The difference between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day is that we honor our mothers but we scold our fathers. We talk of saintly moms, who wore their fingers to the bone to cook and clean and sow for us. We honor them for their industry, their mother wit, and their prayer life. And that is as it should be.
But then we come to Father’s Day and we scold. We urge our fathers to get a job, stay at home, support the church, and stand up like men ought to. We needle our fathers with the notion that men have a problem. We preach at them that they ought to advance higher, do more for their children, and watch fewer sports on TV. We scold. Small wonder some men dread Father’s Day! Listen, sons and daughters, you can keep the ties and socks if scolding is all you are going to do!
Because the problem may not be in fathers and their messages. The problem may be in the receivers of the messages. The problem may be in sons and daughters who have heard what they wanted to hear and have seen what they wanted to see. The issue is not always in what our fathers taught us; the issue is in the way we absorb it. We distort their messages. Do you remember, on the old TV show, how Cliff Huxtable would try to get something across to his kids? But in the end they always heard what they wanted to hear and saw what they wanted to see. Cliff’s greatest fear was that when he said, “Get out of here and get a job”, they just wouldn’t get it? That one of them would take a year to find herself, on his credit card? That another would sign up for graduate school and come home every time the refrigerator was full of goodies? They missed the point. Dad spoke; but they missed the point.
The issue is not necessarily in what fathers tell their children. The issue is what we children hear.
I know of one very accomplished father. He really had had a superstar career. This man had been compelled to go to work at the tender age of nine, but even though you would not think it possible, he showed tremendous promise at that age. He even got involved in an ambitious project, over the objections of many of the people around him. He was truly a productive youngster.
In the middle of that big project, something happened to this young man, and he really got sold out for God. I guess you could say he had a conversion experience. He became so sold out for God that he got everybody around that he possibly could and pushed them to re-examine their relationship to God. He pressed God’s agenda hard. The fellow wasn’t a preacher, but he surely did preach to a lot of people, and got many of them to turn their lives around.
Why, this man got so involved, so sold out for God, that he went all around his town and then out to neighboring towns, to lead campaigns against immorality. He lived in a time when this was needed. A time in which children were not cared for, and died at random. A time in which women ran into prostitution, and their johns ran to them just as fast. A time in which it seemed as though everything vile and negative was taking over. But this person, for quite a few years, worked tirelessly to persuade others that what they were doing was not God’s way. He was absolutely sold out for God.
Why, at one point he even went to another country to preach and teach and persuade. Again, I say, this man was not a preacher or a foreign missionary, but he surely did act like one. And people really respected him. He had a great following and a wonderful reputation.
But you know how the Bible says that a prophet is not without honor except in his own country? A man may be a hero to others, but may not be held in high regard at all by his own family. Sometimes they are too involved to see the full story. Sometimes they are so close that they see the flaws that others don’t see. And sometimes they see all the externals, but they really don’t understand their father’s heart. They see all that he does, but they don’t understand why he does it. Sometimes children hear, but they don’t hear; they see, but they don’t see. Sometimes we just miss the point.
And so, when this particular father’s life ended, brutally and unexpectedly, just before the age of forty, his two sons tried to imitate some of the things their father had done; but they distorted them. They didn’t get it. They messed up. They missed the point. In fact, his sons were disasters. Total and terrible disasters. They had heard their father’s message, but they missed the point of what their father’s life had been about.
The father I am talking about is Josiah, King of Judah in the last part of the seventh century before Christ. Josiah, who became king as a child, but who began almost right away to rebuild the Temple. Josiah, who, when they found the book of God’s law in the Temple, realized how far off the mark he and his people were. Josiah repented, wept, prayed, cried out to God, and let God turn him completely around. Josiah, the King of Judah who rooted out child sacrifice and cult prostitution; who closed the pagan shrines and brought all worship to the Jerusalem Temple; Josiah, who turned a whole nation around spiritually.
That same Josiah, at the point of his untimely death at the Battle of Megiddo, left two sons, Shallum and Jehoiakim – Shallum reigned as king only three months, then Jehoiakim for a few years – these two sons had heard every message their father had spoken, but missed it all. They simply did not get it. They missed the point.
Jeremiah the prophet indicts them. The issue was not what Josiah the father stood for. The issue was what his sons Shallum and Jehoiakim did with their father’s witness. Merely having a good dad was not enough; they missed the point of his life.
Jeremiah 22:11-23
Our fathers have left us a legacy. Why do we hear all the wrong things? How is it that we miss the point so easily?
