Father’s Day 2009
In today’s world fatherhood has become distorted. Men who are heads of families, role models, and examples, many times fall far short of what God intended for fathers to be. Even in the church Priests , Pastors, and other members of the five-fold ministry have been weighted in the balance and found as child abusers and sexually perverse. Men in leadership positions in government who should exhibit moral excellence have failed miserably. We must go back to God’s Word for the true pattern for Fatherhood.
The Heavenly Father is the true pattern.
James 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.
Heb 12:9 Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live?
The Heavenly Father is seeking for fathers who will follow His example.
Gen 18:17 19 And the LORD said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing,
18 “since Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him?
19 “For I have known him, in order that he may command his children and his household after him, that they keep the way of the LORD, to do righteousness and justice, that the LORD may bring to Abraham what He has spoken to him.”
Mal 2:15 But did He not make them one, having a remnant of the Spirit? And why one? He seeks godly offspring. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth.
Fathers who will teach their children to follow the ways of the Lord , not just turn them over to the Children’s Church, or the Youth Pastor, but to accept their responsibility and be faithful with it.
Deut 11:18 21 “Therefore you shall lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.
19 “You shall teach them to your children, speaking of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.
20 “And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates,
21 “that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land of which the LORD swore to your fathers to give them, like the days of the heavens above the earth.
Being good in ministry is no excuse for being a poor father.
* The Lord first * The family second * The ministry third
1 Sam 2:22 25 Now Eli was very old; and he heard everything his sons did to all Israel, and how they lay with the women who assembled at the door of the tabernacle of meeting.
23 So he said to them, “Why do you do such things? For I hear of your evil dealings from all the people.
24 “No, my sons! For it is not a good report that I hear. You make the LORD’S people transgress.
25 “If one man sins against another, God will judge him. But if a man sins against the LORD, who will intercede for him?” Nevertheless they did not heed the voice of their father, because the LORD desired to kill them.
1 Sam 3:13 “For I have told him that I will judge his house forever for the iniquity which he knows, because his sons made themselves vile, and he did not restrain them.
What makes a good father in the eyes of the Lord? A father is the priest over his household, he takes the spiritual lead.
Eph 5:23 28 For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body.
24 Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her,
26 that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word,
27 that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.
28 So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself.
Eph 6:4 And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.
Fathers are to provide for the needs of their families .
1 Tim 5:8 But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
Fathers should provide a spiritual covering for their family. Don’t just send your family to church , bring them. Fathers are spiritual gatekeepers over their families.
Acts 16:30 34 And he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”
31 So they said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.”
32 Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house.
33 And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes. And immediately he and all his family were baptized.
34 Now when he had brought them into his house, he set food before them; and he rejoiced, having believed in God with all his household.
Good fathers are always willing to forgive and restore prodigal sons and daughters.
Luke 15:11 24 Then He said: “A certain man had two sons.
12 “And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me.’ So he divided to them his livelihood.
13 “And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, journeyed to a far country, and there wasted his possessions with prodigal living.
14 “But when he had spent all, there arose a severe famine in that land, and he began to be in want.
15 “Then he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine.
16 “And he would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the swine ate, and no one gave him anything.
17 “But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!
18 ‘I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you,
19 and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.”‘
20 “And he arose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him.
21 “And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and am no longer worthy to be called your son.’
22 “But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet.
23 ‘And bring the fatted calf here and kill it, and let us eat and be merry;
24 ‘for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ And they began to be merry.
