Why is it that on Mother’s Day we honor our mothers, we talk of saintly moms who worked their fingers to the bone to cook and clean and sew for us? But on Father’s Day we scold the dads! Why is that? Have you noticed? We honor mothers for their industry, their wisdom, their prayer life, and their welcoming presence. And that is as it should be. But then we come to Father’s Day and we scold. We urge fathers to get good jobs, mow the lawn, support the church, and be leaders. We preach at them that they ought to advance higher, earn more money, and watch fewer sports on TV. We scold on Father’s Day. I have preached my share of sermons for faltering fathers, but I am beginning to suspect that if scolding is all we are going to do, we can just keep the ties and socks and the power tools. Fathers deserve better than another shrill and scolding sermon today.
Because the problem may not be in fathers. The problem is in those of us who receive fathers’ messages. The problem is in sons and daughters who have heard what they wanted to hear and have seen what they wanted to see. The issue is not always in what our fathers taught us; the issue is in the way we absorb it. We distort their messages. Do you remember, on the old TV show, how Cliff Huxtable would try to get something across to his kids? “Get out of here and get a job!” But they always heard what they wanted to hear. One of them heard, “Get out of here” and but took off for a year to find herself, courtesy of dad’s credit card. Another got out of here but signed up for graduate school, only to come home every time the apartment refrigerator emptied. They missed the point. Dad spoke; but they didn’t get it. The issue is not necessarily in what fathers tell their children. The issue is in what we sons and daughters see and hear.
I know of one very accomplished father. He had a superstar career. This man had been compelled to go to work at the tender age of nine, but even though you would not think it possible, he showed tremendous promise at that early age. He even took on an ambitious project over the objections of many of the people around him. He was truly a productive youngster.
In the middle of that big project, however, something happened to this young man. I guess you could say he had a conversion experience. He became so sold out for God that he forced everybody around him to re-examine their spiritual lives. He pressed God’s agenda hard. The fellow wasn’t officially a preacher, but he surely did influence a lot of people, and got many of them to turn their lives around.
Why, this man got so sold out for God that he went all around to lead campaigns against immorality. He lived, you see, in a time when children were not cared for, and died at random. A time in which women ran to prostitution, and their customers were plenty. A time in which it seemed as though everything vile and negative was taking over. But this man worked tirelessly to persuade others that what they were doing was not God’s way. Most people respected him. He had a great following and a wonderful reputation with nearly everybody. Nearly everybody, but there were two significant exceptions. His sons. His two sorry sons.
You know how the Bible says that a prophet is not without honor except in his own country? A man may be a hero to others, but may not be held in high regard by his own family. Sometimes those closest see all the externals, but they really don’t understand their father’s heart. They see all that he does, but they don’t understand why he does it. Sometimes children hear, but they don’t hear; they see, but they don’t see. Sometimes they just miss the point.
And so, when this particular father’s life ended, brutally and unexpectedly, just before the age of forty, his two sons tried to imitate some of the things their father had done; but they distorted them. They didn’t get it. They missed the point. In fact, his sons were disasters, total disasters. They had heard their father’s message, but they missed the point of what their father’s life had been about.
The father I am talking about is Josiah, King of Judah in the last part of the seventh century before Christ. Josiah became king as a child, and began almost right away to rebuild the Temple. And then when workmen found the book of God’s law in the Temple, Josiah realized how far off the mark he and his people had gone. This king wept, he prayed, he cried out to God, and he let God turn him completely around. He went to work to root out child sacrifice and cult prostitution; he closed the pagan shrines and brought all worship to the Jerusalem Temple. This man Josiah turned a whole nation around spiritually.
But that same Josiah, at his untimely death at the Battle of Megiddo, left two sons, Shallum and Jehoiakim. Shallum reigned as king only three months, then Jehoiakim for a few years. These two sons had heard every message their father had spoken, but they missed it all. They simply did not get it. They missed the point of their father’s life.
So Jeremiah the prophet indicts them. His accusations are frightening. Jeremiah had no issue with what Josiah the father stood for. But Jeremiah cried out against what Josiah’s sons Shallum and Jehoiakim did with their father’s legacy. I wonder whether you and I are children who have missed the point as to what our Dads were about? Our fathers have left us a legacy. Did we get it, or did we miss the point?
