2026.4.12 TFHC – Spiritual Fathers | 1 Corinthians 4:14-21

April 13, 2026, Message by P. Kevin Clancey Transcribed by Beluga AI. We speak your name, Jesus, over this time together. We exalt you and praise you as the Lord Most High. Come, Lord, and give us the mind of Christ. Settle our hearts to sit before your Word and help our minds not wander, but to hear what your Spirit is saying to us tonight in our time together. In Jesus’ Name, Amen. Years ago, a Christian popular song, popular worship song and kind of—you know, we get in those stages in the contemporary kind of evangelical, Charismatic world where we’re, oh, whatever, Elevation or Bethel or somebody or Hillsong, and we’re singing all the same songs for a while. And years ago, from a group of musicians called House Fires a song came out, and it just kind of was really popular there for a while—”Good, Good Father.” Remember that one? And I remember being down in Arizona with my brother-in-law and sister and Jill and I. My nephew was down at Grand Canyon University; we were visiting him. And we also, as a gift, you know—it was our family vacation. But they all knew—none of them were big baseball fans—they all knew how I love baseball. I finally got to go to spring training, and so we got to see some spring training games. In fact, I got my first baseball ever. You know, in a baseball game when the ball comes into the stands… Sean got one. We were with you and Sean that one night, and he got a foul ball. And Kyler, who we were with that night, I went with him to one game, and it was actually—a guy threw a perfect game. He threw a no-hitter that game. We had gotten there early, and one of the White Sox outfielders threw a ball up, and Kyler caught it. Kyler got a ball, but I never got a ball. And I’m sitting down in the front row because it’s spring training, so I can afford front row seats finally. And I’m sitting down in the front row and it’s the best foul ball ever. You know, you don’t want to get a foul ball with a black eye. That’s—you know, a lot of people would be, “I still got a foul ball.” Just go buy one at the sporting goods store. You know, it’s not worth a black eye. So you don’t want to catch a line drive off the face and then pick up the ball and go, you know, “Consolation prize here.” Now this one was just a weak roller. The batter just hit it, and it was just a roller, and it kind of just rolled right in front of me. The front row seats at spring training are real low, and so it just kind of rolled in front of me. I just leaned over the railing, and I picked it up, and I got the ball. “I got my first ball!” And I turn to look at my brother-in-law, and my brother-in-law had gone to get something from the concession stand. And there was a four-year-old little girl who’d been wanting a ball the whole game. You know, when they were pitching in the bullpen, she’s going, “Can I get a ball? Can I get a ball?” She just, oh, she so wanted a ball. I pick up this ball, I got a smile on my face, I turn, and she’s… So I had the ball for all of about three seconds. “There you go.” Yeah, that’s right. Yeah, I should have, but I didn’t know that she was right there. But anyway. But hey, her dad offered to buy me a beer. So, you know, I didn’t get it. But what’s that? Good on me, yeah. Well, you know, that’s like a… I gotta tell you, either you give the ball to the kid, and everyone’s like, “Oh, what a nice guy.” Or you don’t give the ball to the kid… You know, there’s no, there’s no neutral there. That’s heaven or hell, right? You’re an angel or a demon. And so yeah, so anyway, I had my ball there for a while. So we were down there in Arizona and this song was all the rage in all the churches. We were singing it at the Firehouse. My brother-in-law hates repetitive lyrics, but this song has lots of repetitive lyrics. “You’re a good, good father. That’s who you are. That’s who you are. You’re a good, good father. That’s who you are. That’s who you are. You’re perfect in all of your ways. You’re perfect in all your ways.” I mean, it’s like three lines that just go on forever. I saw this comic one time and somebody said, “What do you do?” And the comic strip, you know, the little bubble where they’re talking? It says, “I write modern worship songs. I write modern worship songs. I write modern worship songs. I write modern worship songs.” But anyway, I went by this church marquee and it said on the church marquee—I loved it—it said, “There’s a good, good chance this Sunday we’ll be singing ‘Good, Good Father.'” I just thought that was a cute church marquee. All that to say, all my little wandering and ramblings to say, we’re going to talk tonight about fathers, spiritual fathers, as we go through 1 Corinthians. As I was preaching this this morning, I thought, man, I should have saved this for Father’s Day. So just pay attention. Know the date, April 12, 2026. And when we hit Father’s Day in June, go on Rumble or YouTube and watch it again. And it is predicated on this whole idea that the universe is predicated on a good Father. And just to bring you back up to speed on Corinthians, because we’ve been a couple weeks out of Corinthians… We, you know, Jamie spoke to us on Palm Sunday, and then I spoke on Easter. Paul is addressing the Corinthian church who were immature, and they were doing about five things that he has to correct in this letter. But at the front of their immaturity is how mature and wise they think they are. They think they’re so advanced. You know, they’re like a teenage