A Father's Day Message - Dr David Koop

We are blessed to have Dr David Koop sharing the word today on this special Father's Day. Dr David Koop and his wife Cheryl are the senior pastors of Coastal Church in Vancouver, Canada. 

Dr Koop shares from Joshua 24:15, Deuteronomy 6:6, 1 Thessalonians 2:11-12, Proverbs 25:11 and James 1:5

We pray you’re blessed by this message—and we’d love to see you in person. Join us every Sunday at 10am. See you there.

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:32

Amazing. Well, we're going to jump into the scriptures together. Would you guys join me though in giving a big warm welcome to Dr. Dave Klube? He's going to come and share the word of God with us today. Thanks so much, Dave. Such an honor to have you. Um, thank you so much. Well, thank you, Pastor Luke.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

It's great to be here. We heard so many good things about your church, about your pastors, uh, from Ben Higgins and some of the others. So it really is a treat to be with you. Uh, and I was sharing with him earlier. I have a lot of respect for a pastor we just met, and he's allowing me to share with you. So I don't take that lightly. It's an honor to stand here where you've worked so hard to build future church. So I consider it a privilege to be with you. And uh, we have a church back home that's praying for all of you and uh praying for your church as well for what God's doing here. Uh let me show you a picture of my family, just so you know where I'm at. And uh I have six children and I say four children, six grandchildren, get that right. And uh yes, uh delighted that they one, love me. That's a good thing to have on Father's Day, but more importantly, they love God and they also love his house. And so that uh that's a great uh joy for us to know that they love God and that they also love his house and that they um are uh working with us in what we're doing. Today um I was thinking about Father's Day here. Our Father's Day is in June, so Canada has a different time, and uh, but unlike September, I think it's a good time to have Father's Day, might be a better time than June. And I was thinking about a Father's Day message I did in 2017, so pre-AI, uh, this message. And um I had uh shared a message with our congregation that uh parenting and being a dad is a lot like the game of golf. So I'm going to use that as an analogy today, and maybe it will help make the message a little more sticky as we get into it. Jack Nicholas, a great golfer, he said, a kid grows up a lot faster on the golf course because golf teaches you how to behave. Um, I'm not a great golfer, just right away so you know that. Uh I golf twice a year at men's tournaments or when I'm invited to go. Uh I'd like to golf more, but it just takes so long. It's five hours of my day, and uh I'd rather just be with my kids when I have that time. Uh maybe I'll take up more of it as we go along. And I just thought, just to clear it up, in case you're wondering, what's the theology around uh golf and the Bible? Golf is mentioned in the Bible. I want you to know that because Paul finished the course, and so we know that it's scriptural. And uh, in case you're wondering, I know you Australians love your sports, and you have the big tennis tournament. I was in Melbourne, they're talking about tennis there a lot, and of course, tennis is also mentioned in the Bible because we know that David served in Pharaoh's court. And so, and uh for all you people that are into sports, into motorbikes, uh be glad to I love motorbikes, and motorbikes I also found are in the Bible because David's triumph could be heard throughout the land. Uh it wasn't a harley, it was a triumph. But anyhow, uh, so these things are in the Bible, so it's okay to use golf as uh as an illustration. And you have a great golfer in Australia. We know about him in our country, Canada, none other than Greg Norman, the great white shark. And uh he had one time said when he had lost the game, this might be a good tip to tell a child. He had said, I'm a winner, I just didn't win today. And it was about being something. He also said this, Greg Norman, your golfer. I always wanted to be the best I could be. I always wanted to be the best I could be at whatever I did. I didn't want to be the number one golfer in the world. I just want to be as good as I could be. And I think that's good for dads. I don't want to be the number one dad in the world, the best. I just want to be the best version of a dad that God wanted me to be. And so hopefully today some of these pointers will help you to be a great dad. And on Father's Day, probably the same in Australia as it is in Canada, when I'm talking to our audience. We're in downtown Vancouver, so if you were to come to Vancouver, look for the highest buildings, and we're under the apex of the city skyline. So we're very urban. Uh many of our um 60-some percent are single, so we don't have a lot of dads. We don't have a lot of children where we are in the heart of the city. Only 