Father, God, we thank you for all that you've done for us, But we also thank you for who you are. God, you embody all good things. Your son, Jesus, evidences how good you are. He is an example for us, the type of fathers to be. And, God, I come to you.

I pray that we all come to you humbled and convicted by the reality of our deficiencies As fathers, as moms, as sons, as daughters, as husbands, as wives, And we look to you, the all-sufficient one, to guide us forward. So be with us today. We pray these things in Jesus's name and all God's people said: Amen. You may be seated. Woo.

I got to say this up front. Guys, I'm going to, I'm going, I'm going to give some, some props to a buddy- How many of y'all were here last week? My boy Adrian, didn't he bring it? That was his first time preaching. Where you at?

You Is that you? Then? Where is he at? Where is he at? He's out, He's out there.

You better come hear me preach, boy, I'm just kidding, I'm just kidding. He did so good, I watched it online live with the first service and I was sitting there. I didn't help him get like great or anything, I just talked to him a little bit, but God placed it in him. And, man, I love nothing more than to see and help uncover what God has placed in people. And so, when you look at Adrian, don't think "Oh there's, there's a preacher guy".

No, think "God's gifted me too with something It might be musical, It might be communication, It might be with kids, Could be on guest experience, It could be in your job, Could be in production, creative photography, I could give you the list. But God didn't create you without competency and gifting. He has given each one of us gifts and he intends those gifts to be used for his glory and our benefit, And by our I don't mean just the church, I mean you and your family. And today I want to. I want to speak directly and I'm not going to qualify or apologize for this.

I'm going to speak directly to the men, the fathers in the room. This will apply to mothers, sons, daughters. Even if you're not a father, this will apply to you. But I ask, that you would invite God into your mind right now so that he would help you apply specifically to your life his word. But I'm telling you up front, I'm talking to dads, Kind of just.

I. I want to hear a lower end sound here in a second. Just say amen. If you're a dude, You tried real hard on amen. I was standing next to you singing.

He's like "You're worthy of it all". It's good. I can't even go that low, bro. That's manly over there. Anyways, I'm going to move on from that.

But if if you're a man, if you're a father, this message is for you. I feel like I have the luxury of doing it because it is Father's Day. No one's going to get mad at me about talking to dads on Father's Day. We always honor moms on Mother's Day. I'm going to talk to dads And the way that dads work.

If you're like me- you know you're not all like me- Some of you like encouragement, exhortation and just good vibes. For me, good vibes are cool, But I like a challenge And so I'm going to tell you up front: I'm going to challenge you today. I'm going to do it with a, with a good heart, hopefully good vibes, Hopefully everybody leaves excited and happy for the vision that God would give them for their parenting from this point on. But I want to challenge you today, And the reason I want to challenge you is because when I look around- I think you would agree with me. When I look around and then I compare what I see with fathers to Jesus, there's quite the discrepancy.

Now don't hear me the wrong way. There's always going to be a discrepancy, a gap between where we are and where Jesus is. Amen, somebody, You're never going to get there. It's just not Not until the other side of heaven. You're not going to be fully like Jesus.

But this process that we call sanctification- This is a biblical term that means being set apart for the will of God. Right, As you're being set apart, what God wants to do is transform your mind and your activities so that, as you get older, you look more and more like your creator. That's his process. I don't know why you showed up. Maybe you were dragged here and you're like: "This will make me feel better".

It will make you feel better, but it'll help you become new as you follow Jesus. And so, dads, when I look around, I see a radical discrepancy, even in the church, between Jesus and fathers. And now we're starting a new series next week called Faith That Sticks. It's going to be in the book of Revelation and I hope you join. It's going to be super fun.

I'm not doing it because there's like stuff happening right now in the world and I'm trying to stress you guys out. I'm doing it because I believe it's going to really impact you positively. We'll be in Revelation chapters 2 and 3 over the next 7 weeks, But today, as I was reading Revelation chapter 1, I wanted to give you my message from that chapter. So I'm going to read this text and I'll dive into a couple of points about fatherhood. I think what God would want for our parenting.

