Fathers on the Front Lines | Jason Gore

What's going on ho family? How you doing this morning?

Happy Father's Day weekend to you.

Uh, if you've got your Bibles, would you go ahead

and turn to Titus chapter one?

We're gonna be continuing in our series

that we've been calling Field Notes for the journey.

Uh, and, uh, I, we've actually entitled this message is only

because we see it in the text,

but I think very appropriate for Father's Day weekend.

Uh, it is going to be called liars, evil beasts,

and lazy gluttons.

That'd be Dads are like, you tricked me.

He told me to come this weekend.

The good news is it's not

because it's talking about us here.

Uh, it's referring actually to the people who lived

on the island of Crete.

Uh, but the reality is, uh, dads, we got a tough job.

And I'm not saying it's tougher than moms, okay?

Uh, my, my wife is gonna hear this sermon.

Not saying that, I'm not even saying it's more difficult

than people who don't have kids.

But the reality is, uh,

it is difficult in today's world at times to know how

to operate in the space that God has called us

to love and to lead.

But here's what I do know, and I'm gonna prove this

by asking a question.

Men, uh, specifically dads.

But if someone showed up to your home to bring havoc

to your family physically, uh, or emotionally,

and you know that it's your job

and that you would willingly step in between harm's way

and your family to protect them,

would you just stand to your feet?

Yeah. Yeah. Celebrate that.

The reason is, is

because we know There is something

that, look, they're already sitting down.

They're like, I know we don't get celebrated a lot.

We're gonna go and sit back down. Thanks, I'm done.

Uh, we know there's something inside of us

that tells us we have a role

and a responsibility inside of our family, and so well done.

Uh, but there are moments we know in life

and in leadership that requires more than sentiment.

It requires more than words. Just saying, I love you.

It, it demands a backbone. It, it demands action.

It demands clarity. Sometimes it, it, it demands a strategy.

Uh, what I'm holding here is a United States

Army Ranger Handbook, okay?

And, uh, this is not the Bible at all,

but it does have something in common with the Bible.

This is a civilian copy, by the way.

Uh, I, in no way, shape,

or form wanna be associated with stolen valor.

Uh, deeply respect our men and women who serve our country.

And I'm grateful for that.

But inside of the front cover are 19, uh,

field tested truths for irregular warfare.

Started out as 28, uh, it's gonna been, uh,

modified down to 19.

They were written back in 1759 by Major Robert Rogers.

Uh, he was the leader of Robert's Rangers, uh,

who were an elite special forces operations unit, uh,

during the French and Indian War.

Uh, those truths are still lifted up

and held tightly to by the Rangers, uh, of our country.

But his men, they were not sitting behind desks.

Uh, they were often deep in the wilderness,

outnumbered, outgunned.

And so Rogers gave them, again, 28 whittled down to 19, uh,

very specific standing orders.

But they were not vague mission statements.

Uh, these were survival truths.

So things like, don't forget nothing.

Alright, really important.

Uh, he would say, keep your musket clean as a whistle,

because he knew if you're out on the battlefield

and you need to shoot your gun, it had better be clean

because you want it to work.

Uh, the whole thing wraps up his last one.

And this one is a little bit graphic, okay?

Um, it says, let the enemy come close

and then let him have it, and finish him with your hatchet.

I mean, happy Father's Day.

Uh, but these weren't written

for theory, you know what I mean?

These were written for battle.

And that's exactly what Paul is doing.

Uh, in his letter to Titus that we've been walking through,

he's writing a field guide, um, not for soldiers

with muskets, but for spiritual leaders, the family of God

who are facing real threats

to the spiritual health of the family of God.

So this is doctrine for the front lines.

It's not meant to be admired, but it's meant to be followed.

And, uh, just like Roger said,

don't forget nothing we saw last week, Paul actually said,

hold firm to the trustworthy word.

Same goal. If you forget the mission

or if you ignore the enemy, people get hurt,

especially those under your care.

And so it's appropriate for us on Father's Day

to be studying a passage that actually shows us

what it looks like to lead well in our field, which

for us quite honestly, uh, it's our home.

Uh, it's our church and it's our community.

Um, understand Titus was not on vacation in Crete.

He wasn't. He was on a mission.

And dads, um, whether we like it

or not, we are on the front lines.

And so this message that we're walking through,

this is more than just for elders.

