Experience, but the gentleman that's going to speak with us today, he has done that. Uh, his name's Fred Goodwin. Fred has been a pastor in this in this community for several years, been a pastor for 35 years. And about a year ago, I got to know Fred uh because I realized that I really need a pastor. And so I began meeting with Fred. Uh, we get together pretty often, and Fred's just been a mentor in my life for the last year, and I've been blessed by it. And so when it came time for me to ask someone to speak to get the conversation going on parenting, I wanted someone who'd done it to a greater degree than I have, someone who's been been there can share from a place of experience that I can't speak from. And God made it really clear to me as I was actually having coffee with Fred. Uh ask Fred right now, hey Fred, what are you doing on Sunday? Um, can you speak? And he said yes. And so I'm grateful for that. So if you guys wouldn't mind, put your hands together for Fred as he makes his way out. He's a good man, he's gonna share with you. And I think I can say this with confidence because I was in the first gathering. Um, those of you who are parents, the Bible says that the word of God divides. Like it it's it's actually something that penetrates and pierces you. So be be open. Don't be don't be defensive. I've I sat over there and I was repenting halfway through the message, like, Lord help me, I need to do a better job. It's a good thing. God wants us to grow. So just be open to whatever he has to share, Fred.

That wasn't my intent, Justin.

It's like he's speaking to me. You ever have that feeling? You know? It's called the Holy Spirit, so just listen to it. All right? Let me see.

Listen, really. Love you. Well, good afternoon, church. Oh, that was really wimpy. Come on. Come on. And and yes, you can check. It's afternoon. You made it. You probably slept in later than I did. But uh, I'm glad you're here. And you know what? It's a real privilege to be here. I mean that. I've had the privilege of sharing the gospel around the world and uh across the United States, but uh this is really I feel like I'm home. Partly because I am, because we're all in the same family if we believe in Jesus, aren't we? We're all part of a God's family. But also because of the relationship I have with Justin, I pray for him daily, like you. Right? No, you do that, right? Because after all, he and the team of pastors and elders here have a huge responsibility because they have to raise us in living in the kingdom in a culture that no longer wants to even allow us to talk about it. It's a hard business. And and and they need your prayers, and that's why I pray for Justin every day. It's a tough job to live for God. It's a tough job to parent for God. But to give you the context of my life, and then I'm not just just having ideas, um, parenting is the probably one of the roughest things we we ever challenged to do. But I want to share with you who I'm involved with in that process. So the first picture I want to show you is my beautiful wife Jill. Uh I met her when she was 15. She wasn't smart enough to know any better, so she uh agreed to wait for me when I went to the Naval Academy, and um we got married 10 days later. Um we've been married when we're coming up in 44 years. And um from that love we have for one another, we we ended up with three sons. Uh we were climbing around last Christmas. Um my oldest, uh Tim, is at your left. Uh, he's here with us worshiping today. Um my middle Josh is the other man, and Kevin is next to me. Um, and we're just coming around with mom there. Um now because they learned as they were growing up that they should always try to marry up. You all know what I mean by that, don't you? If you have a son, you really want to convince him he needs to marry up. Uh our three learned that lesson and have be chosen beautiful women to be their wives. Um so we now have uh six children. Uh we have three by birth, but our daughters, as we told our girls, uh, that they aren't our daughter-in-laws, because they're in the heart of our sons. So they're in our heart as well. They're our daughters. And so we really consider that we have six children, and the girls know that. And in fact, one of them I told yesterday, we, truth be told, we probably love our daughters more than our sons, but no, I wouldn't say that. I wouldn't say that. Uh, but all of them are raising uh raising their children in the faith. Um Tim and Maureen have those three precious girls, Cain, Shalom, and Eden. Uh Josh on the other side uh with Sarah have Courtney, who's uh at the Savannah College of Art and Design, and then two boys, uh, Luke and James. Kevin and Ashley are up in New York, and uh they have little Riker there, who's now two, and then they blessed us in January with little Evelyn. So we have eight grandchildren. And uh I want to say uh precious and and wonderful, uh, and um I guess I want to say something else. We're not a perfect family. None of us will be, and we ought to let that one die, because we won't be that until we get to the other side of the kingdom. But uh I will say that we are a family who love each other, who speak truth to each other, who text each other on the clan of the goodwins, so we get pictures back and forth throughout the the week. Um, and we have faced the realities of life because, yes, families, yes, parents, there's time that life sucks. Because you have to deal with stuff like cancer and drug abuse and arguments and fighting and life. But we as a family face it together because we all believe in Jesus. You see, what I'm about to share with you, if if you haven't yet been