Transcript

I took out some old notes, some practical exhortations, and, uh, I want to entitle this, “Faithful, Fighting Fathers.”  Just a few thoughts on a lighter note to begin this morning.  Someone said a faithful father, or a father just in general is a person who never feels entirely worthy of the worship of his child’s eyes.  He’s never quite the hero his daughter thinks, never quite the man his son believes him to be, and this worries him sometimes.  He works too hard to try to smooth the rough places in the road for those who will follow him.

Huh, someone said a father is a person who gives his daughters away to other men who aren’t nearly good enough, amen, so they can have grandchildren who are greater than anybody’s.  Yeah.  One national periodical had these statements to say, famous or favorite, rather, sayings of fathers.  One father said, “The man on top of the mountain didn’t fall there.”  An excuse is a poor patch on the garment of failure.  Honesty is like a trail.  Once you get off it, you realize you’re lost.  Wherever you are in life, make friends with the cook.  A closed mouth gathers no feet.  I love this one.  The second time you get kicked in the head by a mule, it’s not a learning experience.  Fathers need to do those things with their sons and daughters from time to time.  You need to do what you have to do before you can do what you want to do.  When you wrestle with pigs, you get all dirty, and they love it.  Wow, that’s a good one.  Successful people have a habit of doing things that unsuccessful people don’t like to do.  Knowing what is right from wrong is education.  Doing what is right is execution.  The latter is the hard part.  And if everyone else is doing it, it’s probably wrong.  Some favorite sayings of fathers.

The church today has two great errors. Now the church is always in the sense of reforming.  If you think I’m always down on the church, no, I’m always up on God’s plan for the church.  And so in every generation, it is our job to go back to the scriptures and try to grasp where we’ve veered off the path and try to pull ourselves back on by the grace of God.  But one of the things the church does today that is in error is that we measure success by worldly standards.  We have obtained a marketing, business, if you will, definition of success.  Nickels and numbers and noses and the things we try to count to show we’re successful.  That’s wrong.  And then we try to ignore or explain away our failures.

I’ve been blessed in recent years as I have noticed, and you’d have to be around here twenty-nine years, I think, to see this as I have seen it.  And that is that I’ve noticed our fathers seem to be doing a better job.  Now when I say a better job, I don’t mean our fathers of the past are great failures.  Just means there seems to be a reemphasis of diligence and devotion, of faithfulness, of fighting to be faithful as godly, Bible believing, spiritual fathers.  Now, none of our fathers, starting with this one, is gonna say, “We’ve arrived.  Look at us.”  As I went over these notes, I felt like a total failure again.  But there has been something of a revival of godly fatherhood, I think, in our church.  And we need that to keep going.

Fathers are definitely the key.  If you want to turn to Deuteronomy chapter 6, we’ll look at this as a foundation for where we’re going.  Deuteronomy chapter 6, beginning in verse 4.  We have the shima there, emphasized first, and that’s “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord.”  That was, that phrase is the foundational phrase for the daily prayer of the orthodox Jew.  And then He says, “And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your might.”  Now all of your, your heart, of course, that’s the seed of the emotions and sometimes the intellect.  That’s that inner part of your desire and feelings.  Then He says, “All your soul.”  That would be something of the personality.  And then He says, “With all of your might.”  That’s your physical body.  In other words, your total being is to be devoted toward loving God and honoring Him.

Then He says, “And these words which I am commanding you today shall be on your heart.  And you shall teach them diligently to your sons.  You shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up.”  So what a superior ethic, if you will, of religion, God, the God of the Bible has.  It’s the superior ethic of religion, if you will.  That is, it begins with a true, devoted, heart and love.  And then from fathers who have experienced the miracle of regeneration and the new birth and therefore have a heart that has that kind of love for God.  Not all that you want it to be, but God put it there, and you know the difference.  And from that, you begin to teach the things of God and the ways of God.  How did He say it?  “When you sit in your house.  When you walk by the way.  When you lie down, and when you rise up.  I think the emphasis there is it’s the lifestyle you life.  It’s not a course.  It’s not just formal training.  It’s not just a family devotion time, as good as those are.  It must be from the life.  But fathers are the key.

