A Portrait of Fatherhood

Father's Day presents us with an opportunity to look at masculinity, once again.

Not the Rambo type who walks with a swagger and cusses like a sailor.

Those men aren't really men at all and are really just covering up some sort

of shortfall and cowardice.

These men make bad neighbors, poor business partners, and bad fathers and husbands.

Nor are we talking about the Archie Bunker-type fathers who sit in their chair

like a king on his throne,

expecting the whole world to revolve around him, nor are we talking about the

dad with a beer can resting on his beer gut in the baseball stands,

cussing at the umpire at his kids' games.

What I'm talking about is a man who knows he's a man and is proud of that.

But at the same time, he has a

soft and tender heart that is sensitive to others and to the will of God.

I'm talking about God's man. I'm talking about fatherhood and manhood the way it ought to be.

Where do you find guidance for that? Well, obviously you find that in the scripture.

And so I've selected a scripture, a passage from scripture that's not normally

considered to be a Father's Day text, but I think it's a good one.

We're going to read from 1 Thessalonians 2, verses 1 through 12.

1 Thessalonians 2:1–12

Proved by God to be entrusted with the gospel. We are not trying to please people,

but God, who tests our hearts.

You know we never used flattery, nor did we put on a mask to cover up greed. God is our witness.

We were not looking for praise from people, not from you or anyone else,

even though as apostles of Christ we could have asserted our authority.

Instead, we were like young children among you. Just as a nursing mother cares

for her children, so we cared for you. Because we loved you so much,

we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God, but our lives as well.

Surely you remember, brothers and sisters, our toil and hardship.

We worked night and day in order

not to be a burden to anyone while we preached the gospel of God to you.

You are witnesses, and so is

God, of how holy, righteous, and blameless we were among you who believed.

For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children,

encouraging, comforting, and urging you to live lives worthy of God who calls

you into his kingdom and glory.

So in these verses, we see a portrait of fatherhood that is worth considering and examining.

And as you look at the portrait, consider with me five wonderful traits of a father today.

The first trait of a father would be the ability to express genuine love.

Notice what Paul says in verse 8 when he says, We loved you so much.

In the original language, those words expressed an intensity of love that gives

over and over again an intensity of love that never ends any sacrifice, continues to do that.

Paul says it's hard even to find words to express how much, but we really do love you.

You know, we live in a day and age when a father telling—and we've all grown

up in that day and age—a father telling his children or his wife,

I love you, does not happen all that often or all that quickly,

but we're moving into a generation where we understand that's important even

for fathers to say, to express how much we do love our children.

I think the ability to express love is an important character trait for fathers

and husbands because loving and expressing love does not come naturally for most men, as I said.

I'm convinced that is the reason the Bible tells husbands to love their wives,

because we have to learn to love.

It doesn't come naturally for us. It's countercultural for us.

In fact, we are raised eating dirt, as was mentioned.

We are raised wrestling in the pit.

We are raised doing all of those boy-type things, but very seldom do we reach

out and just say, I love you.

The Bible almost never tells wives to who love their husband,

because that usually comes quite naturally for them.

Instead, wives are told to submit to and respect their husbands,

which they will do so eagerly if their husband is a loving servant of God.

Men, most of us, have to learn how to love. That's true about the father-child relationship, too.

It doesn't usually come easy for us.

Do you remember when you brought your first child home? Your wife seemed to know exactly what to do.

She knew the head was heavy and that the muscles had not developed in the neck

yet, and you had to support the baby's head in her hands.

She also knew that there was a soft spot on top of the head that was not fully

developed and it was a place of vulnerability and you had to be very careful.

She seemed to have an innate sense when the baby was hungry or when the diaper needed to be changed.

And she changed that stinky diaper with skill and no complaint.

She knew about it when, knew when it was bath time and play time and sleep time.

