 Hey, Radiant Church. It is great to be with you this weekend. My dear friends, Pastor Lee and Jane, I love them so much. I've known them for 25, 30 years and just doing a phenomenal job. I miss seeing you guys. I've been up there several times on the weekends to preach to you, but I'm gonna be with you via video this weekend. And I have a special message called honoring our two fathers on Father's Day. This is a really good message, I believe, to help us understand how to honor our human fathers, but also God is our father and how those issues are connected. Happy Father's Day to all the fathers. God bless you all at Radiant Church. Here's the message honoring our two fathers. It is wonderful to be here. Great to be with you. Welcome all of our services and campuses. We are so glad that you are with us. And happy Father's Day. I wanna say happy Father's Day again to all the fathers who are here. Now I'm a father and a grandfather. We have, Karen and I have two children, our daughter Julie, who is married. They live in San Antonio and have twin granddaughters, have twin girls, our granddaughters. And then our son Brent, who runs marriage today. He's the president of marriage today. And they live here in South Lake and they have Hannah's wife, Stephanie. They have three kids, Kate who is eight, Reed who is four, and Luke who is two. And they go here to Gateway. And so I absolutely love being a father and a grandfather. It's just one of the greatest things in my life. And you know, as fathers, you just have those moments, I was watching the video there, of the moments that you have as a father. And I was thinking the day of our twin granddaughters, Abby and Elle, are their names. And my grandkids call me Pappy. And they're 14. Our twin granddaughters just turned 14 a couple weeks ago. And they were four. And when they were four years old, they were riding with us in the car. And they were in their car seats in the back seat. And so Abby started crying. And I turned around and I said, Abby, what's wrong? Why are you crying? And her sister, Elle, said, Pappy, she needs ice cream. Those are your good moments as a grandparent, as a parent. So a lot of bad ones, but those are the good ones. Now this message is called honoring our two fathers. And I want you to turn, this is a Pastor Robert here. I want you to turn to Ephesians 6 and also to 1 Peter 3. Put your finger there in 1 Peter 3, but turn to Ephesians 6. And I want to talk about honoring both of our fathers because we have two fathers. And so my dad died about, he went to be with Lord about seven years ago. I had many opportunities to spend Father's Day with him and to express to him my appreciation. But at my age, what I realize is you just don't have forever to do that. There comes a time when our dads go be with the Lord. And so when they're here, it's a special opportunity to tell them how much they mean to us. But I want to talk about this and we'll read from Ephesians 6 here in just a minute. I want to begin by talking about some basic reasons why we honor our fathers. Because it's very, very important and very powerful. And the first is the Bible commands it. This is, you know, Father's Day to God is every day. Father's Day to God is not an annual holiday. It's every single day when God commands us to honor our fathers. This is Ephesians chapter six and it says, children, obey your parents in the Lord for this is right. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth. Now this comes actually from Deuteronomy 516. But this is an Old Testament and a New Testament promise, listen to me. God says this, if you honor your mothers and fathers, he gives you two promises. You'll live a long life and it will be well with you. Now, when you have children for our children and grandchildren, isn't that what you want? Isn't that kind of game set and match for what all of us want in life is we want to live long and we want it to go well with us. Now, my parents and my wife's parents, we grew up watching them honor their parents. And my father honored his parents. I watched it all through my life. That's one of the things my dad did very, very well. My dad has nine brothers and sisters. He grew up in abject poverty and I'll tell you a little bit more about that story here in just a little bit. But with nine brothers and sisters, my grandmother's house was falling down, literally. When I was about 10 years old, my grandmother's house was falling down. And when you went into the bathroom in my grandmother's house, if you stepped in the wrong place, you went through the floor. So everybody know, all the strangers got hurt, but everybody, you know, all the people. But we knew we're not to step in my grandmother's bathroom because you went through the floor. And so my father of all the siblings, my father took the initiative to get my grandmother a new house. And so in my parents, they were struggled to say the very least. But I watched my father honor his parents. I watched my mother do the same thing when my grandparents were older and couldn't provide for themselves. My mother and my father provided for my grandmother. Karen's parents did the same thing. I watched Karen's parents just do an incredible job of honoring their parents. It's just something that Karen and I grew up with. It was our culture. So how did God reward my parents or our parents? My father went to be a Florida 80 years old. He had six cancers for 20 years that wouldn't kill him. I mean, he just like he wouldn't die. And I