“The Qualities of Father” Sermon, Zion, New Orleans, Sunday, June 15, 2008
GMP Deuteronomy 11: 18- 21 “Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds: tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates, so that your days and the days of your children may be many in the land that the Lord swore to give your forefathers, as many as the days that the heavens are above the earth.” THIS IS OUR TEXT This year, it just seemed to me that the media and the advertiser‟s encouraged today‟s Father‟s Day celebration more than they did the Mother‟s Day celebration. Maybe they felt like they needed to, to increase sales, or maybe there‟s more money to be had in sales today, than on the second Sunday in May. As far as the Holy Scriptures presentations on the qualities and duties of mothers, we can find a summary statement in one chapter of the book of Proverbs, but for the qualities and duties of fathers, we can sort of find that pervading the Holy Scriptures, since we actually call the God of the universe, father. This morning, then I will preach a topical sermon on the qualities and duties of father, so that all of us have a better understanding of this role in society, and a greater appreciation, not only of our own dad, but especially, our Heavenly Father, God Almighty, when we leave our worship this morning. May God grant this for Jesus‟ sake. AMEN First, we believe that father is a PROVIDER. This is our great picture of God our heavenly father, who provides us daily for everything we need from day to day. The New Testament says of the family man: “For, even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: „If a man will not work, neither shall he eat.” (2 Thess. 3:10) St. Paul wrote in I Timothy 5:8 “ If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” Now our society has been very strong on dad being the provider for the home. But that is made a dramatic shift in my own lifetime and yours. In 1958, the $17,000 my father made that year fed, sheltered and clothed in middle class style: him, my mom and all 6 of us children. He was a successful businessman with his own Dental Laboratory. But nowadays, $17,000 a year is far below the poverty line for 8 people, and is close to the wages for a first year full time unskilled worker. But that‟s not just because of inflation, no, a combination of need and materialistic greed has forced our society into two income families. We moved from a provider society to a consumer society and we have moved from a producing society to a service society. These great changes in our culture have put a real fog over what it means to be the chief provider and the head of the household. Nevertheless, our father‟s are to model their heavenly Father with the quality of being a provider for the family.
Second, father is a TEACHER. Dad not only teaches his children the methods of playing games of skill, and of repair and maintenance, he most certainly teaches his children honor, respect, duty and cooperation, in fact, all the spiritual values for the important things of this life. Unfortunately, in our culture, men believe that just doing their own thing will work in their children modeling them. The father doesn‟t see himself as the primary teacher in the home, anymore. Breadwinner, yes…teacher, no. Furthermore, even when the father sees how he should both teach and model the manly qualities of life, he leaves out the spiritual values. Fathers you ARE the spiritual leaders and the teachers in your home! Your children will model your values, whether those values are healthy or not healthy. Please give thanks to God our heavenly father this morning if your dad taught you the proper values, and especially Christian values. Remember, our heavenly father sent his only begotten Son to BE the real second Adam, and to display in his character exactly what being a godly man, truly means. The more you display the character of Jesus, the manlier you are. A third quality of Father is that he is a GUIDE. Dad sets the direction and points out the direction we are to go in this life. Our earthly fathers mirror our heavenly father in this quality, as the Psalm says, “For this God is our God for ever and ever. He will be our guide, even to the end.” Yes, our ideal dad guides and puts the vision of the future in front of his children‟s eyes, and helps them set their sights high. Our goal in this generation is that the next generation will stand on our shoulders and will have a better future than we did. Praise God for your dad, this morning, if he set your sights high for you, without being overbearing. A fourth quality of Father is that he is a DISCIPLINARIAN. The word comes from the same root word as the word disciple. To discipline our children in a godly, fatherly way, is to train up our children in the way they should go. Dad sets the boundaries and parameters for his children, so that they will grow up to be self-disciplined and selfcontrolled. The Bible says says, “Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness.” The bible also says, “Fathers, do not exasperate your children, instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.” We all know that our whole culture has a great number of problems with discipline, going from one extreme to another. On the one side is total permissiveness and everything the child does is wonderful, and the other extreme is severe emotional and physical abuse. Godly discipline, of course, comes from godly self-disciplined fathers, who have the good of their children and the knowledge of right and wrong in their own hearts, and therefore, they mold their children by example and fairness. A fifth quality of Father is that he is the protector of the home. Our society still sees this aspect of fatherhood as good, and celebrates it. Anyway, when you were little, dad was the one who removed the creeping and crawling things, got rid of the critters, checked for ghosts, and guarded your house at night so you could sleep safely. His very presence in the home comforted you and strengthened you. Yes, when dad is home, the place is safe and secure. He is the problem solver and troubleshooter for the family. Be sure to take a moment this morning to thank God that your dad came home at night and stayed home.
