A Hall of Fame Dad

If you were raised in a home with a godly father, you need to thank the Lord for that.

! That is not common. It is rare. Consider these statistics. 24 million children, that's 34%

live absent of their biological father. About 40% of those have not seen their father in

over a year. 50% of them have never set foot in their father's home. What does that mean?

That means there's a lot of missing dads, a lot of absent dads. Depending on the circumstances,

there's a lot of sorry dads. Number two means we have to take up slack. It means the reality

is that there's a desperate need and the spiritual impact of godly men helping lead children to

be godly could be overwhelming. What would a son, what would happen to a son or a daughter

whose father suddenly felt seriously God's call upon him to be a godly leader?

It could change our lives. Nehemiah challenges us as he challenged those who were trying to

rebuild the walls of the city and faced a lot of opposition and difficulty along the way.

And he said in Nehemiah chapter 4 verse 14, do not be afraid of them. Remember the Lord who is

Nehemiah 4:14

great and awesome and fight for your brothers and your sons and your daughters and your wives and your

homes. Men, that's what we must do. In the society in which we're in, in the strain in which happens

upon us, that comes upon us, we need to fight for our families. In Luke, the prophecy and the ensuing

birth of John the Baptist is recorded. It is a prophetic announcement made by Gabriel the angel.

And the angelic messenger of God says something that is easy to pass over. However, if you see it,

when you see it, you realize what a heavy matter it is to God to have good godly dads. I want you to

see that this morning. It's in Luke chapter 1, beginning in verse 13. It says this, but the angel said to

Luke 1 · chapter mention

him, do not be afraid, Zachariah, for your prayer has been heard. And your wife Elizabeth will bear you a

son, and you shall call his name John. And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his

birth, for he will be great before the Lord. And he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he'll be

filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother's womb. And he will turn many of the children of Israel

to the Lord their God. And he will go before them in the spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of

the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord

a people prepared. I want to be clear, John's mission, primary mission as the gospels share, was to prepare

people for the coming of the Lord, to help them to recognize when Christ came that he in fact was

the Messiah. That was John. He was the forerunner of Christ. He was the proclaimer, the heralder that

came through before him saying, Christ is coming. Prepare your heart. Repent. The time has come.

It was his job to do that. But in the process of doing that, for that mission, God enabled him,

it says, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children. It's in that heart change

that lives are changed, that homes are changed, that families are changed. Dads have to step up,

even if it means for us to look back. Let me explain what that means, because the word there,

turn, literally means to make to turn towards. Now that's not good English, but it's good Greek.

And the reality of what it means is, it was John's job was to help dads crane their neck back

to where they belong, to make sure they focused on what they need to focus on. It gives the idea

of something that is forgotten, something that is left behind, which means that God's concern

was that there had been a turning away of the hearts of fathers for the children. But God's burden

was that they love again. Now what a need we have today for that. It is a burden of the Lord to our

hearts, to have our hearts in love with our families and toward our families. We live in a world that is

pumping prosperity, work all hours of the night, whatever it takes, play ball, some other recreation

until we drop, going and going and going. And if we're not careful before long, we'll neglect the very

children that live right under our noses, even though we're dressing them well and even though

we're playing them hard. So how do we, as the scripture refers, take the turn? Let's stop, look back a

minute and focus on what we are to do. And by the way, yesterday is gone.

There's nothing you can do about yesterday. If there's unforgiving sin from yesterday, you need

to ask the Lord to forgive you. You need to repent of it and never do it again, whatever it is,

in any scope of life. Yesterday is gone. You can't fix yesterday. Today is a new day. And if God

gives us breath, tomorrow will be another day. And we can do something about that. So don't,

don't lick your wounds this morning. Don't lament about something that you messed up on, that you

really can't do anything about. Instead, let's look back so we can look ahead. How do we honor the Lord

and take care of our kids? When I say our kids, I mean not only my own children, I mean the children

that God has placed all around us. If you came from vacation Bible school just a couple of weeks ago,

little rogue rats running everywhere. And what I noticed in a black light kind of setting where I

couldn't even see their faces, they looked pretty eager to listen. And the response of that, as I

shared earlier, was, as I shared a couple of weeks ago, was, was that many of them were celebrating the

fact that God had given them salvation and they were sure to check that and others were continuing to

talk to you. How do we stop and look back and focus on what we're to do? Give your children time.

Give them time. Again, not only your children, but other children that God has placed around you.

