Fathers: Bless Your Family
Matthew 3:16-17
Our attitudes toward our father tend to change over the years.
My Father When I Was ….
4 years old: My daddy can do anything.
5 years old: My daddy knows a whole lot.
6 years old: My dad is smarter than your dad.
8 years old: My dad doesn’t exactly know everything.
10 years old: In the olden days when my dad grew up, things
were sure different.
12 years old: Oh, well—father doesn’t know anything about
that. He is too old to remember his childhood.
14 years old: Don’t pay attention to my father. He is so old-
fashioned!
21 years old: Him? Forget it. He is hopelessly out-of-date.
25 years old: Dad knows a little bit about it, but then he should
because he has been around so long.
31 years old: Maybe we should ask dad what he thinks. After
all, he’s had a lot of experience.
35 years old: I’m not doing a single thing until I talk to dad.
40 years old: I wonder how dad would handle it. He is so wise
and has a world of experience.
50 years old: I’d given anything if dad were here so I could talk
this over with him. Too bad I didn’t appreciate how
smart he was. I could have learned a lot form him.
What day of the year are the most calls made? On Mother’s Day. On Father’s Day there are the most collect calls.
When John the Baptist baptized Jesus, God gave His blessing to the life and ministry of His Son, Jesus. “This is my son in whom I am well pleased.”
In Old Testament times the blessing of the father on his son was extremely important.
Before his death Abraham blessed his son Isaac and gave him everything he owned. Genesis 25:13 – “After Abraham’s death, God poured out rich blessings on Isaac….”
Genesis 27 Jacob with his mother’s help deceived Isaac into giving him the blessing due Esau the first born. Isaac pronounced his blessing on Jacob (Genesis 27:23).
Jacob knew the value of being blessed by God and before he faced his brother Esau after many years of separation Jacob prayed all night with an angel of the Lord. Jacob hung on in prayer and said to the angel: “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” (Gen. 32:26) The angel blessed Jacob and gave him a new name, “Israel.”
The scriptures teach that a father’s blessing makes a great difference on the life of a son or daughter getting his blessing.
# Gordon Dalbey, author of “Healing of the Masculine Soul,” tells of a Catholic Nun working in a prison. She was asked by a prisoner to get him a Mother’s Day card for his mother. She did, and the word traveled like wildfire around the prison. Deluged with requests, she called Hallmark, and the company donated huge boxes of Mother’s Day cards. The warden arranged for each inmate to draw a number, and they stood in line to get a card.
Weeks later the nun looked at the calendar and decided to call Hallmark again and ask for Father’s Day cards in order to avoid another rush. The warden announced that free cards were available. To the surprise of the Warden and Nun, not a single prisoner ever asked her for a Father’s Day card. Why? Because, the majority of the men in prison didn’t have a healthy relationship with their father.
Just as God pronounced His blessing on His Son Jesus, “this is my son in whom I am well pleased,” so Fathers need to bless their children.
Fathers just as God has blessed you; you also are to bless your children.
I Bless Your Children for who they are and not what they do.
God the Father gave His blessing on His Son at the beginning of His public ministry and not at the end. God blessed Jesus for who he was and not for what he had done.
Think of it, God blesses you for who you are. You are created in the image of God. When you accept and honor Jesus in your life you become a child of God. God’s blessing is on you as His child. You can say: “I am your son, whom You love; with me You are well pleased.” God is well pleased with you for you who are, not for anything you have done.
Ephesians 6:4 encourages fathers to provide a well-balanced and positive atmosphere for children in the home. “And now a word to you fathers. Don’t make your children angry by the way you treat them. Rather bring them up with the discipline and instruction approved by the Lord.” (NLT) The NIV translates verse 4 this way, “Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.” To “exasperate” is to “annoy, provoke, trouble, or aggravate.”
Monty Roberts in his book, The Man Who Listens to Horses, gives the story of a father and son relationship. The son could never do enough to please his father. Monty Roberts became a renowned horse whisperer who breaks horses gently. He wrote the book when he was in his 50s.
Monty’s father was a horse breaker by trade and broke horses in a very violent fashion. He tied the horses down and beat the horses into obedience.
When Monty was seven his father decided it was time for him to try his hand at breaking horses. He told Monty that horses were a dangerous machine and to break them you hurt them first or they will hurt you.
Monty didn’t want to hurt the horses so we worked with them gently and by the third day he had a saddle on one of the horses. He writes in his book:
“Wildly excited by what I had accomplished, I ran immediately to the house to tell my father. I asked him to come and watch… When he arrived he said nothing… Then moving quietly and calmly, I reached up as high as I could and slid a saddle on the horse’s back. It was for me a magical experience. At this point, I looked up at my father who was staring at me with his mouth open. I was uncertain how to read that look, but I was hoping it was astonishment and maybe pride at my accomplishing this after only three days. Slowly he stood up, still fixing me with his look that could have meant any number of things. “What the (blank the blank) am I raising?” were the first words his father uttered?”
The father grabbed a chain and beat his seven-year-old son so severely he had to be rushed to the emergency room. He continued to beat his son into submission until he was 15. The scars drove a wedge between father and son. When Monty was 55 his dying mother made one last request that father and son would come together.
Monty’s dad was now in his seventies and Monty made an effort to meet with his dad and at 55 he would still welcome his father’s blessing. Up to that point in his life Monty had broken 6,500 horses.
