What I Learned About God from my Dad

Happy Father's Day! Let's give it up for all the dads! Come on! They need to hear it! Happy Father's Day dads and grandpas and uncles and godfathers! You are awesome and we love you! Well good morning! My name is René. I am a proud father and soon to be grandfather. I don't know how long it's been since I mentioned that but really stoked about that. Just a month away, Dan. I'm really, really excited about it. And you also know me as one of the pastors here at Twin Lakes Church as the Grand Marshal of the Aptos Parade and as the celebrity endorser of the abhancer. So really glad to be with you today.

We're gonna do something a little bit different today as you see if you're just joining us for the first time you chose a great weekend because what we normally do is do kind of a Bible study at this point in the service. I love it. I love the series we're in right now. It's called Meals with Jesus where we're looking at the 10 Meals with Christ in the Book of Luke and we're gonna continue that. We got two more to go in the Book of Luke next weekend. The weekend after that we're closing it off as Adrienne said with a big giant church meal after every service. A big church potluck picnic.

But today we decided we do something different for Father's Day and it's this. We have a whole panel up here to talk about this topic what I learned about God from my dad. And here's why we want to talk about this. It seems to me like fathers get kind of short shrift in our society. When you look at sitcoms, when you look at movies, dads are usually either buffoons or tyrants, right? But there's a lot of good dads. There's a lot of dads who've been great role models. Now I understand that there have been negative experiences with fathers that many of us have had here in this room and we'll be addressing that as the morning goes on. But we want to honor good fathers.

Why? We want to talk about these stories to be an encouragement to good fathers so that you know you're not invisible. People are noticing what you do and it makes a difference in your children's and grandchildren's lives. And also we want to encourage you if you are a father, if you're a grandfather, if you're an uncle, if you have any young children in your life that you can be a father role model too. We want to encourage you it is possible to be a positive role model. And so to share with us, we have three wonderful people then I'm gonna be wrapping it up.

First of all we've got Sarah Bentley. Sarah spent many of her formative years here at the church. Her father was CEO of Mount Herman Christian Conference Center. And then Sarah has gone into ministry herself. Sarah's been a pastor for 16 years at Christ Community Church in Milpitas and then at First Presbyterian Church in Boone, North Carolina. And Sarah and her husband Jeremy and their two small children have just moved back to Santa Cruz County. So let's welcome Sarah Bentley. She's gonna be sharing with us.

And you'll also hear from Dan Baker. Dan has been on staff here at Twin Lakes Church for 125 years. He has been here a long time. And no Dan for five years Dan was program director at Camp Hammer for 22 years. Dan was worship pastor here at Twin Lakes Church and now he is hitting it out of the park as our pastor of care and senior ministries. Let's welcome Dan. We'll be hearing from him as well.

And then the last of the little TED talk length talks you'll be hearing is from a woman who has been on staff here for 11 years, seven of those years as our college ministries director and the last four as our venue service producer. As the rest of us have a seat right now let's welcome Sarah Marsh as Sarah kicks us off this morning.

Hello, good morning. I'm so excited to be here. I love I get to speak first. So my name is Sarah and I grew up in a family. I was the second of four daughters, second of four girls. Christmas card. This was our Christmas card one year. It was the 80s you guys. Matching Christmas sweaters. That's what you did. So now including my mom that means my dad was surrounded by five women all the time. Poor guy right? No he loved it. He loved it.

My dad had a really hard childhood and he was a bit rough around the edges. But I believe that having daughters really softened him and made him more kind and loving. So today we get to share something that we learned about God from our fathers and I would like to share a saying that my dad had for my sisters and I growing up. He would ask us how do you spell love? L-O-V-E and he would say no T-I-M-E. Now when you're nine and you take everything literally I'm just imagining going to school and the teacher's like Sarah spell love T-I-M-E incorrect. So but in our family how do you spell love? T-I-M-E.

So with that saying in mind I would like to read a story about an interaction between Jesus and children. This is in Mark 10 starting verse 13. People were bringing little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this he was indignant. He said to them let the little children come to me and do not hinder them for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it and he took the children in his arms and he placed his hands on them and blessed them.

Jesus cared about children. I'm imagining the disciples saying things like don't bother the teacher sorry kids Jesus is too busy he has more important things to do don't waste his time. But the Bible says that Jesus was indignant and actually rebuked his disciples for keeping the children away. His time was well spent with these precious children. He took the children in his arms. The Bible says he placed his hands on them and he blessed them. It was one of the ways that he showed his love.

