Leading Families, Fathers

Just a moment, please. One of the tremendous things about being a pastor in church for more than a few years is that you walk through all of life's ups and downs with people. I remember with Al and Lynn praying for them to have children years ago. Now we have to pray that they stop having them. Al's having another baby here. Congratulations in two more months. And Father Albraham continues to grow his flock. And, you know, folks, there is something incredibly powerful in a church. And here's what I'm going to tell you. This isn't the sermon. There's something very powerful when people are committed to each other. And they walk through the thins and the thicks of life, the ups and the downs, and they stay committed. And I want you to know that I love this church. I love the people. I love you people as committed people. You're not here for a buzz, you know, for a high, for some kind of thing just that you can get out of it. But you're here to contribute and to make a difference. And when I have a man who comes up to me and says, Well, how are you doing? What can I get you? And he's battling for his life with cancer. And he says, How are you doing today? That's a committed man. That's a man of integrity, a man of a solid commitment to Christ. That's the kind of person I want to be linked with. We only have one walk through this life. Many people, the great majority, never find where they fit. They float. They go in and they go out. They don't work through their problems and differences. They just kind of, they run. I want to say today, I'm proud to be part of you. I'm proud that we're connected and I'm committed to keep working through it. And you know, we all have our differences. We are peculiar people. 1 Peter 2 says that. But we're no more peculiar than any other place down the street or across the state. We're just who we are. And there's something wonderful about being committed together. And I just want to say, let's continue that. And let's look for ways to increase that and support each other in it. There's lots of stragglers and strugglers here today. We're glad you're here today. This is where you belong. You keep hanging in there and share your hurt and your need with others. And I can tell you one thing I know for sure. People in this church will come alongside of you if they just know. If they just know your need. Let's join a hand with someone. Let's pray for this message today. Lord, in the remaining moments, I just pray that you'd allow me to speak your word with strength. And that your Holy Spirit would anoint what comes out of my lips for the benefit of every person here. And for the expansion and extension of the kingdom of God in Jesus' name. Go ahead and be seated. In turn, if you brought a Bible to Hebrews 11. I'll be reading some verses from Hebrews 11 in just a moment. As you might imagine today, I've got some mixed feelings about bringing a Father's Day message. On the one hand, I feel good about the fact that I have nearly 18 years of experience now under my belt. And do know some things of which I speak fairly well. And add to that that I have the authority of God's word. Which I feel wonderfully confident about. But the other side of me, the mixed feeling side. Is the part that I think most of the dads here today will identify with. And that's the part of feeling somewhat inadequate. Somewhat insufficient as a dad. If I took a little poll here, just informally. And asked how many dads love their kids. Love their children. I suppose it would be about the 100% mark. If I then asked how many dads feel really good about how well you do in expressing your love to your kids. I probably wouldn't see quite as many hands. Because most dads don't feel they do all that well. And then, here's the scary part. If I asked the kids that are here who are conscious enough to be able to respond. Hey, how well does your dad do in expressing his love and care for you? I'm afraid that the kids would probably humble the dads even farther. They would probably identify with Mike in today's Pittsburgh Post Gazette, the cab driver. When he says, What I'd really like to do on Father's Day is take a whole day off. And take my 8 year old daughter, Amanda, to a park. I don't spend enough time with her, although I really try. But I'll probably be working on Father's Day. So we won't have much time together. How many dads could write that script? Just change a couple of names and faces. That's how you feel today. So you might expect me this morning to go right on and start challenging dads. Get your priorities straight. Come on dads, line up with what the Bible says. Get your life on the right track and start moving according to God's principles. Pray for your kids more. Spend more time with them. Break the mold. You might expect me to say, Dads, listen to more tapes. When I'm done, you walk out to that bookstore and buy every book you can. Buy Gary Smalley and Kevin Lehman. Read about how to be a great dad. Pump it up, dad. Do what you gotta do. You only got these many years and all that kind of stuff. And you know what I can't do? What I could do, I think after all these years, I think I could probably do that message real effectively and tear your heart out a little bit. And tell you some stories of broken relationships along the landscape of families. But you know what? I have a sense that if I did that, a whole lot really wouldn't change. And I have a sense beyond that, that quite a number of you would walk out of here and you'd feel even a little more inadequate and a little more guilty. Because a few days down the road, you wouldn't be able to change again. I know because I've been there. And so I was praying and I was agonizing early in the week about this. Lord, why? Why are we so slow to deal with this? And the Lord popped something into my heart that I'm going to share with you today in just a few minutes that I believe every father in this place can successfully achieve and make a significant impact in your kid's life. How many dads are open for something like that? In addition, may I say that if all the rest of you, and ladies, please don't pull out your McCall's magazine and read it. There's going to be some things here for you too. Because this principle really works in all relationships. But it's something that I saw in respect specifically to fathers and sons. Look at Hebrews 11. This isn't dramatic. When I say this, you're going to say, well, I've heard that before. But maybe you haven't really let it sink in the way it needs to. Here in Hebrews 11, we read about faith. And we read about all the power of faith. And we read about the fact that without faith, it's impossible to please God. And then the writer of Hebrews begins to list the achievements of men of faith. And he starts with Noah. What did Noah do by faith? He built an ark. And I read that and I say, what an incredible accomplishment. 