The Heart of a Father - Joel Schrock

Good morning. Also want to greet everyone, and the name

of Jesus. Looks like it's the time of year where

we swap a few of our families out for some

visitors and remain about the same size. So good to

see some familiar faces and new faces. Welcome here everyone.

I'm not going to read many verses from any one

passage this morning. If the first verses I'll be reading,

I believe are from Deuteronomy, you can turn there if

you want to. Don't feel obligated to turn to every

scripture we turned to this morning. I well, as was mentioned,

today is set aside by society as Father's Day, and

I think it's uh. I think it's a beautiful thing

to take time sometimes to reflect fathers, mothers. I'm going

to I will Dan mentioned this. I will be looking

at father's this morning. Primarily got the message ready this morning,

and it dawned on me that I never came up

with a title. And I'll blame that on being busy

being a father. I hope that works. But uh, if

you need one, maybe the heart of a father. Jordan

Peterson said, there's nothing you'll do in life that's more challenging, difficult,

and rewarding than being a parent. Nothing with greater highs

or lower lows get the full spectrum. Now, this isn't

This message is not intended to be a child training message,

but more to look at the role of a father

and some comparisons, as Dan already did with our heavenly Father.

So we'll look at it. We'll look at the word

father from a few different angles this morning. Now, being

a f and talking about fathers is a little intimidating,

and you know the majority of the people here could think, well,

I'm not a father, so I can plan my next

week out now. But while this may be angled at

man fathers specifically, I believe Dan mentioned this. I know

he did a year ago. I don't know if he

remembers that we all have a father. We're all affected

by father somehow. Some of us are fathers, Lord willing

more of us will be someday. But maybe more importantly

and most importantly, is all of us can and should

know and know about our heavenly Father. So what is

a father? What do you think of when you think

of father? Didn't give you a heads up, But are

there any words besides father that jump in your mind?

When when you think of the word father, anybody role model,

all right, and the others Okay, no, no worries that

that's one. I had so go through this here a

few a few things I thought of. What man has

the privilege, is privileged enough to carry the title father?

Who is a father? Well, the first thing I thought

of is that a father is a father, and that's

a pretty basic truth. But there are children, They're offspring, involved,

young ones to look after, to care for. It's part

of the definition. There's a certain leadership that goes with that.

A father should be a provider and this should be

physically physically provide for your family as much as possible.

Bible talks about that, emotionally spiritually provide. A father should

be a protector, should provide safety and stability to the

best of their ability. And again this is physical, emotional,

and spiritual safety. A father, along with a mother, ideally

should order a household in a manner that there's security

for the children. And this is one of the most

basic forms of providing and protecting. A father should be

a teacher, which means a father must know some things

and be willing to learn more. Deuteronomy found this interesting

Deuteronomy six, and this chapter six here above above, Chapter

six in my Bible says remember God every day, and

and it talks about the commandments, and and and it's

it's going over a whole list of things here and

then Deuteronomy six, verse verses six and seven. And these

words would which I command thee this day, shall be

in thine heart. So first thing, father, is, if you're

going to teach, you need something in your heart, all right,

it shall be these words shall be in your heart,

my heart. And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children,

and shalt talk of them when they'll citizen in the house,

and when the walkest by the way, and when the

liest down, and when they'll rise a stop. So notice

it is diligence of the parents here. Teach diligently when

you're sitting in your house, when you're walking down the trail,

when you go to bed at night, when you get

up in the morning, be diligent teachers. A father should

be a guide. Now, who is a guide? What is

a guide? What is the purpose of a guide? Now?

If you wanted to go to a far away place

and climb a mountain, you wanted to climb Mount Everest.

If you wanted to go to Africa and shoot a

cape buffalo, I would venture to guess that you would

voluntarily and monetarily hook up with a guide. I don't

think anybody would have to talk you into that. Now,

why is that, Well, for one thing, they've been there before,

or else, they have no business being a guide. If

you're hiking Mount Everest, the guide, it's no guarantee of safety.

But the guide should know the place is prone to avalanches.

He should know the best routes, the dangers, which places

to walk around, and which you lay a ladder and

walk across. If you're hunting for a cape buffalo or

the Big five in Africa, let's say you want someone

that knows the terrain, the dangers, and how to shoot

quickly and accurately. If a lion jumped out of the bushes,

or if a wounded cape buffalo charged you, you would

certainly want a knowledgeable guide with you. Now, guides make mistakes.

