A New Beginning

Greg Laurie: Fathers, let your children get up in the morning and see you starting the day off with scripture. Let the children see you turn to the Lord in times of difficulty and crisis. Let the children see you be faithful to your wife for a lifetime and keep that marriage together and keep it strong. Model it for them. Show them how it's done.

Guest (Male): They say values are often caught more than taught. We can proclaim "do as I say, not as I do" all day long, but we have to go the way in order to show the way. Today on A New Beginning, Pastor Greg Laurie brings good encouragement for dads. Pastor Greg brings some deeply personal insights today from his own life, growing up without a dad for the most part, but learning how to draw from scripture and from other positive role models around him.

Greg Laurie: The title of my message is "How to Be a Father When You are Fatherless," and my text is Ephesians chapter 6, verse 1. Children, obey your parents in the Lord for this is right. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise, that it may be well with you, that you may live long in the earth. And you fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up or train them in the admonition of the Lord.

This phrase "training" is interesting. It can be translated two ways, and each way gives you an insight into what it means to train a child. One way means to break a horse—to break a horse. So that means that you have to have discipline in the home. You have to have rules in the home. You have to have absolutes in the home. And there are rules. You say, "This is my house and these are the rules of the house, and this is what you need to do as my son or as my daughter."

But another way the word train can be translated is "create a thirst in." So it's like breaking a horse—absolutes, rules, that's important—but it also means to create a thirst in. So it's not just rules, because if you have a home that's just rules and just absolutes, that's too far one way perhaps. But the other is create a thirst in.

Have you ever noticed that if you go out to eat with some people, that if you don't order any food, when their food arrives, it really makes you hungry all of a sudden? You know, maybe you thought, "Hey, we're going to go out after church and we're going to get something to eat." "Oh, I already ate, but I'll go with you and just drink water." So you're drinking your water and their hamburger arrives and their french fries. And you say, "Could I have just one fry?" "Sure, have as many as you want." And you eat that fry and it's the greatest thing you've ever eaten in your life.

Why is stolen food better than food you ordered? My wife, when she's preparing a meal, will chop everything up in little portions. She's got the carrots here and the celery here and the whatever else there. And I go and I eat it. "Don't eat that! Those are portions." And she turns away and I eat another one because stolen food is better. Okay, but anyway, when someone's enjoying their meal, it makes you want to have a meal.

I think when you model for your children what it is to walk with Jesus, they too will want to walk with Jesus. So show them how it's done. Let your children get up in the morning and see Mom and Dad with their Bibles open starting the day off with scripture. Let the children see you turn to the Lord in times of difficulty and crisis.

Let the children see you give regularly of your finances, showing how important it is to be invested in your church and in the work of the kingdom of God. Let your children see you be faithful to your wife and your husband for a lifetime and keep that marriage together and keep it strong. Set the pace, model it for them, create a thirst in them for God. That's what we're all called to do.

In Deuteronomy, we're given directions from Moses as to how to father. I love this, it's so clear. Deuteronomy 6:5: "You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, and your strength. Commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands I'm giving you today." So first, he says to dads, you know, you need to walk with God. You need to keep these commandments.

And then he says this: "Repeat these again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home, when you are on the road, when you're going to bed, when you're getting up." Start reading the Bible and imprinting your children early. Teach them the word of God from their youth. Did you know that by age five a child's brain is already 90% developed?

So even before they can fully comprehend what you're telling them, read them stories from the Bible. Start getting those thoughts and those truths imprinted into their little minds. That's why Moses says, "Repeat these things again and again to your children." Don't wait until they're preteens or teenagers. Start early. That's when you lay the foundation. Aristotle said—and he said this to me personally—Aristotle said, "Give me a child until he is seven, and I will show you the man."

So start early. Talk about the Lord in the car. Talk about the Lord at bedtime. Talk about the Lord at breakfast. Did you know most children begin to question their faith between the ages of 11 and 14? Discuss those things with your kids. Help them understand why you believe what you believe before the storm hits—and the storm will hit in every person's life where they have to make these truths their own.

A word about devotions. You know, I think the problem in some homes is we make devotions very difficult. First of all, if you have a devotion with your child, they shouldn't go for three hours. "Okay kids, let's begin our study in the book of Leviticus." I always felt like a devotion should be short and sweet. And the greatest compliment my boys could pay me is, "Tell me another Bible story, Dad. Another one, another one."