120 years it took him to build an ark. People laughed at him, mocked him. It didn't rain the way we know rain today. And yet by faith he did what God said. Great, I understand that. Then he talks about Abraham leading the people on into a promised land. I understand that kind of leadership. Then he talks later on about Moses delivering people from Egyptian bondage and all that. I understand that. But look with me now. Look right with me and on the overhead. Are we ready with this, Kelly? Hebrews 11.20 By faith, Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau in regard to their future. And by faith, Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of Joseph's sons and worshipped as he leaned on the top of his staff. Right here in the context of the hall of faith, the heroes of God, we see two men who are named because they blessed their children. Now, I've studied the Bible for 25 years. I understand context principles. I understand first appearance principles and first mention. I understand all the principles of the Bible. This literally is telling us that blessing your children is an act of faith that God is pleased with. And God will reward. That's what this is saying. And I don't know why it's so powerful, except that it has something to do with that God gets involved when we do what he says and we obey what he commands us to do. There's two questions we need to answer quickly this morning. On what grounds do we bless, number one? And number two, by what means do we bless? First of all, on what grounds do we bless? And again, if you don't have children today, think of the other family members for whom this might apply or friends or home group members or whatever. Well, number one, we have the authority to bless because we have been born into the family of God. Turn to Galatians chapter 3. We have received, Galatians 3, just back a few pages. Everyone turn there if you have your Bible. We've received the covenant of Abraham, the promise of God given to Abraham. And here's what it says, verse 14. Galatians 3, 14. He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit. And verse 29. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. God says, because you belong to Christ, you are a recipient of the blessing of God in your life and therefore you are one who can participate in giving the blessing of God. We're not talking about some little milk of human kindness. Oh, God bless everyone. No, we're talking about the covenant blessing of God. How many people here belong to AAA? Wow, that is impressive. Remember when you joined AAA, they gave you that little pamphlet that they entitled Member Benefits of AAA. What were some of those benefits? That's right, you call them up and every person in the place knows, well, they'll come and they'll start my car on a cold morning. They'll change my tire. They'll tow my car if it breaks down. All that kind of stuff. Benefits because you belong. You like it so much. How many have been members for 20 years or more? You've got stickers all over your car. Wow, impressive. Can I tell you something? There are benefits to belonging to the family of God that he specifically tells us to expect in our lives. And I wonder how many of us maybe missed those blessings. In fact, let me use another analogy. Anyone here old enough to remember the TV show, The Millionaire? You're old enough, maybe. I'll help you. Okay, all right. The Millionaire. Well, for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, it was in black and white. I mean, it was an old show. But in this TV story, the whole story kind of followed and chronicled the situation of some beleaguered soul. And then near the end of the show, this very dapperly dressed man came and said, I represent so and so who will remain anonymous and I am to present you with a cashier's check for one million dollars. And the neatest part of the show is watching this person's reaction. And of course, some didn't believe it and some just, whoa. But deep inside, the reason we all watched it was we were waiting for the knock on our door. Maybe this is really going to happen. I just want to say to you, God says in his word, look now with me to Deuteronomy chapter 28, or at least I'll just refer to it on the screen if you don't want to turn there. God says in his word, Deuteronomy 28, his blessing will pursue you and overtake you. God says, as long as you belong to me, you can't escape being blessed because I'm going to find you, catch up to you, and bless you. Isn't that great? And I don't know about you, but I start going in so many different directions, I wonder if God can keep up with me. Sometimes they're the wrong directions. He says, don't worry, my son, I'm going to find you, I'm going to overtake you, and I'm going to bless you. Now let's look at the sevenfold blessing spelled out real quickly here in Deuteronomy 28. Number one, Deuteronomy 28, three, the blessing of location. The Bible says, God will bless you in the city and in the country. How many of you live in the city? God says, I'll bless you there. How many of you live in the country? God said, I'll bless you there. And can I tell you, church, listen, you don't need to relocate to find God's blessing. Some people think, well, if I just move, it'll get better. No, when you move, you'll have the same stuff with you when you go somewhere else. And God can do the strangest things that we could ever imagine just because He wants to be blessing us. I think of David Wilkerson. How many of you get his newsletter? Here David