Hey, this is Pastor John Ryan Cantu from PNEUMA Church in Houston, Texas.

Thank you for listening to the message today.

I hope that it blesses you and all those that you share it with.

God bless you.

Every time Michael, every time Michael speaks, I mean, he takes the words out of my mouth.

I can't, I can't really follow that up.

Um, it's, it's a blessing to be a dad.

It's not easy to be a dad either.

Right.

And, um, I, I know these kids, right.

Um, I know when I'm sitting on the couch in the morning and I'm drinking coffee and Melissa's running around and getting the girls ready and she's doing all the hair and all that stuff.

She walks in and she'll be like, it must be nice to be a dad.

And, uh, and I'm like, he's got his perks, you know, but, you know, just like, just like, uh, being a mom is a difficult job.

It is, uh, at times challenging to be a good father.

Amen.

And I know that there's many, many of us who don't always know what to do.

You don't know how to do it.

Um, there's some men who didn't have dads to teach them things.

And so they're kind of forced to figure things out, man.

If all you get today is a $10 gift card to Ross, um, just know you, your worth cannot be appreciated enough.

Amen.

The, the impact that a good godly father can have on a young child is extremely powerful.

And you know, if you had that growing up, like I did with my dad, you know how important it is to a child.

And if you didn't have that growing up, you also know how important it is to a So I want to just thank y'all for manning up.

Thank y'all.

Um, I want to, I want to go to, uh, the, the, the gospel of Matthew.

If you would stand with me, Matthew chapter 18, we're just going to read a few verses.

I won't make you stand too long.

I ain't gonna lie.

My daughter made me cry a little bit.

She was supposed to end it with happy father's day, but y'all, y'all started standing up and y'all made her nervous.

You have it.

Matthew 18, one through four.

Hey, if you're here also, and this is your first time and you have your kids with you, uh, we love having the kids in the room and just watching dad and mom worship God.

Um, on normal Sundays, we have a kid's church over here.

Um, and it's, and it's awesome.

We have amazing children's pastors here.

Pastor Stephan jr.

Um, amen.

It says this, it says at that time, the disciples came to Jesus saying, who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?

And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

Let's pray.

Heavenly father.

I thank you for this word that you have given to your servant.

Father God, I pray Lord that as I have received it, father, God, uh, you would deliver it to your people.

My God, that we would, we would receive it to the depths of our hearts.

Father God, I pray that this word would bring healing father, God, and conviction father, God, and all the things that you want to bring today.

Father, we love you and we thank you in Jesus name.

Amen.

You can be seated.

Like I was saying, man, I really struggled with the direction of this message.

Really the whole, the whole message I wrestled with pastor Danny and I were talking yesterday about how we really don't like the topical sermons.

Um, it just kind of puts us in a, in a box, you know, it's father's day.

So we've got to think about fathers.

Um, but I really think out of this, the Lord brought a message that he was really wanting to speak on, on the importance of knowing our identity as sons and daughters of God.

And so the title of my sermon today is sons and daughters, and I'm going to prep you.

This, this message isn't going to be for everybody.

You know, there's messages that are sometimes for the whole church.

There are messages that are sometimes for, for the veteran Christians messages that they need to hear.

And then there's messages that are reserved for newer people of faith.

Um, the ones that are still kind of learning what it means to walk as a And I think that that is who this is specifically for today.

So if this is not for you, I'd still appreciate the shouts and the amends.

Um, I know it's father's day and we're going to celebrate dads and all of that, but I really believe that in order to be a good and godly father, you have to know what it means to be a good and godly son or, or daughter, right?

The way that the Lord created the order of mankind, it was done in such a way that children learn how to be sons and daughters before they learned how to be mom and dad.

Right.

And what often happens, what often creates a dysfunction in families is an out of order process of learning.

God created the family unit to look a certain way.

He designed it to be a certain way.

But when we deviate from that, we miss out on some things that we should have learned, but never did learn.

And so this is why it can be a struggle for some men to be a good and present father, because they never saw a good and present father in the home.

All they know how to do is, is leave when things get difficult.

It's why it's a struggle to have a functional marriage.

When a functional marriage wasn't modeled to you growing up, it's why I was reading this statistic, uh, this, uh, the other day, uh, it's why a young boy who watches his mom get abused in a relationship is more than 10 times as likely to be an abuser in his future relationships.

We live in a, in a fallen world that has really messed up the process that God intended for families to go through.

Right.

We know that process.

We've, we've read Ephesians.

