 What an honor, what a privilege to be in the Hungry Generation Church. From the moment your pastor met me at the airport and the paparazzi were there. Thank you, Johan. It took me to a delightful hotel and my room was right on the water. I wanted my wife to come. Her name is Esty. She's a Canadian third generation Ukrainian. But they had a huge 30,000 strong women's conference designed for life. And they had these really cool women speakers. And so she asked to go to that. And I thought, okay, you can go. I bless her. We're married 37 years and my second son is a captain in the Air Force. Not the Navy, but that's okay. He has a doctorate as well. He ministers to PTSD and my daughter's a teacher. My wife is a nurse now retired. I'm the only dummy in the family, really. But I minister with Ukrainians, so it's okay. I'm smart enough for them. Oh, this is good. I want to hear about that. My mom and my dad came from Ukraine. And those of you, how many kids of immigrants? Raise your hand. Dita immigrant. F-O-B. You know what F-O-B means? Fresh off the boat. I had a translate for my father in first grade. How embarrassing for a parent-teacher conference. Mrs. Spencer, my teacher says, you tell your father you don't listen to instructions. You talk too much in class. And you're this and you're that. And I'm translating. My dad's smiling and nodding his head. So she caught on. She says, you're not translating what I'm saying. I'm not stupid, lady. My dad thought I was the best student in school. But my father was such a man of God. I don't know what your dad was like when my dad walked with God. He's a pastor of a Ukrainian assembly god church. And many times I would catch him praying in his office by the chair, praying for us. I have four sisters, two older and two younger. I'm the only boy in the family. We only had one bathroom. That was horrible. But my dad said to me when I was five that one day I would go to Ukraine and I would preach the gospel. I was called while my mother still carried me in the womb. And God has opened up an incredible ministry. But you know what I see today? I see in my spirit an incredible ministry birthed right here in tri-cities. And, you know, the Lord put a word on my heart for your church. There were two times that God sent a lot of fish to Peter and the disciples. The first time they weren't ready and their nets broke and Peter reacted wrongly. He said, depart from me, Lord. I'm a sinful man. So he put his failure, he put his humanness, he put his weaknesses as an excuse that God couldn't use them. But after three and a half years of walking with Christ, and this is not my message, just the word from God for you. After three and a half years with Christ, Jesus died and rose from the dead. Peter had another failure, okay? Because we will fail in our lives. We will sin in our lives, not intentionally. And he went fishing. That's all he knew to do. Well, that morning Jesus appears on a shore in John 21 and says, you have any fish? No. He says, throw them on the other side of the boat. The other time they had to go deeper. Now they're deep. So, what a silly thing to say. Like, the fish are not here, but they're here. Like, the length of the boat, the width of the boat. Okay. And they caught 153 large fish. And here's the point. And their nets were not broken. They could receive the fish. And secondly, Peter's reaction was so different. He looked and he says, it's the Lord. And he jumped in the water and he swam to Christ. You see, when you have failure, our human tendencies to swim or run away from God. Isn't that true? But that's the time you need to run to God. Because you're going to see the heart of God in this message. Let me start the message by asking a question. Who do you think is the example of the best father in the entire Bible, Old Testament and New Testament? From all the Bible stories, who do you think really epitomizes the heart of a father? Would it be Job who woke up every morning and prayed for his children? Would it be Abraham who gave his son to God and received him back in faith? Who would it be? Would it be any of the disciples, although we don't know much about their families? Would it be Apostle Paul as a surrogate father with Titus and Timothy and other young men, Luke? You know, actually, Jesus tells us who the best father in an earthly story. And you'll find it in Luke chapter 15. In Luke 15, and this is not my message yet. I'm just heading into the message, and I'll tell you when I'm starting. In Luke chapter 15, there are three stories. Three stories. And they all really speak about one thing, why Jesus ate with sinners. Because that's how the chapter begins. If he's such a prophet of God, why is he eating with sinners? Jesus, well, I'll tell you why. If you had a hundred sheep and went away, would you look for it? Well, yeah. And if you had ten silver coins and you lost one, would you seek for it? Yeah. Well, why? What do you mean why? That's money, right? And if you had two sons and one got lost, would you wait for his return? Well, yeah. And so, who is the subject of all three stories? Well, in the