Jim Van Gelderen: Welcome to the Thee Generation Podcast. This is Jim VanGeldren and I’m broadcasting today from Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin. We just finished our fall 2018 tour and had a wonderful tour.

Some of you listening, I would assume, were a part of some of those meetings that we had. We started in West Virginia, went largely down the East Coast, and ended in Florida, just ended in Jacksonville, Florida. And we had some wonderful meetings.

A lot of kids came to know the Lord, as well as young people dealing with things in their life that were hindering them, usually issues of unbelief that either resulted in sin or bitterness or some other issue, but it was just a blessing to see steps of faith taken, young people touched, and certainly we were encouraged.

God is still in the reviving business, young people, and He can still do in your heart and life what you may not realize that He can do, and sometimes just that hope that there is an answer, there is a solution to my problem. I want to deal with something that you’ll probably hear me from different angles dealing with this. I’ve been on a journey since May.

I don’t really think I’ve done a podcast on it yet, but I certainly have thought about it and think perhaps that tonight would be a good time to begin to deal with this situation of something that I might, if I used one word, I’d use the word strongholds, that people sometimes have wrong ways of thinking, things that get in their hearts that hinder their crush on life. Maybe I could put it this way, they hit a ceiling.

I just want to deal with one angle here that hopefully be a help to you. But there’s a verse of Scripture in Colossians chapter 3 and verse 21, fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged. I think one definition I’ve solved that was dispirited.

And young people can become discouraged, dispirited. And often they come because of what somebody has called father wounds. Now, there may be two kinds of people listening.

I may be listening to a parent. Why would young people, why would your children become discouraged? Well, the Bible says fathers don’t provoke them to anger.

So it’s clearly when a child is provoked to anger, the fleshly response is going to be discouragement unless the grace of God steps in on the deal. And I’m going to deal with that just briefly here tonight. But there’s two aspects I’ve seen that discourage a young person from a father.

So if you’re a father, let me just take you note on this. Number one, it would be anger. In other words, be dealing with a situation in anger, and it’s the kind of anger that is clearly selfish.

It is that where that does not have any sense of God in the deal, what we might call carnal or fleshly anger. That discourages a young person. And I know that particularly there are a lot of men who came from homes where their father was angry, and as a result, they’ve picked up that habit, and it discourages young people.

I have dealt now for 35 years, almost 35 years, working with young people. Number one problem is bitterness. There’s no doubt about it.

The number one problem under bitterness is wounds that come from angry fathers. Big deal, and it’s a big issue. The second one would be passive fathers or absent fathers, sometimes literally absent, sometimes in a sense not literally absent, but they’re there, but they don’t engage the child in any kind of father-child relationship.

I was talking to a young man recently, and he just said to me, it hurts, and he was talking about the absence of a phone call at a very key time in his life from a father. And I could sense the pain. I could feel the pain as he looked at me and said, it hurts.

Some of you listening understand that. Now, if you’re a father, I’m trying to encourage you, do not do that. God’s grace is big enough.

You can overcome anger. This is not the message, but you’ve got to see that there is a way out. And also, if you’re passive, and a lot of fathers are passive, and don’t engage their child in a real deep relationship.

God’s grace is big enough to change that. This is not the podcast to deal with that except to say they exist. Now I want to address the young person that says, well, preacher, that’s what I deal with.

I do find myself getting discouraged. Another passage of Scripture says, provoke not your children to wrath. Same idea, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

And certainly a father that is engaging his children is going to nurture them and admonish them. And it has both positive and negative, but certainly the positive is a huge issue. It would be what we might call affirmation.

In other words, encouraging a young person, affirming what God is doing in their life. I think of my father spending time, I’m sure, alone with God, and then affirming what he believed God was doing in my life. And those affirmations come with me to today, bring a sense that God had a purpose for my life.

And early on, my dad would encourage me in that. But I realize that probably is an exception today. So you say, what do you do, preacher?

What do I do? I’m in a situation, maybe your father’s not even there. What do you do if you’re in a situation where you do have a father that loses his temper and it discourages you?

What do you do, perhaps, if you’re in a situation where your father’s there, but he’s not there? These are real things that are not just found in our unsaved world. They are found in Christianity.

Dysfunction is certainly a part of our homes today. If you’re listening from a foreign country, I would assume they’re there in your country. They’re certainly in ours.

