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If you want strong kids, it starts with strong leadership — at HOME.
In this episode of Men of Faith, Caleb is joined by Matt Reveile for a serious conversation about raising children with faith, priorities, and biblical foundation. We talk about parenting culture, how sports and busyness steal devotion, and why fathers must lead the way spiritually.
Men of faith… you are building the future right now.
— — — — — — — — — —
In this episode of Men of Faith, Caleb is joined by Matt Reveile for a serious conversation about raising children with faith, priorities, and biblical foundation. We talk about parenting culture, how sports and busyness steal devotion, and why fathers must lead the way spiritually.
Men of faith… you are building the future right now.
— — — — — — — — — —
If this episode encouraged you, share it with a friend and leave a review!
🎧 Listen to Men of Faith:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/men-of-faith/id1749620180
📲 Follow Men of Faith on Instagram:
Instagram: @menoffaith
⛪️ Project Church:
Website: https://projectchurch.com
— — — — — — — — — —
Creators and Guests
Host
Caleb Cole
Caleb, a Sacramento native, grew up in a pastor’s home and is a third generation minister. At the age of 12, after one of his grandfather’s sermons, he felt a call from God to be a pastor. He consistently pursued that call throughout high school and college. Caleb attended Central Bible College in Springfield, MO where he earned a B.A. in Biblical Studies and went on to the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary where he earned an M.A. in Theological Studies.
What is Men of Faith?
Men of Faith is a Christian podcast dedicated to calling men up and not out.
Hosted by Caleb Cole, each episode equips men to follow Jesus with conviction, character, and consistency—at home, at work, and in every season of life. Through honest conversations and practical biblical wisdom, Men of Faith tackles real issues like leadership, fatherhood, identity, marriage, discipline, spiritual growth, and navigating culture without compromise. This is a podcast for men who want more than inspiration—they want transformation.
00;00;00;04 - 00;00;28;27
Speaker 1
But you know, what I think is funny is like people that I know, and I think there's people even in, in our church who quote that verse, but they're not really living that life now. And so they're like, oh, we'll be good. Because when, when our kids get older, like they're not going to depart from it. I'm like, you have it ingrained in them at a young age.
00;00;28;29 - 00;01;11;28
Speaker 1
You prioritize all the things of this world. You prioritize every sport, every extracurricular activity. You prioritize, every training, you know, and and I just saw, an NFL player saying that travel sports are killing our kids. Spiritual faith. You're listening to men of Faith, the podcast dedicated to calling men up and not out. Join me as we live a life dedicated to our God.
00;01;12;00 - 00;01;40;22
Speaker 1
Welcome back, everyone to the men of Faith podcast. I am your host, Caleb Cole, and I'm missing my co-host today. But I have an incredible guest, a and so I'm excited to have our family live. Pastor. My friend Matt Ravel give it up for him in the chat. In your cars, wherever you're listening. Come on, Matt, welcome to the men of Faith podcast.
00;01;40;22 - 00;01;45;20
Speaker 2
Hey, thank you for having me. I'm really excited for this. I don't know if I'm doing this right, but we'll figure it out.
00;01;45;24 - 00;02;16;27
Speaker 1
Oh, you're doing it right, bro. You're talking right into that mic. He's doing it right. Man, I'm excited to have you. Matt. We have a great conversation cued up for you guys today. We just actually had a Sunday where we talked about heaven, hell, eternity. What happens after we die? And so we thought, man, let's have a conversation a little further because ultimately, in one Sunday morning message, you can't really cover all the nuance of this topic.
00;02;17;00 - 00;02;44;05
Speaker 1
I actually had to skip even some of my notes because I didn't have time to get into all of it, but I thought, man, let's have a conversation. If you don't know Matt, Matt is a theologian himself. Yeah, he loves to read the, is a Bible scholar. And so why don't you tell him a little bit about what you do here, but then also, maybe your experience and even some of your, you know, biblical studies experience.
00;02;44;05 - 00;02;46;12
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah. So prove it.
00;02;46;14 - 00;02;48;15
Speaker 1
Prove that you belong. Okay. I'm. I'm.
00;02;48;17 - 00;03;14;12
Speaker 2
Yeah. Project church. Yeah. Like he said, I'm the family life pastor. So I do oversee, the children's ministry upstairs. So I get to hang out with all the kids. But there's been a lot of challenge in that, in that we're not babysitting kids. So I feel like I need to be theologically prepared. I need to be biblically prepared so I can help the kids grow in their faith, understand who Jesus is, and understand how the Holy Spirit plays in their life.
00;03;14;14 - 00;03;53;03
Speaker 2
So in my area, I get to help the every walks of life. So we're talking from the from the nursery age all the way up to elementary to even junior high. We're just helping them grow and their knowledge, my background has been I worked at a Bible college for six plus years. So I surrounded by by theologians, by biblical scholars, by some that were that, you know, I'm gonna throw some names out there, but I, I've had conversations with Amos Young, who is one of the, the premier, Pentecostal theologians, so understands the Holy Spirit and stuff like that.