It's for biological and for spiritual fathers.

It's for mothers and mentors.

Uh, this is for our home

and this is for the family of God, which is the church.

And so last week, uh, we kinda wrapped up.

So in, in case you missed it, for the last two weeks,

we've walked through nine verses.

When we wrapped up verse nine last week,

Paul's talking about, uh, men of God.

And he says he must hold firm to the trustworthy word

as taught so that he might be able to give instruction

and sound doctrine

and to rebuke those who contradict it so

that we can teach the word of God

and to correct those who need correction.

But as we look into verse 10, uh, it starts with this word

for, uh, FOR,

and it's, um, this is like a hinge

that ties verse nine into, uh, verse 10.

It's a conjugation saying, Hey, this is going

to be true in light of what we just read.

And so we jump in verse 10, it says, for there are many

who are insubordinate, empty talkers

and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party.

Now, I thought about calling this message welcome

to the circumcision party,

but I was pretty sure that we'd have pretty light

attendance on Father's Day weekend.

And so, uh, we decided not to do that.

I'll explain that when we get to it in the text,

but, uh, Paul does not sugarcoat it.

Okay? He says, very plain

and simply, there are people

inside the church who are dangerous.

Why are they dangerous? Well, he says they're insubordinate.

They won't submit to the apostle's teaching.

They won't submit to the leadership

inside of the church family.

They want influence without accountability.

They wanna lead others, but they don't wanna be led.

He calls them empty talkers.

So a lot of spiritual sounding words, but no gospel truth.

Like in today's world, a lot of people can use the name

of Jesus and they can say a lot of things,

but no gospel truth.

Then he says, they're deceivers,

they're twisting the truth for personal gain.

They don't just believe wrong, but they teach wrong.

And people are getting hurt as a, as a result.

Who's doing this? Uh, probably a lot of people

because he said they're in verse 10.

There are many.

Uh, but notice he says,

especially those in the circumcision party.

Um, we're gonna start using that language around hope a lot.

What he's talking about is there were these

Jewish believing Christians.

So they grew up in the Jewish faith so tied to the law,

but now they do believe that Jesus came

and was resurrected from the dead,

but they're most likely teaching like Jesus.

Plus the law equals salvation.

And, uh, that's not really the way the gospel works.

Uh, if you don't know what I'm,

when I say the gospel, we mean the good news.

Um, scripture tells us this in Romans, it says

that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

You and me. Like if we're honest, all

of us have not lived up to what it is that God's, uh,

created intended purpose for our life.

It also says that for the forgiveness of sins, there has

to be shedding of blood.

That's why throughout the Old Testament,

you see a sacrificial system.

Um, people sin. There has to be bloodshed

for our relationship with God to be restored.

New Testament, Jesus shows up on the scene.

He lives the life that none of us have actually lived.

And then he goes to a cross to pay the penalty

and dies for our sins.

That's why he is referred to as the Lamb of God.

But not only does he die, he goes into a tomb

and he's risen from the dead.

Three days later overcoming sin

and death saying that whosoever would call on my name,

would believe in me, would not perish,

but would have everlasting life,

would have a restored relationship with God.

That is what, that is,

the foundational belief of Christianity.

And Paul's saying, listen, there are these people inside

of your church family, and they're not

anti-religious people.

Those are the ones that we know.

Okay, maybe we don't need to listen to what they says.

He's saying they're insiders.

They sound spiritual, but they're undermining the gospel

and they're disrupting the church.

Uh, the truth that Paul's guarding is this religion says,

I earn acceptance through my sacrifice.

The gospel says, Jesus' sacrifice secures my acceptance.

It's a big deal. We can't miss it in Paul saying, Hey,

Titus, this is real and it needs attention.

So we get to verse 11, what do we do

with these insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers?

He says, they must be silenced

since they're upsetting whole families by teaching

for shameful, shameful gain what they ought not to teach.

Paul doesn't say, just ignore 'em. Just let it go.

And I'm telling you, there's been times

that I look back on my life and leadership inside the church

and I kind of bought into the, ah,

maybe we just don't say anything.

And I'm telling you, I have seen it wreck

harm on people's lives.

He says, no, no, no. Silence them.

And that word, silence it actually, it's the picture

of a muzzle, like what you would put on a dangerous dog.

I have an 85 pound German Shepherd phenomenal dog.

