Rocking Rod Stewart sings a song to his son, in that song forever young he sings of his hopes and dreams for his boy, “
May the good Lord be with you
Down every road you roam
And may sunshine and happiness
Surround you when you're far from home
And may you grow to be proud
Dignified and true
And do unto others
As you'd have done to you
Be courageous and be brave
And in my heart you'll always stay
Forever young”
Today is Father’s day and I want to acknowledge fathers, grandfathers and men in general today. I want to recognise that while fatherhood is a natural thing it does not always come naturally to all fathers, and I’d like to take this time to discuss a piece of advice another Father passed onto his son about a building job that the son was going to be involved in and see how that might just make a difference in our current society. We live in a nation where men struggle and where Christian men are not being all that they can be. Men, God has a plan for your lives, you have a part to play in that plan moving from a plan on paper to becoming the all you can be.
But how?
Well a fine example of how to address this can be found in 1 Chronicles 28:20 and 21. This comes in the form of a great bit of Fatherly advice From King David to his boy Solomon. This advice was given about building the temple. This is it!
”David also said to Solomon his son, “Be strong and courageous, and do the work. Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord God, my God, is with you. He will not fail you or forsake you until all the work for the service of the temple of the Lord is finished. The divisions of the priests and Levites are ready for all the work on the temple of God, and every willing person skilled in any craft will help you in all the work…..”
What I would like to address in this piece of Scripture are three things that David was able to pass onto his boy. Today I’m going to address one of these statements from this piece of advice; this is part of a three part series. If you are ready to hear it and even if you’re not …here is the first bit of advice.
The first was this “Be strong and courageous, and do the work”. As a Christian men, and as a whole church community…God has a work for us to do. We live in a society where many are valued less and less. We only need to see that there is more concern for Snapper [fish] quotas than the ready availability of legal highs. We have real child poverty issues, we have some of the highest youth suicide rates in the developed world, we are 20 / 100 000 a head of the United Kingdom and many of our ancestors left there because it was a sucky place to live, this nothing to be proud of. It is obvious we have a work to do, let’s be strong and courageous and get stuck into it.
Why do you think David, this by now grey headed old codger of a King would give young Solomon the advice; “Be strong and courageous and do the work”?
Well one thing we know about David was that he had been both of these things, as a young Shepherd he out of all the Israelites had cleaned up Goliath. This was in reply David gave when Goliath demanded to know why the Israelites had sent a boy to fight him and he had just told David that he was going to be feed to the birds and wild animals.
David’s reply to the soon to be dispatched Philistine, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hands, and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head. This very day I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds and the wild animals, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give all of you into our hands.” (1 Samuel 17:45-47)
Brave words; courageous stuff, Imagine being known for speaking those words and then doing it, this young fella was the hero to a nation. David was as courageous as they came, a real bloke’s bloke. How many of us would like to be known for words like that, David put Goliath right, he even used Goliath’s own words against him, ‘your whole army will be bird and beast tucker, “the Battle is the Lord’s!” ‘
But later in his life David had somehow lost his courage, we have this picture of a bloke on his roof checking out the sights and oh what a lovely sight to behold.
This is the story: “In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king’s men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem. One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, “She is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite.” (2 Samuel11:1-3)
David this great man of courage instead of heading off to war in the season for war, the spring time had stayed home. David had sent the army off to war under the command of another bloke and was having a sleep, he definitely wasn’t doing the work kings did at that time of the year. While he was up on the roof, he spied another man’s wife in the altogether and to cut to the chase; their first son, the son born out of their first encounter died, Solomon was their second son, many lies were the result, the murder of the woman’s husband was result, Psalm 51 was the result, in this Psalm David cries out to God to have the joy of salvation restored in his life.
Here’s a question for you, are you strong and courageous?
I’m not talking about physical strength here, I’m pretty sure that David wasn’t either. Is your strength based in God, are you established in him, are you strong in God? Or is your strength attached to your accomplishments, assets, income, job, position, family history, your hobby, those things that without you might be lost. Remember the words of young David, “The Battle is the Lord’s” If your strength is not found in the Lord, the battle that is your life is not won. Make your life a battle that belongs to him and that battle is won.
Men how is your courage, again David had failed in this area, he stayed home when there was a battle to be fought, this brought him more grief than would the Highlanders [Otago’s Super 12 rugby team] losing to North Otago [3rd division team].It takes a commitment to be courageous, this takes a discussion to take on board the truth that when we commit to the Lord’s work, when our lives are the Lord’s the battle that was ours is now his and that it is won.
I leave you with this thought…in this society that we live in with all the things that we come up against that are detrimental, that are destructive of people and society…the stuff that interferes with people encountering abundant life, it is because of stuff, thoughts, ideas and actions born out of moments of weakness and discouragement. Life is a battle won when it is given to God, when people are found redeemed in Christ and made strong and courageous…when they decide to be strong and courageous in the power of the Holy Spirit. To men, Fathers and Grandfathers to the whole congregation does your battle belong to the Lord? If so you ready to do the work of the Kingdom?
