I thinking back on my last few father’s day sermons and realized I had been picking on fathers more than I have been nice to them, so today is going to be a positive sermon.  Besides, the longer I am a father, the more I realize we’re pretty good people too.  Mom’s aren’t the only good ones in a family.

All I have to do is think of my father as a positive role model.  This afternoon, I am leaving to spend a week with my brother and him.  Why is that important?  It’s important to us, because it is something we all three really want to do and are excited about being with each other.   Jeff and I love our father and Dad loves us.

When I was young, my Dad wasn’t always there for me, but he changed his tune on that as we grew up.  He would be at as many games or concerts as he possibly could.  When we needed to talk, Dad would always stop what he was doing and listen.  I knew I could talk to him even about my failures.  He wouldn’t be happy, but he still loved me.

When I went to college, Dad came to say good-bye but couldn’t talk because he was crying.  My father was crying because he was saying good-bye to me.  My dad was so excited when I asked him to baptize me and when I asked him to marry Helene and I.  He loved me and wanted to be a part of my most special times.

When I think of God as a father,  I have very special images conjured in my mind.  I begin to understand a father’s love.

PRAYER

I. A Father’s Role

A. Do we need fathers?

1. There has been a big trend lately in our culture for women to have children without a husband.
2. The thought is that they don’t need a father.  A loving mother will be good enough.
3. Is that true?
4. In today’s society where more and more women are raising children on their own:

a) the crime rate is going up.
b) children of divorced families are divorcing at a higher rate.
c) Depression is up.

5. This isn’t to say that mothers are at fault, but that it is clear that God intended for fathers to be an important part of the family.

B. Fathers give stability

1. In a world that seems upside down at times, it is good to know that a good father is always there.
2. Psychologists have found that girls with good self-esteem generally come from homes where the father was loving and available.
3. Steve Farrar says that the father is the anchor of the family.  Whenever a father abandons his family or mistreats his wife and children, the family starts to drift.  Those children struggle with insecurity and often lack a moral compass.
   Consider the ship the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, which carries 6,000 sailors.  The vessel weighs 95,000 tons and has not one but two anchors.  Each of them weighs 60,000 pounds.  Imagine a single anchor that weighs 30 tons!  But the huge chain that anchor is attached to weighs 665,000 pounds. Each gigantic link weighs 365 pounds.
   Even a ship that is not so monstrous needs an anchor, and that anchor has to be connected to the ship by a series of individual links.  Families are like that.  The father in each generation is a link in a chain that reaches back in time hundreds or even thousands of years.  Each link in that chain is important, but what God is most concerned about today is you--the anchor at the end of that chain!  Dad, you're the one who needs to anchor your family on the rock--Jesus Christ--for the next 100 years.  Your life today will influence not only your children and grandchildren, but their children after them.
   [New Man, Oct 1997.  Pages 53-54.]
4. Fathers, if you want your children to be successful in life, be their anchor in childhood.

C. Fathers give direction

1. Just as they give stability to a family, father’s give direction.
2. Fathers are to be the leaders of the family.

a) This doesn’t mean they are a domineering tyrant.
b) They need to guide the family to be the best they all can be.
c) They need to love the family as Christ loved the church.
d) That is a huge responsibility that many fathers don’t want to assume.
e) Those that do, are fathers worthy of great honor.
f) In a letter a man expressed his belated love and appreciation for his father.  It reads, "Dear Dad: Although you have been dead 30 years, I feel I must say some things to you which I neglected to say as a boy.  Only after passing through the long, hard school of life can I understand how you felt.  I must have been a bitter trial to you; I was such a fool.  I believed in my own shallow ideas, but I realize now how ridiculous they were compared to the calm, ripe, wholesome wisdom that was yours.  I want to confess my worst fault-- assuming that somehow you 'didn't understand.'  I know now that you did understand!  You knew me better than I knew myself.  Your wisdom flowed around mine like the ocean around an island.  How patient you were, how full of longsuffering and kindness, and how pathetic your efforts to get close to me, to win my confidence!  I wouldn't let you.  What held me aloof?  I don't know, but it was tragic. I wish I could tell you today how much I love and appreciate you.  Well, Dad, it won't be long till I am over there, and I believe you'll be the first to take my hand and lead me up the slopes of Glory.  Then you'll realize that not one pang of yearning spent on me was wasted.  I'm so sorry for my thoughtlessness and lack of love, but praise God, I'll soon meet you on the golden streets because you cared enough to keep praying for your wayward boy!"  He signed the letter: "Love, your grateful son."

D. Father give protection

1. This is usually the area we think of as fathers.
2. Being the one to protect the family.
3. Working hard to give them physical protection from the elements.
4. Putting their bodies in front to protect the family from harm.
5. Putting their arms around their child to give emotional protection.