When I take him to the vet, he can be intimidating.

They prefer me put a muzzle on them.

Why is he saying muzzle them?

It's because their teaching isn't just wrong.

It's wrecking lives. And he goes on

to say it's upsetting families.

Like the direct translation of that is like,

it's flipping families completely upside down.

They are dazed. Uh, it's confusing home spiritually.

And Paul's saying this isn't just innocent.

Like they are doing this for shameful gain, for power,

for influence, or for money.

And we just need to know, like as the people of God,

there are people out there that will tell you,

they will tell us just about anything

that they think we want to hear

if it will give them influence over our lives.

And we just gotta be mindful of that.

So our first field note this week is this bad doctrine

doesn't just mislead.

Uh, it wrecks homes and it ruins lives. We gotta be aware.

It's not just wrong, it's not just someone else's opinion,

but it's actually destructive

to our lives and to our families.

It would be like going to a doctor and,

and one of my doctors is in the room right now.

Uh, it would be, uh, like going to a doctor

and they're prescribing a medication for you,

knowing full well

that it's actually not gonna

treat anything or make you better.

Um, we would say like, that's not just wrong.

That, that, that's criminal.

And Paul's saying, Titus, you've gotta shut this down.

And we're gonna see when we get to Titus chapter two,

everyone who's a follower of Jesus

is actually called into this.

Paul's gonna say, Hey, older men, you gotta protect

and invest in younger men, um, older women.

You've gotta protect and invest in younger women.

But it starts with alertness.

We have to be aware there's this

false doctrine that's floating around.

We gotta step in and we gotta step up.

And then as far as our responsibilities as dads,

I'm happy Father's Day,

but our responsibility is not just

to guard our home physically,

but it's to guard our home spiritually.

Uh, we've gotta be careful not to outsource the leadership

of that area, really to our schools, um,

not completely offload it to our spouse, to a podcast.

And I'll just say this, I think we've got a great church.

We've got a great student ministry,

but we don't outsource it to the church either.

Um, when I say church, I mean a, a program.

The foundation for the place of discipleship in the lives

of your young people is inside your home.

Bad doctrine doesn't just mislead at wrecks

homes and it ruins lives.

We jump to verse 12. Paul goes on, he says, one

of the creans, a prophet of their own.

So one of their own people says this about them.

Creighton are always liars, evil beasts and lazy gluttons.

This testimony is true.

So you see, it wasn't talking about us, his dad,

he's talking about people on creep,

but he's actually quoting, um, a Crete

and poet by the name of Epi amenities

who basically roast his own people.

And he's saying, Titus,

you gotta look at the culture around you.

They are known for dishonesty.

They're known for indulgence,

which I think if we were smart right now, we would kind

of look around our world

and recognize we might be in a culture that is also known

for being a bit dishonest and indulgent.

But what he's saying is, this culture, this environment

that you're in, it's a culture where

false teaching will thrive.

We gotta pay attention. And so what does Titus need to do?

Uh, you get to verse 13, and he says,

therefore rebuke them sharply

that they may be sound in the faith.

So he says, rebuke sharply.

Okay, this is, um, this is not to shame, uh, this is

to restore like

Robert's orders that we talked about earlier.

They're meant to, to protect, to show care for people.

When he says, sound in the faith, you know, we,

we wanna rebuke sharply so there may be sound in the faith.

A translation of that is healthy.

We rebuke sharply so

that they will be healthy in their faith.

Um, about six years ago, I had

terrible tendonitis on my elbow, like so bad.

I could barely hold up a coffee cup,

much less do a pull up or a bicep curl.

And my doctor said, yeah,

truthfully, you got a couple options.

You can deal with the pain, uh,

or maybe you can wait until it gets bad enough.

Something really breaks,

and then you end up getting surgery.

I said, well, that doesn't sound good.

Uh, what are the other options?

He said, well, there is this procedure that some people do.

I don't do it, but it's called PRP, uh,

platelet rich plasma.

And so I went to the elbow doctor, uh,

here in town who does this.

And I said, Hey, tell me about this procedure.

He said, yeah, it works great.

What we do is we draw a lot of blood

and then we put it in a centrifuge

and we spin it around really, really fast.

And then it separates the red blood cells from the platelets

and the blood, the platelets like are the, is the part

of your blood that has all the healing properties.