So let me go ahead and read, If you have your Bibles. I'll be in Revelation chapter 1, starting in verse 1. This is John, the Apostle who wrote the Gospel of John writing The Revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave him to show to his bondservants the things which must soon take place. And he sent and communicated it by his angel to his bondservant, John, Who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy And heed the things which are rich written in it, for the time is near.

John, again, the Apostle who wrote the Gospel of John, the beloved disciple. According to his own Gospel, John, to the seven churches that are in Asia, present-day Turkey. Grace to you and peace from him, who is and who was and who is to come, And from the seven spirits who are before his throne. Now, hear this: This is where we're going to camp out over the next few moments. And from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead and the ruler of the kings of the earth, To him who loves us and released us from our sins by his blood And he has made us to be a kingdom, priests to his God and Father.

To him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen. Behold, he is coming with the clouds and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, And all the tribes of the earth will mourn over him. So it is to be Amen. I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord, God, Who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.

Now there's one specific verse that we're going to camp out at. It's going to be Revelation, chapter 1, verse 5. And when I was reading this, this introductory chapter from the Apostle John who wrote the Gospel of John. He's doing ministry-, after the Isle of Patmos, It was a moment of persecution for him- and he sends a letter that would be dispersed throughout seven churches in Asia, which is present-day Turkey. In his introduction he says a couple things that I don't want us to miss.

Often in our introductions and in our conclusions we say things off the cuff that act as or embody kind of our general mindset toward the world. Right, He's going to say a message that comes directly from the prophecy that he heard, or about the prophecy he heard. Right, He's get That's, That's the book of Revelation. He tells you a whole bunch of unique new information and it's interesting, to say the least. But in his introduction he is simply speaking from himself about the character of God before he jumps into the meat of the message.

You can find out a lot about a person based on how they introduce something. You'll know this about me: When I'm introducing or when I'm talking about something, I will default to certain Scriptures or talking points. Because that's just that's what's in me And I'm scared to tell you this. But I'm going to tell you this cuz I'm trying to get better. Anyways, If I default to certain Scriptures like Philippians, chapter 4, or Romans, chapter 12, verse 1, or Ephesians, chapter 2, verses 8 and 9, or John 3:16.

If I'm defaulting in a whole sermon to those things, it doesn't mean I haven't prepped, but I'm trying to discover more and more Scriptures that speak of the character of God in my life- right And so. But I default to some of these very common passages that God has spoken into me. And when I read Revelation, chapter 1, verse 5, I see that John, just like he just glazes over some really really deep and technical theology for his audience. And I'm going to break that down and I'm going to utilize it to help you, as fathers, step closer into your relationship with God and higher into your calling that he would have you do with your husbanding and your parenting. So that's what I want to do And, I think I feel very passionate about this because I, I, I was, I always struggle with how to talk about it.

 Because my dad's probably going to watch this. My mom's in here all the time, Like they knew me when I was younger And, we didn't go to church when I was younger. It wasn't until I was in eighth grade that we started going to church fairly consistently. Now both my parents are Christians and they attend church every week. My mom pretty much puts this thing on out there in the lobby half the time.

You know Like things have shifted. But when I was younger that's not how it was. Church was not a priority for us, Jesus was not the main thing for us. And I could look at my dad and I could say he showed up at games. He was an amazing father, and I didn't really know any better, And so I loved him and I learned from him and he gave me stability and he helped me with some college loans.

Like he did a lot. I mean amazing dad, But in the spiritual realm it wasn't non-existent. I think he would have claimed Christianity but it definitely wasn't a priority And so we didn't really talk about it very much. And as I got older, started going to church in eighth grade, felt called to ministry at 16 years old. Then I went to a Christian school so I could study more theology while doing accounting at the same time.