first story, the subject really is the shepherd. And when he finds his lost sheep, he's happy. That's the picture of Jesus, who went to find the sheep that was lost. And the second story talks about a coin. The coin is dead, doesn't even know it's lost. But the story really is about the woman who she found her money. Man, if you ever lost your wallet or your purse and then you find you're so happy, right? Well, the story is about the woman. She put a light and then she found the coin after it was in the darkness under the bed and she swept. That's a picture of the Holy Spirit who lumens our life. Well, then who's the third story about? And it begins like this. In chapter 15, and it starts in verse 11, there was a man who had two sons. Wow, the story of a father. We make so much emphasis on the lost sheep and the lost coin and now the lost son. But we forget that really Jesus was telling the story about himself and the Holy Spirit who searches out sin in darkness. And then the third story is about the heavenly father. And so a man who had two sons. Let's pick it up in verse 20. You know the story, so I'm not going to tell you what you already know. It's a story of a man with two sons. A younger says, can I have my inheritance now? And the father gives it to him and he goes and he spends it foolishly. Wastes the money. While he had the money, he had friends. And then when the money was gone, the friends had left him. It says he joined himself to a farmer. We're going to explain what that means. He did not hire himself. He did not get a job for pay. He joined himself to a farmer and nobody gave him anything. He longed for the pods, the pigs ate. Then finally in his muck, in his mud, in his desperation, he said, wait, in my father's house. I love that term. In the house of my father, the slaves live better. And so he knows he has to repent. So he's getting out and he walks all this distance barefoot. And he comes approaching the father's house. Now this is where we pick up the story in verse 20. And I want to speak to you. Is there a timer going for me by the way? All right. So I have 32 seconds, 32 minutes and 27 seconds, 26, 25. I love that. That's great. So there are eight details to the reaction of the father. And the father is Jesus's description of God, the Heavenly Father. Are you following this? But there's application for you, dad, and for me, a father. And now a grandfather of seven grandchildren. To emulate what the Heavenly Father did in reaction to this boy. Are you following this? This is the best illustration of a father in the entire Bible. And it's in Luke chapter 15. And in verse 20, we read that the boy arose and he came to his father. And when he was still a long way off, here are the eight details. And then I'll go one by one. Number one, the father saw him. Number two, he felt compassion. Number three, the father ran to the boy. Number four, the father embraces him and kisses him. Then in verse 21, the son confesses, dad, I messed up. I messed up. I sinned against him. I'm not worthy to be your son. The dad totally ignores the confession. And in verse 22, he does four more details. But the father said, put on him the best robe. That's number five. Put a ring on his hand. That's number six. Put shoes or sandals on his feet. That's seven. And then kill the fat calf and let's celebrate. Amazing. Let's take each one of those eight details. Number one, the true picture of a father is that he's understanding. Verse 20. But while the boy was still a long way off, the father saw him. Do you know that as dads, we need to see our children? They live in our house. But dad, do you really see your child? Like I had two sons and a daughter. We were, the children were all born in New Jersey. And when they were 12 years old and 10 years old and my girl was seven, we moved to Charlotte because it was so much more affordable from New Jersey. So anytime you move with children in grade school or elementary school, it's a challenge because they're the new kids in school. And we moved from the north, like New Jersey, where they talk and drink coffee. What's the matter with you? Are you looking at me? Yeah, you're looking at me. Yeah. How are you doing? And in the south they say, hey, y'all. Thank y'all, bless your heart. How nice. So my kids were the Yankees. So one day we came home and I saw my 10-year-old son, Luke, the second born. He's kind of crying, trying to hide his face. Luke, what's the matter? He's crying. He says, dad, what's a dirty Yankee? Well, in the south, they're still fighting the silver war. Even though we lost, we ain't lost yet. And they call it Northerners Yankees. And so they could tell by his New Jersey accent, his New Jersey, you know, you see your kid. So this father, in Jesus' story, he sees his son. He sees the condition of his life. He sees his pain. Do you know the Heavenly Father? He sees you. That's his heart towards you. Not only does he see you, he knows what direction you're headed. You see, the father saw him when he left the house. And now he sees him drawing near to the house. Do you know what direction your kid is