00;03;53;05 - 00;04;19;00
Speaker 2
And I just have a passion to understand God, to gain knowledge of God, to really grow in my walk, just so I can help others around us, have that same passion and excitement for their faith. I mean, it's exciting when you get to watch the light bulbs turn on and people start grasping the word in in ways that that is just not just words on a page, but it's actually comes alive.
00;04;19;00 - 00;04;23;00
Speaker 2
And so, that's kind of where my background came from. Yeah.
00;04;23;03 - 00;04;47;13
Speaker 1
I love that. We, we say here that, Matt is our own local Westhoff. And if you don't know, Westhoff is a theologian apologist who was just on the Joe Rogan podcast and then on the Andrew Schultz podcast. And so, Matt is our Westhoff. So we're excited to have have you on here, Matt, the moths who are listening.
00;04;47;17 - 00;04;51;02
Speaker 1
If you don't know, that's so we call them men of faith. So we call them the moths.
00;04;51;02 - 00;04;51;23
Speaker 2
I will remember.
00;04;51;23 - 00;05;13;22
Speaker 1
That. Yeah, yeah. And unfortunately, Brandon was going to be on this conversation with us, but he's sick, so, we're down one moth, but that's okay. We're going to still dive in here deep. So let's talk. Yesterday, I really did, you know, kind of set the baseline of the fact that we do have eternity coming, right?
00;05;13;22 - 00;05;34;24
Speaker 1
We believe as Christians in the Christian faith that we have souls that live on. We see this throughout the Gospels, throughout, Paul's teaching. You know, Paul talks about how he longs to be with the Lord, to be absent from the bodies, to be present with the Lord. And and so we talked about the fact that eternity is real.
00;05;34;26 - 00;05;54;14
Speaker 1
But then this idea of heaven and hell. And so the question that I, I kind of want to say to everyone listening, hey, if you didn't listen to this message, I'd go listen, because I don't want to go through like the basics of saying, yes, heaven and hell are real, or, eternity is something that biblically is proven.
00;05;54;16 - 00;06;13;28
Speaker 1
But I want to kind of further the conversation on some of the things we didn't hit on. So I encourage you, go back, go listen to our our message, my message, on the project church, YouTube or Spotify or our podcast on iTunes. But I want to further conversation and talk about this question, which I get a lot.
00;06;13;28 - 00;06;43;23
Speaker 1
And I was going to answer, but I didn't have time. And it's okay. We believe heaven and hell are real. As Christians, we believe that you will end up in one of these places. We believe in eternity. But does God send people to hell? And that's the question I get a lot. It was a question I didn't get to answer, but but a lot of people have asked, you know, how could a loving God, knowingly and being all love, send people to hell?
00;06;43;25 - 00;07;03;28
Speaker 1
And I think this is an argument that a lot of people make against God or against against eternity. It's, a way that secularists or agnostics try to disprove God, because no loving God would actually do this. So answer this question for us, Matt, and I'll chime in too. But, you know, why would a loving God send people to hell?
00;07;03;28 - 00;07;06;00
Speaker 1
How would you answer that question?
00;07;06;03 - 00;07;30;20
Speaker 2
I would say first, loving God doesn't send anybody to hell. He doesn't condemn anybody to hell. I think that we are always faced with a fork in the road, you know, throughout Scripture, all the way, even from in Deuteronomy and throughout, I think God has always given us free will, always given us the choice. Choice. And I think with heaven and hell, it's the same example.
00;07;30;22 - 00;07;55;06
Speaker 2
Jesus says that through him we will find life. We will find eternal life. Right? And Paul talks about that our faith by in him our were justified where we receive grace through our belief in Christ. Yeah, that and all throughout we're getting options. We're getting, you know, invitations to choose life. We're getting invitation invitations to to pick everlasting life.
00;07;55;09 - 00;08;25;01
Speaker 2
And and if God were to make the choice for us and purposely predestined us in some ways to hell or to a specific kind of torment, then that removes any abs, any, any way for us to have free will, any way for us to just have that choice. Yeah. So we're always faced with that choice. I think God gives us the choice all the way up until the very end, when we face that judgment.
00;08;25;01 - 00;08;43;21
Speaker 2
And Jesus talks about the judgment in Matthew 25. I mean, revelation 21 talks about how we will face judgment and whether be sent to a second death or something like that. So there's always this choice that we're going to have to face eventually, but it's always left up to us.
00;08;43;23 - 00;08;47;00
Speaker 1
Yeah. So.
00;08;47;03 - 00;09;23;25
Speaker 1
Hell, which is a place of torment. The Bible talks about a place of eternal suffering. But ultimately the worst part about it and, and we've talked a little bit about this, is it's eternal separation from God. And the only way to experience this is to knowingly choose to go against God, to separate yourself from God. So, again, a loving God is giving us every opportunity to choose him.
