INTRO.- ILL.- Anne Carlson wrote: My 16-year-old brother, Ryan, was out late with friends one night. Suddenly he realized it was Father’s Day and he had neglected to buy a card for our dad. After much searching, Ryan located an open store, but was disappointed to find only two cards left on a picked-over rack. Selecting one, he brought it home and, somewhat sheepishly, presented it to our father.
Upon opening it, Dad read this message: “You’ve been like a father to me.” He looked at Ryan, puzzled. “Well, Dad,” Ryan tried to explain, “it was either that or the card that said, ‘Now that I’m a father too!’”
ILL.- Deanna Schneider wrote: Our Gen-X daughter, Cristie, made my husband a Father’s Day card entitled “Things My Dad Would Never Say.” Such as:
- “Can you turn up that music?”
- “Go ahead and take my truck. Here’s 50 bucks for gas.”
- “I LOVE your tattoo. We should both get new ones.”
- “Here, you take the remote.”
ILL.- Terri Cook wrote: Father’s Day was near when I brought my three-year-old son, Tyler, to the card store. Inside, I showed him the cards for dads and told him to pick one.
When I looked back, Tyler was picking up one card after another, opening them up and quickly shoving them back into slots, every which way. “Tyler, what are you doing?” I asked. “Haven’t you found a nice card for Daddy yet?”
“No,” he replied. “I’m looking for one with money in it.”
ILL.- Karla Kasper wrote: While flying from Denver to Kansas City, Kansas, my mother was sitting across the aisle from a woman and her eight-year-old son. Mom couldn’t help laughing as they neared their destination and she heard the mother say to the boy, “Now remember — run to Dad first, then the dog.” What would we do without dads?!
ILL.- On a serious note, Dr. James Dobson said: “The Western world stands at a great crossroads in its history. It is my opinion that our very survival as a people will depend upon the presence or absence of masculine leadership in millions of homes. I believe, with everything within me, that husbands hold the keys to the preservation of the family.”
I agree. Fathers must take their fatherhood seriously if the home is ever to survive and kids are to become decent, hard-working, responsive, and hopefully, Christian citizens!
PROP.- In this sermon, I want to appeal to fathers to please bring home the bacon, but in this sermon, the bacon is more than just bacon.
1- Please bring home the bacon
2- Please don’t beat mama
3- Please do go to church
I. PLEASE BRING HOME THE BACON
ILL.- The origin of the phrase ’bring home the bacon’ is sometimes suggested to be the story of the Dunmow Flitch. This tradition, which still continues every four years in the town of Great Dunmow, district of Essex, (England) is based on the story of a local couple who, in 1104, impressed the Prior (Monk) of Little Dunmow monastery with their marital devotion to the point that he awarded them a flitch [or a side] of bacon.
The bacon was, no doubt, a privileged gift at that time. The meaning, of course, for us today is that we’ve always thought of dad as “bringing home the bacon” or making a living for the family. And that’s what fathers in past ages did! They couldn’t do otherwise and didn’t think of doing otherwise! There were fewer “deadbeat” dads in the old days that wouldn’t work than there are now.
ILL.- Victor Borge (1909 - 2000 age 91), Danish pianist and comedian, announced at the close of a CBS television show: “I wish to thank my mother and father, who made this show possible, and my five children, who made it necessary.”
I Timothy 5:8 “If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”
What a powerful thought! If a Christian man doesn’t provide for his family then he isn’t living his faith, because even unbelievers provide for their families. In years gone by many fathers would hold down two jobs or more in order to provide for their families.
ILL.- I remember dating a girl when I was just 16 or 17 years old and her father had a factory job, but he also had an ornamental iron work job on the side. Often at night and on weekends he would build/weld and install ornamental work on homes around porches, etc. That was the trend back then.
The Christian father will provide as best he can, but this doesn’t mean he has to give his kids the best of everything or everything they want! Back when I was a kid folks didn’t go in debt for anything except for a house and maybe a car, but that was all! If you had the money you bought something. If not, you did without, but it’s not often that way today. And indebtedness can kill a marriage and a family.
We hear about a mother’s love
In story and in song,
How staunch it is through trial and storm,
How tender and strong,
How sweet and pure and beautiful;
And every word is true.
But what about a father’s love?
That claims some notice, too.
A father delves the darksome mine
And climbs the girders high
And swings upon the scaffolding
Between the earth and sky.
It’s father who bends his aching back
And bows his graying head
To bear the burdens of the day
And earn the children’s bread.
For both must work and both must plant
And do an equal share
To rear the little ones the Lord
Has trusted to their care.
All honor to the mother’s love;
The universe it fills.
But when you praise it, don’t forget
That father pays the bills.
Thank God for responsible, working fathers who bring home the bacon!
II. PLEASE DON’T BEAT MAMA
Colossians 3:19 “Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them.”
Please don’t beat mama is the idea of demonstrating love in the home. If a man loves his children he will first love his wife and treat her right. That love will be reflected to the children as well. But if a man treats his wife harshly then more than likely he will do the same with his children.
ILL.- A preacher sat in his study, busily engaged in preparing his Sunday sermon, when his little boy toddled into the room, and holding up his pinched finger, said, with an expression of suffering, “Look, dad, how I hurt it!”