Then I went to seminary. Then I did a little bit more beyond seminary and then I'm a pastor all of a sudden and I am trying to learn from other pastors, And pastors would come up to me. Often they'd say, "Hey, who's your mentor". In the faith they're talking about right, And I'd be. Like Bible says, wise is a man with many mentors, And I would tell them that It's true, I have many mentors, but there's some people that I've met in my years in ministry- and many of you have had this experience- even outside of the faith- where when you look at someone who loves, who sacrifices, who follows Jesus- any number of attributes of a faithful follower of Jesus- right, I could list them out.

When you think of Jesus, the closest person you got was your dad, But for me and many of us in the room, that wasn't. That wasn't you And when I would go into ministry. Now, all of a sudden, I'm mentoring people in the faith and I don't even know what it's like to be a father who follows Jesus. I don't know what it's like to be a spiritual father. And in 2019, I was at a conference with about 3,000 people, mostly pastors and ministry staff, And there was a panel of three to four people up on stage, really big-name preachers.

If I were to list them, you would know who they are. If you, If you listen to preachers that are, and they start talking and they're asking them the basic ministry questions like: what is your like, what is your secret to growing a church, or how do you think about this layer of leadership? Or how do you disciple people, How do you help people grow closer to God? Have, like, any list of questions you could think of at a church conference. Right, We're trying to grow the church.

Let's get some advice from these guys who have figured it out. It seems like- And every single one of them, when they would talk, they would refer back to something their dad taught them when they were younger. And I remember, in 2019, sitting in this room, I wasn't happy, I wasn't engaged, I, I, I was jealous, Because when I looked at these men of God who are killing it, figuring out things at 14 that I'm figuring out at 34, like standing on their dad's shoulders, I'm like must be nice, And I'm just talking about ministry. This is the field I'm in. You could think about it in any field.

You can think about it when it comes to how to be a husband, how to be a father, how to have friends, how to do all of these things, And I would look back and I'd think, man, it would have been nice to be able to stand on the shoulders of someone who followed Jesus before me. And I was jealous Cuz, as much as I love my dad, I didn't have a spiritual father in him and I've never had one. And then, a couple weeks after that, the Lord convicted me of something cuz I'm sitting here looking. We had just had my daughter, and my son is about 3 years old at the time, And the Lord convicted me. He said: "What if you"- and this is my sermon title- "what if you become the father that you never had".

And- and I am convinced that many of the people in this room, you, you- need to become something that you never had as a father. You need to pioneer new ways of living, new ways of faithfulness that you never had from your father. You need to do things in relation to your faith, in relation to your finances, in relation to your relationships, Like you need to do things differently, maybe radically differently, in order to get where you're supposed to be in Christ Jesus. And when I look at Revelation, chapter 1, verse 5, I see in a really short, glazed-over list by John of attributes that I think would be helpful for each of us in becoming the father that we never had. My first point is: God's called us to be a faithful witness, not a flaky one.

When we see Jesus, I mean y'all know he's faithful. He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. He was faithful even when we weren't faithful. He died for us in the midst of our hostility. He was faithful while he was here on earth.

God gave him God. The Father gave him a task. He wrapped himself in flesh, came down, did the whole thing. Bro was emotionally intelligent. He was able to figure out how to interact with people in unique ways.

He was helpful for the beggar. He was helpful for the person who had built their lives around the wrong thing. Jesus was faithful even when it was difficult. He was faithful even in the Garden of Gethsemane, Even though he wanted the cup to pass from him. He was faithful until the end because the Father had given him a task and he was surely going to accomplish it.

What if we looked at our lives as dads and said: "God's given me a task, I'm going to accomplish it"? And in order to accomplish the task he's given you, let me be clear, just in case it sounds a little bit too vague. Men tend to be vague. That's just our thing. Girls, you're detail.