They've made mistakes. Hopefully they've learned from their mistakes, and

that's why they're doing what they're doing. There's a whole

series of books and I presume they're true. At least

he's a good writer. Peter Hathway caps it, and I

don't know that they're greatly inspirational, but they're interesting. And

they're titled like Death in the Long Grasses and Death

in the Silent Places and things like that. Whole books

of this man who is both a professional hunter and

a guide, and there are things like we may not

think about. Where as a professional hunter, not as a guide,

he had to this influence his guiding. Maybe he was

contracted once to take out a herd of elephants that

was overrunning an area. It's too many of them had

to go take him out. Now, what the average hunter

North America might not know is that is just wildly dangerous, right,

And if you have multiple charging elephants, you're in trouble,

and these kind of things happen. There is one and

one spot only on a charging elephant that you can

hit and drop them, and you don't really have a

second chance to figure out where that spot is. So

it's pretty important you know that these are the kinds

of things. Book after book, this man learned lessons he

saw other people maybe fail lessons. This man, with all

all of his scrapes and scratches and bruises, is someone

you would want with you in the bushes of Africa,

all the mistakes, all the close calls, all the imperfections.

We would give that man, or these guides the respect

they deserve for walking the way before, for surviving up

until this point, and their ability to point out the

dangers and pitfalls that they see. And I think there

might be some lessons for us in the spiritual sense here,

you know, instead of being critical, especially especially young idealistic people,

instead of being critical of the scars and imperfections of

your father, maybe you're your biological father, maybe a spiritual father.

Maybe we should give them the reverence of a of

a man that has made it this far, yeah, and

can tell us about the lions and the crevices and

the mountaintop experiences. Now, father, this one was mentioned, should

be a role model. And this isn't just biological fathers,

you know, fathers. I think you know in the Sunday

school this morning, studying about the and a Baptists, there's

some spiritual fathers fore fathers, we say the beginning of

a country, there's founding fathers. There's these people that because

of an outsized influence, maybe a founding, the beginning of life,

the beginning of something. The care have the title father,

but a father should be a role model and fathers

we should be the man that we want our sons

to grow up to be, that we want our sons

to want to grow up to be. We should be

the man that we should be, a man, the kind

of man that we want our daughters to grow up

and marry. Now, those are some things I think of

when I think of a father. Now again, we could

think of earthly fathers in different ways. I'd like to

briefly look at three here, and this is one. My

father in law likes to talk about biological father, a

legal father, and emotional father. You could probably you could

probably put different titles on some of those, but just

briefly talk about these three. So biological father, this is

the man from where we got half of our DNA.

We'd likely resemble him in some way physically, maybe through

likes and dislikes gestures. You know, my wife likes pepperoni,

pizza and pepsi, just like her biological father that she

doesn't remember. You know, I don't know if that's if

that's hereditary or what. But most of us know this

man as our dad. Some of us never knew this

man because of death or some other early separation. And

maybe some of us do know this man but don't

have a close relationship with him. And there's a legal father.

He's on your birth certificate, either because he's your biological

father or he adopted you. You carry his last name.

And then there's the emotional father. This is the man

that takes care of your needs on a day to

day basis. It may be the man that you would

want to emulate in some way or be like or

look up to. This could be your biological dad. This

could be another person chose to adopt you and you

call him dad. This could be a dad that raises

you through other circumstances. More and more, this is a grandfather.

Because of the decay of manhood and fatherhood in our society,

someone else has to pick up the pieces. This could

be a spiritual father, a mentor in some way in

the absence of a father, or in addition to a father.

For some of us, those three people are the same person.

For others of us, it may be two or three

different people. John three talks about the love of our

heavenly Father. Now, the interesting thing about our heavenly father

is he created us. Then he adopted us. He chose,

he chose us to be his children. And we see

that in Chapter three, verse one of John. Behold what

manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us? That

we should be called the sons of God. This is

a gift given to us. It's bestowed upon us. He

calls us as children. Now as well. See then we

have a choice to make. As with any father child relationship,

whether it's biological, adopted, whatever the case, the child has

to choose to be her daughter of that father, that

father or mother eventually, and we see that in a

spiritual sense here later. But men, I would like us

to think, whether or not you have a child or

will someday. The opportunity to be a father figure, spiritual leader,

to adopt spiritual children is wide open. And in fact,

if you look through the Bible, I would say, especially

in the New Testament, we know more about spiritual fathers

and children than we do about biological fathers and children.

