Father's Day 2016: The Faithful Father Series

The Faithful Father

Scott Bayles, pastor

Blooming Grove Christian Church: 6/18/2005

Happy Father’s Day. Father’s Day is a day of neckties and new cologne, a day of hugs, long-distance phone calls, and Hallmark cards. But most of all it’s a day to honor dads! "Honor your father and mother." That’s how it’s written in the Bible, but I think it’s also written on our hearts. Honor means to regard with great respect, to esteem, or give recognition. The fact that God even added “honor your father” to the Ten Commandments should show us how important it is.

There are lots of things you can give your Dad on Father’s Day, but let’s not forget the most important thing. The best gift you can give your dad on Father’s Day is to honor him. That’s what we want to do here today.

Someone once said, “A father is a man who carries photographs where his money used to be.” As a dad you want to stand strong, but one look in your child’s tearful eyes melts you. As a dad you strive to be heroic, though you know there are days that you hardly deserve a medal. As a dad you hope to be wise, though a single question asked repeatedly by a six-year-old—Why?—boggles the best of minds.

A few years back Family Circle Magazine published results from a national survey of fathers. It had some revealing results: 94% feel building a family is the hardest and most important thing a man can do. 71% say fatherhood is more demanding than they expected and 88% say its more rewarding. 87% say the rewards of fatherhood trump those of career, and 89% approve of men leaving fast-track careers to spend more time with family. 90% say becoming a father made them want to be a better person and role model for their kids.

The truth is—dads are the primary role model for their kids. Children tend to follow in their father’s footsteps in many ways. So it’s important that we set the right example. This morning I want to look at a story in the Bible that I think offers a role model for fathers.

It’s a familiar parable told by Jesus. We call it the Parable of the Prodigal Son. We usualy talk about this story from the perspective of the son, hence the title—the son rebells against his father, runs away from home and eventually returns. But this morning I’d like to look at this parable from the perspective of the father.

The father in this story represents our Heavenly Father. As such, he is the perfect parent—a model of fatherhood at it’s best. As I read this story, I see four traits of this faithful father that we would do well to emulate.

First, the faithful father was a providing father.

• A PROVIDING FATHER

This father provided for his family. Jesus begins the story, saying, “A man had two sons. The younger son told his father, ‘I want my share of your estate now before you die.’ So his father agreed to divide his wealth between his sons.” (Luke 15:11-12 NLT).

Now forget the son’s self-centered, attitude of entitlement for moment. What I want you to notice is that this father had an estate. He had wealth that he intedned to leave to his children as an inheritance. As the story continues, we find out the father had flocks and herds, and even hired servants (not slaves, but paid employees living and working on his land) who had “food enough to spare.” Even his servants earned a good living and had more than they needed.

This father was providing for his family in abundance. The Bible says, “A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children” (Proverbs 13:22 ESV). By this standard, the prodigal’s father was a good man.

Fathers today ought to strive to follow in his footsteps. A father’s job is multifaceted, but one of the most important roles is that of provider. And God takes that job very seriously. In fact, the Bible says, “Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (1 Timothy 5:8 NIV). That’s serious stuff!

When God blesses you with a family, He is trusting you to take care of them, to make sure that their needs are being met. And not only that, but by providing for your family you also demonstrate the value of hardwork and you model biblical principles for handling money.

I heard a story this week about a father who kept bringing home office work just about every night. Finally his first-grader son asked why. The dad explained that he had so much work, he couldn't finish it all during the day. So the boy asked, "In that case, why don't they put you in a slower group? That’s what they do in my school."