3% under the age of 15, so not so many children, not so many dads. So on Father's Day, I don't just address dads, I talk to uh those that are coaches, those that are mentors, those that are uncles and so forth, because they also have a great influence on the next generation. So, what are what are some things that we can learn from golf about fathering? Um vision. Uh a golfer has to have a vision. When he steps up to play uh around a golf, he at the first hole, he doesn't just take out his driver and swing anywhere. The first thing he does is he looks down and tries to find the flag. And uh you try to, okay, this is where I have to get my ball. I have to get it to that flag. He knows where it's supposed to end up. And likewise, dads and parents have to know where do I want our children to end up? Uh years ago, uh, Cheryl and I sat down, my wife, and we prayed, where do we want our family to end up? I showed you a picture of our family, and uh I'm thankful today that they love God, they love his house, and we they love coming together, but that was a vision we had. We said, we're gonna contend for that. Um there are many times, and I'm sure Luke you could appreciate that we had to say no to church things. We said no families first. Uh we we made hard decisions. We would take holidays, and uh, we would say no to buying a newer car, doing different things. He said, No, let's just make a memory for our children. And so we'd go somewhere and we made a lot of decisions based on vision that as we get older, I said, I want to see our grandchildren loving God and wanting to be around us. And one day when I'm in a rocking chair, I want our kids to love one another. I want them still to get along. I want cousins to play with one another. I want to contend for that. That was our vision. And so as much as a golfer has a vision of getting that ball up to the flag, we have to have a vision of what we want to do with our families. You know the verse, Proverbs 29, 18, where there's no vision, my people perish. I might put it this way: if families don't have a vision, families perish. You go to work in a corporation, and corporations have mission statements. Corporations have vision statements, corporations have slogans. But often what I find is that if you ask a dad, what is the mission statement for your family? They might know their corporate mission statement, but they're not so sure about their family mission statement. And we have slogans as well. What's the difference between a mission statement and a vision statement? Vision statements are where are you going. That's your destination. Mission statements are how you're going there. How are you going to get there? And then slogans are kind of a combination of that. I looked up on the website to find your slogan. I like, I love your slogan, Luke. Making Jesus' ways our ways together. Folks, that's brilliant. Um, I might borrow that sometime if I could. That was that's a great statement. Um Coca-Cola has uh vision statement. Their vision statement is to craft the brands and choice of drinks that people have to refresh them in body and spirit. So my question is families are the most valuable thing to us, but do we have a mission statement? So maybe your takeaway from this morning is we should write that out. The Bible says, write the vision and make it plain. Would your children know where to read it? Or your children know it. Because you can't wing this. You have to say, no, no, I'm going to that flag. Here's how we're going to get there. I think Joshua had one. Joshua said in Joshua 24, 15, and if it seems evil to serve to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves as to whom you'll serve, whether the gods which your father served that are on the side of the river, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me, my house, we're going to serve the Lord. That's that's a mission statement. Joshua had it. He shared it. We've read it. Somewhere he wrote it down. They must have known it. And so we want to have a vision for our families. It holds us in hard times. I found, and I'm sure the pastors here found too, that when you visit a bed when somebody's on the last hours of life, they never ask for more money, they never ask for another sale, they're never asking to do more things. They ask for two things. They ask me as a pastor, Am I right with God? I want I want to know I'm right with God, and I want to know I'm right with my family. At the end of life, the two most important things are your vertical relationship with God and your relationship with your family. And uh the great golfer Sam Sneed once said, Nobody asks how you looked, just what you shot. And at the end of your life, they're wondering, how did it work? How did it work with your family? So have a vision statement. This is number one. Number two is self-discipline. Second thing, golfers have self-discipline. Maybe that's why I don't golf a lot, because it takes a lot of discipline. You gotta go to the driving range a lot and buy buckets of balls. And uh the only thing