And I always involved them. I didn't just preach to them. I didn't have a little pulpit and preach a sermon. I'd engage them, I'd ask them questions, I'd get them involved in the Bible story. That's a very important thing. And don't be overly legalistic. I've said a little bit about rules and having absolutes, and that is important. But in some Christian homes, they're overly legalistic—too many rules, too many boundaries, boundaries that aren't necessary.

Now I heard my son Jonathan say this from this pulpit not too long ago, and I wasn't quite sure how to react. I thought, "Wait, was that good what I did?" Here's what he said. You may remember. He said, "You know, my friends came from Christian homes and they couldn't listen to secular music, and they couldn't watch cartoons on television. All they could watch was VeggieTales." He says, "However, in our home, it was different. My dad would drive me to school and we'd listen to the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix, and then my dad would sit down and watch The Simpsons with me." And I'm thinking, "Oh boy, was that good? Was that good? What have I done to warp this child?"

But let me explain what I was trying to do. I'm not advocating for either any of those things, but I'm simply saying this: I was trying to enter his world. And I would watch a cartoon with him, and then I would explain, "Now we don't agree with that and here's why," or "That was kind of funny," or "That wasn't good at all."

Right? So I would kind of work through those things with them. I'd play video games with them. I'd skateboard with them—when I still could skateboard. I did things with them. I took them with me everywhere, and I tried to integrate my faith into their lives as well. And that is something we all should seek to do.

Because we want to be a reflection of our Father in Heaven. And the ultimate model of a father is in what we call the parable of the prodigal son. Now the Bible never calls it that. You could just as easily call it the parable of the loving father. And I think in many ways it's more about the loving father than it is about the prodigal son. Jesus tells the story to show us what God is like, and it begins as follows: "A father had two sons."

And one of the sons said, "I don't want to live under your rules and regulations. Give me my portion of the inheritance." And you know the rest of the story. But after that boy went astray and dragged their family name through the mud and made a mess of his life, the Bible says he came to his senses and said, "I'll return home to my father and say, 'Father, I've sinned and am no longer worthy to be called your son.'"

But Jesus says, while he was still a great ways off, the father saw him and ran toward him and threw his arms around him and said, "Welcome home, son. My son who was dead is alive again. He who was lost is found." It's a picture of God, a loving father who never stops loving us.

And I think it's so important for our kids to know that we love them. And I think that's an important thing. Tell your children you love them. "Well, they know." Yeah, maybe they do. But it's not a bad thing to reassure them that you love them. Even the Father said of Jesus when he was baptized, "This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased." Tell them.

Godly fathers don't need to be biological. Godly fathers don't need to be biological. So I never knew my biological father. But among the men my mother married, she made one good choice: a man named Oscar Laurie, an attorney from New Jersey. He didn't hang out in bars. He didn't drink. He didn't smoke. I don't know what my mother saw in him. He was an academic. He was a moral man. He was a hardworking man. And he not only became my father, but he adopted me and gave me his name. And so he was my dad, and I still think of him as my dad today.

But one day getting out of school, the car was loaded up with all of our luggage, and we were living in New Jersey at the time. And I said to my mom, "What's going on?" She says, "We're leaving." I said, "Where are we going?" She said, "To Hawaii." Well, I'd never been to Hawaii. I was very excited. "Oh, great! Where's Dad?" "He's not coming." I didn't see him for the rest of my childhood.

So now fast forward. I hear the gospel at age 17. I come to Christ and I start thinking about Oscar Laurie. Is he alive still? I would love to see him again. So it turns out I was going to be speaking in New York at Central Park. And I thought maybe he lives in New Jersey. So there was a girl that went to our church that worked for the Bar Association because he was an attorney. This is before Google. And so I said, "See if there's an Oscar Laurie that you can find." She found him quickly, and he was practicing law in Red Bank, New Jersey.

So I called his law office, and a secretary answered, and I said, "Hello, is Oscar Laurie there?" She said, "No, he's out to lunch right now. Can I ask who's calling?" I said, "Yes, it's Greg Laurie." She said, "How do you spell your last name?" I said, "The same way he spells his. This is his son."

And so I get a call about a half hour later, and my dad says, "Greg, it's so good to hear your voice." I said, "Hey, I'm going to be speaking in Central Park. It's a long story. I'm a preacher now, but I'd love to come see you for lunch." He says, "Oh no, come to our home for the weekend. I want you to meet my new wife, Barbara, and my two sons." He had adopted two other boys as well.