00;09;23;27 - 00;09;49;22
Speaker 1
And I actually say this a lot. You know, we don't we don't know what the what judgment is going to look like. Exactly. Right. We know that the Bible does reference, you know, the US standing before God and giving an account. And, we know even Jesus says, you know, that in the, in the end of times that there will be people who say, Lord, Lord, you know, we prophesied in your name and we did all these things in your name.
00;09;49;22 - 00;10;13;16
Speaker 1
And he'll say, depart from me. I never knew you. And so there is like some references to what this judgment will look like. But I've always, you know, talked with people about this and said, I still do believe there are there is a God who is all good and all loving, right? And we don't know that even as people stand before him, that he doesn't give them another, another opportunity.
00;10;13;16 - 00;10;39;08
Speaker 1
Yeah. And I actually believe that, you know, Scripture talks about how even all of creation cries out that there's a creator, but not everyone knows his name. Right? Right. Because there's been people who we know even right now, like there are. There is, what, 30% of the earth or more has never heard the name of Jesus. So would they go before God?
00;10;39;10 - 00;11;05;21
Speaker 1
And he goes, oh, I never knew you because you didn't say the sinner's prayer. You didn't invite Jesus into your heart. No. I think that there are people who, by even looking at creation, are going, hey, there's a creator. There's been other, groups of people in the world, in history who understood there's something greater. There's a creator.
00;11;05;21 - 00;11;33;21
Speaker 1
And I just believe that a loving God is like he's giving them opportunity to show them, even in in death, like, hey, here's who I am. You can be with me or not. And still there are those who will choose to go against him. We know in revelation two talks about this, right? Right, that God will come back and establish himself on earth, and, and there'll be complete peace.
00;11;33;23 - 00;11;56;27
Speaker 1
And then he's going to release Satan for a time. And even in that moment, there are those who will rebel against God, even though they experience perfection, peace. God with them. They'll rebel against God and follow the enemy. Follow Satan. Just like a third of the angels who were in heaven with God, rebelled against God, followed Lucifer.
00;11;57;00 - 00;12;10;22
Speaker 1
And so God is giving us the choice we can choose to separate ourselves from him. I just don't believe theologically and biblically that you could argue like, oh, people are going to unknowingly be sent to hell.
00;12;10;22 - 00;12;11;27
Speaker 2
Yeah.
00;12;12;00 - 00;12;37;25
Speaker 1
You. There's much more that you can argue for saying, no, God's going to give you every opportunity and yet still there are so many who will go. Actually, I'm going to go with that, right? Not God, you know, the enemy, not eternity with with with him and perfection and love. I'm actually going to choose darkness, right. And so we send ourselves there.
00;12;37;29 - 00;12;42;15
Speaker 1
He doesn't send us there. We choose it. And he's given us free will to choose it.
00;12;42;18 - 00;13;12;01
Speaker 2
You know, I mean, C.S. Lewis says it perfectly and says that hell is locked from the inside. So it's us holding back our opportunity for eternity. So that's basically what we're doing, is the gates are locked from the inside. They're not locked from the outside. Jesus is not keeping us out. You know, like you say, I, I even feel, you know, I maybe this I don't know if I can back this up scripturally or even, but I just feel in my heart that that I think like, you're right.
00;13;12;01 - 00;13;34;12
Speaker 2
I think there's an opportunity even throughout up until judge, I just feel like once we get to judgment, that's when the opportunity cease to exist. That's when it's like, okay, you have to pick here and and yes, there will be rebellion. I mean, there rebellion in heaven. Third of the angels fell. Yes, they were in the place that we are striving to get to.
00;13;34;14 - 00;14;02;21
Speaker 2
And they still chose death. They still chose to. You know, to rebel, to go the other way. And and I just think that we have so much I just feel like the, the opportunity that's presented to us is to experience a flowing the living water from Jesus right, to come to him to watch the the the many prophets, Ezekiel talking about the flowing river or living water from the temple, from the tabernacle, right.
00;14;02;22 - 00;14;27;14
Speaker 2
That were giving opportunities to be a part of this creation, be a part of of God's ultimate plan for redemption and reconciliation. And at the very end, when judgment comes, we are removed from that. We are like said, if you choose life, great. You're, you know, come dwell with us on when heaven and earth combine to become one.
00;14;27;14 - 00;14;52;19
Speaker 2
Like in revelation, it says that it comes down heaven becomes part of earth. Yeah. And that's an amazing aspect. But then the others have this complete separation, complete removal, and are just whether you believe in annihilation ism or not, but you're completely just removed from the the ultimate presence of God. And then that to me is eternal conscious torment.
00;14;52;19 - 00;15;01;00
Speaker 2
That's that. That always suffering because you made the choice to not to not have life.