going? Do you really see your kids? My dad was an immigrant. He was 60 when I was 16. But my dad saw my life. He could read me. He knew my moods. He knew what was bothering me. Dads, it's time for us to be involved in the lives and in the friends of our children. Can I hear an amen to that? No, I work. You take care of the kids. Brother, bless you that you work hard. That you have two shifts and two jobs. But your kids don't want money. They want you. They want you to see them. And they're right in front of your nose. I did a Facebook quiz, or survey, actually, better said, at that time it was 8,000 followers. Only one question. In your opinion, what is the greatest need in Slavic churches? Well, I'm from a Slavic background, so I wrote that question for Slavic kids. There's many, many hundreds of churches around the nation. Question again. One question quiz. In your opinion, what is the greatest need in Slavic churches today? I thought they would say English, that was number three. You know what number two was? I wish my pastor prepared better sermons. Well, that's not true about Hungry Jim. I spend some time with your pastor, and he really has his head screwed on, right? I respect him so much. I mean, I'm learning from him, and he's younger than me, and I love it. I just love it. That was number two, preparing better messages. Number one. Need in Slavic churches. From Slavic kids ages 14 to 34. It'll blow you away. I wish my father spent more time with me. Yeah. That's what I said. Wow. But you know what? I did that with my two sons. Because boys get their identity from their father, and if the father's not a churchgoer, the boys won't want to go to church. If the father's not a man of prayer, the boys won't pray. If the father doesn't raise his hands in worship, because that's just too weird for him, the boys will look at the father. They'll copy the father. Boys want to be like their daddy. And so, do you see your son? Do you know what direction they're heading? Number two. Not only did the father see him, the father's heart was filled with compassion. I don't know what your father was like, but you know, sometimes when our children mess up and they break things, like, I remember I had a painting in the living room. It was a beautiful painting that had a blue ocean and bay of San Francisco. And there's a big moon, and it was shining on the water. There was a beautiful sailboat. This was an expensive painting, probably the most we could afford in our brand new little three-bedroom house that we had. I paid the babysitter, and the kids were all asleep, and I noticed a ball-sized hole in my painting. Now, we had a rule in our house because the kids loved to play ball. You could play ball in the hallway. You can't break anything. You could play ball in your bedroom. You could wreck it. There's nothing to break. But not in the living room because mommy has nice things in there. So next Saturday morning, I see this ball-sized hole and I say that hole. They're about 13 and 11. Magic. Magic. There was some combustible powder on it. No. Tell me what happened. And nobody's confessing. I said, okay, you're both going to get burned. Well, no, I told him not to throw it. Well, you didn't catch it. Well, you threw it at 45-degree angle and I couldn't reach out. And I said, guys, no, if I forgive you, you're going to throw balls and then leave me here again. I'm going to punish you. And you know what? In my day I could be arrested for this today. We had an instrument of reinforcement, shall I say, that usually holds your pants up. And I would explain to them that I hate doing this and I don't like, well, you don't have to do it then. I said, no, if I don't. You know, the funny thing is I used to count to 10 because I have a temper like any man and if you hit your children in your temper, that's what they see, the temper. So then I would literally count to 10 or 20, a long attack. And then you don't want to administer corporal. You don't want to. Never use your hand because that's to make them feel loved. Always an inanimate object. One time I found a belt. So I have found this Ukrainian spoon. It's like this big. All my belts reappeared in magic. And so I would say, okay, dad is going to give you three, four or five hot ones. I would explain to them. And before I administered corporal punishment, I would say to them, do you know what you did? Yeah, I threw the ball in the room. No, no, besides that, yeah, I broke dad's rule. Was that the right thing or is that the wrong? No, that's the wrong thing. Did you lie about it? Yeah, we lied about it. So those are two things you did wrong. Now, daddy is going to help you not to do that again. Turn over. And so, wham, wham, wham. And you know, agent took it like a man and he kind of cried because it hurt but I never walked away. I would hug him and hold on to him. Now, Luke, the second morning, he said, dad, wait, let me explain. Okay, so I was standing here. I threw the ball. I couldn't reach it. Dad, it wasn't my fault. Mmm, okay, Luke. Is that it? Yeah. Okay, turn it over. No, no, dad, there's more. There's more. So, anyway, and