Wilkerson, living in a farm in rural Pennsylvania, gets called of God to move to New York City. And then you know the story of the cross and the switchblade. And then some years later, he moves to Texas to start a new ministry. And God calls him back right to the heart of New York City, right in Times Square, 42nd Street, prostitution, drug dealing. And God says, David Wilkerson, start a church. Times Square Church it's called. Right in the grossest part of the sin of New York City. I wouldn't think that there'd be much chance to be blessed there in the natural. But if you know anything about the story, God has poured out His Spirit. And not only do they have several thousand people gathering every Sunday, God provided a wonderful $6 million facility for them. God has opened doors throughout the whole city. Why? Because God said, I'm going to bless you in the country, I'm going to bless you in the city. Number two, God says, I'm going to bless you, put a blessing on your offspring. I don't know if this is in the outline. I don't think it is. You can put it on the back of your page if you want to write these down. Simply, this is God saying, if you have kids, I'll bless them. How many people, don't put your hand up, how many people have kids who have wandered away from God? Who aren't walking with God right now? The Lord says, just call on my covenant and I'll bless them. I'll redeem them. Don't give up hope. I've made a covenant with you. Affirm that with them. Number three, God says, I'll bless your vocation. Now, verse 4b talks about agricultural terms, because most everyone worked out in the fields. But the Bible is saying here, if you're involved in a business, in your vocation, you can expect God to bless it, because you belong to Him. Number 4 and verse 5, God says, I'll bless your supply. Jesus said it this way, give us this day our daily bread. God says, every single day, ask me for what you need, I'll give it to you, every single day. Number 5, God says, I'll put a blessing on your daily duties. Whatever you do, I'll put my hand to your hand and we'll do it. Your interactions, every time you leave home, God says, I'll be in front of you going ahead. You know what some of us would do very well to do? When you leave here today, to go home, take a 3x5 card or a little half sheet of paper like this, and write that verse, and put it over your door frame or next to your doorknob and say, when I leave here, I'm going to get blessed, and when I return, I'm going to get blessed again. Far too many people that I went into, walk out of their house beaten down before they ever get to the job. You know, their theme song is, I owe, I owe, it's off to work I go. You know, and it's just, they're down. God says, no, I'm going to bless you when you go out, I'm going to bless you when you come back. And I don't know about you, but attitudinally, that can so change how things happen in our lives. If we're expecting God to bless us. Next, God says, I'm going to bless you by bringing you victory. Verse 7. And I want to read this one because this is so powerful. It isn't saying you won't have struggle. I think Herb and Carolyn reminded us today, as Christians, we can expect struggles. We're going to have difficulties. We're going to have things happen that we don't really understand. But here's what the Bible says. In the midst of your struggle, Deuteronomy 28 and verse 7, the Lord will grant the enemies who rise up against you will be defeated before you. They will come at you from one direction, but flee from you in seven. And what is seven, by the way? The perfect number. God is saying, put it out of your mind, church, if you think that everything that's going to happen to you is just going to be always getting better, always more, just more wonderful. There are going to be times when the enemy is going to rise up and you're going to wonder, am I going to make this? You stand on that promised blessing and say, God, thank You, I know that He's coming, but there's going to come a moment when He's going to hit me head on and He's going to shatter seven directions because I'm standing on Your Word. And I want you to know, I'm standing in a couple areas like that myself right now. And I believe that God's Word and His promise can be trusted. And finally, it says in verse 8, that God will command the blessing. He'll bless your barns and everything you put your hand to. This is basically creative enterprise. Part of the blessing of God is to put His own special touch on everything that you put your hand to. Now, those seven things, does that help you at all to recognize that you have received blessing? See, there's a principle here. Until you realize that you've received it, you won't give it. You can only give away what you've received. Let me say that again. You can only give away what you yourself have received. So that's part of the authority that we have to bless. The other part is, as Al's saying, you are a priest of God. All the way back in Exodus 19, God says, I'm going to raise up a nation of priests. And now in the New Covenant, we are called the priests of God. If you'll put up that scripture please. 1 Peter 5, or two rather, verse 5. The Bible says very clearly, read it with me. I want you out loud. You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifice acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. You are a priest in the house of God. That gives you an authority to pass on the blessing that God has put on your life. Now, if that's clear then, how do we do it? What are the means by which we can bless our kids and those around us? Well, one more place to turn in your Bibles. Numbers chapter 6. Just go back a few pages from Deuteronomy. You say, well I'm not used to turning in my Bible this many times. Well, we need to tune up a little bit here. Numbers chapter 6. Here's what the Bible says. Verse 23, the Lord said to Moses, Tell Aaron and his sons, this is how you are to bless the Israelites. Say to them, and then there's the blessing. And then look at verse 27. So they will put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them. Let me just reduce this down. God is saying, you speak the blessing, I'll provide it. You speak it, I'll