Latest / HAVE FAITH LET IT BEGIN® / The Strength To Stay | Father's Day Sermon 2026 | Pastor In Training Angel Santana Jr.

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The Strength To Stay | Father's Day Sermon 2026 | Pastor In Training Angel Santana Jr. · HAVE FAITH LET IT BEGIN®

• 0:05
  Welcome to Have Faith, Let It Begin. This is Ariel Santana.
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  Can you believe I'm seven years old already? I'm old enough now to introduce my dad.
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  Ladies and gentlemen, your host, my dad, Angel Santana.
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  Two thousand came and the spark was lit. A testimony raw, it wouldn't quit.
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  His mother's voice, a guiding force.
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  So at this time, we're going to be doing our scripture overview.
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  And as you've heard me tell you before, the purpose of scripture overview that
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  I've developed is because when I used to sit in the pews and the minister or
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  pastor would come up and start to speak, I had no clue what they were talking about.
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  And I would just sit there with that face, you know, like.
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  And I said, well, what better way than to show what we're about to read in kind
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  of a synopsis way, in a summary.
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  This way it makes a little bit more sense. And then you can then feel that Holy
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  Spirit take over you. So this is our scripture overview about today's scripture readings.
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  Before we hear God's word today, I'm going to briefly connect these passages. The Gospel of Matthew.
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  We meet Joseph.
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  And what stands out about Joseph is not how much he says.
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  About what much he does. So it's not what he says. It's about his actions in the Bible.
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  In fact, Scripture records very few words from Joseph at all.
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  Yet his influence is impossible to ignore.
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  Joseph protected his family. He worked to provide for them.
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  He listened to God even when life became uncertain And chose to stay faithful
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  when things did not go according to plan,
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  And I think that there is something powerful about that Because many fathers
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  or father figures are not remembered for long speeches They're remembered for consistency,
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  For sacrifice For showing up day after day,
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  For quietly carrying responsibilities nobody else fully saw Even though Joseph
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  was not Jesus' biological father He still chose responsibility,
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  He still chose love He still chose to guide and protect the child placed into his care.
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  And that reminds us that fatherhood is about far more than biology.
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  Sometimes the people who shape our lives are fathers, stepfathers,
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  grandfathers, mentors, coaches,
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  older siblings, teachers, pastors.
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  And the number one role model Mothers,
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  Because you can do double duty Sometimes love is shown through presence And
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  we look through the scriptures in the Bible At least I know I did And we also
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  discover something very important,
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  The Bible is filled with imperfect fathers,
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  Abraham made mistakes David made mistakes Jacob made mistakes And yet God still worked through them,
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  That matters because today is not about celebrating perfection,
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  It's about recognizing love,
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  growth, sacrifice, forgiveness And the impact that people live and leave As they shape our lives.
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  Then in Proverbs, we're going to hear The righteous man walks in his integrity
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  His children are blessed after him,
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  That verse, that verse reminds us that we pass down and what we pass down as
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  fathers or father figures, that matters, not just financially,
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  but spiritually, emotionally, morally.
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  Children remember character.
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  They remember presence.
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  They remember how they were treated. And often, the older we become,
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  the more we understand the sacrifices our parents were making while trying to guide us through life.
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  And finally, we'll go into Psalms 103, which reminds us of the compassion of the loving father.
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  Not a present or perfect father.
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  A compassionate father. A father who loves deeply, forgives graciously,
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  and continues caring for his children.
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  And ultimately, that points us toward God himself.
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  Because many of the lessons we learn through the people who raised us help us
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  better understand the love, the patience, and the guidance, and the compassion of our Heavenly Father.
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  Together, these passages remind us The greatest impact a person can leave behind
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  Is often not found in wealth In statues,
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  Or recognition But in love Sacrifice Wisdom Faith Faith that passes down to others,
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  That's your scripture overview And now we will hear directly from these verses,
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  From the Old Testament reading Proverbs chapter 20 verse 7 The righteous lead
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  blameless lives Blessed are the children after them.
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  Then we go to Matthew 1, verses 19-24. Because Joseph,
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  her husband, was faithful to the law and yet did not want to expose her to public
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  disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.
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  But after he had considered this, an angel from the Lord appeared to him in
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  a dream and said, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid.
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  Do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in
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  her is from the Holy Spirit.
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  She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus,
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  because he will save his people from their sins.
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  All this took place to fulfill what the Lord has said through the prophet.