he was like lawyering his way. Now, the hardest thing for me to do was not to laugh. Okay? But you know, I had to administer punishment and so finally I did. But you know, not all kinds of punishment are corporal. Some are even worse than corporal. And I'll tell this story quickly. But these stories are so good because they're from my family. So, anyway, with my oldest, A.J., he was six at the time, we decided to go to a, he decided to go to a birthday party for his neighbor, Charlie. So this was at, I had to buy a present at Toys R Us. So I thought, ah, this is an object lesson. Andrew, his name was Andrew, but we call him A.J. We're going to go to Toys R Us, but today we're not buying you anything. Today is all about your friend, Charlie. So let's buy him one gift. Are you okay that we're not buying you anything? At home, there's no toys invisible. Yes, Dad, we're fired. Okay, Charlie. Soon as we got to Toys R Us, Dad, Dad, look at this, Dad, Dad, look at that. He was obsessed with any kind of balls and he found a bouncy ball for a dollar. Dad, can I buy, it's only a dollar. Well, part of me says it's a dollar. Let the kid have a ball, right? But then I thought about what I'm trying to teach him. Right? It's not about him. I said, Andrew, put the ball back. It's not about you today. It's about Charlie. Remember what you said? Okay, Dad. I put the ball back. So we leave Toys R Us, paid for the gift for Charlie, and my driver was like an incline. So we drove into the driveway and I turned the ignition off and out rolled this pink ball from the bag at Andrew's feet. I didn't pay for that pink ball. Now the funniest thing is my son looks at the ball then he looks at me and you know what he does? He says, Dad, look. I kid you not. This kid is so quick. This kid is so smart. Dad. I'm trying not to laugh because it's funny. You stole that ball, right? Uh, yeah. Are you going to punish me? I said no. Ah, Dad, you're the best. No, we're going to drive to Toys R Us and I'm going to talk to the manager. You're going to give the ball back to the manager and ask forgiveness for stealing it. No, punish me! I said no, no, no. No, you're going to remember this for the rest of your life. No, Dad, please don't embarrass me. I didn't embarrass you. You embarrassed yourself, right? You're not going to steal anymore. I know this for a fact. Dad, please, Dad, I promise I'll never leave the house of Dad. We drove back to... So I'm dragging my boy and I taught him not to say, I'm sorry. You know, I'm sorry is the worst way to ask forgiveness. Like, I'm sorry, it's your fault. I said, you're not going to say I'm sorry. This is what you say. God has convicted me of stealing this ball. Will you please forgive me? I'm such a bad dad. I'm dragging him. He's holding this pink ball. Can I speak to the manager? Yes, yes, yes, the manager. What's the matter? What's the matter? My son has something to tell you. Ma'am, God has convicted me of stealing this ball. Would you please forgive me? And she starts crying. She says, it's okay. I said, it's not okay. It's stealing. Don't tell him it's okay. Forgive him. I forgive you. Sometimes the lessons are so hard to teach. But the principle is there. You think my son ever stole anything else in his entire life after that? No. That is discipline as well. My other son was very mouthy because he's kind of like lawyer like. And so one time I told him, I said, if you mouth off one more time, I'm going to wash your mouth the soap. And he was interesting. Like, how am I going to do that? We were in the kitchen and he's mouthing off and I'm backing up to the kitchen sink. And with my thumb, I press the lever for detergent soap. And I have it in my hand. I said, are you mouthing off? Yeah. I said, stick out your tongue. He goes, I want like that. He was blowing bubble. Dad, I don't believe you did that. He's like a bubble machine. My son was cured of talking back to his father. I can tell you story after story. But I want to tell you what this father did. He didn't scream at his son and say, where's my money? What did you do with your inheritance? Look at you. You don't have any shoes. You smell like pigs. Did the father do that? Did he? He did not. You know why? Because sometimes our sins punish us. And when God sees how broken we are, how ashamed we are, how our sins really beat us up, he doesn't want to punish us. All he wants to do is embrace us and forgive us. I'll tell you a story that happened to me when I was a five year old. So my dad had a house and he painted it mint green, a beautiful enamel color for exterior. Exterior paint, if you know this it was not latex in those days that could be broken down with water, water based paint. In those days, paints were oil based or enamel. You had to use serpentine or spirits, strong spirits with alcohol to cleanse them. So my dad had the exterior house painted and then he put the cans of green paint in the basement. And we had like a little bin because it was a multifamily house. And so we went into that bin and there was an extra lawn on the floor so it wouldn't be on bare cement. And me