And then we take out the platelets.

And then under ultrasound, uh, we find your tendon,

you can like see it up on the screen,

and then we take a big needle

and we inject it in your arm straight to the tendon,

and we inject the platelets right where the injury is.

I said, well, does it hurt?

He said, oh yeah, it hurts terribly.

Um, what we're actually trying

to do is create the same environment

that would be there if you like, had a broken bone.

I was like, oh, sure, sign me up, let's do it.

Um, and uh, here's the, the truth is he did not lie to me.

Uh, it was very painful, like my hand is shaking.

And for about two weeks it was very, very painful.

But over time, um, it healed.

Like I have not had an issue with my elbow in six years.

And in the moment it's painful,

but it promotes deep healing.

That's what loving correction does, okay?

It's not always convenient, it's not always comfortable,

but it moves us towards sound doctrine.

It moves us towards healthy doctrine

towards a healthy faith.

Verse 14, Paul clarifies like,

what's really feeding the problem?

He says, not devoting themselves to Jewish myths

and the commands of people who turn away from the truth.

So especially these false, uh, these false teachers,

what they were doing is, uh, they were elevating

and following manmade myths.

Um, legalism, uh, we talked about

that Jesus plus the law speculation, um, the elders

of within the Jewish church, like they had specific, uh,

traditions they were calling people into.

And Paul says, don't let fake spirituality,

okay, fake spirituality.

Again, people who can use the name of Jesus they can,

whether it's talking about grace upon grace, upon grace

with no truth, uh, which we gotta be careful of,

or Jesus plus the law, he saying, you gotta be aware of that

or preferences of the culture.

You've gotta be careful. We don't let preferences

of the culture replace sound doctrine.

I think we'd be very smart to recognize that there are, um,

modern myths that we can fall prey

to in our current society.

And so I just wanna, very quickly,

this is not a lecture on these items,

I just wanna quickly just kind of raise our eyebrows

to some things that we see around us right now.

And so we're gonna walk through a few of them.

Uh, one is the buffet Bible. Okay?

The buffet Bible says, I can read through this

and I can pick and choose whatever I want.

I like that. I like that. I don't like that.

I'm not gonna live by that. I'm not gonna stand on that.

Um, that's not how it works.

Um, we, we either believe this is the inherent, an iner,

authoritative word of God, or we don't.

And so we stand on what scripture says.

Uh, you've got universalism, this idea

of everybody goes to heaven no matter what.

You can't say that you follow Jesus.

And then believe this principle,

I I just being a Jesus said, I'm the way, I'm the truth.

I'm the life. No one gets to the Father except through me.

And so you either believe in Jesus and follow Jesus,

or you believe that he was a crazy person,

but you can't really mix the two.

There's the prosperity gospel.

It says that faith in God equals success is

defined by the world.

I'm gonna tell you right now, that's a crock, okay?

It, it, it doesn't work that way.

Yes, we can make certain decisions

and we follow in the ways that God has for us in our lives,

and it puts us in a position to be blessed by God.

But that blessing is probably better described

as experiencing the love and the peace

and the hope that is available to us in our lives

by saying, you are God.

And I'm not. But I also know that when you read scripture,

if you stand on scripture as your foundation,

it will tell you that God will allow you to go

through some really difficult things to drive you to a place

of dependence on him.

Uh, this is a big one. Um, love equals affirmation.

Um, that's simply not true.

Um, yes, as as followers of Christ,

we are called to love everyone.

Uh, as followers of Christ.

Uh, we are called to care

for everyone as followers of Christ.

I would even say we're called to accept everyone,

but that word affirm

and saying, no, no, no, I, I agree with you.

Or I can say, okay, if it's true

for you, then it's true for you.

It just doesn't work that way to, to have a mindset

that says, Hey, there's no correction allowed.

There's, there's no repentance required.

That's not what scripture calls us into.

And to be honest, if we really believe that,

we don't need a God anyway.

So we gotta be careful. A couple others, I might

as well just step on everybody's toes here.

Um, um, Christian nationalism, um,

there is no political party, Republican

or Democrat that is going to usher in the kingdom

of God there.

And you can hold a sign that says, no king

or not do whatever you want to do, but there is one king.

There's only one king, and it's Jesus Christ.

And so we gotta be, yeah.

And cultural Christianity and say, well, I go to church.

