Father’s Day 2020
Scripture: Job 1:1, 5; Hebrews 11:7; Romans 12:1-2; Matthew 24:37-39
In reference to Solomon, David’s son, God said, “I will be his father, and he shall be My son. If he commits iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men: But My mercy shall not depart away from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away before you.” (2 Samuel 7:14-15) God made a promise to David that He would never remove His mercy from Solomon as He had from Saul. God was the first Promise Keeper and even when Solomon did sin, God kept His promise that He had made to David.
Happy Father’s Day to all the fathers!!! Last month I had the opportunity to speak about my mother and the role she played in my life and the lives of my siblings. In that message I also spoke briefly about the role she also played in my father’s life. This morning I want to speak to all the fathers; to the young men who will one day become a father; and to the young women who will one day choose to marry a man who will become the father of her children; and to all the mothers who are raising men to become fathers. I want to also speak to all the men who are acting as fathers in the lives of a young child. While those children may not be your child by blood, you are the father figure that is impacting their lives. So, if you are a father; raising a son to be a father; a father figure; a father to be one day; or have the hope of marrying a man who can be a good father, I am speaking directly to you.
Twenty-six years ago, in 1994, several authors got together and published “Seven Promises of a Promise Keeper.” Dr. Tony Evans, one of the contributors, wrote that “It is painfully apparent that America is losing its families. Current statistics, the news media, and my own pastoral counseling experience drive that point home with disturbing force. Since a culture’s only hope of survival is its families, our very existence is threatened as home after home fall victim to divorce, abandonment, abuse or neglect…I am convinced that the primary cause of this natural crisis is the feminization of the American male. When I say feminization, I am not talking about sexual preference. I’m trying to describe a misunderstanding of manhood that has produced a nation of “sissified” men who abdicate their role as spiritual pure leaders, thus forcing women to fill the vacuum….In the black community, for example, women run the show to an alarming degree. Sixty percent of black children grow up without a father in the home. By the turn of the century, that figure will climb to 70 percent. When those children are sent off to school, 83 percent of their teachers will be women. If they are fortunate enough to be involved in church activities, virtually all of their Sunday school teachers, care-givers, and other leaders will be women. And even in the white community, where more fathers are in the home, the declining influence of man is a serious problem. Presently approximately one-third of white families do not have a father in the home, and the numbers are growing at an alarming rate.”
There was a study that was done in the 1970s when a group of researchers wanted to learn how much time middle-class fathers spent playing and interacting with their small children. First, they asked a group of fathers to estimate the time spent with their one-year-old youngsters each day, and the average reply was 15 to 20 minutes. The study showed that the actual time these middle-class fathers spent with their small children averaged 37 seconds per day. 37 seconds and this was in the 1970s!!! Direct interaction was linked to 2.7 encounters daily, lasting 10 to 15 seconds each. Dr. James Dobson wrote, “Let’s compare the 37-second interchanges between fathers and small children with another statistic. The average pre-school child watches between 30 and 50 hours of television per week. What an incredible picture is painted by those two statistics. During the formative years of life, when children are so vulnerable to their experiences, they’re receiving 37 seconds a day from their fathers and 30 or more hours a week from commercial television.”
Wow!!! When I first read this I thought about the time that I had spent with my father and more so the quality time that I spend with my daughters. There is an organization for men called “Promise Keepers” and their focus is helping men become and remain men of integrity. I can tell you that for 47 years I knew a Promise Keeper. My father was a Promise Keeper! My Promise Keeper grew up in the country – not the city, but out in the country of our small town in Tennessee. He never graduated high school but went back to get his GED after we were older. My father taught me about integrity and working hard as he worked whatever job he could to provide for us. No job was beneath him if it meant putting food on the table for his family. No job was beneath him if it meant putting food on the table for his family. One of the jobs my father took on was clearing off the property of a local physician and my brothers and I often worked with him. This was my first memory of working to actually earn money. When times grew hard when he would be temporarily laid off from his job, my father would clean buildings and find other jobs to make ends meet. During those times he also worked with my grandfather building houses.