Also, Ephesians chapter 6 verse 4.  Ephesians chapter 6  verse 4, the New Testament balance here if you will.  Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and the instruction of the Lord.  Fathers.  How foundational, how essential, how central to all that we are as a body of believers, as representatives of God on earth, as Christians, how foundational fathers are to everything.  Fathers must take the lead in teaching their children.

Now here’s something I want us fathers to remind ourselves of this morning.  When you’re training your children spiritually, don’t emphasize the rules.  Don’t emphasize the family laws.  Don’t emphasize the do’s and the don’ts.  Emphasize the superior principles God’s given us through His Son, Jesus Christ.  Start with the foundational abundant life principles.  Did not Jesus say in John 10:10, “I have come that they might have life and they might have it more abundantly.  There is a unique and sacred quality.  There is a distinctive quality to the life I’ve given you, to the change I’ve made in you.  And with that life are superior principles that you can live by.  It’s a gift.  It’s a joy.  It’s a wonder that you get to get in on living by superior principles and not like you are of the lower nature of the beast of the earth.”  Are you following me?  Emphasize the superior principles, and then the positive convictions to achieve or to live out the superior principles.

Now let me give you the foundational life principles.  Roman number one.  Roman one, rather, the foundational life principle.  If we miss this one, dads, if we are lacking in this one, all the rules in the world will not help at all.  Matter of fact, all the rules in the world will destroy your goal to get your children to God if this one isn’t strong.  It’s foundational to everything else.  Calvin said that the law has no saving quality.  All goodness in the law is lost in the fall of man.  All that’s left in the law is the curse.  So the foundational life principle is to love, enjoy, and glorify God.  Now, dads, let me say something to you as I, now you’ve got to understand I’m preaching to Jeff today and to you.  If you get this right, if your children can get to eighteen, nineteen, twenty, or twenty one, and if they can lay their heads on their pillows and night and say, “You know, my dad was weak in some ways.  My dad might have been too lenient in some ways.  Or my dad may have been a little overbearing at times.  But one thing I know, my dad loved God, and my dad enjoys the things of God.  I’ve watched him sing the hymns.  I’ve seen him weep at times when he discovered truths in the Bible.  I’ve seen the sparkle in the eye and the joy in the countenance as he discussed the things of God.”  If your children can go into life saying, “My dad loves and enjoys God,” everything else will seem to fall into place in your training of your children.

But converse to that, if they don’t see that in you but you’re the best, most strict, most disciplined father with rules and standards and everything just, every I dotted and every t crossed, I’m telling you what you’ll do.  Even if your children walk by those rules and joy in those rules, all you’ve made is an idolatrous, self-consumed, arrogant, proud Pharisee.  Or worse.  No, possibly better than that.  You’ll have one that the moment they get a crack of freedom they will run and rebel like you’ve never seen before.  Is it not the truth that we want our children to love and enjoy God?  Not just be decent citizens. I’m not about decent citizens.  I don’t care what this culture calls as decent, uh, ultimately speaking.  I want them to love God.  I want them to enjoy God.  I want them to reverence God.  I want them to treasure God.  And that’ll make them decent citizens.  The byproduct of that will be that they’re law abiding and upstanding and good neighbors.  But you’ve got to start here.  And I think that’s why Deuteronomy says if from the heart, with all your imperfections, you love and enjoy God, your children will see it when you sit by the way.  Your children will see it when you rise up in the morning.  Your children will see it when you go to bed at night.  And you know what I have found in my daughters, and I don’t think my daughters are any different than anyone else’s.  We do not hold ourselves up as the model.  You are all to be models.  But my children seem to be very forgiving.  Thank God for that, dads.  Amen?  Very forgiving.