I'm in a small group. I serve

a little bit, so I must be good.

Yes, we gotta be careful. There's so much that's a part of

how we do church in the West.

And if I'm honest, even here at hope, that it's like,

it's not necessarily prescribed in scripture, okay?

And so that's why we've gotta be rooted in sound doctrine.

Like this is what's gonna point us towards

how we need to live our lives.

And so, um, I was talking to Aaron Nelson this week.

I'll hit one more. Uh, he said, maybe you ought

to mention, uh, like self-help.

There's a big self-help movement right now.

And he mentioned one book.

I haven't read it yet, so I didn't feel

comfortable talking about it.

Um, but I know for me a couple years ago, uh,

I was on vacation and I took a couple of books by a guy

by the name of David Goggins.

Um, if you don't know, David goin, David Goggins,

a former seal team member, um, very driven guy.

It's like, Hey, you gotta man up. You gotta be tough.

You could push through, um, says a lot of other words

that I could never repeat up here

and read a couple of other books by some other guys

that were like the athletic trainer for Kobe Bryant

and Michael Jordan.

But like, I came out of that vacation time, like,

yeah, I'm ready to go.

Like I, and truthfully, in the months following,

there were some people that said,

two people specifically said, man,

it seems like there's something different about you.

Like you were really driven right now.

And I was like, yeah, yeah.

But they both looked at me

and said, it kind

of seems like you're hurting some people around you.

And I thought, man, I may, maybe I need

to be careful which books I'm reading

outside of the right context.

So we just gotta be careful, man,

that stuff gets inside of us.

It can shape us. And Paul's saying, there's some things

that are floating around in your churches

and in your communities, and it's wrecking families.

You gotta be on guard. You gotta speak

truth, you gotta bring clarity.

So our second field note is this correction without

love is cruel.

It is. But love without correction is counterfeit.

It's fake. A loving father,

does it not correct his children?

If I go to my doctor and he knows I've got an issue

and he doesn't tell me the truth,

it's not loving church family.

We gotta be careful. We, we, there's folks

around us in our lives

or for ourselves that

that will drift towards a trendy spirituality, um,

or even towards a Christian sounding legalism.

Like we wanna prove ourselves.

And if we're not careful, we'll fall in that trap.

But we speak the truth in love so that others around us

and ourselves, our families can be found in,

in sound healthy faith.

Um, the truth is, our families

and our children pay the price when we don't.

And so, dad's, uh, I, I've got a note here for us, and,

and I wrote it in my notes.

It says, you don't have to be a theologian,

but the reality is, we're all theologians.

Theology is just the study of God or, or so.

We are all theologians of what we believe

to be true about God.

So you are a theologian.

I don't know if you're a good one or not,

but, um, you are a theologian.

And so we've gotta, again, I say it over

and over, we've gotta be rooted in scripture.

Sound doctrine is important, but we must be a truth teller.

We've gotta know what's going on in the world around us.

We've gotta know what's going on

in the lives of our families.

That's what love and protection looks like.

Correction without love is cruel,

but love without correction is counterfeit.

Uh, okay, two more verses here.

Verse 15, he says, to the pure, all things are pure,

but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure,

but both their minds and their consciences are defiled.

Um, when Paul says pure, he's talking about, um, uh, moral

and spiritual clarity.

You understand when you look at things like when your

doctrine is off, we lack clarity,

and then everything around us becomes distorted.

Uh, you remember that quote Tozier quote from week one.

Uh, he said, what someone believes about God is the most

important thing about them and their life.

When our doctrine's off, we're following the wrong map.

We're not gonna end up in the right place.

We've gotta know that when you distort the truth, everything

around you can be twisted.

But when we hold tightly to the word,

we'll see the world rightly.

We've gotta recognize that we gotta

keep it on in the front of our minds.

And then we get to verse 16,

and, um, he, he throws a knockout punch here.

He says, they profess to know God,

but they deny him by their works.

They're detestable, disobedient,

unfit for any good work.

You could hear that and be like, you know,

I feel like the red letters in my Bible when Jesus talks,

it seems like he's a little nice and uh,

or very nice, not so much with Paul.

And, uh, I'm gonna speak to that, uh, at the end

of this message if I remember.

But he lands this truth.

He says they know God, but their lives say otherwise.

And he's not talking about just about this ancient group

of people, uh, that were in creed anymore.