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  The virgin will conceive and give
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  birth to a son And they will call him Emmanuel Which means God with us,
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  When Joseph woke up He did what an angel of the Lord had commanded him And took Mary home as his wife,
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  And then we go to the Gospel of Psalms 103 verses 13 As a father has compassion
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  on his children so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him.
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  The word of the Lord. Praise be to God. How do I begin Father's Day?
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  Let's do what my father does best. He loves to tell jokes, right?
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  So I went out like I did with Mother's Day and went and said,
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  let me find the top 10 things that fathers say.
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  So let's do that first, okay?
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  All right. And then, of course, I'm going to show you the top couple that my
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  dad does. Okay. So here we go.
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  Do you think I'm made out of money?
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  That's one right there. These are the top ones. Do you think money grows on trees?
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  When I was your age. Who touched the thermostat? Where's the remote?
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  I'm not sleeping. I'm just resting my eyes.
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  There's more than that. There's more than one way to skin a cat.
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  Do as I say, not as I do.
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  Now if your friend jumps off the cliff Are you going to do that too?
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  Walk it off Walk it off,
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  Don't tell your mother.
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  Go, go, just ask your mother. Whatever she wants is fine with me.
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  What's for dinner?
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  Okay. Then it said something here that I thought was funny, funny.
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  They said that you know if your father has a crazy sneeze.
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  I don't know if that made any sense to all of you. It did for me.
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  My dad has one of the most creative sneezes that God could give anyone.
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  And I can actually nail that pretty well. He could just come out of nowhere.
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  I have no idea what that means That's his sneeze Does anybody else have a funny
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  thing That their father or father figure would do That makes them remind them
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  Of any type of noise Keep it clean now,
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  No okay well I just figured I'd ask So then I started thinking about my father,
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  Angel senior And I came up with my own little list Gotta put him on the spot Right,
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  My father has this thing,
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  He always does this thing where When things go wrong Don't worry about it He
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  stretches that R Don't worry about it,
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  If you call my dad at home, hey, dad, or we call him papi, papi,
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  he would say in Spanish, I'll translate. He'll go, get up the law.
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  What that means? I'm broke.
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  I have recently stole this from my dad and now use it at my job.
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  I've seen my father interact with people where they come up and go,
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  hey, Mr. Santan, how you doing? He goes, I was good.
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  How is you?
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  Well now I do that at my job And when I go into work in the morning Especially
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  the overnight person I always come in to greet them and say Hey good morning
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  how you doing And they go Ah it's good,
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  So my dad's comments Have just really Carried on Let's see,
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  Okay I have one last note here Tell the now story,
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  Well here's my story before I go into the sermon my dad would go on a nice little
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  tangent start talking about something you know educating,
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  but then when he's about to change gears and really start to think he would
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  pause and use the ever famous now,
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  and you'd sit there waiting for the next line,
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  and then it would come so now i find myself with my kids i'll be out in the
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  thing and i'm definitely becoming my own father because i my daughter was asking
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  me questions and I went, well, you do this, do this and this now.
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  And I went, Oh no, I'm coming.
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  And my favorite famous line that my dad would say to me is I would call from Rhode Island.
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  When I was dealing with a depression.
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  Never shared this with him until now. Sometimes you've got to hear your parents' voices.
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  Sometimes you've got to pick up the phone and just want to hear that person's voice.
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  You want to feel at peace. So I would call home, and my dad would typically
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  pick up the phone, and he'd say, hello. I'd go, hey, dad.
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  Who that there when I say who there? That's what he would say I go,
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  dad, it's me Who did I say there when who did I say there Dad,
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  it's me, it's Angel, it's Lucido That's my Spanish name He goes,
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  who did I say there And he would just go on and on But it's those little moments,
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  Those little comments Those things that we do as parent figures That resonates to us as children,
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  So that's why I label today's message The strength to stay I think some changes
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  when something changes when we become adults.
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  As children, many of us assume our parents always know exactly what they're doing.
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  We think that they always have all the answers. We think that they have everything figured out.
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  But then life happens.
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  Responsibilities happen. Bills happen.
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  Stress happens. And suddenly, we begin to see our parents differently.
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  Not just as a mom or a dad, but as a human being trying to do their very best
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  while carrying out responsibilities.
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  We were too young to fully understand.
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  How do we do these things? How many things do we appreciate now that we completely
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  overlooked as children?
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  How many sacrifices did we benefit from Without even realizing,
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  What they were doing What was happening around At the home Sometimes the older
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  we got The more we finally understood What our parents were protecting us from,
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  And the Bible shows us that too.