My dad loved spending time with my sisters and I. He and my mom made it a point to have family dinner every night and we'd sit around the table and my dad would ask each of us about our day and then we would move into a more serious time of you know telling jokes doing impressions of each other or maybe spontaneously bursting out into a song or dance with socks on our ears. That was normal. My mom was a nurse. She worked every Saturday and so Saturday was dad's day with the daughters because we love alliteration and so Saturday's were my favorite day.

We would get up and we'd pile into our old Volvo station wagon and we would drive to the hospital where my mom worked and we would have dinner with or lunch with her in the cafeteria and then my dad would take us to a pond and we would feed ducks with day-old bread and get chased away by the geese and swans. They're not nice. Don't like them. And then you know we go to a park and my dad would push us on the swings or chase us down the slide. Saturdays were wonderful.

Now when you're one of four kids it's hard to get one-on-one time with a parent. That's just a lot of us. Something that my dad did when we were growing up which was really really neat was he would plan special days with just him and one daughter. Just us. No other sisters. And that was really impactful for me. I remember that, gosh just us, not the other three, that he would take the time to plan these little getaways or trips. So I have a picture. The first time I ever went to Disneyland, this is me and my dad. Now before it was Tarzan's treehouse, it was Swiss family Robinson treehouse and that is what we are in front of. Yes, old school. I love it.

And so that's what we're in front of but I distinctly remember being terrified of the Matterhorn abominable snowmen. Yes. Yeah. If you've been to Disneyland you can hear their roars everywhere and I was so scared. Somehow my dad convinced me to go on this ride and this was me the whole time. What dad? No, I'm not opening my... The minute I open my eyes, they'll be there. No, I don't care that we're still in line and haven't gone on the ride yet. That was a great trip. My first time on a plane, my first time to Disneyland. Loved it.

My dad would spend time with my sisters and I. School projects, fifth grade. I made the volcano for the science fair. Baking soda, vinegar, everywhere. Fine. He was there. He also helped make my most favorite Halloween costume ever. Are you guys ready? A box of popcorn. I would have won all the awards if that was a thing back then. It wasn't but I love the outfit. I think under my popcorn headpiece, I think I had a mullet. Oh yeah. Braces and a mullet. Awesome.

My sisters and I, we all loved singing, acting, and dancing and so my dad made sure that he was at all of our choir performances and dance recitals and school plays and musicals. I look back on my life and I see all the time the T-I-M-E that my dad spent with me. The time he intentionally spent with me, it made me feel so loved and so valued and so important. I have a more recent picture of us. No, no. Excellent. Next one. How'd that get in there? My dad, okay, so my dad, he's not perfect and he will be the first one to say that. He, like all parents, made mistakes and kind of learned this whole parenting thing, you know, as he went on.

But my father and I, we have an amazing relationship as adults because of the time that he made for me growing up. When I was asked to share something that I learned about God for my dad, this story of Jesus and the little children was the first one that popped into my head. Children were not a burden to Jesus. On the contrary, children were a joy and he wanted to spend time with them. So my encouragement to you is that if you're a father, spend time with your children, whatever that looks like for your family. Even if they're older, it doesn't matter. It's never too late.

And this is also an encouragement to all of us that we are God's children. He loves spending time with you. He takes delight in you and you bring him joy. In closing, I would just like to thank Frank Marsh for showing me how to spell love. T-I-M-E. Thank you.

Thank you, Sarah. It's great. Hi everyone. Good morning. I hear the picture of me when I was just a toddler in my dad's arms. Pretty cute, huh? I'm talking about dad. He was a cute guy and I think I was actually kind of a spoiled brat. My parents sent me to Biola College, paid all my expenses. I didn't have to work. I was too busy doing things like this. I was too busy trying to be cool. I don't know how that outfit works out with the cool thing, but the guitar is nice. And there's Steve Russo, a professional drummer that I played with. That was, oh, that was cool.

Anyway, so I was busy doing that, but there were times when I needed some spending money and some friends of mine and I decided we needed to make some money. So we started a company that painted houses. We called our company the Paint Company. We even had business cards and we actually got a job painting a house, which was kind of cool. And so we got this job. We were painting the house and they had this really cool old truck and we decided we would take it as payment rather than the money because we were building up this huge business. There's a picture coming up here of the truck. It was a beaut. We called it the Yellow Rhino Chaser actually at one point. It had PG&E style toolboxes on the back. It was just a great truck, but our company kind of fizzled because we frankly got tired of painting houses and it just was too much work, you know.