00;15;01;03 - 00;15;24;14
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. There are sects of Christianity just to reference what you just talked about, that believe in annihilation ism and essentially like once you're punished, or you receive the punishment of hell through your own rebellion that you cease to exist. Right? So this is annihilation, annihilation ism that you're not going to suffer forever. You're actually going to just cease to exist.
00;15;24;17 - 00;15;52;09
Speaker 1
I don't think that biblically, you can argue for that. There's just there's too much reference to eternal torment and punishment. And, I mean, I know it breaks God's heart. It breaks my heart to think about people who will be in eternal suffering. Yeah. And punishment. But again, I just see over and over, like God being just and a just judge and loving and kind, that he's going to give us every opportunity.
00;15;52;10 - 00;15;56;29
Speaker 1
Right. I, I do believe that people are going to stand before God and he's like, you can still choose me.
00;15;56;29 - 00;15;57;17
Speaker 2
Yeah.
00;15;57;19 - 00;16;22;16
Speaker 1
Right. And still they won't, which is wild to me. And I think that's a good conversation. Maybe to have is why are we so prone towards rebellion? You know, as human beings? We, we are prone towards rebellion in so many areas of our lives. But ultimately we choose to rebel against God. I mean, daily we do through our sin.
00;16;22;19 - 00;16;47;27
Speaker 1
But even in either in even greater ways, we see rebellion playing out in the hearts of man towards God, even when they knowingly see it as as right or true. I mean, I just think about all the Christians I know who I would say former Christians who are walking with God in faith and then have chosen a life that's devoid of him or apart from him.
00;16;47;27 - 00;17;05;28
Speaker 1
They've prioritized all the other things of this world, and it breaks my heart when I see it, and a lot of them will chop it up to church hurt and, you know, like, well, the church did this and but I'm like, ultimately you're still choosing other things to be the center of your life, the priority of your life besides God.
00;17;06;00 - 00;17;28;14
Speaker 1
And so why would you say we're so prone towards rebellion? You know, thinking about the angels, thinking about revelation. And after God exists on earth with man or Jesus does, you know that and this perfect experience, still Satan gets released and they're like, God, we're going to rock with him instead and rebel against, you know, the perfect God.
00;17;28;16 - 00;17;31;28
Speaker 1
Why do you think there is just a propensity towards rebellion? And man.
00;17;31;28 - 00;18;00;12
Speaker 2
Man, I would say something a lot to say. It's selfish. It's it's the focus on self. And instead of on, on God. And I think that when we start, go all the way back to the Tower of Babel, humanity trying to build this tower, to reach the heavens, to prove that we belong, the selfishness, the self, humanity belongs on the same level of God.
00;18;00;12 - 00;18;20;20
Speaker 2
And it's. And I think we do that subconsciously. We a lot of the questions will even get asked from nonbelievers. Are young believers is, well, I don't want to die. I don't want to go to hell. I don't want to do this. And it's always focus on what do you why am I? I'm a I am a good person.
00;18;20;20 - 00;18;44;02
Speaker 2
Yeah. So you're focusing on yourself and you're not focusing on. And what Scripture does say says all are not good except for the father, right. Why do you call me good when the only perfect one is the Father is God. And so it's like even Jesus is aware that his own fleshly existence is not good compared to what the father is.
00;18;44;02 - 00;19;09;29
Speaker 2
And and I just think that our focus on self, our focus on where we place ourselves in everything. And I think even in people that that have experienced church hurt and stuff like that, we're not I'm not discounting the experiences they had. I'm not discounting that. Yes, there are flawed humans even in the church. You're even going to experience hurt from those same humans that are flawed.
00;19;10;03 - 00;19;33;14
Speaker 2
But we have to look at the bigger picture too. Is it God that hurt you or is it humanity hurt you? Is it yourself or is it the higher power? And in my in my understanding of God's true nature, it's just justice, mercy, grace and peace. Right? There's nothing in there that is injustice. He's not trying to come after you just because you sinned against him.
00;19;33;14 - 00;19;40;03
Speaker 2
He's trying to reconcile that. And I think that we're just selfish. I think we focus too much on ourselves.
00;19;40;04 - 00;20;03;04
Speaker 1
Well, it's pride, right? Like selfishness is rooted in pride. It's the first sin. It was the first sin of Adam and Eve. It was the sin of Satan himself. Right? Wanting to be on the equal footing level with God. And I think that's interesting that, you know, pride being the motivator for most people and everything being about self.
00;20;03;07 - 00;20;26;29
Speaker 1
And yet even in this conversation, I think we get distracted, when it comes to eternity heaven, where it does only become about us. And even, you know, yesterday I preached on this and I really wanted to end it with like, hey, ultimately, yeah, we need to care about our eternity. Yeah. But we also have to care about others.
