SPEAKER_01 0:00

In this message entitled Confident Sons and Secure Daughters, Reverend Daniel encourages fathers in their important role as well as looking at the characteristics and needs of sons and daughters, ultimately looking to God the Father and His role in our lives.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

I've entitled my sharing today, Confident Sons and Secure Daughters. Right? So it's important for us to know that when we uh uh father children or even for mothers, what are the essential qualities that God desires us to uh build in our children? I would like to suggest to us that for boys or for sons, it is to instill in them a sense of confidence to face life and the challenges of life. And for daughters, it's to give them a sense of security in life. This may not be the exact uh way that we see things, but this is uh from the perspective of uh uh uh Glenn Staten. So Glenn Staten is a family researcher with focus on the family, and he has done many years of research into family life and family therapy, and he said we boil down everything to its common denominator. What boys need is confidence, what girls need is security. So children desire to bond with their fathers primarily because fathers are different from mothers. Researchers who have studied this over the past few decades note that dads tend to stimulate their infants more with excited, lively and quickly changing expressions, as well as more spirited vocal sounds. Even in the first months of a child's life, that tends to engage in more physically stimulating and unpredictable play than mother does. Dr. Key Proot of Yale University explains that infants 7 to 13 months of age tend to respond more positively to being helped by their fathers. And while mothers tend to hold their babies for caregiving and comfort purposes, fathers are far more likely to pick up their children for play or in response to the baby's request in a greater variety of spontaneous ways. His research finds that father's care, the care of a father, tends to be more reactive than instinctive, which creates a pleasant experience of surprise and excitement for the child. Glenn Staten, uh the director of Global Family Formation Studies, which I mentioned earlier at Focus on the Family, states that this is just a general sense. It's not that all uh all of us fit into that mode, but this is just uh through research and through studies, uh uh what has come out is that fathers stand towards this, you know, and mothers stand towards that. Of course, we can have cross-breed in the world today, you know, but this is a general sense. Fathers, in most cases, when it comes to parenting or uh this or uh looking after children, will tend to push the limits in terms of uh challenging their children to go beyond uh to what they can do, right? And mothers tend to mind the limits, to watch the boundaries, to ensure that they are safe. And fathers are more likely to tickle and rough house, meaning to play with the child, right? To carry the child on the back, you know, to play and tumble with the child. And that is very instinctively a male action. That's what uh often fathers will do. Whereas mothers have the tendency more to comfort and cuddle their children. Fathers stand to encourage independence and confidence, right? The the need to uh have boundaries in life, the need to grow up to be independent. Fathers tend to uh train a child to do that. Whereas mothers would always uh look towards dependency and security. Like we say, a mother's child uh is always a mother's child, right? And so that's a general uh sense of uh how things are. So fathers are likely to stress competition, uh achievement, uh um, and mothers stand to stress equity, you know, balance, fairness. Fathers are more likely to stress doing and accomplishing uh a task, whereas mothers stand to stress being and relationships. Fathers stand to encourage large motor skill, uh sitting up, balancing, jumping, catching, running, uh, learning how to swim, learning how to ride a bicycle. Whereas mothers stand to encourage fine motor skill development. For example, eating, uh, dressing up, coloring, cutting, tying. So these are just broad frames of understanding that there is actually a distinction as male and female, the way God has wired us, uh, fathers and mothers, male and female, boy and girls, how God has instinctively wired us to respond. Right? If you go to the playground today and close your eyes and listen to the parents there, who is likely to say, be careful, not so high, slow down. And who is likely to say, swing higher, climb to the next level, run faster? Right? I guess we all know the answers, right? And that's where sometimes couples, husband and wife, get into disagreement because the wife would say, play it safe, don't go beyond. The father said, you know, get to the edge of the boundary, otherwise you never learn how to jump off and fan for yourself, right? So those are those are the tensions in parenting, but both are needed, right? You cannot have one without the other. Eric Fromm, in his book, The Art of Loving, says that the first months and years of the child are those where his closest attachment is to the mother. But daily he becomes more independent. He learns to walk, to talk, and to explore the world on his own. The relationship to his father then becomes more and more important. This is because as the child explores the world, he needs the firm hand and guidance from the father to be secure daughters and confident sons out in the world. I would like to explore with us today the role of fathers in our holistic development as human beings and our relationship ultimately with the Heavenly Father and how we should see ourselves in his firm, confident, and