And so I was stuck trying to dispose of this truck, but I didn't really want to get it out of the family. I like the truck too much. In fact, there might even be another owner of that truck in this audience here today. Well, anyway, so I called up my dad. I said, "Hey dad, want to buy a truck?" Well, he, you know, hemmed and hot and thought about it, but he agreed finally to buy the truck. So I was glad, you know, we're gonna have it. You know, I was in LA area. He was here in Santa Cruz and and I said, "Oh dad, by the way, your truck needs new tires." He hadn't even seen it. You know, it's not gonna be safe to drive it home the way it is. So he agreed. We got tires and I drove it home.

Well, let's fast forward 25 years. I'm married. I have kids of my own. My dad is 75 years and he's had this motor home for about 13 years. He decides it's time to retire from being a motorhome owner and wants to give it to me. And I thought about it. I thought, "This is gonna be a big project." And trust me, it is a huge project because I did take it. Well, that day that I went to pick up the motorhome, I was very grateful for it. My dad signed the pink slip and I went out of the driveway getting ready to back it out. He said, "Oh son, you know where I'm going with this, don't you? Your motorhome needs new tires." 25 years he waited for that moment. Payback had happened, man. This is payback time. It's funny, he actually felt kind of guilty saying that to me. He offered me some gas money because he knew I would need it. Oh, dad.

Three years later, he was 78. He was diagnosed with a terrible disease, pulmonary fibrosis, which eventually just takes away your lung function over time. There he is with my mom. He was on oxygen at that time. But I'll tell you, my dad approached that illness with incredible faith and grace. And God did amazing things in his life through that. You know, he was not a perfect dad. Not at all. But because he had faith in God, God shaped him dramatically through the trials of his life. His favorite scripture passage during that time was found in 2nd Corinthians 4 verses 16 through 18. Verse 16 says this, "Therefore we don't lose heart, though outwardly we are wasting away." Our bodies are wasting away. "Yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. I saw my dad being renewed as he went through this illness." His faith was absolutely amazing.

He continuously focused on eternal values. The Lord meant everything to him. His family meant everything to him. And he let us know. But he was getting sicker and sicker, eventually on full-time oxygen, in a wheelchair. And he considered his body like the old song "This Old House." Probably not familiar with that one. Trent hasn't done that one real frequently. "This Old House." It's an old country tune. I forget the name of the artist. But anyway, this is a house. The body is a house. This old house is getting older. The shingles are wearing out. And I'm not gonna need it anymore because I'm going to see the Lord. That was his favorite song. He knew he was going to see Jesus.

The day he died was an amazing day I'll never forget. It was the first day that he didn't get dressed. He just... something was wrong. My mom called my wife, Gwenda, and they talked. And mom explained kind of how he was breathing and things like that. And Gwenda kind of recognized some of those signs that maybe the end was coming soon. And so she gave me a call. I was at the church at that time. And actually this was the day of our dress rehearsal for our huge Christmas program. So I was very, very busy. And she said, "You know, I think you need to go over there and see your dad. You know, it may be. It may be today." Well, I went over to the house that afternoon. I'm so glad that I did. I tell you, even that day, the day he died, he had not lost his humor.

As I walked in the door, he said, "Oh, hi son. Are you here to give me my last rights?" "Dad, don't say that." Well, we had a really great visit. I told him how proud I was to be his son and how proud I was of him as a man of faith. And he told me similar words. Later that afternoon, some of his grandchildren showed up to the house and they sat around the bedroom and my dad led them in singing, "Soon and very soon, we are going to see the King." He knew he was. Very next verse there in that passage says, "So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but what is unseen. Since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." He was fixing his eyes of faith on Jesus and that evening he saw Jesus face to face. I'm grateful for a dad that finished a life so well. I will always be thankful for my father and for the faith that he had.

Now let's welcome Sarah Bentley as she shares with us.

Good morning. Well, it was the summer of 1990 and my family was making a major life transition. We were moving from New Jersey back to Michigan and our house was filled with boxes and one of those evenings we decided we kind of need to eat dinner but we don't even have dishes or utensils or anything that isn't packed away and so my parents packed us into the car and said, "Let's go get some dinner." We ended up at the fine dining establishment you and I know as Denny's and as we waited for our food to come that evening my dad looked at us with this serious yet smirk on his face and said, "Today's the day girls. Today is the day I teach you a very big life skill."