baptized, if you haven't yet said yes to the Lord and entered into his grace, then what I'm about to share with you will make no sense at all. Because you don't learn this in the world, and you don't learn this at school, and you probably don't experience it in business, and many of us, because we come out of broken homes, may not have even picked it up in our families. But we need to learn it from the Lord. We need to learn in his word, and we learn, learn in his spirit, and we need to learn from believing mentors how do we do this in the way that's pleasing to the Lord. Now, as Justin already said, you're in the series now, as you look at Ephesians, as the the reality of how do we live out this life through the Spirit? And yes, it's it's singing praises, and and yes, it's having an attitude of gratitude for everything in life, but it's also submitting to one another. And in Ephesians chapter 6, we're told how to do this, but I didn't even get my wake-up call to understand this. And I was, by this point, already a pastor. But I didn't get my wake-up call until I got home one day when the kids were young. And as a senior pastor, I was pretty worn out. I had uh I was feeling good, had a good day of ministry, poured myself out, I got home, was exhausted, and collapsed in my chair. Guys, you probably had never done that expecting your wife to then take care of you, and I expected her to. Isn't that what she's supposed to do? I mean, I've been serving the Lord all day, you know. And she came up to me with a with a half smile on her face and said, Honey, I I'm interested to hear what how your day went, but at this point it really doesn't matter. But I will tell you, I don't need a fourth child. And I need you to understand that when you come through the door after work, you need to be on because you're a dad. And she said, I don't care how long you stay in the driveway, you can you can pull in, you can sit there for minutes if you need to to collect yourself and get yourself together. But when you come through the door, you need to be on. And and to be honest with you, I didn't get angry. And I realized she was speaking God to me. This was a word from God. That though I had given my life to the Lord, and though I was serving the Lord, and been through seminary, been ordained, done all that stuff, I still didn't understand what that all meant. What does it mean to be on as a godly parent? But the answer is contained in Ephesians chapter 6. And that's what I want to invite you to consider. In Ephesians chapter 6, verse 4, we are told, fathers, do not provoke your children to anger. Now, we have to be very careful when the word of God tells us not to do something. And in this particular case, this is a big something. You see, provoke is a mega word. You know, when you look up uh and do a word search online, you know, Mike gets half a dozen or a dozen uh synonyms, you know, to help you understand what the verb means. If you look up provoke, well, I stopped counting yesterday over 120 words. There's a whole lot of things that we should not be doing with our children. Let me give you some of those synonyms of the word provoke. Do not irritate, do not exasperate, do not annoy, do not ignore, do not agitate, do not upset your children. Let me give you a contemporary context. If you're on your phone and you're on social media watching a YouTube or message, or you're you're listening to the latest podcast, or you're texting somebody, and your child comes in the room, guess what's more important than what you've got in your hand? Dads and moms, you better put that down for the moment. Because the word provoke comes from the French provocateur. The word actually means you are an agent of another. And at that very moment, you have a decision you have to make. Is what's in your hand more important or is your child more important? Because if you don't pay attention, if you ignore and you provoke them to anger because dad doesn't care about me, mom doesn't listen to me, guess what? You've just allowed darkness to come into your room, and that may have a life consequence that that thing you're doing on the phone will never have. Do you hear me? It's that important. Do not provoke your children, dad, moms, and it isn't just my opinion, this is the word of the Lord. You want to be a godly parent? Do not provoke your kids. That's how we submit to them. We realize just how precious they are to God. Do you realize in every single occasion when we have Jesus walking around with the disciples, the disciples are trying to push away the kids, and Jesus is trying to welcome them. Do not hinder the children, let them come to me. And he blesses them. And that's our job. Fathers, do you pronounce a godly blessing over your children every night? You haven't responded yet. You do, right? You bless your child every night. I'll never forget when I was doing that after they went to bed and and and just speaking their name, the last thing I said every night, blessing them and in the name of the Lord. And my about six-year-old at that point, I heard this little voice say, God bless you too, Daddy. And I went, I'll never stop doing this the rest of my life. Do not provoke. But instead, we're told, rather bring them up in the discipline and instruction that comes from the Lord. Bring them up in discipline. And what's so unbelievable is we live in a culture that thinks discipline means punishment. No, it doesn't. Discipline means disciple them, teach them how to grow up, teach, care for them and nurture them, that they will grow up to be mature in the Lord. That's what that means. Now, think about a garden image for a minute. I've