Take for example, the Apostle Paul, Timothy, many others, spiritual children,

beautiful passages, others. You know Peter, we hear about his

mother in law. I don't know if we read if

he has children. We hope that they are our spiritual

children as well. But there's opportunity to be a spiritual father. Now.

I believe that most of us sitting here have good fathers,

good dads. But just like any human role, the position

of a father can be misused and abused. There are

fathers in this world that are less than ideal. There

are fathers in this world that live terrible lives, not

worthy to have the title father. And I believe that

our own experience of our father can influence our perspective

of God the Father. But there's an important distinction. I

think we all know and understand what a father should

look like. Remember that God is good. We'll get into

a little bit what good is here in a minute.

But God alone is good, is truly good, and so

what does a good father look like? So the rest

of the time here I'd like to talk about modeling

ourselves after the heavenly Father. And there could be many

points on this, I'm going to have five. But what

was impressive to me looking at this is, as there

are a few places in the Bible that refer to

God as acting like our earthly fathers. And what impressed

me about this is that God seemed to be explaining

himself and showing himself to people through his creation through

other people, not the other way around. So as we

look at these verses, notice God isn't saying, Notice how

I care for you, This is how you should be

to your children. Instead, God references something we know intuitively

from little up, something most of us have experienced, or

at least there's an ideal out there, something we can picture.

And he says, do you see how a father carries

his child? Do you see how a father has compassion

for his children? Do you see how a father gives

his children good things? Do you see how a father

disciplines his wayward child and love? And he says, this

is how I am. He gives the examples of earthly

fathers for us to understand who he is. So the

first one here, number one, our heavenly Father. And this

is again in the context of modeling ourselves fathers after

the heavenly Father. Number on. Heavenly Father gives us what

we need in the way he sees fit. Our heavenly

Father gives us good things. Matthew seven, going to read

verses seven through eleven. Like to look at this, Matthew seven,

starting in verse seven, asking it shall be giving you seek,

and ye shall find knock, and it shall be opened

unto you. For everyone that asketh receiveth, and he that

seeketh findeth, And to him that knocketh it shall be open.

And these next couple verses is what I'd really like

us to catch, really familiar verses, but I'd like to

look at them. Or what man is there of you

whom if his son asks bread, will he give him

a stone? Or if you ask a fish, will he

give him a serpent? If ye then being evil? So, fathers,

you're not inherently good, but you know how to give

good gifts unto your children. If you, then, being evil,

know how to give good gifts unto your children, how

much more show your father, which is in heaven, give

good things to them that ask him. It's like, fathers,

imagine this right, you know how to do it. Imagine

how much more I know how to do it. Imagine

sitting down for dinner, fathers, and your son. Maybe it's

up cute, little chubby cheek three year old. That's covered

from head to toe and dirt, and he has the

butter and the jam, and he's ready for some bread.

And he says, please pass the bread. It's like, well,

that's a win, he said, please at least, and you

look down the table. How many of you would give

that little boy, would pass him a dirty, hard, cold

stone instead of a warm, soft piece of bread. Probably

nobody in here will do that. Or imagine you have

a child. He took him fishing. He liked to fish.

You like steep fish. You're all done, ready to eat,

And he asked for some fish. How many of you

will look at your son and pass him a scaly, slithering,

poisonous snake? And sa, I hope nobody in here do that?

And God says, fathers, you know how to give good gifts,

good things to your children. How much more me? Who

am good? Who is good? And I believe Fathers, that

we desire to give good things to our children. Now,

that does not mean that children always know what is good.

It does not mean that we always give them what

they want, when they want it, and how they want it.

All right, are youngest son, Ethan is a very Sometimes

I get to feed him a bottle and he's very

vigorous eater. And you know, if I have a bottle

prepared and he wants the bottle, I want to give

it to him right, But his fine motor skills aren't

fully up to speed yet. All he wants knows is

he wants it immediately, if not sooner, and lets you

know about it. And he waves his arms, swivels his

head to try to find that, and in the process,

more often than not, he pushes the food away, knocks

it aside. Makes it harder to give him the good

things that he needs, it turns out, especially my wife.

But even I know better than him how to give

him good things. Maybe your seven year old son wants

to drive a side by side and shoot your twenty

two at least mine does at the same time if

he could now, at least individually, those aren't bad things.

There's some good things about those. But you know better

than your son how good the things are and how

when to give them. And I think that's a lesson

for us. So often we think we know just what

we need, when we need it, and how we need it.

