Profile of A Father's Love

Our Father and give him praise and worship together. Let's stand as we sing all together. Behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us. Invite the people in from outside as we begin praise and worship the Lord together. Let's sing Behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us. Behold what matter of love the Father has given unto us. We should be called the sons of God. God. We should be called the sons of God. All the matter of what the Father has given unto us. All a matter of love the Father has given unto us. That we should be all the sons of God. That we should be. Sa. Should be called the Sons of God. That we should be called the Sons of God. Hallelujah. You know what day is this? How many children are here with this? Kids? Put up your hand real high so. We can see it. What day is this, children? What days are kids? Father's Day. And we went to this morning right from the beginning. Set ourselves before our Father. Go ahead and be seated. People are still coming in. And make room for them in the side aisles, please. We wanted to start this morning particularly for the sake of the children that are with us and those of us who are children at heart, that we would set Apart these first 15 or 20 minutes of the service to focus on God as our Father. The Bible uses a word for father that we're not accustomed to. In our language, it's the word abba. Can you say that? What does that sound like? No, it doesn't sound like Daddy. It sounds like baby talk, doesn't it? Abba. Abba, Right. And yet that word does mean, as someone so rightly said up here, daddy. It means our Daddy God. Our God who is a loving father who would have us come and sit in his lap and enjoy his presence. And Amy's going to sing a song that speaks to us about Abba. Father, you'll recognize as she sings the the names of God that we learned as we were learning to pray to them together. Let's worship together as we listen to this song. Abba. Father. You are my righteousness. You are my peace. You are my strength. You are my joy. You are the one who's standing here. Way. You are my. I. Will never cease to love, love you. I. Will never cease to love. You. Father, we come to present our love to you. Worship is that Father. The presentation of our bodies is a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to you. Give you praise. Worship our Father. Our dad. Let's stand church and worship him together as we sing. Father God. Glorify My name. Glorify my name. Glory, Spirit, we love you, we praise you, we adore you. Glorify his name in all the earth. Glorify his name. Glorifying. As the instruments play. Would you go ahead and glorify him with your own praise? Go ahead and speak your praise. Sam. Hallelujah, Sa. This is my father's world. The battle is not done. Jesus who died shall satisfy and ever. Isn't that a beautiful hymn? Hallelujah. Lord, you're worthy to be praised. Glory to God. Lord, we thank you that your majesty so transcends even our ability to understand it. Lord and father, though we don't see the battle, Lord, we know it's real by the virtue of our own hearts being tugged in so many ways. We thank you that one day day Jesus who died shall be satisfied and earth and heaven made one under his name. Father God, I give all thanks and praise to thee. Me. Just have the ladies sing. Just the ladies. I. Amazes me and I stand in all and worship Father God once more. Let's worship together, Father. All together God, I give all thanks and praise to thee, Father God, I have the holy Ra to me. Church. Let's stand with our hands raised before the Lord and worship him amazed in his love and thank you for something particular in your life. Would you thank him for something of his love made known in your life? Go ahead, give him worship this morning. Glory to your name, Lord. Oh, we give you praise. Lord, I give you praise today for this congregation, this assemble that you've called together by your name, give you worship and praise. The God that's demonstrated his love and his grace and his amazing forgiveness is worthy of our entire surrender to church. Our whole lives. Let's sing that together before Father, I adore you. Lay my life before you. All together jesus, jesus. Lay my life before you, Father. I adore, Father. All together in the back now, Father. Worship. Keep singing. Go ahead. Just. How I love you. Thank you, Jesus. How I love you, Lord. Father, may all that we do in this assembly this morning be an expression of laying our lives before you. Whether it's giving of our offerings and tithes, whether it's a matter of presenting our heart to be taught by the word or ministering in prayer to another. Lord, we lay our lives before you. Thank you Father. That we can do that in liberty today. In Jesus name. Amen. You may be seated. Got it. First Chronicles, not Corinthians. Here. In the context of the Old Testament establishment of the temple of worship. Look at verse one of chapter 28. Initially the Bible says that David assembled at Jerusalem all the officials of Israel, the officials of the tribes, the officers of the divisions that served the king, the commanders of thousands, hundreds, stewards of all, and so on. He has this entire enormous assembly of people come together. Look at chapter 29 now, verse one. And David the