Four attributes of God that I would encourage you, among the other things, of course, you’re gonna teach about God.  But four attributes of God.  Now, grandfathers, you’re here too.  Okay?  The Bible says to teach these things to your children and your children’s children.  You’re not free yet.  You’re not just here to go to Florida or go out west and look at the canyon.  That’s good if you can go and have a big time.  But you still got a job, granddads.  That’s to help the dads in this project of teaching the children to know and love and enjoy God.

Four attributes that I would really encourage fathers to hang onto as they’re teaching their children.  Number one, that God is all good.  Maybe tragedy strikes, maybe there’s an earthquake, maybe a hurricane has hit the coast.  A father needs to say something like this:  “Sweetheart, that is a tragedy.  Our hearts break for those people, and we must pray for them.  But I want you to know something.  Though we don’t understand everything, God is all good.  Sweetheart, we may not understand all of His ways, but you listen, listen to dad.  God is all good.”  Do you know what a power that has when the father says that?

Number two, He’s all wise.  He’s all wise.  “Sweetheart, His plan and His design for your life, for our family, for this country, for all the civilizations of all the ages and everything that happens in the universe, He is wise.  He knows what He’s doing.  Sweetheart, wait till you see everything at the end of the age and how God put everything together perfectly.  He’s all wise.  He knows what He’s doing.”  “Daddy, what about this that happened?  That is so bad and that person is so hurt.”  “I know they hurt, and we ought to show compassion.  But we must remember God is wise.  All things will work together for the good to those who love God and those who are called according to His purpose.”  Children need to hear that from fathers.

He’s all loving, the third one.  He has infinite, incomparable love for His children.  God has chosen in His sovereign perfections and purposes to cast His invincible favor, His wonderful, personal, devoted favor of love to His children.  Oh, the love of God is to be brought forth and brought in front of our children regularly.

And number four, that He’s all powerful.  He’s all powerful.  Just those four, and I know there’s much, much more.  And every point I’m gonna make in this message could be a series of sermons.  But if dads from the earliest days could hang onto those four.  He’s all powerful.  No one can thwart His will.  No one can resist His purposes.  No one can stay the hand of God.  He’s mighty.

Kind of a silly illustration, but years ago we had comedians and people come through here.  And there was a so called Christian comedian by the name of Jerry Clower.  Now I like Jerry Clower’s comedy.  He was funny.  And he said one day when he was walking through his den that his aunt was ironing in his den.  I don’t know why his aunt was at his house, but she was there and she was ironing.  And he said she didn’t look up.  She just kept ironing.  And Jerry Clower said, “I never got over this.”  It’s funny.  I’ve never gotten over the story.  Isn’t it amazing, little teaching times you have with your children?  Jerry Clower’s aunt is ironing, and Jerry said, “I was just a boy and I was walking through the den and she said, ‘Jerry, Satan is powerful.  Satan is mighty.’”  He said, “I just kind of stopped.”  “Satan is mighty.”  He said, “She just ironed a little bit and let me think on that.  Then in a lower voice, but more penetrating voice, she said, ‘And God is almighty.’” He said, “I never got over that.”  Little teaching times as you rise up in the morning, as you walk along the way, as you sit by the side, as you go to bed at night.  You’ll miss a bunch, but you’ll get a bunch too.

Dads, if we can enjoy God and love God, now listen.  I’m calling this “Faithful, Fighting Fathers.”  Do you realize you have to fight to keep loving God?  You understand that, don’t you?  You fight to get to a church where the small group Bible study and the pulpit is gonna be red hot and white hot with the truth of God because you know you need the doldrums shaken off.  You need the flesh rebuked.  You need the world purged our.  You need the preaching of the Word to help you and a heart that loves God.  You need a small group where at least there’s one or two men, very humbly, very privately, and very compassionately that might put their arm around you and say, “Now, brother, you’re not right with God.”  All of that’s a part of fighting to love God.  Men, fight there.  Fight there. Don’t get in the doldrums.  Don’t get in a rut.  Don’t go along with emotions.  Don’t buy into cultural, convenient Christianity.  Fight to have a heart that loves God.  Would you say, “Oh, God, for Your glory, would You help me cultivate a heart that joys in You?”

