How To Be A Duck Tape Dad

DUCT TAPE DADS

I. Introduction

a. Show Video

b. Pull out your Duct Tape!

i. I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again… Duct Tape Holds the World together… and in light of this video… it holds the family together too!

ii. Dad’s make special use out of Duct Tape!

1. How many of you can relate to those clips!

2. I remember the first diaper I had to change… that dern thing might as well have been a NASA space shuttle that I was trying to assemble and reassmble!

3. And let me tell you the… silencing method… I can tell already that I’m going to be putting that one to use!

c. As I thought about this Father’s Day and I thought about Duct Tape… there was a strange correlation in my little redneck mind.

d. You see… there is a sad reality happening in our world today… more and more families are breaking up… and sadly… more and more fathers are fleeing the scene!

e. What this world needs and what the church needs are some Duct Tape dads… Dads who are holding their families together!

f. How can we be Duct Tape Dads?

i. I Unashamedly tell you this today… we CANNOT do it apart from Jesus Christ!

ii. So today, here on Father’s Day, I thought that I would take this opportunity to challenge the Father’s in the room… and I can officially do that now because I ARE one!!!

g. So how can we be Duct Tape Dads?

h. I want to direct you to a dad in the Bible that probably not too many of you are real familiar with!

i. He’s a man named Elkanah… and you probably don’t know a lot about him b/c he’s actually overshadowed a bit by his wife Hannah, and his son Samuel!

i. So if you will please turn with me to I Samuel Chapter 1

j. I Samuel 1:1-8 “Now there was a certain man from Ramathaim-zophim from the hill country of Ephraim, and his name was Elkanah the son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephraimite. 2He had two wives: the name of one was Hannah and the name of the other Peninnah; and Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children. 3Now this man would go up from his city yearly to worship and to sacrifice to the LORD of hosts in Shiloh. And the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were priests to the LORD there. 4When the day came that Elkanah sacrificed, he would give portions to Peninnah his wife and to all her sons and her daughters; 5but to Hannah he would give a double portion, for he loved Hannah, but the LORD had closed her womb. 6Her rival, however, would provoke her bitterly to irritate her, because the LORD had closed her womb. 7It happened year after year, as often as she went up to the house of the LORD, she would provoke her; so she wept and would not eat. 8Then Elkanah her husband said to her, "Hannah, why do you weep and why do you not eat and why is your heart sad? Am I not better to you than ten sons?"

k. Now, some of you know the story but let me just summarize what happens after this…

i. Hannah prays to God for a child and promises to give him back to God!

ii. God opens her womb and she and Elkanah after a period of years give their son Samuel over to the priest Eli to be raised in the house of the Lord.

iii. And of course Samuel goes on to be a very famous prophet who God used in mighty ways!

l. So what can we learn from Elkanah’s example to us today? How can his example help us to be Duct Tape Dads?

II. Duct Tape Dads Model Worship for their Families!

a. “Now this man would go up from the city yearly to worship and to sacrifice to the Lord of hosts in Shiloh.”

b. They lead the way in worship

i. V. 21 – “Then the man Elkanah went up with all his household to offer to the Lord the yearly sacrifice and pay his vow.”

ii. When I ran CC at Gardner-Webb, my wrestling coach was also my CC coach… and bless his heart… he was coach b/c they just needed someone, b/c he was really a wrestling coach.

iii. Now don’t get me wrong… I loved Dick Wince… but he had no running background at all.

1. We used to make fun of him at meets b/c he would run around the course and he looked like sasqwatch loping across the fields!

iv. And he was trying his best… but he just didn’t know how to train distance runners.