July 14, 2025 • 25 mins
A study in the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 6.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Kwave's Pastor Spotlight featuring the Bible teaching of
our local Southern California pastors. This week we've been blessed
to bring you the preaching and teaching ministry of Mike Mayolo,
lead pastor of Mission Viejo Christian Church. MVCC is located
at 27192 Geronimo Road in Mission Viejo. For information on
service times and ministry opportunities, visit MVCChome.org.
(00:25):
Today Pastor Mike wants to thank God for fathers, and
we want our dads to know the important roles they play.
Fulfilling the mandate of a godly father is no easy task,
but God is so good that he gave us his
word to direct us on how to lead our children
to walk with.
Lord through the example of Moses in the Old Testament.
That's why Pastor Mike directs our attention now to Deuteronomy
(00:47):
chapter 6 starting at verse 1. We're gonna hear how
we need godly fathers who love, learn, and lead. Here's
Pastor Mike Mayolo.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Let's look at Deuteronomy 6:19. Moses is giving the law
down to the people of God. This is so important.
These are not the suggestions.
They're not suggestions, they are commands, right? Decrees and regulations
that the Lord, your God, commanded me to teach you,
Moses says, You must obey them in the land you
(01:19):
are about to enter and occupy.
And you and your children and grandchildren must fear the
Lord your God, as long as you live. If you
obey all his decrees and commands, you will enjoy a
long life. Somebody say amen, right? That doesn't guarantee that
we're gonna live, you know, 100 years, but guarantee the
(01:40):
life that we have will be long lived here in
our heart. Let's go.
1 verse 3, listen closely, Israel, and be careful to obey.
You sense what God is saying here? I want obedience
from my people, but I want your heart. And he
says to all the dads, then all will go well
with you and we'll have many children in the land
flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord, the
(02:02):
God of your ancestors promised you. Listen, O Israel, the
Lord is our God, the Lord alone.
And you must, here it is, love the Lord your
God with all your heart, with all your soul, with
all your strength. And you must commit to yourselves wholeheartedly
to these commands that I'm giving you today. Repeat them
(02:23):
again and again and again to your children. Talk about
them when you are at home, and when you're on
the road, and when you are going to bed, and
when you are getting up.
Tie them to your hands and wear them on your
forehead as reminders. Write them on the doorpost of your
house and on your gates.
First thing that I see here, being a godly dad,
(02:45):
being a parent, being someone that we just wanna permeate,
we wanna ooze out the Holy Spirit from within us, right?
On people. We just wanna kind of naturally spill over people,
don't we? With God's goodness and grace and love. I
see the first ingredient, I see what Moses is telling
the men and the women is, man, you gotta love
the Lord your God. That's number one, that's key. If
you don't love the Lord your God, I mean, really
(03:07):
love the Lord.
Parenting and all that stuff. Honestly, I don't care what
my kids choose to do, as long as they love
the Lord first, that will dictate everything else that they do.
So how do we do that? What's the best way
to passionately fall in love with God? I think if
I was to ask the question, you were gonna raise
your hand, sure, every hand would be up, every heart
(03:27):
would be beating a little faster, but
Do you really wanna love the Lord more? Of course
we do. But how do we do that? Cause I
can't see Jesus. He's not here. I sometimes I don't
feel Jesus, sometimes when even in worship, I feel the
presence of God, sometimes I don't. I don't ever rely
on feelings cause I know what is truth, I know
what is fact, I know that he's alive, I know
(03:50):
that he's still in my heart. I know that he's here.
I know that he has a destiny for me, but God,
how do I love you more? The greatest thing you
can bring to your kids?
Is a God-filled heart, a passionate heart.
It's not just about going to church. That's great. Coming
to church, I wouldn't miss it. I need, first of all,
to worship God, but I also need you. I need
(04:12):
your encouragement. I need to walk with brothers and sisters
who I know love the Lord with all their heart.
But more than anything else, God, give me a passion.
Give me, give me a reckless abandonment, God, to love
you with all my heart.
Oh, how do we do that?
Cause honest, sometimes I feel like God is distant.
(04:36):
I feel like he's disappointed.
With me?
Sometimes I feel like God is angry with me, and
sometimes I feel like God is distracted.
He's got bigger fish to fry. He's got more important things.
The bigger church down the street, the mega pastor over here,
the one who wrote books. I mean, sometimes I just
get that in my soul. How come our parking lot
(04:58):
can't be bigger than the little parking lot we have
at Miss VAjo Christian Church?
And it gets in me, it gets in me. I'll
be honest with you. I don't know, maybe for some
of you that are in business, you just, you want more,
you want the greater, you want the better. There's nothing
wrong with that, but letting my heart get so discontent
where it ruins me on the inside is not a
good thing because then I miss, that's not what the,
(05:20):
the God that I know. That's not what he thinks
about me.
Over and over and over again, the scripture just, I,
I wish we had time to go over the hundreds
of scriptures, but I know in Ephesians 1, there's 3 things,
3 things that if Jesus were to have a moment
with you right now, guys and women, if he were
to have a moment with you, I know what he
would say because the word tells us not how you feel,
(05:41):
not what we think, but what Jesus says because his
word says, I have number one chosen you. I have
chosen you.
Not, not to be better. I've chosen you because I
love you, because I want you. I want you in
my family. I created you and I want more than
anything else for you to be with me for eternity.
(06:03):
So number 1, he's chosen us. Number 2, out of
this is you can check it out in Ephesians 1,
it says, I have been, you have been, we have
been now accepted into the beloved.
Funny, I don't remember any place in the Bible, nor
my experience receiving Jesus that he ever said, clean it
up first and then I'll love you. Do this, and
(06:24):
then I'll accept you. He just says, come all, all
that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give
you what?