child, right? Nobody knows so much as a teenage child. They’re the smartest people ever. They just… they know everything. And, you know, then they get out and they get on their own in the world and pretty soon they’re calling you and saying, “Hey, how do you do this?” and “How do you do that?” It’s like my dad always said. He said, “You know, when you were 16, I was the dumbest man on Earth, but by the time you were 25, I had gotten much smarter.” And that’s kind of how it works sometimes. And the Corinthians, they’re like a teenage child. They’re like an adolescent child. They know everything right now. They’re the smartest people on the planet. And Paul is addressing them about this. He says these five things are really bad. The first thing that we’ve talked about now is that they were dividing. There were divisions in the church, and it wasn’t divisions over some central issue of importance to the gospel. I mean, Paul was divisive over the issue of whether or not Gentiles needed to be circumcised to be Christians. Why? Because he realized that that was at the root of the gospel. Either we’re going back to the old covenant, or we are new. Either the gospel is for the Gentiles, or all you’re doing is just inventing a new system for the Gentiles to come into the old covenant. And so Paul was divisive on that issue. Very divisive on that issue. But here they’re dividing over personalities. It’s not even over doctrine. Apollos is a much more polished speaker than Paul. Peter, he was actually with Jesus. And then there’s Paul. And there were still the Paulites… “Hey, Paul is the one who brought us the gospel.” But understand, Paul is not arguing here for his supremacy over Peter and Apollos. He goes on time and time again and says, “We are all simply stewards, simply managers. Look, Peter, Apollos, and Paul are all on the same team. It’s you guys who are divided. We’re all Team Jesus. And that’s a sign of your immaturity.” And so he rebukes them. And then he concludes finally with a strong rebuke, a strong warning at the end of 1 Corinthians 4. And here’s what he says. He says, 14 I’m not writing this to shame you, but to warn you as my dear children. (1 Corinthians 4:14, CSB) All right. So, he’s establishing the relationship. You are my dear children. Why can I chew you out? Because you’re my kids. You’re my kids. All right? I’ve earned the right to bring discipline because I’ve suffered for you, I’ve sacrificed for you. Listen, mothers, you have the right to discipline your kids. “You can’t do that to me, Mom!” Yeah? I gave you birth. Hello? I fed you; I bathed you; I nursed you; I cleaned you. I cared for you. I held you when you cried. Fathers, you have the right to bring discipline. I fed you; I housed you; I protected you; I played games with you. I have invested deeply in you. And because of that investment, as a father, as a mother, I now have the right to bring correction to your life. I have earned that right. One of the things that bothers me is not when teachers bring correction to me from the Word, but when someone tries to bring correction to me as a personal authority in my life and they haven’t earned that right. One one time this man told me that I would never be a successful preacher because I was overweight, which is a hard thing. It was a shaming thing. You know, “I’m not saying this to shame you…” It was kind of a shaming thing that way. Well, your wife’s fat, you know. Go lecture her. But anyway. But he prefaced it because he was a generation older than me, he prefaced it—and this really bugged me. He prefaced it by saying, “As a spiritual father, I want to speak to you.” And after I got wounded, I felt like going back to him and saying, “Hey, Dad, what are my kids’ names? Do you know the other things I struggle with? What’s my wife’s name? When’s my anniversary? When’s my birthday? When have you invited me into your home? When have I been with you except for 10 minutes at this camp? Listen, if you want to tell me you’re offended that I eat too much and don’t exercise enough, go ahead. But, man, if you want to call yourself a father, we got plenty of those kind of fathers. We got plenty of absent fathers.” And I wanted a spiritual father at the time. I’m 67. I still want a spiritual father. I never had one. I’ve had some men who have come into my life and been really wonderful older men, but none of them have really taken me under their wing. They’ve been good uncles; I appreciate them. But Paul here is saying, “I’m a father.” And this whole gospel is predicated on a father. How does God have the authority to speak into our lives? Well, yeah, because He’s God and He’s great. But you know what? He sacrificed for us. He gave to us. Every time He rebukes Israel, He doesn’t just rebuke Israel. He says, “Hey, remember who I am? I’m the God who brought you out of Israel. I’m the One who gave you this land. I’m the One who prospered this land. I did this for you. I did that for you. I did this for you. I did this for you. And now you’re worshiping these other gods. Not only are you doing that, I warned you, ‘Don’t do that.’ And you’re doing it.” Paul now is asserting his right to speak hard correction into the lives of Corinthians. Why? Because he says, 15 For you may have countless instructors in Christ, but you don’t have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. 16 Therefore I urge you to imitate me. 17 This is why I have sent Timothy to you. He is my dearly loved and faithful child in the Lord. He will remind you about my ways in Christ Jesus, just as I teach everywhere in every church. 