and two little other boys, five years old we found these cans of paint. We started to paint, we opened up the cans, took paint broke, painting the walls mint green. There was a mirror, we thought that would be nice to have a mint green mirror. We painted the whole mirror green. It's not a mirror anymore. But we're five so it doesn't matter. We saw a suitcase or two, really old. Ah, they look better green. Somebody knocked the paint over and the linoleum started to be really slippery. So then we started sliding and ice skating. I kid you not. We are ice skating on linoleum with enamel paint. And of course we're sliding into home plate. Safe! Make a long story short, we were green from the top of our heads to the bottom of our kids sneakers. So my mom hears this noise and says Oh, don't bother. They're doing something down there. Oh, they're just playing. Let them play. So then I come upstairs and my mom and my dad freak out Oh my goodness! Shut in the rubale! What did you do? And my dad, you're going to get a licking, right? But first you got to get the paint off. So they took my clothes off put me in the in the bath with soap and water. The paint's not coming off. So my mom takes a little bit of turpentine puts it in the water. A little bit came off, but not a lot. So how do you get this kid clean, right? She puts the whole gallon of turpentine into the bath water. Oh, now you bring it? You notice I was dying before? Did you have any compassion? I'm busting. I go, thank you. I should be grateful, right? You didn't have to bring it. I like humor. I like humor. So she poured the whole gallon of turpentine into the bath. And the paint came off together with my skin. It's not funny. It burned like Peclaw. Which means hell. I had a temperature of a hundred, four, three for like two days. Did my parents spank me? They didn't have to. My sin spanked me. Are you following this kid's story? And that's what happens with sin in our lives. And the father in the story that Jesus told about the heavenly father, he didn't say one word of scolding. He didn't do one act of discipline. He saw his son and his heart was filled with compassion. I want to tell you something. If you're messing up now today in your life, God's not angry with you. He sees you. He sees you. And your pain is his pain. And your hurt hurts his heart. Because you're his son. You don't belong to the world. You don't belong to Satan. You are the creation of God through birth. And his heart goes out to you. His heart is filled with compassion through you. This is what Jesus said about God the father. And we read these words and we only think about the son. We don't think about the son. No, Jesus was telling the story about the father. He recognized that his son's poor choices were enough punishment. How is your compassion? Your children know that your love is unconditional and acceptable. Number three, who was approachable? Who ran to whom first? The Bible says that the boy walked home but when the father saw him and his heart was filled with compassion, the father ran to the boy. What is your reaction when your child fails? My daughter got her driver's license and we bought her a little Honda Civic. She called it Ronda the Honda. She was out of light and a group of about six guys and some girls just overly packed the car, slammed into her out of red light. It wasn't her fault at all. She caused me broken her daddy. That was a car accident. These guys hit me from the rear. I was on a traffic light just standing there. So what was my question? How's the car? What did you do to my car? Is the car all right? Did I ask that question? No, silly question. I said, honey, are you okay? You know, can your children tell you their failures? I want to tell you something very strange coming from Ukrainian parents. But my wife is just like me in terms of approachability and she said to my two sons, if you ever mess up in your life, for example, you get a girl pregnant, you come and you tell us first and we will help you. That's not permission that's saying we will not abandon you, we will not leave you. If you ever go to jail, if you ever get in a car accident, you ever get drunk, drunk, not permission, but you come and we will bail you out for it. Do not call someone else. Call your dad and call your mom. Wouldn't you want your child to do that with you, dad and mom? Well, they have to feel that they can. And number four, the father in the Bible was affectionate. He runs to the boy but he doesn't think of the pig smell. He doesn't think of the filth that's on the clothing of the boy. The father and all his finery and all his cleanliness and all of his properness. He goes and he wraps his fatherly arms around this broken, dirty, filthy son. Did you know that Jesus is actually saying to the Pharisees, you know what God really wants to do? He wants to hug you. God wants to kiss you. Again, I don't know what your dad was like but my dad was affectionate. And the way we think of our dad sometimes affects the way. Not always, sometimes affects the way we think of our heavenly father. And my dad, he was such a kisser. He