So I reluctantly agreed. I didn't want to impose. But we arrived there in New Jersey, and Barbara, his wife, a wonderful lady, made an incredible Italian meal. My wife was there and my son Christopher was there. And so Barbara says, "Greg, tell us how you became a Christian and then you became a preacher. I'm so interested to know."

So I began to tell my story, and my dad's sitting opposite of me at the end of the table, and he just had his hands up to his face kind of like this. And he didn't react. And I thought, I felt like I was in a court of law and he was the judge, and I wasn't doing that well. He didn't react at all. Then after it was done, we got ready to go to bed, and my dad said to me, "Greg, I need to walk."

One thing I forgot to tell you is he had a heart attack and blacked out behind the steering wheel and drove into a telephone pole and almost died. So now he's on medication because of his heart problems. He needs to walk every morning. So he says, "Would you walk with me tomorrow morning?" I said, "Okay." And so he knocks at my door at 6:00 in the morning New Jersey time—3:00 California time. I come stumbling out of my bed and we start walking in the park and there's that brisk East Coast air.

And I'm still waking up. He says, "Greg, I listened very carefully to what you said last night." I said, "Okay, good." He says, "And I would like to accept Jesus Christ into my life right now." So I said, "Well, you know, let me go over it one more time. I want to make sure you understand." I went over it again. He goes, "I understand. What do I need to do?" I said, "Well, Dad, you pray. That you do it through prayer."

And he drops to his knees. We're in a park, he drops to his knees. Well, I wasn't going to get on my knees, but since he was on his, I get down on my knees and we prayed, and he prayed to ask Christ to come into his life. And then he said, "Pray for my heart. Pray God heals my heart." "Okay." And I prayed that God would heal his heart. And the amazing thing is he walked with the Lord for 15 years after that, and God even healed his heart on top of that.

But then there's one more dad. This was the last man my mother was married to. And he was dying, and someone told me he's in hospice care in his home. "You should go see him." And I said, "Ah, you know, I'm going to preach somewhere." I'm always going to preach somewhere, aren't I? It seems like in all these stories. "I have to catch a plane, I'm on my way to the airport." "Well, you should go see him. He may not live much longer." I said, "Well, I'll see him when I get back. I'll call him when I get back." And I'm driving to the airport, and God spoke to me as clear as day and said, "You go see him right now."

So I went to visit him, and it was clear he was not far from death. And I said, "I want to give you the gospel one more time." And I did. I said, "Would you like to pray and accept Christ?" He said, "I would." And I prayed with him. And I was so glad I went, and I got on my plane and I landed. And right when I landed, I pulled out my phone and got a text: "He just died."

So here's why I'm telling you all these stories. Even if you came from a fatherless home, you can be a good father. Even if your life is messed up, God can bring good despite the bad. And that's the takeaway truth. A final point—well, almost final, but very close. Even if we didn't have a father, we can be a father figure. There are a lot of godly men that I looked up to as a new Christian that were father figures for me. Chuck Smith was one, not just as a preacher but just as a man. And I was able to see what a man of God looked like.

And you know, maybe you're not the father to someone, but maybe they didn't have a dad and they're looking up to you. My son Christopher had a little buddy named Hank that used to come over all the time. Hank came from a broken home. So Hank would hang out with us and go everywhere with us. Then years later, I talked to Hank as a young adult, now a father. He said, "You know, you were like a dad to me." "What do you mean, Hank?" He goes, "Well, I would just go with you everywhere with your family. I saw how you treated your sons and I saw what a father looked like."

And you can be that for somebody. You know, even if you're not their biological father, you can be that father figure, that mentor, that example for them. And that's so very important. One final point, and this is the last point: we need to leave a godly legacy. So maybe I'm talking to some dads today who have mixed emotions about this occasion called Father's Day because you've not done the best job possible. There's always a second chance. There's always tomorrow. You can start again, start afresh.

But I would just say you want to leave a godly legacy, and that starts by taking your children to church. There is a trend in the church today to go less frequently. A lot of people who used to go to church maybe three times a month now go twice a month, or maybe once a month. And we see this more and more. And here's what I would say to you—I'm not trying to be legalistic, maybe I am, whatever you want to call it—you need to be in church every single Sunday and set the example.