18 Now some are arrogant, as though I were not coming to you. 19 But I will come to you soon, if the Lord wills, and I will find out not the talk, but the power of those who are arrogant. 20 For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power. 21 What do you want? Should I come to you with a rod, or in love and a spirit of gentleness? (1 Corinthians 4:15-21, CSB) May the words of my mouth and meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, Lord, our Rock and our Strength and our Redeemer. 14 May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, Lord, my rock and my Redeemer. (Psalms 19:14, CSB) Teachers are valuable. They impart truth. I have many teachers. I have countless teachers. Paul is not saying here that teachers are bad. Read books. Steve Gregg is a teacher of mine, right? We’re reading his book. He’s a teacher. I have many teachers. When I first became a Christian, I was so grateful for C.S. Lewis. He just launched me on my Christian walk as this brilliant mind and this brilliant teacher. He wasn’t my dad. He couldn’t be, which is fine. I’d have loved it. Maybe. He might have been a pretty hard dad to live up to. But yeah, he wasn’t my dad. Many teachers, but we don’t have many fathers. We don’t have many people who invest in us in this way. Paul says, “Just as God is a Father, I am a father.” Fathers live truth worthy to be imitated. Teachers tell us the truth. Fathers live the truth in a relational connection with our lives. Paul has the audacity to say, “Imitate me as I imitate Christ.” 1 Imitate me, as I also imitate Christ. (1 Corinthians 11:1, CSB) My earthly father said things facetiously. He was a comedian, you know, like, not a professional comedian, but he was a jokester. And he would just say, “Well, do as I say, not as I do.” But he knew that was facetious. He knew kids don’t do that. They do what you do, not what you say. And I regret this. This is one of my, you know, we all got a handful of regrets. Two handfuls. Maybe a bucket full, maybe a pickup truck full. I don’t know. One of my biggest regrets is that I said this, but it was true. I shouldn’t have said it. I should have had more respect for my father. But, you know, I was talking last week about my drug addiction, my pot smoking addiction. I’m smoking dope in the house one night. My father had gone out with one of his buddies to a soccer game. And he came back, as he always did when he went out and his family wasn’t there to be accountable to—if he went out with one of his buddies, he’d come back drunk, just drunk as could be. And so he was loaded. He was drunk. My mom was angry and in bed. And he was just out in the living room, just drunk as could be. And I come home and I see him. So, I just skedaddle off to my room and I light up my bong and I start smoking dope in my room. Because that’s what they taught me in drug class. I was just following their instructions. Didn’t want to get arrested again. And my father knocks on the bedroom door, and I go and open it. He goes, “Are you smoking dope in here?” And I regret this, but I looked at him, I said, “Like father, like son.” And I closed the door in his face. He didn’t knock on my door again. You know why? He was drunk. But he knew it was true. I’m grateful that my drunk father didn’t react like a lot of drunk fathers would have and went in and kicked my tail. But I wish I hadn’t said it, but it was true. Kids will do what you do more than they’ll do what you say. Now, that doesn’t mean if your kids are acting out in some way, it’s like, “I’ve been a bad parent.” Listen, dads, you haven’t been a bad father if your kids are acting out in a bad way. Your wife was a bad mother, so she jacked them up, not you. Just trust me. When people come in for counseling—ladies, don’t worry. When people come in for counseling—you’ll know that’s a joke in a minute. When people come in for counseling, the first question you get, the first question I ask people that just is like, 90% of the doors get unlocked with this key is: Tell me about your relationship with your dad. All right, bingo. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. We have a winner! All right, so fathers… Still, it’s interesting—I’m not bragging on us because we jacked up our kids in lots of ways, but when we left the United Methodist Church over principle, left a job, left security, I asked my kids about that. Katelyn was just… It was heartbreaking to her because she loved her Sunday school teacher, she loved her church, and she was just a little girl. My older two, though, said, “You know what? When you did that, we came to a deeper realization that you guys were serious about your faith, that this was something real to you, that you make life decisions based on this.” And it’s like, yeah, good, I’m glad you got that message and not the message that, well, you know, if I don’t get a job, you’re not going to get good Christmas presents. Actually, they weren’t worried about that because there was Grandpa. Christmas was covered. All right. Fathers often have many children, and they give responsibility away to trustworthy children. You give it away. That’s what you do as a parent. Right? One of the arts of parenting, and this is the art of discipling people as spiritual mentors, as spiritual mothers, as spiritual fathers—one of the things you do is when they’re young, you have to do a lot for them, all right? Babies can’t change their own diapers, they can’t feed themselves. But as they get older, what do you do? You expand both their responsibilities and their freedoms. You trust them with more, and then when they violate that trust, you bring the boundaries back in. It’s like, “I got to take the driver’s license away for a while, you know. Can’t trust you with that yet.” But you basically do that so your kids grow up and now they can live without you telling them what to do, without you creating those boundaries. And so you, you incrementally, in increments, you give responsibility away and you teach and then you trust. John Wimber used to say, “This is how we bring people into the healing ministry. We bring them along with us and say, ‘Watch us do this.’ Then after they watch a number of times, we say, ‘Okay, what you’ve seen me do, do it. Do it.’ They go, ‘Oh, I can’t do it.’ ‘Yeah, do it. You’ve seen us do it.'” They don’t do that at first. They show them. “This is how we do it. This is how we pray for people. This is how we minister.” But then they say, “Do it.” Then after they do it, he said, “Then we’d bring them back and we give feedback. ‘Okay, boy, that was spot on. You did that real good. Hey, just think about doing this. This is something you could have done in that situation.'” And they teach. And he says, “And then the more and more they do that with us watching and giving feedback, and the better they get, then next we go, ‘All right, now you go out and do it. And take this newbie with you.'” And that’s discipleship. Paul says to Timothy, “As a spiritual father, what I have entrusted to you, now you entrust to reliable men. What I’ve done in mentoring you and fathering you, now you do in fathering them.” As a father of children, we say, “As I fathered you, now you father your children. In fact, do better than me. You know, let my ceiling be your floor. But as I’ve taught you, then you finally go and teach others.” And that’s what fathers do. They teach. God teaches us to grow. We don’t want 35-year-old children playing video games in our basement, smoking weed. “Mom, bring me some food.” No, make your own bed. Cook your own food. You can do it. Drive your own car. We impart and give responsibility away to trustworthy children. Paul says, “I teach the same thing to you in every church.” Fathers are consistent. Parents are consistent in their message. They don’t change their message. They don’t change their message from one child to another one. Now, children are different. You don’t change your message. You may have to change your tactics, right? If you’ve had multiple children, you know that. You have this boisterous, loud, obnoxious boy running around the house, and to get his attention, you got to pick him up by the scruff of the neck and say, “Hey, I’m talking to you.” I have a nephew, kind of a nephew, and he’s playing video games, right? You want to talk to him? You ever try to talk to a boy playing video games? It’s impossible because men are single-focused, right? There’s, like, “Images on screen. Must kill them.” You say, “Hey, hey, hey!” And then you’ll try to—you say, you know, “Hey, I just found out on the news that the world’s coming to an end in six minutes. So you might want to get prepared.” And finally they will—they didn’t really hear that, but they think, “Oh.” Something registered, and they’re like, “That might be important.” And here’s the two words they’ll generally say—my nephew would say this all the time: “Wait, what?” Like, okay, we got him away from that, and now he’s starting to turn his attention towards something else. And I looked at him, I said, “Bradley, on your wedding day, the minister is going to stand before you and your bride and say, ‘Bradley, do you take this woman?’ You’ll go, ‘Wait, what? Wait, I was looking at the shiny ring. Wait, what?'” So, you got to use different tactics, all right? Some kids, they can’t respond till, you know, you get their attention. Other kids, you just say the slightest thing. You say the slightest thing, and they’re like, “Oh, my gosh!” They’re mortified. My dear wife, she wants to get an A on every test. So she goes in for a job review and she gets these great job reviews. She’ll come home and go, “Oh, yeah, I got my job review today.” A, A, A, A, A, A minus. A, A, A, A, A, A minus. A, A, A, A. And she’s like, “Oh, it was horrible.” I go, “Why? Look at that. There’s two minuses on here. There’s two, like A minus. You know, there were two places. Room to grow.” It’s like, that’s horrible? Man, I’m like C, C, C, C, C, C plus. Oh, I got a C plus. That’s great. They like me, right? And if you got two or more kids, you probably got, you know, they’re probably a variation of that sort of stuff. So your tactics change. Paul’s tactics change to the Corinthians, from the Philippians to the Ephesians, to the Galatians. Wise parents know their children. Wise spiritual mentors know their children. The tactic changed. The message never does, right? The message never does. Paul says, “Listen, Corinthians, I’m not being hard on you. What I’m telling you, I tell to all my churches. I tell everywhere. I teach this, everywhere I go. It’s the same gospel; it’s the same message. I’m not out for popularity.” That’s one thing. Good parents don’t need to be popular. Oh my goodness. God doesn’t need you to approve of Him. You need God to approve of you. God doesn’t need you to approve of Him. Paul didn’t need the approval of the Corinthian church. He says in his letters, he says, “If I were still writing to please men, I wouldn’t