do it. Very clear. But you have got to speak it. Let me use an analogy that some of you are familiar with, when it comes to salvation. Many people here involved in salvation. And some of you had the privilege of sitting down with an individual and sharing the gospel, telling your testimony, and watching that person receive Jesus Christ. I don't know a greater experience in life than that. But how many of you realize, you just tell your story, and you just tell the gospel as you know it. But God does the miracle of changing their heart. Have you ever wondered about that? You are just saying words, but you are seeing their eternal destinies change right before your eyes. Do you see what I am saying? Isn't it interesting? If you didn't speak, perhaps they wouldn't have changed. It's the same with blessing. If you don't speak it, you can't expect your children to receive it. You have got to decide that you are going to speak. You have got to rise up and say, I am going to declare the word of God. I am going to say what God says. There are two words for bless in the Bible, the Old Testament Hebrew and the New Testament Greek. The Greek word, eulogia, what does that sound like? Who knows what eulogy is? All of us probably. It is something that is spoken at a funeral. It means in the Greek to speak good things, to praise or to invoke a benefit. So in the New Testament, the word to bless means to speak. In the Old Testament, interestingly, it meant to kneel before someone. The Old Testament word barak means to kneel, to receive a touch. So he is saying, I will kneel and I will receive a touch from the Lord. So in the Bible, blessing is speaking and blessing is touching. I want to say in conclusion to every dad in this place, you can be a successful blesser of your kids' dads if you just decide that I am going to speak and I am going to touch. I am going to speak the blessing of God and I am going to touch my son or daughter and impart that blessing. There are lots of things I could say about why we would just hesitate to do it. But you know why it is basically, bottom line, fear. I just had an experience. A week ago, my daughter Amy had her graduation ceremony and it was a great time. We had a lovely gathering for her friends and stuff from school and some friends through the years and so. And partway through that, I felt like the Lord was saying, you need to speak a blessing on your daughter. She is leaving home pretty soon. And I thought I was supposed to gather everyone up and just speak this blessing. And this was before I was preparing this message. I know the verse that says that perfect love casts out fear. I wonder if there might be a verse that says great fear can cast out love. Because I feared that maybe I would offend or maybe it wouldn't be real appropriate or something so I didn't say anything. And I missed an opportunity to publicly do what I felt God wanted me to do and to benefit my daughter. And dads, listen. I don't want you to miss those opportunities. And so I've prepared something for you. And I'm going to ask our ushers to come right away, please. Dads, I want every one of you to take one of these very nicely prepared. And I want to thank all of our staff, Arlene and Nancy and everyone. These little green cards. Go ahead, ushers. Pass them out, please. I want you to take this, dads. You can crop it down a little bit and you can fit it right into your wallet and you can take it with you. And anytime God prompts you to bless, take it out. And I want us to read it together and we're going to put it up on the overhead now. And here's what it is. It's simply Numbers chapter 6, verses 23 through 26. And here's what it says. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace. That is the blessing of God as He commanded it to be spoken. Dads, do you see it? Look at it with me. What I'm saying to you to do is to go to your child, maybe while he or she is asleep, if that's where you need to start, and to put your hand on them and say these words. The Lord bless you. Those seven covenant blessings I listed them all right there for you. And keep you. That word means to protect. I think Herb Larson will understand protection like he's never understood it before. The Lord make His face to shine upon you. That means may His presence and glory attend you in every place you go. And be gracious to you. May His favor that began the journey of faith continue on in your life. May the Lord lift up His countenance. You know what that's talking about? What is a downcast countenance? Sad. What's lifted up countenance? Smiling. The Bible is saying may God smile with approval upon you and give you peace. And that means wholeness, body, soul, and spirit. And the Lord says, Dad, if you do that, verse 27 please, so you will put My name on your children and I will bless them. And I just want to close by asking you a question. Dads, is there anything more we could give our children on Father's Day than the blessing of God? Do you know to bless your children means that you value them, that you say to them no matter what anyone else tells you, I want you to know you matter to God and you matter to me and I love you. And I want to say to us as a church, what might happen if we became a blessing church? If what we spoke to one another was blessing. If what we spoke was the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace. Instead of all the things, anyone here just a little convicted that maybe we say things negatively and critically that we shouldn't? I think this whole place would catch on fire if we spoke blessing. But we want to start with dads and I pray every dad hearing me today don't just stuff that card away in your Bible and look at it six months from now. Get it out tonight. Go in your child's bedroom and speak the blessing of God. And dads when you have the courage when they're a teenager look them in the eyeball and tell them the Lord bless you son and keep you. The Lord make His face to shine upon you. And they'll say, oh dad cut it out and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace. And God says if you do that you're putting my name on them and I'll bless them. And I want that. And I want it for you. Let's stand together please.