believe it was because he had a will to live. I also believe it's because God invoked the promise of Ephesians six on my father because he honored his parents. My mother's 87, going strong. Karen's parents are in their late 80s. Of all of our parents who honored the Lord, the youngest that died was 80 years old. And I believe that this is a true promise. Now listen, as parents, if you love your children, you'll train them to honor you. Because when your children honor you, they're invoking this promise upon their lives. This is a very, very powerful thing. You say, you know something, Jimmy, I want to live a long time and I want it to go well with me. Honor your mother and father. And this is what this day is about. This is a reminder of how important it is. But what I'm saying to us is, this is important with God. This is so important with God, he puts one of the most important promises that we could ever get in honoring our mothers and fathers. And there's no qualifier to it. And what I mean by that is, it doesn't say here honor your mother and father if they're honorable. Honor your mother and father if they do everything that you want, which none of our parents did. Is honor your mother and father if it's a non-qualified commandment. You honor your mother and father, regardless, honor your mother and father. And so that's the first reason that we honor our mothers and fathers. The second reason that we honor our fathers is it meets our father's deepest need and motivates them to do well. Now when I do marriage seminars, what I teach women is that respect is a man's mega need. Of all, and women have important needs that men must meet. But of all the needs that men have, our most important need, our mega need, is the need for respect. And it's so powerful that we will change our behavior for the person who's giving it to us. Now this is 1 Peter 3, where I ask you to turn there, the second scripture. Likewise, wives be subject to your own husbands so that even if some of them do not obey the word, they may be one without a word by the conduct of their wives when they see your respectful and pure conduct. So you say, my husband's doing something wrong. How do I respond to that? Well, you're your husband's equal in every way. You can say anything that you wanna say. But the point here, you say it respectfully. Okay, listen, criticism is our kryptonite. And honor is our oxygen. Criticism never motivates a man. It wounds our spirit. What motivates a man is when you give us more respect than we deserve. Let me turn, I'm not talking to wives, I'm talking to children. When you honor your father, when he doesn't deserve it, it motivates him to do better. But criticism wounds. So this is something as wives and as children, God gave men the need for respect and he gave children the commandment to respect their fathers. And when you put that together, you have a very, very powerful thing. But understand, when you honor your father, not just on Father's Day, but every day, it is meeting one of his most important needs. It's a very, very powerful thing. The third reason that we honor our fathers is it honors the God-ordained institution of fatherhood in society, which is under attack. Everything in the Bible is under attack in our society. And I'll explain to you more in just a minute about who fathers are and how God created the institution of fatherhood. But we had an event here in Southlake. Our offices, our marriage day offices are here in Southlake. And we had an event here and some folks, people came from all over the country to our event. And one of the couples that came to our event checked into a hotel here in Southlake and they came to the counter to check in and the guy behind the counter said, hey, what brings you to Southlake? And they said, well, we're going to one of Jimmy Evans' marriage events. And the guy behind the counter said, does anybody really care about marriage anymore? Now that's where our society has come. Let me answer that. Yes, God cares about marriage. And God's people care about marriage. That's the answer to that question. But do you understand when you're honoring your father, you're standing for a God ordained institution because God created the institution of fatherhood? And I wanna say, if you're a man who takes your role as a father or grandfather seriously, I want to honor you because you're standing up for the God ordained institution of fatherhood in society and you deserve that honor. If you're a couple and you take your marriage seriously and you take your role as parents seriously, you deserve honor because you're salt and light to a society that is destroying itself. We need to remember, when we stand up for the God ordained institution of fatherhood, we are being salt and light to our society because everything that is godly and everything that is in the Bible and the Bible is under full scale assault, but we need to understand it. It doesn't matter what the world says. It matters what God says. And greater is he who is in us than he who is in the world. And we don't follow the world. We follow the Lord Jesus Christ. And fatherhood is essential to every single society that is gonna stand. And so those are just the basic reasons. You say, well, why is Father's Day important? That's it right there. That's just some basic reasons. But let me talk about four facts about our fathers. These things are true now about you. Every single person watching, listing right now hear four things that are true about all of us