learned that from watching uh Jill all these years, who loves gardening even in Georgia. I don't get it. You buy a 10-cent plant, and then we need to invest in $10 of soil to surround it. So she has me dig out these big holes, we get rid of all the bad stuff, and then we put in the good stuff. But then she's got this, all this other stuff that has to be added. And then, of course, all the organic fertilizers, not Roundup, we can't go there anymore. So we, there's all we that's another story, but we do all this other stuff, and then you have to protect them from the bugs and from the rabbits and from the deer, and the fences have to get bigger. And the I feel like I have to be a 24-armed guard out there. Just so this little plant can start to grow. It has to be watered, it has to be cared for, and all the weeds have to be plucked out. Just so it will become the kind of fruit-bearing plant that she's looking for. Welcome to Parenting 101. It is a daily choice and a commitment to say, I am going to pour myself into my children. And that means I'm going to pray every day for them. It means I'm going to study the word. And yes, it means through this daily choice that I'm going to seek to put my faith to be at a more significant place than my feelings. You see, so many people in our culture live by their feelings. They do whatever their heart tells them to do. I've actually had people try to justify that to me. And I try not to laugh. You trust your feelings? Your feelings are part of your fallen nature. No, something goes deeper when you give your life to Christ, and that's your faith. So are you making that choice to live faith and to pour yourself through your faith into your kids? That is, uh, men, will you model for your children what it is to be a godly man? A man of integrity, a man of value, a man who stands by others, a man who knows he's blessed to be a blessing. Women, will you model what a faithful woman is meant to be? Adorned with the grace of God. Will you do that? See, parenting is hard work. And God demands it of us. You see, in that picture I showed you earlier, it's it's the constant reminder, and I actually have that picture in my prayer room. I've had thousands of people who call me Fred or Pastor Fred, but I only have six that call me Dad. I think that helps to understand the priorities of life, don't you? Maybe you've never made a decision to give up a job, a significant job, an important job, a well-paying job for the sake of your family. But when you do, you realize the blessings that are there from God when you make those kind of priorities in your life. What does it mean to parent your kids? Well, well, first, it means that you model life for them, you show them what it's like. For example, we have a saying in our family that comes from my dad, and it was, you can't soar with the eagles if you hoot with the owls. Now, in our family, we always hesitate because we're always being reminded we shouldn't stay out too late if we want to achieve anything the next day. But I realized I had to model that, and I had my whole life. Just that one little saying from my dad. Because I want my family to learn that too. If you gotta be up in the morning, you leave the party the night before. Saturday night for our family is always, oh, dad and mom are the first to leave. Yeah, because tomorrow's more important. Sunday morning is always more important than Saturday night, isn't it? Because we're gathering the but with the body. It's something we just have to model for our families. But but it's it's not just modeling, it's it's teaching them how to live a righteous life. What does it mean to listen to God? For example, with three sons being raised, we were always roughhousing. Roughhousing, even to the point of one time I had to go to the emergency room, and she said, What's the problem? And I said, I've just gotten knocked on the head by my two-year-old. And she said, You need stitches. What were you doing? I said, We were just roughhousing. But no matter what we were doing, during the day or during the evening, there came a time when it was time for prayers. And that meant lighting a candle and stopping everything. Because now we focus on the light who is Christ. And it's time to pray. It's time to share, it's time to hear a bit of the word. It's time to pray. And yes, it's that simple. You discipline yourself to have times that are clearly God time, Christ time, listening time. And then of course they get older. You know, nowadays it's about age 10 or 11, and all of a sudden they're staying up later than you are. You don't light a candle anymore, that doesn't work. So you say goodnight, and you go and have your own prayers. But I have to admit, I always loved it when our bedroom door would be closed, and one of the boys would open the door and say, Hey Dad, just one more thing. Oh, sorry, you're on your knees. And I'd answer their question, they'd close the door back. My first words, I don't think I've ever told them this, was the first word I'd say to the Lord is, Yes, Lord. They saw again that dad is a man of prayer, and they knew I was praying for them. I pray for them and for their kids every day. That's never stopped. Will you teach them how to make choices, good choices? For example, will you teach them how to how to serve? How do you serve the family? Well, as I admitted to the early service, I've only learned about in the last year how not to burn toast. I'm just, I didn't, there's a little dial. Did you you may not know this? There's a dial on, I didn't know this. There's a little dial on the toaster, and you can not burn the toast. But anything beyond that, I can handle