Fathers Day Sermon
There are two stories of when the first Father’s Day was celebrated.
The earliest occurred in Fairmont, West Virginia on July 5, 1908. Grace Golden Clayton suggested to the minister of the local Methodist church that they hold services to celebrate fathers after a deadly mine explosion killed 361 men. That was a one-time event, and is thought to be the earliest celebration of its kind.
According to some accounts, the first of Fathers Days as we know them was celebrated in Washington state on June 19, 1910. A Spokane woman named Sonora Smart Dodd came up with the idea of honoring and celebrating her father while listening to a Mother’s Day sermon at church in 1909. She felt as though mothers were getting all the recognition while fathers were equally deserving.
Sonora’s father, William Smart, was a veteran of the Civil War, widowed when his wife died while giving birth to their sixth child. He went on to raise the six children by himself on their small farm in Washington.
To show her appreciation for all the hard work and love her father gave to her and her siblings, Sonora thought there should be a day to pay homage to him and other dads like him.
She suggested June 5th, the anniversary of her father’s death to be the designated day to celebrate Father’s Day, but due to some a conflict, the celebration in Spokane, Washington was deferred to the third Sunday in June.
With Fathers Day celebrations locally in several communities across the country, unofficial support to make the celebration a national holiday began almost immediately.
William Jennings Bryan, a candidate for President of the United States in 1900, was one of its staunchest proponents.
In 1924, President Calvin Coolidge recommended that Father’s Day become a national holiday. But no official action was taken.
In 1966, Lyndon B. Johnson, designated the third Sunday in June as the official day to celebrate Father’s Day through an executive order. However, it wasn’t until 1972, during the Nixon administration, that Father’s Day was officially recognized as a national holiday.
Other countries picked up on the idea of Father’s Day.
Many followed suit by celebrating it on the third Sunday in June, and some decided to honored fathers on different dates.
Today Father’s Day is celebrated all over the world.
The main characteristic of a father is love.
The father – son relationship represents one of life’s greatest mysteries – the relationship between Jesus and his heavenly Father.
John mentions the love of the heavenly father for his son several times:
John 3:35 The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand.
John 5:19-20a So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing.
John 10:15-17 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again.
Jesus most often referred to God as “My Father.”
In a similar way, it represents our relationship to the Father.
Rom 8:15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”
Gal 4:6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”
“Abba” is the Chaldean word for “father.” Whenever it occurs (Mark 14:36; Gal 4:6; and here), it has the Greek word joined to it, which we see in English, or “Father.”
The two words mean the same in 2 languages.
The Chaldean “Abba,” frequent in prayer, gradually acquired the nature of a most sacred proper name, to which the Greek-speaking Jews added the Greek word pater (pay-tyr) or “Father” from their own tongue.
In the passages we read a moment ago, Paul followed the conventional practice of the Jews of his time.
The bible uses the love that fathers naturally have for their children to point to the even greater love of the heavenly Father for his children, making the heavenly Father the model for human fathers.
Luke 11:11-13 [Jesus asks] What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; 12 or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”
What is a loving father to do if a child makes a mistake –choosing to obey, but making a mistake about what obedience is?
I found this illustration in a paper published in 1826:
Paternus says to Filius “Bring me a book;”
Filius, eager to obey his father, goes and brings him a leaf of paper.
“Why did you not obey me?” his Father says.
Filius says, “I did; I went at your command, and lo, here it is, pointing to the leaf.
“That is not a book,” says Paternus.
“I thought it was,” replied Filius.
Paternus says, “Well my son, I accept your obedience, and pardon your mistake, because it was not a willful one.”
Paternus calls another son. “Go, Junius,” says he, “and bring me a book.”
Junius goes to play at tennis.
His father, indignant, calls for him. He appears.
“Where is the book,” says he, “for which I sent you?”
“O father,” replied Junius, “I preferred a game at tennis to bringing you the book; I thought you might go for it yourself, or send somebody else, or do without it."
Paternus replies, “You are a rebel, sir, and you shall be beaten with many stripes."
This is no license to be reckless in knowing, understanding, and doing God’s will, and this story makes no attempt to justify that.