She knew all of those things almost, almost by instinct, but,

New fathers have a lot to learn, and new mothers oftentimes were afraid to hand

the little baby off to the father because he might just do that spike it in the end zone type thing,

and she just wasn't exactly sure.

We all think of that picture, the picture of Lion King, when the lion is holding

up his child and almost blessing him to the gods above,

and we think of that, that it's not a natural image for us as fathers to do that.

When we first held the baby, it was an awkward experience. It was kind of like,

what do I do with this now?

Most new fathers feel like they're holding something sort of alien,

not knowing exactly what to do or how to handle it, thinking that at any time

while they're holding that baby, some sort of ray gun is going to pop out and blast them.

But soon we get to the place where even if we're not so good at baby-tending

functions, we kind of enjoy them because this is my child.

We enjoy holding our children and expressing love.

We enjoy playing with them, watching them laugh, and then comforting them when they are in distress.

This morning I had the opportunity again to, only second time to hold Annika for a while.

She was in a little bit of a distress while they were practicing for worship

team, and I got to go back and hold her and carry her around and rock her on

my knee. Then what happens?

Kittens grow up to be cats. The babies grow up, and just about the time you

get good at it, it all changes, right?

A couple years ago, the cartoon strip For Better or For Worse showed dad coming

into the room where his teenage daughter

was sitting on the couch watching television and munching popcorn.

So he decided to sit down next to her and help himself to her popcorn.

And as he was sitting there, one of those little thought balloons popped up

next to his head. You know those in the cartoons.

Thought balloon picked up, popped up over his head, and he's thinking,

I remember when she was so young.

I held her in my arms and loved her, and it was wonderful.

Now look at her. She's all grown up and such a beautiful girl too.

I wonder what she would think if I held her like I used to hold her and told

her again that I loved her.

He finally concludes that his daughter would feel uncomfortable out of it if he did that.

All the while, another thought balloon pops up next to the girl,

and the daughter is thinking, I wonder why dad never hugs me anymore.

Isn't it sad that we've arrived at a time in our culture when dads aren't even

sure how to express love anymore.

We're not sure what's proper and what's not proper. We're afraid to touch others

and show them genuine love.

And even worse, many dads are actually abusive and neglectful of their wives and their children.

Our best examples of fatherhood, of course, is our father in heaven.

And the best story to show that is the story of the prodigal son.

The reason this is so universally applicable is that virtually everyone experiences

what the prodigal son experienced, where we're sure we know better than our parents.

I remember growing up, and I'm thinking, my dad doesn't know anything.

And then as I got older and moved into adulthood, I realized how much my dad learned as I grew older.

Maybe he'd do it all along. One of the things I vowed to myself to never say to my children—,

You know what it is. What? Because I said so.

Well, I said it. But anyway, we learned that. But you know the story of the prodigal son.

The son goes off into a far country and squanders all his money.

And when he runs out of money, his friends run out on him.

And he ends up in a hog wallow eating from the slop that is fed to the pigs.

This is the most humiliating place a Jewish boy could possibly be.

And as he sits there, the Bible says he came to his senses.

Well, I don't think it would have taken me sitting in a hog slop to come to

my senses, but he did, and he started thinking, how many of my father's hired

men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death.

I'm going to go home to my father.

Notice what happens next. He felt that he could go back to his father.

The relationship might never be the same, but he knew that the door was open

to him. How did he know that?

All through the time of raising his son, the father had communicated his love

to the son. No matter how far away you go, you can always come back home.

I remember our daughters being younger and doing things that parents are not exactly proud of.

We all have done that, right? And I remember talking to Nancy at one time when

one of these particular situations happened with our older daughter.

And I said, you know, I said, if they do what I did, it's more than what they've done now.

And think of how much God has blessed and used and brought me back from all

of the wayward wandering that I had in my life.

And if God can do that for me, he can also keep our children as well.

That kind of love is a vital thing to communicate to our children.

It's okay to stumble. It's okay to fall.

It's okay to run around the church like we had 20-some kids doing yesterday, and it was awesome.