Also remember that your dad was merely mirroring his own heavenly father, who was His protector and defender. The sixth and seventh qualities of father go together, and depend on each other, for these qualities are shown in dad‟s relationship to his wife, to mother. The sixth quality of dad is that he is a lover. I do not restrict this to emotions or to physical love. I mean that dad loves mom and everybody knows it. The Bible says, “Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy…in this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own self. He who loves his wife loves himself.” And the Bible says, “Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers.” The seventh quality of father depends on the sixth, for dad is a decision maker. He is head of the wife in the same way as Christ is head of the church. This is no power model, of course. It is a service model. Dad and mom‟s marriage is a partnership, a union, like Christ and the church, and it forms one unit: the body. Yes our ideal father will actually give up his life for his wife and children; just Christ gave himself up for his bride, the church. The eight quality of father is that of authority. Dad is the final authority of the home, because he is UNDER authority himself. He is never ashamed to get on his knees before God and to use the written word of God for his own authority. He did not lead the home by his own will or whim, but by seeking God‟s will for his home. Yes, this is one of father‟s highest qualities, and reminds me of what our Lord Jesus said to the Centurion who sent a servant to him to request the healing of his servant. He announced to Jesus that he, the Centurion, had people over him and under him, so that he knew that Jesus had the authority to heal his servant. He said, “I am not worthy for you to come under my roof, but merely say the word, and my servant will be healed.” Jesus said that he had not witnessed such faith as this man had, in all of Israel. One of Dad‟s highest qualities was to realize that he too was a man under authority, a manager who needed to be found faithful. And that is the ninth quality of father, which puts all the other qualities into harmony. Our ideal father is a man of FAITH! The ideal dad is committed to Christ crucified as his own savior and his own Lord! Our dad wanted to grow up into the stature of Christ. We all wanted to be like dad when we grew up, and our dad wanted to be like Christ. Praise God today if your dad was a man of faith and don‟t forget to praise him for his faith if he is living I have described 9 qualities of father: Provider, Teacher, Guide, Disciplinarian, Protector, Lover, Decision maker, authority, and a man of Faith. How did your dad measure up? If you are a father, how do you measure up? Our culture as made a pretty good mess of fatherhood, hasn‟t it. I think the dads in our culture need more help and counseling than the mothers! We know that in general, the dads of this generation are much less prepared to be fathers, than we were, and then our own dads were.
But I did not preach this sermon for gloom and doom, so that we would wring our hands and say, what can we do? No, we can still certainly rejoice over the qualities of our fathers, even if some of those qualities were flawed or didn‟t even exist. We can repair, restore and rebuild from within, the same way we do for ourselves and God does for us. We can and shall live in God‟s grace and forgiveness, and extend that, wherever it is needed for our earthly fathers today. God has already has paid for all dad‟s sins and ours, where he failed us and where we failed him. Yes, honor your dad today, for this is the first commandment with promise that it will be well with you and you will live long on this earth. I will close with a Forgiveness prayer that was written by a Priest. It goes: “I forgive my father. I forgive him for any lack of affection or attention or love. I forgive him for any lack of time and for not giving me his guidance. I forgive him for failing my mom in any way. I forgive him for being harsh, and for any sense of abandonment, real of just felt. I forgive him any hurt. I do forgive him, and I ask Christ my lord, to bless and honor him, starting with me. In Jesus name. Amen. By the power of forgiveness, we will not be able to honor our dads enough for all their faith, authority, decisions, love, protection, discipline, guidance, teaching and provision. And before I close, I am now asking all the fathers in our congregation to come forward and receive a gift.