He's talking to anyone then or now who claims to follow God,

but their life doesn't match up.

And, uh, the truth is,

and you gotta, you've gotta watch for people.

Like I want you to see this in your own life,

but we've also, what he's talking about is being mindful

of people in your community.

There are those who will say Jesus is Lord okay.

But at the end of the day, um,

if Jesus doesn't get the final say in our marriage,

in our finances,

and, uh, in our purity, in our priorities,

we gotta ask the question, is he really Lord of our lives?

It is possible to show up and sing on Sunday

and not follow Jesus on Monday.

And we gotta be mindful of this

because at the end of the day,

our life will preach the real sermon.

Your loudest sermon is the life that you live. Amen.

And people are watching,

our kids are watching people hear your

actions louder than your words.

We know if you have children, more is caught than taught.

You can tell 'em anything in the world

that you wanna tell 'em.

They are watching the decisions that you make in your life.

And so the world needs a church, uh,

that practices what the Bible teaches.

That's what the world needs to see.

And if we claim to know God,

but live no differently, we are unfit

to share the hope that we have in Jesus.

We say as a church, at hope, we're a family.

We're the family of God who loves God,

follows Jesus and shares hope.

We can't love God if we don't know God.

But as we begin to know him, we can love him

that looks like following Jesus.

And then, and only then are we really in a place to be able

to point people to the hope that we have in Jesus Dads

the greatest gift.

Um, my notes here say, the greatest gift that you can give

to your family, um, is a life that matches your message.

Um, again, I would change that the greatest gift

that you can give to your family is, is a life

that matches this message

that matches the gospel of Jesus Christ.

It's not perfection, but it's a life of integrity.

Um, let your kids see you pray.

Uh, let your see your, let your kids see you.

Study and value the word of God to, to the point to

where you get to a place where you say, you know what?

I, I I need to confess this sin

against you, against my family.

There is something strong about a man

and a family, about a mother

and a family that says, Hey, you know what?

I slipped up. Um, let them see.

Let your family see you worship.

I love, I was over here worshiping on the side.

And there's some men down here in this front row

that were like just laying it all out

on the line before their God.

That's what our families need to see.

Let them see you serve. Let them see you give,

let them see you care for other people.

Let them see you. Lay down your life for your wife

and stand strong on the truth of God's word In this world,

the loudest sermon is the life that you live.

Uh, I read, how much time do I got? Alright, we doing okay?

We're doing all right. Um, I know you could hear this, uh,

as a guy, uh, or, or as a woman, to be honest

and think I am, I am not equipped, uh,

to be able to do that.

Um, we have a responsibility as a church to equip you.

I, um, in, in the fall of this coming year, uh,

there is a, an organization called the Fourth Musketeer.

And, uh, they take these, uh, they take like four days

and they take a group of about 50 guys, um,

out into the wilderness, out camping for like four days.

It's called the Extreme Character Challenge.

And, uh, and they just invest in you

and call you into the deep truths of scripture of

what your life should be about as a man.

Like the whole thing is about awakening the hearts of men.

I have this conviction that what the world needs right now,

and this is not shorting anything about women,

but like we need men to understand that Paul,

that God has placed on their lives.

And so I've had some conversations with their leadership,

um, myself, uh, Sam Cannoli, uh,

the worship pastor here at the Raleigh campus, uh,

Matt Curtis, our Fuqua campus pastor,

and then Jason Collier, one of our elders.

Uh, this Thursday we're gonna jump on a plane

and we're gonna head out to, uh, Colorado.

I'm gonna go up in the Rocky Mountains.

We're gonna be there for four days. If you heard, uh,

the first sermon in this series, um,

I've got some pretty crazy camping trips.

And so I'm believing

that this one's gonna be a little bit better than that one.

But then the goal is for us to kinda catch a vision for this

and then come back and then we're gonna be calling all the

men in our church that want to go

and be a part of this thing, uh, in the fall,

in the mountains of North Carolina.

And so, uh, if you are interested in that, uh,

we wanna go ahead and start collecting some info.

I'm telling you the spots are gonna fill up quickly.

Uh, but you can text the word mountain

to 7 2 9 8 9 mountain, M-O-U-N-T-A-I-N,

uh, to 7 2 9 8 9.

You'll get a link sent to your phone.