We know what the scripture says, man submits to God, wife submits to her husband, and then the children submit to the parents.

That's the order.

Don't, don't come at me.

That's, that's what God says.

And so what that creates is a, as an environment where the children are growing up and they're watching mom and dad be godly parents.

And so they can grow up and they can, they can leave mom and dad's house to be their spouse with the confidence of knowing that they're going to be able to begin that cycle all over again because they witnessed it right the first time and God is going to bless it.

Now I know that I say that, and probably half of the people in this room did not grow up like that.

I mean, so many people in our world do not grow up like that.

We do.

We live in a fallen world, um, where nothing is perfect and pretty much everything is less than ideal, but this is why church, it is so important to be intentional with possessing the right identity as fathers and mothers, but especially as sons and daughters of God.

I said, I said it earlier, the gospel of John says that for all who believed in his name, Jesus gave the right to become children of God.

That's powerful.

You are a child of God.

You got to own that.

You got to walk in the confidence that you are loved and you are cared for by the good father that there's a, there's so many other passages that I could have used on what, what it means to be sons and daughters of God.

Honestly, all of them seem more appropriate than Matthew 18.

For example, first John, and I would encourage you to read first John chapter three, it pretty much pretty much lays out clearly what it means to be a child of God.

Namely that we don't, we don't go on sinning.

We don't go on looking like the world.

We reflect the image of Christ.

The reason that I was drawn to this passage is because as adults, as adult Christians, we one don't know what it is to be a child anymore.

And two, having a childlike faith and posture is so important to the father that if we never actually learn it, we miss out on such an important piece of our identity as children of God.

It's so important as Christians.

I mean, everybody in this room, you know that you're a child of God.

But so many people struggle to live in their identity as child of God.

And maybe it's because we have learned too many things growing up that now we have to unlearn and undo.

I've been a Christian a long time.

I've been a pastor for a long time and I have witnessed firsthand children of God still not realizing how much they are loved because they grew up in an environment that told them they were not loved, that they were not good enough.

I've, I've seen children grow up in legalistic homes, so afraid to mess up even one time, because if they mess up even one time, God is going to forget about them and abandon them.

I've even counseled couples who really are struggling in their marriage because they needed to unlearn certain things that they witnessed growing up.

They might, they might be godly today, but growing up, they picked up some ungodly habits that makes it difficult for them to succeed as a godly marriage.

Something gets lost.

Listen, something gets lost when you mess up with the order of God, something messes up when man touches and has his way, even when you mess it, even when you throw it off a little bit.

So like maybe, maybe in the home, there is a godly mother, but an ungodly father.

And so what that does is it creates confusion for the child, maybe even some spiritual dysfunction for the child who is learning how to, how to be godly and some ways, but ungodly in other ways, or maybe when neither the father or the mother grew up in the Lord and they're raising kids and the kids are still being asked to submit to mom and dad, maybe there's not a present mom or a dad like this, all of these things create less than ideal environments for what God originally intended for families to learn.

And because we are raised in some of these environments, sometimes we miss out on these important lessons.

Now I'm saying all this, and I want to be sensitive because I'm not, I'm not saying that if you grew up like this, you're all jacked up.

Okay.

I'm not saying you need to go to therapy.

I'm not saying that.

I'm not saying that just because you didn't have godly parents, doesn't mean you didn't have good parents, because I know so many of you had great parents who did everything that they could to love you and nurture you and put food on the table.

Maybe, maybe they cussed a little bit, right?

But they loved you, but as Christians, we are concerned.

We have to be more concerned with just being good parents.

We have to be godly parents because the Bible says, and in all you do do it unto God.

So when I am wearing my dad hat in the morning, I have to do so in a way that glorifies my father.

When I am a husband to my wife, I have to do so in a way that glorifies my father.

And so in order to be a godly parent, you've either got to know what it is to break some generational curses somewhere along the way.

And honestly, that's all of us.

We all got to break some general rational curses along the way.

Even those who grow up in a Christian home, because we know that just because you grow up in a Christian home doesn't mean you grow up fearing the Lord.

Now, now the good news is that it is possible.

Somebody say possible.

It is possible to break cycles.

We just talked about it.

We just sang that song.

It is possible to break curses and mindsets.

And maybe you're here today and you have determined to be a godly father.

You have determined to be a godly mother that your parents never were to you, but you still have to go through the process of learning what it means to be a son and a daughter of God.

We can do what we do every Father's Day at these altars.