Guys, we're pretty vague. Let me be really specific. If you have kids, you are called to lead them in the Lord. If you have a wife, you are called to be with them and love them in the Lord. Love him the way that Christ loves his church.

You have a task before you, Even if you're not married and you don't have kids yet, God's given you a task. So start looking forward to the calling that he has placed on your life and be faithful to it, not flaky with regard to it. I'm tired of flaky dude. Flaky stresses me out. I don't.

I don't want to talk too much mess. I want to challenge them, Lord. I don't want to be mean to them. I want to do it with the right spirit. So, Lord, speak through me.

Jesus was a faithful witness. Are you a faithful witness? Here's one way to gauge it: Do you do what you say? Do you do what you say? Now, hear me, I'm not looking for a 100% here.

I'm not looking for a thousand batting average here. I'm saying in general: do you do what you say you're going to do? Do you live life in the way that you say you're going to live your life? I know we all struggle with it, but in general, how you doing in that category. I struggle with that.

A lot of times I say that I live in a certain way, but when you, when you really dive deep into it, I'm living at a at a level beneath it, Beneath my calling, beneath what I say. How many of us claim to be Christians, claim to be followers of Jesus, claim to think that God wrapped himself in flesh and died 2,000 years ago for our salvation, offering us of sins, giving us abundant and eternal life? How many of us claim that and live beneath the level of confidence and calling that that would entail in our lives? Many of us do. The American church is wrought with that issue.

We live beneath our calling. How many of us really don't care what God says in this word? It's another gauge: Not just do you do what you say, but do you listen to what he says? I know we live in a world where even me, man, I would prefer the word of God to be different sometimes. Don't take me, Don't don't misinterpret me.

I heard someone preach a message where they said something like that and then they crucified him for it. No, Sometimes in my flesh I would prefer the word of God not to say what it actually says, Cuz I'd prefer to live the way that I want to live, not the way that God wants me to live. But when I read God's word and I trust him in what he says, knowing that that as I move forward in his direction, it's going to be better for me, Like, if I just trust him in what he says, with what I should put my eyes upon Men, when I trust him with what he says and how I should parent my kids and be available and accessible to them on a regular basis, rather than do exactly the opposite of that and go find downtime through Netflix or golfing or some random occurrence. I know we're giving away a golf pass. That doesn't mean you spend your whole Saturday playing golf instead of spending time with your kids and your wife if they need to talk to you.

You know what I'm saying. Like, do you listen to what he says for you? Many of you men in this room- I say many, Some of the men in this room- you might be a father, but you haven't listened to the. You haven't listened to God about the covenant you need to enter into with the person that you had the kid, with Some of you living with that person, and you need to ask them to be your spouse. But you haven't done it yet.

Do what the Bible says. Make it right. Just saying Some of you are living lives full of complexity that don't have to be that complex if you would just listen to the word of God. Are you faithful or flaky witness? And when your kids look at you, are they going to see you as someone who's flaky or faithful?

Here's a sign: , do your kids know whether you're going to wake up on Sunday and come to church, or is it questionable, Flaky, faithful? Do your kids know, when they wake up, that they're going to find you sitting there reading the Bible or praying to God? Do they know that you're going to put Jesus first in your decisions? Does your spouse know that? Are you flaky or faithful?

Point number two: be a pioneer, not a settler. I was really proud of that point, Hannah. Be a pioneer. You get it Cuz. Pioneers and then settlers come in.

Okay, anyways, whatever, Be a pioneer, not a settler. Hebrews says at least three times that Jesus is the forerunner of our faith, the pioneer. Here it says he is the firstborn from the dead. What did he do? He created a pathway where there was no pathway And many of us were stuck in the same generational curses and habits of our family of origin.

But because of what Jesus has done on the cross, you are no longer stuck in what would came from the past. In fact, he has paved a new way. He went before you. So that- guess what? You can be a pioneer for your family.

I can lead my kids in the way that they should go, in a way that my parents never led me. I can do things in my family that my parents never did for me. I can love my wife in a way that my parents never loved one another. I can do things differently. Why?

