INTRODUCTION
A comedian defines the difference between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. He insists that Mother’s Day is a much bigger deal because mothers are more organized. Mothers say to their children: Now here is a list of what I want. Go get the money from your father and you surprise me on Mother’s Day. You do that for me. The comedian continued, “For Father’s Day I give each of my five kids $20 so that they can go out and by me a present——a total of $100. They go to the store and buy two packages of underwear, each of which costs $5 and contains three shorts. They tear them open and each kid wraps up one pair, the sixth going to the Salvation Army. Therefore, on Father’s Day I am walking around with new underwear and my kids are walking around with $90 worth of my change in their pockets.” (Bill Cosby)
“A father is someone who carries pictures where his money used to be.”
Some men in a pickup truck drove into a lumberyard. One of the men walked in the office and said, ’We need some four-by-twos. ’The clerk said, ’You mean two-by-fours, don’t you?’ The man said, ’I’ll go check,’ and went back to the truck. He returned in a minute and said, ’Yeah, I meant two-by-fours.’ ’All right. How long do you need them?’ The customer paused for a minute and said, ’I’d better go check.’ After awhile, the customer returned to the office and said, ’A long time. We’re gonna build a house.’
WOULDN’T YOU HATE TO SEE THE HOUSE THEY BUILT?
I wouldn’t do a very good job of building a house, but as a father I have faced the challenge of building a home. Specifically, my task was to help my children grow up to be adults. (Could mention one’s children at this point)
God gives fathers (and mothers) some instructions on how to build better children.
Ephesians 6:4 – “Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.”
Colossians 3:21 – “Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged.”
Children are to obey their parents, but this is not a one way relationship. Ray Summers observes, “It is a matter of mutual relationship. Just as the child has the responsibility of obedience and honor to the parent, so the parent has a responsibility to the child.”
Kenneth L. Boles – “Parents, specifically fathers have their duty as well. Even though Roman law and social custom might give them virtually unlimited authority over their children, God sets limits.”
Paul’s picture of what fathers should be was much different than the norm of his day.
R. C. Bell – “Since fathers are more likely to resort in haste to the much easier expedient of crushing authority instead of prayerful instruction and prudent discipline than are mothers, fathers are warned against provoking their children to resentment.”
F. F. Bruce – “If children are exhorted to render obedience, parents, and specifically fathers, are urged not to irritate their children by being so unreasonable in their demands that the children lose heart and come to think that it is useless trying to please their parents.”
Owen Olbricht – “Treatment of children that is either too harsh or that shows lack of understanding on the part of parents can cause children to become discouraged or lose heart…The effort of parents should not concentrate solely on training children to avoid being naughty. Too much emphasis on eliminating what is wrong may cause a child to be negative. The proper goal for parents is to train their children to be Christlike in their conduct, which includes putting on positive attributes as well as putting off negative ones. Children need heroes and role models to follow, not constant reprimands for bad conduct.”
John Stott – “Behind this curbing of parental authority there lies the clear recognition that, although children are to obey their parents in the Lord, yet they have a life and personality of their own. They are little people in their own right. As such they are to be respected, and on no account to be exploited, manipulated, or crushed.”
How do we exasperate or embitter our children?
1. Unreasonableness – children are not miniature adults
2. Fault-finding
3. Inconsistency
4. One of the leading causes of angry, rebellious children is parents who do not demand obedience. There is a fascinating dynamic at work here. A subtle deception is perpetrated on parents which leads us to believe that if we give in to the demands of our tantrum-throwing kids, they will be happy, not angry. After all, they do seem very angry when they are throwing their tantrums. Don’t we just add to their angry behavior when we don’t let them have their way? But this is the deception. When we do not demand obedience from our children and let them have their way every time they throw a fit, we simply reinforce and encourage angry behavior as a means for them to get their way.
5. Colossians 3:21 gives us the reason for not provoking our children: “they will become discouraged”
HOW DO WE APPLY THESE BIBLICAL INSTRUCTIONS?
FOCUS ON WHAT REALLY MATTERS
Harmon Killebrew who used to play for the Minnesota Twins said, “My father used to play with my brother and me in the yard. Mother would come out and say, ‘You’re tearing up the grass.’ Dad would reply, ‘We’re not raising grass, we’re raising boys.’”
TIME
Dr. James Dobson said, “Love isn’t something you buy. Your kids spell it T-I-M-E and it costs more than M-O-N-E-Y.”
When Billy Crystal’s daughter turned eleven, Billy was in New York filming a movie. He called her, apologized for his work schedule, and said a package would be delivered soon. He then flew from New York to Los Angeles. Later that day when Lindsay opened the front door, a six foot high carton greeted her, and she began ripping it open on the spot. Dad was inside the carton. Billy said, “She hugged me for five minutes. It was unbelievable.” He went on to say, “I missed twenty-five birthdays with my dad. I’m not going to let that happen with my girls.” Billy was fifteen when his father died of a heart attack.