The most precious thing that you can give your children is not toys, not ball, not trips, not education,

not luxury items, but your time. They must have your time. And don't tell me you don't have any that's

available because we each have 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. It's not really about

availability. It's about the economy of time and how important it is and how we spend our time. So what are you

doing with it? A few years ago, Dawn and I attended a timeshare seminar. We, we did some of those early in our

marriage and, and really considered it when we didn't have any money to do anything with. But thank God we didn't do that

at the time. But, but we, we attended a few years ago and I'll be honest. We attended for the free nights. Okay.

We listened to the spiel and, uh, it was interesting. Their biggest pitch was, you need to do this for your

family. It was a nice place. They had a lot of good ideas. And they said, your family is worth this investment.

Now don't misunderstand me this morning. There's nothing wrong with taking vacations, staying in nice places.

Matter of fact, there's something wrong with not doing it. You need to, you need to take time off.

And there's nothing wrong with buying property and there's nothing wrong with RVs and there's nothing

wrong with timeshare. Man, I've benefited from other people's blessings and I am very appreciative

of it. You know, I mean, I am. So there's, there's nothing wrong with it.

However, don't you dare tell me that you have to do that to have time for your family.

If what you're doing is setting aside a week or two weeks to spend time with your family,

you're not doing enough.

It don't take an exotic location to spend time with your family. It don't. Nothing wrong with

spending time with your family in exotic places, but that's not what it takes. As a matter of

fact, even if we do that, if that's all the time that we spend, it's not enough. The greatest

investment we can make in our children is our time. But not only that, give them preparation.

Give them preparation. In other words, raise them up. Raise them up in the love and admonition

of the Lord. Unless a father walks before his son showing him how to be a man of God,

he's going to have a hard time knowing how to be a man of God. And unless a father walks

before his daughter showing him what a man of God is, she'll never know what to look for

to find one. Stu Weber wrote in his book, Tender Warrior, he shares a story of a 16-year-old

boy who wrote an essay on what is a man. And for this 16-year-old boy, his father had abandoned

him and he never had experienced the warmth of a truly understanding man in his life. And

so he wrote this. He said, a real man is kind. A real man is caring. A real man walks away

from silly macho fights. A real man helps his wife. A real man helps his kids when they're

sick. A real man doesn't run from his problems. A real man sticks to his word and keeps his

promises. A real man's honest. A real man's not in trouble with the law. That's pretty good

wisdom from a 16-year-old boy. Let me tell you how the Shema puts it in Deuteronomy chapter

Deuteronomy 6:5–7

6, verse 5-7. It said, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all

your soul, and with all your mind. And these words that I command you today shall be upon

your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children. And you shall talk of them

when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you

rise. In other words, prepare them and make them ready to make Christ the Lord of their lives.

I had the opportunity this week to meet with a mother and her 8-year-old child who was at

camp and began to ask questions and wanted to talk to me. And so she came in and I began

to share with her what it meant to give her life to Christ. And I got a little card that

that kind of takes us through that. And it begins by saying that all have sinned and

fall short of the glory of God. And I said, have you ever done anything wrong? You know,

sheepishly said yes. And I said, well, your mother has too. You know, so have I. But, you

know, we've all done wrong. And we need to acknowledge that. We have a need there. And God wants us in

the right relationship with Him. But when we do wrong, it separates us from God. Matter

of fact, next scripture, the wages, the cost, the penalty of that sin is death. In other

words, it separates us from God. And I drew this chasm. Many of you have seen me do that.

Draw this chasm and write sin in the middle. See how this separates us and we can't come

back to Him on our own. We can't do that. But the gift of God. And if I, if I give you

a gift, what am I expecting in return? She's right. She said a thank you. She's right. She's

definitely right. Because if we're bartering, if I expect a gift from you because I gave you

that's not a gift, that's a trade. But a gift is something that's given. I've had people

be generous and give wonderful gifts and I couldn't respond to that. I can't barter with

that. You know how to respond to something like that. My mother told me a long time ago,

she said, you just need to say thank you. And then thank the Lord for it. And so now regardless,

I just say thank you. Because, I mean, how do you, you know, do I cry? Does that help?

You know, how do you, how do you show how much appreciation you have for what somebody

does? Say thank you. So when God gives us this gift, what do we say thank you with? We

say thank you with our lives. And God demonstrates His love for us that while we were yet sinners,

He knows us. He knows us. He knows what we've done wrong.

