Experiencing Fathers Day
Calling all Men
Selective verses
Introduction-
Happy Father’s Day!
Wither you are a father or you are celebrating the life or the memory of your father this morning, I hope that you are having a great Father’s day.
Let me say this and may it be one of the things that you remember this morning-
If you have or had a great Father, give God praise this morning, because that is a blessing from God.
If you feel that you did not or do not have a great Father, remember that your heavenly father will never let you down.
While trying to stay in our series of holiness this morning, I want to bring a Father’s day message.
Father’s day at Rosedale can be tough because we have on a regular basis many families traveling on Father’s day.
But you are here and I want you to see this morning that your heavenly Father love comes untainted, trustworthy, and unmerited.
It is not based on your performance but on His love.
Our heavenly Father
Loves
Instructs
Provides
Protects
Encourages
Disciplines
Forgives
Cares
Blesses
It doesn’t take us long to understand why as fathers we sometime fall short of such a long list of responsibilities we have as fathers to our children.
Why as children short of abuse, dangerous circumstances, we have to be forgiving because as we are not perfect, they will never be perfect.
Where our parents fell short that we allow our heavenly Father to step in and be what our parents lacked or were not.
I will not attempt to have a nine or ten point message on Fathers, but will try to capsulate in a few minutes what we need to be as Fathers to our children or other people that God has brought into our lives and to understand that our heavenly Father is all of these things and we can trust Him with our lives and our families.
He can be what is needed and he can help us be what we need to be. Amen!
(1) A father should love his children. A godly father should also incorporate the love that God has for his family.
1 John 3:1
“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.”
Until we understand the great love and sacrifice that God the Father has for us, we could never be the person God wants us to be with our family.
Our heavenly Father did not send His Son Jesus because of our great performance but for our great need of a Savior to save this world of their sin and mistakes.
Loving others with the love of God is no easy task- God’s love is pure and it has not personal agenda attached to it.
Illustration-
Now, imagine if Christ, just before the cross, went to the garden and thought; I hate this feeling, I don’t feel like doing this, therefore I will base my decision upon what I feel. If that had happened, we’d all be hopelessly doomed. The good news of course is that Jesus resisted and fought back His feelings and even though He prayed three times to have the cup removed, He was more interested in doing the will of the Father than what He felt like doing…thankfully. Jesus displayed His love by willingly going to the cross and dying for sinners and those of us whom were still His enemies and desperately wicked (Rom 5:8, 10). We must emphasize that love is a choice more than a feeling because feelings are subjective while love is objectively displayed in actions.
The bottom line is that love is what a person chooses to do, not what a person chooses to feel. God so loved the world because He choose to love the world.
(2 )A father should instruct his children.
A godly father reads the Word of God, watches and lives the Word of God and instructs his children in the ways they should go.
John 5:19-23
Jesus own words
“I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the heavenly Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, and he will show him even greater works than these, so that he will be amazed. For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it. Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the father who sent him.”
Godly fathers teach their children the importance of a relationship with God and lives it out by being the Father wants us to be to our children and teach those that we have contact with.
Deuteronomy 11:18-21
“Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Write them on the doorframe of your houses and on your gates, so that your days and the days of your children may be many in the land the Lord swore to give your ancestors, as many as the days that the heavens are above the earth.”
Grab this-
Proverbs 4:1-
“Listen, my sons, to a father’s instruction; pay attention and gain understanding.”
Proverbs 6:20-
“My son, keep your father’s commands and do not forsake your mothers teaching.”
Proverbs 22:6-
“Train a child in the way that he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.”
Something for us as children-
Something for us as parents-
Each of us makes choices, bad choices carry consequences. This passage tells us if your children come back to their roots of teaching, though they sway away, they will be reminded of the teaching.
Illustration
As many of you know, I did not have a father growing up. I met my father one time in my life at 19 years old because my name was in the Milwaukee Journal Newspaper and I think he and I were curious of each other. We never met again after that.