Peace and rest. The other really cool thing that God
gives us, it's in the word, you can check it out.
Ephesians one, we are God's inheritance. We're in his inheritance.
You know, when your kids, those of you that are
parents or grandparents, when your kids make something kind of
(06:45):
weird from from school, they bring it home and you
look at it and go, what is that?
I think Jonathan went his little made a macaroni birdhouse.
I'm like, I can't even tell what this thing is,
but I loved it. I loved it because he made
it for me. And I think sometimes I think, oh God, really?
Are you really happy with me? Are you really happy
to get me one day? Because the Bible is saying,
(07:06):
what does God get for all his work, all his trouble?
He gets us. He gets me. Now that makes me.
Just walk a little bit more in his power, walk
a little bit more in his authority, be able to
know that Jesus is with me, it's not me, it's him.
Oh God, you are so good. That's how I freshly
fall in love with Jesus. I have to be reminded.
(07:28):
Of that men and women, we're so different, aren't we,
in how we fall in love?
Do you remember back in grade school when you had, oh.
It was Engels class. I saw her from afar. We
were gonna get married. We, we were gonna have a
big house and we're just, you know, in 6th grade,
5th grade, remember that junior high? It's funny when we
go back to those days and think about love was
(07:48):
so strong. Remember when you fell in love and all
these feelings, you didn't know how to package, you didn't
know what to do. It just, it just was there.
And even when you met the wife or husband that
you have, you just, you fall in love. There's nothing
greater than knowing that somebody's got their eye on you.
Isn't it fun?
In the, I guess, OK, maybe 3 or 4 of you. I,
it's so fun, right? Well, through the dating experience, just
(08:10):
how we fall in love is so different. I, I'll just,
I'll just give you an example of my own experience.
Oh, I think I like her. I think I love her.
She's really cool. She's really hot. Oh, and they get
to know her. She's really nice. Her personality is awesome. Oh,
I really like her. I really like her. I she's awesome.
I wanna marry her. I wanna be with her forever.
I'll get her flowers, candy, I'll do anything. And then
I it's kind of boring and it's just kinda getting
(08:32):
restless and it's just kinda, but girls are like, I
love them, I hate him. I love them, I hate them.
I love them. I hate them, right? We're, we're different
that way.
But here's the key. We all want to. Come on,
be honest, we all want to fall in love. Isn't
that the greatest thing ever?
And God says, look, grab on to that little nugget
(08:54):
right there. I want you to love me.
I want you to love me from the heart. I
don't want you just to obey me because you have to.
I want you to obey me because you want to.
So how do we do that? We let some of
that word sink in here and here. You know that's right,
just follow your heart, that phrase. That is the dumbest
(09:14):
thing I've ever heard, in some senses, in some context,
because my heart could lead me down a wrong path.
My heart can lead me down a place of sin
or destruction or heartache and pain. But if I follow
what I know, sometimes what I know, it takes a
while for my heart to engage, depending on how we're wired.
But here
Here's the bottom line, brothers and sisters. Here's the bottom line, family.
(09:34):
God wants every single one of us, whether we're a
head person or a heart person first. God wants us
to love him, to have a passion, to say, God,
you are my only hope. God, I love you. You
are everything to me, God, and your kids will know that, right?
They say there's a 50% chance if you take your
kids to church, there's a 50% chance that when they
graduate from high school and going into college, they will
(09:55):
continue their faith. If we live our faith, guys and women,
if we live our faith in the home and genuine,
and I'm not talking about being the perfect dad, the
perfect mom, cause nobody is, but if you gen and
kids know, right? Whether we're sincere.
If you live it, if you are passionately in love
with God.
There's a 70 to 80% chance that your kids will continue,
(10:19):
our kids will continue to follow Jesus because they love him,
because they see a dad, they see a mom who's
sincere about the Lord. So the first action point, what
do I do out of this? Love plus time develops
deep relationship. That's just the bottom line, we know that, right?
I don't have to tell you this, we know this,
(10:40):
but I just wanna do the Holy Spirit power just
to inspire us today and give us some encouragement and teaching.
It's love plus time that builds relationship. If I never
spend time with my kids, that's why when my kids
were in Little League, both my boys at one point were,
and I.
I just went over to the coach, the first practice.
I said, hey, if you need some help, I'd love
to be like your assistant coach. It wasn't because I
(11:00):
love baseball so much because I really love tennis, but
it wasn't just, it was because I love my boys
and I wanna be where they are. Time with them
is so valuable. And I know, you know, in the OC,
I get it, it is hard, it is tough, it
is a challenge to spend that time.
With our kids because everything's so busy, but we gotta
(11:23):
make that time. We sometimes we gotta make sure that
it's intentional, sometimes it's just organic. It just happens. They,
you know, when they get older, they pop over your
house and you get to spend time with them. All
time is valuable. Can I just say this? Every moment,
every second, every minute is valuable with your kids or
your grandkids. It is.
Action point number 2 is to teach and practice godly discipline.
(11:44):
That's a huge deal.
I don't know what it is, but I think we've
lost some of that, some of that biblical like discipline
for our kids and we become a child centered home.
The kid runs a home. Well, we can't really do
this because our kids, we check things out with our kids,
we don't say those things and we don't mean not
(12:05):
technically do them, but we, we live that way. Love
brings discipline, kids need rules, kids need consequences. Kids need
to know that that's a God-centered home.
When, when Michael was little, my wife and I, Laura
went out on our first date after, you know, they're little,
you don't go on much dates when they're really little
cause you're just trying to survive.
(12:27):
And remember the first date we had cause Friday night
was always our date night. And we went out, we
were so excited we're gonna go to the movies and
we're gonna grab a dinner and stuff. And Michael comes
up with these, remember that cartoon in Bugs Bunny?