We said, "All right dad, what is it?" He said, "How to make and launch the perfect spit wad." We said, "All right dad, no time like the present." So he takes the straw, removes the wrapper, wads it up, applies the necessary wetness. This was a legitimate spit wad. Locks and loads it into his straw. In taking aim directly at my head, gets ready to launch this thing. Well I, at the last minute, dodge out of the way and that spit wad launched with expert perfection, sails right past me and nails this guy at the next table over directly in the side of the face. This gentleman who was not a small gentleman gets up out of his chair and starts looking around and my dad's instruction to us was simple and clear, "Girls put your eyes down, look down at the table."

My dad had a great sense of humor. He loved life. He loved his family. But more than anything, he loved Jesus Christ because he knew that Jesus had first taken the initiative to love him. He was well aware that he was imperfect. He was well aware of his shortcomings and his failings and yet he knew that God loved him. And so it's no surprise to me that one of his favorite passages of Scripture is found in Luke 15, specifically the part of Luke 15 that tells the story of the prodigal son. You might be familiar with that story. A father has two sons, the youngest of whom says, "Dad, I really would like my inheritance now. I know you're not dead yet, but I really want your money. So if you could give that to me, that'd be great because I'd love to go off and kind of experience life." And so his dad gives him the inheritance early and the son leaves.

Well the son makes poor choice after poor choice after poor choice and it's not long before he finds himself with nothing. And so in desperation he decides to return to his father and his plan in returning to his dad is that he's gonna fall on his sword and say, "Dad, I'm not worthy. Make me like one of your servants." But Luke tells us that his dad sees him when he's walking down the road from a long way off and this is his father's response that we read in Luke 15 beginning in verse 20. "But while he the son was still a long way off, his father saw him, was filled with compassion for him. He ran to his son through his arms around him and kissed him. The son said, 'Father, I've sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.' But the father said to his servants, 'Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger, sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let's have a feast and celebrate. For the son of mine was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found. So they began to celebrate.'

You see, the father in this story is meant to be a picture of our Heavenly Father, one who is looking for us, pursuing us, and ready to welcome us back with an extravagant love. And that kind of extravagant love was how my dad endeavored to love my family. In fact, it was one of my last years at UC Davis and I came out of my physics class one day to find my dad standing outside of my lecture hall. And my initial response was, 'Oh my goodness, something is wrong. He's coming to tell me.' And he said, 'No, I called your roommates and found out your class schedule. I thought I would come up just to take you out to lunch.' He had driven all the way from down here in Santa Cruz up to Davis just to take me out to lunch.

And then he said, 'You know why I'm doing this? Because you're worth it and I love you and I want you to know that you're worth pursuing and that you're worth loving.' That was the kind of dad I was privileged to have and it helped me understand at a deeper level the unconditional love of our Heavenly Father for us. Now I know that a lot of us in this room this morning don't have that kind of an earthly father and yet thank God that our Heavenly Father does love us extravagantly and does pursue us. And so on this Father's Day would that be an encouragement to you no matter what your earthly father was like that you would take peace and encouragement knowing that your Heavenly Father loves you extravagantly.

Thank you so much Sarah. In fact let's thank Sarah and Dan and Sarah all of them so much for sharing. That was beautiful. I loved it. I just want to encourage you dads that are here today when you do take time with your daughters or your sons or your grandchildren or other children in your life when you pursue them and spend little dates with them when you show faith in the face of hard times in life you can't even imagine the impact it makes on the next generation for years for decades to come. So don't stop don't give up dads, granddads, uncles. You are making a huge difference in this world and people notice and we love you and we support you and we want to say thank you. Let's put our hands together one more time for the dads that are here today.

Dads you've been anointed and appointed by God into your position. But now here's the thing maybe you've heard all these great stories about great dads and you're going that's great great great but I didn't have a dad like that. In fact you might be saying what some people said to me earlier René my experience with my father was anything but positive. Somebody told me I love hearing about God as our Savior or God the Holy Spirit but then when I every time they told me René every time you say God the Father this person told me I cringe because my father was basically a 100% negative influence on our family and maybe that's you maybe your dad abandoned your family when you and your siblings were very young maybe your father was an abuser a tyrant at home a negative example or maybe your father died when you were young and you don't even know what it means to have a father and so all this talk about good dads and your heavenly father it's just not connecting.