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  Joseph protected Jesus long before Jesus fully understood what Joseph was carrying.
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  Can you imagine the pressure that Joseph must have felt protecting Mary,
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  protecting Jesus, traveling to Bethlehem,
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  fleeing from Egypt, trying to provide for his family while also trusting God through uncertainty?
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  We rarely think about the emotional weight that Joseph carried.
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  Yet he continued showing up And sometimes that is what love looks like Showing
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  up again and again and again Even when life feels uncertain.
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  One of the most beautiful things about Joseph Is that he teaches us strength without arrogance,
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  Joseph does not need recognition He does not demand attention He simply continues
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  doing what God called him to do,
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  And even though scripture records and the Bible will tell us Very,
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  very few words about Joseph We can clearly see his influence through Jesus,
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  Jesus learned from him Worked beside him,
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  Watched him Listened to him Learned responsibilities from him Learned compassion
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  from him Learned faithfulness from him,
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  And I think that matters because children often become shaped By what they consistently see,
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  Not just by what they are told.
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  But by what is modeled in front of them every day.
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  How many lessons did we learn from our parents without realizing it at that time?
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  How many values were passed down simply by watching how they treated people?
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  Joseph reminded us that fatherhood is not always loud.
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  Sometimes it's found in consistency, in patience,
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  sacrifice guidance and presence and maybe that's why Joseph matters so much,
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  because his life reminds us of some of the youngest and strongest people,
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  can be the ones who quietly carry responsibility without meeting recognition in return,
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  as the youngest of four I spent a lot of time with my mom,
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  Because my father often was working Working so much Even on certain weekends
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  He would perform his duties for the National Guard And growing up My father,
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  Was my hero.
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  Was when I was a kid. Still is now.
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  But as children, we rarely understand everything that our parents are carrying behind the scenes.
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  It wasn't until I became older that I started going through my own struggles, my own insecurities.
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  And that's when I began realizing what my father had been doing all those years.
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  There were nights That my father would go down to the basement,
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  He would sit at his desk Or as he would call it The desk.
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  He would later then tell me As I got older That when he would sit at that desk,
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  That's where he would perform his miracles,
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  Can't tell you how many times I've been in the basement with my dad When we're
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  doing certain things And he'd look over and he'd look at his desk He'd go Right
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  here This is where I perform my miracles,
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  I realized later what those miracles were The miracles were moments Where he
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  was trying to figure out Which bills could wait,
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  Which bills Could wait So that his children Could still have a birthday Bye.
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  A Christmas.
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  A good life. How many parents you know.
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  Or are dealing with that right now. How do you know. How do you guys know.
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  What that feels like. I'm sure you do. I know I do.
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  Trying to protect our children from stress. While carrying it yourself.
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  Trying to create joy for your family. While privately worrying about finances.
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  That changes how you see a parent. Because real sacrifice is often invisible.
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  My father also decided at one point back in 1981, when his job in Puerto Rico
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  says, we're going to move you to the States.
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  And they brought him over to Goshen and they started driving him around.
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  My father was a machinist and he would fix these huge machines.
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  God gave him a gift. Give him a talent. My dad could look at a machine and say,
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  I know how to build that I know how to fix that Well one day as he was driving
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  them around They told him What do you think of this town My dad,
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  already his wheels were turning I could see my children living here,
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  They brought him over to a trailer park They brought him over to these Run down homes And my dad said.
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  My kids And I can do better than that And I'm not knocking those facilities
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  or locations. Don't take that the wrong way.
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  But he had a plan. He had envisioned a house.
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  So they moved us here to the States. And we stayed in Howard Johnson.
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  Or as we learning English for the first time, we'd call it honyonyo.
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  We would stay there for six months while they were looking for us and a place to live.
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  And as God would have it, he finds a home on Orange Avenue.
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  In walking distance where my father was now stationed Walking distance Which
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  was great because we didn't have a car.
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  And then I would walk with my mother up Schofield Street, down Schofield Street,
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  as she would be the crossing guard for six years here in the village.
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  Or getting a phone call at two in the morning because the police department,
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  found out that we were one of the only two families in downtown that knew Spanish.
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  And they needed translators.
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  And my father, without hesitation, come pick me up.
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  But I'm not sitting in the back seat. I'm going to sit in the front.
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  And then we'll go over there And I'll do a translation for you Look at where we've come.
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  God has a gift for all of us He knows what he's doing,
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  So As I stated, my father came here from Puerto Rico We all did And his employer
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  took him around And he took homes And father made the choice He chose a community,
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  Where he believed his children could grow safely He chose a community Where
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  he knew his children would have opportunities,
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  And standing here today I will tell him You chose right.
