I Love You Daddy

A couple of months back, I reminisced; when years ago, our oldest son Brig was 4 or 5 years old, and I took him with me to a neighborhood park where I was meeting some friends to play basketball.

He was playing in the sand box next to the basketball court and walked over to the court and said “I love you daddy”. It was the most sincere and genuine expression of love I think I had ever heard, and the thought of it still moves me today.

There were 6 of us playing basketball ranging in ages from early to middle thirties, and almost in unison everyone stopped and were like “awe”.

This reminiscing got me to thinking, since we are made in His image according to Genesis 1:26, our Heavenly Father must love to hear us say “I love you Daddy”. He undoubtedly feels the same emotions I felt that day, when Brig said “I love you daddy”.

So, I began investigating if indeed God loves it when we say “I love you Daddy”, and what that looks like in words and action.

I also came to realize that we can’t be like the husband who, when chastised by his wife “you never tell me you love me”, replied “I told you I love when I married you, and you’ll be the first to know if anything changes!”

No, I believe we honor God by telling Him everyday “I love you Daddy”.

Just as we yearn to hear it from our loved ones, He yearns to hear it from us.

Sooo, how do we say “I love you Daddy” in our actions and words?

I am glad you asked.

Todays word is centered around Matthew 22:37

“Jesus said to them “You shall love the Lord your God, with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind”.

Before we get started, I must warn you, we are going to be covering quite a bit of ground today, so it may seem a little like scriptural gymnastics. If you are taking notes today, but sure your pen is full of ink. I might be a little bit like a hurricane with winds of 75 mph and gusts up to 110, so here we go!

We say “I love you Daddy” through:

Praise and Worship

Obedience

Surrender

Gratitude and Thanksgiving

Prayer

Love of Others

Spending time with Him

Love of His word

Putting Him first

I know that sounds like a lot to cover y’all but I assured Pastor Jeff I could get this done in the allotted two hours.

Who here ever had that teacher, who the only reason you paid attention in class, was because they might call on you during class and you didn’t want to look a fool by not knowing what was said?

Ok, I’m just sayin’ “pay attention”.

So, we are going to pull these all together in a way that I hope makes sense.

Let’s spend a few minutes with each of these.

PRAISE AND WORSHIP

Praise and worship is where it’s at y’all, and the others that I mentioned fall under praise and worship in how we say “I love you Daddy.”

Oftentimes when we hear the phrase “praise and worship”, we tend to confine that to, or relate it to, music. However, it is much more than that.

Now David wrote the handbook on Praise and Worship, when he wrote the Psalms. While I may use worship more often in todays’ message, I believe the two words are somewhat interchangeable, with subtle differences. It truly may boil down to semantics.

However, we clearly see in Psalm 138:2 that David saw a distinction in the two words when he wrote “I will worship toward your holy temple, and praise your name for your lovingkindness and your truth; for you have magnified your word above all your name.”

One meaning of praise is “to give approval of, or admiration”, while one meaning of worship is “to show reverence and adoration”.

I go through all of that, to illustrate that praise and worship is more than just music. This is not to diminish or minimize music, because many of you know that music has been an important part of my life.

We say “I love you Daddy” through praise and worship.

When we examine the first time the word “worship” is used in the bible, it is found in Genesis 22:5 and Abraham said to his young men “stay here with the donkey, the lad and I will go yonder and worship and we will come back to you.”

Now we all know where Abraham and Isaac were going, right?

Abraham was saying “I love you Daddy” by being obedient to God. We worship God by being obedient to Him.

-and just a side not to all you young ‘uns out there. You are saying “I love you” when you are obedient to God and your parents.