related to our two fathers. Number one, we all have two fathers. An earthly father and a heavenly father. We don't just have one father. This is Matthew chapter six. This is Jesus speaking. He said, but you when you pray, go into your room and when you have shut your door, pray to your father who is in the secret place and your father who sees in secret will reward you openly. See in the Old Testament, God was behind curtains and on top of mountains and was mysterious and somewhat austere and it was to be feared to some degree because he just didn't show himself like this. But in the New Testament, Jesus came in the Sermon on the mountain. He transformed the world with one word, Father. That was the word that Jesus used in the New Testament that had not been heard before. God is an intimate loving father. I want you to know you have two fathers, not one father. You have a father here on earth and you also have a heavenly father. The second truth about our two fathers is our two fathers were designed to operate as a team. They were designed to operate together. This is Genesis chapter one. It says, so God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. Then God blessed them and God said to them, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves on the earth. God made Adam in his image, then he commanded him to have children. Fathers are image bears of God to their children. You say, why did God create fathers so that God would have an image bear before every child on the face of the earth? The number one role of a father is to lead his child into an understanding of who God is. I am an image bearer of God. Whether I realize it or not, we are image bears of God to our children. And so God, from the very beginning, God linked who he is to earthly fathers and said, hey, let's operate as a team. Unfortunately, Adam rebelled and that marred the image of God to Cain and Abel and to all the children after that. And by Genesis six, the world had become corrupt. But fathers are to operate as a team. Number three, truth about our two fathers. Our concept of our heavenly father is mostly derived by our earthly father. Remember, God created him and earthly fathers to operate as a team. So our concept of who God is is most derived by our earthly father. And so we naturally attribute to God what our fathers do right. When you were growing up, your fathers and your parents to some degree, because mothers are extremely powerful obviously, in a child's life. But remember, we call our earthly fathers fathers and Godfather. So our earthly father, whether we realize that they're not growing up was actually modeling for us who God was. And so what our fathers did right, we naturally attribute. Let me say this, if your father was generous, you naturally believe that God's generous. If your father's loving and affection and caring and attentive and gracious, all of those things, you naturally, it's just easy for you to believe that about God. We had a friend of ours in high school that her father charged her rent as a child. He was the tightest human, I didn't lie, I mean, we went over to her house all the time, none of us liked him. He was just a mean guy. And he told her in sophomore and high school, he said, you pay rent or you move out. And I thought, you know, most fathers are kind of protective. You don't. It's hard to have a concept of God that he's caring and generous and attentive when your earthly father's telling you to pay rent or move out. And so when our fathers don't do well, it's hard for us to believe God in that area of our lives. And here are the five things that fathers should do that help build a child's concept of God. This is the image of God. Number one is protection. God is a protective God. He protects us. Provision, God is a lavish generous provider for us. Number three is nurture and affection. God is so affectionate. I love the intimate affection that God gives us. Number four is training, the right modeling. God models, Jesus came to model for us how to live our lives. And the fifth is guidance. Training means living your life in front of your child so that they know how to live their lives. But guidance is personal. I may have been this in life, but I want to help to guide you in the way that you should go to fulfill your God ordained role in society. And so protection, provision, nurture, affection, training, guidance, that's the image of God. And so number four, truth about our two fathers. Our earthly fathers are imperfect and our heavenly fathers perfect. Now I know some of you had terrific fathers and I'm just saying and thank God for that. It puts you at a natural advantage but understand all fathers on this earth are imperfect. And here's what Jesus said in Matthew 7, 11. If you then being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father who is in heaven gives good things to those who ask him. And I think that, I'm just imagining the disciples, Jesus turning and saying, if you then being evil know how to give, I just imagine the disciples going, did he just call us evil? I think he just called us evil. God doesn't have us in nature. Let me say this. This is a comparative statement. The best father on earth is evil in comparison to God the father because God the father is the most awesome parent in the universe. That's how good he is. Now let me say something to you. Listen to me, you have a perfect father. And sometimes when I see people who are kind of hurting and grieving over their past, here's what I