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  One of the greatest gifts my father gave me was not money,
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  not possessions, and not status. He taught me how to treat people.
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  He taught me how to be polite.
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  He taught me how to be honest. He taught me how to be loving.
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  He taught me to be respectful. And as I grew older, I realized those lessons
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  mattered far more than material things ever could.
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  Because children learn from what they see. They watch how we speak to others.
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  How we handle pressure. How we respond to disappointment.
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  And how we love people.
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  And maybe that's what Proverbs just said to him this morning.
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  The righteous man walks in his integrity.
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  His children are blessed after him Integrity leaves fingerprints They leave
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  fingerprints on the future of generations,
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  And we see throughout the Bible Abraham passed down through generations Jacob
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  wrestled with both failure and blessings,
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  David was deeply flawed Yet still taught Solomon about leadership and faith.
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  Scripture never hides imperfect fathers, never has, never will.
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  And honestly, that gives hope to all of us.
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  Being a good father or role model does not require perfection.
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  It requires love, growth, humility, and the willingness to keep showing up.
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  One of the most powerful fathers in Scripture is found in the story of the prodigal son.
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  What makes that story so powerful Is not just the son leaving It's the father waiting,
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  Watching Hoping Praying,
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  And his son When his son finally returned home The father ran toward him Not
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  away from him The kind of love reflects That kind of love reflects on The heart of God,
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  A love that welcomes people home A love that forgives A love that does not stop
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  caring And truthfully and honestly with all of you this morning Many parents
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  understand that kind of love deeply,
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  Because real love does not disappear Real love does not disappear the moment someone struggles.
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  Real love keeps hoping Keeps praying Keeps believing,
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  One thing I will never forget about my father Is that he always made time for
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  us Even after long hours of work Even when he was tired Even when life demanded
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  things from him He showed up,
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  And honestly Presence matters more than people realize,
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  Children remember presence They remember who showed up Who listened Who stayed,
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  and maybe someone here today needed to hear that.
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  You do not have to be a perfect to impact someone's life.
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  You don't have to be perfect. Sometimes just being there consistently changes everything.
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  I knew that the day that I would marry my wife.
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  There was nobody else I wanted standing beside me more than my dad.
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  That's why he was my best man at my wedding.
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  That moment,
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  Meant more to me than words can fully explain Because he wasn't Just standing
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  there beside me On my wedding day He had been standing beside me,
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  My entire life.
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  So through lessons, guidance, encouragement, correction, love,
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  and a lot of, ah, it's good.
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  My father always knew how to point me back toward what Jesus would do.
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  And I think that's the one greatest gift any parent or role model can ever give someone.
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  Point them to Jesus.
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  Let's pause. Heavenly Father, we just ask you at this time to watch over the
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  first responders, be with them and guide them, allow them to be with someone
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  who is in need in your precious name. Amen.
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  So we're not talking about perfection, not about direction, helping someone
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  move closer to God through the way they live. That's what we're talking about here today.
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  Be closer to God. And also I want to acknowledge something important today as I close this out.
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  Not everyone here had a father growing up I'm aware of that Some were raised
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  by mothers who carried both roles,
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  Some by grandparents By older siblings By coaches, teachers,
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  pastors, mentors Role models And some are still healing from the absence Of a parent altogether,
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  And if that is part of your story I want you to hear these words right now.
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  Love still found you. Guidance still found you.
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  God still placed people in your life to help shape you to who you have become.
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  Because sometimes the people who raise us or help raise us are not biologically connected.
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  Sometimes they're connected through love, sacrifice, and presence.
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  And that's because of God.
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  So here's how we end today's sermon. The older I get The more I realize my father's
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  greatest gift to me Was not what he bought for me Even though I do love those
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  wrestling dolls I still have them somewhere,
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  It was about who helped me become,
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  It was about who he helped me become,
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  He taught me how to love people How to treat people How to carry myself with
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  honesty, kindness, and faith These lessons still guide me today Fatherhood is
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  not about perfection It's about showing up,
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  Staying present Continuing to love people Even when life becomes difficult And maybe today,
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  We realize We've all been loved too The people who loved us Through every stage
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  in life The people who shaped us to who we are today I'm proud to be named After my father.
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  But even more proud to say kind of look a little just like it.
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  And when it's all said and done, God created each and every one of us in his image.
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  So guess what? We all look like our heavenly father. Praise be to God. Amen.