Courageous Dads

1. Father’s Day Funnies:

• A small boy said, "Father’s Day is just like Mother’s Day, only you don’t spend as much on the gift."

Some of you men say, "Gift? What gift?"

• "The World According to Dad." These are words that most dads have said at some time or another to their children.

- This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you.

- Quiet. I’m watching the ball game.

- How should I know? Ask your mother.

- I’m not made out of money!

- When I was your age I walked 5 miles to and from school each day and it was uphill both ways.

- You are going and you will have fun!

- If you break your leg don’t come running to me.

- Get down before you hurt yourself. On second thought, go ahead.

- Why? Because I said so!

- If you don’t quit that crying I will give you something to cry about.

- Just wait till you have kids of your own.

- I was not asleep. I was just resting my eyes.

2. We are going to encourage Dads to be courageous in a harsh world

3. Joshua 1.1-9

After the death of Moses the servant of the LORD, the LORD said to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses' assistant, 2 “Moses my servant is dead. Now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, into the land that I am giving to them, to the people of Israel. 3 Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you, just as I promised to Moses. 4 From the wilderness and this Lebanon as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites to the Great Sea toward the going down of the sun shall be your territory. 5 No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you. 6 Be strong and courageous, for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them. 7 Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go. 8 This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. 9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.”

4. The source for Courageous Dads in our world today is the word of God

Psalm 119.11 I have stored up your word in my heart,

that I might not sin against you.

119.105 Your word is a lamp to my feet

and a light to my path.

I. Listen to the Word of God

A. The Internal Aspect – Deuteronomy 6.4-9

4 “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

B. The Intermittent Aspect – Deuteronomy 31.9-11

9 Then Moses wrote this law and gave it to the priests, the sons of Levi, who carried the ark of the covenant of the LORD, and to all the elders of Israel. 10 And Moses commanded them, “At the end of every seven years, at the set time in the year of release, at the Feast of Booths, 11 when all Israel comes to appear before the LORD your God at the place that he will choose, you shall read this law before all Israel in their hearing.

1. Once every 7 years?

2. Daily in bite sized amounts – then put it all together, all together

II. Learn the Word of God (1.7)