I
Josiah, for one thing, tried to ground his sons in God’s word. Josiah had truly heard that commanding word, and he felt convicted. One day the workmen repairing the Temple found the book of the Law and brought it to the young king. He saw that this was more than just another book; he took it seriously. For him God’s word was not merely an archaeological curiosity, nor an academic nicety; Josiah saw that here are profound truths, things to live by. Here are blessings to be cherished and judgements to be avoided. And so Josiah shaped his very life around God’s word. In fact, the story has it that Josiah repented – there’s a forgotten concept – Josiah repented and, in a profoundly emotional moment, got himself right with God. He really worked at obedience to the word of God.
But now when his sons Shallum and Jehoiakim saw that their father cherished the Law, how did they respond? Did they too develop a hunger and a thirst for this truth? Did they too devour the pages of the word in order to glean insights for living? Oh, the evidence suggests that Shallum and Jehoiakim missed the point. Jeremiah tells us that they exploited the poor, they refused to pay living wages, they left all the marks of justice out. They did exactly what they wanted to do, without reference to God’s Law or so much as tipping their hats to God’s authority. The sons of Josiah recognized no authority in the word of God.
You see, I suspect the princes read the king’s devotion to the Bible as out of date and out of touch. They thought their father was tied up with a mindless mumbo-jumbo that a bygone age had used, but, hey, we’re in the modern world now. Just as we have libraries and movies and TV and the Internet. We have professors and pundits, we have movie stars in the Church of Scientology and athletes in the Nation of Islam. They don’t use the Bible, so why should we? We have today’s gurus and tomorrow’s music videos to tell us what to think. Dad, the Bible was for your day, and that’s nice. But we have something new, something hip and cool. See ya, Dad!
Shallum and Jehoiakim, you heard your dad reading the Scriptures; but you missed the point. Dad wasn’t celebrating tradition, he was celebrating life! Dad wasn’t stuck in something antique; he had something as fresh as today’s headlines! Dad was not just going through a religious ritual. Dad was finding joy! Dad was imbibing truth! God’s word helped him. God’s truths strengthened him. But you missed the point!
In the still hours of the night, when even a king may wonder whether his people love him, Josiah read of a God who will never fail nor forsake. When even Judah’s sovereign may doubt whether he is doing the right thing, God’s commandments guided Josiah. When a tired man needed comfort, he found it in the Psalms of his ancestor David. When a weary father needed an example, he found it in the stories of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. Josiah’s boys knew that dad read the Bible; but they missed the point. For them it was a relic of another day and not living instructions for their day. They missed the point.
II
Not only did Josiah devote himself to an understand of God’s word; but also Josiah poured his energies into the support of the Temple. With boundless energy and enthusiastic conviction, Josiah rebuilt the Jerusalem Temple, he closed the pagan shrines, he brought discipline to the priesthood. If it needed to be done, Josiah got it done. The house of God was vitally important. Resources and energy, planning and time, thought and effort, nothing was spared to be sure that the Temple was all that it was supposed to be. Josiah was the kind of churchman who does what needs to be done, works on whatever needs working on, the kind of churchman who is not only here whenever the doors open, but also keeps the doors in repair so that they can open. May his tribe increase!
Ah, but now Shallum and Jehoiakim, Josiah’s sons. What message did they get? What did they hear from their father’s devotion to the house of God? When dad talked church, church, church, from sunup to sundown, what did they hear?
They heard, “If you get involved in this church thing, it will soak up your time.” They heard, “If you let those church people get your hooks in, they will want m-o-n-e-y.” And we don’t have time for that. We are out here doing our own “thang”. We are out to par-tay! Church? Church is dreary, dusty, dull, and down, and who needs it?
Oh, how they missed the point. Oh, how they misinterpreted dad’s message. They only saw the time Dad put out in doing things for the church; they didn’t see the satisfaction he got back. They didn’t know how fine he felt when something he had done was lifted up in praise. They only saw the money Dad gave, a tithe, and imagined the goodies they could get with that money. They never saw that Dad got immense blessings, far richer than anything they could have bought. They never picked up on what really made Dad tick – not duty, but joy. Not have to, but want to.
Oh, you know, they say that this is the me generation. That we are in a time when people focus on “what’s in it for me” and therefore don’t work or give to churches or other institutions like their parents did. I don’t know. I haven’t measured the statistics. But if you don’t see that involvement in God’s mission brings joy beyond words, you missed the point. If you didn’t sense the glory of it when your father put on his deacon’s suit and strode to the front of the church to serve the Lord’s Supper, with head held high and back erect, you missed the point. If you can’t remember, as I can, the sheer boyish thrill of purposely sitting in the church pew right next to the aisle, so that you can watch your dad, march in the choir processional and use his wonderful voice to the glory of God – if you cannot summon up memories like that, well, then, I guess I can understand how you missed the point. But you did miss the point. You think of church as a drain; your father meant for you to see it as a joy. You think of church as expensive; your father meant for you to see it as an investment. You heard the message of cost; your father intended a message of blessing. You missed the point.
