Family Life - Mark Yoder | KFW 2021

Lesson Transcript

We heard a powerful message last night about spiritual life. This morning we heard a wonderful message we all worship together as we listen to the resurrection life, the resurrection, the life of the resurrected Jesus. And on our program, the title of what I'm supposed to be talking about is family life. I'm just going to say it a little different: life in the family.

When I say life in the family, we're talking about resurrected life, the power of the life of the resurrected Jesus, the power, the law of life in Christ Jesus in our families. Let's start. Let's read Psalm 128. It's a blessing to be here. This subject is a burden on my heart. It has been for years. At home in Costa Rica, most of our families in our church are all first-generation believers. My family is not. My co-pastor, Antonio Valverde, they married a Friesian.

She was a second generation, but the rest are all first-generation believers. Now we're starting some new families of second-generation believers. But one thing that has been a concern to me is we're not doing that well in bringing the children in the church. And that's been a burden on our hearts, and I'm sure it is for Brother Dale too. On the first-generation Christians, we've—and so I have been seeking for answers and praying about this: how can we strengthen this in our people at home?

So it's a wonderful subject and important subject. Psalms 128. I'm just going to read it. This is a description in the Old Testament of a man that fears God. God's plan for a man who fears God: "Blessed is everyone that feareth the Lord, that walketh in his ways. For thou shalt eat the labor of thine hands; happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee. Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house, thy children like olive plants round about thy table.

Behold, that thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the Lord. The Lord shall bless thee out of Zion. The Lord shall see the good of Jerusalem all the days of thy life. Yea, thou shalt see thy children's children, and peace upon Israel." It's got some Old Testament pictures here, but we can interpret that into New Testament. God's will is that we, as families, we have united, functioning families. We hear a lot about dysfunctional families.

Our families are one of the most powerful testimonies we have for the gospel of Jesus Christ. Families that function. We should not be ashamed of our families. God wants to use our families as a witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ. It's a very powerful one. Now I'd like to say this quickly too: we're all a family. The church is a family. And if we have single people here or widowers or widows, and we have people that are not part of a family, we are a family. And we're all together in this.

Life in our families, spiritual life in our families. God is very interested in our families. And there's someone else who's very interested, and that's Satan. Our enemy is attacking our families intently, with intention, intensely. He's trying to destroy our families. And if we have the power of the resurrected Jesus in our families, we're doing well. The enemy can't even get in. Jesus is there. But if we give room to the enemy in our families, he will take advantage of that.

The heart issue of a family and the—yes, the family we're going to be talking about. And the heart issue of a church family is relationship, is love. You know that. You study your Bible. Love, where there's love, all the requirements that God has for us are fulfilled. So the purpose is this: is relationship. Is being able to relate. And like I like to say, I don't know. Don't do it now. You don't need to do it now. But can you look at your wife?

Look her in the eyes and smile at her, and she'll look at you and smile back. Or will she look down? Same thing is true for your children. Can you look at your children here in the church or outside and look at them and smile, and they look at you back and smile open-faced? Or would they look down? The purpose of the families is to show the love of God in human relationship.

The success of a man or a woman is his relationships, not his money, not the car he drives, not the clothes he wears, not the show he makes in public, even in a church service. It's the ability to be able to have good relationships with other people. That starts with our wives and our children. The Song of Solomon, which I've had people ask me, why is that book in the Bible? That's a beautiful book in the Bible. And it talks about a love relationship between marriage, between a couple, where there's a genuine love.

You can look each other in the eye and smile. That's the purpose, and that's what we're seeking for. And if you have that kind of relationship with your children, you have something strong going for you. But for this, how do we reach this? How did Brother Ken say this morning? I can't put it in words. He had an interesting way of saying it. But without the Spirit of God in our hearts, we cannot reach this.

Without the Spirit of God in our hearts, you cannot have a good marriage, a good relationship with your children, and a good relationship in the church. What is the problem when we have to have good relationships? What the biggest problem we have is we blame others. My problem in my relationships is my brother. It's him. It's him. My problem in my marriage? My wife. Problem with the children? I just heard about this recently again. It's a children's fault. But the problem in our relationships is our own carnality.

