A Father's Love Series

A Father’s Love

Genesis 22:1-14

1. Love

2. Worship

3. Sacrifice

4. Trust

Intro: Observations of a Father

• I am going to share with you all my wisdom of four years of parenting

• Okay let’s look at what the Bible says

• When I had my first child I lost half of my memory, when I had my second child I lost the other half, when I had my third I lost another half I didn’t know I had

• I am unashamed to go into public with dirty clothes because a parent with three under four has either snot, spit up, or crumbs on his clothes at all times

• I no longer hum songs that I enjoy. I hum children’s music

• If you see me driving down the road shaking my hands like this I am humming the Wiggles song

• Home décor has gone from sage, ivory, and burnt umber to red, yellow, blue, and pink

• Sleep is overrated

• It takes you longer to get where you are going than the time you actually spend there

• But honestly Parenting in the hardest thing I have ever done

• Don’t get me wrong it has given one of the greatest joys… but it is hard

• The reason being is that every morning at 6:30 AM it starts all over

• You never finish

• Before I had children it scared me to death to think of having any

• I knew my propensity for screwing things up and I didn’t want to be responsible for screwing up a child

• But on August 24th 2003 my life changed for the better

• I often say children turned my life right side up

• I love being a daddy to three children

• This morning I will share my heart about a Father’s Love

Read Genesis 22:1-14

Transition: Abraham’s Love

• The best place for us to go in scriptures for an example of a Father’s love is to Abraham

• God told him he would have as many children as the stars in the sky

• No greater thing is asked of a parent in the Bible than of Abraham

• God tested Abraham’s love

• Who was he going to love more God or his Son

1. Love vs. 2

a. Abraham’s Love

• Gen 22:2 Then He said, "Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you."

• This is the first place in the Bible the word Love appears

• It refers to the love between a father and a son

• There should be a special bond between a child and their father

• I am not talking about the touchy feely type

• Isaac saw faithfulness and commitment in his father

• He first saw his father’s love for God

• Then he saw his father’s love for him

b. How do we love

• Eph 6:4 And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord

• I once heard a preacher say The way you spell love to your child is TIME

• Love isn’t a good intention

• Love is something that takes time and is built up over time

• Some years ago, Dr. Karl Menninger, noted doctor and psychologist, was seeking the cause of many of his patients’ ills. One day he called in his clinical staff and proceeded to unfold a plan for developing, in his clinic, an atmosphere of creative love. All patients were to be given large quantities of love; no unloving attitudes were to be displayed in the presence of the patients, and all nurses and doctors were to go about their work in and out of the various rooms with a loving attitude. At the end of six months, the time spent by patients in the institution was cut in half.

2. Worship vs. 5

a. Abraham’s Worship

• Gen 22:5 And Abraham said to his young men, "Stay here with the donkey; the lad and I will go yonder and worship, and we will come back to you."

• This is the second word that appears for the first time in the Bible here

• It would’ve been easy for Abraham to switch his worship from his God to his child

• Imagine waiting over 100 years for your only child

• Part of the test that God was putting Abraham through was to test his heart

• Worship starts in the heart

• I shared several weeks back about Abraham’s worship

• Wherever Abraham went he built an altar and worshipped the Lord