Sunday Sermons

The Father's Mandate

Mark Dunagan
06/16/02 - Sunday Morning

The Father’s Mandate

Family Identity: Joshua 24:15

“In our home, family ties were never optional. Our children knew without question that God put us together for the purpose of representing Him to the world. Even today, whether together or apart, we are committed to our family’s (God’s) standards. That attitude makes us mutually accountable. Each person knows the team is counting on every family member to stay committed”(Growing Kids God’s Way, p. 72). The same authors noted “the quantity and quality of trust children have in us, as fathers, is a legitimate benchmark of our relationship with them. Compare with Proverbs 31:27-28. Do your children trust you to provide them simply with sustenance, facts, and judgments, or do they trust you as a person?” (p. 71) The English term “husband” means literally, “house-holder”, that is the one who holds the house together. In both Testaments, fathers are given the obligations to center their families on God’s truths (Genesis 18:19; Ephesians 6:1-4). Studies have noted that children who feel connected to their parents and siblings have fewer problems with the temptations of this world. “Even negative peer pressure is minimized when a solid family identity is established” (p. 72). Building this family identify includes verbalizing one’s excitement and pleasure with their family. “This is a terrific family”. “I am so thankful the Lord put us all together”. “You kids have such a great mom”. Fathers, have you explained to your children and given them a clear picture of the purpose of your family? Have you given them God’s instruction for your role and their roles? When Dad is excited and encouraged about the family, the children often feel the same way, but when Dad is silent, the question lingers in their minds, “Does he really care about us?”

Love Your Wife: Ecclesiastes 9:9; Ephesians 5:25-28

A father can be involved greatly in the lives of his children, but still nullify the results of his efforts if he does not cultivate a loving relationship with their mother. “From a child’s perspective, how much trust can he have in a dad that cannot take time to be with his mom? How must trust can he have in a dad that speaks harshly to his mom or is not patient with her?” (pp. 73-74). “Fathers are crucial in making men of their sons and women of their daughters. Contrary to the popular image, it is not the aggressive, macho man but the competent, caring, loving father who does this best” (Faulkner p. 125). By modeling manhood, fathers actually confirm their daughter’s femininity. That is, your daughters will look at you and say, “Oh, that’s what a man is like. So that’s how a man looks, acts, smells, and talks. That’s how a man treats women, that’s what a father is, that’s how a man cares for his family”. In contrast, daughters who have little or poor interaction with their fathers often have a difficult time knowing how to relate to men. “Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong” (1 Corinthians 16:13; Titus 2:6-8). In like manner, boys need their fathers to teach them how men conduct themselves. “At some point in his life, the boy must become a man; childhood dies. Boys eventually separate from their mothers in search of their maleness. Think of it like a person swinging on a trapeze. The time comes when he must change from one trapeze to another: the boy has to let go of his attachment to Mom and look more to Dad as his role model. If he lets go of childhood and Dad isn’t there for him, what then?

Understand Your Child’s Private World

There will be open windows when your children will invite you into their private worlds. Unexpectedly, your will children open up the widow of their heart. These windows are sadly missed by “hurried” fathers (Ephesians 5:16), but the father who makes time for his children and places them as a priority, will be there to when these windows are opened to not only give needed instruction, but to correct any false impressions that your children might be holding (Deuteronomy 6:7). Remember, the goal of parenting is not simply outward conformity, but the goal is to train the heart of your children to love God. “To turn the hearts of the fathers back to the children, and the disobedient to the attitude of the righteous” (Luke 1:17). The quotation here is fromMalachi 4:6, and Malachi adds, “and the hearts of the children to their fathers”. As John the Baptist begins his work, his preaching will convict the hearts of young people and adults. It will be his work to turn them to each other in the process. When young people and adults both want to do what is right, they will find that they desperately need one another (Proverbs 17:6). In other words, a home can only be what God wants it to be when all parties involved renounce sin. At this point someone might argue that there are fatherless children who have succeeded. But as one writer notes, “They have done so in spite of their loss, not because of it. Besides, we are not looking for the secular “norm” of fathering; rather we are looking to be the “best” fathers possible. The first thing families crave from Dad is His simple presence. As someone noted, “Kids can’t bond with a moving target”. Fathers who are preoccupied with their jobs, themselves, or their problems are not available to their children. The curse of fatherhood is distance, and good fathers spent their lives trying to overcome it. One study of successful fathers noted that these fathers did not have a lot of discretionary time, the secret of their success was that they submitted what time they did have to their families. Whatever recreational time was available was spent on the family’s choice, not the dad’s. “One problem many fathers have is they think that if they get involved with their kids, their whole evening will be shot. The truth of the matter is, our children’s attention spans are sometimes so short that we’re lucky to get in a few good minutes every day. So when your daughter says, ‘Daddy would you do it now? Then jump up and do it now!…because soon she’ll be ready to do something else” (Faulkner p. 132). Someone noted, “Hurried men tend to skim life, skim wife, skim kids”.