So the boy said, I will say to my father, I have sinned against heaven and against

you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son.

Make me like one of your hired men. I think this was a speech that he practiced

over and over, every step of his way home on the long journey.

He had a down pat. Every word and every expression was memorized.

He agonized over it in his heart. What would happen?

What's going to happen? What's my father going to do when I come home?

But before he could even get the words out, his father came running to him when

he saw him afar off and threw his arms around him and kissed him.

The father had no fear of

expressing his love did he you know

the beautiful part is that our father in heaven always leaves the

door open for us as well for us to come home and as dads we need to teach our

children no matter how deep your sin you can always come home and there'll be

a father waiting to throw his arms around you and to assure you of his abiding love of.

A song that was similar to that story was written by Harry Chapin,

and you probably know it, A Cat's in a Cradle.

Cat's in a Cradle, Silver Spoon, Little Boy Blues, Man of the Moon.

When you coming home, Dad? I don't know when, but we'll get together then.

And then soon as the story goes on in the song, the son becomes just like the

father, and the father is longing for the days when he and the son would get back together.

You know, we all have a little bit of prodigal son in us and prodigal daughter as well.

And our father in heaven is waiting for us to come home.

And to get together with him again. The second trait of fatherhood is a transparent life.

Paul writes it in verse 8, we loved you so much that we delighted to share with

you, you not only the gospel of God, but our lives as well.

Now notice that there's a connection between gospel and lives.

It's one thing to hear the gospel, but it's quite another to live it.

There's a saying that goes, we might be the only gospel some people see.

What Paul is saying is when we lived among you, we not only told you the good news, but we lived it.

We modeled it so you could see what a good life, what a godly life was like.

People didn't want to know how much you knew and can teach. They wanted to see

how much you love and you live.

Another way of saying that is is people don't care how much you know,

they want to know how much you care.

Seems to me that if you're a Christian and your kids ought to know it,

then your kids ought to know it by the way you live.

For example, being a Christian will affect everything that you do and say and

think and the way you treat your family and your home.

The values of your home will be different than those found in a non-Christian

home. A non-Christian home values things like pleasure and power and prestige and possessions.

But in a Christian home, we learn that things we can't see, things we can't

buy, and things we can't hold on to are really the most precious. What about stress?

Would you deal differently with stress

as a Christian than you would as a non-Christian? I think you would.

Because you would know that you have a peace that passes all understanding in

your life. life and you can deal with stress because you know that there is

a God that handles it better than you do. What about finances?

How do you budget your money?

Wouldn't transformation by the gospel of Jesus Christ change what is important

to you in your spending and giving habits?

One person said that he knows he can know a Christian, know whether a Christian

is living as a Christian and if he just has one glance in their pocketbook.

How do we spend our money? How do we invest our resources?

I think kids need to see in their fathers, not just an authority figure, but someone who is real,

someone whose heart can be touched and changed, someone who still makes mistakes

and still has the courage to admit that he has made those mistakes.

A third trait is an unselfish diligence.

Paul said, you remember, brothers, our toil and hardship.

We work night and day in order not to be a burden to anyone while we preach the gospel to you.

We have a responsibility as parents to teach a good work ethic to our.

If our kids don't see a father who is a hard worker and who has a good work

ethic, they'll never learn it.

We teach it in two ways. First, we teach it by example, by just doing it and let our kids watch us.

Then secondly, we do it by getting our kids involved in doing what we're doing,

and they learn the work ethics by working with us.

I'm reminded of the story of a little boy who was not very artistic.

Artistic, we won't call his name Tim, but just so you know, he's not very artistic,

and he was trying to draw a horse on a piece of paper.

His father, who was artistic, watched as he did.

The little boy was clumsy and was struggling, so his father tried to help him.

He started out giving him advice, which really didn't help very much,

and finally the father took the piece of paper, drew a beautiful horse,

and handled it back to the boy and said, here, that's the way you do it.