A young man was to be sentenced to the penitentiary. The judge had known him from childhood, for he was well acquainted with his father—a famous legal scholar and the author of an exhaustive study entitled, “The Law of Trusts.” “Do you remember your father?” asked the magistrate. “I remember him well, your honor,” came the reply.
Then trying to probe the offender’s conscience, the judge said, “As you are about to be sentenced and as you think of your wonderful dad, what do you remember most clearly about him?” There was a pause. Then the judge received an answer he had not expected. “I remember when I went to him for advice. He looked up at me from the book he was writing and said, ‘Run along, boy; I’m busy!’ When I went to him for companionship, he turned me away, saying ‘Run along, son; this book must be finished!’ Your honor, you remember him as a great lawyer. I remember him as a lost friend.”
The magistrate muttered to himself, “Alas! Finished the book but lost the boy!”
INSTRUCTION
Proverbs 22:6 – “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.”
The text of one Father’s Day card read: Dad, thanks to your lectures, I never change horses in the middle of a job worth doing, I know the squeaky wheel gets the worm, and I never count my chickens until I’ve walked a mile in their shoes. And you thought I wasn’t listening!
Instruction can be misunderstood.
After hearing his dad preach on “Justification, “Sanctification,” and all the other “ations”, a minister’s son felt suitably prepared when his Sunday School teacher asked if anybody knew what “PROCRASTINATION” meant. “I’m not exactly sure what it means,” he said, “but I know our church believes in it!”
A little boy was playing on a Sunday morning while his Dad was in a lounge chair reading the paper. The father said: “Son, get yourself ready for Sunday School”. The little boy asked: “Are you coming with me today Dad?” The man replied: “No, I’m not coming. But I want you to hurry up and get ready”. The little boy then said: “Did you used to go to Sunday School when you were a boy, Dad?” He said: “I most certainly did!” As he walked away the boy mumbled: “Yeah, and I bet it won’t do me any good either!”
Example is often a more powerful teacher than words.
C.H. Spurgeon – A man’s life is always more forcible than his speech. When men take stock of him they reckon his deeds as dollars and his words as pennies. If his life and doctrine disagree, the mass of onlookers accept his practice and reject his preaching.
Clarence Budington Kelland – “My father didn’t tell me how to live. He lived and let me watch him do it.”
A farmer had toiled over a bumper crop of grain – a badly needed crop of grain – a badly needed crop that was going to pay off many creditors and secure the family for another year. But just a few days before it was due to be harvested a freak wind and hailstorm ravaged the property, and the harvest was lost. The man stood with his little boy looking over the fields of destroyed grain. The boy expected to hear his father cursing in despair. But instead his dad began to softly sing: “Rock of Ages cleft for me, let me hide myself in Thee.” Years later that boy, grown into manhood, said: “That was the greatest sermon I ever heard!” His father had shown him FAITH where the rubber meets the road!
Here is the sad confession of one father. “I took my children to school but not to church. I enrolled them in Little League, but not in Sunday school. I showed them how to fish but not to pray. I made the Lord’s Day a holiday, rather than a holy day. I gave them a color TV but did not give them a Bible. I handed them the keys to the car but did not teach them about the keys to the kingdom. I taught them how to make a living but failed to show them who they should live for.”
DISCIPLINE
Hebrews 12:7f
Proverbs 13:24 – “He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him.”
Discipline is more than physical punishment. Certainly, abuse must be avoided.
An Amish man caught his two boys drinking beer at a local tavern. The disappointed father promptly disciplined his sons. He told them “I’ll take the horse home boys… and you bring the buggy.”
CONCLUSION
(Number of years) Father’s Day as a son. (Number if father is deceased) now without dad. (Number of years) Father’s Day as a dad. It is my (number of years) Father’s Day as a grandfather.
Dad helped to build me, and I have the privilege and responsibility of helping build my children and grandchildren.
Charles Wadsworth – By the time a man realizes that maybe his father was right, he usually has a son who thinks he’s wrong.
A father is someone you look up to no matter how tall you grow.
A four year old boy said to his father – “Do you know what I want to be when I get big?” The dad said, “No, son, what do you want to be?” He was expecting fireman, cowboy, astronaut, leader of the free world — something along those lines. With a gleam in his eye and a huge grin of excitement, the son said, “When I get big, I’m going to be a daddy!”
Proverbs 23:24“The father of godly children has cause for joy. What a pleasure it is to have a wise son.”
Tom Keener