be writing this stuff.” Paul is willing that they reject him. The gospel is offensive. Now, don’t be an intentionally offensive person. There are people out there who are jerks and they say, “Well, I’m just preaching the gospel. That’s why I’m being persecuted.” No, you are being persecuted for the gospel, but you’re also a jerk. But for every one of those, there’s another 2,000 of us who are so dang timid not to offend. Like, “I’ll just show them Jesus.” Good for you. Show them Jesus. When are you going to say something? When are you going to risk the offense? I just saw the Great Awakening this week with the story of George Whitefield and his friendship with Benjamin Franklin. It’s a worthy movie to see. And you know, Whitefield and Wesley and those preachers of the First Awakening, they got hit with more rocks and more rotten fruit as they would go into these mining communities, in these poor neighborhoods, and preach the gospel. And Wesley—I mean, I just read his journals. He’s amazing. Little five foot three guy, tiny man. And these big miners would come up with clubs and pitchforks and rocks, getting ready to disrupt the meeting. And instead of saying, “Oh no, here they come,” Wesley would get down off the pulpit, walk to the front of their captain, a guy twice his size, you know, with a club or a pitchfork, and rebuke him in the Lord. Often, he would convert that captain, and then that captain would become his bodyguard. “I got my boy, John. Nobody touch John.” It would happen time and time again. Whitfield, they show this picture, and it’s an accurate description of the First Great Awakening. He goes to his first coal mine to preach. He starts to preach, and they just say, “Get out of here. We don’t want to hear from you. Get out of here.” And they begin to pick up rocks, and they hit him with rocks, and he, you know, he kind of backs up, and he just climbs right back up in his little handmade pulpit, blood running down his face, and he continues to preach. And within minutes—and this is not just Hollywood. This happened in history. In minutes, they’re on their knees, repenting of their sins and coming to Christ. And then a bloody Whitefield goes out there and loves them and lays his hands on them and prays for them. The Great Awakening is born. People who love risk being hurt. If you’ve been a parent, your kids maybe have said this to you, you know, “I hate you, and I’m not going to talk…” I remember when our oldest daughter was mad at us. She didn’t say she hated us, but she was… It was drama, man. It was drama at the time. And she was good. But this was one of those times, you know, her life’s ruined, and we’re terrible, and this family is terrible. And finally, she just looks at us and goes, “I’m just going to go in my room and not talk to anybody. Close the door, and not talk to anybody.” And she stomps off. And I turn to Jill and I say, “All in favor say aye. That’s the best thing she said in half an hour. Like, it’s like, hey, why didn’t I have that idea? Why don’t you go to your room, shut your door, and not talk to anybody? Everybody would be happy. That’d be great. That’d be great.” She’s all right now. She made it. And one of the reasons she made it is we didn’t need to be popular. We didn’t say, “Oh, please don’t do that. Don’t go to your room. We’ll let you blackmail us with a hissy fit.” Paul is not after popularity. He’s after spiritual children. He’s after spiritual children. Fathers test the claims of their children. They don’t tolerate arrogance. They don’t tolerate arrogance. It’s like, “Yeah, I can do whatever I want.” Maybe, but not in this house. You can do whatever you want. Of course, you have to find somewhere else to get food because I’m putting locks on the pantry and the refrigerator. Yeah, do whatever you want. The Corinthians are getting arrogant. They say, “Oh, Paul, he’s gone, right?” Notice how brave people are when the opponent is gone. You know how much smack they talk when the opposition isn’t there. Guys do this. Wussy guys. We do it all the time with our wives. “Yeah. She didn’t boss me around. She didn’t tell me what to do.” Then they get a phone call, right? “No, no, honey, no, no, no. I’ll be home real soon. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m coming. Don’t worry. Don’t worry. Yeah. Oh, yeah, I’ll get milk. Yeah, it’s all good.” Way to go, John Wayne. Way to stand up to that woman. But if you ever see somebody who’s talking smack to an enemy who’s not there, that’s false bravado. I do it. I do it. “Yeah. I told them.” Yeah, in my car driving up here and they weren’t there, and my imaginary argument that I always win. I told them, put them in their place. Paul says, “Okay…” Here’s what they were saying about Paul: “Apollos is a better speaker. Peter was with Jesus. You’re not that impressive, Paul. You’re not that impressive. We have better speakers here in our church right now than Paul ever was.” And Paul’s like, “Okay, okay, well, Lord willing, I’m going to come to you, and let me tell you this. Behavior is more important than talk. Don’t tell me what you got. Show me what you got. Show me what you got.” I have been burned. As I look back in years of ministry, there are certain scenarios that I’m susceptible to, certain traps that I’ve fallen into more than once. And here’s one of them: people who talk a good game, but don’t play a good game. I get so excited when somebody shares vision with me, shares passion with me. I think, “All right, this person’s on fire for the