We we ask the dads to come up and the children to come up and dads pray for children.

Children pray for dads and mom prays for her husband.

And as for me and my house, we're going to serve the Lord.

We can do all of that.

And that's great.

But if a dad doesn't even know what it means to be a son of God, we have missed a very important step in God's process of establishing a godly home.

Are you hearing me?

Are you listening?

Because look, it's godly dads don't just bring their families to church on Sundays.

They don't just tell a few Bible stories to their kids.

They don't just lay down the law because that's what the Bible says.

No, part of being a godly father is showing your children how to be a godly son.

So yes, dad, they need to see your kids need to see a, a manly strong figure in the home, but they also need to be able to see a weak man who was fully dependent on his father.

Your kids need to be able to see a wise man, a knowledgeable man, a leader who knows what to do in times of crisis.

But they also need to be able to see a man who has no idea what to do, but to pray, to be a child of God means you got to know how to be vulnerable.

You got to know how to be dependent.

You know how to be confident that your father is going to take care of you.

Godly fathers and godly mothers are first godly sons and daughters.

Maybe you're saying pastor, I can't go back and learn how to be a godly child because I'm an adult.

Now I missed out on those lessons.

The good news is that every single day we wake up with another opportunity to be a child of our heavenly father.

You know that every tomorrow you're going to wake up with another opportunity to be fully dependent on God for the things that you cannot control.

You're going to, every day you have an opportunity to place everything that you can't control in the hands of God.

Every single day you're going to wake up in the, in the presence of God because he is a present father who wants communion with you.

Every single day I wake up with another opportunity to submit to the will of God, to be obedient to him.

Even when I don't like it, even when I'm dragging my feet and I don't want to do it.

Like grace upon grace has been given to every single child of God who grew up in some type of spiritually dysfunctional family.

Grace has been given to the ones who grew up without a father.

You have a father.

Now grace for those who were never nurtured, never listened to, who had daddy issues, who were never loved.

There's, there's grace for, for people who grew up with good parents, but, but maybe not godly parents.

Like every single day we wake up as sons and daughters to a perfect father in And he's simply wanting to teach us how to be his children.

You're hearing me today.

Yeah.

How many people come to God so late in life, like after they've messed everything up, right?

So, you know, I, man, I grew up, man, I, I was born singing praises in the hospital room, but I still grew up jacked up.

I just, all of us and, and, and we go through life and, and, and at some point in our life, we come to God, but it's because we've already, we've already messed up a lot of things.

And so many people come to God and, and they have horrible mindsets and they have horrible, terrible image issues and really bad upbringings and lifestyles that need to break.

And then God saves you from the power of sin.

Hallelujah.

But you know what?

He doesn't save you from the presence of sin that comes later, that comes up in heaven.

And so you still got to deal with the consequences.

You still got to deal with the pain and the drama that that sin costs your life and whatever trauma you have and dysfunction, you got to deal with all of that.

And so as Christians, we have to allow the Holy spirit to sanctify us and teach us new things because why we are a new creation, the old has passed away.

I am a new creation.

I don't care if you come to God in your eighties, everything in those first 80 years of life is out the door.

You are a new creation.

And so you have to allow the Holy spirit to sanctify you and clothe you in righteousness and teach you new things.

But at the same time, I'll admit there's so much that goes into all of that.

I've got to learn how to be a godly dad, a godly husband, a godly businessman, a godly man, a godly church member, a godly financial steward, a godly friend.

Like when do I have time to learn how to be a child of God?

But we're children of God.

You believe in Jesus.

You have faith in Jesus.

You have a right to become a child of God, but not everybody knows what that means.

And so when I, when I read this scripture, you know, the disciples, they had been under the leadership of Jesus for a while now they were watching Jesus do all of these miracles and they heard him teach and preach on the kingdom of God.

I mean, they, they had a firsthand view of Jesus demonstrating what it meant to be the son of God.

And then they go in, ask him a stupid question like this.

Who will be the greatest in your kingdom?

They're asking a very selfish question, right?

They're asking a question about status.

Lord Jesus, who's going to be at your right hand?

Who's going to be second in command?

The disciples at this point, they didn't know.

That, that, that the kingdom of Jesus was not of this world.

And so they're asking a very temporal, selfish question, and then Jesus has to kind of snap them out of it.

And so he grabs a little child and he says, unless you become like this child, you won't even enter my kingdom.

Like forget about status.

You won't even make it through the doors.