The enemy of your home is the person you saw in the mirror this morning. And we need to deal with that. And Romans 8 talks about this: "They that are in the flesh cannot please God." And in our marriages, if I am in the flesh, I can't have a good marriage. Why not? If I have not experienced the life of Jesus Christ and a genuine repentance, Mark always does the same thing. He defends himself. He's proud. He reacts. He gets upset when anyone steps in his ways and makes it unhandy for him.

My wife is a beautiful lady. I love. She's the most wonderful lady in the world. I should say that, isn't I? You say that about your wife. But when she's in the flesh, she can become hard to live with. And I'm still worse. To have a good where God is in our families and the blessing—what you want in your family more than anything else is the presence of God and the blessing of the Holy Spirit in your life. And for that, we need to deal with our flesh.

We need to crucify—through the work of the Holy Spirit—crucify our flesh to where we can love, to where we can have a relationship. And I would really like to encourage all of us today. Sometimes we have problems in our churches. Sometimes we have problems. That's a big problem with divorce and remarriage. How many times I've talked to people, and they say, "We just can't make it. I mean, we just can't live together." The only solution is to get out of it. Why does Jesus not allow divorce and remarriage?

Because he does not accept that statement. If we all repent and have the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, we can change, and we can have good relationships. The problem is—and the problem we have in our relationships is we're—and I don't know. A group this size, I'm sure it's here. Maybe the truth of it is I have my struggles with relationships. But again, I would like to encourage us today.

If you're having struggles with your church, if you're having struggles with your wife, your husband, if you're having struggles with your father and your mother, just let the other person go, and you work on being able to love the person yourself. And that needs the cross of Jesus Christ and the power of the resurrection. But it works. And that's what Jesus wants in our homes. He wants families that stand out. Don't be ashamed of your family. I remember when I was young—remember one time especially.

We still lived in Virginia. I was less than 11. I was pretty young. And we had nine children at that time. My parents had nine children. I was about 10 years old, I think. And I remember walking down the streets of Charlottesville. And I think we were getting our paperwork to go to Costa Rica or something. We were in all—the whole family was in town. And Dad was up front, and there were these nine children, and Mom in the back, and keeping this little herd of chicks together.

And my brother, Tim, he was my oldest one. He said, "I'm ashamed of this walking through town, this big family." And Dad, grandson, says, "I have a struggle with not being proud." Don't be ashamed of your families. They're wonderful. And if you can have a family where the Spirit of God is working, it is evidence. We need that more than ever. Our solution—our world is going from bad to worse. Just in the last few years, Costa Rica just—what?—two years ago, a year or just two years ago, allowed homosexual marriage.

Our culture is going backwards fast. What do we do about it? Don't waste time protesting and trying to change the government. You won't accomplish it anyhow. We need families that show. That show. I had the opportunity of inviting a young European into my family in our home a while. And he stayed there a few days. And he was from Europe. And Europe, for years now, they have been so atheistic. And he said, "I have never believed in God.

I mean, to believe in God is like believing in fairy tales." That's how he was brought up. But when he saw our family—he had been with other families—he said, "I see something. I see something." Because my parents never—they're always squabbling, always arguing, never get along with each other. And your children sing as they work. Your daughters are washing dishes and singing. Because I see something. He was there a few days, and we talked. I had so much fun.

I mean, I enjoyed it so much, telling him stories about Jesus and about God. And when I left, I asked him, "What's happening to your faith? What's happening?" He says, "I think it's coming. I think it's coming." But our families are a powerful witness. Don't waste time trying to change the government. You realize during the time of the Roman Empire, abortion was also allowed. It was practiced. You realize that homosexuality was rampant too. Some of the emperors were homosexuals.

And what does the New Testament talk about it? It's clear on homosexuality. It's clear. It didn't even mention abortion. In about the year 100, they wrote this—it's called the Teaching of the Apostles or the Didachy. And in that, it says, "We Christians should not murder." And it mentions unborn babies. That's about the extent of it. And the rest, it's all clear.