Well the good news is this you do have a father who is even better than these great examples of earthly fathers you have a father who fulfills the longing you have deep in your soul for that kind of a connection because you have the heavenly father that's the father that you've been longing for and the father that you have right now and let me tell you how I discovered that in my life and wrap it up with just two stories about my own dads. Two stories about two dads I had two fathers both of whom died young. Many of you have already heard me talk about my biological father Fred Schlepfer this is a picture of Fred and my mom Rosemary with me on the first day I was brought home from the hospital and I love this picture because it's kind of artsy they're off-center and it's like a Disney movie because the tree is leaning in for a look at the new child right there so I kind of like that but my father died when I was very young I was not even four years old when this man passed away from a quick-acting cancer and I remember how growing up each new year I would process the grief anew because a four-year-old processes grief different than a five-year-old and a six-year-old and a seven-year-old and so as you learn as you grow older what it means that you had a parent die you have to process it all over again and I remember one of the times that happened was the day before bring your dad to school day at our elementary school I was probably about eight or nine years old and it just struck me that afternoon that I didn't have a dad to bring to school like the other kids did this was the 60s and most of the kids had a dad to bring to school I didn't even have a grandpa to bring to school and so I was walking down the hallway and it suddenly just hit me like a ton of bricks and I'll remember I began just weeping with this realization my back went against the wall of the hallway and I slid down the hall wall and just ended up crumpled on the floor with my head in my hands just sobbing and my mom is in her bedroom she hears this happening and she rushes out and sees her son sobbing like this and she just sits down on the carpet and puts her arm around me and just waits for me to expend all that sad energy and then when I was gulping for air she said in her Swiss accent what is wrong René and I said all the other kids have a dad to bring to school and I don't have a dad I don't have a grandpa my life is terrible and she put her arm around me as I kept crying and then she said these words and these words are like seared into my memory because they were such a cornerstone for me she said with her arm around me you know René you're right you do not have a father here on earth Fred is gone he is in heaven my husband your father he is in heaven now he is not here and then she said but you have a heavenly father and he is right there with you all the time and he will never leave you and I'll never forget this because she used three examples and I'll never forget it because the first one was this she says and he will always be with you every time the other kids make fun and I thought well other kids don't always make fun why would you use that as an illustration and then she said and every time you're taking a hard test in school he is he is cheering for you and he is cheering for you every time you and your friends make sport make sport and she said I show you something and she goes into a room gets her big new American Standard Version Bible and she comes out and she flips it open to this verse probably one of the first verses I ever memorized Psalm 68 verse 5 and again just branded into my memory she says look what it says and I read it out loud as she pointed to it with her fingers as a father to the fatherless as a defender of the widow is God in his holy dwelling and I read that and I realized a father to the fatherless that's me I'm in the Bible and it says God is my father in a special way a defender of the widows that means that God's got my mom's back he's got her back he's got our families back our little family is going to be okay and that was so powerful to me realizing that although I don't have an earthly father I have a heavenly father and I pray that that's also a channel for you if your experience with your earthly father was negative or was absent was a big zero that you realize that longing you have is fulfilled in God the best father of all.

Now my idea of what God the father like was like we've got even deepened when my mom remarried when I was about 12 years old she remarried my stepfather or married my stepfather jet and that's them right there my mom on the left there's jet wearing his 70s you know polyester sport coat jet was a great guy jet was a career Navy man a real man's man served for 20 years in the Navy and then went into full-time Christian ministry after he retired and that's when I got to know him now I was a little bit intimidated by jet because I didn't know what it was like to have a dad all my ideas of dad again came from TV sitcoms and TV movies and so on dads were either blunder urs or they were tyrants and I kind of assumed that jet would be on the marine drill sergeant sides and see was in the military for all that time and so I kind of stood to the side and watch to see how he dealt with me and my sister and he was unfailingly gracious was such a good man but I learned what it was like to be under the drill sergeant regime from not jet but my step brother the marriage came with his youngest son Tim Tim and I shared a room I was a wimpy scrawny junior high kid and Tim was a burly muscular blue-eyed long flowing blonde hair guitar playing many girlfriends cool smoking my parents didn't know about the smoking he was a junior in a high school and he was just like Fonzie in happy days or something the kid everybody else thought was super cool and he had to share a room with me and I'll never forget he would look at me just with disgust and he would say do not make me publicly claim you as my stepbrother when you go around walking like this he said let me teach you how to walk not like this walk like this and I go okay you know I try to walk and every time I'd walk like this he would just like hit me across the face and and he would say don't dress like that to cords dress with jeans like I do and don't talk like this talk like this and so he was teaching me all these things and I began to resent Tim's you know constant correction to me and so again a memory that seems like to me like was yesterday one time jet were in the kitchen and Tim had gone out with some friends of his he was 16 years old and he was driving my stepfather's prized vintage VW beetle I mean it was in pristine factory condition and he and his friends that were packing the car were going too fast on curvy Hicks Road in Las Gatos going into the Santa Cruz Mountains and they rolled the car off the road into a tree totaled the car the kids could only get out by smashing the windows and crawling out they were all miraculously perfectly fine there were no injuries but the car was totaled.