I was however raised with the greatest grandparents in the world and an uncle that filled that void in my life.
My mother who raised two boys by herself filled both father and mother.
She was the discipline needed and the love expressed all rolled up into one person.
With God’s help, He will bring the people needed.
With God’s help, you can be the person that is needed.
(3) A father should provide for his children.
A godly father provides for his children.
What that means is he is not lazy when it comes to working so that his children will have what they need.
This does not mean that every new thing that comes down the pike is expected to be bought and supplied by the parents.
Our heavenly Father blesses us with needs and some wants, but promises us to supply our needs.
Illustration
I don’t know how some parents do it today. I know each generation wants to give their kids more than they had. Wow! What things cost!
Diapers were expensive 30 years ago – Now!
Go to the park and be home by the time the street lights are on-That’s what we did- now today clinics and weekends.
You older parents- you know what I am saying-
I was broke to the broke broke. I had to borrow money to pay attention.
Listen again to Jesus own words-
Matthew 7:9-11
“Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!
In our limited wisdom and knowledge, we would not purposefully give anything to harm our children.
HOW MUCH MORE WILL GOD…WHO LOVES US UNCONDITIONALLY AND WITHOUT PERSONAL AGENDA GIVE TO US THINGS THAT WILL NOT HARM US.
THE REASON HE KEEPS SOME THINGS FROM US;
HE KNOWS IT WILL HARM US.
IT MAY CAUSE US TO STUMBLE AND HINDER OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH HIM.
IT MAY KEEP US FROM BEING THE PARENTS WE NEED TO BE.
Matthew 6:31-33
“So do not worry, saying, what shall we eat? Or what shall we drink? Or what hall we wear? For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well.”
Bad choices have consequences- He can help us, but sometimes it takes time and effort and sacrifice.
The promise lay’s in the seeking the kingdom of God first- Some are wanting God’s blessing without God. I know it rains on the just and the unjust but believers not seeking god first face many trials that could have been avoided.
And the last one this morning-
(4) A father should be praying for his children.
Dad, you will only be able to take your children as far as you are-
If you are not praying for them and with them- you cannot expect them to be praying and seeking the things of God if they do not see you doing it by example.
John 17, the priestly prayer of Jesus to the Father for his children-
John 17:1-19 read from Bible and clearly and slowly
Praying is not the last thing we do as a parent, it has to be the first thing we do as parents.
Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.
Closing,
Father Day is tough for some-
Those that did not have a great father
Those that are morning the loss of a father.
For you this morning, my prayer is that my heavenly Father will be your heavenly Father and give you what your earthly father was not or cannot be now.
Loving
Instructing
Providing
Praying
I told you a week ago that you cannot stay bitter at someone that you are praying for.
You cannot be selfish if you are loving, instructing, providing for those that God has entrusted to you.
Numbers chapter 6:22 The Lord is talking to Moses-
Tell Aaron and his sons, this is how to bless the Israelites. Say to them;
The Lord bless you and keep you;
The Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you;
The Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.
Maybe you are sitting here and you say that you heard that before- it is the prayer that Pastor Susan says in some form almost every Sunday as a benediction. She is praying that God would put His blessing upon us and as we go forth that his promises would come true in our lives.
Prepare for prayer-bow your head
The Lord wants to do a work of reconciliation in the lives of fathers and children this morning.
He wants to remove bitterness and hurts and un-forgiveness which caused separation from God the Father and human fathers and children.
This morning, I am praying that the anointing of God be released into your special circumstance this morning.
If father and children are here today pray that they both hear from the Lord this morning.
If one is here, I pray that they would have the strength and courage to make this relationship right.
I pray this morning that if you are mad at God that you right where you are would make it right.
Today that you would not leave without restoring or beginning a relationship with Him.
If you have never acknowledge Jesus as Lord that you would do that by asking Him to forgive your sins, acknowledging Him as Lord now of your life, and deciding today that you will live for Him and allow him to speak to the things going on in your life.
This would make it the best Fathers Day ever! Amen.
Prayer-
