June 4, 2025 • 48 mins
In this heartfelt Father’s Day message, Pastor Chuck Rains reflects on Genesis 18:19 and the powerful role fathers play in shaping their families’ spiritual legacy. Drawing lessons from Abraham, Pastor Rains explores how God’s blessings flow through righteous leadership, why fathers hold the key to generational faithfulness, and how the love of the Heavenly Father shapes our lives. This episode challenges every listener—especially fathers—to examine their hearts, embrace God’s Word, and live as examples of Christ’s love and endurance. Whether you’re a parent, child, or spiritual leader, you’ll be encouraged to set your sights on the joy set before us: standing together with Christ and those we love in eternal fellowship.
Episode Title: The Father's Example: Abraham, Blessing, and the Power of Legacy Preacher: Rev. Chuck Rains Date: June 17, 1990 Scripture Reference: Genesis 18:19 Theme: Biblical fatherhood, legacy, and the impact of a godly example.
Key Topics:
- God's covenant with Abraham and the responsibility to command his children
- The importance of a father's obedience in releasing God’s full blessing
- The role of love in the nature of God and in the home
- Spiritual legacy and the enduring impact of example
- The joy set before Jesus as a model for earthly fathers
Encouragement for fathers to prioritize their walk with God above all else
any questions or comments send to legacybiblepodcast@gmail.com
check out the website at www.legacybiblepodcast.com
Thanks for Listening
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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Hello and welcome friends.
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This is the Legacy Bible Podcast, a place where you were here, a legacy, audio from legacy
audio tapes from the tape archives of the Fellowship Bible Church in Joliet, Illinois.
My name is Marcus Onate, and I'll be bringing to you more of that massive tape collection
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that we have.
This one happens to be from June 17, 1990, and as a continuation from the ones we've
had in the last few weeks, this is another one on Fathers.
This one's called A Father's Example, Abraham Blessing, and the Power of Legacy.
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Like I said, it was from June 17, 1990, was preached by our pastor, the Reverend Chuck
Rains, in the morning service at the Fellowship Bible Church.
So, let's get right into it.
I want to hear it myself.
All right, take it away.
Pastor Reins.
Genesis 18, verse 19, says, for I have chosen him, for I have known him, speaking of Abraham,
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God is saying this, in order that he may command his children and his household after him to
keep the way of the Lord, by doing righteousness and justice.
In order that the Lord may bring upon Abraham what he has spoken about him.
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God had spoken some things about Abraham, and they were wonderful things.
He had made some wonderful promises.
He wanted to bless Abraham.
In order for all those blessings to come about, he said this.
He wanted Abraham to command his children.
And that having done that, that these children of Abraham, that meant the generations that
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would come after would walk in righteousness and justice.
They would walk according to the Word of God.
All of the faithfulness in Abraham was not going to make it true that all of those people
would walk as they ought to walk.
But he was the key.
He was the foundation.
He was the father of that nation.
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And all the Jews look back to him as father Abraham.
And they prided themselves, even in Jesus' time, if they thought that they were walking
in the way of Abraham, they would say Abraham is our father.
They were proud of that.
God had chosen Abraham.
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You know, nobody knows us better than God.
Nobody knows what our potential is more than our heavenly father.
To think that God would look down on this earth and find a man, Abraham, and know that
this man would walk with him, this man would trust him.
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You see, he was Abraham's friend.
And Abraham knew that God was his friend.
They were friends, one of another.
And he knew Abraham's heart.
He knew that Abraham would trust in him and believe him and teach his children the things
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that he had taught Abraham.
He could trust Abraham to be the foundation for a people that he was going to use to bless
us in a very, very special way, to bring us a Savior.
That man Abraham was the vessel through whom God brought the Savior on this earth.
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Brought about a people through him and through that people, he brought us the Savior.
Brought about a people and through that people, he's going to be even glorified in days yet
to come.
Not that we'd measure them by that, according to where their hearts are now, but God could
see all of that in Abraham.
You know, when God gives a baby boy or a baby girl to a mother and father, he knows that
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father, he knows what he's capable of, he knows what his potential is.
And this is true if God is going to be the author of blessing for that home.
If God's fullness of blessing is going to come on that home, that father will have to
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be all that God wants him to be.
The fullness of the blessing of God cannot come upon a home where the father will not
be what God wants him to be.
The blessing of God will come and measure to the measure that there will be in at home
some heart or hearts that would turn to the Lord, love him, trust him, walk with him,
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but the home can never be blessed as God would want to bless it.
If the father won't be what he should be first, if he won't lead in that faith, that
trust in the Lord, that allows the Lord to work his blessing out in the lives of those
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that are in the family.
Was true for Abraham?
It's true for us today.
He wanted to bless.
You could say that was the goal to Godhead in mind.
That was the result that he wanted to bring about.
And you should ask, well, why would God even be worried about blessing?
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Blessing Abraham's family, blessing the nation of Israel, blessing our families.
Why would God even be worried about that?
Or when I say worried, don't misunderstand.
God certainly doesn't worry.
But what I mean is why should God direct his attention to that?
Why should that be something that God is interested in?
Well, the answer comes to us from the Word of God.
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First of all, there's a great underlying truth about God that we have to be reminded of over
and over.
It's in God's nature.
This great truth.
In the nature of God, in his very being, in what he is, the Bible declares there's love.
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That's what God is.
That's his makeup.
Part of it, in the sense of a description of what he is, is love.
You have to understand that underlying reality, it's always going to be there because that's
what God always has been and always will be.
And because that's what he is, that means that he wants to pour himself out on behalf
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of those that he loves.
In this case, in the Scriptures' Revelation, he wants to pour himself out on the behalf
of mankind.
He made us in his own spiritual image.
What he is in his nature, he made us to be in our nature.
When he made man, man was a creature of love and righteousness.
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Man went his own way, righteousness was gone, love was marred.
But God did make us in his own spiritual image.
And you've got to remember this great spiritual truth about God.
The reason that God directs his attention to this idea of blessing is that that's his
nature.
Love is his nature.
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So he wants to pour himself out on our behalf and he wants to do it completely and he wants
to do it eternally and he wants us to receive it fully and to know it without any limitation.
If you take all of those ideas and press them to the extreme and you want to and God gives
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you a truth, just take it to it's very extreme.
You know what you'll end up with?
You'll end up with a picture of heaven.
You'll end up with a picture of heaven and God's people there and God there and the relationship
that's going to be experienced there forever and ever.
But there's something in between.
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And that's this world.
And life right here in the flesh.
But God's heart isn't going to be any different.
He wants us to know his love.
He wants to pour himself out.
He wants to share his relationship in love with us right now, even though he wants it
of course for us to have in a perfect way forever and ever with him in heaven.
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He wants to have us to pour ourselves out in love for one another with one another, but
with him first.
