Father's Day 2023
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Kid’s Church
Kid’s Church
6 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 “Honor your father and mother”—which is the first commandment with a promise—3 “so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth
The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), Eph 6.
Now I know that this is every kid’s favorite command to follow from God. So today’s is Father’s day and it is a day in which we say thanks to the dad’s in our lives.
What is your favorite thing to do with your dad?
What is something that you have learned from your dad?
God tells us to listen to our parens because they are looking out for what is best for you. They want you to grow up and follow in God’s ways. So they are your first teachers in God’s way and they are there to protect you and to help you achieve what God wants you to do in your life.
So lets repeat our verse “obey your parents in the Lord for this is right” So even when you have to do your chores or they ask you to turn off the screens. We need to do the right thing and listen to them.
God as the Good Father
If you have your Bibles please turn to Matthew 7:9-12 ““Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.”
9 “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11 If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! 12
The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), Mt 7:9–12.
Introduction
First before I dive into the sermon this morning, I want to thank all of the fathers, grandfathers, uncles , step-dads , single moms and anyone else that has stepped up to be a part of a kid’s life. Our kids are facing an onslaught of things that just simply were not there when most of us were kids. I will go into more of this later in the sermon and next week we are going to do a deep dive into some issues facing Christians.
For a lot of people a day like Father’s day or Mother’s day can present some issues due to all sorts of reasons to include a parent passing away or a parent just simply not being present to much worse actions by parents. I try hard to be transparent with everyone here with my beliefs, thoughts and my life. It isn’t always an easy thing to do that. I must confess that I wanted to give a different type of Father’s day sermon but the Holy Spirit kept telling me otherwise. I took to Christianity very quickly, for me it all makes sense, the Bible makes sense to me. I have zero doubts that it is all true and 100% the word of God. I have struggled in one major area in my own faith. That struggle is being able to call God Father. It is not that I don’t think He is our Father, the Bible tells us that. Jesus told us that many times and we will look at some of those instances. Now I have zero problems calling Him Lord. I have a much easier time believing that God is Lord. Give me us commands to follow, and I’ll try my best, correct me when I am wrong. I am good with that. That fact that God, is a good Father, that the creator of this entire everything loves me more than anyone on this planet ever can is a tough concept for me to realize.
I spent a large portion of my life focused on the sole goal that I would not be my dad and that I would be better. It was the reason that I went to VMI and it was one of the reasons that I joined the Air Force. Then fast forward to when Rowan was a baby, I felt this carefully crafted world that I had created slipping away quickly. I did not have the same sins as my father but I had ended up being very much like him. It was after careful reflection that I wasn’t actually trying to not be like him. I was actually trying to prove my worth this whole time. It was why I took on challenges and why I mostly took the unproven path in front of me. I wanted was looking to prove myself worthy. I think this is what a lot of men are facing today. We feel the need to prove ourselves as men. If you look at a lot of past civiliations there had always been a crucible to proven your worthiness. However God does not want nor does He need us to prove ourselves to Him. His love is there already.
We are going to look at two lessons this morning
We can call God “Abba”
What is our call?
Abba
Then I said to you, “Do not be terrified; do not be afraid of them. The Lord your God, who is going before you, will fight for you, as he did for you in Egypt, before your very eyes, and in the wilderness. There you saw how the Lord your God carried you, as a father carries his son, all the way you went until you reached this place.”
At this point in the Exodus story the scouts had come back and brought the report that the people were to strong, the cities to big for them to take. Moses pleads with them showing them that God had been with them this entire trip. “The Lord yoru God carried you , as a father carries a his son” God provided for them, He gave them food every single day. He made sure their clothes and shoes never wore out. God provided all the essentials for life because He loved them. This is one aspect of being a Father, you carry your son, we provide for them. And like childern, we can sometimes forget everything that God does for us. But for the Isrealites, God rained down the manna every single day. He carried them and that is the only reason they made it this far.
Another function of being a good Father is the fact that God protects us. He goes before us, He will fight our battles for us. Go back through the Old Testament and see all times God went before them in battle. All the times that God protected believers, and this continues to this day. God is our protector. It is God who will entact judgement. It is God who will see us through this life and through our purpose in Him. He is our provider and our protector.
As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”
Here is one moment of complete love from God. At this point in Jesus’s ministry, He had not accomplished anything. He had not proven anything. Yet God says this is whom I love and I am well pleased. God loves Jesus from the very start. The same is true for us. We do not have to prove anything to God. He loves us because He knitted us in the womb. He loves because of who He is and who we are. We are made in the image of God. God doesn’t hate. Yes there is judgement that is coming, and there is consenquences for our actions but that does not stop the love of God. It grieves God’s heart when we sin. He does not take pleasure in discipline. This is what I think is hard to understand especially in our modern times where every needs to be constantly reassured of their identity. God loves you, it is as simple as that. There is nothing we can do to earn His love, and He doesn’t want us to earn it. His grace and mercy are there, but we have to accept it.
What is our call?
We are going to look at different calls in the Bible to show how important it is that we teach our childern about our Good Father.
The first part we are going to look at is part of the Shema found in Deuteronomy
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. 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.
Here we have the commands passed down from God to Moses and then to the people. Talk about these things when you sit. Practically speaking, how many people today have regular family dinners with no screens? How many conversations are we having with our childern about God and their faith? How involved are we in our kid’s lives
Start children off on the way they should go,
and even when they are old they will not turn from it.
Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.
These verses are our charge from our Good Father. We must not ignore these charges because they are much to important to ignore. God is soverign over all things and that includes who God has put in our life. It may not be your biological child or it may be. It could be a nephew or niece, or grandchildern. Here is the simple truth of the matter, if we do not accept this calling from God, then the world is more than eager to teach our childern. The enemy is more than happy to fill their heads with lies about who they really are. This is where you must put your faith into action because it is to important. Our kids are being pulled in all sorts of directions and most of those directions are moving away from God. We have to train them in the instruction of the Lord, we must teach them about our loving Heavenly Father because the consequnces of us not doing that are very real. It can be seen all through society what happens when we are not the ones holding the line.
There is no judgement from me, but speaking from experience kids need their fathers or a father figure. If you don’t have the best relationship with your kids then be the bigger person and pick up a phone or knock on the door. Jesus calls us to life of servitude and there is no more imporant place to serve than our kids. Mend those fences because even as adults, we need guidance from those that have been there before. There is a reason why Jesus calls each of us to a life of Discipleship. Discipleship begins in the home.
No matter the age of your kid, be a part of their life. God provides, He protects, and He loves us. We’ve done nothing for that love and it is there. We need the same attitude towards our own childern. God is the best the Father, that we can ever have. Let us work towards that image because our kids are to important and their faith is to important. The world and the enemy are at the gates waiting for us to not fulfill this charge from God.
“Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”
This is Joshua’s last speech to the God’s people. After this God have the people rest on all sides. We must chose for our households who we will serve. God the loving father but worldly gods. God is our good Father, I pray that we will all strive to be that kind of father
Let us pray