an older report, so it might be updated since then, but it costs roughly $1,455,581 in that particular time to raise a child.

That's a lot of money. And they said girls cost about 18% more because of clothing, okay? Just wanted to throw that in there, okay? You got boys, it's a little cheaper. But the real cost of parenting is not money.

The real cost of parenting is not financial. It's the emotional cost. It's the emotional cost. And if we're honest today, if we're honest in this room today, some of you have listened to this message and you're stirred in your heart a little bit. You're stirred in your heart about those emotions.

Some of you are frustrated. Some of you are fatigued raising your children. Some of you are discouraged. Some of you are worried. You have fear about where your kid will end up.

And some of you are kind of in another area. You're guilty. You feel guilty because maybe your child's gone wayward. And maybe you feel ashamed. Maybe you feel hopeless.

Everybody might be somewhere in their thought process about that if you're a parent, if you're a father. And some of you here, you frankly, have broken hearts. You have a broken heart because one of the things that hurts the most, nothing hurts worse than having a wayward child. Nothing hurts worse than having a child that is distanced from God. And I'm sorry.

I'm sorry you feel that way. I'm sorry. But Jesus Christ understands. He absolutely understands. He understands the pain.

He understands the guilt. He understands the hurt. He understands the fear. And all the emotion you perhaps are feeling. And many of you here today, you're a bundle of emotions.

You out there online, you're a bundle of emotions because there's a lot going on. But Jesus is ready to help. Jesus is ready to help. Just as He forgives you, He's asking you to forgive them and to love them unconditionally. And He doesn't want you to do that with your kids.

He doesn't want you to be hard on your kids. He wants you to forgive your kids and love your kids. And He wants you to continue to pray and continue to stand on guard for your kids. And He continues to want you to not give up on your kids. If you know what the secret to being a great dad is, now I'm going to give you the answer to that.

The secret to being a great dad. It's so simple. So hard. At the same time. Become a godly person.

It's not about being a godly parent. How do I become a godly parent? It's about being a godly person. It's about being a person who loves God. In fact, Proverbs 14, 26 says it like this in the Living Bible.

Reverence for God gives a man deep strength. It gives you deep strength. His children have a place of refuge and security. Refuge and security. The righteous person actually provides refuge and security.

So my question for you, are you offering an environment of refuge? I'm offering an environment of security for your children. For your children. Do you provide strength? Because strength isn't, listen, strength isn't making a lot of money.

Strength isn't running a big business. Strength isn't having power. Strength isn't going on sexual escapades. Strength isn't that man. You know what strength is?

Strength is having a relationship with your Heavenly Father. Strength is having a relationship with Christ. That's what true strength is. That's what power is. And it's not about doing, and I say this all the time.

Some of you are like, well, how do I, how do I do this? How do I do this? How do I do this? It's not about doing. It's about being.

It's about being in Jesus Christ. So how do I do that? Jesus needs to come into your life and change your life. And for those of you who have not made a decision for Jesus, I'm going to give you that opportunity here in a second. But for those of you who are on different steps in your spiritual walk, I would say this.

Not only if you haven't given your life to Jesus, your life to Christ, maybe you need to pray with your kids or ask your kids to pray with you or pray for you, especially if you have adult kids. Or maybe it starts with an apology asking for forgiveness for some of the things maybe you've done with your kids. Or maybe you just need to ask people to help you, to come by you and help you. And for the children in here that are adults, I've got something for you and then I'll close with a prayer. Your parents are not perfect.

Your parents were not perfect. But they were God's plan for your life. That you were made, the DNA that you have, the gene pool that puts you together, it may be messed up. They may have said things to you, they may have done things to you, but it was God's perfect plan for your life. And He made you specifically, He designed you by using them to create who you are so that you can make a difference in this world.

God had a plan from the very beginning. He gave you a commission, but He designed you specifically so His plan for this world could be fulfilled through. Can we just be grateful for that? If anything else, can we just be grateful to God for that? And maybe you need to consider your dad today.

Maybe you need to consider your father today because there are no perfect dads. And you would not be alive today if it wasn't for Him. And maybe you need to forgive your father as your Heavenly Father has. Father We are so thankful that you are a good Heavenly Father, because we know that there's nothing more important than fatherhood. Parenthood is great, but without a father, without that mandate and that authority that you put in the Father, what are we, God?

But you show us an example of what a true Heavenly Father is. You show us a good, good Father that loves us so much, that corrects us without condemning, that sees our value, that sees our worth, that sees our uniqueness, has created us in such a way designed for our Father, for you, Father. We are designed in such a way. We see that, God. And we are so thankful that we have that authority over us, that fatherhood authority over us.

So today, I just ask, God, that you just touch the heart of all of our fathers. I pray blessings over our fathers, that you would encourage them, wherever they are in their spiritual walk, walking towards you, Lord, taking those next steps to become more like you, that you would encourage them to move to a place where you can be used, where they can be used by you, for you, that they can walk with you, and that they, in turn, can raise godly children, a godly generation of world changers for your glory, for your kingdom. And today, Daddy, I even say Daddy, because you are our Daddy. In which, you know, Paul said, I'm a Father, I cry out, I endearing term, I cry out to you, that there are some people maybe that have not called you Daddy, yet. Maybe they call you God from a distance.

And I know they're here in this place, and all of you out there, if the Lord may be pulling you and convicting you, and the Holy Spirit's drawing you towards this Father, this Daddy figure. And he's calling out to you. So, Father, I ask that if there's those here today, that they would just give their lives to you. And if that's you here today, if you would just pray this with me, and I want you to mean it from your heart, I want it to come from your life. Like, it says that he who calls in the name of the Lord, who calls on the Father, the Father will come and save them and rescue them and fulfill their lives.

The thing that you've been missing. So, just pray this with me. Father, I believe that you gave yourself... I believe that Jesus, your Son, is the Son of God and died on the cross. Come into my heart.

Come into my life. Make me new. Change me from the inside out. Because it's not about doing anymore. Because doing never did it anyway.

But it's about being in you. Father, come into my life. Come into my home.