that we do a lot of, my wife and I in our backyard, we have a house by the river we get to, and uh we have uh we have a little putting green. And so we go out there and we that's the only thing we really do is putt. And uh, and she's better than I am at it, which kind of bugs me, but she's she's really good at it, and I'm uh anyhow, that's what we do. Golfers practice a lot. And can I just say being a father takes a lot of practice, uh, a lot of sometimes trial and error, too. Uh look at Deuteronomy 6, verse 6, where it says, Write these commandments that I've given you today on your hearts, get them inside of you, and then get them inside of your children. So this is where it takes a lot of practice. I can't parent my child unless I first have it working on the inside of me. You have to direct yourself. A golfer, to be a good golfer, you have to first control this body before you can control the club. And I have to control me before I can take and be an influence, a good influence into my children. There's a golfer's creed by David Forgan, a Scottish golfer, and he wrote this: golf is a science, the study of a lifetime which you may exhaust yourself but never your subject. It's a contest, a duel, a malay, calling for courage, skill, strategy, and self-control. It is a test of temper, a trial of honor, and a revealer of character. It affords a chance to play the man and act the gentleman. I think you could say that of being a dad. A dad, a father, is something that you'll study the rest of your life, but you'll never exhaust the subject. I I've been a dad for over 40 years, and I'll have to tell you, I'm still on a learning curve. For those that are younger dads, I thought, and I was really uh naive about this, I thought my kids will grow up, and when I get to, when they get to be 18 or 19 and they leave home, it's gonna be easy after that. I discovered actually it gets harder as you go along in some ways. There's different seasons, different chapters of life, and you never stop being a father. And I'm thankful, as was mentioned, the greatest example of a father is our heavenly father. Amen? He is the greatest example that we could have. It's a lifelong journey, and we have to continue to learn how to do it. When I look at our heavenly father, there's a great acronym, PAL. God's my pal, because God is always present. He, God is always affirming, and God is always loving. That's a good recipe for a dad. Be present, be affirming, and be loving. One of the biggest needs that we need is to be affirming. Uh, what did the Heavenly Father say over Jesus at his baptism? This is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. I promise you, every daughter, every girl, and every boy wants to hear those words from their daddy. If your dad says, This is my son, in whom I'm well pleased, God could have said a lot of things from heaven that day. He was starting his ministry, but God says, This is my son. I'm well pleased in him. He hasn't started his ministry yet, but I'm well pleased in him. But to speak those words over your children is so powerful. And to not have those words can be uh what we call the father's wound. My dad didn't speak those words. I'm glad God will make up for that. He will speak those words, he'll send other people to speak those words into your life. But as a dad, I want to be thinking about that. I must think about that. Even if I don't feel it, speak the words, declare it over my children. We all know a great singer by the name of Elton John, and uh he wrote an autobiography a few years ago called Me. In the autobiography, he says, I spent my whole life trying to show my father what I'm made of. It's crazy, but I just wanted his approval. I'm still trying to prove to him what I do is fine, and he's been dead for 30 years. What did Elton John miss? He missed affirmation from his dad. So one of the greatest things we can give our children is not just vision, but discipline ourselves and what our father, the way our heavenly father loves us, love our children the same way. Here's a tip that I can pass on to you. Uh, younger fathers. My wife and I, we we prayed something when we were younger, and I don't know where we got the idea, but it was so good. We prayed, God, in every season of life, bring us parents that are one season ahead of us. That because you can learn out of books, and I think you should be disciplined, read books. I meet guys that know more about sports, they know more about cars, they know more about hobbies, but they have never read a book on parenting. And then they wonder why their parents or their parenting isn't working, wonder why their marriage is falling apart. And I ask them, well, what's the last marriage book you read? I don't read marriage books. Well, that's your problem. You have to, if you want to be a good golfer, you have to study golfing. If you want to be a good parent, you have to study parenting. If you want to be a good father, you have to study fathering. You you can't you can't uh cheat on that, you have to do your homework. And so