By the way, because we're made in the image of God, we're never going to be fulfilled.
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We're never going to really know what happiness is unless we are able to know love and to
give it, to receive it, to give it, to enjoy it, to walk in it.
Fathers will never know it.
Our children will never know it.
We're made this way.
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That's how God is.
And our desire should be to love the Lord our God with all that we are.
Heart, my mind, soul and strength.
Well, another reason why God directs his attention to this matter of blessing isn't just simply
because he is that way.
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And that's how love operates.
And because this is the only thing that will make man happy, the blessing of God.
As he, in other words, first of all needs to do it, if you will, because of what he is,
that's how he expresses himself.
On the other hand, there's also his concern for us on our side of it.
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It's the only thing that will ever make us happy to know his love, to know the relationship
that that love shared can mean for us.
Man being made in God's spiritual image will never be fulfilled any other way.
It's not possible to be fulfilled by what we try to tell ourselves or what our society
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tells ourselves or the ways to be fulfilled.
You have to describe all the lewd things that the human heart goes after, all the evils,
all the values that we see them pursuing.
Well, Christians, I shouldn't have to tell you that.
We rehearse them over and over from the Scriptures because God has to remind us of these things
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that we might ever see the wonder and the preciousness and the delight of choosing him
and to remind ourselves that we can't be happy any other way.
And we, above all people in this earth, should be able to recognize the emptiness that's
out in that world and all that they pursue.
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God knew Abraham.
He knew Abraham would command his children.
He would be faithful.
He would tell them to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice.
He knew that about Abraham.
And he knew that through that their hearts would be directed to give themselves to God.
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And God's heart would be able to pour out his love, his blessings upon them.
And he did want to pour that out on man.
But the question is, would Abraham's children follow that way?
He knew Abraham and he certainly knew all those that would come after him.
Would they?
Would they go in the way of their father Abraham?
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Would they go in the way of the Lord?
Would they?
Well, I'll use the illustration and I'd like to this morning of clay.
Would the clay receive the imprint that was put in it?
Like the signet ring put in soft wax?
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Like the object that's pressed into some clay to leave a mold there?
Would the clay of the children?
Would they receive the word of God that the fathers would give to them?
Would they say, this changes our lives.
We'll live by this.
We choose the Lord.
We choose to love him.
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We choose to obey him.
We choose his word.
It's ours.
Our fathers have given it to us and we take it as our own.
Is that the way things would go?
Well, there's a yes and a no to that question because some would and some wouldn't.
Yes, the record of the Old Testament and the New Testament alike is that there were godly
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men in Israel.
Many, there were prophets, there were the kings, some of them, some of them, some were not
godly.
Many were not.
Whatever the judges, men that God could use to lead his people in an hour of crisis so
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that he could take them out of their troubles and bring them back to the place where they
would cast their hearts on him.
Even those men showed in their own lives their times of trust in the Lord and their
times of flesh.
But there were some examples, some that were godly.
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Some that were obedient, but not all.
Many of them God was not pleased with and the record is perhaps of the majority that
God was displeased with.
Many of them.
I remember this sermon of Stephen at his death.
He brings this terrible final statement about the nation of Israel in Acts 7, at verse 51.
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You men who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised and heart and ears are always resisting the
Holy Spirit.
You're doing just as your fathers did.
You see it?
You're doing just as your fathers did.
Which one of the prophets did not your fathers not persecute?
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And they killed those who had previously announced the coming of the righteous one.
That's the Lord Jesus.
Those betrayers and murderers you have now become.
You who received the law as ordained by angels and yet did not keep it.
The record was here the time of Stephen's death.
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This is after the Lord Jesus has come.
This is after they have murdered him.
This is after the Lord has established the church.
Stephen still spoke out to the Israelite nation and he said, you have done just what
your fathers did.
God sent righteous men among you and what did you do to them?
There isn't a single one of them that you didn't persecute.
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All of them you've turned your backs on and that is true.
The record is in.
You can read it throughout the pages of God's Word.
Yes, there were righteous men.
There were righteous women.
But as these came along through the time of history, especially as this book focuses
on primarily the history of the nation of Israel and God's special working with them.
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As these godly ones were there, the rest turned against them.
If you think that the record of the scriptures is that to live godly, you will not suffer
persecution.
You don't know the scripture that says they that will live godly shall suffer persecution.
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It's just the same today.
Peter as an apostle was inspired by the Holy Spirit of God giving us first Peter to tell
us really as a theme of that book that the Christian life has an element in it that we
may not like, but that in God's wisdom is necessary the element of trial.
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In a small church, you can't escape this.
It might be easy preaching to ten thousand this morning for me to kind of harden my heart
to it or really rather just be dull, not wear it.
Or just trying to have that sugar coated outlook of positiveness that kind of overlooks the
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reality of life and say, well, these Christians really don't have to worry about trying to
trial.
We're in America.
Land of the free and home of the brave.
They don't really have to worry about trial.
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I think it's wonderful whether in a large church or small, there's still that mechanism
for us to be knit together in a bond of closeness if we will, if we will.
If there is a large church and if it's in the will of God, I think it has to have some
device, some mechanism by which the people can be knit together in closeness with others.
Some form cell groups and home study groups to make that possible though their church
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numbers are large, but they have to do that.
There have to be prayer chains.
There have to be Bible studies that tie them together.
There have to be times of communication.
There have to be ways for them to come together, maybe in house meetings, maybe in subgroups
for prayer, but they have to be intertwined and they have to communicate and they have
to know one another's lives and needs because that's how the body of Christ operates, each
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enabled by God offering what He gives them by the enablement of the Holy Spirit to the
whole of the body that the whole of the body might function as a one, all attuned to all
the parts.
And in a small church you just can't escape it.
There are widows.
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There are children that have lost their fathers.
There are divorced cases.
There are some homes that are together, but they're not happy.
There are some mates that aren't saved.
There are some relationships that should never, should never have come about that we have
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brought into our lives.
There are scars and lacerations and cuts that are very, very deep.
There are burdens that we live with and we can't just deny, we can't cast them off and
say they are not there.
For some they're just hardship, they're bad health, there's poverty, there are needs.
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There are some even, even, even in a small church that are not loved as they ought to
be loved by all the brethren.
And that's to our disgrace.
Thankfully, that isn't a general reality among us, but I don't pet you on the back
for it to say it hasn't been here or that it couldn't be.
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It's very easy to find somebody to be strange, different and shut them out.
But I want to warn you.
You raise up one standard that isn't from this book by which you sift out from your
heart.
Those that should be as close as God would have them be.
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You raise up even one standard, one standard and you narrow the world, that little world,
that little body that God would have given you for close fellowship.