You can, uh, you know, put the information in there

and you're gonna be like, am I gonna get all the details?

No, no, not right now.

That's a bunch of guys leading this thing.

But, um, we will follow up with you, uh, this week, okay?

And then you're gonna hear more about what's coming up.

But look, don't wait till the fall either.

I've told you last week, go to your campus pastor, go

to the men's events that are a part of your campus.

Um, we need other folks in our lives, okay?

I want to end where I began.

Uh, if someone showed up at your house to wreck your family,

you would do something about it.

Uh, I know for me, part of the reason that I work out is

to be strong, uh,

and to be in a good position that if someone did try

to take advantage of my wife

and kids, um, I'd be in a better place to defend 'em.

It just would. That doesn't mean

that like it definitely would work out that way.

It doesn't mean that I don't depend on

God's help to protect our family.

It does mean that I think if somebody had to choose

between my family or another family,

maybe you would realize it might be

an easier target over here.

And it would be. Um, I also have a 16-year-old daughter,

and I need every young man in that school to know, you know

what, her dad's a little different.

So, so far it's, uh, it's working.

But I know a lot of you are the same way.

He would lay down your life in a heartbeat

to protect your family.

But here's what Paul's saying in Titus chapter one.

And I want every dad and every man in this room

to feel it down in your bones.

The most dangerous threat to your family is not physical.

It is spiritual.

And as dads, as fathers,

we've got a responsibility to step up.

And we hear the voices

that tell us like, no, it's no big deal.

Uh, who are you to speak up?

I mean, look, your own life as a wreck.

Hey, culture's changing. Maybe we just need to adapt.

But make no mistake, the enemy would love nothing better

than, as Paul said, to get inside, to get a foothold

and to flip your family upside down.

And so men, the question is this, will you stand guard?

Will you stand guard?

Not with fist clenched like in anger,

but with heart sitter grounded in truth?

Will you lead with grace and courage?

Will you let your family see a heart of faith?

'cause the world is watching, your family's watching.

God has placed you where he has, he has placed you

where he has with the purpose.

And I had this thought this week,

could you imagine if thousands

of men at hope said, you know what?

We will stand guard. I I believe our

communities would be transformed.

I believe our schools would be transformed.

And so on this Father's Day weekend, if you were a man,

if you're a dad, a mentor, a leader,

if you're a spiritual protector,

you can be in high school and say, you know what?

I'm going to be one who sets a, a, a culture

of spiritual protection over those around me in my school.

If that is you, I i across all of our campuses right now,

I just would invite you just to stand to your feet.

I would love to pray for you. And it's not

because you have it all figured out.

It's because you're stepping in the fight to say,

I will stand between my family.

I will stand between my community and the enemy.

I will not be silent in the face of lies. I won't do it.

I will love with grace, and I'll lead with truth.

And so, if you're willing to join me,

and I know there's hundreds already standing up in this

room, I just wanna invite you to stand to your feet.

And then, um, before I pray for us, um,

And this is beautiful by the way.

I mean, could you imagine if we really took this seriously?

I know there's probably some men that are standing right now

and maybe, um, some that, that, that aren't.

But if you're standing right now

and you've actually never made the decision

to trust in Jesus as your Lord

and Savior, um, that's the starting line.

That's where we start. And the reality is we're celebrating

Father's Day and we would protect our children.

But you know what God did to protect all of his children?

He allowed his one and only son to go to a cross

to pay the penalty for your sins.

Amen. And so I'm just gonna give you an opportunity

as a man already standing if you're in that place

and you've never made that decision,

but you wanna make a decision.

I've tried to do it on my own.

I've tried to do it outta my own strength,

and I know no longer do I wanna do that.

I wanna turn to Jesus. Would you be so bold as to just, just

to raise your hand in here?

Yeah, I see you. Thank you. Yeah,

I see you right here.

Yep.

It's the best decision you'll ever make. Amen.

Um, I'm gonna pray now.

I'm just gonna have everybody, by your heads

with you, men still standing.

And for those who just raise their hand in this room,

I just want you to, there's no magic in a prayer.

You can put your own words to it.

I just want you to pray after me.

Father in heaven, I know that I'm a sinner.

I know I've gone my own way and tried to do it myself.

I thank you for sending your son Jesus

to live the life I could have never lived

and to pay the penalty for my sins on a cross.

