A Godly Man!

A Man of God!

June 19, 2011

Today is Father’s day. A time we set aside to honor our Fathers. While I believe that Father’s Day does not deserve the treatment of Mother’s Day, it actually was founded as a follow up due to mother’s day. A 16 year old girl was listening to a sermon at church one day on mother’s day and wanted to do something to honor her father who lost his wife, her mom, while giving birth to her 6th child, leaving him alone to raise them all.

Today with the divorce rate being as it is; we have lots of single dads as well. Now my opinion is that it takes both parents to raise a child; moms and dads who live together and moms and dad who live apart. But sense today is Father’s Day we will focus on the man of the house.

Anyone can be the donor; it takes a real man to be a father. But just because you may be a good provider for your family, just because you may make sure they have the best education, or you make sure that they excel in every activity they are involved in. That might make you a good dad, but that does not make you the best dad that you can be. What good does it do to provide your kids with all the love and all the opportunity to exceed in this life and not lead them to a relationship with Christ? Time on this earth is short…eternity is forever.

To be the best dad you can be you need to be a man of God. Even being a Christian does not mean that you are a man of God. I know some professed Christians who are not very good examples as dads.

So what does it take to be a man of God? We are going to look at an Old Testament Prophet who shows us the example of what a Godly man should look like. A little background here, Elijah was a prophet like no other sense the days of Moses. His name literally meant, “The Lord is my God”. We read in the beginning of the chapter that Elijah told the King of Israel that there would be no dew or rain. Now this is important because the Canaanite belief was that only the false god Baal could govern the dew and the rain. His challenge was simply; “Who is the real God, Baal or the Lord?”

The Lord then sends him away from there and tells him to hide by a brook. So he goes down and hangs around this brook and the Lord gives him room service by having the ravens feed him; bread and meat every morning and evening. But then the brook dries up from no rain. Then the Lord sent him to a widow to provide for him.

This is where we get to our points on what a Godly man is to look like. First a Godly man needs to be…

A man of CONVICTION!

A definition of the word conviction means a fixed or a firm belief. His belief was in the word of God. When you think about it, going to a widow was not a very smart choice as far as the world’s eyes are concerned. Widows were exceptionally poor. There was no equal opportunity in those days. The men were the primary bread winners in the family. A widow had very little opportunity to survive much less take on another mouth to feed. But he did what the Lord told him to do. 1 Kings 17:9 "Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there. See, I have commanded a widow there to provide for you."

It wouldn’t have made any sense to me. I would have said, just have the birds bring the water. But Elijah was a Godly man and a man of conviction; He believed and did what God told him to do. 1 Kings 17:10-12 So he arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, indeed a widow was there gathering sticks. And he called to her and said, "Please bring me a little water in a cup, that I may drink." And as she was going to get it, he called to her and said, "Please bring me a morsel of bread in your hand." So she said, "As the LORD your God lives, I do not have bread, only a handful of flour in a bin, and a little oil in a jar; and see, I am gathering a couple of sticks that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die." She didn’t have anything. Yet Elijah because of his convictions, believed what God said He was going to do. He was going to provide for Elijah by this poor widow. My point is no matter how crazy it may seem like at the time; No matter how difficult the circumstances, we need to be men of God and obey Him no matter what.