bowl of cereal. Anything beyond that, just beyond my abilities. Fortunately, Jill is an amazing cook. Amazing. But you know what I can do to serve my family? I can do the dishes. I can do the dishes every night. In fact, I can do the dishes when the family gathers for family events because I can't cook, I can't barbecue. But I can do the dishes. So the family can continue to mingle and share and they need to see dad serving them. Oh, sure, sometimes they come over and help, and sometimes they don't because you're busy in conversation, and that's fine. Because I'm modeling for them and teaching them what it means to serve. That's what it means. Look at what Christ did for us. And you're teaching them how to handle conflict. You're asking questions. For example, part of this is not just modeling and teaching, it's coaching them to face life. You see, a parent's responsibility is to always attend to two issues with their their children. One is how to get them through what they're facing uh today, but also from that situation and experience, how to help them to prepare to face it the next day. Does that make sense? In other words, if they've gotten bullied, you want to hear about that, don't you, parents? But not because it's a politically correct or incorrect thing to do or somebody you need to report, but rather how are they processing that? What was said, you weren't hurt, were you? But then what have you done about that, son? Have you forgiven them? What do you mean I don't want to forgive them? Oh, I know you don't want to. We never want to. But you know Jesus did for us. Well, I don't know how to forgive. Well, then let's talk about that. Do you remember how Jesus forgave the Roman soldiers who drove the nails into their into his hands? He prayed, Father, forgive them, they don't know what they do. So we teach that to the kids. And hope that they one day would teach it to their kids. After the Lord's prayer, that ought to be the prayer we most often have on our lips when somebody puts us down. Father, forgive them, they don't know what they do. And then, of course, once you help them through that situation, maybe they even want to pray at that moment. Would you pray with me, Dad? Of course. But then you don't let them go until you ask the next question. Son, how are you gonna handle this next week? What do you mean? Oh, being put down by people is just part of life. Just part of life. You see, the parent always has to have an objective perspective. The child doesn't have to because the child hasn't gotten that part yet, hasn't figured that one out yet. I'm fascinated how many times my wife, who's been in preschool ministry for decades, how many times she comes home and just is shocked that some parent has lit into this teacher and lit into the staff because little two-year-old or three-year-old was upset about something. And the mom is just taking it as truth and is gonna take it out on somebody. And when Jill is a director or one of the teachers suggests there might be another perspective, the parent is quick to defend their child. Really? That's godly parenting. You see, too often nowadays, I think, because we live in a world that everybody has to blame and fight, I think too often parents are are like a thermometer hanging on a wall. And they respond to whatever however their child feels. They respond if the child's having a horrible day, they have a horrible day. If the child's having a great day, they have a great day. And they're driven by the circumstances. How sad. One of my friends was greeting his church as they were coming out one day, and he asked one of the women, So, how are you doing? And she said, Well, I guess under the circumstances, pretty good. And he said, What are you doing under there? Excuse me, we've been redeemed. We aren't driven by circumstances anymore. Life is tough. Yes, it is. Life is hard. We're going to be broken a lot, yeah. But we have a redeemer. His name's Jesus. He makes all things new. We aren't driven by the circumstances anymore. We are to change the circumstances in which we live. Aren't we? So guess what, folks? I'm going to give you another picture. Stop today being a thermometer and just repeating everything else you see and hear. Instead, be a thermostat. A thermostat is connected to a power source, and a master, another, comes along and adjusts the thermostat to change the situation, and that's what we're called to be. And if in any other circumstance we're called to be that, we are certainly called to be that as parents. We're a thermostat. We hear what happens, we process it with them, we ask the Lord's help to change that situation so there's a new perspective, a new truth, more love, pouring on healing, pouring on prayer, speaking a word from the word itself. And shaping the situation. Because what are we doing? We're seeking to nurture our children to be strong. How do we do that? We ask a lot of questions. By the time they get to be teenagers, we certainly don't ask them yes-no questions. Hey, do you have a good day at school? Yeah, and you get some grunt from a 14-year-old. You never ask yes or no questions anymore. Not for teenagers. You ask the questions that make them think. What's the best thing that happened today? If we were giving thanks to God right now, what would it be for today in your life? Another question we use rather frequently at the dinner table was what are you struggling with most this week? And I can promise you, as parents, you're always going to be surprised by that one. Or when they come home excited about something they did for a friend, oh, you mean you were blessed to be a blessing and you live