Support when Children Fail

This is not the freedom to sin nor it is a casual attitude towards violating God’s word. Fathers need to realize that moments of failure are also valuable moments to learn some very important lessons (Romans 8:28; Romans 5:3-4). Your children should know that you too have failed and the lessons that you have learned in the process.

Encourage your Child

On a practical level, this could include writing little notes of encouragement and praise to your children, something that they could save and hold on to when life gets tough, or when you are gone from this life. Leave something for them, so that when you are gone, your convictions and example are still speaking to them (Hebrews 11:4).

Build Trust in God’s Word: Deuteronomy 6:7

Teach your children that God can be trusted, and how God has taken such good care of their father; that you have found that the teachings in the Bible are beneficial and are not a burden. Explain to them the wisdom you have gleaned from the Scriptures, the pitfalls you have avoided and the huge difference in your life as a Christian verses the life you would have had as an unbeliever. Through applying the Scriptures to real life decisions and dilemmas you demonstrate that the Bible really does have all the answers (2 Peter 1:3; 2 Timothy 3:16), and that it remains relevant, active, living, and right about all things(Psalm 119:128). Yet this teaching process demands that fathers become knowledgeable in the Scriptures, well versed, and apt to teach.

Fathers: You are Needed!

“In a study of male prisoners by Dr. David Blankenhorn, he found that the one thing that many of them had in common was the absence of a father. He also found that while most of the prisoners asked for a card to send to their mothers on Mother’s Day, none of them asked for Father’s Day cards…Not only do children need their fathers…but society needs fathers as well. Neighborhoods without fathers are neighborhoods without men able and willing to confront errant youth, chase threatening gangs, and reproach delinquent fathers…The absence of fathers deprives the community of those little platoons that informally but effectively control boys on the street” (Raising Faithful Kids in a Fast-Paced World, Dr. Paul Faulkner, pp. 116,118). Not only do children need their fathers, fathers need their children. “Judith Wallerstein began her longtime studies on children of divorce thinking that children were strong enough to adjust to their parent’s divorces. But she found out that kids have much tougher adjustment problems than had first been recognized. In her search, she also discovered that children were not the only ones who suffered developmentally. Young divorced fathers, separated from their children, seem to have their development blocked. Some never recover a sense of purpose or direction: they cannot grow up into fully mature men outside the structure of the family. Dr. David Blankenhorn, author of The Good Family Man, says, ‘Children endow a man’s life with a larger meaning. They confer a special blessing on his worldly endeavors, endeavors that might otherwise seem small and unworthy. Children make it possible for a man to believe that he has lived a good and purposeful life’” (Faulkner pp. 117-118). “Fathers have a very significant impact on their children, especially their sons. One place this influence is evident is church attendance. If both mother and father go to church, 72 percent of the children will go when they’re grown. If only the father goes, that percentage doesn’t drop too much: 55 percent of the children will go to church when they’re grown. But now notice what happens when only the mother goes. If only the mother goes to church, only 15 percent of those children will go when they’re grown. So while the mother has a greater influence on children in some respects, church attendance is one area where the father has the big clout. Just look around in your own church. You’ll see that the younger boys will come to church with their mothers up through about junior high, but somewhere in junior high and high school if Daddy’s not going to church, the boys will drop out, as will many of the girls” (Faulkner pp. 123-124). I think that many men just assume that their wives have more clout and influence when it comes to spiritual things than they do. I am convinced that a good number of men even think that the faithful spiritual example of their wives will more than make up for their failure to be a spiritual leader. But long before the above research, God taught the same truth (Ephesians 6:4). “Which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us. We will not conceal them from their children, but tell to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, and His strength and His wondrous works that He has done” (Psalm 78:3-4). On this point one family noted, “The father must be the moral standard, the moral head of the home---not the mother, not school, not church, not grandparents”. One young man said about his father, “My dad just has a way about him. He can help us keep things straight. Dad had the uncanny way of keeping things in perspective”. To illustrate what he meant, he described his very last high school football game. It was the last game, the last play, and the last quarter. There was time for only one last play, and he had to throw the ball. If the pass was good, he’d be a hero; if the pass was bad, he’d be a goat. He threw the pass and the pass was intercepted. He was the goat and he came home late and hurting. His dad was waiting up for him. “Son I’m sorry the game was lost tonight, but let me ask you a question. You know Brice? (his little nephew). If we could reverse the outcome of the game by cutting off just the very tip of one of Brice’s little bitty fingers, would you be willing to do it?” The son replied, “Oh, no, Dad! I would never do that”. And then the dad said, “I didn’t think you would. So I guess winning the game wouldn’t have been worth even the tip of Brice’s little finger, then, would it?” And the young man said that when his dad said that, he felt like a tremendous weight had been lifted off his shoulders.