But the New Testament wastes no time trying to change the Roman Empire, trying to get in there and protest and marches and write letters and trying to change the Roman Empire. Don't waste time doing that. But we can do, and what we should do, and our calling from God is keep our families intact. Mom and Dad love each other. The children love to be at home. There's life in our homes and the families. And the world says, "Wow. Wow." Satan knows that. And Satan is attacking our families.

He's been doing that for years. And he's still attacking our families. And I would like to encourage all of us to be very alert to the work of Satan. I've seen so often where fathers and mothers are worshiping God and praising God, and they're neglecting their children. And the children are sitting back here maybe with a smartphone on the internet. And Mom and Dad don't even think about it. And Satan's standing back grinning. "Just give me a little time. Just give me a little time.

Mom and Dad, we'll let them go on, but just let me keep working with the children." Satan is trying to destroy our families. We need to be alert on that. I encourage you to pray about that. Now, back to—I'd like to talk a little bit about the relationships in the home. What is the problem? When I married my wife, oh, it was so exciting. Wow. But after some months and a few years, what happens? What happens that we lose that freedom of looking each other in the face and smile? What happens?

First of all, we're human. We fail. We make fail. We make mistakes. But one of our biggest problems, one of my problems is what marriage—I was 27 when I got married. And I'll just make this confession here in public. I thought I was sort of mature. I thought, "I'm probably by 27, I'm surely ready to get married. What do you think?" You know what marriage did? My wife says the same thing. Marriage revealed to me my tremendous selfishness yet. I learned a level of dying to self that I didn't realize was even there.

But our problem with our carnal nature—fathers, please listen to me. And I know why I'm saying this. Your carnal nature, your anger, your frustration, you hurt the people you love the most. You hurt the most. Just the other day, I was talking to a young man. I've been witnessing to him for a while. And he was sitting on my porch. And I was talking. He said, "I'm so glad I left. I was able to—I'm thinking of a Spanish word, the vicio of smoking. I was able to get rid of smoking.

And I was able to quit my habit of using the lottery. I still have some things to work on." And knowing him a little bit, I said, "You know one thing?" I said, "We often hurt the people we love the most." And then he said, "Yes, you're right." He started shedding tears. He's bigger than I am. But he sat there and started shedding tears. And then he started and told me this story. He had bought two glasses. I'm not sure was it glasses or some kind of containers to drink without. And he said, "I had one day.

I really thought they were nice. And I had one sitting beside me. And my little daughter, she's about three years old, came running by and kicked it and broke it." And he said, "I'm ashamed. But I got so mad. I got up, and I whipped. I lashed her. And I scolded her." He said, "Later, I felt so bad. That glass wasn't worth much." Then a little later, the girl—I don't know was she washing it or what—she broke the other one. And I don't think he was there to hear it. I think his wife told him.

He says, "The little girl just, 'Mommy, please don't tell Daddy. Please don't tell Daddy. I'm scared of Daddy. Please don't tell Daddy.'" And he said, with tears in his eyes, he says, "Mark, I don't want to have that kind of relationship with my daughter." I think probably every father sitting here tonight understands that. Our anger, our frustration, our carnal nature—we hurt the people we love the most. We hurt our wives with harsh words. And then is when distance starts. The wives can do the same thing.

Mothers can do the same thing, of course. Mothers and their carnality can also hurt their children. And I would like to encourage us to look at some of this seriously. Because if you build a wall between you and your child, your child's not going to want to be where you are and not going to follow the church you're in. And we've all done that. My daughter, Dorcus, is here. I'm so glad. Dorcus knows that I have done things, that I have failed enough that she could be bitter at me.

But I praise the Lord that she has forgiven me. And we love each other. I fail. You fail. I've wished I could be a perfect father. Though all the power is there, the Holy Spirit and the power of the resurrection is there, but we still fail. I've decided, well, at least one thing I'm going to try to do is to show them what a struggling father, how he learns to make things right. And so in my family, it's pretty common to ask each other forgiveness and make things right. I'm sorry for getting upset.