00;20;26;29 - 00;20;51;14
Speaker 1
Eternity, because God put us here, for a purpose, obviously, is to give him worship like our life, right? Romans 12 talks about it like that. Your life would be a spiritual act of worship. And so first we're we're meant to worship him by how we live. But the commission he gave us was to lead people into relationship with him.
00;20;51;17 - 00;21;28;21
Speaker 1
And what that does is secures their eternity. And and so I just want to encourage everyone listening is the man, you know, that we would have an eternal perspective for ourselves, but ultimately for the people around us, too. Right? You know, I, I'm a father and my, my boys love sports, and sports is, a big thing in our house, but I'm always talking to them about, like, about the fact that, look, you're you're learning life lessons, but life is about so much more than your success on or off the field or the court.
00;21;28;24 - 00;21;38;05
Speaker 1
And ultimately, you have a greater purpose and call on your life, you know, and that's to to emulate and bring Jesus worship through what you do.
00;21;38;06 - 00;21;39;02
Speaker 2
Right.
00;21;39;05 - 00;21;57;13
Speaker 1
But also to point other people to him because ultimately, like, we have a responsibility to let people know that there is eternity, right? So let people know that that God loves them and cares for them. And our life, you know, can portray his love or not.
00;21;57;19 - 00;21;58;07
Speaker 2
Yeah.
00;21;58;09 - 00;22;05;18
Speaker 1
And for a lot of people, you know, their their church hurt and wounds are directed towards Christians. So I do think Christians need to do better.
00;22;05;18 - 00;22;06;08
Speaker 2
Absolutely.
00;22;06;08 - 00;22;28;26
Speaker 1
You know, can we do better? And as followers of Christ who are around people who don't know God, which is a lot of us a lot of the time it's like, are we emulating the heart of Jesus in how we interact with people? And so I know I'm taking this a little different route than I had originally planned, but I do just want to encourage them, you know, and and I know that you have this heart, too.
00;22;28;26 - 00;22;57;07
Speaker 1
But, you know, eternity isn't just for you. We have to be thinking about all the people around us. And is eternity in mind in your life daily. Because if it is, you're probably going to operate differently. You know you're probably not going to prioritize success on the court and training on the court. I'm just think about all the parents who put all this money and time into their kids, like training in sports and never talked to them about God, right.
00;22;57;14 - 00;23;18;06
Speaker 1
And never, you know, do devotions with them. Oh, yeah. And there's no spiritual coaching going on. And that's something that I'm doing with my boys right now. Yeah, with my daughter right now. And it's become a greater priority. Not because I'm a pastor, but because I'm just seeing, like, bro, their eternity matters more than their earthly success, right?
00;23;18;06 - 00;23;21;17
Speaker 1
So you work with kids and families, like, what's your feeling on this?
00;23;21;17 - 00;23;43;05
Speaker 2
No, I that's 100% why I, I do what I do and encourage the families to do that and to look at a children's ministry as an opportunity to not just babysit so that you can go to service for an hour and 15 hours and 30 minutes, you know, ten and service to hear them, to look at it. There's a greater need.
00;23;43;05 - 00;24;09;13
Speaker 2
There's a there's a chance for us to to break off any, any issues of identity, to break off issues of, of struggling with sin, with, with understanding what that means to them eternally. And in helping parents understand that, that their role in their child's life goes, like you said, goes beyond the physical need. There's a spiritual need. There's an emotional need.
00;24;09;13 - 00;24;34;13
Speaker 2
Yeah, that we encourage. And I think that's the one thing that comes out of our children's ministry, is that I encourage each of the volunteers to, yes, you can follow the curriculum, you can follow the schedule that we put in place. And that is in itself the very least that we can do to help them. But I say you have a relationship.
00;24;34;15 - 00;24;55;22
Speaker 2
You have a relationship with Jesus Christ. You have a relationship with your faith, with God, with anything that's carrying you. And I encourage you to not be shy to share that with your own children, to not be shy, to tell them about the greater need, the greater understanding of what their purpose is. Jesus died not for the rich, but for the lowly.
00;24;55;22 - 00;25;19;11
Speaker 2
He died for all of us. The ones that that we're we're frowned upon ones that weren't living to the law of the land. Jesus said, no, I came for them. I came to bring them life. I came to bring yeah, everybody life. And in that same understanding is our children are growing in a culture that is coming at them 15mph.
00;25;19;11 - 00;25;49;21
Speaker 2
It's they are 50mph just flying at them every which way. They're being overexposed on social media, on on digital media. And they hear our conversations too, you and I, I'm going to say something, but I know that you guys think that you're protecting your children from the from what you're thinking, but a lot of times your children are sponges to what you say and what you're speaking and everything that goes on out of your mouth is absorbed through them.
00;25;49;21 - 00;26;15;04
Speaker 2
They understand it, they grasp it, and then they wrestle with those ideas. You get prayer. If prayer requests from these young children about, I need a new home because my mom is struggling, so they're listening. They're here. This is so they hear you when you speak life about Jesus Christ, about the hope about this, this eternal life that we are, you know, started this podcast on and bringing it back to full circle.