And how often do we think we know what is good?

But God doesn't give it to us the way we

want it, when we want it, or how we want it.

But what if we simply aren't prepared, or what if

in the process we're actually pushing away the good thing

that God is trying to give us. What if we

don't have a clear picture of what is good. Turns

out that God knows all of these things, and God

does want to give us what's good. He wants to

give us what's truly good. Our heavenly Father gives us

what we need in the way he's fit. He gives

us what is good. Number two, our heavenly Father carries

us when we're in the wilderness. This one was impressive

to me. Deuteronomy again, chapter one, and only going to

read a verse from here, but this is after numbers.

Here Israel's at Horeb, and Moses speaks to the children

of Israel and gives them sort of a well, we

have we have, we have a history here, we have

the spies, we have the journey in the wilderness. We

have here. What impressed me was verse thirty one in

Deuteronomy one. Well, if you back up here a little bit,

it's talking about the spies in God's punishment, and you know,

there's the explanation here of why they shouldn't fear and

so on. But part of the explanation here in verse

thirty one, And in the wilderness where thou hast seen,

how that the Lord thy God bear thee as a

man doth bear his son, in all the way that

you went until you came into this place. Here Moses

is using in his writing, here is using a mind

picture of God as he relates to our earthly fathers.

When you are in the wilderness, your heavenly father carried you,

and he carried you like a man carries his son.

So what do you think of when you think of

a man carrying his son? Why does he carry his son?

What does it look like? Well, generally you enjoy each

other's company. That's one reason to carry a son. You

might carry a son to keep them safe. You might

carry a son to give them comfort. You might carry

a son to give them or a daughter a child.

A father might carry a child to give them rest.

Sometimes children don't have the strength or the stamina to

get where a father's trying to go, And we picked

them up, put them on our shoulder. And why fathers

do we carry our families when there when we find

ourselves in the wilderness, when they're weak, in danger, or

in need of comfort. There's a short, familiar reading. I

guess it's called a poem. Doesn't rhyme at least in

this rendition. We've probably all heard it. It's footprints in

the sand. Going to read a version of it here.

One night I dreamed I was walking along the beach

with the Lord. Scenes from my life flashed across the sky.

In each I noticed footprints in the sand. Sometimes there

were two sets of footprints, other times there was only one.

During the low periods of my life, I could see

only one set of footprints. So I said, Lord, you

promised me, Lord that you would walk with me always.

Why when I have needed you the most, have you

not been there for me? The Lord replied, The times

when you have seen only one set of footprints, my

child is when I carried you. Our heavenly Father carries

us when we're in the wilderness. Number three, Our heavenly

Father has compassion on his children, Psalm one hundred and three.

Again a beautiful psalm could read the whole Psalm talks

about the great and goodness of God, and then verse

thirteen says this like, as a father pitieth his children,

so the Lord pitieth them that fear him, now pitieth here.

Pity in today's English could maybe give the wrong connotation.

This doesn't mean like feel sorry or become a cause

to become a victory, not that kind of pity. Other

translations say compassion is a father has compassion on his children.

And again notice that God or that the comparison here

is earthly father, just like a father has compassion on

his children. That's what God's like. Something we can picture,

something we can see, something we know from little up,

something we can understand God. By fathers, do we have

compassion on our children? Do we remember where they are

and what stage of life they're in? God? Does you

keep reading in Psalm one hundred and three, God remembers

who we are. He remembers that we are dust, we

are frail, and He has compassion on us. Fathers, maybe

maybe spiritual fathers. Do you have compassion? Are you impatient

with the children? Maybe spiritual children around you? Do you

tire of their antics? Do you remember who they are?

Our heavenly Father remembers who we are the story of

the prodigal son is given in Luke fifteen. And this

son had disrespected his father, forsook his parents, and left

home complete disrespect. He took his portion of the inheritance

and squandered it and became a broke and broken man.

But we see something impressive in the heart of the father.

