OPENING ILLUSTRATION: Play the video “They will never stop looking at you.”
INTRODUCTION: FATHERLESSNESS: All children have a father, but not all children have a father in their life.
An estimated 24.7 million children (33%) live absent their biological father. According to 72.2 % of the U.S. population, fatherlessness is the most significant family or social problem facing America.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, children from fatherless homes account for:
63% of youth suicides
90% of youth runaways
71% of all high school dropouts
70% of youth in juvenile detentions
85% of men incarcerated
Our modern society rejects the reality that fathers are the natural head of the household. After decades of telling men their strong moral compass was toxic and needed to be destroyed, we created a nation of absentee dads. You’ve heard about the crisis of fatherlessness and the negative consequences for children and for our society. Even if you are an involved dad, until we are successful, your children and grandchildren will be growing up in a culture of absent fathers and unfathered children. They will be affected!
God is very serious about “Fatherlessness.” The last 2 verses of the OT in Malachi 4:5-6 He says, “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet Before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD. And he will turn The hearts of the fathers to the children, And the hearts of the children to their fathers, Lest I come and strike the earth with a curse." God calls fatherlessness a curse. However, in Luke 1:17 “He will also go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, 'to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,' and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord." We see John the Baptist had to bring the fathers to the children and the unrighteous to the righteous to prepare the way for Christ’s first coming and ministry.
Till we do not solve the problem of “Fatherlessness” in our nation, we will not be able to solve any other problems. We will just put band-aids and superficially cover up things. The root issue is the curse of fatherlessness. This cannot be solved till we encounter God as a Father in our lives.
WHAT MAKES GODLY FATHERS?
It’s a challenge and a joy to be a father. It doesn’t always mean you have to procreate in order to be a father. Paul speaks a lot of spiritual fatherhood. Paul wrote to the Corinthians that you may have 10,000 teachers but not many fathers. Then he says I have become a father to you. I don’t know how you may remember your father. You may have fond memories and several of us may not have good memories. Let’s see through today’s text what makes godly fathers?
1. LIVE TRANSPARENT LIVES (v. 10)
Paul says that we witnessed what kind of life fathers live. What they say, what they liked, where they looked, how they acted and reacted and so on. Did they walk the talk? Integrity!
(i) DEVOTEDLY (pure, holy, sanctified, sacred): When you don’t walk the talk, you just don’t have a message. Kids see your mask and they will eventually see the man behind the mask. You either lead your family to God or further away from God. I wonder what kids are seeing. Do they see a father chasing God or golf ball? Football more than fellowship? Today the generation that is being raised in church leaves the church by the time they come to college. It has become part of the norm in culture. If God is not important to dad, why should He be important to me? Fathers let us set the precedence. Let us live devotedly!
(ii) JUSTLY (fairly): Are you fair to all your kids? Or there are favorites? You can treat a child one way today and another way the next day in a similar situation. The child can see the inconsistencies. It messes them up. Two sociologists from Harvard stated that to avoid delinquency in kids, one must be fair, firm and consistent in discipline with them.
(iii) BLAMELESSLY (not perfect): doesn’t mean without charge … however, you may be charged but it won’t stick. 20 million kids go to bed fatherless daily in our culture. There was a show on British TV (Men Acting Badly) – there is only one solution to it that other me behave godly. It will negate the entire concept. Let us raise in this generation men who will be godly fathers. A boy may love his mother but follow his father. So, dads where are you leading your kids?
2. SPEAK WHOLESOME WORDS (v. 11)
(i) EXHORTED (encourage): Kids today are easily discouraged. Your body language, usage of words and phrases, they quickly lose hope … especially when they are always told what is wrong with them. And what they could do better for the mark you have set for them rather than what is right with them. Proverbs 15:1 “A soft answer turns away wrath, But a harsh word stirs up anger.”
(ii) COMFORTED: Ephesians 6:4 says, “And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.” This is the only teaching to the parents you will see in the NT. Don’t irritate your kids or come hard on them. Dads you got a tough side, now show your tender side. If you don’t have it, develop it. You can show that you are tough and tender and firm and sensitive at the same time.
(iii) CHARGED: It's important to testify of your experience. Kids don’t like to hear when you say, “When I was a boy …” Kids will easily complete your monologue, but they need to hear it even if they don’t want to … as they have already heard it from you several times. The reason they need to hear it because you have walked the road longer and you know where the ruts are in the road. And you can help them NOT to fall into the potholes and get hurt. You testify of your own mistakes and what you learned along the way. Sometimes dads’ question “what am I going to teach them?” Dads when we stand before God, we will be questioned for our families and kids as we are responsible for them. In your spare time try to read Proverbs and go especially to the first 2 chapters where you see a father instructing his kids … my son, my son, my son and so on. He gives practical instructions on how to honor God, how to fear God, how to pick good friends, how to be financially responsible, how to stay morally pure etc.
Many of you are wondering why I make such a big deal about dads. Because much of the responsibility lies on the shoulders of dads. That’s why!
(a) Kids view of God depends on the view/relationship they have with their earthly father. The Lord’s prayer is a perfect example when Jesus teaches His disciples. Word association will either enhance or taint the view of their heavenly Father.
(b) Dads your daughters will eventually marry someday. You must set the standards through your lifestyle for that man to be … Show them the standards the man they must marry.
(c) Dads your sons will marry some lady someday and you must exemplify before them on how to treat that woman by treating their mother. Dads it is much easier to build a boy than repair a man.
3. WITNESS REWARDING RESULTS (v. 12)
This is a godly father’s goal. Dads would like to see their kids saved and walking with God. Dads would love to see their kids get into the best schools, best team, get accolades … we want to see our kids living lives pleasing to God. Years from now it won’t matter whether your kid got into the best college, team or even climbed Mt. Everest. What will matter is verse 12 (read).
If your kid watched you to be violent, how do you think your kid will turn out. There is a sad confession of a father I want to share: “I took my children to school but not to church. I taught them to drink but not of the living water. I enrolled them in Little League but in Sunday School. I showed them how to fish but not to be fishers of men. I made the Lord’s Day a holiday instead of a holy day. I failed miserably.”
Dads, please share the gospel with your kids. They are not too young to hear it. The adults’ counterparts need the same thing we all need. We are sinners separated from God at birth and need His salvation and Jesus paid it all. Teaching them through your lifestyle to live for God in a sinful world. They need to know and learn how to navigate living for Jesus daily. A dad is a partner with God in making disciples of his children. The greatest characteristics of God to me is that He is a Father. He is our everlasting Father. He is a father to the fatherless. Jesus taught us how to pray to our Father in the ‘Lord’s Prayer’ … Our Father who art in heaven …
Dads the best gift you can give to your kids and grandkids is “A Life Well Live.”
APPLICATION:
Dads it’s time to raise young men as fathers in a fatherless nation.
Exemplify to be godly dads by living transparent lives.
Speak encouraging words to our children.
Eventually witnessing rewarding results.
Let’s honor our fathers at “The Well.” Pray for broken relationships with fathers … and restoration of these relationships.
