What Is A Father?

What is a Father?

Text: Ps. 90:1-2, 11-17, Eph. 6:1-4

Opening:

1. There is two ways to recognize power.

1. One is to see it at work.

2. Is to measure it when it is gone.

2. What we are witnessing in America, is the results of absentee fathers

a. Drugs & promiscuity

b. Violence

Take an older elephant and let him teach the younger rouge elephants, how to behave

3. Fathers are misunderstood creatures

1. What is a mother? You know right away.

What is a father? Well, that takes some thinking through

2. It is said that father is found in the dictionary between fathead & fatigued

3. We fathers, are like the man in this story.

There was a man who had no children who wrote a book entitled…

“How to raise children.”

After he had a few children… he wrote another book.

“Ideas for raising children”

After they had gotten a little older, he wrote yet another book, “Tips from a struggling father”

And after they had reached teenage years, he took it upon himself to write yet another book entitled,

“Anybody out there got any ideas?”

What is a father?

A. Fathers are those called by God to establish and lead homes

1. Read Gen. 2:20-25

2. God anointed him for this job

The promise is good things to the children that submit under their fathers

B. Fathers are a picture of God to their children

1. God has chosen earthen vessels to bear his glory before the children

a. The word tells us that in the image of God, man was made.

"Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image… So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them." (Genesis 1:26-27, NKJV)

"For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man."

(1 Corinthians 11:7, NKJV)

b. Man, more than woman, shows forth the male likeness of his Father-God

1. Can woman portray God? Does she too, bear the image of her creator? Yes, but not his male characteristics.

Woman show forth the motherhood of God – his compassion, his feelings, his sensitivity

2. Man shows forth his male like character - his warrior tendencies, love of battle, his strength.

C. A father is one who is more sure he does not know what he is doing than you are sure of

1. A real father, deals with dealings of inadequacies all the time

For Us….

1. What is something you wished above all else, your father knew?

I wish my dad knew….

Play DVD on Our father’s love letter to us

Closing….

1. Maybe its time to make some things right with your fathers.

Fathers, maybe its time we make some things right with our children

I Took a Piece of Plastic Clay

by: Author Unknown,

I took a piece of plastic clay

And idly fashioned it one day-

And as my fingers pressed it, still

It moved and yielded to my will.

I came again when days were past

The bit of clay was hard at last.

The form I gave it, still it bore,

And I could change that form no more!

Use Amy and Aaron & John for this next part

I took a piece of living clay,

And gently fashioned it day by day,

And molded with my power and art

A young child’s soft and yielding heart.

I came again when years were gone:

It was a man I looked upon.

He still that early impress bore,

And I could fashion it never more.

I did not use this part. I added it later

Our Fathers Who Are on Earth

If Satan thinks they are a key battleground, shouldn’t we?

by Roland C. Warren

I am the president of a secular organization that works to increase the number of children who grow up with involved, responsible, and committed fathers. Christians often ask me, "Why should I be concerned about your work of connecting fathers to their children? Shouldn’t the Great Commission and soul winning be our number one priority?"

These questions remind me of what happened to my wife when she was having lunch with a non-Christian friend a few years ago. She asked her friend if she minded prayer before the meal. Her friend said, "That’s fine," so my wife started her prayer with the phrase "Dear heavenly Father." When she finished, her friend said that she could never pray those words since her father was such an [expletive].

I believe that today Christians often overlook three important truths about the Great Commission. These truths can radically change the way we view our work of sharing Jesus with others so they might come into an intimate relationship with our heavenly Father.