The father watched, and the father longed, and the father

had compassion. Going to read Luke fifteen, verse twenty, this

is after the prodigal son ran out of money, ran

out of friends, and decided, you know, being a servant

in my father's house would be better than this. And

he arose and came to his father, and I noticed

the actions of the father. But when he was yet

a great way off, his father saw him. So that's

one thing he saw him. Probably he didn't cash glance

out the living room window and saw he was watching,

I think, and had compassion. So I sees him way

out there. He has compassion and ran and does understand

that's not something the patriarchs did, fell on his neck

and kissed him. That's a lot of action from one

father in one short time. We know that story how

the son came back in humility and the father took

him back with joy. Notice again, Jesus giving this story

of the prodigal son in a way that we can

understand who we can We can connect those dots, and

we can understand who the heavenly Father is. Our heavenly

Father has compassion on his children. Number four, our heavenly Father,

How the disciplines his children in love. Proverbs three, verses

eleven and twelve says, my son despise not the chastening

of the Lord, neither be weary of his correction. For

whom the Lord loveth, he correcteth, even as a father,

the son, and whom he delith again, Who have this comparison?

You know that if a father loves his son, he's

not going to let him become a monster if he

can at all help it. He'll discipline as he needs to,

He'll punish as he needs to. He'll correct, he'll guide,

he'll teach. That's what a father does when he loves

his son. Just like that, the Lord will correct you too.

And you know, when we look at our heavenly Father,

who gives us good things, truly good things, not just

the things we want, who carries us the wilderness when

we're too weak and and need ah When when when

we're when we're too weak and tired. And who has

compassion on his children? Doesn't seem so harsh that God

would discipline is airing children in love. Now, it can

be easy for parents, fathers, spiritual fathers, you know, just

to say, whom the Lord loves he chasens. Right. That's true.

You know I love you, therefore I will punish you. Right, well,

technically true, But let's take into account everything that's going

on here. Have we given our children good things? Have

we carried them in the wilderness of life? Have we

had compassion on them and remember who they are? And

if we have, I believe we have the heart of

the father, and our discipline done in that context will

be meaningful, useful, and effective. Proverbs twenty two, verse six

says train up a child on the way he should go,

and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

So fathers, train your children when they're young. Now, as

I mentioned, this is pretty intimidating to talk about, because

my children are all sort of in that training upstage,

I think, and you know, sometimes it feels a little

like a shot in the dark. Anybody can relate to that.

But this I believe is a proverb. This is not

a formula. It is not X equals exactly. Personal choice

is very real. Seen people raised as far as he

can tell, the same way and make there's different outcomes. However,

if you want your children to not depart from the

truth when they are old, the best we can do

now is to train them when they're young in the

way they should go. More versus New Testament Hebrews twelve,

verses six and seven. For whom the Lord loveth, he

chaseeth and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If you

endure chasing, God dealeth with you as with sons. For

what son is he whom the Father chastenes not if

you are a child of God, if you're the child

of a good father, there will be some chasing. But

notice in that every son whom he receiveth there's a

receiving here. Our heavenly Father receives us as his sons

and his daughters. And that's just a tremendous privilege. So

our heavenly Father disciplines his children in love. Number five,

the last one I have on modeling ourselves after the

heavenly Father, as our father wishes to gather his children home.

And I believe again the story of the prodigal son

fits here. Not going to rehash that one. There's a

verse in Matthew that stood out to me really shows

the heart of a father. Here, I believe, and this

is Jesus Matthew twenty three, verse thirty seven. And Jesus

is looking over Jerusalem, and he says, Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem,

thou that kill us the prophets and stone us them

which are sent unto the How often would I have

gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her

chicks under her wings? And ye would not. And here's

where we come full circle. Say, we actually have a choice.

Who are spirit who our father is. We have a

choice whether God is our heavenly father. We have a

choice who our emotional father and spiritual fathers are. As

Jesus stood and looked over Jerusalem, he longed to gather

his children under his wings, to protect them and to

gather them home. But sadly, ye would not the choice.

That's the choice they made. It's a very sad state.

John three, verse sixteen, very familiar. For God so loved

the world that he gave his only begotten Son that

whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

Whosoever that's me, that's you, that's everyone. We all have

the opportunity to be a child of the heavenly Father.

He already chose us to be his children. We have

to choose him back, and hopefully Jesus says about us,

ye would not, you would not? So our heavenly Father

wishes to gather his children home. So inclosing, as we

go from here, let's be eternally grateful to our heavenly

Father and live with gratitude to earthly fathers and to

fathers and future fathers. Let us live like men. Let

us provide, protect, teach, guide, and be a role model.

Let us model after the heavenly Father, who uses us

as imagery so that we can understand him. Let us

give good things. Let us carry the children through the wilderness.

Let us have compassion, let us discipline and love, and

let's do our part in helping to guide the children.

Oh Tapsong,