How I have failed my children in this way.  But I’m telling you, there are times when I get in the Word of God and I prepare to preach and I just think, “Nothing, nothing can be more glorious than this.  Nothing can be more joyous than this.”  I really love my wife and my children with my life.  But it doesn’t compare to how I enjoy my God.  And our children must see that.  But you know what else they see?  They see me when I’m fleshly.  They see me when I’m hateful.  They see me when I’m failing.  And they realize, “My dad loves God only because God first loved him.”  Are you hearing me, fathers?  They begin to see, “My dad’s greatnesses are not really his greatness.  It’s God’s greatness in my dad.”  That’s why God lets you fail some in front of your children so they will honor you, but ultimately honor the God in you.

As His children, we recognize that He deserves full respect because He’s all good.  He’s all wise.  He’s all loving.  He’s all powerful.  He deserves all respect, full respect.  He deserves all allegiance.  And since He is so good and since He is so wise, and since He is so loving, and since He is all powerful, it would be utter foolishness to rebel against His will for my life.  So you teach them about God, and then you say, “Now here’s what this all good, all wise, all loving, all powerful God has taught us to be like and do.  And therefore as a family we’ve got certain convictions we function by.”  I’m gonna give you some of those.  Not nearly all of them, but some of them that we want to function by because we want to walk in the superior, abundant life principles that God has given us.

Now, the first one, under abundant life principles, A, or the first sub-point would be, a lifelong partner.  That’s one of the high superior principles that comes from our all good, all wise, all loving, all powerful God.  “And sweetheart, for your life, I want you to achieve this.  I want you to know the glory of this.  And I want God to get the glory of this.  So we, we’re gonna have some convictions about this thing.”  The Bible says in Genesis 2:24 to, to leave your father and mother and cleave to your wife, and the two shall become one flesh.  Now some of you have been through the nightmare of divorce, and some of you are remarried, and you’re not second class Christians.  But those of you who have been down that road, you agree with your preaching pastor that you want the next generation not to have to go down that road.  Some of you were the innocent victim.  Some of you were sinning in rebellion.  But whatever it is, if you’ve gone to God with brokenness and repentance, you’re forgiven.  There’s new life and a new start.  Don’t you carry that guilt when Christ has already nailed it to the cross.  But you don’t want the next generation or the next one to face that.

I grew up in a broken home, and it gave me a desire to make sure my children don’t have that experience.  But I made some real errors and I’ve confessed this to you many times.  I, I was a great rule keeper early in my Christian pilgrimage.  I really was.  And I loved God, but I put too much emphasis in the power of the rule to fix stuff, and I had to learn the hard way that rules don’t get it done. You’ve got to have them.  But you start with the high principle, not the rule.  Teach them the principle:  God wants you to have a lifelong partner.  One man with one woman for one lifetime.  This is God’s ideal.  When that principle is lived out, it gives great glory to God.  So of course we can expect the world, the flesh, and certainly Satan to do all he can to try to prevent that goal, to try to thwart that in our own children.

So we establish some convictions, practical convictions.  Here we come with the rules now.  Here we come with some ABC’s of convictions now.  But you’ve got to understand that comes after you’ve taught the principle.  Well, the first one, number one, modest dress.  That’s why we teach modest dress.  Man, what  a struggle and a wrestle this is in today’s culture.  First Timothy chapter 2, verse 9 says, “In like manner also that the women adorn themselves in modest apparel with propriety or discreetly and moderation, not braided hair or gold or pearls or costly clothing.” 