Because Christ loves me, And when I live my life with the love of God in my mind, I'm going to love her differently And I'm going to be there for my kids differently. And when I know that Jesus being at the center of my life changes everything for me, then guess what? I'm going to make some radical shifts to make sure that happens For my kiddos. Anyone ever like do random research into the Lewis and Clark expedition. Do you all know who Lewis and Clark is Are?

Are Anyone seen the movie Almost Heroes, which is like an alternate universe for Lewis and Clark? Wasn't that a funny movie? I watched it when I was like 8 years old- PG-13, . My parents should have never let me watch it. But that's what we're talking about today.

You know new ways of doing things And I watched that movie. Has Chris Farley in it. It's like this alternate universe where there was another group that was sent to go explore the northwest area of the United States. It's super funny. You shouldn't go watch it, though.

It's PG-13. Don't watch that stuff. We're changing the way it goes. But anyone seen the movie Interstellar? How about that?

That's a movie about pioneers. It's like I never want to get into a spaceship and spend years away from my family, but it sounds cool when you're watching a movie, right, Cuz I'm like I'm a dude and I like to like pave ways where there's no way. I like to be a pioneer, a forerunner, a waymaker. That's what I want to do. I want to be a game changer in this world, right, And?

And there's that natural pursuit And a lot of us utilize that to separate from our family. But one of the greatest callings God has given you as fathers is to lead your family in the direction he would call them to. And sometimes it's going to look like a barrier, but since Jesus made a way, it might look like a narrow road, but you can make it through if you put him at the center of your life. So start being a pioneer. Settlers come in later.

Settling is what you had to do in some ways because of the, the way that you were raised or because of the mindsets of the people in your life. Settling is like a pioneer goes through and he chops through the bushes. A settler comes through and makes a camp, But God's leading you onward and upward toward him. You're not going to stop and settle. Be a pioneer, Fathers, you will.

You've got to understand that it's going to be difficult And not even the people in your family may understand the direction God's calling you to, but you're still responsible to go in that direction. So start being a pioneer. Be a pioneer in your finances and get out of the debt that your family was in. Be a pioneer of stability and don't be all over the place like your family was for you And be a pioneer in your faith If you want to be followed by your wife and kids. Be a pioneer, I don't know.

I find it easier to follow people who have a vision forward, And many of you wonder why your wife or your kids won't follow you. It's because you have no vision for your family. But be a pioneer for your family. Number three: quit being passive. I'm not trying to be mean, Taylor, I'm really not.

I'm just trying to be clear with what the word says And what we see here is that Jesus was very active. Verse five from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead and the ruler of the kings of the earth. And I don't know about you, but I take my role very seriously as the head of household. Now I want to be clear. Any feminists in the room, don't get stressed out.

Don't get stressed out. This is what the Bible says in Ephesians, chapter five. It says that the man is like Christ to the church, Christ loved, the church is the head of the church And the man in the relationship is supposed to be, at least biblically and spiritually. If we're going to listen to what the Bible says, we should listen to what this says. The man is the head of the household And a lot of us men we're struggling because we don't know how to be the head of the household.

We're not faithful followers of Jesus, We're flaky followers of Jesus. And then our spouse gets frustrated at us cuz not not because they don't want to listen to what the Bible says, but because you're a crappy leader- Oh, bad leader, I didn't mean to say it like that- But because you're struggling to lead. But they want someone worthy of following. So you need to stop being passive and take your role seriously. Jesus is a ruler and you're the head of the household.

You don't rule with an iron stick or staff. The Bible says in Ephesians, chapter five, that wives should submit to their husbands and husbands should love, love their wives. So quit being passive. Passive men tend to be emotionally disengaged. They avoid conflict even in their life.