00;26;15;04 - 00;26;41;05
Speaker 2
It gives them a perspective. Yes. And that is where I encourage you to understand that your perspective on life is what your children's perspectives on life will be, and just focus on eternity. Focus on on how can I be what God's called me to be? How can I trust in the Holy Spirit? How can I bring, you know, hope to the world as this just speak about Christ?
00;26;41;07 - 00;26;54;05
Speaker 2
Yeah, understand where your place is and just let it go. Let it come out of your mouth. Speak life over everybody and understand that you are saving a soul from eternal conscious torment. And that's amazing.
00;26;54;11 - 00;27;15;00
Speaker 1
Yeah. I mean, I, I have seen with a lot of parents and probably even fathers that are listening, you know, to this amount of faith podcasts, it's how many of them don't know how to have those conversations. You know, they're uncomfortable. Like, I don't know how to start talking about God with my kids or and that's why I always encourage people like, prioritize church.
00;27;15;00 - 00;27;48;03
Speaker 1
Yeah, I cannot tell you enough how much I believe that church sets the foundation, because, number one, the consistency of being in the house of the Lord, your kids hearing conversations, topics, teaching about Jesus, it becomes just weekly, right? Just coming every Sunday. It becomes something that's routine for them and is being ingrained in them. They're being ingrained with a whole lot of messaging right?
00;27;48;05 - 00;28;14;17
Speaker 1
How much Jesus are they getting ingrained with? And if you go to church once a month, they're not getting a whole lot, and then you don't know how to talk about it at home or it's just not something you ever discuss. Jesus is like, oh, that one thing that I hear about every once in a while, when I'm getting all this messaging daily into my brain about how I should think about the world and see the world and, you know, worldviews.
00;28;14;19 - 00;28;35;10
Speaker 1
So this is why I say prioritize church. Not only that, but when we're in church, it gives us a conversation starter with our children. So you don't know how to talk to your kids about God. Cool. You come home from church and maybe Monday, go, hey, what what did you learn at church? What did you learn at Project Kids for our church?
00;28;35;15 - 00;28;55;10
Speaker 1
I know there's people that listen that go to other churches and then they will tell you they do listen. They do pay attention and they'll say, oh, we talked about, you know, Zacchaeus and him being a wee little man, and he want to see Jesus. He was up in the tree, you know, and he was a tax collector.
00;28;55;10 - 00;29;16;09
Speaker 1
And then Jesus said, I won't go back to your home with you. And people were mad about it. How are you eating with this person? And now it's like, okay, now we have a an open door to have a conversation about about a heart for people, right, about people that, you know, the world might cast away, but Jesus stops and takes time for them.
00;29;16;11 - 00;29;25;13
Speaker 1
Now we can have conversation. You don't have to know the Bible. You don't have to be the most, you know, read to understand. But again, this comes back to eternity.
00;29;25;13 - 00;29;26;17
Speaker 2
Yeah.
00;29;26;19 - 00;29;45;16
Speaker 1
I care way more about where my children spend eternity than how successful they are in anything on this earth, right? I still want them to be successful, and I'm going to do my best to set them up. But what I see is a whole bunch of families that prioritize everything but God. Yeah, everything but his word. Everything but church.
00;29;45;19 - 00;30;25;25
Speaker 1
Everything but eternity. And they're going to as they age have regret. Yeah. And I think that there's going to be pain as their kids saw something that wasn't a priority. And it will become a nonessential for their children's lives. And this is why I say this all the time to I said it to our church like if if, if church is just the occasional option for your children, your family, then when they grow up, it will be, non-essential for their life in their family.
00;30;25;25 - 00;30;48;12
Speaker 1
Yeah. And so again, we brought it to to eternity for your family and eternity for those people around you. But again, we gotta live with eternity in mind for others, not just ourselves. Yeah, obviously, we need to get ourselves right first. But then second, it's got to be for the people around. Absolutely, absolutely. Like, I want everyone that I know to be in eternity with me in heaven, right?
00;30;48;13 - 00;30;55;23
Speaker 1
Right. Like I don't want anybody to be missed because I was too fearful or prioritize too many other things.
00;30;55;23 - 00;30;56;09
Speaker 2
Yeah.
00;30;56;12 - 00;31;01;22
Speaker 1
That I wasn't willing to have the conversation or to prioritize those conversations.
00;31;01;22 - 00;31;02;07
Speaker 2
Right.
00;31;02;10 - 00;31;03;20
Speaker 1
Even if it's uncomfortable.
00;31;03;22 - 00;31;33;11
Speaker 2
No, I think you're right. And and thinking about the men, you know, men of Faith podcast and, you know, the MLF. I'm just going to talk to you guys for a bit, but but, you know, yeah, maybe you're not worshiping like how how your wives are your, your, you know, the women in your family worship with your hands raised or maybe you're afraid to sing the songs or something like that, but I want to encourage you to ask questions, like to seek knowledge.