You raise up two standards or three standards and soon you're going to find yourself in
a very small little group of people and maybe you'll be very alone.
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Shut out from the fellowship, the love of the body.
What God has given us is far different.
He meant for Israel to follow the example of their father Abraham.
He meant for them to walk in righteousness and justice.
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He meant for them to walk in love first for him.
Was the first in great commandment.
It's the primary truth.
He meant for that and most of them didn't and Stephen had to bring this terrible accusation
and it was true.
But you know God still wants our hearts today and the hearts of our children to be tender
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to him, to receive his love.
His word, he wants us to receive first.
James 1.21 says, receive with meekness the engrafted word which is able to save your
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souls.
Receive with meekness the engrafted word which is able to save your souls.
You know there's no other source for the words of eternal life to have life and its
fullness.
I don't just mean to come into the experience of salvation but I mean to know what salvation
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is and its fullness.
To have it in the sense that not only are you a child of God but to have it working,
giving to you all of its blessings every day, bringing to you all that the Lord has bought
for you.
There's only one source.
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John chapter 6 verse 63.
It is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh profits nothing.
But the words that I have spoken to you are Spirit and our life.
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Verse 68.
Simon Peter answered, "'M LORD, to whom shall we go?
You have the words of eternal life and so we should say it.
There's only one source for that life which is eternal.
There's only one that we can go to for the words of that life.'"
And that's the Lord Jesus.
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And it's only by the Holy Spirit making that word real in us.
It's only by Him that we could experience and know the fullness of that life.
The Holy Spirit of God is the only worker that God has given to us to make His word
real in us.
And the only source through whom it has come is the Lord Jesus Himself.
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And the only one that has sent it forth for our sakes out of His great love is our Heavenly
Father.
Do you love His word?
Do you love Him?
Our Heavenly Father has given us an example to make Himself known.
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See, the Father of heaven or the one that has brought life to us through His Son, our
Father, the one who's example we need to follow had to make Himself known.
You see, it's the same here.
If He's telling earthly fathers that they're to bring His word to their children so that
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their children would walk rightly and be happy, then He's letting us know.
In fact, we have to follow Him.
Well, how did the Heavenly Father set that example out for us?
How did He let us see what He's like?
How did He give us His example so that we as His children could follow it?
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Well, we probably wouldn't have guessed that if we just read the Old Testament, but the
wonder of how He did it was this.
He didn't come down here Himself.
That would seem to be the way we would expect our Heavenly Father to have given us His example.
But He said His Son.
And the Scriptures declare it this way, that the Son perfectly revealed the Father so that
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if you saw the Son, you could actually see the Father.
There was no contradiction between them.
But the one is to see one, is to see the other.
But in so doing, the Father not only gave us His perfect example, but He gave us a Savior.
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He sent the Son.
The Son lived on the earth.
He was an example unto death.
Hebrews, the section that was read to you, Hebrews chapter 12, those first three verses,
comes at all up.
It tells us, therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us
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lay aside every encombrance in the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with
an endurance, the race that is set before us.
Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, over the joy that was set before
Him endured the cross, despising the shame and has set down at the right hand of the
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throne of God, for consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against
Himself so that you may now not grow weary and lose heart.
The Scripture tells you, Jesus came to the earth, and Jesus suffered at the hands of men,
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and even though He suffered, He was faithful.
And you go back to that first verse, you, fathers, you have no excuse.
You can't say, well, it's just too hard for me.
I can't follow the example of the Lord Jesus.
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God does admit that sin, the weights of sin, the encombrance of sin, they come so easily
honest, but you have to make a choice.
You're going to be the Father that sets the standard for your children.
You're going to have to choose to lay aside the sins, the weights that come so easily
on you.
They would entangle you so quickly, they would trip you up, they would make you such a poor
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example for your children.
Look at Jesus.
He didn't get entangled in sin.
He didn't commit sin at all.
He's the perfect example.
Look at Him.
He didn't use trouble, trials, hurts as an excuse to turn away from righteousness.
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How far did He go?
In the Scripture's clear, fathers, we don't have any excuse.
He went to death.
He went to the very cross.
What could possibly happen in a father's life that would give him an excuse for turning
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away from God, for leaving a bad example for his children?
What could happen?
Too much poverty, too many people turning against you, too much hatred around you, too
strong and urged, down in yourself, in your body, in your lusts?
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No.
God says no.
You have no excuse because you could lay those aside and you could look at the example
of the Lord Jesus who went through it all and went through it all with victory, even though
it meant death by torture.
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Sometimes we can live a godly example for our children.
We can.
We must.
We need to give them the word of God.
There is absolutely not a resource for them that they could have life except through the
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Lord Jesus.
They're not a resource for them that they could have a happy life.
Even as those little ones that have already trusted Christ and as they grow up in Him,
there are no hope for them to have a happy, fulfilled life except through what is provided
in our Savior.
What's given to us by the Spirit of God's guidance through the Word of God and made possible
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for us because of the Savior, there isn't any other resource for happiness.
We have absolutely no excuse for not giving it to them.
None that lasts before God.
None that holds water before God.
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We need to give them that life example.
Look at John chapter 4 and see how the Lord Jesus did that so perfectly for us.
He showed us the Father.
He always did the will of His Father.
John 4 34.
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Just three little verses here.
4 34 for one.
For there was not.
I'm scared of the wrong chapter.
Sorry.
Jesus said unto them, my food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to accomplish
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His work.
Now combine that over here with 5 chapter 30.
See how it's the will of God that Jesus seeks to do completely.
I can do nothing on my own initiative.
As I hear, I judge and my judgment is just because I do not seek my own will, but the
will of Him who sent me.
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Now let's add to that chapter 6 verse 40.
For this is the will of my Father that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him may
have eternal life.
And I myself will raise Him up on the last day.
Fathers, the Lord Jesus said it, it is the will of God to do the will of the Father to
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make His will known, to bring our children to Him that they should trust in Him, that
He might give them the ultimate blessing.
He wants to bless them right now.
He's not only come that they might have life, but they might have more abundantly.
And I think that's for now and for all eternity.
We enter into life when we trust Christ.
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We don't have to wait till death.
But the ultimate blessing is to be raised up at the last day and brought into the presence
of God forever and ever to enjoy that fellowship that the Lord Jesus has made possible for us.
A Father could have no greater desire like John says than to hear that His children walk
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in truth, to see them in the presence of God.
My great joy is this Father's Day is that my family will all be together.
They're not married yet.
My girls, we're all able to have this Father's Day together.
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I don't know how many more we'll have.
Maybe Jesus will come before they ever get the chance to get married.
I'm not telling you that I don't want you to go tell them that I thought that's the
way it should be.
I just want the Lord to come.
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And it's hard to say that maybe He has marriage in mind for them before He comes.
But I have this privilege that today I can have my children with me.