And I want them to see—I want them—nothing else they can learn from me—how to handle their carnal nature and submit to the Spirit. And I hope my children can see that Dad is growing in these areas. He's getting better. But our need, our problem is—and wives too—our problem is our carnal nature, our defensiveness. And when you men have the trouble I sometimes have, my wife wants to give me a word of and say something that she thinks is not quite right. And inside me, I feel this thing like my heart just going, "No.

No, just easy. Turn away and walk away from." Is that the right spirit instead of opening my heart and listening? And so I would like to encourage us in this and that we learn how to walk in the Spirit. To make the Spirit a reality in our lives, we need to repent. We need to accept our pride. We need to accept our frustrations. And I'd like to put this in too. You know what? I know. I have the struggle too. Is put on a show up front in front of people.

In front of people, I try to show you I'm a very spiritual man, that I really worship the Lord. And I really—wow. You know what? I've seen some men doing that and look back and I do this sometimes. I look back at his wife, and she's looking down at her shoes. Because if you're a spiritual person, you are at home. And then when you're in public, you don't need to try to make an impression. Just be who you are. But if you're a spiritual man at home, everyone will see it.

You don't need to make impression in front of people. But we need to start at home. I'd like to encourage you to start at home. Okay. Well, let's start this course now tomorrow. When? Monday? You go home again? We're going to start this course. I'm going to start taking care of some of the husband and wife both, these carnal areas that come up, these frustrations, these moments of anger, these moments of conflict. Why do we have conflicts in our marriage? Hey, it's not your wife's fault.

It's not the husband's fault. It's your fault. Partly your fault. And once you can forget the other person and say, "I'm going to work at this. Lord, Lord, help me. I'm going to work at this." And let my wife say the same thing again and again and again till I learn to respond right, till I can humble myself and not defend myself and be humble. Start working that way. And you'll see your marriage will change fast. We need to all do that, that our children can see that in us.

And the basic responsibility of a husband. And we're very good at trying to—I'm sorry. I keep thinking Spanish words. We're very good at trying to win over a woman's heart. There's another better word for that. Brother Dale, what is it anyway? When we're young and we're dating, we're very good at winning the woman's heart. Pardon. Conquer. Conquer the lady's heart. Isn't that a challenge? Hey, that's married men. Then it's not as easy quite when we're married. Then we get sort of hardened.

And we sort of harden our hearts. And there's sometimes a reason. We sort of harden our hearts. We should have a heart. And my daughter's present. I've been working at that. You know what it's like to get upset and getting ready to go to church, getting on time in church? The husband goes out and sits in the car, beep, beep, beep. I heard one case where the wife ran out and said, "Hey, let me blow the horn. You go ahead and put the dress to the children. Let me blow the horn." That was a good idea.

It's been a while back that I haven't struggled with that as much anymore. But there's still this inner thing. And I've been trying. Lord, help me. And I don't mind she's in my wife is very possible listening to this right now myself. I don't mind them knowing that I'm trying to learn the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ in a moment of conflict that I can humble myself and listen instead of hardening my heart. I'm sorry. But that happens sometimes. Not like someone just turned my back and walked off.

I didn't say a word. But I just—but anyway, this type of thing, I would like to encourage us to make this an issue of each one of yourself. Don't worry. Maybe the Lord's going to want your wife or your husband to keep on being a little laundry. No, I shouldn't have said that. The Lord doesn't want anyone to be honored. But anyway, maybe the Lord will—anyway, if she does or he does, the Lord can use that to develop you.

The power of the Holy Spirit is more than sufficient to always respond right and respond love, respond humbly and kindly. Now, the basic responsibility in the Bible—you've studied your Bibles. I don't need to spend much time with this. But the Bible, I have read lots of books on marriage. And I have a bunch of them. But basic issues in counseling marriage and helping marriage in my own marriage is what the Bible says. The husband should love his wife and cherish her and care for her.