king said to all the assembly, Solomon, my son, whom alone God has chosen is young and inexperienced and the work is great for the palace that's the temple will not be for man, but for the Lord God. So I have provided for the house of my God so far as I was able. And he goes on. And if you read that list, it's an enormous amount of personal wealth that he's taking out of his own bank accounts and bringing in for the temple. And verse 6 Then the heads of the fathers houses made their free will offerings, as did also the leaders of the tribes and the commanders of thousands of hundreds and the officers of the kings. So everyone there had an opportunity to come and present their offering for the work of the building of the temple. And finally verse 9. Then the people rejoiced because these had given willingly. So that word willingly. For with a whole heart they'd offered freely to the Lord. David the king also rejoiced greatly. We recognize that within each of us there is a struggle to deal with financial matters when it comes to the church. Mainly for most of us it has to do with fear. Fear that somehow we be diminished. We'll have less if we give away what we have. The Bible is so clear, beloved, that if we're faithful in obeying the Lord and giving as he prompts us. How many of you ever heard the statement you cannot out give God, you cannot outgive God. You may find yourself giving even beyond what you feel you should give naturally or reasonably. But God is faithful and to a pure heart will return in abundance over that which we give. Now what we are committing to do is to present a pledge. What is a pledge? Well, a pledge is really a faith statement. It's saying, lord, by your grace, I'm believing you to supply over the next 30 months this amount of money through me. You may not have that much money to give. You may not see any way in your own bank account that that could happen. But what you're saying is you've prayed about it and you believe that God wants you to pledge, commit to seeing him supply through you X amount of dollars. Now church, does this mean that we're going to keep a list of your pledge and send you A card every month? No. No one will know whether or not you paid your pledge except you and the Lord. What will the Lord say if you don't pay your pledge? I don't think the Lord's going to stand up there and rail on you. I think he's just going to draw you to himself. He's going to speak to your heart. He's going to provide for you. And so we felt very strongly, though we've never done this before, we feel that we need to make a time of presenting our pledges and our offerings and our tithes to the Lord. Now, to present means, to give up, to hand over, to arise and set forth. In the next minute, we're going to come into worship together and sing a song of worship before the Lord. And the elders are going to come and we're going to pray over these pledge cards that have already been put in the box and the offerings. And then any of you, as we're worshiping before the Lord, who want to come make an expression, we encourage you to do that. Just slip right out and do that. There's no fanfare about it. It's just you pledging, presenting your pledge before the Lord. Those who don't want to do that, you. You can give another time. We don't want everyone to march up. We just want those who want to present themselves to the Lord to do it that way. In the meantime, we're going to pray and ask God to multiply these gifts as his spirit enables us. Amen. I know you probably have questions about all this, but listen. We have sought the Lord on it. We believe that this is an expression of giving ourselves to him in faith. And now it's his commitment to us, us that will supply. And that's where I want to be. Don't you praise the Lord. Let's come up, elders. We're going to pray over these boxes. Ask the Lord to bless them today. Let's sing together. The greatest thing in all my life is knowing you. Let's stand as we sing. The greatest thing in all my life is loving you. You. Greatest thing in all my life is loving you. I want to love you more. I want to love you more. Greatest things in all my life is loving you. Greatest thing is knowing Greatest thing in. All my life is knowing you. The greatest thing in all my life is knowing you. I want to know you more. I want to know you more. Greatest thing in all my life is knowing you. Greatest joy. All my life is serving you. Greatest joy in all my life is Serving you. Greatest thing in all my life is. Thank you, Father. Lord, in the first service, as we gathered, there was such a sense of release and some came and made a statement that I want to trust you today for your provision for what I commit unto you prayerfully, considerately, thoughtfully. And there was a breaking forth in many of our lives that you are going to provide, that you're going to do that which you have prompted in our spirit to promise. Lord, we thank you that we make this with you and not with man. We make this pledge, this faith commitment, believing that you can do that which you promised. And we come acknowledging, Lord, that we want to be cheerful in our giving. We want to give because we know that as we give, so shall it be given to us. Pressed down, running over, filled up, Lord, and we thank you that you promised us. That is, as