Lord. They’re coming along.” And I’ve put them oftentimes in positions of influence, responsibility, and leadership, and they weren’t ready. Now I look at two things, the two T’s. You talk a good game. Where’s your commitment of time and where’s your commitment of money? Time, and treasure. I tell young people—I had one guy come to me and say, “How do I become a foxhole Christian with you, brother?” That’s a good statement, isn’t it? “You want to be in a foxhole with me and fight the devil? Yeah, I’m with you, brother.” How to be a foxhole Christian… He was already a timer, like a lot of young people. I said, “Good. Tithe.” “But that’s not exciting. I want to go out and witness with you on the street to the homeless.” That’d be great. Show me the—what’s that movie with Tom Cruise and Cuba Gooding Jr.? Something like that. Show me the… Yeah. I forget the name of the movie, but yeah, show me the money. Jerry Maguire. Jerry Maguire, yeah. The classic line: “Show me the money.” And I always hate to say that because people say that I’m being self-serving. “You need to give money to this church.” That’s not it at all. I don’t care. I can retire. Jill and I can retire tomorrow. I don’t need your money. We’ll be all right. We’ll be all right. No. Show me where your heart is. Your wallet reveals your heart, as does your calendar. Those are the two—you know, and then, you know, just general attitude and how you treat people, all that kind of stuff. But play a good game. Paul goes to the Corinthians, he says, “Oh, you’re talking. Show me.” And then he says things that just are really interesting to me. Listen, he says, “Fathers carry real authority.” That’s what this whole passage is about. Fathers carry real authority. The kingdom of God is a matter of power, not a matter of talk. It’s a matter of real authority. It is the power of a transformed life. People who are worthy to be spiritual fathers are people who have transformed lives. They don’t have to be perfect, but they’re walking it out. It’s not how clever you are. It’s not what a good CEO you are. It’s not how slick you are. It’s not how big of a crowd you can draw. Are you living the power of a transformed life? Are you different? Listen, there are preachers all the time who are popular and you know, time and time again—evangelical, Charismatic, whatever—time and time again are caught what? Committing adultery. No, I get it. Life’s hard; people stumble. Nobody’s perfect. We give them all the excuses, but doggone it, love your wife. “Yeah, but this other woman understood me. My wife doesn’t.” Your wife does understand you. That’s why you like this other woman. You got her conned. Love your church enough, love your family enough not to do that. Get some help. Tell a buddy, “I’m struggling with this.” But live a transformed life. Walk in the power of the gospel. Walk in the power of the gospel. I’ll tell you what, some of the people that have impacted me the most have not been preachers, authors, Christian leaders. They’ve just been people in churches that live out the gospel. There was a man I used to go to prison with to do prison ministry—two men, two gentlemen. They’ve been doing it for 20, 30 years. They’re both school teachers. One worked for the state or one worked for the county. One was a schoolteacher. Every Monday night, week after week, month after month, year after year, they’d go out and they’d share Christ. They’d sing praise. They’d go out in a van. We’d get the church van. There’d be like six or seven of us. But these two guys were the guys who were just consistent. They did it all the time. They invited me to do prison ministry. So I said, “Yes, I’ll do it.” And I got a lot out of doing prison ministry. Oh, it was so hard, though, because of my sports love and addiction. And I already had to give up football on Sundays because, you know, it’s the one day a week I work, so, you know, I couldn’t watch the football games on Sundays. And they would leave to do prison ministry—the church parking lot was right across from my house—and I’d see them gathering for the van to start going right when this would happen. And if you remember, Monday Night Football… Dun, dun, dun, dun. The opening thing. And it’d be like, “Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun…” Can I call in sick tonight? I never regretted walking away from that TV screen and getting in that van. That’s one of the best times of my life, going to that jail and talking to those prisoners. But, you know, what was a great time as an ordained minister, a seminary-trained theologian? Going to the school of what it’s like to follow Jesus with those two old guys. And I would just watch them and something inside me would start to… “I want to be like that when I grow up. I want to be able to go to prison Monday after Monday after Monday, leading prisoners to Christ. Nobody recognizing it, nobody caring. With such joy coming back and sharing testimonies. Not just joy coming back, joy going out there.” You know, these guys… I have a Bible from one of the guys and his wife given to me in 1984. It’s the NIV Study Bible. It’s on my desk in my office in Bremerton. It’s tattered. It’s ripped from Jerry and Ellen Cease. The other guy was Bob Felt. I was in a church as an associate pastor filled with people whose lives were transformed by the gospel, and they humbly walked in the power of the gospel. They humbly walked in the power of the gospel. Why do fathers have authority? Fathers have authority when they walk in the power