The Heavenly Father and the Savior look to that great joy of having all of His children
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with Him forever in a perfect fellowship.
You want to see that picture of joy?
Look with me in the book of Hebrews again at chapter 2.
Here's one of the places.
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I guess I should remind you what we had just read in Hebrews 12.
Let me do that and then I'll go back to 2.
But here's this little thought out of Hebrews 12 where it says verse 2, fixing our eyes
upon Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.
Here's the phrase, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross?
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And you've got to ask, now, well, the cross was certainly not the joy.
It wasn't the beating and it wasn't the spitting and it wasn't the plucking of the beard and
it wasn't the crowning of thorns and it wasn't the despising and the people wagging their
heads and swearing and gaping upon Him in His nakedness.
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That wasn't a joyful thing.
It wasn't the whiplash on the back and it wasn't the nail through the hands and the feet.
No joy in that.
But there was a joy set before the Lord Jesus that because of that joy He could endure the
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cross.
And I'll tell you something, if you have a joy that's deep and real, you can go through
anything.
If that joy is a hope that is sure, in other words, if there's a real hope, my real hope,
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I mean not a wish, but if there's something that you know is going to be there and that
what you know is going to be there is a joy, you can go through anything.
A terrible example would be somebody sitting there with a swollen jaw and an awful toothache.
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I don't like Dennis.
I mean, I have nothing against them personally, but I don't like going to the dentist.
I guess I said, I don't like what Dennis do to my body.
I guess that's what I don't like.
I really don't like the sound of those drills.
One sound that I think was given to modern man to test the soul.
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But if you get a toothache that's terrible, if it thrums, if your whole side of your head
just comes in and out and if you can't even think, you know you'll even enjoy going to
a dentist.
That's terrible, isn't it?
Terrible example.
But what?
What?
Because he's such a wonderful fellow.
No, because you look beyond the chair, believe me, you look beyond that sound that you're
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going to hear, beyond the, don't worry, I'm almost through kind of nonsense that they
give you about 20 times.
But beyond all of that stuff, and you say, I'm going to get up from here and it's going
to be better.
Sometimes, the positive joys, not just coming back to normal feelings, but the positive
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powerful joy of being in God's presence doesn't grip us enough.
We need to be overcome with that joy.
The Lord Jesus was, he was on the cross and it wasn't death that he was looking forward
to to say, oh boy, the pain's going to be all over.
My joy is to get out of here with the, just when death finally comes.
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That isn't the joy that he was looking forward to.
I'm going to take you to Hebrews 2 to show you what he was looking forward to.
It was something far different ahead to do with God's children.
Hebrews chapter 2, verse 10.
For it was fitting for him, for whom are all things and through whom are all things,
(38:58):
in bringing many sons to glory to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings.
For both he who sanctifies, that's the Lord, of course, who becomes our sanctification,
and those who are sanctified are all from one Father.
(39:21):
For which reason he's not ashamed to call them brethren.
Now, look at this scene, this little poetic verse out of verse 12 saying, I will proclaim
thy name to my brethren in the midst of the congregation.
I will sing thy praise.
And again, I will put my trust in him, and again, behold, I and the children whom God
(39:45):
has given me.
So what was it, the joy that was set before the Lord Jesus?
The scriptures declared in the same book of Hebrews that the Lord Jesus was looking beyond
the cross.
He was looking to that scene in heaven when all of the children would be there, all of
(40:08):
the children of God, and he would be right there standing in their midst with the Father.
And that joy was so powerful, so wonderful in its eternity, in its absoluteness, so complete
(40:37):
that there was nothing, nothing on this earth, no pain, no rejection, no hurt.
Nothing that this world could give him that would turn him away from that joy.
And he endured the cross, despising the pain, compared to the joy the pain was despised.
(41:07):
It was overcome.
It was utterly turned against in victory because of that joy.
Fathers, what should drive us on in our determination to give our children God's word and to live
(41:30):
godly before them, and to leave them the kind of example that they need to see?
The joy of our children with us in the presence of the Lord.
(41:51):
There's a joy for right now, and I share that with you as a Father that can have his children
with him today.
There's a joy that's special.
The years may take it from us.
We may not be able to share it in some years to come, if the Lord Jesus terrace.
But nothing this world could do, nothing will strip me of that joy of being in glory with
(42:15):
those of my children that have trusted him, and I thank God they all have.
I want to enter into that joy right now through the fellowship with my children in
their walk with him and my walk with him in him.
(42:39):
Do you know your heavenly Father that way?
Are you enjoying your walk with him?
Is your walk with him the most important thing in your life?
Is your bringing of his word and your life example to your children?
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Is that on your mind and in your heart every day through the day?
Is it such a special joy to you to share that with your children that you would endure anything
in this life?
Whatever it may take from your body to work all day long, whatever it may take from your
strength to do what you have to do to be a Father, whatever inconvenience and hardship
(43:30):
and trial and need, whatever it takes from you is your joy in what you have in that shared
love with your children, able to sustain you?
Will it will if that's rooted and grounded in your Lord?
(43:54):
If he is your first joy, if his word is your first delight, that's great.
I would just wonder if your heart is set today on this Father's Day to be the example.
(44:15):
By living out the Word of God, by letting God examine your heart and mind through the
day, measuring your values, measuring your conversations, measuring your motives, are
you willing that God's Spirit should have that kind of access to you?
(44:40):
Are you willing to set your heart's love on him and count at your joy no matter what
you have to go through to have the love, bond and fellowship of love with your children
(45:01):
and your wife that God intends for his sons to have?
Would you say to God, O Lord, all of my thoughts through the day, all of my motives, all of
my values, I open to you that I might bring your word more fully to my children.
(45:29):
They might learn to walk in the ways of them, that they might each know you, Lord Jesus,
whom to know right is life eternal and that they might know the fullness of life because
of my life example, that I might share my love for you with them.
(45:50):
I might have the fullness of that love fellowship you want me to have as a Father.
I give myself to you, Lord, for that constant work, that daily work, all my life.
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Lord Jesus, seal this in the hearts of these fathers this morning.
We as a body set our eyes on the joy of being together with the and with our spiritual
children and our natural children with the Heavenly Father one day soon in Jesus name.
(46:37):
Amen.
All right.
Thank you, Pastor Raines for another message from the Word of God.
Like I said, that was from June of 1990 and I have a few more from the year of 1990,
maybe three or four, I think yeah, three or four, something like that.
(46:58):
But then we'll be going into 1991.
So we have plenty of them from the decade of the 90s.
So most of the future ones will be from the 90s.
So you can look forward to that.
And you can also look for next week.
We'll be bringing you another message from our tape archive and be preached, of course,
(47:21):
by Pastor Raines.
And we'll have that next week.
Hopefully nothing goes wrong.