we sow, so shall we reap. If we sow sparingly, we will reap sparingly. If we sow bountifully, we will reap bountifully, Lord. And time and time again you bring us in confrontation with our own rebellion, with our own pride, with our own arrogance, Lord, you bring us in confrontation with our own bondage to thinking that we are providing for ourselves when ultimately you are the one who is the employer, you are the one who is the provider. You are Jehovah Jireh. And right now, in Jesus name, Lord, as we just commit these gifts to you, Lord, we thank you that you are going to show yourself and prove yourself faithful to the provision that you have promised. Lord, we believe that you're going to multiply us as a community in this whole area of giving. You're challenging us right now to break down those barriers that keep us from trusting you in one of the most significant areas of our walk with you, what we do and how we view the resources that you've given. Lord, we bless you. That you would break the hardest of hearts, that you would soften the most rebellious of hearts and cause us to believe that this is a plan that you have provided. This is a vision that we are sharing. It is your vision imparted to us that you're going to touch this community in a deeper and a broader way because of our faithful submission to your will and your purposes. We pray that you would bless. Pour out abundant blessing upon these who give, Lord, who give unselfishly. And we think of that woman as you watched her, who brought her two pennies, her two mites to put them in. And, Lord, you said how blessed she was. Because she gave out of her need. Lord, help us to move in that kind of arena. Help me, Lord Jesus. I pray even today, in Jesus name. Amen. Father, we pray that all that is done and all that is given would be to the glory of your son, Jesus. His name alone. We offer our praise and our glory. Glory, glory. Glory to the Lamb. Glory, glory. Glory to the. Glory, glory, glory to the Lamb. Glory, glory. Glory to the Lamb. You. Hallelujah. Glory. Glory to the la. Hallelujah, for you are glorious. Go ahead, Church. It's all together. Thank you. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. You are glorious. You are listening to North Way tape number 409. This tape was delivered by J. Passment, pastor of North Way Christian community, on June 16, 1985. Luke, Chapter 15. The story of the prodigal son. Hope everyone's there can see a Bible. If you can't, you just have to listen carefully or look over on someone's shoulder. Verse 11. And he said, There was a man who had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, father, give me the share of the property that falls to me. And he divided his living between them. Not many days later, the younger son gathered all that he had and took his journey to a far country. And there he squandered his property and loose living. And when he had spent everything, a great famine arose in that country and he began to be in want. And so he went and joined himself to one of the citizens of that country who sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would gladly have fed on the pods that the swine ate. And no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself, he said, how many of my father's hired servants have bread enough and to spare? But I perish here with hunger. I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your high hired servants. And he arose and came to his father. But while he was yet at a distance, his father saw him and had compassion and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. But the father said to his servants, bring quickly the best robe and put it on him. And put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet, and bring the fatted cow and kill it. And let us eat and make merry. For this my son was Dead and is alive again. And he was lost and is found. And they began to make merry. Now, beloved, this story is for us a picture of Father God's heart. I'm going to share with you today a Father's Day message. It has to do with fathering, with being a parent. Yet I realize that for some of you that may not seem to be applicable. Yet I believe if you'll see these verses and the points that we're going to make this morning in relation to God the Father, as well as in your role as a parent, you will find a truth about the nature of God and his desire to be known as the Loving Father. Before I do that, I wanted to read this same passage in what I would call a modern translation. Actually, it's a poem. I did this some time ago. And those of you who've been with us a while may find it familiar. But some of you, most of you, I think, have not heard it. It's called Melody in F. And it's about the prodigal son. See if it sounds familiar. Okay. How'd you like to have this in your Bible? Feeling footloose and frisky, a feather brained fellow forced his father to fork over the father Farlands. See why it's called Melody and F. And he flew far to foreign fields and frittered his fortune, Feasting fabulously with faithless friends. Fleeced by his fellows in folly, he found himself a feed flinger in a filthy farmyard. Fairly famishing, he feigned would have filled his frame with force. Foraged food from fodder fragments. This is him speaking. Phooey. My father's flunkeys fare far