secure hands, according to Psalm 27. From the creation account in Genesis 1, verse 27, when God created man as male and female, he had a specific role and a distinction in what a male and female does. God created Adam and gave him charge over uh uh over the whole uh garden uh to have dominion, to lead, to explore. He created Eve as his help meet to come alongside him, to support him. So, right at the beginning of creation, uh there is a sense where the inclination of men uh is to lead and to explore uh the unknown terrain, so to speak. And the inclination of women is to support and protect. Right again, but I'm not saying that all men will be like that, all women will be like that, right? But that is just a sense of how God created uh male and female with different tendencies. Both are important. We need the input of fathers and mothers to grow as holistic human beings. Fathers develop the child to be confident to face the world. Mothers develop the child to be secure and whole in themselves. The role of the father is to help boys develop confidence to face the world. Boys need to hear from the father, even at a young age, as they are heartwired, boys are heartwired to explore the world out there, that they can be encouraged to face challenges with confidence, courage, and discipline. Boys need to have the good called out in them that they can achieve something in life. They are men of significance in Christ. So if you if you do have uh your phone with you, you may just want to take a snapshot of this because this is so important. This is how God has wired our fathers to be, you know, to bring confidence, to develop boys eventually, to be confident to face the world. The role of a father is to help girls to be secure in who they are. So, again, if you want to take a shot of this, it's it's it's good that we can take a photo of this and we can reflect on this further, even beyond uh the sermon today. So the security of a girl comes from the love of the father, both earthly and heavenly. And girls want to know that they can be the best support to their father. Girls need to know that they are the most important person, the VIP, very important person to Daddy, and that daddy will take time to listen to them and hear them out. Girls need to feel and know the love daddy has for them, that they can be secure in his love, even as they encounter other men in their lives. Without a firm and steady relationship with daddy, girls will find their security elsewhere in relationships with other men, in their work, and uh the list goes on. Right? So, how do fathers develop confident boys and secure girls? I'd just like to share with us just my own personal experience of being uh fathered by my biological father, because he he passed away when I was uh 12 years old. So I don't have much memory of him. Other than that, he was quite a strict father. So he would not spare the rod, which I appreciated that uh he used to belt me, you know, with the belt, of course on my buttocks, not on my back. Right, but he's a strict father, yet he was not totally unreasonable. Because I remember each time, because I'm the elder of two siblings, I always get the the most lashings, because the presupposition is because you are the elder one, you should know better. Right? So, yeah, so he was strict, yet he was not unreasonable. Because each time after he gave me a, he he webb me, after a while he sit down and he'll talk to me and he would explain to me why did he do that? You know, what's the purpose and and for my good and so on. So that was the balance I got, you know, uh experiencing discipline, which is a good thing, and telling me why uh it was being done, an exercise. So my personal experience uh in fathering, you know, as I try to recount my own journey of fathering, you know, as a man, as a father, I I tend to uh connode that to key experiences that uh I I've gone through in my uh um number of years, uh decade, uh at least a decade of fathering. So I, you know, in my relationship, the way uh in our parenting style, uh my wife does most of the mothering duties, right? Caring for the child, you know, and making sure that everything's in place for school, uh, cook, making sure that uh they have the right nutrition, the right food, and so on. But I realized I oftentimes come in at crucial points of their life. And one of it was was this uh the first picture, of course, is Gloria and myself. So it is actually on the 11th of June in 2020, three years ago. So she has a sweet tooth, so she eats a lot of sweet things, right? So this was then there were a lot of milk teeth that were uh that had a lot of holes, right? So the and because it's very painful to do extraction uh on multiple teeth, milk teeth. So um so the dentist was suggested for her to go on GA, right? To go uh to NDC, National Dental Center for day surgery. Right? So that was quite a big thing, right? Because she has to be on GA. And uh in order for me to follow her into the surgery, I've also had to be gowned up, right? Just to just to be there with her, right? So that was my experience, and I enjoy that because I was there to assure her uh as a father that I was there, even though it may seem that she's going through this operation. Uh yeah, it's not a big deal because I'm there to pray and support her. So mommy was there also, and and I think post-surgery, she was the one most active, right? Uh taking care of her when she experienced pain and numbness uh in the teeth. You know, post-surgery for multiple extraction is very painful, right? After that, you experience a lot of numbness in the jaws and all. So she was the one that you know cooked for her and prepared and made sure that she has all her needs met. So we have different roles. So the next