I don't foresee anything going wrong, but you never know.
All right.
So thank you for listening.
Please visit the website and subscribe.
That would be good if you could subscribe.
(47:43):
And also we had a little bit of an increase in downloads on the podcast, which is a good
thing.
So that's a seems to be catching on.
And he picked up a few more countries out there, which is a great thing.
So listen in next week and I'll have more.
(48:04):
And until then, have a great day.
And oh yeah, read your Bible.
See you next week.
Hello and welcome friends.
(00:13):
This is the Legacy Bible Podcast, a place where you were here, a legacy, audio from legacy
audio tapes from the tape archives of the Fellowship Bible Church in Joliet, Illinois.
My name is Marcus Onate, and I'll be bringing to you more of that massive tape collection
(00:35):
that we have.
This one happens to be from June 17, 1990, and as a continuation from the ones we've
had in the last few weeks, this is another one on Fathers.
This one's called A Father's Example, Abraham Blessing, and the Power of Legacy.
(00:59):
Like I said, it was from June 17, 1990, was preached by our pastor, the Reverend Chuck
Rains, in the morning service at the Fellowship Bible Church.
So, let's get right into it.
I want to hear it myself.
All right, take it away.
Pastor Reins.
Genesis 18, verse 19, says, for I have chosen him, for I have known him, speaking of Abraham,
(01:28):
God is saying this, in order that he may command his children and his household after him to
keep the way of the Lord, by doing righteousness and justice.
In order that the Lord may bring upon Abraham what he has spoken about him.
(01:50):
God had spoken some things about Abraham, and they were wonderful things.
He had made some wonderful promises.
He wanted to bless Abraham.
In order for all those blessings to come about, he said this.
He wanted Abraham to command his children.
And that having done that, that these children of Abraham, that meant the generations that
(02:15):
would come after would walk in righteousness and justice.
They would walk according to the Word of God.
All of the faithfulness in Abraham was not going to make it true that all of those people
would walk as they ought to walk.
But he was the key.
He was the foundation.
He was the father of that nation.
(02:38):
And all the Jews look back to him as father Abraham.
And they prided themselves, even in Jesus' time, if they thought that they were walking
in the way of Abraham, they would say Abraham is our father.
They were proud of that.
God had chosen Abraham.
(02:59):
You know, nobody knows us better than God.
Nobody knows what our potential is more than our heavenly father.
To think that God would look down on this earth and find a man, Abraham, and know that
this man would walk with him, this man would trust him.
(03:23):
You see, he was Abraham's friend.
And Abraham knew that God was his friend.
They were friends, one of another.
And he knew Abraham's heart.
He knew that Abraham would trust in him and believe him and teach his children the things
(03:48):
that he had taught Abraham.
He could trust Abraham to be the foundation for a people that he was going to use to bless
us in a very, very special way, to bring us a Savior.
That man Abraham was the vessel through whom God brought the Savior on this earth.
(04:09):
Brought about a people through him and through that people, he brought us the Savior.
Brought about a people and through that people, he's going to be even glorified in days yet
to come.
Not that we'd measure them by that, according to where their hearts are now, but God could
see all of that in Abraham.
You know, when God gives a baby boy or a baby girl to a mother and father, he knows that
(04:32):
father, he knows what he's capable of, he knows what his potential is.
And this is true if God is going to be the author of blessing for that home.
If God's fullness of blessing is going to come on that home, that father will have to
(04:54):
be all that God wants him to be.
The fullness of the blessing of God cannot come upon a home where the father will not
be what God wants him to be.
The blessing of God will come and measure to the measure that there will be in at home
some heart or hearts that would turn to the Lord, love him, trust him, walk with him,
(05:20):
but the home can never be blessed as God would want to bless it.
If the father won't be what he should be first, if he won't lead in that faith, that
trust in the Lord, that allows the Lord to work his blessing out in the lives of those
(05:45):
that are in the family.
Was true for Abraham?
It's true for us today.
He wanted to bless.
You could say that was the goal to Godhead in mind.
That was the result that he wanted to bring about.
And you should ask, well, why would God even be worried about blessing?
(06:09):
Blessing Abraham's family, blessing the nation of Israel, blessing our families.
Why would God even be worried about that?
Or when I say worried, don't misunderstand.
God certainly doesn't worry.
But what I mean is why should God direct his attention to that?
Why should that be something that God is interested in?
Well, the answer comes to us from the Word of God.
(06:35):
First of all, there's a great underlying truth about God that we have to be reminded of over
and over.
It's in God's nature.
This great truth.
In the nature of God, in his very being, in what he is, the Bible declares there's love.
(07:02):
That's what God is.
That's his makeup.
Part of it, in the sense of a description of what he is, is love.
You have to understand that underlying reality, it's always going to be there because that's
what God always has been and always will be.
And because that's what he is, that means that he wants to pour himself out on behalf
(07:30):
of those that he loves.
In this case, in the Scriptures' Revelation, he wants to pour himself out on the behalf
of mankind.
He made us in his own spiritual image.
What he is in his nature, he made us to be in our nature.
When he made man, man was a creature of love and righteousness.
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Man went his own way, righteousness was gone, love was marred.
But God did make us in his own spiritual image.
And you've got to remember this great spiritual truth about God.
The reason that God directs his attention to this idea of blessing is that that's his
nature.
Love is his nature.
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So he wants to pour himself out on our behalf and he wants to do it completely and he wants
to do it eternally and he wants us to receive it fully and to know it without any limitation.
If you take all of those ideas and press them to the extreme and you want to and God gives
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you a truth, just take it to it's very extreme.
You know what you'll end up with?
You'll end up with a picture of heaven.
You'll end up with a picture of heaven and God's people there and God there and the relationship
that's going to be experienced there forever and ever.
But there's something in between.
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And that's this world.
And life right here in the flesh.
But God's heart isn't going to be any different.
He wants us to know his love.
He wants to pour himself out.
He wants to share his relationship in love with us right now, even though he wants it
of course for us to have in a perfect way forever and ever with him in heaven.
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He wants to have us to pour ourselves out in love for one another with one another, but
with him first.
By the way, because we're made in the image of God, we're never going to be fulfilled.
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We're never going to really know what happiness is unless we are able to know love and to
give it, to receive it, to give it, to enjoy it, to walk in it.
Fathers will never know it.
Our children will never know it.
We're made this way.
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That's how God is.
And our desire should be to love the Lord our God with all that we are.
Heart, my mind, soul and strength.
Well, another reason why God directs his attention to this matter of blessing isn't just simply
because he is that way.
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And that's how love operates.
And because this is the only thing that will make man happy, the blessing of God.
As he, in other words, first of all needs to do it, if you will, because of what he is,
that's how he expresses himself.
On the other hand, there's also his concern for us on our side of it.