I
Josiah, for one thing, tried to ground his sons in God’s word. One day the workmen repairing the Temple found the book of the Law and brought it to the young king. He saw that this was more than just another book; he took it seriously. For him God’s word was not merely an archaeological curiosity, nor an academic nicety. Josiah saw that here are profound truths to live by. Here are blessings to be cherished and sins to be avoided. And so Josiah shaped his very life around God’s word. In fact, the story has it that Josiah, in a profoundly emotional moment, got himself right with God. He really worked at obedience to the word of God.
But now when his sons Shallum and Jehoiakim saw that their father cherished the Law, how did they respond? Did they too develop a hunger for this truth? Did they too devour the pages of the word in order to glean insights for living? No, Shallum and Jehoiakim missed the point. Jeremiah tells us that when they came to power, they exploited the poor, they refused to pay living wages, they left justice totally out of their lives. They did exactly what they wanted to do, without so much as tipping their hats to God’s Law. The sons of the king who had rediscovered God’s word recognized no authority in that word.
In our generation, have we decided that serious study of the Scriptures is out of date? Have we become so worldly-wise that we think that our parents’ devotion to the Bible is but a mindless mumbo-jumbo from a bygone age? Oh, we think that, hey, we’re in the modern world now. We have TV and the Internet and iPhones. We have professors and pundits, we have movie stars in the Church of Scientology and athletes in the Nation of Islam. They don’t use the Bible, so why should we? We have today’s gurus and tomorrow’s music videos to tell us what to think. Dad, the Bible was for your day, and that’s nice. But we have something new, something hip and cool. See ya, Dad!
Shallum and Jehoiakim had seen their dad studying the Scriptures; but they missed the point. Dad wasn’t celebrating mere tradition, he was celebrating life! Dad wasn’t stuck in something antique; he had something as fresh as today’s headlines! Josiah was not just going through a religious ritual. He was finding joy! He was imbibing truth! God’s truths strengthened the king. If for you studying the Scriptures is a mere exercise in antiquity, sons and daughters, you have missed the point big time!
For in the still hours of the night, when even a king may wonder whether his people love him, Josiah read of a God who will never fail us nor forsake us. When even Judah’s sovereign may doubt whether he is doing the right thing, God’s commandments guided him. When this tired man needed comfort, he found it in the Psalms of his ancestor David. When this weary father needed an example, he found it in the stories of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. Josiah’s boys knew that their dad read the Bible; but they missed the point. For them it was the relic of another day and not living instructions for their day. How badly they missed the point!
II
Now not only did Josiah devote himself to an understanding of God’s word; but also Josiah poured his energies into the support of the Temple. With boundless energy and enthusiastic conviction, Josiah rebuilt the Jerusalem Temple. He closed the pagan shrines and brought discipline to the priesthood. For him, the house of God was vitally important. Resources and energy, thought and effort – nothing was spared to be sure that the Temple was all that it should be. Josiah was the kind of churchman who does what needs to be done, works on whatever needs working on, the kind of person who is not only here whenever the doors open, but also keeps the doors in repair so that they can be opened. King Josiah cared deeply about the place of worship.
Ah, but now Shallum and Jehoiakim, Josiah’s sons. What message did they get? What did they hear from their father’s devotion to the house of God? When dad talked church, church, church, from sunup to sundown, what did they hear? They heard, “If you get involved in this worship thing, it will soak up your time.” They heard, “If you let those Temple people get their hooks in, they will want m-o-n-e-y.” And we don’t have time for that. We are out here doing our own thing. We are going to par-tay! Church? Church is dreary, dusty, dull, and down, and who needs it?
Oh, how they missed the point. Oh, how they misinterpreted dad’s message. They saw only the time Josiah put into doing things for the Temple; they didn’t see the satisfaction he received. They only saw the tithe their father gave, and imagined the goodies they could get with that money. They never saw that their father received immense blessings, far richer than anything they could have bought. They never picked up on what really made their father tick. It was not duty; it was joy. It was not “have to”, but “want to.”
Ours is dubbed the “me” generation. We are in a time when people focus on “what’s in it for me” and therefore don’t invest as their parents did. Sons and daughters, if we don’t see that involvement in God’s work brings joy beyond words, we have missed the point. If you cannot sense the glory of it when your father put on his deacon’s suit and strode to the front of the church to serve the Lord’s Supper, with head held high and back erect, you missed the point. If you cannot remember, as I do, the sheer boyish thrill of it – I would purposely sit in the church pew right next to the aisle, so that I could turn and watch my dad march in the choir processional and use his wonderful voice to the glory of God. I felt such pride in him! If you cannot summon up memories like that, well, then, I can understand how you missed the point. But you did miss it. If you think of church life as a drain, your father meant for you to see it as a joy. If you think of church as expensive, your father meant for you to see it as an investment. If you heard the message of burden, your father intended a message of blessing. You missed the point.