finer. Try saying that. My father's flunkeys fare far finer. Now the frazzled fugitive, frankly facing facts, fled forthwith to his family. Falling at his father's feet, he forlornly fumbled. Father, I flunked. Oh, it sounds so familiar. I fruitlessly forfeited family favor While the foresighted father, forestalling future flinching frantically flagged the flunkies to fetch a fatling from the flock and fix a feast. The fugitive's fault finding brother frowned on fickle forgiveness for a former folderol. But faithful father figured that filial fidelity was fine. But the fugitive is found, so why forbid festivity? Let flags be unfurled and let fanfares flare. And father's forgiveness laid the foundation for former fugitives future fortitude. And that neat. I appreciated that because it reminded me that there's a way to say Something that cuts through all of the spirituality and gets right down to the facts of it all. And it is a lot better to be a servant in the house in the Lord than a feed flinger in a far off farm. Right. I find it when we come to talking about fatherhood to be probably the greatest challenge of my life. Dads, do you find that too? Isn't it strange in some ways that we have all this out before us, this career, business and all the needs that have to do with providing and making money. But USA Today said about a month ago that the number one fulfillment that man that American men testified to is being a father. 65% of the men polled said it was their greatest and most fulfilling experience. Isn't that amazing? But they didn't tell you how many of them said that it was the most difficult thing that they do. And I don't believe there's one of us here today who is a father who doesn't feel some measure of guilt for in that inadequacy in raising his own children. You see, we have lots of images to choose from and there's a lot of confusion that surrounds fathering. I read about Roger Smith, the chairman of General Motors last week and the interviewer is asking him, what are you going to do now that you've climbed the top of the corporate ladder, chairman of the largest corporation in the world? He said, well, I'm going to spend more time with my kids since my wife raised them for the first 30 years. The other extreme, we have Mr. Mom washing diapers, putzing around the house so that mom can go out and fulfill herself. And so we have all these images. And for a Christian father to be balanced in what God wants him to be is not an easy thing to do. I find that men who are committed to being good fathers don't need to be told that. They just need to know how to do it. They need to know what constitutes that and how they can come into it. Do you know that the average father, studies show spend, listen to this, seven minutes a week with each of their children in focused attention. That's the average seven minutes a week with each of their children in focused. I'm talking about eyeball to eyeball, being together, contact, communication a week. That's the average, you see. Well, that's not very much, is it? In fact, it's so little that what the child ends up wondering is, does daddy really care about me? Even though Daddy's working himself to the bare bones trying to prove that he loves them by bringing Home more and more supply. You see, after 10 years of fatherhood, I don't have any clear answers as to how we men, how we dads, can balance all the demands that we feel and still remain a father who reflects joy and peace and happiness to his kids. But I do have some principles that I think by the Holy Spirit's empowerment, if we live in that them, beloved, we will see God making his love made known through us to our kids. You see, I think one of the greatest struggles that we face is we send mixed messages, dad. We say to our kids, we want to love you and we want to show you that we care. And yet when our kid comes up to do something with us, you know, I really got to get out. I have a meeting tonight. We show our kids that we want to teach them about God. But when 9:30 comes and it's time to tuck them in, we. I'm really tired. Maybe mom can do it tonight and I'll pick it up tomorrow. You see, we're torn in our role. On the one hand, we're told to be the spiritual head of the house, to be responsible for the nurture of our kids. Old Derek Prince freed me up one time when he wrote, you can be the greatest success that the world's ever seen in your business, but if you fail in raising your kids, then you failed in God's eye. That didn't free me up. That's pretty heavy, isn't it? And he said that in order to bring to bear his perspective that we dads have the soul, the principal responsibility to raise our kids to follow and love God. And so, dads, what happens when we feel the weight of all this, when we feel all this pressure? Be a good provider. Be a spiritual example. Spend time with your kids. Do all these things. If you don't, if you fail with them, then you fail in life. You know what that does? It just begins to knot us up inside. And I bet there's some men out here today that at different times felt like just quitting. I can't do it. I failed so many times. If my kids become anything, it's not going to be because of me. And I want to share with you today the balancing side of what I think these verses in Luke chapter 15 teach us about what