What My Father Taught Me

WHAT MY FATHER TAUGHT ME

Exodus 20:12

S: Father’s Day

Th: Learning from Dad

Pr: We need to learn from our fathers.

?: What?

KW: Principles for life

TS: We are going to observe three biblical principles for life

that my father taught me.

The _____ principle for life that my father taught me is…

I. KEEP LEARNING

II. DON’T BE AFRAID OF CHANGE

III. BE A PERSON OF GRACE

RMBC 6/20/99 AM

INTRODUCTION:

1. What did your father teach you?

Our fathers taught us many things with their pithy sayings.

See if some of these seem familiar:

ILL Notebook: Father (and one day you’ll sound just like him)

Don’t ask me, ask your mother.

Close the door; were you raised in a barn?

Don’t worry; it’s only blood.

A little dirt never hurt anyone; just wipe it off.

Keep your eye on the ball.

This will hurt me a lot more than it will hurt you.

Do I look like I am made of money?

We’re not lost!

No, we’re not there yet.

As long as you live under my roof, you’ll live by my rules.

I’ll tell you why; because I said so, that’s why.

You throw like a girl.

I’m not sleeping; I was watching that show.

I’m not just talking to hear my voice.

Two wrongs don’t make a right.

What did I just get finished telling you?

Don’t make me stop this car!

Men are like buses; just wait on the corner and another one will come along.

What part of “no” don’t you understand?

If you’re gonna be dumb, you’ve gotta be tough.

2. We recognize that our fathers have communicated to us a tremendous amount of wisdom.

And some of us have been in a position to repeat it.

But here is some advice I don’t think you will ever hear:

ILL Notebook: Father (top 10 things you’ll never hear)

Here are the top 10 things you’ll never hear a dad say:

10) Well, how ‘bout that? I’m lost! Looks like we’ll have to stop and ask for directions.

9) You know Pumpkin, now that you’re thirteen, you’ll be ready for unchaperoned car dates. Won’t that be fun?

8) I noticed that all your friends have a certain hostile attitude. I like that.

7) Here’s a credit card and the keys to my new car. Go crazy!!

6) What do you mean you wanna play football? Figure skating is not good enough for you, son?

5) Your Mother and I are going away for the weekend. You might want to consider throwing a party.

4) Well, I don’t know what’s wrong with your car. Probably one of those doo-hickey thingies—ya know—that makes it run or something. Just have it towed to a mechanic and pay whatever her asks.

3) No son of mine is going to live under this roof without an earring. Now quit your belly-aching and let’s go to the mall.

2) Whaddya wanna go and get a job for? I make plenty of money for you to spend.

1) What do I want for Father’s Day? Aahh—don’t worry about that. It’s no big deal (actually they might say this, but they don’t mean it).

TRANSITION:

We want to recognize this morning that…

1. God has given us our fathers.

We all have biological fathers.

Others of us have someone who has stood in as a real father and did the “dad” things with us.

But we all have a heavenly Father who has demonstrated His love for us by solving our own personal addiction to sin.

He has accepted us as sons and daughters because He has accepted the work of His Son on our behalf.

As I reminded us on Mother’s Day last month…

2. God has given us instruction on how we are to treat our parents (Exodus 20:12).

We find the instruction in Exodus 20:12:

Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you.

We are told to honor our parents.

The word “honor” means to show respect, to reverence, even to

hold in awe.

What this means to us is that, no matter what our age (since this

is a timeless command), we are to treat our fathers with high

esteem.

So I want to share with you the same conclusion I had last tune and that is…

3. We honor God by honoring our fathers.

We are giving respect to God when we respect our parents, and specifically today, our fathers.

This should inspire us to think differently than we have at times.

We may have the tendency to be critical.

Perhaps, our dad failed us in some way.

At the same time, we need to remember that that we have been for from perfect son or daughter.