And I recognize that he rose again three days later,

overcoming sin and death so

that I could have a restored relationship with you.

I Trust

and believe in Jesus as the Lord and Savior of my life.

And now I just wanna pray for the rest of those standing.

Father, I, I want to thank you for the men who have said,

yes, I will stand guard.

Um, we live in a day and age that that doctrine

and in truth is just getting twisted.

And Lord, you call us as your church family,

as your followers to dig deep down

and as truths of scripture, not so

that we can fight physically against other people, Lord,

but so that we can stand strong and to be able to correct

and to ultimately point people back to the gospel.

And so, Lord, I pray right now for every man

that's standing, and I know

because I live it myself, there's this fear of inadequacy.

I pray that you would strengthen them

through the power of your spirit.

I pray you would give them boldness.

I pray you would give them humility to be able to say, Hey,

I don't have it figured out all the time.

But as a family, we need to go on a journey.

We've been going in one direction. We need to go in another.

Lord, I pray for the, for the women,

for the wives in this group, Lord, that provide so much

consistency and steadiness and love.

Amen. For our family. Lord, I pray

that they would experience a blessing from you as well.

Yes, Lord. Would we be a church that is about your business,

about expanding your kingdom, about helping the world come

to know and experience the love of God

and the life that Jesus came to make available?

We love you Lord. And we pray these things

and the name of Jesus and everyone said, amen.

Okay, I wanna say one other thing.

You guys can have a seat, um, really quickly.

Um, uh, I mentioned that thing about Paul,

like I know he can be kind of aggressive if you hear this

and you're like, man, I don't know about that guy.

I want you to know what if, like

what we just talked about was true.

What if there really was some things going on

that could tear apart families?

You would want somebody to stand on guard

and to speak directly to those things.

And so my hope and my prayer is that you will see Paul for

who he is and see his words for what they are is meant

to protect the family of God.

And my hope, like when you guys,

there might be people in here right now

that like one day I might be on the other side of eternity.

And my hope and prayer is

that if you called Hope Community Church, um,

you might not say that Jason

and the teaching pastor team

there at Hope were the funniest.

Uh, you might not say that.

I don't even care if you say

he's he's not the best preacher.

I'm okay with that. But, but my hope

and my prayers, you say, but you know what he did do?

They, they unashamedly pointed at us to this truths

of scripture and it provided protection

and shepherding for my life.

So that's what we're about here at heart.

And uh, lastly, I'll just say this,

happy Father's Day, guys.

It, it, it ain't a tough, it ain't an easy job.

And, um, keep the faith, um, surround yourself with people

that can come alongside of you

and know that you've got a loving father that loves you

and is walking alongside with you.

Love you guys. Happy Father's Day.

Well, as we close out our time, uh,

first I wanna remind you, um, uh, to take the steps

of faith necessary as you have heard the word of the Lord.

And, uh, whatever response God is prompting your

heart, we want to help you with that.

So make sure that you stop at next steps.

And if you're watching online, uh,

let us know how we can serve you.

And that's exactly what we'll do.

But I also wanna take this opportunity

to close out our time together.

You've heard Jason talk a little bit about Father's Day,

and so I wanna take a moment

to celebrate all of the Fathers.

Um, there is so much that our fathers do for us,

whether it's discipling us and the family

or other men, whether it's fixing our bike

or telling us to push just a little bit more.

Uh, fathers just have a way

of hitting a special place in our hearts.

And so, um, we wanna take a moment

to celebrate every father in the room.

So would you join me in just a rousing round of applause

for every father here?

Not, Come on. Let him hear.

And fathers, I know that the journey can be difficult

and be quite the challenge to walk this out.

And so I want you to know that your whole church is

with you, that we love you, that we support you,

that we don't want you in any way

to grow weary and well-doing.

As a matter of fact, you got a whole host of brothers

who are cheering you on.

Uh, and our little bit of a way for us to say thank you

for all that you do, we created these little journals.

We are in a series called Field Notes.

And so we got some very, some field notes for you

to have of your very own.

And maybe you can mark just a little bit of

what God's been teaching you through this series.

Maybe one day you can share it with your children,

maybe your son who will potentially be a father.

You. We love you. This is an honor to worship

with you every single week

and we do hope to see you back here next week.

So as we head out, let's all do our best

to go out and be hope.

God bless you.