was such an affectionate man. I used to love to sit in his lap and rub my face against his cheek. He smelled like old spice aftershave. It's a cheap drugstore aftershave. But when I smell old spice, whenever I do I think of my father. Because he would hug me. When I was a little boy, I'd say, come daddy, tell me a Kazuchka. Tell me a little story. And we lay down in the bed and I put my head in the crook of his arm and he would tell me about an orphan in Ukraine. And I would cry about this tell me a tale. That was my dad. That was my dad. He was not embarrassed to show physical affection. You know, I raised my two sons the same way. We kissed. We never shook hands. We always hug and kissed. So my son, my oldest, he played professional baseball. He was player of the year in Furman University, one of the top universities. Division I baseball, he was a shortstop. And out of 500 players he was player of the year. There's only two names on the stadium in South Carolina University. A kid from 1950 something and my son, Andrew David. He was drafted by the San Diego Padres and played professional baseball for two years until he became a doctor or surgeon. So imagine me. I'm with my wife in the stand. We're so proud of our son. He's the star of the team. And he's there swinging the bat and people are milling around. So we come down the stadium steps and I'm thinking to myself, okay George, okay George. What college don't embarrass him? Americans don't kiss. They shake hands. So don't kiss him. Shake hands. Okay. All right. Got this. Okay. Hey Andrew and his buddies are all around. How are you? And he pulls me and he kissed me and both cheeks says, Dad, what's the matter? Are you embarrassed to kiss me in front of my friends? I go, oh no, I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. Affection. I think we need more affection in our families. What do you think? I think people just need, you know, Dad, the more you hug your daughter appropriately, the less you'll look to be in the arms of another boy. My daughter was all over me. Like, pull her off of me. Now she's madly in love with her husband and they have two children and yeah, it's a wonderful thing to be affectionate. Are you affectionate? Don't withhold physical affection. Number five, when the father said bring the best robe, some people will interpret that only spiritually. Okay, the white robe is the robe of salvation. So the heavenly father takes away dirty clothes and then when we're saved, he gives us a robe of righteousness. All correct. But now, how does that relate to that physical father with a physical son who came with dirty, ratty, smelly, torn up clothes? It wasn't the clothes that he was trying to raise up. It was the self respect of the boy. When you lack self respect, you don't care what you look like. I'm not talking fashion, okay? I'm not talking moda or how you're supposed to look. I'm talking self respect. Whether you're casual or dressy like me this morning, I make a choice to wear a white shirt and a tie. I'm enjoying myself. I know I'm overdressed with you and I don't care. I mean, this is who I am. I just love this and I love the fact that you can rock jeans and man, the girl with the red shoes she had my attention. Those red boots were great. It's not the clothing that makes the man. It's the man who makes the clothing. So when I was in Bible school I had, I was a real clothes horse. I took two suitcases of shirts and pants and I'm going to get to the bottom line really quickly. And I went to school in youth of the mission in Switzerland in 1975 and all these guys got saved off the streets. One guy was saved out of a jail in Afghanistan. He was an American. He tried to smuggle hash in an accordion. Do not smuggle hash in an accordion. They'll say play the accordion and like and there's marijuana and hash in the accordion. He was sentenced to a life sentence in Afghanistan jail. His wife went to the American Embassy in Kabul and they said we can't help you. There's strict laws against drugs in Kabul and she began to fast and pray and intercede and through a miracle they released him and he was one of the students. He had no clothing, nothing. So I gave him all my shirts and they had nice French cuffs on there. I said here are some cuff links as well. So I gave away all my clothes and I came home with two shirts and one pair of corduroy and a pair of sandals for six dollars I bought in Greece. My dad says where's your clothing? You know a preacher has to dress up. My dad's old school right and how much I am like my dad. I said dad I gave it all away. No, no, no, he took me to New York City. We lived 18 miles from New York City in New Jersey. He bought me a brand new suit. My dad I didn't have the money but he wanted to raise my self-respect. How do you raise the self-respect of your... Can you give value to your children? Another way you can clothe them with words of encouragement, not just material clothes. Do you know that encouragement especially among Slavic people is very scarce? Oh no, don't praise the kid. His head will grow very big. The head won't fit anymore. The