incident was in 2018. That was when uh Caleb was in K2. So uh when we went to the doctors, we discovered he had uh hydrosyl, right? So uh water retention on his right testicles, right? So it's a bit imbalanced, so the it's a bit strange. So the the pediatrician was saying uh he needs to go for a minor operation uh to make an incision on his groin area on the right side, so to remove uh to extract the water. So he had to go to KK for a right herniotomy, right? Uh for the right hydrocell. So I was there with him, he was only uh six years old, right? You see him there in the picture. So this was a bit more scary because I, because he's young, he's uh six years old. So I had to follow, I have to bring him into the surgery. So when I walked with him into the place, it was even as a man, I was scared, you know, because it was all cold metal, you know, uh kind of uh um the where you place the the baby is uh you know is uh uh a metal kind of uh bed, right? So we got placed and it feels very hard, you know, and so I left him there and and he has to be on GA. So he was guest uh for a while. So when he fell asleep, uh the doctors told me to wait outside, right? So those were my experiences. I'm glad I was with them uh through crucial moments of their lives. Uh and yeah, so we we do have different roles for myself and Danny. So after that, again, Danny was the one that uh cared for him and made sure that you know he has all everything in place, that she's okay. She's the one interceding and praying for him while the surgery was going on and so on. So as we look at scripture itself at Psalm 27, there are two things that I like to share with us in terms of confidence and security. Uh, we can have confidence and security in God as our light and our presence. Because God is the light of our lives. You know, we can rest secure in that. He is also the presence in our life. Psalm 27 is a psalm written during the time of the early kingship of David. It's a psalm that appeals to God against false accusers. The psalmist David declares in Psalm 27, verse 1 to 3, the Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life, of whom shall I be afraid? In this case, light, God as light, is an answer to fear. Because God, according to David, is his light and salvation. He's speaking to himself, whom shall I fear? Of whom shall I be afraid? God is a light, also in the midst of forces of evil and darkness. David tells us in verses 2 onwards that when evildoers asseal me to eat out my flesh and adversaries and foes, my adversaries and foes, it is they who stumble and fall. Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear. Though war arise against me, yet I'll be confident. David may possibly be alluding to a situation in his life where he is being pursued by Saul in the wilderness of Ma'on in the Arabah. As Saul and his men were closing in on David and his men to capture them, a messenger came to Saul. Hurry, come, for the Philistines have made a raid against the land. So Saul returned from pursuing David and went against the Philistines. So David was recalling a time where he almost was caught by Saul. Yet at the crucial moment, there was a messenger that diverted Saul's attention away. So David could stand and praise God. The Lord is the stronghold of my life, of whom shall I be afraid? And such boldness that David had, because God is his light, God is the light of his life, that he could say, even though an army come against me, yet I will be confident. God, as our father, I like to suggest to us, is the light of our lives. He's the light of our lives that brings confidence and security to us. For David and for us, he is also my salvation and the stronghold of my life. There's a song that comes to mind when uh when I think about the whole understanding of God as light. Because God is the light of our lives. Fear has no place. Because God is the light of our lives, He gives us the confidence and the security to face the challenges of our lives. So there's a song uh by John Barnard, it's quite an old song, a familiar chorus. It says, Father of lights, you delight in your children. Every good and perfect gift comes from you. So in our walk with God, we we need to know that everything that He gives us is good. You know, even though we do not understand, but God gives us good gifts. Even in times of our lives where we face challenges, pressing situations where we have no answer to, even at times where we face crisis after crisis, yet we are able to say, God is good. Because God is able, even in the most dire situation of our lives, to bring goodness out of them. Goodness out of trying circumstances. That is why um, that is why Joseph, when he was in jail, when thrown into jail, and he went through so much suffering, uh unjustly being put to jail despite doing everything right, being forgetted, being forgotten by uh those, his companions in jail, who's supposed to remind Pharaoh of him. And uh disappointment after disappointment. Yet at the end of the day, as he looked back in his life, he's able to say, even though you meant evil against me, God meant for good, the saving of many lives. So everything that happens to our life is good. Because God is the father of lights, he is the light of our lives. So in Every situation, every pressing situation we face, I believe if we stay ourselves in God's presence, we are able to see a good outcome. We are able to see goodness that He will bring through every situation in our lives. As the father of lights, God delights in his children. God delights in us. His light would bring confidence for his sons and security for his daughters. And we know light as a physical phenomenon, you know, is very powerful in a very dark room. Once we on the light, we we see everything. So