The father, interrupted in the middle of a sentence, glanced hastily at him, and with the slightest tone of impatience, said, “I can’t help it, son.”
The little boy’s eyes grew bigger, and as he turned to go out, he said in a low voice, “Yes, you could; you could have said, ‘Oh!’ ”
A father should demonstrate some loving compassion for his mate and his children. He should demonstrate love for his mate by helping out around the house. Can you men cook? Can you do laundry? Can you help clean the house? Can you help with the children? Can you change diapers?
While these chores may be performed more by wives and mothers, if a mother works outside the home then a father should be willing to help out around the house.
ILL.- My daughter is a 5th grade teacher in Mechanicsville, VA. I was shocked to find out how many hours she works each week. She works nearly every night on lesson plans and on weekends. She told me she works 60 hours a week. How is a wife and a mother of three children supposed to do laundry, clean house and cook meals with a job that demanding? It’s not easy. In fact, her husband, Chris, does most of the laundry, if not all of it, and he helps with other household chores. I think he runs errands, shops, and takes the kids to their doctor appointments. He also does the dishes every day, pays the bills, makes the kids lunches each day, helps the kids with their homework each day, does the yard work, and helps clean the house. OH WOW!
I thank God for him! And I hope my daughter does too! I realize, of course, that not every father has a job that would allow him to do some of these things.
ILL.- I tried to help out when my kids were little and particularly after my son Shane had major abdominal surgery when he was only 8 days old. He was born with adhesions which the surgeon cut out easily. But the surgeon also found a piece of pancreas (he said) in Shane’s small intestines. I asked him, “How did you know this?” The surgeon said, “Well, the small intestine is pinkish in color and this was a yellow spot so I cut it out and sewed him up. Then I put his small intestines back inside on the right side of his body, sewed him up and let nature take its course.”
The surgeon said he sewed Shane together with a type of material that would absorb into his body. IT NEVER DID ABSORB or dissolve. Over a course of three and a half to four years I took 30 some stitches out of Shane’s little stomach. That’s how I showed him loving compassion. Someone had to do that dirty work, so to speak, and I volunteered to do it.
Shane would get like a boil on his little stomach and I would prick it open with a pair of tweezers. Then I would fish around and pull out a small stitch. Then I would clean him up with peroxide and eventually that sore spot would heal.
Colossians 3:19 “Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them.” And please do the same with the kids. Please love your wife and your children.
III. PLEASE DO GO TO CHURCH
Ephesians 6:4 “Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.”
If a father wants his children to be Christian then he, too, should work at being a Christian. If he wants them to go to church then he’d better go to church.
ILL.- If it had not been for a crooked groceryman, J. C. (James Cash) Penney might have become the owner of a grocery store rather than the owner of a dry goods chain and the nation’s leading merchandiser. When he was a teenager, Jim worked for a groceryman in Hamilton, Missouri. He liked the work and had plans to make a career of it.
One night he came home and proudly told his family about his “shady” employer. The grocer had a practice of mixing low quality coffee with the expensive brand and thus increasing his profit. Jim (J.C.) laughed as he told the story at the supper table.
His father didn’t see anything funny about the practice. “Tell me,” he said, “if that grocer found someone palming off an inferior article on him for the price of the best, do you think he would think they were just being shady, and laugh about it?”
Jim could see his father was disappointed in him. “I guess not,” he replied. “I guess I just didn’t think about it that way.”
Jim’s father instructed him to go to that grocer the next day and collect whatever money due him and tell the grocer he wouldn’t be working for him any longer. Jobs were not plentiful in Hamilton, MO, but Mr. Penney would rather his son be unemployed than be associated with a crooked businessman.
And J.C. Penney came that close to becoming a grocer.
That’s an interesting story which tells me J.C. Penney’s father was something of an honest and Godly man who taught his son to be the same.
What we fathers do in life does rub off on our kids. We can teach our kids good stuff or bad stuff. And often, our kids will learn from us whether we verbally teach them or not.
For example, many a kid took up smoking and drinking because their parents or their fathers did. But it’s also true that many kids may have gone to church and stayed in the church because of their parents’ example. It’s too bad, however, that we often imitate the evil easier or more quickly than the good.
Proverbs 22:6 “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.”
If parents train their children in the right direction, hopefully, when they get older they will still be going in that direction.
I think all Christian fathers should set a godly example for their children in reading the Bible in front of his children and also, praying in front of his children. I think there is absolutely something special about hearing a father pray in his children’s presence. Fathers, do your children hear you pray?
And of course, fathers should set the example of going to church. I was not blessed with a father who went to church except on special occasions. I loved my father and still do, but it’s a wonder I went into the ministry because I had no church going example from him.
Fathers, please be faithful in going to church! Please live the Christian life as best you can! You never regret being a godly example to your children but you may regret some other example that you’ve been.
CONCLUSION-------------------
Father, we bless you on this special day! We ask God’s blessing on you!
Please continue being the best father you can be: bring home the bacon. Treat mama and the kids with love. Please seek the Lord in your own personal life and hopefully, your children will follow you!
Steve Shepherd, Jonesboro Christian Church
jonesborochristianchurch@suddenlink.net