And remember Bugs Bunny? That, that, that penguin that cried
in the middle of the ice age and he had
these ice cubes. Well, Michael just stands at the door.
(12:48):
We had the babysitter over and he stands at the door,
and he just starts crying like, oh I want to
go with you. I said, I got down, I remember
I got down on my knees. I said, Michael, you
can't go with us cause I'm dating your mom, and
mommy and daddy time is very valuable. We love you,
but we'll be back.
Oh no, we really can't do that because our kids
need us. We've done, it's been years since we've been
to a movie. My heart breaks. Kids need to know
(13:10):
that mom and dad are first. My marriage is first,
then my kids. God is first, but in the earthly sense,
marriage and then the children.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
You're listening to Kwave's Pastor Spotlight featuring Mike Mayolo, lead
pastor of Mission Viejo Christian Church. For directions and information,
visit MVCChome.org. Now, once again, here's Pastor Mike Mayolo.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
So we want to teach kids, as it says here
in Deuteronomy, teach these commands, teach them. So how do
we do that? How do we teach our kids?
We live it
And then we teach
Verse 8 says, for godly fathers, learn continuously. Not only
do we love,
(13:57):
Wait, there's a soft side of love, tenderness, compassion, understanding,
hugs and tears and all of that. The tenderness of
Jesus to me is amazing.
But there's also the hard side of love, that this
is the rule, this is the line we will not
cross over that line. And if you do, there's consequences.
I will always still love you, but there are consequences
to that. Why is that so important that when our
(14:18):
kids go, I don't like you very much, Dad, I
don't like you, mommy. I can't believe you're so mean.
I'm leaving. I'm running.
away and they packed their grocery sack and they think
they're gonna leave, right? It's so important that we hold
the line, not in an unloving fashion, but in a
very compassionate yet strong and firm way. It's important because
I want my boys to understand God.
(14:41):
I've only got 18 years with him.
Right? And then they're out. They're gonna make their own decisions,
who they're gonna marry, what kind of work they're gonna do,
life decisions, and I wanna make sure at the very
core that they learn to love Jesus.
And we learn, we learn together the spiritual disciplines of
loving him together.
We're still learning here at Missionville Christian Church, aren't we?
(15:02):
I hope so. I hope we're still learning. That's why
I'm just big. I'm big, big, big on men. Men
need men. Iron sharpens iron, Iron Man ministries. I'm just
big on that because I think there's things we deal
with as guys. We just need to, we need to
flush it out, right? There's stuff that we just struggle with, temptations,
things that we deal with, and I still wanna love Jesus,
but how come I'm not able to love Jesus? We
(15:24):
didn't talk that stuff through over the Bible.
And through that experience, I have seen some of our
families here at Missionville Christian Church that are still learning.
And how do I know that? Because of their kids.
I, I'll just introduce you to one. You probably know
these folks, uh, Dave and Liz Rowletter.
These, these are great people. They've been in our church,
(15:46):
I think for like 20 years, a long time, you
stay in your church that long? Yeah, because they understand commitment.
They're not just here, they are serving here.
Dave helps run the Royal Family Kids camp.
Not only did Dave helped run the Royal Family Kids camp,
which is a week-long camp in San Diego for foster
children who don't have family, don't have love, don't understand
(16:08):
most of them who God is, and we get to
take and some of you are going, 50 people down
there every year, once a week for 1 year to
just love those kids and give them Jesus for 1
year and let them know what a safe family feels like.
He's now stepped into leadership. Before that, he was in
Mission Kid serving. I'd walk around because I'm always like
trying to walk around before and between services. I wanna
(16:28):
see God, what are you doing over the campus? I
don't wanna just sit there and just sit. I wanna move.
So I'm moving around and I see Dave in there
with this Mission Kids t-shirt on and he's serving Jesus.
Love it.
And Liz, she is the quiet servant that I think
the whole time I've been here, maybe a few words,
she speaks loudly.
(16:51):
With her life
And how do we know that they really love God?
There's evidence that life isn't all about me. Life is
about serving and serving him and serving people.
Their kids are amazing kids.
Alex attends USC. He's getting ready to graduate. He came
up to me, um, a couple of Sundays ago. He
(17:13):
was able to be here on a weekend. He says,
Pastor Mike, Pastor Mike, I think, I think I found her.
What do you, what do you mean, man? I think
I found like I'm so I could just tell by
the way was talking. I think I found the one.
And let me just share this with you. When he
was explaining this, he was all about, I hope this
is what God has planned. I really want God to
(17:35):
bless us. It was all about God. How does that happen?
Because Dave and Liz pour out their heart to their kids.
It wasn't that they sat down and had all these lessons.
Those are good. We should have family devotions and all
that before dinner and
Do we still have dinner at the dinner table? Whenever
we can meet as family, we should have those devotions.
(17:55):
That's so important. But I think it just kind of
oozes out. Emma loves God with all her heart, and
I see her serving with mom, and it's just an incredible,
incredible testimony.
The whole Israelite community.
They say there was up to 1 million people standing
before Moses.
And I bet it wasn't just, hey, how's it going?
(18:17):
You see my latest Facebook post?
Instagram, Tik
Man, I am so afraid to get over that wall
of water. Let's bind together. We gotta do this thing together.
I think there was community even in the fear. I
(18:37):
really do. And I just say, you know, the church
is a community, the church is family. It doesn't take
a village to raise a kid, it takes a church
to raise a kid.
Right? When my, when Lorne and I had children, we
were like, what do we do?
We waited like 10 years before we had kids cause
we didn't want them. And then all of a sudden
God opened this window. I'm like, yeah, let's have kids.