So Tim finds a payphone somewhere along there or somebody a farmer's phone or something and he calls home and I remember when jet got the phone call his face went pale at first and went okay you okay all right hangs at the phone tells us Tim's been in a terrible accident the cars totaled but Tim and his friends are perfectly fine I am going to drive to the scene of the accident to pick them up right now and I said Tim's okay and he said yes I said can I go with you because I knew this was an opportunity for justice that finally my cool 16 year old stepbrother was going to receive his comeuppance from his navy father and so I got into the car eagerly and we drove there and I still remember the car being almost upside down still steam rising from it and Tim and his friends sitting guiltily on the side of the road and my stepbrother opens the car door and just slams it and I get out I think this is gonna be great and jet strides purposely toward Tim and I purposely walk toward Tim like this and Jim jet reaches down and picks up Tim by both shoulders and lifts him to his feet and Tim starts to apologize and jet puts his fingers on Tim's lips and he says son I love you and he gives him a big bear hug and he says now let's go home and we got back into the car and I was so disappointed but eventually after I got over my disappointment I realized that was a picture of how our Heavenly Father is toward us.

I love Psalm 103 where it says this about God he does not deal harshly with us as we deserve for his unfailing love toward those who fear him is his greatest the height of the heavens is above the earth now watch this verse 13 the Lord is like a what a father to his children and in case you're going yeah a father mean abusive tyrant father no this kind of a father he is what tender and what compassionate to those who fear him and that fear it isn't some kind of abject cowering that's standing in awe and respect of who he is that's your father and so often when we make wrecks of our lives large and small we don't want to come to our Heavenly Father because we figure he's just gonna lecture us and chew us out and and make our lives even more miserable but what he does is he comes up to you and he lifts you up and he looks you in the eyes and he says I want you to know something I love you now let's go home amen and that's my prayer is that all of us would realize that that you'd never run away from the father of the prodigal son but that you'd realize he comes running to you and if you've been running away from him he says wait wait don't you realize I love you I'm the kind of father you long for tender and compassionate now come home and maybe this is your very first week at Twin Lakes Church and you've been wondering what kind of a reception you'd receive it's this kind of a reception God looking at you saying I love you now welcome home.

I don't know what kind of a God or what kind of a father you had growing up or what kind of a father you perceive God to be but that's the kind of a father he defines himself to be and on the authority of Scripture you can claim that to be your reality and your relationship with him amen. Listen I want to pray for you and pray for all of the fathers here and those of us who need to get to know our Heavenly Father but but as we close in prayer I also want to pray for our nation because we've been through some tough violent things lately and really our world this is the one week mark of the horrific shooting in Orlando it's also the one year mark of the shooting at the church in Charleston it's also the two week mark of a shooting at a mosque in Damascus and there's many other incidents I could bring up but listen whether it's at a club or a mosque or a church your Heavenly Father loves all those people and he calls us to pray for all those people.

The Bible says this is what Paul urges I urge them first of all that petitions prayers intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people for all people and specifically he says for Kings and all those in authority that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness because God wants all people to be saved he says pray for all people pray for those in authority pray for peace and pray for their salvation so let's pray for that right now would you bow your heads with me Heavenly Father thank you for your love for us our hearts are heavy because we know you grieve with those who are grieving today because of all those things and more and so I pray that the comfort that can be found in our Heavenly Father in you would just envelop those who grieve right now and God we pray for those in authority I mean police chiefs mayors city councilmen senators the president that they may lead wisely through these times God I pray that Twin Lakes Church would be just a beacon of the love of the Heavenly Father to all these people you love everywhere and that they would be saved but God we particularly want to say thank you for our dads today thank you that you put men in our lives to lead us and for those of you for those of us who are men God we just want to model your strong love to the people in our lives we want to recommit ourselves to be a Heavenly Father kind of a father model to those all around us the most importantly Father thank you that you are tender and compassionate to us and so if there's anybody here who's wrecked their life in some way recently I pray that they would just run back into your loving arms right now we pray this in Jesus name amen.