light, you know, brings confidence, brings security to us. Light is needed, especially in the face of crisis. In the case of David, he faced false accusers. It is such in such a context that God's light becomes our salvation, for He is the stronghold of our lives. And I'd like to suggest to us that this desire, this feeling, this so-called instinctive gut is often placed in men, you know, to react and respond in a dangerous situation. Many times, uh sometimes it happens, but I'm not sure, men here, if you all agree with me. Because through experience, I see that there's a particular pattern. There's once uh when I was very much younger, uh, my brother and myself, we were playing in the beach, right? So I don't know how his head went underwater. So first thing my my dad saw was to run and pull him out. It was instinctively, yeah. So the mother would be still worrying, wondering what's going on. So instinctively he ran and pulled him out, of course. Then he was safe, right? He was pulled out of the water. So I remember once, uh many, many years ago, when we were in our new place, uh when Gloria was still quite small, uh, she she actually put her fingers into the, you know, the leaf doors. So he she actually put her finger there, and so his her fingers went into the leaf door, right? I mean, when when the leaf opened, her fingers went in. Right. So I don't know why that time I was present, Danny was there, she was very shocked, but I could just uh calmly just pry out her fingers and thank God she wasn't hurt, right? Uh and she came out fine, right? So the leaf door opened, and I just managed calmly just pull her hand out. So instinctively, I think God gave uh man a certain instinctive guard to react and respond in dangerous situations with calmness and uh almost uh immediate response. So the greatest revelation of God as our light perhaps is in overcoming the darkness in our lives. This is how God ultimately showed his love. God as Father, you know, he sees his children lost in sin. His instinctive response is to come down to save us, to send his son, to act on our behalf. John chapter 1, verse 9 to 13 tells us the true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world and the world was made through him, talking about Jesus. Yet the world did not know him. He came to his own people, but his own people did not receive him. But to all who receive him, who believe in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. So the light was shining in the world. Jesus was the light of life. God sent his son, Jesus, to be the light of life. And Jesus tells us in the Gospel of John, you know, I am the light of the of the world. Whoever walks in me will not live in darkness, but will have the light of life. So Jesus came to be the light of the world, and not only that, to all who receive him, he gave the right to become children of God. And that's that's what we are. We are the children of God. And 1 John 3, verse 1 echoes this. It says, See what kind of love the Father has given to us that we should be called children of God. And that is what we are. And all of us here, we are children of God and we are loved by God. We are sons and daughters of God, precious treasures to him. And this is how God ultimately showed his love for us by being the light of our lives. So in his light, he saved us from sin and he continually leads us by creating paths of light for us that brings confidence, that brings security in times of crisis and darkness. So God, as Father, is not only the light of our lives, but he is also the presence in our lives. God is the light of our life, and he is the presence in our life. He is the present, he is present as the great I am, the God who is, the God who will be who He will be. The psalmist David, if you look at verse 4 to 14, uh many times we see that he asks, he seeks, he inquires, he cries aloud and he waits for God's presence. You know, it's an active seeking after God's presence. Because David knows that there's one thing he needs as a son of God is the presence of God. So he says, one thing have I asked of the Lord. This is what I will seek after. You know, uh, to inquire in his temple. Verse 7, hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud, be gracious to me and answer me. You have said, seek my face. My heart says to you, your face, Lord, do I seek. Verse 14, wait for the Lord, be strong, and let your heart take courage. Wait for the Lord. So this is something that as children of God, we need to seek after, the very presence of God in our life. It's not something that will come to us naturally, but we need to seek after, we need to long for God's presence so that his counsel and his help can be near us. Glenn Staten in his book Secure Daughters, Confident Sons, mentions uh how boys and girls, men and women are wired from young. Again, this is not gospel truth. This is not that everyone will fit into this category, but this is a way of telling us that there's a particular orientation for boys and girls, right? I mean, since young from young, they are inclined towards these patterns, right? So it says boys yearn to make a difference. Even as a young boy, no, they yearn to make a difference to the world, to accomplish something. It says, uh he continues to say, boys need to save the world. Boys need to destroy the world. Not in the sense of physically destroy, but we all know those of us who are boys or have boys, right? You know, get into fighting, you know, and playing with swords and guns, right? So save the world, destroy the world, right? Make a difference, stand up, be counted, accomplish something, be a man of significance. Boys need to know that they are smart. Boys need to see their bodies developing. Boys need to be innovative, boys