Now the context here doesn’t seem to be so heavily on how well you’re covered as a lady, though that’s certainly understood biblically that that should be the case.  But not that it’s all the external, flashy, showy thing that would characterize a woman who is truly and only living for the world.  The flaunting of wealth.  We see this in the braided hair, the gold, the pearls, etc.  We see this as something that a woman would do to draw people’s attention away from, perhaps the beauty of Christ in her countenance and onto the sensuality of her appearance.  Godly women control their desires so as not to lead others into sin.  God made men, and young men particularly struggle here, to be attracted to the physical attractiveness of the woman.  Young ladies should be taught to dress, not perhaps like they came off of the set of Little House on the Prairie.  But with a proper modesty.

In something that seems to be obvious to me through the days that I’ve been living and counseling scores of young men, one young lady can dress identically to another young lady and it’s just the way this lady carries herself that she is sensual and tempting and the other young lady is not.  It’s not just exactly what you have on sometimes.  It’s the spirit, it’s the countenance.  But there ought to be a fighting a fight here, and there may be a fight in your home every now and then here.  Amen?  You struggle some here.  You don’t know where the line is every time.  I don’t know where the line is exactly every time.  And you, you do the best you can.  But, fathers, here’s what I’m saying.  The high principle of God wanting our daughters and our sons to find one spouse for one lifetime for their joy and God’s great glory is worth us fighting it out and never giving up to strive toward modesty in clothing and in the attire and in the spirit and disposition of our children.  Amen? You just don’t quit fighting.  You say, “Well, I’ve slipped there and I’ve failed there and I’ve gotten careless there.”  Okay.  Get back in the fight.  That’s what grace is for.  Grace means your down but you’re never out.  Get back up and you get back with it.

Now I’m gonna say something to moms here.  Moms, very clear, very simple. Honor your husband.  He’s not an idiot.  Listen to his discernment on these issues.  Certainly they ought to be talked about.  But listen to your husbands.  Now why do we teach these things to our sons and daughters?  Because of the superior, abundant life principle of God wanting you to have one partner for life.  Not attracting what proverbs chapter 7 talks about is the evil man.  In proverbs you have numerous illustrations of the kind of woman who flaunts herself, uh, accentuating constantly and in, in such a sensual spirit her physical attractiveness.  And the Bible says she draws the strange man.  If you want to have a godly spouse and have a lifelong partner and have the joy of a Christian marriage and the glory of God in your  marriage, you must in your younger years dress and carry yourself in such a manner that you do not attract strange women or strange men.

Now you know something the Bible does not do.  It does not give specifics.  Now some of you rules keeping, pharisaical spirited, at least that’s your temptation, you’re gonna have to get over that.  It doesn’t.  Your rule may not be the exact rule for the next Christian household.  Amen?  Now some things clearly cross the line, but you’ve got to have grace in the family of God because the Bible does not give, “Okay, all skirts must be x number of inches below the knee,” or all that kind of thing.  We’re not gonna fight those battles in this church.  We never have.  But we are open and are willing to very lovingly and humbly challenge and encourage each other.  And I’d like to say that there has been a growth in modesty especially among our young ladies that has been very encouraging over the last several years.

Number two, not only do we have the conviction of modest clothing because we want to reach the high principle of one partner for life, but secondly pure entertainment.  Wow, what a challenge this one is.  What a challenge this one is.  Movies that we watch, the television shows that we watch.  Now we’ve got internet.  Is the internet not an incredible, amazing thing?  The abundance of good of the internet.  If we took the internet out of our church it would be tough to function, we’re so used to email and things.  Incredible ministry that happens through the internet.  We have people here literally from around the world and part of the reason they’re here is through the internet they’re able to connect with our ministry.

Yet at the same time, an unfiltered internet in three seconds can take you right to the core of hell itself.  Protect your families, fathers.  Get a filter.  Get an accountability partner.  These things have been helpful to me.  You say, “Well, pastor, you have all those things.  You’re just strong.”  No, I’m weak.  That’s why I have those things.  I don’t trust me.  Do you trust you?  Counseling with teenage boys through the years and it could be a couple of hundred, it’s certainly dozens and dozens I’ve counseled with through the years, I’ve found this to be true.  They’re all just about alike.  Especially teenage boys will tell you that know the Lord that the temptation concerning their sexuality is so strong and in this sensual society, do you realize that close, maybe not exactly, but what I’m gonna say is close to the truth?  That the things when I was a young teenage boy that were called pornography are almost on billboards and on the common shopping aisle at Wal-mart today.  I mean it’s just, we keep redefining things so that, you know, it’s just amazing what teenage young people grow up with exposed to.