say to him. I say it very lovingly. You need to stop grieving over the father you didn't have and start thanking God for the father you have. Because you have a perfect father. And sometimes on Father's Day, sometimes people struggle and I wanna tell my story about how I found peace with both of my fathers because I have peace with both of my fathers today. And, but I didn't. And I'm gonna honor my father. Part of this message is I wanna honor my father but I wanna tell this story because some of you may be able to relate to it. When I take the five roles a father should play in his child's life, my father fulfilled too. He basically protected me and he provided for me. We were just of meager means growing up but my father was a hard worker and he didn't touch me. There was no physical affection at all period in my life. He didn't talk to me. My father wasn't a talker and he just didn't talk. You know, I mean a few words here and there but mostly just telling me what to do or something. Never came to a game. Never trained me to do anything. Just, you know, he was just not there but he did protect and provide. In the best years, my father's life revolved around his work. In the best years of our relationship were when I worked for my dad. Before I came into the ministry I worked for my dad. And we were, I mean that was his world. So when I came into his world and started working with him, I mean we had a great relationship and that was kind of his deal until the day I went into the ministry and the Lord had called me to the ministry and I dreaded going into my dad's office and telling him I was going into the ministry. My dad was not a Christian. And I went into his office one day and I said, hey, daddy, I need to tell you something. He said, what? And I said, well, the Lord's called me into the ministry and I'm gonna go to work for the church. He said, no, you're not. You just need to work and make money and send the church your money. That's all they need from you. I said, daddy, the Lord's called me to preach and I'm going to work for the church. He said, I never wanna see you again. My dad disowned me. It was one of the worst days of my life and so I got in my car and I was driving away from the store and I was sitting on the street and the Lord said, pray that your dad will get saved and come to Trinity, the church that I was gonna pastor. And I came on staff as an associate pastor. And it was hard for me to have that kind of faith that my dad would get saved. But a couple of years later, my mom and dad went into a hard time and I went to be with them one day. And they looked at me and they said, we don't know what to do. And I just witnessed to them. I just said, you need Jesus. You've made business, you're God and it's not gone well for you but God loves you and you need Jesus. And my parents, I led my parents to Christ that day. And my parents started coming to Trinity and I was the senior pastor at that point. And they started coming. They thought I was Billy Graham. They thought I was the greatest preacher they'd ever heard. Every sermon, every sermon I preached was the greatest sermon. And every time I gave an altar call, my dad responded. I know you just get saved once but I know he's in heaven. My parents didn't know how to touch. They just didn't know how to be affectionate. They grew up in the depression. Well, at Trinity, the church, it's like gateway, the church I've pastored in Amarillo. The first time Karen and I came to Trinity, a guy walked up and hugged me and told me he loved me. I was gonna slug him. They just thought, buddy, you're way up in my space here now. You don't do that. And they're just affectionate. When my parents came to Trinity, that people started hugging them. My parents didn't touch. And they people started soliciting. My parents sat in the parking lot every weekend till the door's open so they could walk in and be hugged. And my dad became the sweetest, most affectionate man. Whatever he liked growing up, he more than made up for as an adult. We had so many good times together but I still grew up with a man who'd ever touched me and talked with me or anything like that. And it affected my concept of God. And regardless of the fact that I had a healed relationship with my father, I struggled with my relationship with God as a pastor. It was easy for me to pray and believe that I had some kind of a business relationship with God where I prayed and he'd answer. But it was hard for me to deal with him as a father. And the breakthrough in my relationship with God is my father, my relationship with my earthly father was healed, beautiful, beautiful. And let me tell you, my dad was the best grandfather in the whole world. But the breakthrough in my relationship with God is my father, came in steps. The first step was I got a prophetic word one day. I didn't really believe that God knew who I was. You know, when the Bible says God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, I thought, well, I'm in the world. But I didn't know he knew my name. And we were in a church service on the back row and a pastor said, I have a word for this young man right back here. And it was me. And I stood up and he read my mail. He knew exact details that were happening. This is one of the important things about the gift of prophecy. He read my mail and I sat down and here's what I thought. You mean God knows who I am? And it rocked my world to think that God really knew me. Then Karen started giving. I didn't give. I was