That'll be awesome. I'm so glad that we did. But
(19:00):
it was scary. I never changed a diaper before. How
do you know what crying in the middle of the
night means? What does that mean? What am I supposed
to do? Are you kidding me? I gotta change diapers? Ew, yuck.
But then all of a sudden when it's yours, it's
completely different. So we were quick to recognize when we
moved back to California from Hawaii. We needed help in
this thing.
So I had specifically asked some people that I connected with.
(19:21):
I said, would you just kind of help us to
raise our kids? And then some of it just kinda
organically happened. Um, Keith Stto's the guy that helped my
son Jonathan know the Lord. Eddie and Kim Morris in
their 6th 5th grade class. Michael and Jonathan were in his, in,
in Kim's class. Carl and Lisa Stole just hung around
my kids. They'd come over to my house, they'd go
(19:42):
over to their house, and it just kind of naturally happens.
A guy named Randy Claremont.
Guy named Steve uh Edmondson, Pastor Robert Jenkins, Pastor Johnny Sweetzer,
who leads our kids club, Sherry Winblatt who was a
preschool director, Jennifer, and I was so embarrassed, I have
to just tell you that first time Jonathan, Laura was
holding Jonathan, we took him to the preschool, he was
growling at the preschool director. I'm like, oh this is
(20:04):
gonna go great. Not only is he growling, but this
is my staff. Don't do this.
And Jennifer Hamner, I mean, if I missed anybody, I'm
so sorry, but there's so many people that intentionally and
organically just permeated the love of Jesus to my kids.
And let me just say this, when my kids need
(20:25):
someone to talk to, they're not always gonna talk to dad,
and they're not always gonna talk to mom. We know this, right?
Something happens when they turn 13, where they just kind
of like, you are the worst person in the world,
but where are they gonna go?
When they need truth, where, and they don't know that
they need truth. Where are they gonna go when they
have pain in their heart? I know that some of
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these people that I listed, my kids have talked to them,
and I'm not intimidated by that. It's a church that
raises a kid. That's why I'm so big on get involved,
be family, get in, right? Because we're in this thing together.
All right, action point number 7, or uh verse number 7.
Get in conversation with our kids, get in conversation.
(21:07):
Whether we're going to the baseball field, whether we're going
to dance class, or school, taking them on errands, doing
things with them, all the things that we do with kids.
Those are moments to be in conversation, and I'm not
saying that we always have to talk about God in
every conversation, because should just naturally just kinda come out.
I love Costco. Anybody here love Costco? Costco's fun. My
(21:30):
wife and I go on, we used to go on
dates at Costco.
Where are we going for date night? Costco. Cause I
got all kinds of stuff to look at that you
didn't expect that you're gonna walk out with, but it's like,
this is really cool. When I'm walking down the aisles,
my wife gave me a couple of weeks ago, a
long list of stuff, and so I'm getting all the stuff.
And then I turned the corner and one of my
favorite snacks, I love popcorn.
(21:53):
I love popcorn and Costco, everything's big. So this huge
bag of popcorn, and I was reading the side of this,
this bag and it said, special popcorn from the Himalaya Mountains,
special salt, low fat, low cholesterol, low all that stuff, right?
Low carbs. I'm, I'm in, baby. So I buy this
thing and I'm
Home one night and I'm watching Maverick Top Gun, cause
(22:14):
that's one of my favorite movies of the last few
years and I'm watching this, and I'm eating 34 bowls
of this stuff, and I'm going to bed and my
stomach is churning and I'm in trouble, man. This thing
is hurting my stomach.
When I woke up the next day.
And my breast just is ew.
Must have been the Himalayan popcorn. I guess what I'm
(22:36):
saying about that is
We should just naturally ooze God.
With our kids.
I, I, I, I, I really believe that. I'm not
saying there's not a place for systems and devotions and
time and we're gonna open our Bibles that you, we
should do that. But I think more as, as we've
heard caught than taught, right? And the last thing I
(22:57):
wanna say here is we lead. A good father is
not always perfect, we don't always get it right, but
we lead by example.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
That's Pastor Mike Mayolo, lead pastor of Mission Viejo Christian
Church here on Kwave's Pastor Spotlight. We hope you've enjoyed
today's message on Deuteronomy chapter 6, verses 1 through 9.
Thanks again to Pastor Mike Mayolo for being our featured
teacher this week on Pastor Spotlight. Mike Mayolo serves as
the lead pastor of Mission Viejo Christian Church, where he's
(23:27):
been pastoring for the last 23 years, 3 years as
a youth pastor and lead pastor for the last 20.
MVCC is a vibrant church.
where real discipleship happens, love is on display, and lives
are released on mission for Christ. Their vision is to
reach people with the good news of Jesus Christ, to
make disciples who make disciples. Again, Mission Viejo Christian Church
(23:49):
is located at 27 192 Geronimo Road in Mission Viejo.
Sunday worship times are 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. MVCC
is best known in the community for assisting the city
with service to children and their families through preschool to
junior high.
They also provide after school outreaches for public school children
and service projects throughout the city of Mission Viejo. Their
(24:10):
purpose in providing these is to bring the good news
of Jesus Christ to their city in hopes that God
will transform their community through prayer, wanting everyone to have
a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Some upcoming events that
you and your family are invited to include their Christmas
Eve services at 1, 2:30, and 4 p.m. and their
worship night with circuit riders on January 13th at 6.
(24:33):
For more information about Mission Viejo Christian Church, visit MVCChome.org. Finally,
we invite you to join us right here at this
same time Monday for another time of growing in the
grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. Here on Kwave's Pastor Spotlight,
we'll be featuring the teaching of another one of our
wonderful pastors from here in the Southern California area. We
(24:54):
hope you'll join us. Pastor Spotlight is a production of
Kwave Radio, sharing life, delivering truth, giving hope.