If you can't humble yourself like this child, it's, it's crazy because the disciples ask him a question about greatness and Jesus points to the least of these.

And this is the part that I think doesn't just resonate with new believers.

This should convict us as seasoned Christians, because sometimes all we ask are questions about greatness and increase and more and growth and elevation and glory and calling and, and, and grow the church and, and send me and use me and grow the finances and open the doors and anoint, anoint my ministry and all these things.

And in the midst of all of these prayers, the father is looking at a child in his presence with no care in the world, with no desires, with no ambitions, who just wants to be loved and cared for and nurtured in his presence, who was so full of joy and confidence that dad will make everything okay.

Even when it's not, we cannot lose our identity as children of God in pursuit of greater and higher things.

You hear what I'm saying?

I'm over here witnessing these, these kids dancing with their little flags.

They don't even know what they're doing.

They don't do it right.

And if it were fine arts, I would have some critiques for them.

But God doesn't care about that.

Don't we get so preoccupied with, with perfection and like excellence and all of those things are good.

I mean, we, we can preach on excellence, bringing God your absolute best, but so many times we get so preoccupied that we just forget to be a child in the presence of God.

So worried about all of these other things.

So worried about if I'm going to hit the right note, if I'm going to say the right thing, if I'm going to preach in a way that is eloquent and, and, and convicting like God is just like, just be a child for a second.

Just humble yourself for a second.

Stop worrying about greatness.

Stop worrying about anointing.

Stop worrying about elevation.

Stop worrying about getting hired.

Just be in my presence.

We cannot lose our identity as children of God and pursuit of greater things.

We cannot lose our humility when God sends the increase.

You hear me?

We cannot lose our dependence as we mature.

As we become teachers and preachers and leaders, we cannot lose our dependence on the one who got us here.

The father is looking at that childlike heart that, you know what?

So many Christians sadly grow out of, or don't even learn.

So the next, the next chapter in Matthew 19, we see, we see the children again.

This is verse 13.

It says, then children were brought to him that he may lay hands on them and pray.

And the disciples rebuked the people.

But Jesus said, let the children come to me and do not hinder them for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.

You know why the disciples were probably rebuking the children, right?

You know, all the kids were probably running around like they do up here and touching everything and wiping their muckles and putting it all over Jesus.

And then Jesus is there trying to pray for the kids.

And he got some kids giggling, not taking everything seriously.

And the disciples are like, this is, this is no place for kids.

Y'all don't take this seriously.

Y'all don't know who this is.

If you want Jesus, if they want Jesus, you got to go to kid's church.

And I just imagine, you know, Jesus like shut up, Peter.

I'm over here blaming Peter.

I don't even know if it's him, but it was probably Peter.

Come on.

Y'all know it was probably Peter.

And he's like, just let these innocent children come to me.

Stop being so serious all the time.

I love their innocence.

I love their joy.

I love their laughter.

I love their dependence.

I love how they run around without a care in the world.

They come to me.

They run to me.

Some adults are hesitant.

All if kids were in that boat, when Jesus was walking on water, all of them would've jumped off the boat.

All of them, every single one of them.

I know that because Ellie, one time I was in the pool, I was in the pool one time with Ellie, she doesn't know how to swim yet, but, but she, she got so used to jumping in the pool and me catching her.

Well, one, one time I was completely on the other side of the pool and she starts to jump in and Layla's like, don't do it.

That, that's the posture that we need to have in the presence of the father.

I don't know how God you're going to catch me.

I just know that you will.

That's what the father's looking for.

He's looking for children who understand their identity as children of God.

So many of us lose and, and it's, it's not like there's a difference between being a child and being a baby.

You're not called babies of God.

You're called children of God.

Baby's got to learn.

They got to walk children.

Children have to walk.

I think Ellie's in the perfect age right now where, I mean, every single day that goes by, it saddens me because she's growing up.

But she's in that perfect childlike stage that I believe that Jesus was referring to.

Like, like Ellie, isn't a baby like she'll homegirl will make herself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich when she's hungry.

She is independent when she needs to be, and she is dependent when she needs to be.

And as believers, we have to be independent when we need to be.

We need to do what we need to do.

We need to carry our way, but we also need to be dependent when we need to be.

That's what it is to know that you are a child of God.

You know, when, when Jesus came to earth, man, he was so confident in his identity as son of God, while at the same time being son of man, you know, as a son of God, he, he knew that he came to do the father's will.

He, he was about his father's business.

He was obedient to the father.

He had, he had the authority that the father had given him.