When my father started working at the General Electric plant things improved for him and his family. After working there a while I noticed that he had developed a rash. I learned later that he was having a skin reaction to some of the chemicals he had to work with. While some men would quit a job that caused them physical pain, my father suffered through it for years because he had a promise to keep – he had to take care of his family. When my mother died suddenly at the age of 48, I witnessed my father grieve for her. It was during those first weeks that I understood how much he loved her. One morning a few weeks after she had passed, God pressed upon me to call my father. Normally I would call him only on the weekend because long distance telephone calls in 1986 were expensive. Because this urge came in the middle of the week I was thinking about waiting until the weekend – but I am so glad I didn’t wait. You see, it was on that day that my father shared with me that he was thinking about ending his life and joining my mother. I never expected to hear that from him. I was twenty-five at the time and the only thing I could tell him was to hold on, that my mother wanted him to live. Following that phone call I checked in more frequently. My father was not perfect man but he was a Promise Keeper – he kept his promise to his family. After my mom died he fulfilled both roles as best he could for us. He stepped up in a way that surprised me.
I remember once that Nikki was in the hospital and I called him to tell him about it. I was scared and he sensed it. We lived 6 hours away in another state but that next day my father was at the hospital with me. That is who he was – I did not ask him to come, he just took off work and showed up. What is even more important is that all of his grandchildren and great-grandchildren who knew him before he died will affirm that he was a Promise Keeper. It’s a testimony when your grand and great-grandchildren know that you are a man of integrity, a Promise Keeper. It’s funny that my father told each of them that they were his favorite and they all believed him. As his children, even when we disappointed him, he remained firm in his belief in us. My father was a Promise Keeper and I want to encourage all the fathers and fathers to be to be the same.
Remember the statistic about men spending 37 seconds per day with their child? Even when my father was working hard at several jobs he found time to play with us. Men if you really want to see the heart of that special woman in your life truly shift towards you, treat your children right! Spend quality time with them! Do not look upon your children as your wife’s responsibility! Your child needs quality time with you – play time and teaching time. There were times when my father was tired and we needed to give him space, but when he was engaged with us, he was focused on us. As I said during my Mother’s Day message, my father actually enjoyed spending time with us and he always let us know that we were important to him, not by telling us, but by showing us. We witnessed him working hard and being a part of our life. This is the example that I saw and one that I tried to emulate. I will tell you that I was not always as successful at spending quality time with my kids as I wanted, but there were times when I actually got it right and I got it right because of my father. Just as my father made sure we were in Church (he attended Church faithfully until his health started to decline) I did the same with my daughters. We need to understand that one of the greatest demonic deceptions in the Church today is that children will grow up to be devout Christians if their parents are devout Christians or that they will become Christians without their parent’s influence. Yes there are times when a person can get saved and ultimately lead their parents to Christ, but this is the exception not the rule. In most cases when the parents are not saved or live in a back-slidden state (they were baptized as children but do not attend Church or practice their faith as adults) the children will often grow up not attending Church. This is a change that we as fathers can impact.
This morning I want to share with you three commitments that a father should give his children and then be a promise keeper in fulfilling them. These three commitments are seen in Job. I want to read two verses from Job chapter one. Job 1:1, 5 says, “There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was blameless and upright, and one that feared God, and turned away from evil…..And it was so, when the days of their feasting were finished, that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all: for Job said, ‘It may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually.’”
1. A Commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ. Making a commitment to Jesus Christ is more than just accepting Him as our Lord and Savior. Making a commitment to Jesus Christ is a deliberate decision to change how we walk towards Him and how we interact with Him. How we worship and serve Christ impacts everything we do. It gives us strength; it becomes our foundation for living; it provides stability to our family relationships; and it makes us more trustworthy and steadfast in our relationships outside of our families. How we choose to demonstrate our commitment to Christ is the one decision that imparts into our children a sense of security, trust and a real understanding of what it means to serve a God by FAITH. I want you to see something as you think about your commitment to worship God. When God called Abraham He called him to a faith-filled worship. What do I mean by that? Abraham’s relationship with God was based on faith. Abraham worshipped God by faith. When God promised Abraham that he would be a father of many Abraham believed God through faith because his body was dead. Abraham, without any proof other than God’s spoken promise to him, came into agreement with God and worshipped Him. And we all know that God is a promise keeper!