of the gospel. And I say this to you, it’s more my problem than yours. But live for impact, not for recognition. Get your recognition in heaven. As if you’ll care—when Jesus says, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” you know, none of us are going to care, “Yeah, but am I in the top 10%?” Even Jill won’t care at that point whether she gets—Jill never does it for recognition anyway. She’s one of the most humble people I know. She just is a, you know, perfectionist. But live for impact and you’ll carry the authority of Christ. Just be an authentic Christian and people will respect. I mean, it’ll just happen. Not everybody will respect you, but the right people will respect you. Signs and wonders. The power of signs and wonders. I think when Paul says the gospel is not just a matter of talk, but it’s a matter of power, you know, what are the Corinthians saying? “You’re not very impressive in your speech, Paul. Apollos is a much more eloquent speaker than you.” Paul says, “Yeah, I cast a demon out of you. How is that for eloquence? I laid hands on your mother-in-law and she got well. How is that for smooth speech?” He carried power. And I don’t even know what he means by this next statement, but I believe it’s not an empty threat. Never make empty threats to your kids. Parents, never make empty threats to anybody. When I watch old Westerns, right? And the old gunslinger is talking to the new gunslinger and the new hot shot’s like, “Yeah, I can do this, and this.” He says, “Well, son, never draw your gun unless you’re ready to use it. When you’re drawing guns, there’s no bluff. You’re not bluffing. Never draw your gun unless you’re ready to.” Never bluff. Spiritual fathers never bluff. And Paul tells—did you read that last sentence? Paul says, 21 What do you want? Should I come to you with a rod, or in love and a spirit of gentleness? (1 Corinthians 4:21, CSB) You talk a big game. You want a power showdown? I don’t even know what a Pauline power showdown would look like. Yeah, yeah. Ananias and Sapphira tried that. Ananias and tried to fool the church with how spiritual they were when they weren’t. How’d that work out for them? I remember we were having revival in Oakdale. All these kids, all these high school kids, they’d come to the healing and communion service. We’d be praying for them. We just had fun. We had fun in the Spirit. I don’t know if we took it too far or not, but we had fun in the Spirit. And I’d pray for them and they’d all flop and fall, and then they’d all try to gang up on me and make me fall. They’d all pray for me, hoping that I would fall. But it was just fun. They would come and go bam, bam, bam, bam. They’d be dropping at my feet. Bam, bam. Like, “Show me something, kids. Show me something.” It’s fun, you know, whacking kids. I also remember no empty threats. I also remember one time, my son. My son, 3, 4 years old, he’s disobeying. He said that “I’m a 3 or 4 year old. And this is… I’m a draw a line in the sand today, Dad.” I didn’t get up that morning saying, “Boy, I hope my son draws a line in the sand.” But he did. I said, “You got to go to your room. Knock it off.” “I’m not going to knock it off.” “All right. You got to stay in here till you knock it off.” “I’m so mad at you.” “All right, I can live with that.” He said, “I’m gonna hit you.” “All right. If you hit me, I’ll hit you back.” And his little hand starts going in motion. And as his little hand was coming down to hit my arm, this hand was coming up to hit his thigh, butt area. And so, it went like this, like, bang, boom. I got bang; he got lifted about 6 inches off the bed—boom. He’s not done. You know what he said next? Yep. “That didn’t hurt.” Through a trembling lip. “That didn’t hurt.” I said, “Okay.” And I’m so glad my son showed he was a wise man at this point. He had hope. There was hope for him. I said, “Do you want one that does?” “No.” We were both glad he said that. I was so glad he said that. He was glad he said that. One night, a friend of mine had me and a bunch of his adult friends over for his son’s 18th birthday. It was cake, party, cigars… His son had his first cigar. All right, welcome, you know, welcome to manhood. Here you go. You’re a man now. You’re with the men, eating meat, drinking foofy cake, doing man stuff. And he said, “All right, I want each of you men to tell my son a life lesson.” They were giving life lessons. I was, like, close to last. I probably went the longest. Imagine. And so the guy who spoke before me was a prison guard. I don’t remember anything I said, but I remember this. I said, “There’s three kinds of people in the world. There’s people who learn from their father and their fathers and the elders. They learn the wisdom of the Bible, the wisdom of their parents.” And I say, “Those people will not go through life trouble free.” You listening, Micah? It’s important you listen to the wisdom of the elders. Those people will not go through life trouble-free, but they will have less trouble than others. Those people who you think, “Oh, they’re dumb. They’re a generation ahead of me. They know. They don’t know stuff.” Yeah, they know stuff. Being a teenager is no different now than it was in the 1820s. You know, you have cell phones now. They had, I don’t know, horses. I don’t know what they had. Got to watch those devil horses, man. They’re tough, but, yeah, so learn from the elders. So if you don’t learn from the elders, you will have unnecessary pain. Everybody has pain, but there will be pain that