Welcome to Kwave's Pastor Spotlight featuring the Bible teaching of
our local Southern California pastors. This week we've been blessed
to bring you the preaching and teaching ministry of Mike Mayolo,
lead pastor of Mission Viejo Christian Church. MVCC is located
at 27192 Geronimo Road in Mission Viejo. For information on
service times and ministry opportunities, visit MVCChome.org.
(00:25):
Today Pastor Mike wants to thank God for fathers, and
we want our dads to know the important roles they play.
Fulfilling the mandate of a godly father is no easy task,
but God is so good that he gave us his
word to direct us on how to lead our children
to walk with.
Lord through the example of Moses in the Old Testament.
That's why Pastor Mike directs our attention now to Deuteronomy
(00:47):
chapter 6 starting at verse 1. We're gonna hear how
we need godly fathers who love, learn, and lead. Here's
Pastor Mike Mayolo.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Let's look at Deuteronomy 6:19. Moses is giving the law
down to the people of God. This is so important.
These are not the suggestions.
They're not suggestions, they are commands, right? Decrees and regulations
that the Lord, your God, commanded me to teach you,
Moses says, You must obey them in the land you
(01:19):
are about to enter and occupy.
And you and your children and grandchildren must fear the
Lord your God, as long as you live. If you
obey all his decrees and commands, you will enjoy a
long life. Somebody say amen, right? That doesn't guarantee that
we're gonna live, you know, 100 years, but guarantee the
(01:40):
life that we have will be long lived here in
our heart. Let's go.
1 verse 3, listen closely, Israel, and be careful to obey.
You sense what God is saying here? I want obedience
from my people, but I want your heart. And he
says to all the dads, then all will go well
with you and we'll have many children in the land
flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord, the
(02:02):
God of your ancestors promised you. Listen, O Israel, the
Lord is our God, the Lord alone.
And you must, here it is, love the Lord your
God with all your heart, with all your soul, with
all your strength. And you must commit to yourselves wholeheartedly
to these commands that I'm giving you today. Repeat them
(02:23):
again and again and again to your children. Talk about
them when you are at home, and when you're on
the road, and when you are going to bed, and
when you are getting up.
Tie them to your hands and wear them on your
forehead as reminders. Write them on the doorpost of your
house and on your gates.
First thing that I see here, being a godly dad,
(02:45):
being a parent, being someone that we just wanna permeate,
we wanna ooze out the Holy Spirit from within us, right?
On people. We just wanna kind of naturally spill over people,
don't we? With God's goodness and grace and love. I
see the first ingredient, I see what Moses is telling
the men and the women is, man, you gotta love
the Lord your God. That's number one, that's key. If
you don't love the Lord your God, I mean, really
(03:07):
love the Lord.
Parenting and all that stuff. Honestly, I don't care what
my kids choose to do, as long as they love
the Lord first, that will dictate everything else that they do.
So how do we do that? What's the best way
to passionately fall in love with God? I think if
I was to ask the question, you were gonna raise
your hand, sure, every hand would be up, every heart
(03:27):
would be beating a little faster, but
Do you really wanna love the Lord more? Of course
we do. But how do we do that? Cause I
can't see Jesus. He's not here. I sometimes I don't
feel Jesus, sometimes when even in worship, I feel the
presence of God, sometimes I don't. I don't ever rely
on feelings cause I know what is truth, I know
what is fact, I know that he's alive, I know
(03:50):
that he's still in my heart. I know that he's here.
I know that he has a destiny for me, but God,
how do I love you more? The greatest thing you
can bring to your kids?
Is a God-filled heart, a passionate heart.
It's not just about going to church. That's great. Coming
to church, I wouldn't miss it. I need, first of all,
to worship God, but I also need you. I need
(04:12):
your encouragement. I need to walk with brothers and sisters
who I know love the Lord with all their heart.
But more than anything else, God, give me a passion.
Give me, give me a reckless abandonment, God, to love
you with all my heart.
Oh, how do we do that?
Cause honest, sometimes I feel like God is distant.
(04:36):
I feel like he's disappointed.
With me?
Sometimes I feel like God is angry with me, and
sometimes I feel like God is distracted.
He's got bigger fish to fry. He's got more important things.
The bigger church down the street, the mega pastor over here,
the one who wrote books. I mean, sometimes I just
get that in my soul. How come our parking lot
(04:58):
can't be bigger than the little parking lot we have
at Miss VAjo Christian Church?
And it gets in me, it gets in me. I'll
be honest with you. I don't know, maybe for some
of you that are in business, you just, you want more,
you want the greater, you want the better. There's nothing
wrong with that, but letting my heart get so discontent
where it ruins me on the inside is not a
good thing because then I miss, that's not what the,
(05:20):
the God that I know. That's not what he thinks
about me.
Over and over and over again, the scripture just, I,
I wish we had time to go over the hundreds
of scriptures, but I know in Ephesians 1, there's 3 things,
3 things that if Jesus were to have a moment
with you right now, guys and women, if he were
to have a moment with you, I know what he
would say because the word tells us not how you feel,
(05:41):
not what we think, but what Jesus says because his
word says, I have number one chosen you. I have
chosen you.
Not, not to be better. I've chosen you because I
love you, because I want you. I want you in
my family. I created you and I want more than
anything else for you to be with me for eternity.
(06:03):
So number 1, he's chosen us. Number 2, out of
this is you can check it out in Ephesians 1,
it says, I have been, you have been, we have
been now accepted into the beloved.
Funny, I don't remember any place in the Bible, nor
my experience receiving Jesus that he ever said, clean it
up first and then I'll love you. Do this, and
(06:24):
then I'll accept you. He just says, come all, all
that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give
you what?