00;31;33;11 - 00;31;52;04
Speaker 2
And that's that's the beautiful part about it is you know, first Corinthians two, it talks about how all knowledge is given to us from the Holy Spirit when we are ready. So we constantly come out to the spirit and we ask questions. We seek for knowledge. We seek for understanding. Coming to the podcast, coming to church, asking questions at church.
00;31;52;07 - 00;32;08;21
Speaker 2
I mean, Caleb, I'm sure is not to, you know, he's not going to shy away from you if you come up and ask him a question about eternity or hell or anything like that, because that's what we want to do, is we want to help you guys get there and, and I just want to encourage guys that way.
00;32;08;23 - 00;32;35;06
Speaker 2
Yeah. Because I know that I've seen the struggle even in in conversations with some of the parents here, they're like, yeah, we're for instance, we're talking about humility. We're actually teaching the kids right now about humility. Yeah. And these are young kids that most of them are humble in some cases. Yeah, some of them are selfish. And that's, I think, just part of the nature of being a, you know, a three, a six year old, a ten year old or things like that.
00;32;35;08 - 00;32;53;18
Speaker 2
There's a bit of selfish ambition there, but we're teaching them the opposite. How do you utilize what God's giving them and using it for good? And I just want to encourage you guys the same way. It's like you should use those opportunities. How can you use what God's given you for good? And parenting is one of those things.
00;32;53;20 - 00;33;18;15
Speaker 2
God gave you a gift, an opportunity to pass on knowledge, pass on wisdom. And if you don't know, it's okay. You can say, I don't know. Let me look it up with you. Let's walk this out together. And yeah, just think about sometimes you were just too focused on on just then and now and not the eternity. And then sometimes when we get to that point where we get older and we start looking at eternity gone.
00;33;18;17 - 00;33;40;04
Speaker 2
Wait, did I do it right? Yes. And we struggled there. And then we start worrying that that extra oh my gosh, now I got to find a way to to catch up because I struggled in getting there. And now you're focused on hell, now you're focused on eternity instead of looking at it from the point of view of like, you should be doing it now, you should be helping your kids grow.
00;33;40;05 - 00;33;54;27
Speaker 1
Yeah. I mean, I think that we've we've quoted the scripture so many times about, you know, what's the scripture raising your kids in the ways of God. And when they're old, they won't depart from it. What's the word? What's the verbiage from tired? No, I.
00;33;54;27 - 00;33;56;04
Speaker 2
Think that's is I think.
00;33;56;07 - 00;33;56;27
Speaker 1
That's the gist of.
00;33;56;27 - 00;33;59;27
Speaker 2
It. Yeah. I suggest.
00;33;59;29 - 00;34;24;04
Speaker 1
But you know, what I think is funny is like people that I know, and I think there's people even in, in our church who quote that verse, but they're not really living that life now. And so they're like, oh, we'll be good, because our when, when our kids get older, like they're not going to depart from it.
00;34;24;06 - 00;34;53;05
Speaker 1
I'm like, you have it ingrained it in them at a young age. You prioritize all the things of this world. You prioritize every sport, every extracurricular activity. You prioritize, every training, you know, and and I just saw, an NFL player saying that travel sports are killing our kids spiritual faith or spiritual growth.
00;34;53;09 - 00;34;54;07
Speaker 2
Absolutely.
00;34;54;10 - 00;35;02;01
Speaker 1
And he said all these families, they prioritize all the their traveling, you know, 48 weekends a year when they're kids, ten years old.
00;35;02;04 - 00;35;02;13
Speaker 2
Yeah.
00;35;02;19 - 00;35;23;05
Speaker 1
He's like, what are we doing? They're not in the house of God. They never have conversations about God. They're not being in, you know, the families aren't doing Bible studies together. And so we're like, oh, train up your child. That's the that's the verbiage. Okay? And, and I'm like, you're not training them up in it. What do you mean?
00;35;23;10 - 00;35;39;15
Speaker 1
Well, when they're old, they're not going to depart from it though. I'm good. No you're no they're not, you're not you're not training your child up in the things in the ways of God. You're training them up in everything else. Yeah. And they are going to depart from it because it wasn't ingrained in them. So many of faith.
00;35;39;15 - 00;35;58;00
Speaker 1
I got to like, call you out a little bit. And this is some people I know, this is people that are listening. This is some people that aren't listening. But man, we got to train up our children in the things, in the ways of God. Right? And that means prioritizing not just church. And I don't want this to be I get to church.
