Being A Godly Father In An Ungodly World

June 10, 2001 Gen. 5:21-24

“Being a godly father in an ungodly world”

INTRODUCTION

- celebrate Father’s Day a little early this year since I am going to be gone next Sunday

- How many of you dads remember the day that you first became a father? I don’t know what the circumstances were surrounding the delivery of your first child, but I know that it was a proud and scary moment. How many of you were in the delivery room with your wives? Things have changed a lot over the years. It used to be that husbands always waited out in the waiting room for news of what was going on with their wife and soon to be child. A group of expectant fathers were in a waiting room, while their wives were in the process of delivering babies. A nurse came in and announced to one man that his wife had just given birth to twins. "That’s quite a coincidence" he responded, "I play for the Minnesota Twins!" A few minutes later another nurse came in and announced to another man that he was the father of triplets. "That’s amazing," he exclaimed, "I work for the 3M company." At that point, a third man slipped off his chair and laid down on the floor. Somebody asked him if he was feeling ill. "No," he responded, "I happen to work for the 7-up company!"

- I am always hesitant to speak on the subject of parenting. Fear that someone will think that I think I am an expert on the subject or that I am a perfect parent. Neither of those is true. When I speak on this subject, I am speaking as a fellow traveler with you.

- It is a scary thing to bring children into today’s world. Many young couples enter into marriage questioning whether or not they will ever have kids. They have doubts about their ability to be parents. They don’t want to repeat the mistakes of their moms and dads when they were growing up. When Billy Crystal’s daughter turned 11, Billy was in New York filming a movie. He called her, apologized for his work schedule and said a package would be delivered soon. He then flew from NY to LA. Later that day when Lindsay opened the front door, a six-foot high carton greeted her and she began ripping it open on the spot. Dad was inside the carton. Billy said, "She hugged me for five minutes. It was unbelievable." He went on to say, "I missed 25 birthdays with my dad. I’m not going to let that happen with my girls." Billy was 15 when his father died of a heart attack.

- Those couples also have doubts about whether or not it would be right to bring children into a world as corrupt and evil as our own. Is it possible they ask – and we could ask this question right along with them – is it possible to bring up godly children in an ungodly world? I would answer a profound and loud “YES!!” to that question because I have seen in the pages of the Bible that it has happened over and over again. The most beneficial aid to this happening is that a child grow up with the influence of a godly parent.

- This morning, I want us to look at the life of a godly dad. His name is Enoch. The thing that made Enoch a godly parent was that every day, he walked with God. It was no easy thing for him to live a godly life. In Gen. 6:5, the Bible describes the society that existed just a short time after Enoch. It says that the thoughts of men’s hearts were evil all the time. Things had gotten so bad that it made God sorry that He had ever created man. In Matt 24:37-39, Jesus described the days of Noah – Enoch’s great grandson: As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. A happy-go-lucky kind of society where everyone can do what he desires with no thought of coming judgment. It was a pleasure-seeking, self-gratifying generation where the laws of God were a forgotten antiquity. Sounds familiar doesn’t it.

- In the middle of a crooked and perverse world like that, Enoch walked with God. And so can you, dads. So can you, moms. So can you, children. So can all of us because we have the same God that Enoch did. We can all walk with God. But that raises a question.