When Josiah gave himself to the work of the Temple, it was because he knew that there, wonderfully and mysteriously, the eternal comes into time, the unspeakable is uttered, the invisible breaks into visibility, and the word becomes flesh. In the church. If you don’t see that what those who came before you did for the church was not drudgery and duty, but joy and delight, you missed the point. You missed Dad’s heart. You missed the point.
III
So, what do we have so far? The sons of Josiah misread his devotion to the Scriptures; they preferred to do their own thing, and did not see how God’s word had blessed their father and kept him on the right path. They missed the point.
The sons of Josiah misread his devotion to the temple; they had other places for their time and money, and did not see how working for the people of God brought immense fulfillment. They missed the point.
And, more than that, the sons of Josiah misunderstood their father’s competitive spirit, and thought that when you compete, it is for your own advancement. Shallum and Jehoiakim didn’t see that their father’s aggressive, get-it-done personality was not just his trying to outdo others. It was not competition to put anybody else down. It was setting a goal for a personal best, for something that matters, for eternity.
I don’t know about you, but I know that too much of my energy comes out of a layer of insecurity inside of me. I have to hear somebody say, “How hard you are working.” My father was one of those restless men who find work to do even when they are on vacation. Every year we would go to spend two weeks in northeastern Indiana, where my father came from, and inevitably stairs would be rebuilt, fences mended, garages cleaned out. I saw all that; I heard his message. But I translated it as, “Stay busy, so that people will value you.” I thought the point was, “Do something, so that they will appreciate you.” I missed the point. It wasn’t about proving himself. It was about doing what somebody needed. It wasn’t about making a name for himself and showing up my uncle, who lived right there and could have done these things, but didn’t. It was about doing the right thing, the love thing. But I missed the point.
Josiah labored long and hard, not so that others would say, “what a hard-working king we have”, and not so that he would be considered a better king than the king in the next country. Josiah wasn’t competing against anybody else. He didn’t have to prove himself to anyone. He just worked for the sheer joy of accomplishing. He competed against himself, just to see what he could do for God. For Josiah, there was joy just in seeing good work accomplished. It wasn’t about anybody else. It wasn’t about what they thought of him. It was about love. It was about devotion.
Ah, but Shallum and Jehoiakim. They missed the point. In one of the most devastating words anywhere in Scripture, the prophet Jeremiah raises the issue:
“[You say], ‘I will build myself a spacious house with large upper rooms,’ and [you] cut out windows for it, paneling it with cedar and painting it with vermilion. Are you a king because you compete in cedar? Did not your father eat and drink and do justice and righteousness? Then it was well with him.”
Do you think you are somebody just because you have more than others do? Do you think that the mere accumulation of wealth, the mere acquisition of things, is going to make you somebody? Oh, no. Oh, no, not at all.
Young people, you hear a message that says, “Get a good job, make lots of money, surround yourself with luxuries” – if you hear that, it’s from the world; it’s not from Christian parents. Even when they give you more things than they could ever have dreamed of having when they were young, they are really saying, “Do something significant. Put your life down where it will matter. Equip yourself, do your best, not for material reward, but for spiritual. Not for yourself alone, but for others.“ I believe that’s what they are really saying. Don’t miss the point.
And don’t miss the point as your church gives you scholarships and encourages you into higher education. Don’t hear your church saying you have to become a high muckety-muck. Don’t hear your church telling you that the only people that count are the highfalutin’ academicians and the spiritual nerds. Don’t even hear your church telling you that we expect you to make lots of money so that your tithe will be large! That’s not the point. If you hear that, you missed the point.
The point is that we are so sold out to God that we just have to do whatever we can do to turn you in God’s direction. The point is that we are so invested in God’s redemptive work, that we want every person in this church to bend every effort and spend every resource to be totally at God’s disposal, totally obedient to Him, utterly and awesomely abandoned to all that He wants done.
Don’t miss the point. We don’t care about competition with the world. We don’t care if you are academically number one, we don’t care if you are professionally plush and financially flush. We care only that you hear our passion for God’s work. We care only that you see our commitment to be our best for the living God. We care only that you get that point, and get it good: that to serve God is everything. Be the best that you can be, not because it’s better than someone else, but because nothing else is good enough for God. “Give of your best to the master; give of the strength of your youth. Throw your soul’s fresh, glowing ardor into the battle for truth. Give of your best to the master; naught else is worthy His love.”
Don’t miss the point. The point is to be like Jesus, Jesus who heard the Father’s commands and obeyed them. The point is to be like Jesus, who struggled in bitter agony, and yet who for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising its shame, and is now set down at the right hand of God. The point is to be like Jesus, who made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and became obedient, even unto death. And that’s why God has highly exalted Him and has given Him a name above every name – because Jesus heard His Father. Jesus got the message right. Jesus understood His Father’s heartbeat. Jesus did not miss the point.