But what would you – what do you – do when a child, intending to comply with your expressed wish, makes a mistake in understanding what it is?
Do we believe we are better fathers than our heavenly father?
A bad father
Laban – Used his daughters as a means of tricking Jacob to work for him for 14 years.
What did the daughters think of that? We happen to know, because the women themselves tell us:
Genesis 31:14-15 Then Rachel and Leah answered and said to him, “Is there any portion or inheritance left to us in our father's house? 15 Are we not regarded by him as foreigners? For he has sold us, and he has indeed devoured our money.
Stories of some good – but imperfect - fathers in the bible:
1. Abraham – Hagar and Ishmael, then Isaac
God told Abraham to do as Sarah desired, and that he would make a great nation out of Ishmael.
Abraham didn’t have to micromanage the outcome God had foreordained.
Sent away by Abraham, it seemed that Abraham’s son Ishmael would be brought to nothing, and that God’s promise would fail.
But even as they were cast out of Abram's camp, Hagar and Ishmael went away under the watchful eye and directly into his everlasting arms of the living God, and was carefully attended to by the one she herself named “The Lord seeth me.”
Ishmael would live, and God’s promise would not fail.
I suggest that in obeying God and sending Hagar and Ishmael away, Abraham was doing what a good father should do.
Why? Because even though intuition would lean toward keeping his child under his own care, Abraham obeyed God in faith that the outcome was in God’s hands.
Abraham offering Isaac
Hebrews 11:17-19 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.”
Abraham considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did.
In one sense, it may seem that this episode was cruel to Isaac, who obviously was not fully informed beforehand what was going to happen.
But on the other hand, what a lesson it turned out to be before the eyes of this young man Isaac: obey God, and all will be well in the end.
2. David – good father or bad father?
Not always good and not always bad, but always loving.
Bathsheba’s baby
David grieved mightily for the baby brought about by David’s own sin with this faithful soldier’s wife, and the valiant man whose death he deliberately caused.
The baby had done no sin, yet it seems he paid the price for David’s sin.
But however terrible the week may have been for the baby, it could not have exceeded the anguish felt by Bathsheba, and by David whose sin brought death to his own newborn son.
David loved Amnon, his scurrilous son who violated his own niece, the daughter of his brother Absalom.
David loved Amnon and grieved at Amnon’s death at the hands of Absalom’s servants.
Later, David’s faithless son Absalom arranged the death of his brother Amnon, for violating Absalom’s daughter Tamar. To avoid punishment Absalom fled to his maternal grandfather in Geshur, where he remained three years. After three years, David relented and allowed Absalom to return to Jerusalem but not to come into David’s presence.
It would be two more years before David allowed Absalom to come into his presence.
Soon after the father and son were reunited, Absalom started laying plans to take the throne of Israel away from his father.
It was unsuccessful, but caused David a great amount of heartache and is the circumstance that led to many of David’s psalms.
In the end, Absalom was put to death by David’s own soldiers against David’s direct order, causing David to go into his chamber in great sorrow.
2 Samuel 18:33 says:
And the king was deeply moved and went up to the chamber over the gate and wept. And as he went, he said, “O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!”
Not everything David did was exemplary.
But it would be hard to find a father who loved his children more – even when they were guilty of terrible sins.
3. There are fathers today who want to be good fathers, but are misguided.
Perhaps in one way or another, that includes all of us.
Compare the father in the parable to a father I knew some years ago.
Troy – “If you go to Prom, don’t come home.”
Whether you allow your adolescent sons and daughters to attend Prom is your business.
How you prepare them before Prom night is the Lord’s business.
If you wait until Prom night to train your child to follow the path of righteousness in the presence of opportunities to do wrong, you waited too late.
Whether you know it or not, they have already had opportunities to take the wrong path.
Ask yourself , “When will you trust your children to put into practice what you have taught and lived before them for 17 or 18 years?”
When will you take off the training wheels and trust your children to hold fast to the principles they have learned from you?
4. The father of the Prodigal
Waited for the return of his beloved son.
What he had done was done and laid to the past.
His beloved son had come home.
Conclusion
It is truly amazing that God wants to be our father, and us to be his children.
1 John 3:1a See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God.