He died for us. And that if we'll confess that Jesus is Lord and we'll believe in our

heart that God raised Him from the dead, that we shall be saved. It's a commitment that He

makes to us. If we'll commit to Him, He'll commit to us. And everyone who calls upon the

name of the Lord shall be saved. And as often happens in a conversation with somebody like

that with an eight-year-old, she might have been like some of y'all this morning, already

lost some interest halfway along the way, you know? And so picking up on that, I took

that card like I most commonly do. And I told her mother, I said, this is what I want you

to do. I want her to nail this down and know what she's doing before she ever does anything

for the Lord. I said, so take this card home. And every day, every night, whenever it's convenient

for you, 30 seconds to two minutes a day, not, don't belabor the point, don't bore with your

theology, you know? 30 seconds to two minutes go over one of these verses. Just start at the

top of this page and explain it. The next day, 30 seconds to two minutes, go through the next

one. There's five verses on this sheet. I want you to write down two more. John 3, 16.

First John 1, 9. We confess our sins. He's faithful and just forgives us of our sins. And He cleanses

us from all unrighteousness. I said, that's seven. I'll take you a week to do. Just 30 seconds

to two minutes a day. You'll miss a day or two, by the way. And when you get done, start

over and do it again. And when you get done, start over and do it again. Just a verse in

one. Before long, that child will begin to finish your sentences. She'll know where you're going.

Now, God's already drawn her or she wouldn't have been asking questions. She didn't come

up with that on her own. Romans 1 tells us that. God's drawing her. And as she becomes

more attuned to the gospel message and the salvation message, she'll be drawn that much more.

And I will tell you that in the coming days, weeks, possibly months, that little girl will

probably make a decision for the Lord. I've never seen it any other way, quite honestly, in

ministry. To just trust the Lord and good godly parents talking of those things when they sit

in the house, when they walk by the way. That's in the car. Cut the radio off. When they lie

down. When they lie down. Prepare them and make them ready to make Christ the Lord of their lives.

Listen. Listen. We cannot make that decision for them. It's not our decision to make. But we

can usher them to Christ. Give them preparation. Lastly, give them love. Many fathers are afraid

to show love. They're afraid to love. They're afraid to show love. And what it produces in

response can be unlovely. Men, I want you to hear me this morning. You need to love your

children affectionately. Don't be afraid to give your child a kiss or a hug. Many boys grow

up not knowing how to be tender because they never saw a man tender. Many girls grow up going

too far too early because they never had healthy, proper affection from their fathers. And so

show them affection. I want to warn you, we have allowed perversion to redefine affection.

And we need to take it back for the gospel's sake. Now many fathers are afraid to show healthy

affection to their children. Or maybe they were never taught. Men, hear me. You can hug your

son. Many girls spend years searching for affirmation, searching for acceptance, searching for affection

because they never consistently received it from their fathers. Healthy, godly affection is

needed. So love your children affectionately. Second, love your children verbally. Let them hear it.

Men, it's the macho thing never to say I love you. And that's of the devil. It's also of the devil

to tell too many people you love them. But that's a whole other sermon. But

the great theologian, Reba McIntyre,

sang these lyrics.

The greatest man I never knew

lived just down the hall.

And every day we'd say hello but never touched at all.

He was in his paper. I was in my room.

How was I to know?

He thought I hung the moon.

The greatest man I never knew came home late every night.

He never had too much to say.

Too much was on his mind.

I never really knew him.

And now it seems so sad.

Everything he gave us

took all he had.

Then the days turned into years

and the memories to black and white.

He grew cold like an old winter wind

blowing across my life.

The greatest words

I never heard, I guess I'll never hear.

The man I thought

could never die has been dead almost

a year.

Oh, he was good at business.

But there was business left

to do.

He never said he loved me.

I guess he thought I knew.

I don't want my kids

to ever wonder

if their daddy loved them.

And I don't want your kids

to ever wonder

if their daddy loved them.

Show your love for them.

Act out your love for them.

And love them verbally.

Say it to them.

As well,

love your children cheerfully.

Love them with the love of the Lord.

Laugh.

Be silly.

Have fun.

The video of me dancing with Abby

in the daddy-daughter dance

has been seen by too many people.

She asked me nine months ago

at least

to do a fun mash-up dance

with her

for the daddy-daughter dance.

And I said,

get it to me soon.

And in classic Abby fashion,

I got it about 24 hours

ahead of the reception.

We were to keep it a secret

from her mother.

And so I could not watch it,

the video,

and listen to the music

in front of her.

And so most of the instructions

that I was instructed

about the songs

was listened to

as I drove back and forth

between Pickens and Clemson

in wedding preparation.