that? Isn't that what we're supposed to be? Isn't that what we're trying to nurture them to be? Mature, strong in the Lord. We are blessed to be a blessing. We've been redeemed to live. I remember boys came to me one day and said, Hey dad, I gotta ask a question. Yeah, what's that? How come we never go off to Disney World like all of our friends? I said, Well, your mom's a preschool director and I'm a pastor. We don't get paid, probably, what your friends' parents get paid. But there's something else. Really? What's that? We tithe. We tithe, what's tithing? And we're off and running. Well, we it all the money we get is a gift from God and it doesn't belong to us. It's all God's. And he commands us at a minimum to give away at least 10%. So we do. So we don't have the resources to go to the disease. But we'll have a good vacation. We'll do exciting stuff. Do you see? We're always looking to ask questions. We're always excited about how to equip them for what they're facing now and how they can learn to grow up to be able to stand on their own. And everything is the stage of life. You don't treat a four-year-old like you do a two-year-old. You don't treat a 12-year-old like you do a nine-year-old. You don't treat a 16-year-old like you do a 12-year-old, or you might get slugged. Folks, we're all in different stages. We don't like to be treated like children. And unless they're under the age of six, they probably don't either. At least not the way that many in the world treat their children. We're there to love, we're there to speak truth, we're there to encourage them, we're there to build them up so they become strong, fruit-bearing plants for the Lord Jesus. Now, what's interesting is that by God's grace, they will eventually become adults. Because you've taught them about checkbooks and you taught them about credit cards and you taught them about how to how to honor people and you taught them how to respect people and you taught them how to take their value from God and not the circumstances and troubles that they're in. And you begin seeing God working in them in extraordinarily wonderful ways. But there's even a sidebar and I want to mention that, because as our sons were getting older, I sensed in prayer that there was going to be one day a very special blessing for us. And one day I realized that if we do our work well, each of our children as adults will count us to be one of their close friends. You can't be a friend to your kids when they're eight or twelve or sixteen. But one day I believed that I would, if I did it well, I would be a good friend to each of my sons and daughters. And I realized it was all my responsibility to create that and not theirs. Folks, do you hear what I'm saying? That that if Jill and I did it well enough, one day they would be grateful for us as we're grateful for them. And they'd want to call just to talk. And they'd want to share life with us. And when the dog dies last night, they want to call us to come and help them. That's what it is to be family. You see, when our kids become adults, it it's it's still the it's still modeling, it's still teaching, it's still coaching, but now the view is from the balcony. You're not actively involved in the day-to-day. They have left our family to have their own. We are not their immediate family anymore. Adult parents get over it, or parents of adults, I should say, get over it. If your son or daughter have gone off and married someone, they have their family. We're not the immediate family anymore, but we do have a view from the balcony. We know them, and by God's grace we'll get to know their grandchildren. And how do we model? How do we teach? How do we coach? It's when they ask us for help. When they holler up and say, Hey, pop pop, can you help? Sure, what do you need? But we don't tell them how to live. We don't correct them when we think they're doing something wrong. We keep praying. We keep modeling. And we keep being available. So when they ask questions of us, we're ready to be there for them. Do you hear how hard this is? Do you hear how we can't do this without Jesus? We cannot do this. Because only He, through the Spirit and the Father's care, can change our hearts and minds. So we don't get offended when our kids do something that is crazy or stupid. So we keep loving them when we just want to sc scream. We keep holding them close when we want to just give it up. No. We want to be there for them. And yes, I still do dishes. And I'll continue to do dishes. And I'll continue to pray for every one of them. Every single day. Until the Lord calls me home. Now again, this doesn't make any sense if you haven't entered into the kingdom. How do we do that? We do that through baptism first. By saying yes to the Lord and allowing him to forgive us through his blood and be made new. Because if anyone is in Christ, he or she's a new creation. The old is gone. And that's what we're celebrating right now. So how about bowing your heads with me and let's pray for those who are about to enter this life that we're seeking to live? Not by our efforts, but by God's grace. Father, we thank you for those who are entering your kingdom today through this act of faith, through stepping out and saying yes to you. And Father, we pray with them as their new family that they would be blessed, that they would be filled with hope and joy and life, and that you would so fill them with your spirit that they would know they like us are new creations. And we pray that this would be day one of an exciting new venture for them as they join us in what it is to be people on mission for you. We pray this in the holy name of Jesus. Amen.