Amen. Thank you. Thank you so much, Hope. And I'm glad we got to hear a little bit from Chattanooga today. At least see Brother Mark. Now we know for sure that he's there. All right. I wondered where he was. Okay. Open your Bible, if you will, to 1 Thessalonians. Marvelous church, the church at Thessalonica. These words by the Holy Spirit through the pen of the Apostle Paul. An unusual passage of scripture today, perhaps for Father's Day, but I think you'll see directly how it relates. I read verses 7 through 12. First Thessalonians, chapter 2, verse 7. But we were gentle among you, even as a nurse cherisheth her children. So being affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted unto you not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were dear unto us. For we remember, brethren, for ye remember, brethren, our labor and travail. for laboring night and day because we would not be chargeable unto any of you. We preached unto you the gospel of God. Ye are witnesses, and God also, how wholly and justly and unblameably we behaved ourselves among you that believe. As ye know how we exhorted and comforted and charged every one of you as a father doth his children that you would walk worthy of God who hath called you unto his kingdom and glory. I speak to you today on five traits of a godly father. Five traits of a godly father. We are in desperate need of such folks in this day in which we live. Five traits of a godly father. And they come directly from this passage of scripture. I take it from verse 11 where he says, as a father, as a father doth his children. We live in a culture that is anti-God and the natural way God made things to work. It seems contemporary society is trying to pressure girls to be masculine and boys to be feminine and then telling them that that's natural. no wonder young people have an identity crisis. It's no wonder they don't know who they are. It's no wonder they can't figure out life and where they fit into it. And then it stands to reason it's no wonder that we have the epidemic of suicides among young people that are present in this day in which we live. Now I'm not advocating And you know this. I'm not advocating that girls be sexual or sensual. I'm advocating that they be ladies in the best and purest sense of that word. And when I say that men should be real men, I by no means am encouraging an attitude or actions of a Rambo-like character or an abusive behavior. But what I am advocating is real men of God, spirit-filled servants of the Lord. And as Dr. Bob Jones Sr. said many, many years ago, inevitably, spirit-filled men are gentlemen. In approaching this, Paul said to them, he said, I have done these things. In your presence I have done these things. I have exhorted, I have comforted, I have charged you. Even as a father doth his children. Now if you will allow me to go back to verse 8 and walk through this and I'll give you five principles very quickly that should be traits of fathers. And I think they're very You don't have to push it to get it out of here. It's right here. In verse 8, "...so being affectionately desirous of you." Now if he's dealing with them as a father with children, then he is saying that as a father, I am affectionately desirous of you. And I'm willing to have imparted unto you not only the gospel of God, but my own self. And I think from this, the first thing I want to say to you is this. Godly fathers make their children feel loved and wanted. Godly fathers make their children feel loved and wanted. It's very, very difficult, as you know, to have a father's rejection. And it's very, very difficult for a person who has had a father's rejection to accept God as a loving father. And here it's very clear that we are to be affectionate toward our children. Now we men are not very good at that. We don't do that very well. Even to a wife and children, we're not tending to be affectionate beings. We think tenderness is a sign of weakness. And we don't want to indicate in any way that we're weak in any other area of our life. And we need to learn differently than that. And we need to learn that from God. We need to learn that from the Apostle Paul. That we are to be tenderly affectionate desirously affectionate. God wants us to know that he wants us. You would think that the most used four-letter word in the Bible would be come, as he says, come unto me, come unto me, come unto me. And that's exactly what he says all the way through the Word of God. Come to me. Come to me. Come to me. Young folks, old folks, when the little children were there and the disciples said, oh, he doesn't have time for the little kids. Jesus said, no, no, no, no, no. Suffer the little children to come to me. And don't forbid them. Let them come. Let them come to me. Don't get in their way. Don't come between me and the kids. And godly fathers ought to let their children know, I like you, I love you, I want you, I am glad you're mine. Now we'll look more at that as we go along. But that is expressed in a couple of ways here. First of all, God expresses that and Paul expresses it to them here and fathers should express it to children in that we want them to be saved. We give them the gospel. He says, we gave to you not only the gospel. It is an assumed fact that we give them the gospel. Fathers ought not depend on Sunday school teachers to give their kids the gospel. Fathers ought not depend on the preacher to give their kids the gospel. Fathers ought not depend on someone else taking that responsibility. That's a father's responsibility to see to it that their children hear the gospel. He said, we imparted to you the gospel. But he said something else about this matter and here about children and loving and wanting children. He said, we made known to you ourselves also. Now I'm not in favor of telling children everything you did as a little boy. Okay? I don't think that's what it's talking about here. But I think it's talking about being open and real with your children. It means being open enough to say, son, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. Son, I want you to forgive me for that. To say to a daughter, I flew off the handle and said things I shouldn't have said, and I'm sorry for that. I want you to know I love you and I care about you. And though I said those things like that, I do want you to behave and I want you to be appropriate. And all those things that fathers say, you know, how many times have I told you? If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times. But