I would have been

a whole lot better

on the dance floor

if I'd only known.

But that's what she wanted.

And there's nothing wrong

with that fun dance.

Dudes, I want you to listen to me.

Don't always be the straight man.

There's a time for serious

and there's a time for fun.

And don't always be the fun guy

either, by the way.

But anyway,

work at these things.

I'm going to give you a disclosure.

You're not going to get it all right.

You're not.

You're going to drop the ball.

You're going to mess up.

But let's work at it.

Diligently in the Lord.

And we'll run the risk

of being a Hall of Fame dad.

In 1993,

they remodeled

the Baseball Hall of Fame

in Cooperstown, New York.

And when they were remodeling it,

some workers removed

a display case

and found an old photograph

tucked behind the case.

It was a photo of a stocky,

friendly-looking man

in a baseball uniform

that had Sinclair Oil

written across the front of it.

Stapled to the picture

was a note

that said,

you were never too tired

to play ball.

On your days off,

you helped build

the Little League field.

You always came to watch me play.

You were a Hall of Fame dad.

I wish I could share

this moment with you.

And a reporter

got a hold of the story

and researched it.

The man in the picture

was Joe O'Donnell.

He was a great hitter

in that league

that he was in

in his day.

And he died

at the age of 50

in 1966.

And 22 years later,

his son, Pat,

slid the note

and the picture

behind the display

in a private induction ceremony

for his father

in the Hall of Fame.

After Pat was located,

his story was shared

and he threw out

the first pitch in 2009

in Cooperstown

on Father's Day.

And that note

and that picture

and that explanation

is on display

in the Hall of Fame

in Cooperstown, New York.

Now, I don't care

that my daughters

ever do anything like that,

but I want to be

a Hall of Fame dad.

And I want you to be.

How?

By giving them time.

By preparing them.

By loving them.

And as the text says,

turning your heart

toward your children.

And with an effort

to do that,

mixed in with the grace

of God,

we might just be able

to be Hall of Fame dads

for our children.

that's my prayer

for you today.

And it's my prayer

for me as well.

You know,

that starts

with a personal relationship

with Christ.

Because, Dad,

there's nothing

you can share

with somebody else

that you ain't got yourself.

And some of you know

the greatest burden

that I have in ministry

is that there might be dads

and husbands

that come to church

just following their family

and never quite

take in the message

themselves.

It is a nightmare

for me

that somebody

could sit

and listen to me

preach multiple times

and never give

their heart and life

to the Lord Jesus.

There's only so much

I can do about that.

But I'm telling you,

men,

women,

boys and girls,

if you've never

given your heart and life

to the Lord Jesus Christ,

I'm thankful today

that everyone

who calls upon

the name of the Lord

shall be saved.

He'll take you

as you are

and make you

what you need to be.

Don't wait

until you get it fixed.

You won't get it fixed.

You can't.

You were made for Him

and you've lived

apart from Him.

There's no way

you can fix this yourself.

Today,

as we stand and sing,

if God's leading you,

you come.

Pastor,

I need to give my life

to Christ today.

Maybe you're here

and you've done that privately.

You've never done it publicly.

And the reality is,

by Jesus' example

and by His commission,

He tells us

not only to make that public

but to do that

through baptism.

And if you've never done that,

you've missed

the first step of obedience

after a private decision

for Christ.

And you need to do that.

You come.

We're not doing it this morning

but we'll line it up.

We'll talk about it.

Maybe God's drawing you

to Pickens First Baptist Church.

I'm thankful

how God is moving

in this church

and moving

in the lives of many.

Just spoke to someone

before the 9 o'clock

worship hour

about the possibility

to join this church

and how God continues

to move.

It's just a blessing to see.

And so if God's

drawing you this morning,

I encourage you to come

as God leads you.

We'll guide you in that.

Maybe you're here

and whether you're a dad

or a mom

or a knucklehead kid

and you realize

the family dynamic

is not what it needs to be

and some of that

is your fault.

And today,

you say,

Lord,

I want you to help me

to be what I need to be

for my family.

And I'm thankful

that He'll forgive you

with repentance

and He'll lead you

from this day forward.

Let's be diligent

with what God's invested

to us.

Not just for today,

but every day.

Lord Jesus,

I love you

and I thank you,

Lord,

for the love

that you have for us

and I ask today,

dear God,

you'll lead us

to simply be obedient

to follow you

any way you'd have us

to go.

In Jesus'

precious name,

amen.

Thank you.