But they will tell you, “You know, I just need one place on earth that’s gonna be wholesome and holy and pure that I can go to and be my respite.”  Dads, make sure that’s your home.  Here’s the one place where my children can come and they’ll not be attacked with those temptations because in today’s world, a lot of good, godly young men are almost ready to give up in despair because of the frequency and the difficulty of all the temptations around.  And, dads, now don’t be overbearing here.  Don’t be extra legalistic here, but try to keep the home pure with the things you entertain yourself with.

We found that with satellite television, my wife programs a code in there and literally, we don’t get to watch most of what we pay for.  And I’m thankful.  Because we’re perfect?  No, but we’re in the fight.  We’re in the fight.  We use filters and accountability systems on the computer because we’re perfect?  No, we’re certainly not.  But we’re in the fight.  And I’m not gonna quite fighting, and you must not quit fighting to try to have purity in your home.  The magazines, the books, the novels.  Ladies, some of these novels and magazines that women could just read in front of everybody are worse than Playboy for a man.  Strive for purity.  Maybe every so often, we used to remind ourselves, every so often you need to just clean your household.  Just go, there’s stuff that comes through the mail you didn’t ask for that’s laying around.  Doesn’t need to be there.  There are things in my home right now that girls are probably okay with.  It’s fine.  But if teenage boys were in our home we’d have to get rid of it.  Be discerning, be wise.  Be practical.  But, fathers, make sure you’re in the fight.  Amen?  Just get in the fight.  Not with an ugly tone, not with a judgmental spirit, but just keep battling for the pureness of your homes.  Job 31:1 says, “I have made a covenant with my eyes that I will not look upon a maid.” 

One of the things that we find that is helpful, now remember, is it First Corinthians 5?  Let me look that up real quick because I want to make sure I get this out because in all of our good intentions we sometimes miss this thing badly.  He said, “I wrote to you in my letter,” now listen to this, “not to associate with immoral people.  I did not at all mean with the immoral people of this world.”  Now did you hear that?  He said, “I did not mean don’t associate with the immoral people of the world, or the covetous, or swindlers or with the idolaters, for then you would have to go out of the world.”  So though you must strive to have pure entertainment in your life as a family and you must keep fighting that fight, Paul says you’re not gonna avoid some exposure to the wickedness of the world.  It’s going to be there.  With our best efforts, you’re going to run into a lot of it.  But we found that those are great learning opportunities.  My wife just told me as we were discussing some of this she said, “You know if we’re watching a program and something comes on that I know violates the truth of scripture I’ll ask my girls, ‘What does that teach?’”  And they’ll discuss the error of it.  You know, not sometimes, now listen to me, you carefully weigh what I’m saying here.  I’m not saying condone sin in your home, but sometimes things that are not exactly perfect, I mean sometimes your rules being a little on the lenient side so you can do some teaching can be healthy.  My point is, you know, every time a commercial comes on I don’t know that it’s always healthy to make your children cover their ears and run out of the room screaming so they don’t hear or see anything.  It might be at times.  I’m not saying that’s always the truth.  But there can be learning opportunity because Paul says, “You can’t go out of the world.”  Now perhaps you can keep a whole lot of the world out of your house, but you can’t keep all the world out of your house because the sin package you’re housed in as a Christian has a lot of the world on it.  Like the old Monk that went into the cave because he was so tired of the wickedness and lust of his flesh.  And he stayed in that cave away from all the world.  Then he said, “You know what.  I found out something.  I brought the world in here with me.”  Paul says you can’t get completely away from it.  But he says you can cease to associate with believers who as a lifestyle condone these things.  Well, you want to become mature in your discernment in the home, but, dads, strive and fight for purity in the entertainment in your homes.

Well, enough on that.  Life principle, abundant life principle D, you want to teach your children that authority is our protection and our blessing.  Those of you’ve been around awhile, we’ve talked about this in years past.  But we need to look at it again.  That God has ordained all of society to function under structures of authority.  And authority is not a bad thing.  It’s a wonderful gift from God.  Why?  Because this all good, all wise, all loving, all powerful God has given us a superior principle to live by.  And we have this wonderful blessing of God ordained authority that protects us and blesses us.

First Samuel 15:23 says, “Rebellion,” that is rebellion against God ordained authority, “and insubordination is as the sin of witchcraft.”  Now that’s interesting.  He says, “Rebellion,” and he’s talking about Saul.  Saul who rebelled against God’s order in battle.  He says, “Saul, now, when you rebelled against My authority you are just like one who participates in witchcraft.  Now I don’t know all that that means, but it probably means this.  In witchcraft, you give yourself over to the power of the enemy.  And when you rebel against God ordained authority, you give yourself over to the power of the enemy.  You allow cracks in your armor.  You allow infiltrations.  You allow destructive temptations, allurements into your life that you shouldn’t allow there.

For example, First Corinthians chapter 5 verse 5 where we have the young man given over to the world.  He’s excommunicated from the church for his refusal to repent of his immoralities.  And the Bible says, “We are going to deliver that one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.”  As he comes out from under the blessing and the protection of the church, he’ll be exposed to the destruction of Satan in the world.  You see, Satan knows he can limit the glory we bring to Christ and ultimately destroy us if he can get us to rebel against authority.

You remember what Satan told Adam and Eve in the garden?  “You don’t need God as your authority over you.  You can know right from wrong yourself.  You can know good and evil experientially.  Eat of the fruit of the tree.  Then you’ll be as God.”  Actually it’s a little, it’s plural, “as gods.  You can be your own god.  You can be your own boss.  You can be your own authority.”  Because Satan wanted to strip them away from the superior, abundant life God had for them.

Answer me something.  Why are you squirming in your spirit even as I speak?  Because your fallen nature resists the superior truth of God.  You have an enemy within you.  And God wants to free you to find the superiority of His abundant life principles.

Well, some positive convictions.  Number one, obedience to parents.  Now these are positive convictions to reach the high principle God’s given us as Christians.  Ephesians 6:2 and 3 – Honor your father and mother, which is the first command with a promise that it may be well with you, there’s the blessing and the protection.  That it may be well with you and that you may live long on the earth.  So the authority of parents is a blessing.  It’s a gift from God.  Proverbs 30 verse 17 – The eye that mocks a father and scorns a mother, the ravens of the valley will pluck it, or pick it out and the young eagles will eat it.  What does it mean that this rebellious son against his father and mother the ravens are gonna eat his eyes?  Well, the ravens peck on the eye of a dead corpse to make sure it’s really dead.  The point is, you’re probably not gonna live long if you’re a full bore rebel against your parents.  What we have today is excessive peer idolatry.  Young people, that means when you respect your friends and what they think about you more than your parents, you’re an idolater.  You’ve made an idol or a god our of your friends’ approval.  It’s a peer idolatry that you don’t’ need in your life.

One of the things that we tried to do it not allow our children to be disrespectful about their teachers at the school.  And parents should strive to make sure when you give someone else some limited authority over your children, they should respect that authority.  Now the teacher may be having a bad day and the teacher may not have done things just right, but you need to say, “But we respect the teacher.”  It’s good for your children to hear that, dads.