Peace and rest. The other really cool thing that God
gives us, it's in the word, you can check it out.
Ephesians one, we are God's inheritance. We're in his inheritance.
You know, when your kids, those of you that are
parents or grandparents, when your kids make something kind of
(06:45):
weird from from school, they bring it home and you
look at it and go, what is that?
I think Jonathan went his little made a macaroni birdhouse.
I'm like, I can't even tell what this thing is,
but I loved it. I loved it because he made
it for me. And I think sometimes I think, oh God, really?
Are you really happy with me? Are you really happy
to get me one day? Because the Bible is saying,
(07:06):
what does God get for all his work, all his trouble?
He gets us. He gets me. Now that makes me.
Just walk a little bit more in his power, walk
a little bit more in his authority, be able to
know that Jesus is with me, it's not me, it's him.
Oh God, you are so good. That's how I freshly
fall in love with Jesus. I have to be reminded.
(07:28):
Of that men and women, we're so different, aren't we,
in how we fall in love?
Do you remember back in grade school when you had, oh.
It was Engels class. I saw her from afar. We
were gonna get married. We, we were gonna have a
big house and we're just, you know, in 6th grade,
5th grade, remember that junior high? It's funny when we
go back to those days and think about love was
(07:48):
so strong. Remember when you fell in love and all
these feelings, you didn't know how to package, you didn't
know what to do. It just, it just was there.
And even when you met the wife or husband that
you have, you just, you fall in love. There's nothing
greater than knowing that somebody's got their eye on you.
Isn't it fun?
In the, I guess, OK, maybe 3 or 4 of you. I,
it's so fun, right? Well, through the dating experience, just
(08:10):
how we fall in love is so different. I, I'll just,
I'll just give you an example of my own experience.
Oh, I think I like her. I think I love her.
She's really cool. She's really hot. Oh, and they get
to know her. She's really nice. Her personality is awesome. Oh,
I really like her. I really like her. I she's awesome.
I wanna marry her. I wanna be with her forever.
I'll get her flowers, candy, I'll do anything. And then
I it's kind of boring and it's just kinda getting
(08:32):
restless and it's just kinda, but girls are like, I
love them, I hate him. I love them, I hate them.
I love them. I hate them, right? We're, we're different
that way.
But here's the key. We all want to. Come on,
be honest, we all want to fall in love. Isn't
that the greatest thing ever?
And God says, look, grab on to that little nugget
(08:54):
right there. I want you to love me.
I want you to love me from the heart. I
don't want you just to obey me because you have to.
I want you to obey me because you want to.
So how do we do that? We let some of
that word sink in here and here. You know that's right,
just follow your heart, that phrase. That is the dumbest
(09:14):
thing I've ever heard, in some senses, in some context,
because my heart could lead me down a wrong path.
My heart can lead me down a place of sin
or destruction or heartache and pain. But if I follow
what I know, sometimes what I know, it takes a
while for my heart to engage, depending on how we're wired.
But here
Here's the bottom line, brothers and sisters. Here's the bottom line, family.
(09:34):
God wants every single one of us, whether we're a
head person or a heart person first. God wants us
to love him, to have a passion, to say, God,
you are my only hope. God, I love you. You
are everything to me, God, and your kids will know that, right?
They say there's a 50% chance if you take your
kids to church, there's a 50% chance that when they
graduate from high school and going into college, they will
(09:55):
continue their faith. If we live our faith, guys and women,
if we live our faith in the home and genuine,
and I'm not talking about being the perfect dad, the
perfect mom, cause nobody is, but if you gen and
kids know, right? Whether we're sincere.
If you live it, if you are passionately in love
with God.
There's a 70 to 80% chance that your kids will continue,
(10:19):
our kids will continue to follow Jesus because they love him,
because they see a dad, they see a mom who's
sincere about the Lord. So the first action point, what
do I do out of this? Love plus time develops
deep relationship. That's just the bottom line, we know that, right?
I don't have to tell you this, we know this,
(10:40):
but I just wanna do the Holy Spirit power just
to inspire us today and give us some encouragement and teaching.
It's love plus time that builds relationship. If I never
spend time with my kids, that's why when my kids
were in Little League, both my boys at one point were,
and I.
I just went over to the coach, the first practice.
I said, hey, if you need some help, I'd love
to be like your assistant coach. It wasn't because I
(11:00):
love baseball so much because I really love tennis, but
it wasn't just, it was because I love my boys
and I wanna be where they are. Time with them
is so valuable. And I know, you know, in the OC,
I get it, it is hard, it is tough, it
is a challenge to spend that time.
With our kids because everything's so busy, but we gotta
(11:23):
make that time. We sometimes we gotta make sure that
it's intentional, sometimes it's just organic. It just happens. They,
you know, when they get older, they pop over your
house and you get to spend time with them. All
time is valuable. Can I just say this? Every moment,
every second, every minute is valuable with your kids or
your grandkids. It is.
Action point number 2 is to teach and practice godly discipline.
(11:44):
That's a huge deal.
I don't know what it is, but I think we've
lost some of that, some of that biblical like discipline
for our kids and we become a child centered home.
The kid runs a home. Well, we can't really do
this because our kids, we check things out with our kids,
we don't say those things and we don't mean not
(12:05):
technically do them, but we, we live that way. Love
brings discipline, kids need rules, kids need consequences. Kids need
to know that that's a God-centered home.
When, when Michael was little, my wife and I, Laura
went out on our first date after, you know, they're little,
you don't go on much dates when they're really little
cause you're just trying to survive.
(12:27):
And remember the first date we had cause Friday night
was always our date night. And we went out, we
were so excited we're gonna go to the movies and
we're gonna grab a dinner and stuff. And Michael comes
up with these, remember that cartoon in Bugs Bunny?