your stupidity will create. And sure enough, this kid, one of the things we told him that night is, “Hey, don’t sleep with a crazy woman.” There was a guy there who had been in prison, and he said, “Yeah, before I got straightened out, slept with a lot of crazy women.” Says, “That’s not good. That’s not good. Basically, don’t sleep with a crazy woman.” Well, about seven, eight months later, that boy’s in my backyard saying, you know, he’d had his first girlfriend. He said, “Yeah, we did some stuff.” And he’s like, “I wish we had never done that. I wish we had never done that.” Yeah, he didn’t learn from the elders. Second way you learn, though. And I had hope for him because he was like, “I wish I hadn’t done that.” And he said, “I’m not going to do that again.” He learned from his mistakes. If you’re too stupid to learn from the elders, then let the pain of mistakes teach you. Let the pain of mistakes teach you. And so I said, “Be the first kind of person. But if they’re not the first company, at least be the second kind of person. You’re going to make mistakes. Learn from them. Don’t waste a mistake. Don’t waste pain that you caused. If you did it and it really hurt, don’t do it again.” That’s why gifted carpenters don’t hit their thumb very often when they’re hammering. Why? “That hurts. That really hurts.” Well, stop doing it. I was out with my son one time. We’re playing catch. Ball tipped off his glove and hit him in the face. He was crying. I think I comforted him. I remember I comforted him. But what he remembers is not that I went over and comforted him. He remembers I looked at him and said, “That hurt?” He goes, “Yeah.” I go, “That’s what the glove’s for.” Right, Micah? If you don’t want to get hit in the face, catch the ball. Nobody ever got hit in the face by catching a ball. Catch it. That’s what the glove’s for. Catch the ball. You won’t get hit in the face. Guess what? Never got hit in the face again. Smart boy. He learned from his mistake. But then I pointed to the prison guard. I said, “If you don’t learn from the elders and you don’t learn from your mistakes, you’ll be hanging out with him.” That’s where you’re going, right? What’s the number one population in prison? Repeat offenders. One of my favorite lines from the movie years ago—Jim Carrey, Liar, Liar. Anybody see that movie? He got this curse put on him, and he was a habitual liar, and he got this curse put on him. His son made a wish that his dad would quit lying, and so he couldn’t not lie. So he had this perpetual criminal that he was always, you know, getting off as a seedy lawyer through loopholes. And so, secretary says, “So and so called again. He got arrested for, you know, going through the roof of a house and breaking in. He wants to know what your counsel is.” He says—I won’t use the profanity—he says, “Tell him, stop breaking the law, blinkety blink!” My wife and I, we always say that. Stop breaking the law. Hello, I don’t want to go back to prison again. Here’s a way. Don’t break into a house. Learn from the elders. Learn from your mistakes. Are you going to? Listen. There’s going to be pain. But who wants the maximum amount of pain? I’ll take the minimum amount of pain. Dear ones, you’re here tonight. This guy’s up here yakking at you about the wisdom, the greatest wisdom that the human race has ever known. And I don’t know if I’m a father or an instructor to you, probably somewhere in between that. But I do tell you in love, and I do love you and care for you. Learn from this. Let the words of Paul speak to you. Let God come to you in comfort and peace, not with the rod of discipline, but if you do, if He does, have the wisdom to learn from that. But, dear ones, listen to your Father. And if you want to be a spiritual mentor, mother, father to others, live it out. Live a life, transform. Be a Jerry Cease and a Bob Felts, and just live a life before young people, old people. By the way, can be a spiritual parent to somebody older than you. It can work that way. But live a life of the gospel, and you may not get recognition in this world, but God will use you to shape lives and make disciples. Jesus Christ said, “Make disciples.” He didn’t say, “Make converts;” he said, “Make disciples.” And then he even said, right as Paul said to Timothy, “Go. What I’ve taught you, you do.” And then he said, “And then entrust it to faithful men.” Paul teaches Timothy. He tells Timothy to entrust it to faithful men who then will teach other faithful men. You find somebody who teaches you, then take what they teach you and teach somebody else. And then tell them, right? If you give a man a fish, he eats for a day; if you teach man to fish… Listen, it’s not that hard to teach a man to fish. I mean, you watch these fishing shows on TV. You think it’s rocket science. No, put a worm on a hook. Not that hard. You can teach somebody how to fish. You can teach somebody how to follow Jesus. Say, “Here, do what I do.” Wouldn’t it be great to have a life that was worthy, where you could actually say and still be humble and say, “Imitate me as I imitate Christ”? Anyway, I won’t stop preaching. Help him, Jesus. Come get communion. That’ll stop me. Take this meal with thanksgiving. Jesus is here tonight and he showed us the good, good Father. And so let God father you. He wants to feed you. That’s one thing fathers do, they feed their kids. So come and eat. The post 2026.4.12 TFHC – Spiritual Fathers | 1 Corinthians 4:14-21 appeared first on The Firehouse Church in Bremerton, WA.