00;35;58;02 - 00;36;21;24
Speaker 1
That's not the point of this. It's like, is it a conversation in your home? Yeah. Is the Word of God being opened up to your kids, seeing you reading your Bible? My kids see me read my Bible every day. Right. Yeah. Whether I'm listening to it, sometimes I listen to it if I'm running behind. But most days I have it open in the living room and they see me reading and they see that the Word of God is prioritize our home.
00;36;22;00 - 00;36;46;20
Speaker 1
We talk about, you know, when we get home, what they learned, even them just being in church consistently, they ask us questions. Yeah. Yesterday they sat through my sermon on heaven, hell, eternity and they were freaked out. And so we get home and they're like, dad, like, how do you know you're not going to hell? You know? And I'm like, good.
00;36;46;20 - 00;37;04;20
Speaker 1
I want you to have a healthy fear of the Lord. Yeah, and a healthy fear of hell. Especially at a young age when the theology isn't still, like, dialed in. Obviously, we don't have to fear. I talked about it yesterday. You know, we can be of courage because we know that, where we are promised eternity if we.
00;37;04;20 - 00;37;11;06
Speaker 1
If we have a relationship with the Lord. So I was able to share that with them. But again, that conversation wouldn't have happened if they weren't in church.
00;37;11;07 - 00;37;11;27
Speaker 2
Right.
00;37;12;00 - 00;37;27;24
Speaker 1
And so, we always do a call up at the end. We don't call them out, we call them up. So you got to come up with one. Okay. So here's mine. My call up is that you would train up your children in the things in the ways of God. How do you do that. Well, you get them in church.
00;37;27;26 - 00;37;48;15
Speaker 1
You set an example. Bye bye bye. What you prioritize is the word of God. You know the things of God. Is that a priority? You open conversations with them. And so men, you have to lead the way with your spouses, with your wives, with your children. I think we have an issue in the church of just so many men.
00;37;48;15 - 00;38;07;28
Speaker 1
They're just letting our wives like that. We've basically abdicated like they're the spiritual head. No, you have to be. And if you don't know how to be that, find a man that can help you. Be that. Yeah. You need to hit me up. I'll talk to you about it. It's. And it's much easier than we make it. Yeah, and yet it takes discipline, right?
00;38;08;05 - 00;38;30;16
Speaker 1
It's not as hard as we make it, but it also takes a level of discipline that I think a lot of us are lacking. And I think we're lacking it because of laziness. And eternity is too important for me to be lazy in this life. And I'm not just talking about my turn. I'm talking about the eternity of my family, my children, the people around me, my friends, my coworkers, all the people I run into on the street.
00;38;30;18 - 00;38;50;06
Speaker 1
It is too important for me to be lazy in my faith and not discipline myself. And so this is my call up to you, man, to prioritize the things of God, the ways of God in your home. It starts in your life, in your home, your children. And that you would set the example some of y'all, some of y'all gotta step up your game, like for reals.
00;38;50;08 - 00;38;56;21
Speaker 1
And I have no pause in saying that. So that's my call it Matt. But you got my.
00;38;56;21 - 00;39;23;09
Speaker 2
Call up is, is imitation and emulation. Those are two words for you guys. I want you to remember that your children's will imitate everything you do, and they will emulate everything you do to whatever you carry yourself. However you you prioritize your scripture reading. Prioritize prayer, prioritize worship. Don't be afraid to show your children how you live life because they're going to learn from you.
00;39;23;09 - 00;39;53;21
Speaker 2
We are not raising children. We're raising future adults. We're not raising anything in that way of of of babying them and trying to make sure that their, their, their sports are good and stuff like that or their, their education, like, these are all important things that help them grow as a, as a functional person in society. But the way you carry yourself, the way you speak to people, the way you you pray, the way you even worship.
00;39;53;21 - 00;40;19;12
Speaker 2
And I, I've had conversations with where the various men that were afraid to to be vulnerable, don't be afraid of that around your children. You had them see that side of you. Let them see that you are Lord. Let them see that you are trying and you're working towards it. Because once they see that, then they know that they have a genuine human being as their father.
00;40;19;12 - 00;40;26;17
Speaker 2
And I think that's where I would go. I would go with that. Just let them imitate you and let them emulate love it.
00;40;26;17 - 00;40;44;11
Speaker 1
Well, hey, thanks for joining us for the men of Faith podcast once again. Matt, thanks for being a guest on us. Thank you. A guest on us, a guest with us. Like, what does that mean? Thanks for being a guest with us, man. Yeah, great having you on. Thanks for all you're doing for the next generation, for families.
00;40;44;14 - 00;41;07;06
Speaker 1
For for pointing children to the Lord. And I do think you're right, though. I think that, these, these conversations and kids actually will grow our faith as much as we're growing theirs. My kids have tested even my theology check in, testing me and checking me and questioning me every day is great. So, hey, let's keep walking.
00;41;07;06 - 00;41;16;04
Speaker 1
Onward and upward, man. Walk with eternity in my name. So, hey, love y'all. Grace and peace. See you next time.