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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.
5 Traits of Godly Fathers
| Sermon ID | 102313218431 |
| Duration | 32:37 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - AM |
| Language | English |
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