And the wife should submit and respect her husband. Those are two basic issues. Most marriage problems are related to these two issues. It might come into finances and some other issues. But still, that's the basic problem. And so we, as men, we need to learn to become like Jesus to where we can listen to the heart. You can hear her heart. Our women are very emotional. You know that? Trust me, dear. They'll cry easy. And they look at things from an emotional perspective.

And sometimes we think it's silly or whatever. But listen. Open your heart to your wife. Listen to her. Care for her. If she has fears, listen to that. You heard me say that, Dorcus? Dorcus, heard me say that. Listen. When the wife has fears that I think are not reasonable, care for her, really care for the person instead of just sort of—to care and to nourish and love your wife. And then so that you can look in each other's eyes like you did when you were dating and smile. You probably still can, can't you? Sure.

The wife's responsibility is basically to respect and honor the husband, to submit, to respect, and honor him. And here again, it's one of the problems in this issue of respecting and honoring and loving is we tend to focus on the other person's problem. As long as I focus on my wife's weaknesses—and she's a wonderful woman, but she has them—as long as I focus on those and I'm focusing on those and I think it's her fault, we get nowhere. And she's focusing on mine, we get nowhere.

But when I start seeing my own mistakes, I'm going to work in my own heart and my own problem. So wives, you need to submit to your husband even if you think sometimes he's not worthy of submitting to. But if you can submit to him at all times and love him and respect him and honor him, you have a power. I've heard my brother Phil say not long ago. He says, "Women have a power that a lot of women don't realize they have." And it's not the power of complaining.

It's not the power of stomping their feet and raising their voice and defending their rights. It's the power of submission, humbly honoring and respecting, and trusting the man to make the decisions. And wow. Then all at once, we listen. Wow. So I would encourage all of us to work at that, each do our part in working at that, each do our own responsibility. That can get so bad. That's where divorce comes in, that the person says, "If I would only have another woman, it would be easier." I really doubt that.

I really doubt that. Listen. With the blood of—with the power of the resurrection, Jesus, you should be able to live with whichever woman you have and love her and honor her in spite of how she mistreats. The other is true too. And so what I'm trying to say is we need to focus on our own and not focus on the other. And we need to accept our weaknesses and our differences. My wife and I—and Dorcus, you'll grin on this one—my wife is a perfectionist. She's detailed.

I mean, when I leave home, I've had everything in the suitcase I'll need and more. She thinks of everything. And when we go to church, she—some of you probably do that too—she goes around, makes sure the iron is disconnected, that the oven is off. And she goes around. She makes sure. She has saved me so much money. I mean, she has been such a blessing. Her carefulness—you know what she's told me? She says, "Honey, if you'd worry a little more, I wouldn't have to worry as much because I don't. I'm careless.

I mean, I'm looking out. I'm ready to go and leave things behind me that are not the way they should be." She is a tremendous blessing. But that can cause friction. When I'm in a hurry to go, "Hey, let's go. It's time to get to church." And then she starts checking this and checking that and doing this and doing that. And I say, "Come on, honey.

Let's go." And she has a struggle if he would only be a little more careful, if he would think about some of these things and be a little more—but what I'd like to encourage us today is this: accept and appreciate our differences. My wife's over—over—I'll just say her carefulness has been a tremendous blessing to me. Dorcus knows. I mean, I need her. And I need Dorcus too. She helps him too. She's keeping me in line now. No. She does it in the right way. She's not—nothing wrong.

But my family's concerned about my getting enough rest with my just having COVID recently. So she's supposed to watch me. And if you see her pull at my elbow, it's not that she's bossing me. She's simply saying, "Dad, you need to go rest." But we need to accept the differences between us. One of us is always—pretty well all of us—is more careless. The other one is more detailed. One of them spends the money more. The other is more careful with the money. We're all different. I'm glad we are.