need a sense of discipline, boys need to have the good called out of them. Boys need to be honorable, boys need to be accepted and respected by peers and elders. Now, this is what he says about girls. Girls need to see themselves as capable, not as victims. Girls want to be the most important person in the world compared to a man. Girls need intimacy, girls need community, girls need to mother, girls want to be the prettiest one in the room, girls need modesty, girls are caregivers and less impulsive, girls are more perceptive, reading emotions better. Girls need to talk, girls need to be heard and affirm. Girls need a sense of security. I don't know how how much you uh uh resonate with that, but I think they are in in broad sweeps of patterns. I think it's true, right? Our inclination and how we are wired. So, as sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father, we are to grow in seeking his presence in our lives. And I believe for boys and girls, male and female, fathers and mothers, we seek God in different ways. Because we are created male and female. Uh for a daughter who has an inherent need to relate, to talk, to be heard and affirmed, as well as to be intimate and be in community. You know, I like to remind us that uh for the women out there, the girls out there, God is an ever-present companion whom you can talk to and be heard. He desires to bring you to greater intimacy with him. Because if you are a woman today, you are created for intimacy, for communication, for communion. And God desires to hear you, to affirm you in your womanhood. God desires to put you in community so that you have a sense that you are whole women, woman in God's eyes. For a son who has an inherent need to make a difference, to develop satisfaction and a measure of worth and significance from what he does, God has a wonderful plan for your life. Right? Like what those of us who are familiar with the four spiritual laws, uh, Campus Crusade uh says, the first law is God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life, right? So God has a wonderful plan for your life. He desires that you find fulfillment in your accomplishments by living out a greater purpose he has for you. This greater purpose is often revealed to you if you seek him earnestly through prayer. Right? For the men out there, for the fathers and the boys, right? Uh do not forget that God ultimately holds your destiny. Regardless of what you're going to accomplish, God has placed in you a desire to be significant, to achieve uh something in life. Know that God is your maker, he has a plan and purpose for your life. So that only when your life is in his hands will it be fulfilled. Only will you be fulfilled. As I shared earlier, I lost my father when I was 12 years old. So I grew up with uh the nurturing love of my mother who does what the mother does: comfort and cuddle, encourage, dependence and security. So in my growing years, God filled the lack of a father's presence in my life by bringing spiritual fathers in the Lord to guide me and shape me in the ways of God. So, fathers, you have an important role today because the the woman and men in YCCA and the world, they are looking for fathers to guide, to lead, to shape man and woman after God. So I was very uh thankful to God for, even though I do not have a physical father to guide me during my teenage years, but I had spiritual fathers in the Lord who came during seasons of my life to show me, to guide me and shape me in the ways of God. From their lives, I learned what it means to be passionate for God, what it means to follow God wholly and fully, what it means to live my life to be an encouragement to others. So we don't underestimate the power of mentoring in the church today. In fact, we are shaped much more by relationships than attending courses and lectures. In fact, we learn much more from modeling, and that's how we pick things up. And that's an interesting observation. Uh, many years, some years back when I was uh at St. John's Margaret's, we were uh re-looking at the church and how we can move the church into discipleship, you know, and as we put a team together, I was chairing a group that we are looking at about discipleship curriculum. So we put together a team of people of the so-called the old guards of the church, you know, and we we we spoke to everyone. How did you grow in discipleship? Every one of them said it's because someone walked with me, someone uh uh shared with me the faith, someone led me and helped me to grow, you know. None of them say, uh, because I I read a material of this uh Master Life or some other material that actually shaped me. All of it, all of them shared is because someone makes a difference. And if you hear the testimonies today, you know, of even on salt and light, or when we hear people's testimonies, it's always the church going out, you know, knocking on doors, being a blessing to someone, you know, that makes a difference. So it's life on life that that happens, that that uh discipleship happens. It's only when when we are able to do that, then there's a sense that the church is growing more and more. So may God raise more spiritual fathers and mothers in YCCA for his glory. So, regardless whether you are a biological mother or or spiritual father and mother, because you are male and female, you have a role to play right in the church today. Even if you are single, you have a role to play. You are still a mother, a spiritual mother to many. We pray that you are still a spiritual father.

SPEAKER_01 37:44

If you'd like to know more about the history of the Christian church, please visit our women at YCC and have a blessing.

SPEAKER_00 37:55

So that we grow, to make a difference, to many more lives.