God has reached out to have a relationship with man from the beginning, ultimately sending His Son to die on our behalf. How we acknowledge this and the commitment we make to truly serve and worship Christ will become our lifestyle. As a husband and a father, I believe we have to lead when it comes to demonstrating worship in our families. This is a role we don’t hear about because it’s not taught in the Church and that’s why, in many families, that responsibility is carried by the the woman. New Light that was not God’s original design. I believe that Paul captured God’s expectations of us in Romans 12:1-2 when he wrote, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” If we as fathers do this, families will change! Our children will change! Our societies will change! Our world will change! So fathers, our first commitment is to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
2. A Commitment to Prayer. Our second commitment is to prayer. God wants fathers to set the tone for how important prayer is in their families. We are to pray for ourselves, our wives, our children, our church and our world. And we are to do it, as much as possible, as a family. When it comes to helping our children understand why we are committed to praying, what’s important is what they see us doing rather than our telling them what they should do. Fathers never forget that your children are watching you. More times than not, they will do what you do. Scripture is filled with instructions and patterns for why prayer and spending time with God is profitable for us. I cannot tell you the impact of seeing my father pray. All of our meals were opened with a prayer of thanks. Sometimes the words were the same, but it was the fact that prayer opened our meals. Job was a great example of this as he consistently prayed for his children. We should be men of prayer – fathers of prayer. John wrote, “And this is the confidence that we have in Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we desired of Him.” (1 John 5:14-15) Also, in Second Chronicles the seventh chapter, the following is recorded, “If My people, who are called by My name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” (2 Chronicles 7:14) Fathers must make a commitment to being men of prayer! There are few things more powerful than a father standing in the gap for his children and praying to his Heavenly Father on their behalf.
3. Commitment to being a man of Godly character. The third commitment that fathers must make is to live a life that’s Godly. Now you may be wondering how is it possible to make a commitment to Christ, be men of prayer and not have a Godly character. This can happen if we choose not to do what Paul said in Romans chapter twelve. Remember he said we must renew our minds? There are many fathers who go to Church religiously; pray daily, and are still living a life of sin. In some Churches this is expected because people are taught that we are all sinners saved by grace. This is why we have Church leaders living a lifestyle that the Bible says will send a person to hell. But if you believe you can do whatever you want after you have been saved and there is no repercussion for your continued sin then yes, your character will not reflect God’s character. And, those who don’t repent could die and spend an eternity in the lake of fire. Remember when Jesus said “If you’ve seen me you’ve seen the Father?” So fathers, in all that you do and say, let this be said about you: when you see me, you see Jesus. Again, look at the story of Job. Job 1:1 said of him that he was “….blameless and upright, and one that feared God, and turned away from evil.” If we as fathers do this, we will walk as Godly men.
Fathers, men, we must recognize that we are being watched. We are being watched not only by our own children, but by all children that we come into contact with. We are also being watched by our neighbors, our friends, coworkers, but more importantly, all the members of our family. When we make a total commitment to Christ, it cannot be hidden. That commitment can be a testament for others to evaluate their individual walk and just might encourage them to do better.
So fathers, what are you doing for your children? Are you introducing them to God through your faith walk or are you introducing them to the world? When we show them our commitment to walk with Christ; to be men of prayer; and to be Godly, it will act as an ark of shelter for our family in these last days. Our children need to see our example in order to choose to come under the love and protection found in a true relationship with Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Are you providing them with an ark of safety? A Godly father must have an unwavering commitment to Jesus. A Godly father must be committed to a lifestyle of prayer and thankfulness for God’s goodness and mercy. And finally, a Godly father must live a life that is Godly. When people interact with him, they will know that he is, like King David, a man after God’s own heart. I saw this in my father. I pray that my girls and each of you see these in me. And I pray that your children will see them in you.
I want to close with what was recorded in Malachi 4:5-6. It reads, “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.” While this prophecy has not been fulfilled yet, that day is coming. Fathers we can help usher in that day in our families today if we become promise keepers.
God bless and happy Father’s Day!
Until next time, “The Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up His countenance on you and give you peace.” (Numbers 6:24-26)
(If you are ever in the Kansas City, KS area, please come and worship with us at New Light Christian Fellowship, 15 N. 14th Street, Kansas City, KS 66102. Our service Sunday worship starts at 9 a.m. and Thursday night Bible study at 7 p.m. Also, for use of our social media, you can find us at newlightchristianfellowship on FB. To get our live stream services, please make sure you “like” and turn on notifications for our page so you can be notified when we are live streaming. We also have a church website and New Light Christian Fellowship YouTube channel for more of our content. We are developing more social media streams so please stand by and we will notify you once those channels are up and running. We look forward to you worshipping with us. May God bless and keep you.)