not the giver. Giving terrified me. Karen was the giver in our family. And Karen started giving to the Lord and we began to see miracles through giving. And I thought, you really think that God maybe is a part of our lives here? And then I started reading the Bible, John 16. These things I have spoken to you in figurative language, but the time is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figurative language, but I will tell you plainly about the Father. In that day you'll ask him my name. I do not say that I shall pray the Father for you. For the Father himself loves you because he loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came forth from God. I read scriptures like that where Jesus says, I won't have to ask him on your behalf, he loves you. But I still struggled until one day I was praying and I was telling the Lord, I'm struggling believing you love me and I don't wanna be deceived. I don't wanna be deceived into believing you love me when you're mad at me or maybe you don't. And here's what the Lord said to me that broke through my heart. Treat me like I'm the perfect Father until you prove me wrong. And it was just like the Lord was throwing down the gauntlet and says, why don't you just begin to relate to me as though I'm the perfect Father? Can I say he is the perfect Father? The perfect provider, the perfect nurture, the perfect guide, in every area of being a Father he is the perfect Father and it healed my heart. Something happened in that moment that healed my heart and I'm thankful that when my dad went to be with Lord we were perfect but I'm thankful that I know God the Father is my perfect heavenly Father and have an intimate relationship with him. Let me end this message by talking about how to honor both of our fathers on Father's Day and really every day. Number one, honor your earthly father by remembering what he did right and thanking him for it. The devil is the accuser of the brethren. The devil wants us to always remember what was wrong and what we didn't have but I wanna honor my father by saying first of all, he gave me the gift of life and if our fathers did nothing else we're here because of them and we need to honor them because they gave us the opportunity to live. My father provided for me and protected me. He changed. He humbled himself, received Christ and he changed as a man in his 60s. He was a wonderful father to me as an adult. Encouraged me, loved me, a wonderful grandfather. I encourage you to focus on the good things and not the bad and as long as your father is here you tell him often what he means to you. The second thing is honor your father, your earthly father by giving him grace for his shortcomings and imperfections. A lot of times our parents do things that we think are odd maybe but we don't know why. My father, I could never figure him out until my two aunts one day told me my father slept outside every night. My father never slept inside as a child. He slept on a cot outside. In the winter time he slept with the horses. They ate meat once a week. He grew up during the depression. They were dirt broke. And at first grade my dad showed up for school without shoes. He didn't know they were poor, they lived in the country. He didn't have anything to compare it to but he went to school first grade and he didn't have any shoes on. He saw other children with shoes on, it shamed him. He went out and grabbed a tree in the front yard and wouldn't let go because he was just so ashamed. My father worked, he didn't know any better because no one ever taught him any better. He had nine brothers and sisters. He didn't get a lot of his father but my father didn't stay at work and not come to my games because he was a bad father. My father worked hard so I could sleep inside and eat regular meals. Your parents may have handed you baggage but I promise you someone handed them some. And when I look at my parents and my wife's parents, they're incredible people to have endured what they did and to be the people they became. Number three, honor your heavenly father by believing in his love and putting your faith in him. He loves being a father and when we don't put faith in him we rob him of the opportunity to be a father. I love being a father and I love being happy. I think I love being a happy better than being a father for all of your grandparents you understand. I love being a father. I love it when my children and grandchildren need me. And I don't want that to be unhealthy but it would devastate me if they didn't need me. God loves being a father more than any earthly father does and he loves it when you need him. And the last thing is this, honor your heavenly father by being the best father you can be to your children. If you're a father, you're an image bearer of God and when you're a good father you're honoring God the father by saying, I take my role seriously as being an image bearer to my children. I want you to stand with me if you would, all campuses if you would stand and let me have our ultra ministers come down if you would. Ultra ministers at every campus if you would come down and prepare to minister. And would you bow your heads with me if you would please? And let's just have a time of prayer. Lord, we honor our fathers, our earthly fathers. We just thank you for everything they did right. We thank you for everything that they did to bless us, provide for us, nurture us, everything. And for the wrong, if there was any wrong, we forgive it. We give them grace, Lord. We