Josiah gave himself to the work of the Temple because he knew that in such a place as this, wonderfully and mysteriously, the eternal comes into time, the invisible breaks into visibility, the word becomes flesh. In the church. If you don’t see that what your fathers and mothers did to build the church was not drudgery and duty, but joy and delight, you have well and truly missed the point.
III
Oh, the sons of Josiah misread his devotion to the Scriptures and preferred to ignore God’s way of life. They did not see how God’s word had blessed their father and kept him on the right path. They missed the point.
And, oh, how the sons of Josiah misread his devotion to the Temple. They had other places for their time and money, and did not see how working for the people of God brought immense fulfillment. They missed the point.
But, most of all, the sons of Josiah misunderstood their father’s work ethic, and thought that when you compete, it is for your own advancement. Shallum and Jehoiakim didn’t see that their father’s aggressive, get-it-done personality was not about trying to outdo others. It was not competition to put anybody else down. It was about setting a goal for a personal best, about pouring all that you are into something that matters for eternity.
Every now and again, someone will say to me, “You sure do work hard. You are into a lot of things.” People will tell me that they think I may be taking too much on for a septuagenarian. Well, now let me tell you a bit more about that. I have to confess to you that too much of that energy comes out of a layer of insecurity. I feed on hearing somebody say, “How hard you are working,” because I need to be needed. I am too insecure in some ways not to stay busy; I am trying to earn approval. Where did that come from? What message have I heard? Well, my father was one of those restless men who find work to do even when they are on vacation. Every year we would go to spend two weeks at his family home in northeastern Indiana, and inevitably he would rebuild stairs, mend fences, and clean out the garage for his mother. I saw all of that; I heard a message. But I translated the message as, “Stay busy, so that people will value you.” I thought the point was, “Do things so that they will appreciate you.” Do you know that I missed the point? My dad did not do these things to gain approval. It was not about proving himself. It was about doing what was needed. It was about doing the right thing. Most of all, it was about love. But I missed the point.
Josiah labored long and hard, not so that others would say, “what a hard-working king we have”, and not so that he would be considered a better king than the king in the next country. Josiah wasn’t competing. He didn’t have to prove himself to anyone. He just worked for the sheer joy of accomplishing. For King Josiah, there was joy just in seeing good things accomplished. It wasn’t about anybody else. It wasn’t about what they thought of him. It was about love. It was about devotion.
Ah, but Shallum and Jehoiakim. Again they missed the point. In one of the most devastating words anywhere in Scripture, the prophet Jeremiah frames the issue:
“[You say], ‘I will build myself a spacious house with large upper rooms,’ and cut out windows for it, paneling it with cedar and painting it with vermilion. Are you a king because you compete in cedar? Did not your father eat and drink and do justice and righteousness? Then it was well with him.”
Jeremiah gets to people like me, you see. We think we are somebody just because we have competed and worked hard. Will that make others value us? Oh, no. Not at all. That is not the right message.
The message of our fathers and our mothers, if they are in Christ, is “Do something significant. Put your life down where it will matter. Equip yourself, do your best, not for material reward, but for spiritual. Not for yourself alone, but for others.“ Don’t miss that point.
The point is not competition with the world. The point is not being professionally plush and financially flush. The point is a passion for God’s work. The point is a commitment to be our best for the living God. Be the best that you can be, not because it’s better than someone else, but because nothing else is good enough for God. “Give of your best to the master; give of the strength of your youth. Throw your soul’s fresh, glowing ardor into the battle for truth.”
Don’t miss the point. For the point is to be like Jesus. Jesus heard the Father’s messages; Jesus understood and obeyed. The point is to be like Jesus, who struggled in bitter agony, and yet who for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising its shame, and is now seated at the right hand of God. The point is to be like Jesus, who made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and became obedient, even unto death. And that’s why God has highly exalted Him and has given Him a name above every name – because Jesus heard His Father. Jesus understood His Father’s heartbeat. Jesus got the message right. Whatever you do, don’t miss that point.