head will grow big. No, no, that's if you praise beauty and that's if you praise strength and that's if you praise attractiveness. But if you praise character quality you're reinforcing the desire to have more character quality. Do you know that the father in heaven only spoke on three occasions that people could hear a physical voice from heaven on three occasions in the New Testament and all three were in encouragement of Jesus Christ. When Jesus obeyed and got water baptized the father in heaven could not hold himself back and he said, that's my boy that's my beloved son and then he added in who I am well pleased. That's encouragement. When Jesus told parables to his disciples okay, a parable about the five talents five talents, two talents, one talent. The guys who had five and two brought him back. What did Jesus say in the parable the master said well done, what? Good and faithful servant, you made me happy. Come share my joy. Wow. Heaven is a place of encouragement. Heaven is a place of acceptance. Heaven is a place of raising self-esteem not to pride but to worthiness and to value. The devil says you're garbage. The devil says you lost. The devil says your clothing is dirty. The devil says you have no value and God says you are a son and I will clothe you with my presence and my encouragement and my words of affirmation. Hallelujah. That's our heavenly father and that's the dad we need to be. When's the last time you said to your son or to your daughter son I'm so proud of the man of God you are. Daughter I'm so proud of the mother that you are. Hallelujah. My dad did that with me one time I was a young preacher you know what I have to confess I had a lot of cockiness there's not a little bit of pride I had a lot there and one day I prepared a messaging I'm gonna knock him over like a bowling ball knocks over 10 pins and I threw a gutter ball I remember I got lost it wasn't turning out well in fact I stammered and stuttered and I messed up the sermon royally we had 135 families in this church I was a senior pastor and my dad went down from the platform and sat right there and he's shouting amen this is where it didn't belong I was so embarrassed I said okay grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the fellowship of the love of God you know laska the finishing prayer and I'm putting my head down and I'm going I'm not shaking anyway my dad stops me he was 5'6 I'm 6'2 I was 6'3 but I shrunk no seriously and he looks out to me he says son that was a good sermon I'm lying you know and I know I was a bad he says okay maybe you're right and then he says to me but you are a gift from God you know that moment I didn't care what the church thought I didn't care what anybody thought of me my dad thinks that I'm God's gift that means something to me wow in the 22 seconds I have left he raised my self-esteem number 6 he motivated achievement give him a ring you know a ring is a sign of authority that's where you share your power you share your authority with your children and I took all three of my kids to Ukraine with me in Mission Strip each one I took Luke to record with me in the album in the back we have an album in English it's yellow it says I will follow I was supposed to sing one song he ended up singing three I liked him I took it in Nashville two more and I was back up for him instead of him being back up for me so that English album is by national musicians top of the line and his voice is way better than mine than my niece and nephew also we also recorded a album in Spanish if you want to buy something that you can listen to in Spanish the album is called Alas de Fe there are songs in Ukrainian that we translated from Ukrainian to Spanish so my children don't speak Ukrainian they all speak Spanish what do you think? for those you don't have the gift of interpretation of tongues we have like four or five Ukrainian albums in the back I hear music playing that must mean the time is gone number seven and eight I'm finishing number seven the father said put shoes on his feet we always think it's because he lost his sandals or broke them no it's because he sold himself into slavery he joined himself to a certain farmer this is the son of a wealthy father who now is a slave and the master took away shoes so they wouldn't run away barefoot but this boy walked a great distance barefoot and when his father saw his son the son of a wealthy father a man as a slave he said you are not a slave the boy said I'll be a slave in your house the father said you're not a slave you're a son put sandals back on his feet there's a lot I could say about that grace over law but the last one I love the most I don't know if it was a Tuesday Wednesday or Thursday but the father didn't care he said my son is home let's celebrate what brought this boy home what motivated the boy to say in the mud among the pigs wait a minute in my father's house they live better it's the idea that his father's house is a warm place a place of celebration is your house a place where your kids want to go back to is your family a place of warmth and affection would you stand with me