Father’s Day Message
“A Few Good Men”
Watch on YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUjvXFQmkeE
As I was thinking about this Father’s Day message the movie, “A Few Good Men,” came to mind, or more specifically an exchange that happened in the courtroom scene between Jack Nickelson’s character, Colonel Nathan Jessup, and Tom Cruise’s character, Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee.
Kaffee: Colonel Jessep! Did you order the “code red?”
Judge: You don’t have to answer that question!
Jessep: I’ll answer the question. You want answers?
Keffee: I think I’m entitled to them.
Jessep: You want answers?
Keffee: I want the truth!
Jessep: You can’t handle the truth! You don’t want the truth because deep down in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want me on that wall – you need me on that wall. We use words like “honor,” “code,” “loyalty.” We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punch line.
While this is not a recommendation for the show, but this memorable back and forth exchange got me thinking about what it takes to be a good man, a godly man and father. Or for that matter, a good and godly parent, and grandparent.
This morning, I don’t want to talk about the topics of honor, code, and loyalty, as great as they may be, and each one can easily translate into a bible study and message. Rather, what I want to talk about is how a godly person, whether man or woman, father or mother, or grandparent is someone who leans, leads, and loves. And while I’ve tailored this message to men and fathers, it can apply to everyone.
The first thing we need to learn is how to lean.
Lean
But what or who are we to lean upon? Now, the answer isn’t hard, in fact it’s easy! It’s the Lord God, and not our own ability or knowledge.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.” (Proverbs 3:5-6 NKJV)
To lean in the Hebrew means to give ourselves support, and figuratively it speaks here of our leaning or trusting in the Lord rather than in our own understanding of whatever situation we may find ourselves in.
To be a godly man and father means that we trust in the Lord for everything in life, and, we are to live this way as an example to others, especially to our children. Do they know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we trust God? Do we show them this trust by the way we live our lives?
The answer, if you’re anything like me, is not all the time, and that’s because of the war that’s going on within our soul and spirit. It’s a war where our flesh and spirit are battling it out as to who is going to be in control, the Holy Spirit, Satan, or our flesh.
And so, if we’re to lean upon God, what should we then be leaning on Him for?
Salvation
Are we trusting in God for our salvation, or are we still trying to work it out in our own understanding and power? The Apostle Paul wants to make sure that we know that our salvation isn’t in what we know or what we do, but in the Lord and in Him only.
“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9 NKJV)
Our problem as men is that we want to work everything out by ourselves. Therefore, it’s hard for us to trust in anyone or anything else. Our problem is that we want to work our way into God’s good graces. But our salvation only comes by God’s grace through our faith in Jesus Christ. So, we need to stop leaning upon our own understanding about how it all works and start trusting in God word, will, and ways.
Strength
This isn’t one of those macho image sorts of thing, like I’m a man I can carry that 100-pound sack. Yes, we probably can, but it isn’t until later that there’s a price to pay as we lather on our backs Ben Gay, while popping some Ibuprofen into our mouths.
The Lord speaks of our need to lean upon Him for our strength in one of the most beautiful passages of how our strength fails, but God’s strength prevails.
“Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall, but those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” (Isaiah 40:30-31 NKJV)
When we wait for God, He’ll give us the strength to endure and succeed, but when we move forward on our own, then we’ll fail and fall. And our kids will be there to witness both.
Supply
As men, we’re supposed to be the breadwinners. You know, hunters and fishermen.
But in our culture today, that has been tossed out the window, as two incomes are needed just to survive. And for men we must take our ego out of the equation. If we don’t then we’ll end up depressed and irritated. The unfortunate part of this sort of thinking is that in the end we take it out on our family.
What we must understand is that it all comes from the Lord. He’s the one who gives us the ability to work at this or that profession. And so, when it comes to providing, we need to lean on God, and trust in Him instead of ourselves.
“My God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:19 NKJV)
To be those godly men, fathers, and grandfathers we need to lean upon the Lord and He’ll give us what we need to provide for our families. What we need to do is to stop taking it out on our families and start taking it to God in prayer. This is what we need to be showing our children and grandchildren.
Besides leaning or trusting in the Lord, the second characteristic of a godly man and father is their ability to lead.
Lead
To be a godly leader in our homes and community, men need to learn how to be a servant, to be a man of integrity, and be faithful.
Servant
Servant leadership is all the rage in corporate America and within the church. Unfortunately, it hasn’t made its way into the home. Instead, what we see are men who consider themselves the King of their castle, and everyone else is their vassal. It’s where the wife and children are there to serve them.
Wives are to cook and clean, while the children are to take out the trash and mow the lawn. Now most of you guys are probably saying, “In what universe?” But even in saying that, it reveals the attitude of being a ruler, not a servant.
A servant serves his family by helping to meet their needs, without sacrificing the role of being the head of the family. Being a servant leader isn’t abandoning our responsibilities of being a godly husband and father, but what it means is that we do the way Jesus tells us.
In their last dinner together, Jesus tied a towel around his waist and began to wash the disciples’ feet. He said, “Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.” (John 13:14-15 NIV)
Jesus never abdicated His headship, but was leading by example, which we see as being a servant. And not just any servant, but the lowest positioned servant within the house.
This is the first point about leading. We are to lead by serving. Next, we’re to lead through integrity.
Integrity
Integrity is where we say what we mean and mean what we say. That we can be both trusted and counted upon by those we lead.
We see this sort of integrity on the part of King David. Look how David is described.
“And David shepherded them with integrity of heart; with skillful hands he led them.” (Psalm 78:72 NIV)
It was with such an integrous heart that God commended David saying that He was a man after His own heart (Acts 13:22).
If David had a heart after God’s heart, and if David’s heart was integrous, it can then be concluded that integrity needs to be an integral part of every good and godly man, husband, father, and grandfather.
Integrity is one of those indispensable qualities, and it begins on the inside. It’s an inside job. Before we can lead others or our family, we must be able to lead ourselves.
In Jesus’s rebuke of the scribes and Pharisees, He told them to clean the inside of the cup if they wanted to make sure the outside was clean. But how can we possibly wash our insides?
We wash our insides through confession and repentance.
So, a godly man and father who leads with integrity is free from hypocrisy and is honest about who they are before a holy and righteous God. Upon seeing God, the prophet Isaiah said, “Woe is me, for I am undone. I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.” (Isaiah 6:5 NKJV)
A godly man and father is also someone who can lead by example and who openly and honestly confesses his faults, shortcomings, and sins and seeks to turn away from them.
And finally, a leader is one who is faithful.
Faithful
A godly leader is one who is faithful to their calling, and to God and His word.
King David was such a godly leader. Acts 13:36 says, “For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell asleep.” (Acts 13:36a NKJV)
David served God, and those that He led, faithfully.
The Bible gives us several examples of those who were faithful to God. For me, Abraham comes to mind. It says in Genesis 15:6, that “(Abraham) believed in the Lord, and He (God) accounted it to him for righteousness.” (Genesis 15:6 NKJV)
To be that faithful godly leader, we need to stop listening to the lies and start believing in the truth, and lead others to that same truth of God’s word.
And so, to be that godly man, father, and grandfather we need first to lean and trust in the Lord God. Only then can we lead ourselves and our families as that faithful, integrous servant.
The last characteristic of being a godly man is that of love.
Love
To be one of the few, we must be men who love both God and others, which is the Great Commandment.
And while we quote it as one, the Great Commandment actually has two parts, our need to love God and others.
“‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Matthew 22:37-39)
First, we need to love God
God
First and foremost a godly man is one that loves God above everyone and everything else. It’s where God is number one.
“‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment.” (Matthew 22:37-38)
To love God with all our heart, soul, and mind is to love the Lord with the whole of our being, with the whole of who we are.
Further, the Bible says that God is spirit, and if we’re to love God we’re to love Him in spirit and in truth (John 4:24).
But how do we love Him in spirit and in truth? It’s by doing what He says in His word.
Jesus said, “Why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46 NKJV)
The Apostle John said, “If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar.” (1 John 4:20a NKJV)
Therefore, if we are to love God we’re supposed to love others, which is exactly what Jesus gives us in the second part, and remember, Jesus said that if we love Him we’re to do those things He said.
And Jesus said we’re to love others as our way of showing God how much we love Him.
Others
“And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Matthew 22:39)
Going back to Jesus telling us that we’re to love and worship God in spirit and truth, and seeing that God is spirit, how can we show Him that we love Him? Is there some practical way this can be worked out?
And the answer is Yes! We show God how much we love Him by loving our neighbors as ourselves. This is what Jesus meant when He said that the second is like unto the first.
But what does it mean to love our neighbor as ourselves. This has brought a whole lot of condemnation to many because they’ve determined that they truly can’t love God the way they should because they can’t really love themselves.
But that’s not what it means. To love your neighbor as yourself means that we are to love others the same way we want to be loved, and the same way God has loved us.
Conclusion
And so, on this Father’s Day, to be one of few good men, as our title indicates, God calls us to lean upon Him for everything in life, letting this be an example for our children to follow.
Next, we are to be a father who leads others, including our family as that faithful servant, being faithful and leading out of integrity.
And finally, we need to be a father who loves God above all else, and we do so by loving others, especially our family the way we want to be loved, and the way God has loved us, sending His Son, Jesus Christ, to die for us so that we can live forever in Heaven with Him.
A Good, Good Father
Thinking about this song, “Good Good Father,” the title and the words, I thought about the Parable of the Prodigal Son.
The youngest son took his inheritance and left his father and lived for himself with what is described as riotous living. That is until his money ran out and he had to humble and humiliate himself by working at a pig farm feeding the pigs.
And I love what it says, “But when he came to himself.” That is, he realized that he was not right with God, and with his father. And a lot of us, that is not only where we were, but in many cases where we still are. Not so much with our own fathers, but with our heavenly Father. Therefore, we need to come to our senses, in biblical language, we need to repent, always with this in mind, He is waiting for us.
Now, the son worked up this whole story of remorse to tell his father, but guess what, when He came, the father didn’t listen to one word the son said. Instead, the father ran to him and hugged him and brought him back into the family.
Often, we think we have to, like the Prodigal Son, get ourselves right and have our act together to come back to God. But no, He accepts us, and forgives us and draws us to Himself.
You see, we have a good, good Father, and He loves us, and He will carry us in His arms in these times of heartache and brokenness. He will carry us, and catch this, He will carry us upon His breast and next to His heart where we’ll be able to hear the very heartbeat of God for our lives.
Now, saying that I am reminded a poem, “Footprints in the Sand.” It was of someone walking along a beach with God, when he saw his past life and always there was two sets of footprints, his and the Lord’s. But at a particularly hard point in his life, he only saw one set of footprints.
So, he said, “I don't understand why, when I needed you most, you would leave me.”
And the Lord responded, “I would never leave you. During your times of trial and suffering, when you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried You.”
And with that story I’m reminded of one more story, and that’s the story of Enoch. He likewise walked with God, and his life was so pleasing to the Lord that He lifted Enoch up into His arms and carried Him into heaven.