I prayed, God, bring the right people to my life. And God answered that prayer. He's answered it every season. Those that are one season ahead of me, God will bring a dad or parents in that season. Because you learn a lot by having a mentor. You learn a lot by saying, How do you guys do it? So when our kids are little, and uh the next God brought a guy by the name of Ron into my life, his his children were in their 11 and 12, and I just would pepper Ron with questions, what do you do about this? What do you do about that? And Ron would say, Dave, you can't do that, you gotta do this. That was gold. Then Ron moved out of my life because there's seasons, and God brought somebody else in. And so I continue to pray, God bring someone to my life who's the next season ahead of me that will speak into my life, help me see my blinders, and so I think that's a part of a good golfer is around other golfers saying, Hey, how did you do that? Teach me your swing, teach me what you did. Do the same thing as you are a father. Hey, the next thing, number three, if you're taking notes, the third thing is to focus. A big part, now, if you've golfed, how many here, by the way, am I I might be speaking to the whole wrong, how many here golf even a little bit? Okay, there's a few, good. That makes me feel better. Um, but what what they tell you about golf, and I'm still really bad at this because I I have this bad habit of taking my eye off the ball. I just want to see where it's going. And you you know, the golfer, the first thing they do is they teach us, okay, Dave, look at the ball, bring your bring your club, bring your club back, but you gotta watch the ball. Don't take your eye off the ball. Focus, focus, focus, focus, hit the ball, keep your eye there, and then then you can look up. But you have to focus on the ball. I would say today, well, the keys to parenting, fathering, is focusing on your children. Keep your eye on the children. Easy to keep your eye on the company, keep your eye on the money, to keep your eye on other things, but I think the key to being a good dad is I'm I keep my eye on you. I find sometimes the best time to talk to a child is often when, or I maybe I shouldn't say talk to them, but the best time to listen is often when I'm the busiest and they want to share. Maybe on the way home from school, maybe just before bed, but I learned that I have to put aside what I want to do, and those moments just say, I'm okay, what are you saying? Because kids give you this little window where they'll speak in your life, and then it's gone. And you have to focus and grab those little minutes with them and say, Okay, tell me what's going on. What did your friends say? What happened? What went on? And so it's really key to be focused. First Thessalonians chapter 2 says this, and you know how affectionately we treat each one of you like a loving father cares for his own children. We comforted and encouraged you and challenged you to adopt a lifestyle worthy of God who invites you into his kingdom and glory. And so, in the different stages of life, keep your eyes focused. Quality time only comes out of quantity time being with them, focusing on them in every stage of life. So that's the third thing. Bobby Jones, a great golfer, said you swing your best when you have the fewest things to think about. And I think you're the best father when you have the fewest things on your mind. I'm just thinking about you. So that's focus. We started off with vision, self-discipline, focus. Good golfers have focus. And then number four, rhythm, rhythm and timing. Uh I I just thought if I swing harder, the ball will go further. And uh I had to learn rhythm, I had to learn timing. And uh one of the things they would teach me when I would go to golfing with other guys, they said, Dave, hit the sweet spot. Just let the club do the work. And I think when we submit to God and the leading of the Holy Spirit, we can hit the sweet spot, and uh it'll it'll work. It works. We we're designed to be parents. Our father is, of course, designed men to be fathers. We have it in us, it's built within us, and we just have to go along with his rhythms. Everybody here is designed for rhythm. The whole universe is designed for rhythm. We have weeks, we have we have months, we have years, uh, everything's designed for rhythm. And the more you can have rhythm in your home, the better it's going to be. This is so huge. This is so huge for dads. This whole so huge for moms and dads because kids love rhythm. They love bed at the same time, they like to go on holidays at the same time. And can I just say they like to go to church on the same time? There needs to be a rhythm of church. Every Sunday we go to church. I know where it's tough some weeks. I know sometimes they cry on the way to church, but every Sunday we're in church. Every week we're there. If there's a prayer meeting, we're there. If there's something I can say to families, is just have a rhythm. It's not an option. No, we go to God's house. We love his house. Make it