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It's the only thing that will ever make us happy to know his love, to know the relationship
that that love shared can mean for us.
Man being made in God's spiritual image will never be fulfilled any other way.
It's not possible to be fulfilled by what we try to tell ourselves or what our society
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tells ourselves or the ways to be fulfilled.
You have to describe all the lewd things that the human heart goes after, all the evils,
all the values that we see them pursuing.
Well, Christians, I shouldn't have to tell you that.
We rehearse them over and over from the Scriptures because God has to remind us of these things
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that we might ever see the wonder and the preciousness and the delight of choosing him
and to remind ourselves that we can't be happy any other way.
And we, above all people in this earth, should be able to recognize the emptiness that's
out in that world and all that they pursue.
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God knew Abraham.
He knew Abraham would command his children.
He would be faithful.
He would tell them to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice.
He knew that about Abraham.
And he knew that through that their hearts would be directed to give themselves to God.
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And God's heart would be able to pour out his love, his blessings upon them.
And he did want to pour that out on man.
But the question is, would Abraham's children follow that way?
He knew Abraham and he certainly knew all those that would come after him.
Would they?
Would they go in the way of their father Abraham?
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Would they go in the way of the Lord?
Would they?
Well, I'll use the illustration and I'd like to this morning of clay.
Would the clay receive the imprint that was put in it?
Like the signet ring put in soft wax?
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Like the object that's pressed into some clay to leave a mold there?
Would the clay of the children?
Would they receive the word of God that the fathers would give to them?
Would they say, this changes our lives.
We'll live by this.
We choose the Lord.
We choose to love him.
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We choose to obey him.
We choose his word.
It's ours.
Our fathers have given it to us and we take it as our own.
Is that the way things would go?
Well, there's a yes and a no to that question because some would and some wouldn't.
Yes, the record of the Old Testament and the New Testament alike is that there were godly
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men in Israel.
Many, there were prophets, there were the kings, some of them, some of them, some were not
godly.
Many were not.
Whatever the judges, men that God could use to lead his people in an hour of crisis so
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that he could take them out of their troubles and bring them back to the place where they
would cast their hearts on him.
Even those men showed in their own lives their times of trust in the Lord and their
times of flesh.
But there were some examples, some that were godly.
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Some that were obedient, but not all.
Many of them God was not pleased with and the record is perhaps of the majority that
God was displeased with.
Many of them.
I remember this sermon of Stephen at his death.
He brings this terrible final statement about the nation of Israel in Acts 7, at verse 51.
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You men who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised and heart and ears are always resisting the
Holy Spirit.
You're doing just as your fathers did.
You see it?
You're doing just as your fathers did.
Which one of the prophets did not your fathers not persecute?
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And they killed those who had previously announced the coming of the righteous one.
That's the Lord Jesus.
Those betrayers and murderers you have now become.
You who received the law as ordained by angels and yet did not keep it.
The record was here the time of Stephen's death.
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This is after the Lord Jesus has come.
This is after they have murdered him.
This is after the Lord has established the church.
Stephen still spoke out to the Israelite nation and he said, you have done just what
your fathers did.
God sent righteous men among you and what did you do to them?
There isn't a single one of them that you didn't persecute.
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All of them you've turned your backs on and that is true.
The record is in.
You can read it throughout the pages of God's Word.
Yes, there were righteous men.
There were righteous women.
But as these came along through the time of history, especially as this book focuses
on primarily the history of the nation of Israel and God's special working with them.
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As these godly ones were there, the rest turned against them.
If you think that the record of the scriptures is that to live godly, you will not suffer
persecution.
You don't know the scripture that says they that will live godly shall suffer persecution.
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It's just the same today.
Peter as an apostle was inspired by the Holy Spirit of God giving us first Peter to tell
us really as a theme of that book that the Christian life has an element in it that we
may not like, but that in God's wisdom is necessary the element of trial.
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In a small church, you can't escape this.
It might be easy preaching to ten thousand this morning for me to kind of harden my heart
to it or really rather just be dull, not wear it.
Or just trying to have that sugar coated outlook of positiveness that kind of overlooks the
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reality of life and say, well, these Christians really don't have to worry about trying to
trial.
We're in America.
Land of the free and home of the brave.
They don't really have to worry about trial.
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I think it's wonderful whether in a large church or small, there's still that mechanism
for us to be knit together in a bond of closeness if we will, if we will.
If there is a large church and if it's in the will of God, I think it has to have some
device, some mechanism by which the people can be knit together in closeness with others.
Some form cell groups and home study groups to make that possible though their church
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numbers are large, but they have to do that.
There have to be prayer chains.
There have to be Bible studies that tie them together.
There have to be times of communication.
There have to be ways for them to come together, maybe in house meetings, maybe in subgroups
for prayer, but they have to be intertwined and they have to communicate and they have
to know one another's lives and needs because that's how the body of Christ operates, each
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enabled by God offering what He gives them by the enablement of the Holy Spirit to the
whole of the body that the whole of the body might function as a one, all attuned to all
the parts.
And in a small church you just can't escape it.
There are widows.
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There are children that have lost their fathers.
There are divorced cases.
There are some homes that are together, but they're not happy.
There are some mates that aren't saved.
There are some relationships that should never, should never have come about that we have
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brought into our lives.
There are scars and lacerations and cuts that are very, very deep.
There are burdens that we live with and we can't just deny, we can't cast them off and
say they are not there.
For some they're just hardship, they're bad health, there's poverty, there are needs.
(20:19):
There are some even, even, even in a small church that are not loved as they ought to
be loved by all the brethren.
And that's to our disgrace.
Thankfully, that isn't a general reality among us, but I don't pet you on the back
for it to say it hasn't been here or that it couldn't be.
(20:43):
It's very easy to find somebody to be strange, different and shut them out.
But I want to warn you.
You raise up one standard that isn't from this book by which you sift out from your
heart.
Those that should be as close as God would have them be.
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You raise up even one standard, one standard and you narrow the world, that little world,
that little body that God would have given you for close fellowship.
You raise up two standards or three standards and soon you're going to find yourself in
a very small little group of people and maybe you'll be very alone.
(21:31):
Shut out from the fellowship, the love of the body.
What God has given us is far different.
He meant for Israel to follow the example of their father Abraham.
He meant for them to walk in righteousness and justice.
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He meant for them to walk in love first for him.
Was the first in great commandment.
It's the primary truth.
He meant for that and most of them didn't and Stephen had to bring this terrible accusation
and it was true.
But you know God still wants our hearts today and the hearts of our children to be tender
(22:18):
to him, to receive his love.
His word, he wants us to receive first.
James 1.21 says, receive with meekness the engrafted word which is able to save your
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souls.
Receive with meekness the engrafted word which is able to save your souls.