He had the power to demonstrate godly power and signs and wonders.

And even when everybody else was confused about it, even when his own disciples didn't understand his teaching, even when Mary and Joseph, his own earthly parents didn't understand what it meant by Jesus needing to be in this father's house, Jesus understood his identity as perfect son of God because he knew so intimately the identity of the father.

Matthew 5, 19 says the son, listen, the son can do nothing on his own accord, but only what he sees the father doing.

Do I need to read that again?

The son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the father doing for whatever the father does that the son does likewise see the order that God had originally set for mankind.

This is it right here.

We miss this.

When we talk about redemption, we don't always talk about this part.

Jesus redeemed the father and son relationship that was lost in the garden of Eden.

When Adam disobeyed his father, Adam had communion with God like we do not, but, but he wed sin in between him and the father and, and the process that, that God would have every family go through.

It became subject to corruption.

We can no longer see clearly what the father was doing or saying because sin would get in the way.

Distractions would get in the way.

Noise would get in the way.

Even the children of Israel, they had to make sacrifices.

They had to hear from prophets.

They had to have representatives from God just to maintain their status as children of God.

And time and time again, they would fail to live up to that identity.

But the sinless Jesus, the son of God, the son that Adam failed to be the son that none of us could ever be brought restoration to us simply by doing what the father was doing.

That's it.

And then, so the Bible says, for all who believe in the name of Jesus, he gave the right to become children of God to the person next to you.

I have a right to be a child of God.

Come on.

You gotta, you gotta say that with some confidence.

I have a right to be a child of God.

I have a right to heaven.

I have a right to cry out.

I have a right to approach his throne and, and ask him for the things that I need.

I've got a right to be anointed by my God.

I've got a right to dwell in his presence.

I've got a right to lift up my hands and confidence and sing.

Change will break.

I have the right because Jesus gave it to me.

But here's the thing.

Here's the thing that I want you to get.

So many people don't exercise that right.

Some would prefer to be a follower Jesus than a child of God.

And look, if you're a new believer, this is what I want you to grasp today.

Okay.

I want you to grasp this.

Don't, don't tune me out.

If you, especially if you're a newer Christian, God showed me something in the scripture.

He showed me that following Jesus is something that you do.

Being a child of God is someone you are.

So what you do is not as important as who you are.

And when somebody becomes a Christian, they're so focused on what I got to do.

Tell me what I got to do.

Tell me what not to do.

But what you do is not as important as who you are.

Bringing your kids to church, attending Bible study, doing ministry.

That's great, but that's all you do.

And when you're raising kids, your children will always see past you do and into who you are.

They don't care that you can teach.

They don't care that you can preach.

They don't care that you can sing.

If you are a completely different person at home, they don't care what you do.

If who you are, it doesn't reflect what you do.

And maybe you don't have kids.

I'll tell you this.

God will always see past what you do and into who you are.

There were a lot of followers of Jesus, but you know what?

Many of those followers only followed him when it was convenient for them to follow him.

Many of Jesus followers followed him by condition.

The moment Jesus started talking crazy, the moment Jesus said, eat of my flesh and drink my blood.

The Bible says in John that many of his disciples no longer walked with him.

Why?

Because they were not willing to partake in who Jesus was.

Being a child of God is so much about identity.

And Jesus, the perfect son of God showed us how to be children.

You remember, you remember in the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus was there and he was tormented in spirit and he said, he cries out to God, he says, father, let this, let this cup pass from me.

But the cup represented the wrath and the judgment of God.

I mean, think about it, man, the son of God was asked by the father to step down from heaven, to take on human flesh, to die this gruesome and humiliating death.

And so in this moment of weakness and vulnerability and dependence, Jesus shows us what it is to be a child of God.

The son of God goes before the father and he says, Lord, take this cup from me.

And we all know what Jesus did.

He drank that cup.

Why did he drink it?

Because that's what the father wanted him to do.

That's what it means to be a child of God.

The son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the father doing.

For whatever the father does, that the son does likewise.

And here's my application and I'm almost done.

This is for dads.

It's also for moms, but it's also Father's Day.

So we get first pick.

Listen, when you know what it is to live as a son of God, fully obedient and fully dependent on the father, you will know how to be a godly father.

Sometimes we get the order wrong.

Sometimes we pray, Lord, make me a better parent.

Lord, help me to help my child.

Help me be what my child needs me to be.

Help me guide them in wisdom.

Those are great prayers.

But a father who knows how to be a son of God first will naturally be the father their child needs them to be.