And remember Bugs Bunny? That, that, that penguin that cried
in the middle of the ice age and he had
these ice cubes. Well, Michael just stands at the door.
(12:48):
We had the babysitter over and he stands at the door,
and he just starts crying like, oh I want to
go with you. I said, I got down, I remember
I got down on my knees. I said, Michael, you
can't go with us cause I'm dating your mom, and
mommy and daddy time is very valuable. We love you,
but we'll be back.
Oh no, we really can't do that because our kids
need us. We've done, it's been years since we've been
to a movie. My heart breaks. Kids need to know
(13:10):
that mom and dad are first. My marriage is first,
then my kids. God is first, but in the earthly sense,
marriage and then the children.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
You're listening to Kwave's Pastor Spotlight featuring Mike Mayolo, lead
pastor of Mission Viejo Christian Church. For directions and information,
visit MVCChome.org. Now, once again, here's Pastor Mike Mayolo.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
So we want to teach kids, as it says here
in Deuteronomy, teach these commands, teach them. So how do
we do that? How do we teach our kids?
We live it
And then we teach
Verse 8 says, for godly fathers, learn continuously. Not only
do we love,
(13:57):
Wait, there's a soft side of love, tenderness, compassion, understanding,
hugs and tears and all of that. The tenderness of
Jesus to me is amazing.
But there's also the hard side of love, that this
is the rule, this is the line we will not
cross over that line. And if you do, there's consequences.
I will always still love you, but there are consequences
to that. Why is that so important that when our
(14:18):
kids go, I don't like you very much, Dad, I
don't like you, mommy. I can't believe you're so mean.
I'm leaving. I'm running.
away and they packed their grocery sack and they think
they're gonna leave, right? It's so important that we hold
the line, not in an unloving fashion, but in a
very compassionate yet strong and firm way. It's important because
I want my boys to understand God.
(14:41):
I've only got 18 years with him.
Right? And then they're out. They're gonna make their own decisions,
who they're gonna marry, what kind of work they're gonna do,
life decisions, and I wanna make sure at the very
core that they learn to love Jesus.
And we learn, we learn together the spiritual disciplines of
loving him together.
We're still learning here at Missionville Christian Church, aren't we?
(15:02):
I hope so. I hope we're still learning. That's why
I'm just big. I'm big, big, big on men. Men
need men. Iron sharpens iron, Iron Man ministries. I'm just
big on that because I think there's things we deal
with as guys. We just need to, we need to
flush it out, right? There's stuff that we just struggle with, temptations,
things that we deal with, and I still wanna love Jesus,
but how come I'm not able to love Jesus? We
(15:24):
didn't talk that stuff through over the Bible.
And through that experience, I have seen some of our
families here at Missionville Christian Church that are still learning.
And how do I know that? Because of their kids.
I, I'll just introduce you to one. You probably know
these folks, uh, Dave and Liz Rowletter.
These, these are great people. They've been in our church,
(15:46):
I think for like 20 years, a long time, you
stay in your church that long? Yeah, because they understand commitment.
They're not just here, they are serving here.
Dave helps run the Royal Family Kids camp.
Not only did Dave helped run the Royal Family Kids camp,
which is a week-long camp in San Diego for foster
children who don't have family, don't have love, don't understand
(16:08):
most of them who God is, and we get to
take and some of you are going, 50 people down
there every year, once a week for 1 year to
just love those kids and give them Jesus for 1
year and let them know what a safe family feels like.
He's now stepped into leadership. Before that, he was in
Mission Kid serving. I'd walk around because I'm always like
trying to walk around before and between services. I wanna
(16:28):
see God, what are you doing over the campus? I
don't wanna just sit there and just sit. I wanna move.
So I'm moving around and I see Dave in there
with this Mission Kids t-shirt on and he's serving Jesus.
Love it.
And Liz, she is the quiet servant that I think
the whole time I've been here, maybe a few words,
she speaks loudly.
(16:51):
With her life
And how do we know that they really love God?
There's evidence that life isn't all about me. Life is
about serving and serving him and serving people.
Their kids are amazing kids.
Alex attends USC. He's getting ready to graduate. He came
up to me, um, a couple of Sundays ago. He
(17:13):
was able to be here on a weekend. He says,
Pastor Mike, Pastor Mike, I think, I think I found her.
What do you, what do you mean, man? I think
I found like I'm so I could just tell by
the way was talking. I think I found the one.
And let me just share this with you. When he
was explaining this, he was all about, I hope this
is what God has planned. I really want God to
(17:35):
bless us. It was all about God. How does that happen?
Because Dave and Liz pour out their heart to their kids.
It wasn't that they sat down and had all these lessons.
Those are good. We should have family devotions and all
that before dinner and
Do we still have dinner at the dinner table? Whenever
we can meet as family, we should have those devotions.
(17:55):
That's so important. But I think it just kind of
oozes out. Emma loves God with all her heart, and
I see her serving with mom, and it's just an incredible,
incredible testimony.
The whole Israelite community.
They say there was up to 1 million people standing
before Moses.
And I bet it wasn't just, hey, how's it going?
(18:17):
You see my latest Facebook post?
Instagram, Tik
Man, I am so afraid to get over that wall
of water. Let's bind together. We gotta do this thing together.
I think there was community even in the fear. I
(18:37):
really do. And I just say, you know, the church
is a community, the church is family. It doesn't take
a village to raise a kid, it takes a church
to raise a kid.
Right? When my, when Lorne and I had children, we
were like, what do we do?
We waited like 10 years before we had kids cause
we didn't want them. And then all of a sudden
God opened this window. I'm like, yeah, let's have kids.