a loving father is all about. Let's look at them. Number one. A loving father is one who knows when to grant liberty. Beloved, the normal Christian parent needs to hold a very tight rein in the formative years of his child's life. There's an awful lot. There's a lot of evil, there's a lot of corruption, the Bible calls it in the world. And we're told that we're to train and raise up our child when he's small and when he grows up, he won't depart from the way of the Lord. Proverbs 13:24 says, diligently discipline your little ones. You know what diligently means, day in and day out. And so we know that that's one of our responsibilities. But the other side of that, the other side of the pendulum, if you will, is that we need to learn when to give freedom to fail. We need to be able to tell our kids, you have the liberty to succeed and to fail. Now, I don't know when that is. That doesn't mean when they're in third grade, you give them the keys to the car. But neither does it mean that you can constantly watch over them and evaluate everything they say, come down on them. You know, psychologists tell us that nothing will cause a child to be more devastated. Nothing will lower self esteem, nothing will reduce his self image, nothing will engender more rebellion than a stifling, smothering parent. You know that there was a study that was done. I read, I read it just recently. Was completed in 1981. It was a 20 year study of small children in rural New York, about 900 kids. And the study showed over these 20 years that kids whose parents were overly aggressive and domineering toward their kids consistently raised up children who were angry and aggressive toward others. Why? Because they're pushed down. They're not given the liberty to express who they are and become what God wants them to be. Colossians 3:21 says, fathers, provoke not your children to wrath. That's what that's talking about. Don't be so heavy on them dads that they get smothered. And I believe this is well intended Christian fathers. This becomes a pitfall. It absolutely becomes a pitfall. Now aren't you astonished when you read here in Luke 15? Look with me at verse 12, when the Son came and asked the dad for his inheritance, what did the dad say? Get lost. What are you talking about? Get out of here. What does he say? Okay, okay. And you know what that meant for that dad in this culture? It meant that he had to take some of his estate. And Deuteronomy 21:17 tells us it would be one third of his estate and he had to divide it up, sell it off, and give his son that money. Can you imagine the humility the humiliation of that. Imagine how he felt. And here's this ungrateful son. But the dad didn't say, well, forget it. He said, okay. And beloved, let me tell you that I believe that a loving father needs to discern when liberty is the only way to learn love. Let me say that again. You need to discern when liberty is the only way for a child to learn love. Even if you fail, I'll still love you. After all, now isn't this the way our heavenly Father treats us? Does God tell us, does God hound us to do the things that he wants us to do? No. He gives us that liberty. This is a picture of God's liberty. God will never force you over obedience, beloved. Now, the second thing that a loving father does is that he sets a clear standard. The normal Christian parent is under a lot of pressure to vacillate, to conform and to adapt to the world's values. And I have to say, parents, you need to come to terms with what your standard in your home is going to be and not waver from it. If your love is loving, it doesn't mean that you have to give in every time your child has a special request or some sort of variation from the norm. So many kids today are told by their parents, well, you decide what's right. And so at age 11, they're going out on dates, really. At age 13, they're staying out till 1 or 2 o' clock in the morning. Maybe you had permissive parents when you were growing up and you think the way to raise your kid is to tell them, well, you're mature now, you make the decisions. And there they are, 13, 14 years old, deciding things that God never intended them to deal with. And beloved, the most important thing you can do to free your child to know his limits is to set clear ones and don't put them up one day and down the next. Because what will happen is that child will wonder, well, what really are the guidelines and what can I do? And he begins to question himself because he's not ready for that kind of discernment. Let me use a personal illustration, which I'm going to keep to a minimum today because I don't feel I have this all down. But when our children were very small, Carol and I talked about when should they be able to leave the house and sleep overnight with other children. Now, we're not talking about a family special event happened that was really unique, but we're talking about sleepover party kind of things. Well, we decided that the kids would need to be 10 years old. Now, if you decided that yours needed to be five, that's your decision. We decided 10. Well, that was easy, up until our daughter Amy got to be about 6. And then the invitation started coming when she was 9. This last year, I mean, it was once a month. We'd get these requests. Many of you were the ones calling, can Amy