exciting. Man, I can't wait. My wife would get the kids excited. We're getting ready for church, and she just made it fun. Come on, we're gonna have the best day ever. We're going to church. And there was rhythm to it. And as church planters, you know what it's like. And the kids had to be there for setup and tear down. They had to pack things up, and so every Sunday I would splurge and I'd buy them the best meal I could. I always gave them a treat and said, I wanted them to love Sundays, and to this day they love Sundays. And uh one of our daughters, she had uh uh it sounds so weird, but we had a lot of duct tape in the day because we were in a hotel, everything had to be taped down, and so at the end of the service we have this big ball of duct tape, and her treat was she got the ball of duct tape, and uh, so one day we were moving from a house and we went into her room, and in the closet, there were Rolls and rolls of these duct tape. But for her, that was fun. I got to have the duct tape. We do whatever we could to have the rhythm of church, family, devotions. We wanted to make it fun. Yeah. You know, a golf ball flies straighter and further when the swing is relaxed. And I think parents respond, or a child responds better to a dad when he is relaxed and just focused on you. It takes time, it takes effort. Proverbs 25, 11 says, like apples of gold and settings of silver, is a word spoken in the right circumstances. I can think back today. My dad was a farmer and a pastor, busy man. But I can still remember, these are core memories that make me up, is when my dad took a moment to talk to me. One time we had a big building, maybe twice the size of this, looked similar. We had bigger doors than this. It was a we call it a shed for machinery. And uh we had a big John Deere tractor. I was 12, and my dad was there, my grandfather, and he taught me how to drive the tractor ready. He said, Dave, why don't you drive the tractor into the shed in the building? I think he was just wanted to show my grandpa that I'd learned how to drive the tractor ready. Well, I got on, I drove through the fence because I couldn't push in the clutch. And then I'm driving up to this door, which should be about as high as this tall door, and my dad said, That's okay, you got this, you got this. Put in the clutch, stop the tractor, we'll open the door. And I froze. The clutch was hard, it was an old John Deere tractor. I couldn't get the clutch in. And I drove, you guys, I drove right to the door. Came crashing down. There's a door on the other side. By this time, dad jumped on the tractor and he and he stopped it. As a boy, I'm 12, crying. I felt so bad. My cousin was laughing at me. He said, No, we got to fix this. I felt so bad. I ran into the house and I went inside. My dad came and my dad put his arms around me, and he he all he said was, It's okay. I love you. You didn't get hurt. It's just the door. We'll fix the door. But that word spoken and seasoned, to this day, it makes me feel I'm loved, I'm going to be okay, I can recover from mistakes. It was fitly spoken. And so, you know, you need the timing, the rhythm in life. And you have to work hard as a dad to include that. Kids love it, whether it be your devotions, your church attendance, all those things. Okay, number five is wisdom. James 1, 5 says, if any of you lack wisdom, many times I've had to come to God and say, God, I lack wisdom. I don't know what to do with my teenage daughter, I don't know what to do with my son, I don't know what to do. We had moved from Alberta to Vancouver. Our kids were, my son was 11 in grade 5, and they really liked where they lived. Now we moved, we're planting a church in a new school. The only people that paid attention to it were the wrong kind of kids. So he sucked into this group of kids, and he's going sideways fast. I go, okay, what do I do? I need wisdom, so I asked God, I said, God, what do I do? And I talked to another pastor friend, asked him for wisdom, and he gave me advice that has it worked for my son, it worked for our three daughters, and I've passed this on to so many people, you're probably ready to do it, but if you don't, it was gold for me. He said, Dave, my son's name is Matt, take Matt on a date every week. I said, Take my son on a date? I date my wife, I don't date my son. He said, No, no, no, no. Take him on a date. I said, What does that look like? You take wherever he wants to go, you give him no correction, all you do is listen to him and hear his world, and that's all you do. But you do it every week. I said, Okay, I'll do it. And so I'd say, where do you want to go for breakfast? He won, I I would like to have some eggs, some bacon, and a breakfast. He wanted to go to Subway for breakfast. So we went to Subway and he got the cold cut trio every week. He'd get the cold cut trio. But for an hour, I would just say, Matt, tell me about your friends, and I would give him no instruction. But that was the turning point. And to this day, Matt now works with us. He's he's a great man of God. But