At the request of his dying wife Marty’s father visited an event where his son was breaking horses. The first horse come into the ring and after only 20 minutes Monty was riding the horse. At the end of the day Monty broke more horses in one day that his dad could have broken in six weeks.
At the end of the day Monty asked his dad what he thought of his achievement. His dad said, “You keep doing it that way and they’ll get you. He refused to give his son praise and his blessing.
To refuse to give your children your approval and blessing is to exasperate your children.
Fathers bless your children for who they are and not for what they do.
Fathers here are three phrases you can use to bless your children. Speak them from your heart: Let your children hear you say:
“I love you.”
“I’m proud of you.”
“You are good at ____________”
Dr. Kevin Leman, author of Making Children Mind Without Losing Yours, tells of the time he was on an airplane seated next to a man about 70 years old. After visiting together for some time, the older man asked Leman what he did for a living. So Dr. Leman tried to explain that he wrote books and spoke to people to help them improve their parenting skills. And the older man said, “Well, young man, where do you get so much wisdom on parenting at such a young age?” Dr. Leman said, “Well, I got it all from one book.”
The man got out his Palm Pilot so he could write down the name and author of the book. Kevin Leman said, “It’s the Bible, B-I-B-L-E.
Making children mind often means making hard decisions and not giving in to whiney, sobbing children. Several years ago we were visiting our son, Tim, in S. CA and baby sat the children while Tim and his wife went out on a date. Our grandson didn’t like the limitations we were putting on him. We didn’t let him have his way. He said, “If you don’t let me-------- I won’t like you. You can just go back home.” We told him in no uncertain terms that while his parents were gone we were in charge whether he liked it or not.” His liking us was not the issue, obedience was.” It’s more important that your children respect you than like you.
You can bless your children for who they are not for what they do.
II. You Bless your wife by giving her honor.
Ephesians 5:25, “And you husbands must love your wives with the same love Christ showed the church. He gave up his life for her…”
Love and Honor are demonstrated when you make your wife the priority of your life. Your wife needs to feel that she has first place on the list of things, people and activities in you life.
Honor is a choice. We get to choose how much value the people, things, and activities have in our lives.
You honor your wife when you show her respect. You are disrespectful when you make your wife the brunt of jokes
You honor your life when you understand that she looks at significant events in your family life different than you do.
# One night a wife observed her husband standing over their newborn baby’s crib. Silently she watched him. As he stood looking down at the sleeping infant, she saw on his face a mixture of emotions: disbelief, doubt, amazement, enchantment, and skepticism. He would stand back, shake his head and say, “Amazing,” while smiling from ear to ear.
Touched by his unusual display and the deep emotion it aroused, her eyes glistened as she slipped her arms around him. “A penny for your thoughts,” she whispered in his ear.
“Isn’t it amazing!” he replied. “When you take the time and really look close, how can anyone make a crib like that for only $45.99!”
You honor your wife by watching the way you talk to her and about her to others. It is one thing for you to talk in rude sarcastic and crude ways to other guys. But you cannot speak that way to your wives and expect to have a great marriage and vibrant wife. Sarcastic talk may make good TV programming but not in real life.
Public or private put downs are never in order in marriage. When you truly value someone you focus on their strengths and not on their weaknesses.
I Peter 3:7 gives good counsel to husbands and wives: “In the same way, you husbands must give honor to your wives. Treat her with understanding as you live together. She may be weaker than you are, but she is your equal partner in God’s gift of new life. If you don’t treat her as you should, your prayers will not be heard.” Just as wives are to respect their husbands, husbands are to honor their wives and treat as an equal partner in order for God to answer prayer.
Robert Lewis in the men’s study manual, The Quest for Authentic Manhood, gives three models of marriage: traditional, equality, and Biblical.
In the traditional model the husband is king, lord and head of the family. The husband has the final authority. When he says jump everyone is to jump. When he says stop you stop. When he says go everyone goes.
The equality model represents a 50-50 partnership. There is no leader and everything is done by consensus.
The Biblical model found is scripture has the husband and father being the spiritual leader in the home. He leads with love as a servant leader. Controlling leadership leads to a dysfunctional family. Servant leadership leads to harmony and unity in the home. The Biblical model has husband and wife working together for the common good of the family. In the Biblical model the husband and wife honor, respect, affirm and show consideration to one another.
Ephesians 5:31, 33 - “As the Scripture says, ‘A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one. So again I say each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.”
Husbands are ordained by God to be the spiritual leaders in the home. When they refuse to assume their God-given responsibility mothers need to step in and become the spiritual leader.
I appreciated my dad for many of his skills and adventurous spirit. He loved the outdoors and was active in sports, hunting and fishing. But he was not interested in spiritual things and did not provide spiritual leadership in the home. I thank God for a mother who was willing to assume the spiritual leadership role in our home.
Only after my mother’s death did my dad surrender his life to Christ and became a new man in Christ. Only then did my father show appreciation for me and my family.
Our experience in life clearly teaches that the relationship children have with their father is extremely important. The relationship we have with our earthly father has a tremendous impact on how we view our Heavenly Father.
God gave his blessing to His Son, Jesus and said, “This is my son in whom I am well pleased.” Every son longs to hear those same words from his father.
Many of you have had hurtful experiences with your father. Many of you have not had a caring father. Many of you have experienced a father vacuum. Many of you have not heard your father say, “This is my son in whom I am well pleased.”
I want to have a special prayer for all men and women who have missed their father’s blessing. If you would like a special prayer of blessing I invite you to stand where you are and I will pray for you.
Closing Prayer
