A Promise Keeper Series

Father’s Day 2020

Scripture: Job 1:1, 5; Hebrews 11:7; Romans 12:1-2; Matthew 24:37-39

In reference to Solomon, David’s son, God said, “I will be his father, and he shall be My son. If he commits iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men: But My mercy shall not depart away from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away before you.” (2 Samuel 7:14-15) God made a promise to David that He would never remove His mercy from Solomon as He had from Saul. God was the first Promise Keeper and even when Solomon did sin, God kept His promise that He had made to David.

Happy Father’s Day to all the fathers!!! Last month I had the opportunity to speak about my mother and the role she played in my life and the lives of my siblings. In that message I also spoke briefly about the role she also played in my father’s life. This morning I want to speak to all the fathers; to the young men who will one day become a father; and to the young women who will one day choose to marry a man who will become the father of her children; and to all the mothers who are raising men to become fathers. I want to also speak to all the men who are acting as fathers in the lives of a young child. While those children may not be your child by blood, you are the father figure that is impacting their lives. So, if you are a father; raising a son to be a father; a father figure; a father to be one day; or have the hope of marrying a man who can be a good father, I am speaking directly to you.

Twenty-six years ago, in 1994, several authors got together and published “Seven Promises of a Promise Keeper.” Dr. Tony Evans, one of the contributors, wrote that “It is painfully apparent that America is losing its families. Current statistics, the news media, and my own pastoral counseling experience drive that point home with disturbing force. Since a culture’s only hope of survival is its families, our very existence is threatened as home after home fall victim to divorce, abandonment, abuse or neglect…I am convinced that the primary cause of this natural crisis is the feminization of the American male. When I say feminization, I am not talking about sexual preference. I’m trying to describe a misunderstanding of manhood that has produced a nation of “sissified” men who abdicate their role as spiritual pure leaders, thus forcing women to fill the vacuum….In the black community, for example, women run the show to an alarming degree. Sixty percent of black children grow up without a father in the home. By the turn of the century, that figure will climb to 70 percent. When those children are sent off to school, 83 percent of their teachers will be women. If they are fortunate enough to be involved in church activities, virtually all of their Sunday school teachers, care-givers, and other leaders will be women. And even in the white community, where more fathers are in the home, the declining influence of man is a serious problem. Presently approximately one-third of white families do not have a father in the home, and the numbers are growing at an alarming rate.”

There was a study that was done in the 1970s when a group of researchers wanted to learn how much time middle-class fathers spent playing and interacting with their small children. First, they asked a group of fathers to estimate the time spent with their one-year-old youngsters each day, and the average reply was 15 to 20 minutes. The study showed that the actual time these middle-class fathers spent with their small children averaged 37 seconds per day. 37 seconds and this was in the 1970s!!! Direct interaction was linked to 2.7 encounters daily, lasting 10 to 15 seconds each. Dr. James Dobson wrote, “Let’s compare the 37-second interchanges between fathers and small children with another statistic. The average pre-school child watches between 30 and 50 hours of television per week. What an incredible picture is painted by those two statistics. During the formative years of life, when children are so vulnerable to their experiences, they’re receiving 37 seconds a day from their fathers and 30 or more hours a week from commercial television.”

Wow!!! When I first read this I thought about the time that I had spent with my father and more so the quality time that I spend with my daughters. There is an organization for men called “Promise Keepers” and their focus is helping men become and remain men of integrity. I can tell you that for 47 years I knew a Promise Keeper. My father was a Promise Keeper! My Promise Keeper grew up in the country – not the city, but out in the country of our small town in Tennessee. He never graduated high school but went back to get his GED after we were older. My father taught me about integrity and working hard as he worked whatever job he could to provide for us. No job was beneath him if it meant putting food on the table for his family. No job was beneath him if it meant putting food on the table for his family. One of the jobs my father took on was clearing off the property of a local physician and my brothers and I often worked with him. This was my first memory of working to actually earn money. When times grew hard when he would be temporarily laid off from his job, my father would clean buildings and find other jobs to make ends meet. During those times he also worked with my grandfather building houses.