Father's Day - God's Man

MELVIN M. NEWLAND, MINISTER

CENTRAL CHRISTIAN, BROWNSVILLE, TX

A. Today is Father’s Day - the day we honor our fathers & think about masculinity & manhood & all those good things. So the subject of my sermon this morning is "God’s man."

Now I realize that you can be lots of different kinds of men. You can be a "professional man" or a "lazy man" or a "woman’s man" or a "music man", or you can add almost any other kind of "man" to that list. But I suggest that if you are God’s man, then you’re a real man, even though there are a lot of people who think that if you’re a follower of Jesus you’re something less than masculine.

But I’m convinced it takes a real man to follow Him. Therefore, if you’re a real man then I hope that you’re also God’s man, & that’s our subject this morning.

B. Can you remember when men were men & women were women & you could tell the difference? Can you remember when men did the wrestling & the boxing & bragged about how much they could bench press, & women wore makeup & earrings, & we liked it that way?

ILL. I was at the mall one day & a couple walked by. Now I saw them from the back at first, & I honestly couldn’t tell which one was which. You see, he had the longer hair & had on earrings, & she didn’t.

Can you remember when men initiated the relationship & made a life long commitment & created an atmosphere of stability & security? I’m not talking about the Rambo type who walks into a room & demands respect because of power & authority & fear. I’m not talking about the Archie Bunker type who sits in his living room & barks out orders & demands respect by intimidating his wife.

I am talking about a real man - God’s man! The kind who is not ashamed of his masculinity, & is willing to be God’s man, whatever the situation might be.

C. So let’s look at 1 Thessalonians 2:7-12. This passage doesn’t really deal with family or mothers & fathers. Rather, it is Paul dealing with the church in Thessalonica.

But notice that in vs. 7 he says, "We were gentle among you, like a mother caring for her little children." Then down in vs. 11 he says, "For you know we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children."

What Paul is saying is that his ministry with the church in Thessalonica was very much like being a mother & a father to them. Think about that. We are brothers & sisters together in the church. And our relationship within the family of God is very similar to the relationship within the home.

PROP. So with that in mind, from this passage of Scripture I want us to see five characteristics that should be evident in God’s man.

I. GOD’S MAN IS LOVING

A. First of all, in vs. 8, Paul says that God’s man is loving. He says, "We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the Gospel of God but our lives as well." A real man, God’s man, is not afraid to be tender & loving.

ILL. Fathers, do you remember the first time you held your first child? Back when mine was born, fathers were considered unclean & therefore kept as far away from the baby in the hospital as possible. In fact, we were only permitted to look at our children through the nursery window. We were never allowed to touch them because we might infect them with something. So it was not until after we took them home from the hospital that we even had a chance to hold our new baby.

And do you remember how nervous the women around us were about that? I mean, they were very careful to tell us just how to hold the baby - that the head was always to be supported, & that we needed to be sure to cradle the baby’s body in our arms just right. It was kind of rare back then for a man to be seen as a loving, cuddling parent.

ILL. A preacher in Dallas went to the hospital to visit a little boy who was seriously ill. When he walked into the room he found the boy’s parents with him.

He says, "We talked for a while. They had just received some news that was not encouraging & they were deeply concerned about their little boy. You see, he had a tumor removed from his brain two days before, & they had just been told that the tumor was malignant. Long periods of treatment loomed before them & no one was sure what the end result would be.