E. Fathers need to point the way to God

1. John Ashcroft tells the story of how an old man  accompanied his son to Washington, D.C.  The son  had been elected senator and was to be sworn in.  "The father was eager that the son serve well.  In  a prayerful time of dedication, commitment, and  devotion on the morning of the swearing-in  ceremony, the elderly father told his son that  `the spirit of Washington is the spirit of  arrogance, but the spirit of Christ is the spirit  of humility.'  He looked his son directly in the  eye and admonished him with a clarity which went  beyond speaking.  He said, `Nothing of lasting  value in the world has ever been accomplished in  the spirit of arrogance.'
   "As the group of friends and family assembled  around the son to pray, the newly-elected senator  noticed his father trying to get up off the sofa  to join with the group in prayer.  Noticing the  father's struggle, the son turned to his father  and said, `Dad, you don't have to struggle to  stand.'  His father with weakness but clarity  said, `Son, I'm not struggling to stand; I'm  struggling to kneel.'
   "And he knelt by his son and prayed that the  Spirit of Christ would be a mantle which would  cover his son in humility so that he would have no  regrets.
   "That day," says Senator Ashcroft, "was the  last day of my father's life.  He died on his way  returning home to Missouri.  If you can freeze  that frame for a moment--an ailing, aged father  not struggling to stand but struggling to kneel and pray beside his kneeling son--you can observe  a picture of what will help save America."
   [Intercessors for America Newsletter, Dec 1995.  Page 3.]
2. I only need to look to my own dad when I need a hero of the faith that pointed me the way to God.

a) Many times I have heard from different teens how dad was different at home than he was at church.  My father was the same.  To me that was important because I am big on being consistent.  I don’t like hypocritical people and try never to be one myself.
b) The way I saw dad live at home as well as at church made a big impact on my life.
c) Sure I still did things to rebel at times, but Dad and Mom implanted in me a great love for God.
d) My goal is to be half the Christian I see them as.

3. READ Deut 11:19-21

A. Freely given is never forgotten

1. An unknown author, writing about his own father, expressed in poetic form some thoughts with which many of us will identify:

     His shoulders are a little bent,
       His youthful force a trifle spent,
     But he's the finest man I know,
       With heart of gold and hair of snow.
     He's seldom cross and never mean;
       He's always been so good and clean;
     I only hope I'll always be
       As kind to him as he's to me.
     Sometimes he's tired and seems forlorn,
       His happy face is lined and worn;
     Yet he can smile when things are bad:
       That's why I like my gray-haired dad.
     He doesn't ask the world for much--
       Just comfort, friendliness, and such;
     But from the things I've heard him say,
       I know it's up to me to pay
     For all the deeds he's done for me
       Since I sat rocking on his knee;
     Oh, not in dollars, dimes, or cents--
       That's not a father's recompense;
     Nor does he worship wealth and fame--
       He'd have me honor Jesus' name.
B. Sacrifices for his family

1. One of the most difficult challenges facing a busy Christian father is finding time for his children. A loving father, though, will try to give his sons and daughters the attention they need.
  J. Grant Howard wrote, "One evening after supper, I settled into my easy chair with a good book and began to immerse myself in its stimulating, stretching, theological insights. Down the hall and into the room came our 3-year- old bombshell, Julie. `Daddy,' she said, `will you read to me?'  I looked at the book I was reading-- The Providence of God by G. C. Berkouwer, translated from the Dutch.  I looked at the book she was holding in her pudgy little hand--Myrtle the Turtle! That's when love stops being sentiment and theory.  Are you going to shoo the kid of with some lame excuse, or put down your book and let her crawl into your lap while you crawl into her world of turtles?  That's a sacrifice for an adult who has long since graduated from children's literature.  That night I sacrificed Berkouwer for Myrtle.  Parental love must be willing to sacrifice some of its own needs in order to meet the needs of the child."

C. Has its own reward

1. A grade school teacher held a contest.  She asked her students to describe what they liked best about their fathers.  The winning entry read, "I have so much fun with my father that I wish I had known him sooner."    A comment like that would brighten the day for any father who loves his family.
2. The story of Bill Havens illustrates the challenge of having right priorities.  Bill was an amateur athlete whose canoe racing team had been selected to compete in the Olympics in Paris.  It was literally the chance of a lifetime, and Bill had been training for just such an opportunity since he was a youngster.
   But Bill's wife was pregnant with their first child and due to deliver about the same time.  So Bill had a choice to make.  (This was in the years before jets made Europe only a few hours away.) Even though his wife encouraged him to go, Bill chose to stay behind with her and his yet-to-be- born son.  It wasn't that he was lacking in commitment to his sport; his commitment to his family was simply stronger.
   His team did indeed win the gold medal in Paris.  The baby, however, arrived late, which meant that Bill could have gone after all.  Bill could have become bitter about this missed opportunity, but he focused instead on the importance of his commitment to those he loved.
   As his little boy grew up, Bill taught him about canoeing, and canoe racing became his sport as well.  Bill couldn't have been more pleased when, 28 years after his own Olympic opportunity, he got a telegram from Helsinki informing him that his son Frank was bringing home a gold medal!
   [Rediscovering American Values by Dick DeVos. Dutton, 1997.  Pages 124-125.]
3. I am one of the very lucky men in the world.  I am able to come home often during the day.  Almost every time I come home, the girls run up to hug me.  What in the world is worth more than your child’s love and adoration?
4. If you are a good father, but a poor man, your reward is worth any sacrifice you made.
5. Don’t ever forget that or let anyone tell you differently.

a) Men retire from business every day.  Powerful men,
b) but when they walk out of that office for the last time, they are quickly forgotten.
c) Your children will be around you the rest of your life.

A. As much as an earthly father can love his children, it still never compares to THE Father’s love.

1. He loves you no matter what.
2. He sacrificed for you when you were spitting on him and mocking him.
3. That is the love of your Heavenly father.