those, the deposits that happened on those weekly dates shaped it. The girls that went once a month, and now, you know, now they have their own children. But I'll tell you what, guys, when your 30-year-old daughter says, Dad, when are we going on a date next? You can't buy that. That's that's just the riches. And so they'll say, Come on, Dad, let's go on a date. And they and all they want to do is tell me about their world. And that, but that happened when they were younger, and I just got that little bit of wisdom from somebody on how to do that. Henry Cotton, a great golfer, said, Every shot counts. The three-foot pot is as important as a 300-yard drive. So every every shot really counts. Um there's a great uh camp, a ranch in California that we're I went to learn from. We're always learning. How do we do things better? Alpha taught us a lot on how to reach people in our city. Now we're in the process of buying a camp. But I want to, you can have the land and the buildings, but if you don't have the right programs, you have to have the right software. So I wanted to find the best software I could, and I came to a ranch in California called JH Ranch, run by Bruce and Heather Johnson, and they're amazing what they do. I don't have time to describe it. But Bruce gave me some wisdom, and he said, you know, for our children to come to camp, you have to know what season you're in. Be wise, because you can't treat, you know, you got a lot of clubs here, right? I don't, I'm not gonna drive with this club. I'm gonna putt with it. And if I'm if I'm near the green, I'm gonna use my pitch club to do that. And you have to have different clubs for different seasons of life. And different, and all not the kids aren't the same. My youngest daughter, Lacey, is not like my oldest daughter, Jennifer. They have different love languages. I have to figure out which approach do I use with that child. And Bruce said, he said, from the age of zero to five, you're a caretaker. You protect, you provide, and you pray. From five to twelve, you're the cop. And you train, you teach, you discipline, and repeat and repeat, and you pray. So, caretaker to cop, from 12 to 17, you're the coach. Now you teach, now you model, now you encourage, a lot of grace involved in those teenage years, and you pray. And then from 18 up, you're a consultant. Now you just listen, you support, and you advise, and you pray. But what Bruce says is a lot of times what parents do is there's their children are 18 and they're still being a cop. You can't be cop anymore. You're using the wrong club, and your kids know it. It doesn't work very good. Or your child is 17 and you're still being protector and provider. No, no. Use them in the right season of life. So we need a lot of wisdom, just like a golfer needs wisdom in order to finish the course. And then next is perseverance. Ben Hogan, a great golfer, he said, this is a game of misses. The guy who misses the best is going to win. I say that because in fathering, you're gonna have misses. I've had a lot of my misses. If my kids are here, they'll tell you about them. And uh they often will review the misses and at my expense. And they'll tell, Dad, do you remember when you did this? Do you remember when you did that? And I said, I wish you'd forget that, but uh they they love kidding me, and I it's all good fun. Yeah, because no one is golf perfect, and nobody's been a perfect father. We have to work through those things. But when you do miss it, no, when I golf, my golf ball seems to have an aversion for water or for the woods. And I often feel guilty because I'm golf maybe once or twice a year. I'm usually the guy who's holding back the rest of the group because I'm in the woods trying to find my ball. And oftentimes they say, just coop, forget it, just drop a ball, let's go. Because there's a party coming behind us. In life, when you're when it goes off course, like golf, you have to play the ball where it lies. And uh I find that that takes perseverance because sometimes we make mistakes, we have to go on from there. And don't learn from it. That's why James says, James 1, 2, and 3, consider joy, brothers and sisters, when you face trials of many kinds, you know the testing of your faith produces perseverance. So just like golf requires a lot of perseverance, so does parenting. So does being a dad. It takes a lot of perseverance. Uh, probably one of the hardest things I've done, but the most rewarding is being a father, for sure. Uh, and then the last thing I would say is enjoy the journey. Yeah. Arnold Palmer, the great golfer, said golf is deceptively simple and endlessly complicated. It satisfies the soul and frustrates the intellect. It is at the same time rewarding and maddening. I could say the same about being a dad. It's rewarding and maddening. It's frustrating and it's complicated, but enjoy it. And I think one of the best tips I could give a father is enjoy the journey. It goes by so quick. You know, they were there was an age, it seemed not long ago, that they held my hand and