we ought to be open. that I know I'm not perfect. I know I'm not perfect, but I am your dad. And I do have a responsibility for you. Now, kids like to talk about those kinds of things whenever they come home as adult children. I guess the story at my house is about, I think it was Adam that was driving And he went through a caution light. And I was very, very, as the word comes here in a little while, exhort. I exhorted him very strongly about going through caution lights. It wasn't very long after that that I went through a caution light. And he took it upon himself to exhort me about going through a caution light. And I responded. You know how I responded? I responded just like my daddy would have responded. I mean, I responded in the very same way, in great love and tenderness and gentleness. I said, shut up. When you're 48 years old and it's your car and you're paying the insurance, you can drive through a light. But to be open and to be real and to want to let them know, we're not perfect, but I'm your dad. I want you. I love you. I care about you. It's interesting that the prodigal son knew that if he got home, somehow everything would be all right. If I can just get home, if I can just get back to my father, everything's going to be okay. It might not be like it was, and it wasn't like it was, But he said, everything's going to be OK if I can get back to my father. And kids ought to know they can get back. They ought to know that there's a way back. There's that way with God. God's made that way. And as fathers, we ought to make that way. Desirously, affectionately desirous of you, godly fathers, ought to let their kids know that they're loved and wanted. Number two, godly fathers work hard to provide for the family. In verse 9, look what Paul says he did. He says, Remember, brethren, our labor and travail and laboring night and day. Godly fathers work hard to provide for their family. And I know we can talk about how hard we work. You know, whenever a kid comes and asks for money, young people just know that if you come and ask us for money, you're going to get a lecture about how hard we work and how hard money is to come by. Now, we buy that privilege of giving that lecture by giving you money. I mean, we buy that privilege of that. Do you think I'm made of money? I guess you think money grows on trees. Nobody ever heard that. I mean, I would never say that. My dad did, but I would never say it. But I found myself saying that. I became one of those who, you know, walked five miles to school, and knee-deep snow, and uphill both ways, and all those things. I became one of those. And I'm sure every man, and probably every lady here, you've said something to your kids and you've turned your head and said, oh my soul, I said I'd never say that. Kids don't really understand that. And we feel called to make them understand that. But they don't really understand hard work. They need to. But do you know that God works on our behalf? And as kids sometimes are not grateful for the work that we do and the provisions that we make. As kids are not appreciative of that, so we're not appreciative of what God does for us. Children here today, children old and children young, express gratitude on Father's Day. Express gratitude for the provision your Father has made for you. I know you don't have everything you want. He knows you don't have everything you want. And I'm going to tell you something else. You don't have everything that he would like to provide you with. But you ought to be grateful for the sacrifices your dad makes to provide for you in the way that he does. You ought to say that. Godly fathers provide for the family. In verse 10, in verse 10, godly fathers provide a godly example. Look what he says. He said, you're witnesses and God also. He said, you saw this. I live before you. He said, I lived before you a holy way of life. I live before you a just way of life. Now, I know that if there's more than one child in the family, every child thinks daddy loves the other one the most. You know, I'm never the most loved one, unless you're like my daughter, who's the only girl in the family. And all three boys know that I loved her more than any of them. And the reason they know that is because she told them over and over and over. but he said you were witnesses and God also how holily and justly and unblameably we behaved ourselves among you. Fathers, we must provide godly examples. in holy living, in being right in our judgments. And I know we don't always get it right when we make decisions. But we ought to be open enough to say that we're wrong whenever we made that decision. And sometimes, sometimes you spank a kid when there's another kid that's supposed to get to spanking. But the kid you spanked wrong that time, he needed it for another time anyhow. And as you get older and the kids come back, you learn how one of them threatened the other kid so that he would confess to something that the other one had done and all those kinds of things. But we try to get it right. Be just. Be fair. Be equitable with your kids. Live holy before your kids. Live a blameless example before them. They need that. Paul said, I did this before you in the church there at Thessalonica. I live that way, and fathers ought to behave that way. Let me ask you this. Every father here today, particularly those of you with children still at home. If you were a kid, would you want to live at your house? If you were a kid, would you want to live at your house? You say, well, my dad just... I'm not talking about your dad. I'm talking about you. You say, well, my dad wasn't fair. My dad didn't live holy. My dad wasn't blameless in front of me. Somebody's got to stop that cycle. Godly fathers provide a godly example. How are kids going to know, little kids, how are they going to know what the Heavenly Father is like, except what they see in their father? Number four, in verse 11. Godly fathers provide godly training. Look what he says. As ye know how we exhorted. Now we're good. at exhortation. I mean, dads are good at exhortation. I mean, we can talk it out. We can tell them what ought to be done. We can tell them when they're wrong. We're not too good, maybe, at telling them when they're right. But we can tell them when they're wrong. And I mean, you know, we can see the mistakes they're making, and we can exhort them. We can exhort them. All the phrases are there over and over. We exhort them. How many