The boy turned Turner looked up at his dad and said, but dad,

I want to draw my own horse.

Every child has to learn to draw his own horse. Every child has to do things

the way they need to do things, the way they're gifted to do.

And as dads, we have to be wise enough to step back and let them do it,

to make their own mistakes and learn from their mistake.

Fourth, spiritual trait or a trait of fatherhood is genuine spirituality.

Paul said, you are witnesses, and so is God witness of how holy,

righteous, and blameless we were among you who believed. Notice what it said. First of all.

Preached the gospel of God to you. Secondly, you are witnesses of how we lived.

We lived holy, righteous, and blameless lives among you.

Our behavior was influenced by what we believed about Jesus.

We are often told in this world that we need to separate our business,

our life, from our Christianity, and that is exactly not true.

Our business, our life, is totally influenced influenced, by our Christlike life.

God has commissioned dads to be spiritual leaders, and you're the spiritual

leader of your home, whether you realize it or not.

You will either lead your family closer to God or farther away.

Unfortunately, too many children are growing up in fatherless homes and in homes

where the fathers are uninvolved in their lives, And the mother has to fight

to be both father and mother to her children.

That's a lot of burden to bear for one person, but they do it, thankfully.

But as a Christian, it's your responsibility as fathers, as men of God,

even as men of God in this church, if you don't have children,

it's your responsibility to lead people closer to Jesus.

And if you don't lead them closer to Jesus then we're letting them wander farther

away to the evil one as spiritual leaders it's our responsibility to show that

we're genuine that our Christianity is not just something that's on display

on Sunday but we do it all day long,

all week long so if we come to church and carry your Bible and look pious on

Sunday morning but you never open it during a week your kids are going to know.

They'll be watching you, and they'll know. If you pray here on Sunday morning

so eloquently when everybody else is praying, but you never pray at home,

your kids are going to know that too.

If you never, ever worship God through the week, or if you aren't a good steward

of God's resources, your children are going to learn that too.

So it's absolutely essential that we be genuine, that we be genuine spiritually,

and that our children see that we not only worship here, but that we worship as hona as well.

Some men come to faith later in life, even after their children have been born,

and they've come to faith during the time their children.

It doesn't matter what you did before. If you live your life for Christ now,

your kids are going to see it.

And it's kind of like with alcoholism and many of the other things.

If our kids never experience an alcoholic father, they will not wander in those ways.

But if we exhibit things that are not of Christ, our children are going to exhibit them as well.

Finally, there's the trait of positive influence.

Paul writes, for you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with

his own children, encouraging, comforting, and urging you to live lives worthy

of God who calls you into his kingdom and glory.

That's what a father does, and that's what a father is.

He encourages and he comforts, and he urges his children to live lives worthy

of God, and it's all positive.

Listen to Brian's story. I was

just 12 years old when my Boy Scout troop planned a father-son campout.

I was thrilled and could hardly wait to rush home and give my dad all of the information.

I wanted so much to show him all I had learned in scouting, and I was so proud

when he said he'd go with me.

The Friday of the campout finally came, and I had all my gear out on the porch

ready to stuff it in the car the moment he arrived.

We were all to meet at the school at 5 o'clock and carpool to the campground,

but Dad didn't get home from work until 7 o'clock.

I was frantic, but he explained that things had gone wrong at work and told me not to worry.

We would still get up first thing in the morning and join the others.

After all, we had a map. We knew how to get there. I was disappointed,

of course, Brian said, but decided to make the best of it.

First thing in the morning, I was up and had everything

in his car while it was still getting like all ready

for us to catch up with my friends and their fathers at the

campground dad had said we'd leave around seven o'clock

and i was ready a half hour before that but he

didn't even come out of his room until nine o'clock when he

saw me standing out in front with the camping gear he finally explained that

he had a bad back and couldn't sleep on the ground and he hoped i'd understand

and that i'd be a big boy about it but could i please get my things out out

of his car because he had several commitments he had to keep that day.