refuse to live our lives focused on what was wrong or bitter, but we give them grace. We need grace and we give them grace, Lord. And we just pray, God, I pray, Lord today that you would heal our hearts if there's any father ones, if there's anything present that the devil has tried to use to keep us in bondage but Lord, especially to keep us from you regardless of our fathers' imperfections, you're perfect. And Lord, I just pray for you to heal our hearts, our minds, our souls, but we bless our earthly fathers. We honor our earthly fathers. But Lord, we pray that we would know you intimately as our heavenly father and we honor you for always being there, Father. We honor you for always caring about us. You're the most loving, precious, gracious father we could ever ask for. And we're just so thankful that you're in our lives. Amen to that prayer. Obviously, as you were watching it, you recognized that there was crowds of people. This was recorded last year at Gateway Church, South Lake. And the reason why I knew about this message is because Jimmy Evans has been a spiritual father to me for many, many years. And so one of the things that I do is every week after I've preached to others, I go to church and one of the churches that I listen to and one of the preachers is Jimmy Evans, Gateway Church. And I remember watching this last year and how it impacted me. And as Father's Day was coming up, I asked him if we had permission to share this message because not only the content of it, but Jimmy's heart really resonates with me because like a lot of you, my relationship with my earthly fathers was not always the best. It wasn't the healthiest. But it was my heavenly father who revealed himself to me at a very young age that made the difference. He actually filled the void both by his presence but then also by spiritual leaders who have been like fathers to me. And I say that because it doesn't matter if you have had a perfect relationship with your earthly father or not. Your heavenly father has the ability and the desire to fill whatever void, heal whatever hurt, and to touch any place in your life where the deficit of our earthly relationships have left a wound. Sometimes what I know is that our relationship with our earthly father has actually affected and as we project our fears or our discontentment of our earthly fathers onto our heavenly father. But there's nothing in God our father that we need to be afraid of. It says perfect love casts out all fear. There's no moment in our life that our heavenly father has not had his eye upon us and his arms around us. Drawing us to himself. This weekend on Father's Day, just a moment we're gonna worship at the end after worship, I wanna pray a blessing over every father. But before we get there, I wanna just talk to you who are watching this and maybe you have not stepped over the line of faith and gotten your heart right with your heavenly father. You say, well, what in the world does God want with me? Listen, you are the one thing that God wants more than anything. Sometimes we struggle with, what do you give dad on Father's Day? Well, let me tell you the one thing that you can give God today that he doesn't already have, but he wants more than anything. It's your heart. Today, you may be someone who has kept God at an arm's length for selfish reasons because you wanna live life the way that you want to. You might have kept God at an arm's length because you were afraid of how he would respond to you if you ever asked him to forgive you of your sins or come into your life because of shame and guilt or fear. You've thought, you've done too much. Gone too far. He's just gonna be upset with you or you might be afraid that God's gonna disappoint you or abandon you or neglect you. Listen, God said, I will never leave you and I will never forsake you. He's trustworthy. The one thing that he wants more than anything is you. He wants a relationship with you as a father to a son, as a father to a daughter. And the way that we have that relationship is by repenting of our sin and placing our faith in his son Jesus, inviting Jesus to come in and be our savior, our Lord. He, Jesus connects us to the heart of the father. He said, I will confess you before the father and the angels of heaven if you will confess me before men. And today if you know that you're not right with God but you want that relationship with your heavenly father, it doesn't matter who you are, where you are, what you've done, I wanna invite you right now to reach out to him. The way that we do that is this prayer of faith. Wherever you're at, would you just pray this prayer with me if you know that you need to get right with God? Just bow your head right where you're at and say these words, say heavenly father, I come in the name of Jesus and I know that I'm not right with you. I know that I've sinned and I've done things that I'm ashamed of and I regret and I wish I could go back, change them. Right now I'm asking you father, would you forgive me because of what Jesus did on the cross for me, forgive me, give me a new heart. Jesus come into my heart and be my Lord and my savior. Give me eternal life and introduce me to the father. Father, from this day forward, I surrender to you. I give you my whole heart and my whole life. I wanna know you. Father, would you reveal yourself to me? Thank you for loving me, pursuing me and making a way for me to become a child of God on this Father's Day weekend. I give you it all in Jesus' name. Amen.