You know there's no other source for the words of eternal life to have life and its
fullness.
I don't just mean to come into the experience of salvation but I mean to know what salvation
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is and its fullness.
To have it in the sense that not only are you a child of God but to have it working,
giving to you all of its blessings every day, bringing to you all that the Lord has bought
for you.
There's only one source.
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John chapter 6 verse 63.
It is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh profits nothing.
But the words that I have spoken to you are Spirit and our life.
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Verse 68.
Simon Peter answered, "'M LORD, to whom shall we go?
You have the words of eternal life and so we should say it.
There's only one source for that life which is eternal.
There's only one that we can go to for the words of that life.'"
And that's the Lord Jesus.
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And it's only by the Holy Spirit making that word real in us.
It's only by Him that we could experience and know the fullness of that life.
The Holy Spirit of God is the only worker that God has given to us to make His word
real in us.
And the only source through whom it has come is the Lord Jesus Himself.
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And the only one that has sent it forth for our sakes out of His great love is our Heavenly
Father.
Do you love His word?
Do you love Him?
Our Heavenly Father has given us an example to make Himself known.
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See, the Father of heaven or the one that has brought life to us through His Son, our
Father, the one who's example we need to follow had to make Himself known.
You see, it's the same here.
If He's telling earthly fathers that they're to bring His word to their children so that
(25:16):
their children would walk rightly and be happy, then He's letting us know.
In fact, we have to follow Him.
Well, how did the Heavenly Father set that example out for us?
How did He let us see what He's like?
How did He give us His example so that we as His children could follow it?
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Well, we probably wouldn't have guessed that if we just read the Old Testament, but the
wonder of how He did it was this.
He didn't come down here Himself.
That would seem to be the way we would expect our Heavenly Father to have given us His example.
But He said His Son.
And the Scriptures declare it this way, that the Son perfectly revealed the Father so that
(26:05):
if you saw the Son, you could actually see the Father.
There was no contradiction between them.
But the one is to see one, is to see the other.
But in so doing, the Father not only gave us His perfect example, but He gave us a Savior.
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He sent the Son.
The Son lived on the earth.
He was an example unto death.
Hebrews, the section that was read to you, Hebrews chapter 12, those first three verses,
comes at all up.
It tells us, therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us
(26:54):
lay aside every encombrance in the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with
an endurance, the race that is set before us.
Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, over the joy that was set before
Him endured the cross, despising the shame and has set down at the right hand of the
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throne of God, for consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against
Himself so that you may now not grow weary and lose heart.
The Scripture tells you, Jesus came to the earth, and Jesus suffered at the hands of men,
(27:38):
and even though He suffered, He was faithful.
And you go back to that first verse, you, fathers, you have no excuse.
You can't say, well, it's just too hard for me.
I can't follow the example of the Lord Jesus.
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God does admit that sin, the weights of sin, the encombrance of sin, they come so easily
honest, but you have to make a choice.
You're going to be the Father that sets the standard for your children.
You're going to have to choose to lay aside the sins, the weights that come so easily
on you.
They would entangle you so quickly, they would trip you up, they would make you such a poor
(28:24):
example for your children.
Look at Jesus.
He didn't get entangled in sin.
He didn't commit sin at all.
He's the perfect example.
Look at Him.
He didn't use trouble, trials, hurts as an excuse to turn away from righteousness.
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How far did He go?
In the Scripture's clear, fathers, we don't have any excuse.
He went to death.
He went to the very cross.
What could possibly happen in a father's life that would give him an excuse for turning
(29:15):
away from God, for leaving a bad example for his children?
What could happen?
Too much poverty, too many people turning against you, too much hatred around you, too
strong and urged, down in yourself, in your body, in your lusts?
(29:39):
No.
God says no.
You have no excuse because you could lay those aside and you could look at the example
of the Lord Jesus who went through it all and went through it all with victory, even though
it meant death by torture.
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Sometimes we can live a godly example for our children.
We can.
We must.
We need to give them the word of God.
There is absolutely not a resource for them that they could have life except through the
(30:23):
Lord Jesus.
They're not a resource for them that they could have a happy life.
Even as those little ones that have already trusted Christ and as they grow up in Him,
there are no hope for them to have a happy, fulfilled life except through what is provided
in our Savior.
What's given to us by the Spirit of God's guidance through the Word of God and made possible
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for us because of the Savior, there isn't any other resource for happiness.
We have absolutely no excuse for not giving it to them.
None that lasts before God.
None that holds water before God.
(31:10):
We need to give them that life example.
Look at John chapter 4 and see how the Lord Jesus did that so perfectly for us.
He showed us the Father.
He always did the will of His Father.
John 4 34.
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Just three little verses here.
4 34 for one.
For there was not.
I'm scared of the wrong chapter.
Sorry.
Jesus said unto them, my food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to accomplish
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His work.
Now combine that over here with 5 chapter 30.
See how it's the will of God that Jesus seeks to do completely.
I can do nothing on my own initiative.
As I hear, I judge and my judgment is just because I do not seek my own will, but the
will of Him who sent me.
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Now let's add to that chapter 6 verse 40.
For this is the will of my Father that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him may
have eternal life.
And I myself will raise Him up on the last day.
Fathers, the Lord Jesus said it, it is the will of God to do the will of the Father to
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make His will known, to bring our children to Him that they should trust in Him, that
He might give them the ultimate blessing.
He wants to bless them right now.
He's not only come that they might have life, but they might have more abundantly.
And I think that's for now and for all eternity.
We enter into life when we trust Christ.
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We don't have to wait till death.
But the ultimate blessing is to be raised up at the last day and brought into the presence
of God forever and ever to enjoy that fellowship that the Lord Jesus has made possible for us.
A Father could have no greater desire like John says than to hear that His children walk
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in truth, to see them in the presence of God.
My great joy is this Father's Day is that my family will all be together.
They're not married yet.
My girls, we're all able to have this Father's Day together.
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I don't know how many more we'll have.
Maybe Jesus will come before they ever get the chance to get married.
I'm not telling you that I don't want you to go tell them that I thought that's the
way it should be.
I just want the Lord to come.
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And it's hard to say that maybe He has marriage in mind for them before He comes.
But I have this privilege that today I can have my children with me.
The Heavenly Father and the Savior look to that great joy of having all of His children
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with Him forever in a perfect fellowship.
You want to see that picture of joy?
Look with me in the book of Hebrews again at chapter 2.
Here's one of the places.
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I guess I should remind you what we had just read in Hebrews 12.
Let me do that and then I'll go back to 2.
But here's this little thought out of Hebrews 12 where it says verse 2, fixing our eyes
upon Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.
Here's the phrase, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross?
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And you've got to ask, now, well, the cross was certainly not the joy.