It's easier to not say anything. Well, if your, if your family's going in the wrong direction, it is your job to lead it in the right direction. A passive person might be overly dependent on their spouse. Maybe your wife is stressed out, trying to keep the household together because you work real hard, make a little bit of money, get home and you're emotionally unavailable because you're tired and need some down time, But God's called you to lead your kids and to love your wife. Ultimately, this stems from a lack of vision, And I want to give you this.

I think it could be helpful for you. If you owned or the sole proprietor of an organization and you know how have no vision, how would that work for you? Would it work well? I don't think it would work very well. Would it Think of your household as an organization that God has given you to run effectively?

And if you have no vision for it, you're not going to move forward effectively. So if you imagine what your family could be 5 years from now, Have you dreamed about the marriage you and your wife could have? Have you dreamed about what your kids could be? I'm not saying hold them to something that's unreasonable. I'm saying dream about how they could be followers of Jesus.

Dream about what it looks like when you choose this day, whom you're going to serve and what your household's going to do with regard to your faith. Stop being passive, And it's not just passivity, or at least what you're thinking of. You might think of passivity as more complacency. I think passivity can come with really active people. I call these people challengers, right, They're really active, but in the wrong direction.

So it still comes across as passive spiritually. And I wrote it down, I don't want to say it out. I mean I don't want to just say it off the cuff, I might screw it up Like the challenger is the person who's focused on the wrong areas. They stress more about who's president, who bombed who and vaccine mandates than they are the spiritual state of their home. Yeah, Yeah, you're watching too much Fox News, but you're not spending enough time developing the faith of your family.

 But I think of people like Joshua who says: "As for me and my house, we're going to serve the Lord". Cornelius who, when the spirit of God fell on them, it was crazy. They started speaking in tongues. It says his whole family was baptized afterwards And I wish Acts would have told us the whole detail of it, but it's a bunch of men writing Acts, so they didn't give us enough detail, right, And so when Cornelius becomes a believer, his whole household gets baptized. I like to, I like to pigeonhole in there the conversation between him and his spouse before the rest of his family was baptized.

He's like, "Hey yo, We were just speaking in tongues. Spirit of God did something. Peter's really preached a good message. I think I think we, we should be followers of the way now". And I don't know how receptive she was.

I like to assume she was very receptive because he was a strong leader in the household and his entire followed suit. And what I want you to know is: when you start leading in the proper way as a follower of Jesus, your spouse, deep down, even if it's difficult, wants to follow you in that direction. Your kids, they're going to follow you, no matter what. The question is: is it the right direction? We are creating in our kids the same things that we dealt with as kids.

Unless we have a proper vision for our household. And if you want your kids to follow Jesus but you're not doing it every day, why would you expect good results? But we can turn the corner. I want to encourage you, men in here. Lead your home, Cast vision for your wife and kids.

Have a vision for them. Ask that girl you've been living with to marry you. She's been waiting anyway. Get ahead on your financial decisions, your schooling decisions, your faith goals. Tell your kids, starting today, if you have it, we're revolving our life around Jesus.

Everything else comes after it. Invite them into that process. Invite your wife to go on this journey of faith with you And I promise you they're going to begin to start to love God. If you do, They will start serving. If you do, They will enter into a life of purity.

If you do, If you put away your selfish desires, so will they. And I'll give you one little caveat, because I don't want you thinking that this is just the husband ruling over his household. This is a husband leading his household, Hannah Hannah's kind of. She grew up in a Christian household, So she has a traditional view of how a wife is supposed to operate right. And so if I were to make an executive decision today and convince you as quickly as possible that it's in the Lord, you would ultimately submit to that.

But there's never been a time in our 13 years next week of marriage where I made an executive decision without her being on board. So somehow, in this weird like frame of things where the husband is the actual head of the spiritual household that's us Somehow, there's more liberation, more freedom, less authoritative behavior. There's more connection, more enjoyment, more love in a relationship that chooses to honor things the way that God called them to. And there might have been a time, but I can't think of any, Because a life of following Jesus enables us to lead our family in the way that they should go, without them being completely opposed to it. Now, I'm not saying it happens tomorrow, It takes a minute.