come and stay? Now, I'm not making any judgment on the value of that to you, but to us, we said, Amy, when you're 10, we'll allow you to sleep over at your friend's houses with them. And I'll tell you, the pressure got intense this last year in fourth grade. And Amy would come in and she was just so. I mean, she would start out with saying, you know my friend. And she'd name Jessica or someone. She's so neat, and her parents were just so good. And, you know, she'd give us this long introduction to saying, and she wants me to stay over Friday night. Well, we always, you know, consistently said no. But you know what we saw at first thing, Amy really rebelled against that. I mean, inside she said, why not? But what we began to find was she knew and she began to rest in that. And Amy's going to be 10 on July 13, and guess what we're going to have at our house. I'm already committed to being there. But I just believe that, you see, the principle has been set in her life now that once a standard is set, and we agree on it, now, the older they get, the more you allow them to participate in what that standard will be, making that standard. But once you said at church, beloved brothers, don't vacillate. Don't give in to all the pressure. See, this prodigal son knew that if he was to come back to his father, it would be on his father's terms. And so he said, when I go to my dad, I'm going to say, I've sinned, Dad. I just didn't have bad judgment. I sinned in against you. Because he knew his father's standard would be that high. And so I want to urge you to be a loving father, set clear standards. Number three. To be a loving father, learn to demonstrate your love. You know, beloved, I don't know what it is about our culture that somehow equates any expression of feeling from a man as being weird, strange, and then sliding into the whole realm of sexually aberrant queer. Why is it that the normal kinds of expression that we have been created to give as men has been put off, except erotically into some corner. And. Pushed out as though it were unacceptable. Not cool. The normal Christian parent is bombarded with this kind of thing and struggles with what does it mean to be controlled? How many of you have teenagers that push you off, off when you try to demonstrate your love? I believe that a dad in the home needs to set the pace, set the tone for the kind of affection that is displayed in that house. Because you know what? If they'll do that, kids won't look elsewhere to find it. Now, I see four really wonderful things that this father demonstrates. Look with me in verse 20. First of all, he's looking to see his son. And there's a whole, whole message in that. But four things happened. His father saw him and had compassion. Number one, new International version says his heart went out to him. Here he sees this son slugging back, covered with his filth from the farmyard. You know, bedraggled, ugly, covered over, penniless, squandering all that. And the father sees him and his heart goes back out to him. And I want to tell you that wasn't easy. He'd been humiliated. He'd been disappointed. He'd been hurt by his son. But his father rose up and had compassion. And then the Bible says that he ran. I'll tell you, in that culture, men wore robes. And in order to run, he had what's called gird up your loins. He had to pull up his robe, almost like a little petticoat, and run. And the Greek word here means to run with force. So he was really hauling. And I can imagine the son looking at him, wondering, is he going to just tell me to get the heck off his property? Is he going to say, get out of here, you had your chance and blew it? And I see a father with compassion welling up inside of him, running out to demonstrate his love. And then it says that he embraced. Or the King James says he fell on his neck. New International said he threw his arms around him. Isn't that beautiful? He embraced him. And I ask you men, what is so difficult about embracing another man, especially if it's your own son? Son. You see, a hug, as we call it today, a holy hug, is simply an expression of acceptance. It's just saying to another, I love you. I accept you. And I see this father with tears in his eyes, running out and falling on his son and just clutching. And then the Bible says he kissed him. We know that Middle Eastern kiss on the cheek, but it says in the Greek that he kept on. It's a present tense continuum. He continued to kiss him, loving him, showering affection. Well, that's not cool. I'll tell you something. When you see love running towards you and you don't deserve it, you don't know what to do with it. Because, beloved, we're not accustomed to people loving us unconditionally. And that's what the father is doing here. He's showing his son, I love you. You who were gone. Now you've come back. And I love you just as I always have. How many people are here today? Don't put your hand up. But you wish with all your heart that your parent would tell you that. In fact, there's some of you here this morning who cannot relate to God as a father. Because your parent gave you such a negative image of what God was like. You seem off on the edge, just disinterested, cold hearted. That's not the picture of God in this passage. It's a lovely, warm, inviting picture. And then the fourth t