times have I been slapped on the back and told to straighten up and put my shoulders back? Exhort. Exhort. Work hard. If you take something out, put it back. How come it is the only thing you want to do is tear up stuff? You never put anything back together. Well, I want to know what was inside. I already knew what was on the outside. I just wanted to know what was on the inside. But with that exhortation, look at the next word. Comfort. Comfort. We're not very good at that. Dads are not very good at that. We need to work on that. We need to learn from the Lord about that. We need to be yielded to someone who is the comforter. The blessed Holy Spirit that lives within us. He said, I exhorted you and I comforted you. And he said, I charged you. Now, whenever he says I charge you, this is what he's saying. I assigned to you certain tasks. Now, we ought to take the time to do that. And understand, the first time your boy cuts the grass, he's going to leave grass that didn't get cut because he didn't overlap it enough. Yeah. Yeah. Whenever the mower went down through here, And he turned around and came back. And the reason he leaves the grass in there is because he's trying to shorten up how many times he has to go back and forth. He doesn't want to overlap it, because that means an extra trip back and forth. And my dad would tell me, son, look at that. Look what you left down there. Now take the mower, go back out there, and get it, and go right down through there again. Now whenever I started mowing, I don't know anything about this, and I don't want to know anything about this anymore. We pushed it. and pushed it. And there was no motor on it. And you pushed it. You pushed it. Except from West Virginia, we didn't push it, we perched it. We put an R on everything. Whenever Mother said, clean your room, it charges. It charges. And I'm just going to talk about mothers a minute. Dads are not so much like this, but the things mothers can see in a room that a boy cannot see. You just cannot see it. I mean, it may be there, and if somebody points it out to you, it's probably there. I walked out of the house this morning. You see, a long time ago, Becky made an agreement with me. I'm going to leave it until you put it up. And if I leave a pair of shoes in front of my recliner whenever I go out of town, they'll be there when I get back. I walked out of the house this morning. I had a shirt thrown over a stool. I had a pair of pants thrown over another chair. I had socks laying on the floor and a pair of shoes over there. And I thought, oh, my soul. I really did feel guilty. I really did feel. Are you glad? Are you glad? OK. OK. And I'm going to get them this afternoon. And I never could figure out why you had to make up a bed when you were going to get back in it. But he said, I charge you. I assign you tasks. And the hardest thing to do is assign a task and it not be done exactly the way you want it done. And the kids know. The kids know, Daddy. They know that if they'll dink around and mess up long enough, you'll say, oh, get out of the way. I'll do it myself. No, charge them and hold them accountable for it. Do you know that whenever God expresses His will to us, God does not step in and do what He tells us to do? Do you understand that in this church, if Sunday school classes are going to be taught, God's not going to send angels down here to teach Sunday school classes. God's not going to send people from another church to come in here and keep the nursery. He's not going to do that. He's not going to send techs from some company downtown to come out here and run sound and video and lights. He's not going to do that. There are tasks that He's assigned, and if we don't do them, it's not done. Charge them. He said, I exhorted you, I comforted you, and I charged you. Godly fathers provide godly training. There are men who work in businesses who are responsible for training recruits and so forth like that and go on through life and are very successful in that. And their children live as if they never had any training whatsoever. May it not be so. Godly fathers provide godly training. And number five. In verse 12. Godly fathers focus their children on God. Now this is important. I'm not going to spend a long time here, but this is important. That ye would walk worthy of God who has called you unto his kingdom and glory. Godly fathers make their children and lead their children focus on God. Now there is honor and there is respect and there is a proper place for the family name. I understand that. There is respect for family tradition. There is a respect for father that you not belittle his name in the community and among the people of the community. and that's good and that's fine and that's healthy but fathers we must lead our children to focus on God focus on God that we walk worthy of God that we walk worthy of the name by which we are called children of God oh glorious calling We bear His name. We are Christians. That comes from the name Christ. It is His name we bear. He is the one we walk worthy of. I promise you this. Young people here, if you will focus on God, you will be all that a godly father want you to be. And to fathers here today, I say, lead the kids through your leadership and your position, not just to focus on you, but to focus on the God you love and the God you serve. And I know some of you sat here today and say, oh, I wish I could go back and change things. But you can't go back. You cannot do that. So what do you do? You go from here forward. A fella came and sat down in my office this week, and he said, you know, preacher, he said, I'm studying the Word of God, and he said, I'm just so far behind. I said, well, next year at this time, don't be another year behind. That's the thing you have to do. Don't be another year behind. From this point on, from this point on, it's not daddy's, it's not to your kids, don't you make me look bad. No, it's walk worthy of God. Walk worthy of God. Five traits of a godly father. from a passage that's not generally used on Father's Day, but I think the applications are very appropriate on this day. Now I ask you this question. Do you want to be a godly father? Is that the goal of your life, to be a godly father? Now I can speak that to ladies, I can speak that to young people, I can speak that to men that do not have children, and I can speak it to everyone. But today particularly I'm speaking to fathers. Do you want to be a godly father? Let's stand together.