Just about the hardest thing I've ever done was to go back to the car and take

out my sleeping bag, cook stove, pup tent, and supplies.

And then while I was putting my stuff away in the storage shed and he thought

I couldn't see him, I watched my father carry his golf clubs out and throw them

in his trunk and drive away to keep his commitment.

That's when I realized my dad never meant to go with me to the camp out.

I didn't matter to him, but his golfing buddies did.

Fathers, men, we need to exemplify all of these characteristics of a good father.

Able to express genuine love, a transparent life, an unselfish diligence,

a genuine spirituality, and a man who has a positive influence,

and the willingness to learn to love and forgive and nourish and grow,

to admonish and still encourage.

Those are the traits of a good father.

Many are the kids who have not had a good father to model their lives after.

But God is the perfect parent who exemplifies all of these characteristics.

And this is summed up in the verse that the kids recited today.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes

in him will not perish but have everlasting life.

Philip Yancey tells of a prodigal daughter who grows up in Traverse City, Michigan.

Disgusted with her old-fashioned parents, whom she believes overact to her nose

rings, the music she listens to, and the length of her skirt or lack of length

to her skirt. She runs away.

She ends up in Detroit, where she meets a man who drives the biggest car she's ever seen.

The man acts with the big car. She calls him boss, recognizes that she's underage.

Men would pay premium for her. so she goes to work for the boss.

Things seem good for a while, at least no one is trying to get her to change,

but then she gets sick for a few days and it amazes her how quickly the boss

turns mean before she knows that she's out on the street without a penny to her name.

She still turns a couple of tricks at night and all the money she has and gets

goes to support a drug habit.

One night while sleeping on

the metal grates of the city she began to feel less like

a woman of the world and more like a little girl she begins

to whimper god why did i leave my dog back home eats better than i do now she

realizes that the more that more than anything in the world she wants to go

home three straight phone calls home get three straight connections with the answering machine.

Finally, she leaves a message. Mom, Dad, it's me. I was wondering about maybe coming home.

I'm catching a bus up your way and I'll get there about midnight tomorrow.

If you're not there, I'll understand.

During the seven-hour bus ride, she's preparing a speech for her father.

And when the bus comes to a stop in Traverse City Station, the driver announces

a 15-minute stop, 15 minutes to decide the future of her life.

Will her parents be there, or will she simply get back on the bus and never see them again?

She walks into the terminal, not knowing what to expect, but not one of the

thousand scenes that she had played out in her mind prepares her for what she sees.

There in the bus terminal in Traverse, Michigan, stands a group of 40 brothers

and sisters, aunts and uncles, cousins, and a grandmother, and even a great-grandmother to boot.

They're all wearing party hats and blowing noisemakers and taped across the

back wall of the terminal is a computer-generated banner that reads, welcome home.

Out of the crowd of well-wishers, breaks her father.

She stares out through the tears, quivering in her eyes, and begins her memorized speech.

Her dad interrupts her and says, Hush, child.

We've no time for that. No time for apologies.

We'll be late. A big party is waiting for you at home. This morning,

we offer the father's invitation.

A loving father has expressed genuine love for us in welcoming us home.

He has unselfishly sacrificed his own son to pay the penalty for our wanderings and our disobedience,

that we can be called sons and daughters of God, kids of the kingdom.

And God is throwing a party, the likes of which we will never be able to imagine

and to which we've all been invited.

All he wants in return is for his kids to come home.

If you are watching today on television or on Facebook, if you're here in the

service, if you have not experienced that grace that comes through Christ.

Your Father has everything waiting for you.

Would you find your way back home? Let's pray.

Father dearest, we have earthly fathers or have had earthly fathers.

Many of them are gone now, but none of them compared to you.

As much as we love our earthly fathers, none of them compared to you.

So on this Father's Day 2024, 24, help us find our way back to you.

In Jesus' name, amen.