Sunday is the Lord's day. "Well, Dad, there's a great swell or let's go to an amusement park." "No, yeah, maybe we'll do that later in the afternoon, but we're going to go to church together." Listen to this: a study revealed that if Mom and Dad attend church regularly, 72% of their children will remain faithful in attendance. That's pretty good. If you go to church regularly, 72% of your children will do the same.

However, if only Dad attends church regularly, 55% will remain faithful. If only Mom attends regularly, only 15% remain faithful. Sorry, moms. Thank God for you. We'd be in big trouble if the moms were not holding the fort down and trying to step in when the fathers step out. So thank you, ladies, for all that you do. But if neither attend, only 6% will remain faithful. See, that's the power of example. The power—and it also shows the influence of a father. So you need to model it for your children and leave a godly legacy.

Maybe as you've heard this talk about fathers, you would say, "Well, I never heard my dad say he loved me." Well, look, I want to tell you something. He probably loves you more than you may realize. And then again, he may just be a creep and he doesn't love you, I don't know. But I think mostly even the ones that fell short loved us, but they failed, and they would probably admit that.

But I want you to know this: regardless of what your earthly father did or did not do, your Heavenly Father always has and always will love you. You may be fatherless, but you have a Father in Heaven who loves you unconditionally. And he's told you he loves you. He says, "I have loved you with an everlasting love, therefore with lovingkindness I've drawn you." And I love 1st John: "Behold what manner of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called the sons of God." And guess what? This Father in Heaven wants to adopt you into his family. Just as I was adopted, you can be adopted into God's family by believing in Jesus Christ.

Let's pray. Now Father, thank you for this time in your word. and I pray you'll help us all draw close to you. As Jesus said to Mary, "I must depart and go to my God and your God, to my father and your father." We have a father in heaven, and for this we are thankful. So Lord, we commit ourselves to you now and we ask you to bless us as we go our way. Bless again the fathers that are here, and for those that come from troubled homes, from fatherless homes, or homes with fathers that didn't do what they should have done, help them to take comfort, courage, and strength in knowing that they have a father in heaven. Our Father, who art in heaven.

While our heads are bowed and our eyes are closed, or maybe someone who has joined us today who has never known God in this personal way. If you would like God to be your father, if you would like Jesus Christ to forgive you of your sin, just pray this prayer after me: Lord Jesus, I know I'm a sinner, but I know that you are the savior who died on the cross for my sin and rose again from the dead. I receive you into my life now and I choose to follow you. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen. Happy Father's Day.

Guest (Male): A short prayer, but an important prayer from Pastor Greg Laurie today here on A New Beginning. He's just helped those who are making a decision for the Lord today. It's a day they'll never forget. And if you've just prayed that prayer, we want to welcome you into the family of God. Would you let us send you something to help you get started living as a believer? It's Pastor Greg's New Believers Bible, an award-winning version of the Bible that has hundreds of helps for those who are new to the faith. There are more than 10 million of these in print, and we'll send it to you free of any charge when you contact us and ask for the New Believers Bible. Just call 1-800-821-3300. Call anytime, 1-800-821-3300. Or write A New Beginning, Box 4000, Riverside, California 92514. Or go online to harvest.org.

You know, Pastor Greg, we hear from people all the time who tell us how these daily studies have impacted their lives. So many have found the Lord and been encouraged through this teaching.

Greg Laurie: That's right. And we hope our listeners might pray about making an investment so these studies can continue. Yeah, it's really true, Dave. You know, and even a little bit helps. You know, people need to hear the gospel so badly. They need to hear the teaching of the word of God. It changes everything because it changes us.

And I'm so passionate about it, and I'm called to do it, and I'm thankful for it, but I can't do it alone. So I'm going to ask folks that are listening if you think more people need to hear the gospel, if you believe more people need to hear the teaching of the word of God, then prayerfully consider investing in Harvest Ministries and maybe even become a Harvest Partner, which means you're someone who stands with us every month in your faithful giving, and that opens up a lot of new opportunities for us. So thanks for that.

Guest (Male): Yeah, that's right, and we really are thankful for your partnership. You can reach us anytime, day or night, at 1-800-821-3300. That's 1-800-821-3300. Or write A New Beginning, Box 4000, Riverside, California 92514. Or just go online to harvest.org.

Well, next time, Pastor Greg launches a new series in Genesis. We'll go back to the beginning here on A New Beginning. It's a collection of studies called It All Starts Here. Join us here on A New Beginning with pastor and Bible teacher Greg Laurie.