It wasn't the beating and it wasn't the spitting and it wasn't the plucking of the beard and
it wasn't the crowning of thorns and it wasn't the despising and the people wagging their
heads and swearing and gaping upon Him in His nakedness.
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That wasn't a joyful thing.
It wasn't the whiplash on the back and it wasn't the nail through the hands and the feet.
No joy in that.
But there was a joy set before the Lord Jesus that because of that joy He could endure the
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cross.
And I'll tell you something, if you have a joy that's deep and real, you can go through
anything.
If that joy is a hope that is sure, in other words, if there's a real hope, my real hope,
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I mean not a wish, but if there's something that you know is going to be there and that
what you know is going to be there is a joy, you can go through anything.
A terrible example would be somebody sitting there with a swollen jaw and an awful toothache.
(36:54):
I don't like Dennis.
I mean, I have nothing against them personally, but I don't like going to the dentist.
I guess I said, I don't like what Dennis do to my body.
I guess that's what I don't like.
I really don't like the sound of those drills.
One sound that I think was given to modern man to test the soul.
(37:17):
But if you get a toothache that's terrible, if it thrums, if your whole side of your head
just comes in and out and if you can't even think, you know you'll even enjoy going to
a dentist.
That's terrible, isn't it?
Terrible example.
But what?
What?
Because he's such a wonderful fellow.
No, because you look beyond the chair, believe me, you look beyond that sound that you're
(37:41):
going to hear, beyond the, don't worry, I'm almost through kind of nonsense that they
give you about 20 times.
But beyond all of that stuff, and you say, I'm going to get up from here and it's going
to be better.
Sometimes, the positive joys, not just coming back to normal feelings, but the positive
(38:07):
powerful joy of being in God's presence doesn't grip us enough.
We need to be overcome with that joy.
The Lord Jesus was, he was on the cross and it wasn't death that he was looking forward
to to say, oh boy, the pain's going to be all over.
My joy is to get out of here with the, just when death finally comes.
(38:29):
That isn't the joy that he was looking forward to.
I'm going to take you to Hebrews 2 to show you what he was looking forward to.
It was something far different ahead to do with God's children.
Hebrews chapter 2, verse 10.
For it was fitting for him, for whom are all things and through whom are all things,
(38:58):
in bringing many sons to glory to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings.
For both he who sanctifies, that's the Lord, of course, who becomes our sanctification,
and those who are sanctified are all from one Father.
(39:21):
For which reason he's not ashamed to call them brethren.
Now, look at this scene, this little poetic verse out of verse 12 saying, I will proclaim
thy name to my brethren in the midst of the congregation.
I will sing thy praise.
And again, I will put my trust in him, and again, behold, I and the children whom God
(39:45):
has given me.
So what was it, the joy that was set before the Lord Jesus?
The scriptures declared in the same book of Hebrews that the Lord Jesus was looking beyond
the cross.
He was looking to that scene in heaven when all of the children would be there, all of
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the children of God, and he would be right there standing in their midst with the Father.
And that joy was so powerful, so wonderful in its eternity, in its absoluteness, so complete
(40:37):
that there was nothing, nothing on this earth, no pain, no rejection, no hurt.
Nothing that this world could give him that would turn him away from that joy.
And he endured the cross, despising the pain, compared to the joy the pain was despised.
(41:07):
It was overcome.
It was utterly turned against in victory because of that joy.
Fathers, what should drive us on in our determination to give our children God's word and to live
(41:30):
godly before them, and to leave them the kind of example that they need to see?
The joy of our children with us in the presence of the Lord.
(41:51):
There's a joy for right now, and I share that with you as a Father that can have his children
with him today.
There's a joy that's special.
The years may take it from us.
We may not be able to share it in some years to come, if the Lord Jesus terrace.
But nothing this world could do, nothing will strip me of that joy of being in glory with
(42:15):
those of my children that have trusted him, and I thank God they all have.
I want to enter into that joy right now through the fellowship with my children in
their walk with him and my walk with him in him.
(42:39):
Do you know your heavenly Father that way?
Are you enjoying your walk with him?
Is your walk with him the most important thing in your life?
Is your bringing of his word and your life example to your children?
(43:02):
Is that on your mind and in your heart every day through the day?
Is it such a special joy to you to share that with your children that you would endure anything
in this life?
Whatever it may take from your body to work all day long, whatever it may take from your
strength to do what you have to do to be a Father, whatever inconvenience and hardship
(43:30):
and trial and need, whatever it takes from you is your joy in what you have in that shared
love with your children, able to sustain you?
Will it will if that's rooted and grounded in your Lord?
(43:54):
If he is your first joy, if his word is your first delight, that's great.
I would just wonder if your heart is set today on this Father's Day to be the example.
(44:15):
By living out the Word of God, by letting God examine your heart and mind through the
day, measuring your values, measuring your conversations, measuring your motives, are
you willing that God's Spirit should have that kind of access to you?
(44:40):
Are you willing to set your heart's love on him and count at your joy no matter what
you have to go through to have the love, bond and fellowship of love with your children
(45:01):
and your wife that God intends for his sons to have?
Would you say to God, O Lord, all of my thoughts through the day, all of my motives, all of
my values, I open to you that I might bring your word more fully to my children.
(45:29):
They might learn to walk in the ways of them, that they might each know you, Lord Jesus,
whom to know right is life eternal and that they might know the fullness of life because
of my life example, that I might share my love for you with them.
(45:50):
I might have the fullness of that love fellowship you want me to have as a Father.
I give myself to you, Lord, for that constant work, that daily work, all my life.
(46:12):
Lord Jesus, seal this in the hearts of these fathers this morning.
We as a body set our eyes on the joy of being together with the and with our spiritual
children and our natural children with the Heavenly Father one day soon in Jesus name.
(46:37):
Amen.
All right.
Thank you, Pastor Raines for another message from the Word of God.
Like I said, that was from June of 1990 and I have a few more from the year of 1990,
maybe three or four, I think yeah, three or four, something like that.
(46:58):
But then we'll be going into 1991.
So we have plenty of them from the decade of the 90s.
So most of the future ones will be from the 90s.
So you can look forward to that.
And you can also look for next week.
We'll be bringing you another message from our tape archive and be preached, of course,
(47:21):
by Pastor Raines.
And we'll have that next week.
Hopefully nothing goes wrong.
I don't foresee anything going wrong, but you never know.
All right.
So thank you for listening.
Please visit the website and subscribe.
That would be good if you could subscribe.
(47:43):
And also we had a little bit of an increase in downloads on the podcast, which is a good
thing.
So that's a seems to be catching on.
And he picked up a few more countries out there, which is a great thing.
So listen in next week and I'll have more.
(48:04):
And until then, have a great day.
And oh yeah, read your Bible.
See you next week.
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