That'll be awesome. I'm so glad that we did. But
(19:00):
it was scary. I never changed a diaper before. How
do you know what crying in the middle of the
night means? What does that mean? What am I supposed
to do? Are you kidding me? I gotta change diapers? Ew, yuck.
But then all of a sudden when it's yours, it's
completely different. So we were quick to recognize when we
moved back to California from Hawaii. We needed help in
this thing.
So I had specifically asked some people that I connected with.
(19:21):
I said, would you just kind of help us to
raise our kids? And then some of it just kinda
organically happened. Um, Keith Stto's the guy that helped my
son Jonathan know the Lord. Eddie and Kim Morris in
their 6th 5th grade class. Michael and Jonathan were in his, in,
in Kim's class. Carl and Lisa Stole just hung around
my kids. They'd come over to my house, they'd go
(19:42):
over to their house, and it just kind of naturally happens.
A guy named Randy Claremont.
Guy named Steve uh Edmondson, Pastor Robert Jenkins, Pastor Johnny Sweetzer,
who leads our kids club, Sherry Winblatt who was a
preschool director, Jennifer, and I was so embarrassed, I have
to just tell you that first time Jonathan, Laura was
holding Jonathan, we took him to the preschool, he was
growling at the preschool director. I'm like, oh this is
(20:04):
gonna go great. Not only is he growling, but this
is my staff. Don't do this.
And Jennifer Hamner, I mean, if I missed anybody, I'm
so sorry, but there's so many people that intentionally and
organically just permeated the love of Jesus to my kids.
And let me just say this, when my kids need
(20:25):
someone to talk to, they're not always gonna talk to dad,
and they're not always gonna talk to mom. We know this, right?
Something happens when they turn 13, where they just kind
of like, you are the worst person in the world,
but where are they gonna go?
When they need truth, where, and they don't know that
they need truth. Where are they gonna go when they
have pain in their heart? I know that some of
(20:46):
these people that I listed, my kids have talked to them,
and I'm not intimidated by that. It's a church that
raises a kid. That's why I'm so big on get involved,
be family, get in, right? Because we're in this thing together.
All right, action point number 7, or uh verse number 7.
Get in conversation with our kids, get in conversation.
(21:07):
Whether we're going to the baseball field, whether we're going
to dance class, or school, taking them on errands, doing
things with them, all the things that we do with kids.
Those are moments to be in conversation, and I'm not
saying that we always have to talk about God in
every conversation, because should just naturally just kinda come out.
I love Costco. Anybody here love Costco? Costco's fun. My
(21:30):
wife and I go on, we used to go on
dates at Costco.
Where are we going for date night? Costco. Cause I
got all kinds of stuff to look at that you
didn't expect that you're gonna walk out with, but it's like,
this is really cool. When I'm walking down the aisles,
my wife gave me a couple of weeks ago, a
long list of stuff, and so I'm getting all the stuff.
And then I turned the corner and one of my
favorite snacks, I love popcorn.
(21:53):
I love popcorn and Costco, everything's big. So this huge
bag of popcorn, and I was reading the side of this,
this bag and it said, special popcorn from the Himalaya Mountains,
special salt, low fat, low cholesterol, low all that stuff, right?
Low carbs. I'm, I'm in, baby. So I buy this
thing and I'm
Home one night and I'm watching Maverick Top Gun, cause
(22:14):
that's one of my favorite movies of the last few
years and I'm watching this, and I'm eating 34 bowls
of this stuff, and I'm going to bed and my
stomach is churning and I'm in trouble, man. This thing
is hurting my stomach.
When I woke up the next day.
And my breast just is ew.
Must have been the Himalayan popcorn. I guess what I'm
(22:36):
saying about that is
We should just naturally ooze God.
With our kids.
I, I, I, I, I really believe that. I'm not
saying there's not a place for systems and devotions and
time and we're gonna open our Bibles that you, we
should do that. But I think more as, as we've
heard caught than taught, right? And the last thing I
(22:57):
wanna say here is we lead. A good father is
not always perfect, we don't always get it right, but
we lead by example.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
That's Pastor Mike Mayolo, lead pastor of Mission Viejo Christian
Church here on Kwave's Pastor Spotlight. We hope you've enjoyed
today's message on Deuteronomy chapter 6, verses 1 through 9.
Thanks again to Pastor Mike Mayolo for being our featured
teacher this week on Pastor Spotlight. Mike Mayolo serves as
the lead pastor of Mission Viejo Christian Church, where he's
(23:27):
been pastoring for the last 23 years, 3 years as
a youth pastor and lead pastor for the last 20.
MVCC is a vibrant church.
where real discipleship happens, love is on display, and lives
are released on mission for Christ. Their vision is to
reach people with the good news of Jesus Christ, to
make disciples who make disciples. Again, Mission Viejo Christian Church
(23:49):
is located at 27 192 Geronimo Road in Mission Viejo.
Sunday worship times are 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. MVCC
is best known in the community for assisting the city
with service to children and their families through preschool to
junior high.
They also provide after school outreaches for public school children
and service projects throughout the city of Mission Viejo. Their
(24:10):
purpose in providing these is to bring the good news
of Jesus Christ to their city in hopes that God
will transform their community through prayer, wanting everyone to have
a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Some upcoming events that
you and your family are invited to include their Christmas
Eve services at 1, 2:30, and 4 p.m. and their
worship night with circuit riders on January 13th at 6.
(24:33):
For more information about Mission Viejo Christian Church, visit MVCChome.org. Finally,
we invite you to join us right here at this
same time Monday for another time of growing in the
grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. Here on Kwave's Pastor Spotlight,
we'll be featuring the teaching of another one of our
wonderful pastors from here in the Southern California area. We
(24:54):
hope you'll join us. Pastor Spotlight is a production of
Kwave Radio, sharing life, delivering truth, giving hope.
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