You might not know every answer.

You might not be able to open up every pickle jar, except if you're Pastor Brandon because he knows how to do all that stuff.

You might, you might make mistakes along the way, but when you can live out your identity as a child of God, being a godly parent comes so much more naturally, guys.

So when I think about this verse, it says, the son can only do what he sees a father doing.

Can I tell you, can I just testify a little bit, because I think, I think about my dad.

I think about my dad, you know, growing up, my dad, he was a godly dad and everything that he did, I wanted to do.

And I remember specifically when I was a kid, I would, I would see and hear my dad pray in a heavenly language and he does so beautifully.

I mean, he can, he can sing in tongues, he can do runs in tongues, it's crazy.

And I remember not really understanding what that was.

And I asked him one day to teach me what is this gift of tongues?

That power of the Holy Spirit, that's, that's where it comes from.

I want that power.

I want that power.

And so I remember one night he took me up to one of the bedrooms and he knelt down and he started to pray and he says, I don't have the, I don't have the power to give you the gift of tongues.

That's the Holy Spirit.

All I, all I can do is show you what I do.

All you can do is pray.

So I'm like, okay, I see my dad kneel and he starts to pray and all of a sudden, boom, it's like the upper room, Holy Spirit descended.

He started speaking in tongues and I was just there and just watching him.

Can I tell you, I didn't, I didn't get that gift that day, but what happened became so much more powerful than I think if God would have gave me that gift that day, I established I would, I would, I would come to church and I would see my grandfather preaching and I always wanted to be a preacher like my, like my grandfather.

And so I would go home and I would put on my cowboy hat, which was weird cause my grandpa never wore a cowboy hat, but I would put on my cowboy hat and I would, I would line up my little stuffed animals and I would preach to them and I was a little harsh.

I would send them all to hell.

But you know what that did is it made me love the ministry and made me love his word.

It made me love his presence and made me love my God.

Just seeing, just seeing what my dad did, just seeing what my grandfather did, just seeing what my dad, my mom did.

The son can only do what he sees the father doing men and women of God.

Your children will be molded by what you consume, by what you desire, by what you say and by what you do.

But more than any of that, they will be molded by who you are.

Children of God produce children of God.

And maybe you've been trying so hard just to be a good man.

You've been trying so hard just to be a good provider.

You've been trying so hard just to be a better husband, just to be faithful, just to get past all the temptations and all of the past that has crippled you.

You're just trying so hard to be a better man for the people around you.

But God is saying today, don't neglect the child posture of your heart.

Jesus is saying, I gave you the rights.

I gave you the rights to be a child of God.

I gave you the rights to come into the presence and the throne room where God is in the holy of holies and receive a fresh wind of anointing by the hand of the father.

I gave you that right.

Don't neglect it.

I gave you the right to be dependent by simply having faith.

I gave you the right to have an anointing.

I gave you the right to be a child.

I want you to stand with me.

This is what I want to do today.

Look, the best gift that I can give to my children is not to teach them how to be great in life.

I work with my daughter, Layla.

I'm trying to fine tune her voice.

I mean, I see, I see a powerhouse in there, but my greatest accomplishment is not in what she does.

It's in what I have a part in creating her to be.

My greatest accomplishment at the end of my life will be able to see my daughters and say they are daughters of the king, regardless of what they do in life, regardless of how many degrees they get, regardless of a successful career.

Are they daughters of God that I have a part in creating a ripple effect and the generations that come after me, that is the most important thing that you can give to your children.

And so right now, what I want to do, I don't, I don't want to just call dads.

I don't want to call dads at all.

I want to call sons.

I want to call sons.

And I also want to call daughters.

Every single person in this room is a child of God.

And I want to come before the presence of our father and simply just be, be embraced in him by him.

Because so many of us are asking the wrong questions and God is just like, man, just let me be your father.

Let me just be your father.

So I'm not going to have the prayer team come up, but I am going to invite you as sons and daughters just to worship our father.

That's all we're going to do for the next few moments.

We are just going to worship and be in his presence.

And maybe you don't know what to say if you don't know what to say.

Man, some of you didn't have a dad growing up and so you don't even know what to go to a father for, but God is saying, ask of me.

God is saying, be dependent on me.

God is saying, let me comfort you.

Let me give you wisdom.

God is saying, let me love you.

Thanks for listening.

If you'd like some more information on PNEUMA Church, visit us on our website at mypneumachurch.org.

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Thanks again and God bless.