And the disintegration of the home, the biblical home, is certainly upon us. So you say, preacher, what do you do? Well, one of the things that these kind of situations bring is what I might call an insecurity.

And there’s talking to young people, you find yourself comparing yourself with other people. You have a great fear of failure. In fact, fear is a big part of insecurity.

And you also might be in a situation where you have an undue focus on what people think of you. And these things are all just symptomatic of insecurity that comes from a situation where you might have these father wounds.

I was reading a book that was dealing with the issue of pornography from a biblical perspective, and the man said he had counseled thousands of men who were in sexual addictions, and he says almost all of them have deep father wounds. Well, this kind of opened my heart to the fact that this is an issue. It’s easy to ignore.

It’s kind of an uncomfortable subject, but it has to be addressed. If you find yourself in a situation where you have an undue concentration on what other people think of you, there is an answer. Now, what does the Bible say about fear?

Because you say, well, the Bible doesn’t say anything about insecurity, and that’s true, but it does address fear, one of the biggest topics of the Bible. In fact, God often says, fear not. Be not afraid.

So, gang, here’s what I want to challenge you with, and I’ll have to follow this up, but I want to just challenge you with this, and this is the very first step. If you do struggle with an insecurity or fear that comes, and it might come for different reasons, but the answer is always this, fear not, I am with thee.

Jesus said to Peter before he got out of the boat and walked on water, be not afraid, it is I. The answer for fear is always God. And it’s the fact that God’s not just God.

He says, I’m with you. Jesus said, it is I. I’m right here, Peter.

Now, I don’t want you to miss this. The very first thing you need to understand with fear or insecurity or comparing yourself with others or a deep sense of, I can’t do this, or a sense of failure or a sense of unworthiness, or sometimes even a sense of almost setting yourself up, I can’t do that, I got a fear of failure for the future, is the fact that Jesus is with you.

You can do all things through Christ which strengthens you. And it always starts with getting back to the fact that inside of you, if you’re saved, is the Lord Jesus, and He is everything you need to overcome.

So my burden here tonight is to start you off with this great truth, that it always begins with a dependence on Jesus to overcome the wounds, the fears, the comparison, whatever might come as a result of being provoked to discouragement or wrath as a result of perhaps an absent or an angry father. Now again, if you’re a father listening, let me urge you, get with your kids, get it right. Ask God for grace, get with your pastor.

You got to see the importance of overcoming it. Now, if you’re a teenager and perhaps your dad’s not even saved or doesn’t see it or is not listening to the podcast, let me encourage you to realize the answer is Jesus. My mother was orphaned at nine years old.

Her mother had a brain aneurysm and fell over the barn milking the cow. A neighbor picked her up and carried her in the house, and she lingered there for a few days and died. In today’s technology, she would have been totally, totally healed.

I mean, it would not have been a problem. But she died at nine years old. My mother had no mother.

She was then raised by a father and an older brother and an older stepbrother. Her father happened to be 59 when she was born, so he was more like a grandfather. He died when she was 14 of old age.

So here she was, an orphan. And it brought some deep insecurities in her life. And one of the things that set me off to this reality is just thinking back to my dear mother.

But you know, she had to make a decision. She never got bitter. And the way she handled these deep insecurities was simply trusting God.

She was a wonderful mother. And honestly, there’s not another mother on planet Earth I’d wanted any different than my own mother. And I’ll tell you why, friend, because she overcame very difficult.

The absence, I could say, was her issue because her parents were gone. She overcame that by realizing that Jesus is the answer. And she never got bitter.

She trusted God. And God gave her a wonderful life. She loved being a pastor’s wife.

She loved being a mother. And she was a wonderful one. And I know the answer was the fact that she probably struggled with it to the day she died because it was something that was always there.

But I know that the way she overcame and became such a good Christian was the Lord Jesus. It was God. God’s with her.

She could trust the Lord to overcome, even with those deep senses sometimes of insecurity and fears. And friends, you can overcome them too. Jesus is always with you.

He’ll never leave you nor forsake you. So be encouraged. We’ll talk more about strongholds, but one of these strongholds is fear, sin security.

But Jesus is the answer. Well, just remember, gang, you’re part of the Thee Generation, a generation that’s totally surrendered to God’s will and totally dependent on His grace to win the world for Jesus.