Can you imagine if my wife would be like me? I mean, maybe you can't. But Dorcus could. If my wife would be the same, wow, we'd have problems. But I have some strong points. She has some strong points. And together, we can make a pretty good team. Look at it that way: your wife's differences, your husband's differences. Appreciate that. I have a son the same. He's like his mother. He's so careful. He does things so right. One time, we were unloading a load of blocks. Cement blocks. We were unloading them.

And I just get in there. And I like to do it. So I was grabbing these blocks and just setting them down. And my son, we'd get two of them at a time, these cement blocks. I don't hear the same thing. And he'd get them down. He'd set them down carefully. He'd get the next one. He'd set it down carefully. He'd set it down carefully. Inside of me, I was like, "Come on, Caleb. Let's just do it." But when our stack was about this high, his was standing real straight, real good. Mine was just about going over.

So appreciate our differences instead of resenting some things that have been bothering us. Appreciate it. My wife has been a tremendous blessing to me. And I appreciate that so much. Remember this: the strength of relationship with your husband and wife is not only about you and your own feelings. It's going to affect your children, really. I know. Dorcus can tell you. It's not that hard for my wife and I to get conflict, conflict, conflict, conflict.

I've had my son tell me, "Dad, it's about time you take mommy for a hamburger. Take mommy for a date." Why did he say that? My dates, I do the cheap thing about how cheapest hamburger I can find. But anyway, why does he say that? He sees there's conflict going on. And I appreciate my son reminding that. I wish that I would have been ahead. But he's told me, "Dad, don't you think it'd be good to take mom for a date? Go get a hamburger." Because it's the family.

It affects the family when there's conflict, conflict, conflict. You know when you're carnal, you can conflict about anything. I had a lady tell me once. She said, "We separated over an egg." What was it? "Over an egg and super glue." And I think it was super glue. I have no idea what the argument was. But they had a lot of—it was the dumbest thing you can imagine. But we got so mad. And we held on to this. No one would give in. And we ended up wanting to go one way and one another, at least for a few days.

I'm not sure if it's permanent. I forget now. But you know what I mean? You can conflict about anything. What's the problem? It's my carnal nature. And like Tim, like Brother Ken reminded us this morning, we need to power the resurrection to humble ourselves and ask for the Spirit of God to lead us. So I would encourage you with that. And like Brother Dale said, if your family has been through a lot and you feel like you failed, you feel like you've blown it, you can never recuperate it, that's not true.

And the best thing you can do is humble yourself, surrender that yourself, and ask for the Spirit of the Holy God to come in you, to be a kind, gentle, loving husband or wife. Some of us have had long years of habit of griping, griping, griping, complaining, complaining, complaining. But through the power of the resurrected Jesus, that can change. First of all, you need to accept your own problem. You have to repent and call out to God. And he can help you.

And if you have a marriage, maybe your children are older and you've lost them, I have seen so many cases where a man has young children. He's in the church. And he's happy. And he's praising the Lord. And all at once, when the child turns 12, 13, to 14, he's shocked because all at once, he realizes he's lost his father, his children's heart. And they try so hard to recuperate it. And it can be. But the damage is often done. There's so many families here with little children.

I've been blessed to see all your little children, these young couples. I love children. And I like to see that. But I would really like to encourage you. And one of the main things is that you be a father's inspiration. You be a spirit-filled man, that the Spirit of the Holy God is guiding you. You're a humble man. You can listen to accusations. You can listen to problems without getting upset, without getting all worked up, and raise your voice and bang on the table. You ever try that? I hope you didn't.

But start. I know one man. He got so upset. And he wanted to impress his family. He turned around and, "Oh, I'm old." Started busting the siding on the wall. Do you think he gained anything by doing that? No. He lost it. But we can learn to be humble, be quiet, listen. And the Bible says in 1 Peter 3 that we men should use our heads. We should think with wisdom about our wives. And when there's a problem, stop and think before you talk, pray, and ask God to help you.

How do I, as a spiritual father, help in this situation? And if you have blown your home and things have not gone the way, maybe you came to Christ just recently. And your family's already been dysfunctional. The best thing you can do is you find you humble yourself. You have that broken heart that Brother Dale talked about yesterday. And you have the Spirit of God in your presence. And your children see he's a different man and the wives too. Now, I'd like to talk a little bit—wait a minute. Wait a minute.