I walked down and played with them, played ball together, and got on my knees and played Barbies. Yes, I played Barbies, and uh, and uh I had to be ken. And uh, but all those things they they go so quickly, and then all of a sudden now it's you're into a grandparent season and it just slips by so much. But boy, is it rewarding, and you want to enjoy the journey. Psalm 127, 3 and 4 says, Children are a gift from the Lord, they are a reward from Him. Children born to young a man are like sharp arrows in a warrior's hands. And I think as much as a golfer stands there and he looks and sees the flag and he says, I want this ball to get into that hole. It's gonna take some strokes to get there. Children are, in this sense, like the ball. I want them to hit the bullseye with their life. It's gonna take some strokes, it's gonna be seasons of life. Sometimes we're gonna be in the rough. I'm gonna have to get them out of it. But my goal is to land it on the green and that they have fulfilled the vision, the calling, the purpose that God put into their lives. And as a father, I want to help them to be all that God has created them to be. Ben Hogan said, another great golfer, as you walk down the fair way of life, you must smell the roses, for you only get to play one round. In the game of life, there's only one round to play. And I think a word for fathers and parents is enjoy the journey. Enjoy Father's Day to day. Enjoy, keep your eye on the fair way of life. After all, what we're playing for is much, much greater, of course, than this analogy. Paul said, set your sights on the realities of heaven. And the greatest reward of all is that the greatest thing to play for, the greatest vision, is that I would spend eternity with my children, my grandchildren, and we would see them there, worshiping God together. So we work towards that, and we say, I'm gonna commit to doing that. So let's enjoy it. Enjoy the journey every step of the way. Let me pray with you just before Pastor Luke comes up. Pray especially for you fathers as well. God, as we follow after you, especially as dads, maybe father figures here today, we often are aware of our of our shortcomings, but yet you have put within us, we came wired from the factory to be fathers. Heavenly Father, we look to you. You know every man here, you know what they're going through, you know the season of life that they're in. And I pray today, God, that you would give them your wisdom, instruction, may your spirit rest upon them. Of all the things they do, no greater calling, perhaps, than to be a father. So would you go with them, guide them, direct them? May the joy of the Lord be their strength, may they feel celebrated and encouraged today. Thank you for this church. Bless Pastor Luke, bless Futures Church. God, would you continue to shine your light upon this place? Let it be a beacon of hope to this community. I ask in Jesus' name. Amen.

SPEAKER_01 36:37

Thanks, Dave. That was really encouraging. Blessings. So good. Um love a chance to pray for you if you would like prayer. Gonna be up front. Um, love to invite you to come pray. Pray with us. Um, that was really encouraging. I was so encouraged by that. So much good wisdom. Um, gonna go home and maybe write something down. Mission, mission, a statement for my family. I love that. Um, really encouraged by that. Um, if you if you uh maybe carrying like a bit of a broken heart today around some of these issues, we'd love the chance to stand with you and pray with you, okay? Um let God let God encourage you, let God minister to you. Sometimes it's just wonderful to have someone stand with you and pray over you in these kind of um really important areas of your life. So um if that's a struggle for you, or maybe for you it's a bit of a struggle with receiving God's love as a father because you haven't had that, uh, would love an opportunity to pray for you uh as well. So um let me just pray a blessing over you as we as we go. All right after this. There's breakfast burgers this way, there's donuts this way, all of the calories are preyed out of it. Don't even worry. There's all of the um there's no carbs, there's nothing, it's just protein uh and and health food. So uh enjoy it, guilt free. It's gonna be great. Let me pray a blessing, God. Thank you. Pray your blessing over the people. Go with them, shine upon them, God, let your grace fill their lives as they go to love and serve the world. So I pray you go with them, lead them, Holy Spirit. Thank you for this church, God. Thank you for protecting this church, God. Thank you for this place, this community, God, that you are building, that you are in the center of. Pray you bless these people as we put our trust in you in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. If you'd like prayer, please come forward. Otherwise, have an amazing week, and I can't wait to be sharing the scriptures with you guys next week. It's gonna be a great time. Blessings. Next week, we're gonna do communion together as well. So have you blessed. Happy Father's Day.