But what I am saying is, if you turn toward Jesus today, in fact fathers, choose this day to make Jesus the head of your spiritual household, so that you can be the head of household that God's called you to be. I've got two other points, but I'm going to skip over them just for time's sake, and we've got a panel coming out here in a second. But I want to give you my big idea: To become the father that you never had, follow Christ at a level that yours never did. And- and this, this might be for you- I hope it's for you, But for me, I come once in a while to a reset mentally, Or sometimes it's little stuff- where I'm like "Oh gosh, we got TVs in four of our rooms. You know, we got to figure that stuff out.

Let's take the TVs out". Sometimes I'll come home, try to make the executive decision: "We're taking all the TVs out, There's too much happening. We need to relax and let the kids play outside, but now it's 115°. We got to figure something else out". Right, Like I'll come home and I'm like: "Hey, we need to clean out the pantry".

Thanks, Mom, by the way, you cleaned out the pantry while we were gone last week. Like I, I'll come home and I'll try to reset. But when I come into my connection with God and actually start casting vision for my household in a way that's clear to my wife and clear to my kids, that this is not from some weird positional authority that I think I've got cuz I'm a dude. No, this is from the seat of authority that God has placed on every single husband and father in this room to guide your children and even your spouse in the way that your family should go. And when I get in that place- that is straight from the word of God- I find my whole family just living in abundant joy.

My kids love coming to church. You kids might not like that right now, but if you lead, they're going to like it down the road. And so what I want to do really quickly is. I want to give the men in this room a challenge to be the spiritual head of household that they're called to be, To not make any more excuses that would be inhibitors to your relationship and connection with God. Choose this day to do what Joshua did all those years ago.

As for me and my house, we're going to serve God. We're going to put Jesus first. We're going to make church a priority. We're going to make God's word a priority. We're going to do what he's called me to do.

We're going to put club second. We're going to put certain types of community second. We're going to put even our jobs and personal desires second to Jesus, Because what he wants for my life is what gives abundant peace and joy. What they wanted for my life only gave me pain, frustration and a feeling of powerlessness in my own house. Jesus wants better for you.

So if, if you're one of those men in here and you might feel awkward about it, but I would encourage all the men who are willing to take that challenge to be the spiritual head of household, I want to encourage you to stand up Right now. Nobody, It's going to take a second. Men, take a second. Come on, Y'all stay standing for a second. I'mma pray over you.

I'mma look at you first in the eyeballs. I can't see your eyeballs, but I can see the shade in your eyes. I'm looking at you. Anything that separates you from God is an idol. Anything that separates your family from God is still idolatry.

God has placed it on your mantle to lead them in the way that they should go. Not in arbitrary executive decisions that cause your wife and even your kids to lament the fact that you're the leader of the household, but no Christ-centered, spiritual decisions that come from the discernment that I believe God has placed on uniquely you to make and discuss and walk your family through. I want to encourage you, challenge yourself daily to be that type of person in your household and who knows what God might do over the next few years. Father, God, I thank you for these men. I thank you for their willingness to boldly stand up in this room and commit to being the spiritual head of household.

And, God, I pray that right now, as we continue in worship for just a small moment, that you would, you would guide them with a s- with a supernatural level of discernment that maybe they haven't encountered before, but when they look at the decisions they make, they see that it was you helping them along. I believe that they are each anointed, which means that they can each hear from you, And when they hear from you, you're going to give them things they've never had before. I pray that the legacy they leave would be one where their kids get to stand on their shoulders- spiritually, financially and in every other area. That when their kids look at them, they see Christ, because they've seen you, Because they've seen their fathers act as Christ, act as Christians. So God, be with us right now, Be honored in this place and let these men honor you without distraction.

It's in Jesus' name that we pray, and God's people said: