Father’s Day
Hear O (American Men)!
Deuteronomy 6:1-9; 5:7-21
June 17, 2001
Intro:
[Are Fathers Necessary?, Citation: Charles Colson, How Now Shall We Live (Tyndale, 1999)]
In How Now Shall We Live, Chuck Colson notes the disturbing realities that plague children who grow up without a father:
Children in single-parent families are five times more likely to be poor, and half the single mothers in the United States live below the poverty line.
Children of divorce suffer intense grief, which often lasts for many years.
Even as young adults, they are nearly twice as likely to require psychological help.
Children from disrupted families have more academic and behavioral problems at school and are nearly twice as likely to drop out of high school.
Girls in single-parent homes are at a much greater risk for precocious sexuality and are two and a half times more likely to have a child out of wedlock.
Crime and substance abuse are strongly linked to fatherless households.
Statistics show that 60 percent of rapists grew up in fatherless homes, as did 72 percent of adolescent murderers, and 70 percent of all long-term prison inmates.
In fact, most of the social pathologies disrupting American life today can be traced to fatherlessness.
B. Deuteronomy 6:1-2, These are the commands, decrees and laws the LORD your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, 2 so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the LORD your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life.
1. Moses told the Israelites that they should be careful to obey the commands of God after they cross over the Jordan and take up residence in the Promised Land.
2. Moses said that the children should be taught to obey God’s commands as well.
C. Deuteronomy 6:3 Hear, O Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the LORD, the God of your fathers, promised you.
1. Moses calls them to attention: "Hear, O Israel."
2. Today I would say, "Hear, O American men and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land that is richly blessed!"
3. What Moses is about to say, every man in America needs to hear!
4. Every woman in America needs to listen up.
5. God is going to say some very important things through Moses that all of Israel needed to hear and all of America needs to hear.
6. Whether your a parent or a grand-parent or a great, grand-parent, a coach, a youth leader, a scout leader, or a next door neighbor, you have some children that you can influence.
7. But the Bible especially speaks of dads as being the primary person responsible for child-rearing.
8. The Bible says that the Dad is the head of the household.
9. And Satan has certainly done his best to convince men that spiritual training should be left to the mothers, and children have grown up thinking that religion is for women and children.
10. And if I could only fix one thing in America it would be to restore the Bible’s role of the Father in the home and that would go 98% of the way in fixing the problems that America has today.
11. I believe that if men would be dads and men would be husbands the way the Bible teaches, America would be in a lot better shape!
12. So on this Father’s Day I want to say, "Hear O American Men!"
13. First Moses says…
I. Be sold out to God ourselves!
Deuteronomy 6:4-6, Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts.
A. Now, one might be inclined to think that if God wanted to teach us how to raise upright children, he would start out with some practical, how-to information.
1. But no, God (through Moses) first said that we should love the Lord our God OURSELVES with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our strength.
2. Now why do you suppose that is the place that God says to start in child rearing?
3. Let me ask you this: How many things do you actually remember your father saying and how many things do you remember him doing?
4. Did your father teach you more by what he said or by what he did?
5. You see the things we say, don’t tell as much about as the things we tend to do.
6. And we could tell our kids all about God and the Bible and if our life doesn’t match our teaching or if we really don’t believe what we teach, our kids are going to figure that out, aren’t they?
7. Moses said in verse 6 that these commands must first be in our own hearts.
8. How can we truly impart to our children what is not truly in our own heart?
9. So God says that in order to raise up Godly children, we must first be sold out to God ourselves!
B. Do we really love the Lord with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our strength?
1. You might be able to fool your neighbors or your co-workers or church members, but you won’t be able to fool your wife and kids!
2. Are you sold out to God yourself?
3. Is God your first priority?
4. Your children need to see that in you!
5. Your children need to see you love the Lord with all your and with all your soul and with all your strength!
6. And then, and only then can we hear Moses’ next words…
II. Impress them on our children!
Deuteronomy 6:7-9, Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.
A. Once we have God’s commands in our own hearts, we are then to pass them on to our children.
1. Once we believe, understand, and live the commands of God, only then can we begin to train our children in the way they should go.
2. Once we have God’s commands in our own hearts, then we can begin to impress them upon our children.
B. Now I want you to notice that God does not say to take them to church so that they can learn the ways of God.
1. No, God says talk about them when you sit at home!
2. The primary responsibility for the spiritual training of children is in the home, by the parents.
3. Taking children to church is a good thing, but it does not replace the parents as the primary teachers of the children.
4. When I was a youth minister, I told the parents that I could only reinforce the Biblical teaching they were doing at home.
5. I had parents that I felt were bringing their teenage children to me for youth groups and in effect telling me that they wanted me to do for their children in one hour on Sunday night what they hadn’t done in the previous 13 years at home.
6. The church can only reinforce what the parents do at home.
7. Of course, if we get children in the church whose parents don’t teach what needs to be taught, we still need to do all that we can and pray for miracles in their lives.
C. But God says that parents need to teach their kids themselves at home, and lest we get our focus on someone else for too long, we need to seriously ask ourselves how much do we do what God says to do here.
1. God says that we are to impress His commands upon our children.
2. And notice God doesn’t just say to talk about them, He says to impress them on our children.
3. That certainly includes talking, which He does say in the following verses.
4. But it clearly means more than just talking; it also involves modeling.
5. We are to impress His commands on our children by modeling them and talking about them with our children.
6. How often do we sit down with our children and say, "Do you know the Biblical reason why we give our tithe to the church each Sunday?"
7. "Do you know why we don’t allow our daughters to wear revealing clothing?"
8. "Do you know why we don’t allow our sons to wear clothes that show their underwear?"
9. Do we sit down and show our children what the Bible says and then discuss the reasons that we do or don’t do particular things?
10. Are we living out and explaining to our children the ways of God?
11. Are we impressing the ways of God upon our children?
12. Do we talk about God when we sit at home or does the TV keep us from doing that?
13. Do we talk about God when we are driving down the road or does the radio keep us from doing that?
14. Do we talk about God before we go to be or did we stay up too late to have time for that?
15. Do we talk about God when we get up or did we sleep in too long to have time to do it then?
16. Do we have those kinds of things around the house that remind us of the Scriptures or do our dust collectors only collect dust?
17. Do we write the Scriptures on our walls or perhaps the refrigerator?
18. Are we impressing God’s commands on our children the way God has told us to?
D. And again, men, I want to remind you that you are the head of the household.
1. You need to take the lead in these things.
2. Men need to get the commands of God in their own hearts and then impress them on their children.
3. Men are the God-ordained leaders in the household.
4. Men are primarily responsible for impressing these things on our children.
Transition: So now that we have studied what God has said about being sold out to God ourselves and impressing these things on our children, an obvious question is what exactly are we to put in our own hearts and pass on to our children.
III. Pass on our values!
1. What are our values?
2. Well the easy answer is to say that our values are what the Bible teaches.
3. But today I want summarize 10 values for us that are in the context of our story in Deuteronomy this morning.
4. I told you that the Israelites are about to cross over the Jordan and enter the Promised Land and that Moses is encouraging the people to continue to observe God’s commands and pass them on to their children after they enter the Promised Land.
5. And the specific commands that he is referring to are in chapter 5.
6. This was their second hearing of these commandments.
7. The reason that they are hearing them a second time is because the first time was almost 40 years prior.
8. Nearly 40 years prior to this story, Moses had gone up on Mt. Sinai to receive the 10 Commandments.
9. But since then most of the adults have died, and the new generation didn’t know the commands of God because the older generation had not passed them down.
10. So Moses is re-reading them to them just prior to their occupation of the Promised Land.
11. When Moses said in Deuteronomy 6:6-7, "These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children." he was referring to these commands that he had just read to them in chapter 5.
12. So the things that God was saying to have in our hearts and impress on our children are the 10 Commandments.
13. So I want to give you 10 values that we need to have upon our own hearts first.
14. I want to give you 10 values that we need to impress upon the younger generations.
#1 Impress upon them the value of putting God first.
Deuteronomy 5:7, "You shall have no other gods before me.
1. We need to impress upon our children that there is no other God.
2. We need to impress upon our children that in order for God to be the most important thing in our lives He must be the most important in how we spend our time, how we spend our talents, and how we spend our money.
3. If there are things that that we are spending more time, energy, or money on than God, then we have other gods before God.
4. Jesus said in Matthew 6:33, But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
5. We need to impress upon our children the value of putting God first.
#2 Impress upon them the value of accepting God as He is.
Deuteronomy 5:8-10, "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 9 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 10 but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.
1. This means that you can have the right God, but misunderstand Him; you have the right God, but the wrong image of Him.
2. Paul spoke of people in 2 Timothy 3:5, having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them.
3. God wants us to accept Him for who He is.
4. Not a watered down version of Him that many people have, but who He really is.
5. For example, many people just go to church, just to go to church.
6. Right God, wrong image.
7. Many people think there is a God who is just there to get them through the rough times—right God, wrong image.
8. Too many children see their parents’ relationship with God as being just that – a magic fairy to call on only in times of trouble.
9. Do our kids see our relationship with God no matter what the circumstances or just during the bad times?
10. Many people want God to be all loving all the time and want to overlook the wrath of God—right God, wrong image.
11. Do we impress upon our children the love, the holiness, and the wrath of God?
12. We need to impress upon our children the value of having a proper, Biblical image of God –just as He is!
#3 Impress upon them the value of respecting what is holy.
Deuteronomy 5:11, "You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.
1. When a person doesn’t understand the holiness of God’s name, it is easy for them to misuse the name of God.
2. The KJV uses the word "vain."
3. Vain means meaningless.
4. In other words, we only use God’s name when we actually mean it.
5. Of course using God’s name to cuss is a violation of this value.
6. But so is, "Oh my God!" if we aren’t using it as a manner of worship.
7. Because if we don’t actually mean what we say, then we are taking His name in vain--making it meaningless.
8. We need to impress upon our children a sense of respect for what is holy and the name of God is certainly one of those things that is holy.
9. The Israelites wouldn’t even say God’s name out loud because of their respect for it.
10. So we need to be very careful about how we use God’s name and impress upon our children the value of respecting its holiness.
#4 Impress upon them the value of regular rest and worship.
Deuteronomy 5:12-15, "Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the LORD your God has commanded you. 13 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 14 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your ox, your donkey or any of your animals, nor the alien within your gates, so that your manservant and maidservant may rest, as you do. 15 Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the LORD your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the LORD your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.
1. Now under the NT, we are no longer required to observe the Sabbath.
2. The apostles in the first NT church began worshiping on Sunday instead of Saturday as the Israelites had.
3. The Sabbath still is Saturday, but we are no longer required to strictly observe the Sabbath like the Israelites did.
4. However, the two principles behind this command are still valuable to us today.
5. The first is the value of regular rest, which God modeled after six days of creation.
6. Anyone who has ever worked seven day workweeks for a long period of time will tell you the value of this principle.
7. It is very important for us to work hard and rest well.
8. Children need to be taught the importance of working hard and then resting.
9. It doesn’t have to be on Saturday, but there needs to be regular, well-deserved rest for a person to develop and function properly.
10. The other principle behind this commandment is to worship God regularly.
11. Worship of God both individually and with other believers in a value that we must impress upon our children.
12. The Bible teaches the importance of both worshiping God privately and publicly.
13. Are we impressing this upon our children?
14. Are we talking to them about it and modeling to them the importance of both private and public worship?
15. The Bible doesn’t say whether Jesus went to church every week, but it does say that it was His custom.
16. The question for us is not whether we go every single Sunday, but whether it is our custom, or habit, or our tendency, or its what we usually do to worship each Sunday.
17. We need to impress upon our children the value of regular rest and worship.
#5 Impress upon them the value of respect for family.
Deuteronomy 5:16, "Honor your father and your mother, as the LORD your God has commanded you, so that you may live long and that it may go well with you in the land the LORD your God is giving you.
1. We need to impress upon our children the value of respect for family.
2. Let me tell you one of the ways that will build respect in children the most: a proper balance of love and discipline.
3. Do you know what adults say whose parents didn’t set curfews or guidelines, "My parents didn’t care."—Is that respect?
4. Do you know what adults say whose parents discipline them and set boundaries for them, they say, "I really respect them for what they did."
5. Now don’t get me wrong, very few teenagers will says, "Boy I really respect you Dad for making me be home at 9:00."
6. But they will eventually (as they grow older) gain respect if we set firm, loving boundaries for our children.
7. Our society, by-and-large, DISrespects the family.
8. We need to talk respectfully about our families and model respectful behavior for our children to imitate when it comes to families.
9. We need to impress upon our children the value of respect for family.
#6 Impress upon them the value of human life.
Deuteronomy 5:17, "You shall not murder.
1. Many in our society don’t place anymore value on human life than trees or spotted owls.
2. Abortions are rampant. Euthanasia is not far away.
3. Old folks are shoved off in nursing homes.
4. Murders are everywhere.
5. Many of the movies and video games display graphic violence.
6. Many of the games are won by killing people.
7. Many high school guidance counselors encourage young girls to have abortions so they can get a college education without the burden of being a mother.
8. There’s little wonder why kids are bringing guns to school and going on shooting sprees—we haven’t taught the value of human life.
9. We haven’t taught them that the Bible says God creates each of us in our mother’s wombs.
10. We haven’t taught them that the Bible says God only created humans in His image.
11. We haven’t taught them that the Bible teaches God gave us souls that will live forever.
12. We need to impress upon our children the value of human life.
#7 Impress upon them the value of the sacredness of marriage.
Deuteronomy 5:18, "You shall not commit adultery.
1. I don’t even have to talk about what is happening to marriage today.
2. But I do want to say this about marriage: the single most important thing a parent can do for their child is stay married.
3. Only in cases of physical abuse is a child better off with only one parent.
4. The single most important thing a Father can do for his children is model the sacredness of marriage to his children.
5. The most important thing a Father can do for his children is stay married to, love, and don’t cheat on their mother!
6. We need to impress upon our children the value of the sacredness of marriage.
#8 Impress upon them the value of hard work.
Deuteronomy 5:19, "You shall not steal.
1. Ephesians 4:28, He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with his own hands, that he may have something to share with those in need.
2. That passage says that God’s people should not steal, but instead work hard.
3. And not only work hard enough to provide for ourselves, but also provide for those in need.
4. Children in America need to be taught to work hard instead of stealing to get want they want.
5. And we need to teach our children that there is no "free lunch" aside from God’s grace.
6. Our children need to be taught that nothing is owed to them, they must earn everything they get.
7. We need to impress upon our children the value of hard work.
#9 Impress upon them the value of truth.
Deuteronomy 5:20, "You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.
1. I probably don’t have to tell you that truth comes at a premium these days.
2. It is hard to tell who’s telling the truth and who’s not.
3. Jesus said that He is truth and therefore we need to value truth.
4. Jesus said that He is truth and therefore we need to value truth.
5. We still need to teach our children that if a person doesn’t have his word, he doesn’t have anything.
6. We need to model this to them in all of our interactions with others--and with them.
7. We need to impress upon our children the value of truth.
#10 Impress upon them the value of being content with what we have.
Deuteronomy 5:21, "You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife. You shall not set your desire on your neighbor’s house or land, his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor."
1. Are inability to be content with what we have and wait until we have the money has gotten families in this country into a lot of debt.
2. Trying to keep up with the Jones’ has caused a lot of financial heartache for many families.
3. Do our children see us being content with what we have or do they see us constantly wanting something new and better?
4. The apostle Paul wrote in Philippians 4:12-13, I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 13 I can do everything through him who gives me strength.
5. Are we impressing the value of being content with what we have down to our children?
Conclusion:
A. ["Mr. Holland’s Opus": Leaving a Legacy, Citation: Mr. Holland’s Opus, (Hollywood Pictures, 1995), rated PG, written by Patrick Sheane Duncan, directed by Stephen Herek; submitted by Greg Asimakoupoulos, Naperville, Illinois]
Mr. Holland’s Opus is a movie about a frustrated composer in Portland, Oregon, who takes a job as a high school band teacher in the 1960s.
Although diverted from his lifelong goal of achieving critical fame as a classical musician, Glenn Holland (played by Richard Dreyfuss) believes his school job is only temporary.
At first he maintains his determination to write an opus or a concerto by composing at his piano after putting in a full day with his students.
But, as family demands increase (including discovery that his infant son is deaf) and the pressures of his job multiply, Mr. Holland recognizes that his dream of leaving a lasting musical legacy is merely a dream.
At the end of the movie we find an aged Mr. Holland fighting in vain to keep his job.
The board has decided to reduce the operating budget by cutting the music and drama program.
No longer a reluctant band teacher, Mr. Holland believes in what he does and passionately defends the role of the arts in public education.
What began as a career detour became a 35-year mission, pouring his heart into the lives of young people.
Mr. Holland returns to his classroom to retrieve his belongings a few days after school has let out for summer vacation.
He has taught his final class.
With regret and sorrow, he fills a box with artifacts that represent the tools of his trade and memories of many meaningful classes.
His wife and son arrive to give him a hand.
As they leave the room and walk down the hall, Mr. Holland hears some noise in the auditorium.
Because school is out, he opens the door to see what the commotion is.
To his amazement he sees a capacity audience of former students and teaching colleagues and a banner that reads "Goodbye, Mr. Holland."
Those in attendance greet Mr. Holland with a standing ovation while a band (consisting of past and present members) plays songs they learned at his hand.
His wife, who was in on the surprise reception, approaches the podium and makes small talk until the master of ceremonies, the governor of Oregon, arrives.
The governor is none other than a student Mr. Holland helped to believe in herself his first year of teaching.
As she addresses the room of well-wishers, she speaks for the hundreds who fill the auditorium:
"Mr. Holland had a profound influence in my life (on a lot of lives, I know), and yet I get the feeling that he considers a great part of his life misspent.
Rumor had it he was always working on this symphony of his, and this was going to make him famous and rich (probably both).
But Mr. Holland isn’t rich and he isn’t famous.
At least not outside our little town.
So it might be easy for him to think himself a failure, but he’d be wrong.
Because I think he’s achieved a success far beyond riches and fame."
Looking at her former teacher the governor gestures with a sweeping hand and continues, "Look around you.
There is not a life in this room that you have not touched, and each one of us is a better person because of you.
We are your symphony, Mr. Holland.
We are the melodies and the notes of your opus.
And we are the music of your life."
B. What is the music of your life?
1. If you have the commands of God in your heart and you have sold yourself out to Him, then there should be those around you whom God has blessed through you.
2. Are you passing on our values to the next generation.
3. If not, why not?
4. Whose lives should you be investing in?
5. Of course, the most important lives that we need to be investing ourselves in is the lives of our own children.
6. Maybe it needs to start with some apologies and starting over.
7. But God’s people, especially Fathers, need to be passing on our values to the coming generations.
8. We’ve got to get out off our easy chairs and out of our houses and start impressing our values on the younger generation!
9. We don’t read them out of a book.
10. We don’t shove it down their throats.
11. We find out who they are and how they think and how they learn and how they perceive God.
12. We don’t force them to learn about God the way our grandparents did.
13. We don’t force them to do things the way we have always done it for the past 50 years.
14. We learn how they think and how they best respond to God and we impress upon them our values like the apostle Paul did by becoming ALL thing to ALL people so that by ALL possible means we might save some.
15. The reason this country is in the shape its in is because Christians have not done this like we should.
16. Hear O Christians! the words of God for a new generation: Deuteronomy 6:1-9, These are the commands, decrees and laws the LORD your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, 2 so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the LORD your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life. 3 Hear, O Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the LORD, the God of your fathers, promised you. 4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.
17. We need to commit here today to passing on our values to a new generation.
18. How many of you here today would be willing to stand and say that you are ready to make the commitment to becoming ALL things to ALL people so that by ALL possible means we might save some?
19. Maybe there are some who need to come forward and pray about this.
20. Maybe there are some who need to sell themselves out to God.
21. Whatever commitment you need to make, I want to encourage you to make it as we stand and sing.
