Father's Day 2012

Now I am not a father so I can't speak from personal experience about father-type things. I have worked in children's ministries for a few years, so I like to think that counts for something. The best example for fathers is, of course, found in scripture. I'm going a little unorthodox with what I have chosen so let's see what the Bible has to say about fathers.

The opening scripture of this sermon is Genesis 5:28-6:10 "28 When Lamech had lived 182 years, he had a son. 29 He named him Noah and said, “He will comfort us in the labor and painful toil of our hands caused by the ground the Lord has cursed. ” 30 After Noah was born, Lamech lived 595 years and had other sons and daughters. 31 Altogether, Lamech lived a total of 777 years, and then he died. 32 After Noah was 500 years old, he became the father of Shem, Ham and Japheth. 6 When human beings began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. 3 Then the Lord said, “My Spirit will not contend with humans forever, for they are mortal; their days will be a hundred and twenty years.”4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown. 5 The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. 6 The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. 7 So the Lord said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them. ” 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. 9 This is the account of Noah and his family. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God. 10 Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth."

What we see here is that Noah led by Godly example. The scripture says Noah was righteous and blameless. This is a model for how fathers need to try to lead their families, as righteous and blameless ans we can muster. This righteous living may not be easy for some people though, but that doesn't mean we don't need to try. Take my dad and late grandfather for example, they were great models of athletes for me. My grandfather was a pitcher on his highschool baseball team and my dad played basketball, football, and track and field. This being said I am not a great athlete, I'm not even a good athlete. They are still good models; I just miss the mark when it comes to doing things the same way. I don't have a fastball, I can't hit a layup, and I can't do many other athletic things, but I had good models.

Even Noah had a good model for how he lived his life. If you look at Noah's great grandfather, Enoch, you will see the model. Gen 5:22-24 “After the birth of Methuselah, Enoch lived in close fellowship with God for another 300 years, and he had other sons and daughters. 23 Enoch lived 365 years, 24 walking in close fellowship with God. Then one day he disappeared, because God took him.” Noah obviously strived to live this kind of life, since he did. If we all lived like this imagine what the next generation would have as examples! Imagine the kind of revival that would take place! If father's live like Enoch and Noah did they would not only be impacting their own kids, but they would impact everyone around them.

Some people may be living with righteousness and some people may need some work, and you may be the opposite next week. We all need help to do this and there are three places we can stay to help with this.

1. We can stay in the Word. God's word, the Bible, has everything we need to live the kind of life that we need. When we run into trouble we can turn to God's word for help.

2.We can stay on our knees. No, I don't mean literally. I mean stay in a attitude of prayer. A regular prayer time will help tremendously with helping us stay on the straight and narrow road.