Wait a minute. What's time? Am I supposed to end? It's time to quit. Almost. The same thing. I'd like to talk a little bit about parent-children relationship. I would please like to encourage you. I see you many couples here with young children. Please, may I say that as an older man with white hair? I still think I'm young. But when I look in the mirror, I have to accept that I'm getting a little older. But please, please, young couples, young—those are all these little children.

And then take time for your family. They're the most important thing God has given you, your wife and, well, your own salvation. But those children, please don't neglect your children for work, for money. When you're on your deathbed, you don't care what happened to your money. But what about your children? I'm not going to ask. Of course not.

But if I'd go around and ask a lot of these young people, "How many of you felt like your father neglected you because he was so busy making money?" If I'd ask them to raise their hands, do you think anyone would raise their hands? A lot of them will. Sometimes there's a father in the home. But there's not a father for the heart. Be humble. Take time. Listen. "Oh, they can talk. Oh, they talk. And they ask so many questions." Listen to those silly little questions. Talk with them.

Do it now when they're little so that you can keep on doing it when they're 12, 13, 14. Listen to them. Take time. Take time with your family. And do activities together. You know what I told someone? I told two men just the last few months. I said, "Please take time." One of them looked at me a little funny. And I said, "That would help you develop some things in your life. Take time and play games with your children." I've been doing that a little more. I've been playing—what's that one? Remicue?

I can't even pronounce them right. There's some games that we've been having a lot of fun. We've been playing Chinese checkers with my children my age. There was one time there was a home that was dysfunctional. And one of the oldest sons is now my co-minister. At that time, he was still in the world. His father was a member of the church. And the home had serious problems. Some of the children, some of them had not talked with each other for—I forget now—was it two or three or four years living in the same home.

Some of them had not talked with their father for two or three years. And they lived in the same home. And since the father was a member of the church, and I started working with him and helping him, and the family really appreciated it. We had a meeting where they asked each—where the father first asked forgiveness. You wouldn't imagine the tears. There was one daughter that sat there and just bawled. She just sat there about a half an hour and just cried and cried and cried.

But you know what I told them to do later? I took a memory game. You know those little games, memory? There's little memory games that children like to play. You want to have a good time with your grandchildren? Play memory with your grandchildren. I enjoy that. But then I took this memory game. And they had an old house. It's been some years ago. Tonya was still single. He was still in the world. They just had candles in the round. And they had this old wooden table. And we set out the memory game on the table.

And there stood Dad. There stood the children around the table. And, oh, they were laughing and having fun as they were flipping these cards. And, oh, they laughed. And one of the main things they laughed was to see their father trying to remember which card is which. You know the memory game, how it works. And I just sat back and just smiled. Take time. Play games with your children. Take time. One of the most important things you have to do is to win your children. Take time with your children.

Show interest in their interest. And making money, you need to make—we need a certain amount of money. Yeah. We need a certain amount of money to make a living, to cover the costs. But it's much more important to win your children's heart and to provide all the clothes and all the things for them. Take time with your children. And as a father, we need to discipline—disciple them. I'd like to rather use the word discipline. We need to teach.

As a father, we're responsible to take the children and teach them, "This is what you do. This is what you don't do." I've been reading through Proverbs recently. And we see that a lot in Proverbs, the thing of, "Listen to your father's. Do this. Don't do this. Listen to your father. Listen to your father." A father should do that. And anyway, love anyhow, your children need your approval. Father, do you realize that? Might be three years old. Might be five years old.

Don't wait till they're 12 and try to do it or 14 when they're already rebelling against you. Your children need to have the smile of approval. And if you ever see me—I haven't done it for a while enough—if you ever see me look across the crowd and wink, you'll know that over there is either one of my daughters or someone there. I can look at her and wink. There's a connection here. Take time for your children. Build that relationship.

And because we are sometimes harsh—and mothers too—or because we're so busy making sure everything is just right, and we lose the hearts, it's not worth it. And your children need to have the approval from Dad. And we're supposed to do it in seven minutes tonight, how to love the father. Listen, what the impact I'm trying to—this is an introduction to that, by the way. But children should need, desperately need, the approval of a father. And if you don't have a father, we'll talk about that tonight maybe briefly.

But take that as much more important than buying another car. Hey, drive the old car again another few years if you have to spend time. And if you've blown it and your children are older and your children hardly don't respect you anymore, try to plan something. You do something together. Go fishing with them. Now, I don't believe in wasting time fishing, just wasting all kinds of money and time on fishing. But I've went fishing. And I should do it more. But I'm fishing for my boys' hearts.

I'm fishing for my boys' hearts. And if you have lost your thing, do something with your boys or your girls that they enjoy. Have a grill. Do something together. They feel the love of a father. But your children need that real love, real communication. Take time. And help children to learn—I need to wrap this up—have children learn relationships. Some of us, we have a hard time getting along with our church.

One of the best things you can do for your children is show them how to relate to difficult circumstances and humble yourself and love and meet. If you have someone that has a hard time, invite them over. I remember one time. It blessed me so much. There was a sister that I knew was having struggles with me. And probably had reason. And what was I? I was going to be leaving somewhere. And she and her husband came over with a big pizza. She knew that I liked pizza. And I knew what she was doing.

She was trying to build bridges and build a relationship. Take time to build relationships. Remember, the success you have in life is the relationships you have, not the money you have. It's the relationships. So spend time and work with your children. Be they three years old, be they 15, 25, 26, 30 years old. Spend time to heal and restore. Oh, here's another thing that I'll just say this briefly. We need to also learn how to minister. Lord, help us. And here, we need the Spirit of the living God.

In the world we live today, some of our children are going to get into things they shouldn't. Some of your children are going to get into pornography. And I'm all for doing all you can to avoid it. We have a pretty strict control on our telephones and our laptops. I appreciate so much, E My People. And let me see. What was the one? I was talking to one of them here this afternoon. There's another one. Compass. Compass. I appreciate them so much. They're providing for the conservative people a way to control that.

But in spite of that, you might have a child or have someone in your family that has a fall, that has a down, has a serious problem. And then when fathers start pulling their hair, and what do I do? You need the Spirit of the living God. If your son comes to you and confesses it to you, that's a wonderful thing. But that's not enough. That's a good start. But you need to take time and help him work through this problem.

We need the Spirit of the living God to help us mothers too, to help our children even when they've messed up and they have failed and they feel like a failure. They feel like they're no good. Can you imagine the little baby you used to hold, the little three-year-old you used to play with? And now he's 15, 16. And he's failed. And he feels like a dirty mess. What should Dad do? What should Dad do? Scold him? You can tell him that he should have been more careful. But there's a time when they need the arms of Dad.

Maybe you don't do it. As we Latin Americans, we like to hug each other. We like to put our arms around each other. But they need time. They need Dad to say, "Son, I care. Son, I love you. I want to help you." Or, "Daughter, I feel like I've just barely touched a few things." But the main thing we need in our families is the Spirit of the living God. And when the Spirit of God is, we have a humble, broken heart that can communicate. You've had a son that you have years of conflict. I've seen that.

Conflict, conflict, conflict, conflict. What can you do to change that? You can. The Spirit of the living God, have a humble heart, a sensitive heart. I heard my oldest brother is not a believer. I heard my dad just six months ago, and he's done it many, many times over and again. I heard my dad say again, "I was with you in here." And I heard him say, "Son, I'm sorry. Forgive me. Forgive me for the times I hurt you when you were young." My brother's older than I am. And Dad's 91. He's done that again and again.

And of course, my brother says, "Oh, Dad. That's all right." But we need to do that sometimes. Forgive me for my anger. Forgive me for my frustration and so many other things. God bless you. What we need is the Spirit of the resurrected Jesus in our homes, in our hearts. God bless you.