Respect for police.  Can’t tell you how these things changed my life when they were first taught to me.  I had such a disregard and a vile, rebellious heart toward people in authority.  Police, for one.  But the Bible in Romans chapter 13 says those in government authority, they’re here to punish evil doers and bless those who do good.  And three times in Romans 13, they are called ministers of God.  Ministers of God.  Ministers of God.  When you disobey or dishonor a police officer or someone in governing authority, you are sinning and disobeying a minister of God.  Why?  Are we all, are we just these narrow, fuddy duds about life?  No, we see the abundant life principle that God’s ordained authority to bless us, to protect us.

Honoring of pastors.  Oh, fathers, there are enough faults in me to talk about for a month, but please teach your children, for the sake of their eternal souls, not to have a dishonoring spirit toward the man of God who preaches the Word upon which your children are dependent for their eternal soul’s salvation.  You see what you’re doing when you carelessly have a dishonoring tone or spirit toward the elders of the church?  Yes, they’re men and, yes, they’re mortal, and yes, they fail, and yes, they’re imperfect.  But it’s the office of pastor that God’s ordained that is the primary means by which you will seal your children’s souls for eternity.  You don’t want them to have disdain for and contempt for the office that God’s ordained to chiefly be responsible to help you get your child’s soul to heaven.  Oh, teach them that, “Yes, we need to honor them and we need to respect them, not because they’re better than us, but because the office they hold is ordained of God.  The policeman may have a disrespectful attitude, and the policeman may not have conducted himself right.  But, sweetheart, he holds an office God has ordained.”  And so it is with honoring parents, of course.

A fourth thing, is no fellowship or encouragement for rebels.  No encouragement to rebels.  Sometimes Christian parents take in a wayward, rebellious child with the best intentions and the best heart to try to serve them or help them or get them on track.  But you’ve got to be careful giving aid to a rebel.  You see, those in rebellion always like company.  They want us to agree with their cause.  They want to find a reason why they should rebel against mom or dad.  And I’m gonna tell you, every mom and dad have failed enough that if a child wants to justify a rebellion they can.  Did you hear me?  Every hellion and rebel on earth has a reasonable reason for their rebellion.  Everybody can do that if they choose.  “Well, my government’s like this.”  Or, “Well, the police did that.”  Or, “Well, my parents are reprobates and did this and that and whatever.”  Every rebel justifies themselves.  Because we’re committed to the high, abundant life principle of authority is God’s office to bless us and protect us we don’t want to encourage rebellion.  If a rebellious teenager, college student, single person comes to your way, your household, you should lovingly guide them to go and repent and make things right with their mom and dad.  “Yeah, but mom and dad are wrong here and here and here.”  Doesn’t matter.  The office of authority is there.  Now you can’t sin if mom and dad ask you sin, but you can honor the office, the position of parent over the child.  You see, rebels, they want to use our name.  They want to use their association with us to vindicate their cause and to try to soothe their guilty conscience.  But remember Proverbs 13:20 says, “The companion of fools will suffer harm.” 

Quickly, another life principle is our body is the dwelling place of God.  First Corinthians chapter 6 teaches how we should not give our bodies and our lives over to impurities and ungodly things because our bodies are the actual, literal temple, the place where God gives on earth is in us.  And we want our sons and daughters to learn that superior principle.  Therefore we have positive convictions about this.  One of those positive convictions is no addictive or intoxicating substances.  We stay away from things that are known to damage our bodies, that have no purpose to help us at all.  Listen to Proverbs 20 verse 1.  Wine is a mocker and strong drink is a brawler, and whoever is deceived thereby is not wise.  Habakkuk 2:15 – Woe unto him that giveth his neighbor drink, that puttest thy bottle to him and maketh him drunk also.  We ought to just say, “You know, we have this conviction, not that we’re gonna go judge others, but we have this conviction because God’s given us this superior abundant principle to live by that He doesn’t give to everybody.  Only His children have these.  But our body is the very dwelling place of God.

You see, drugs and other mind controlling agents break down our defenses so that we would give into temptations that destroy the body and misuse the body.  And also they just continue to in a multiplied effect bring an ever deepening bondage to sin and enslavement.  Revelation 21 verse 8, the Greek scholars tell us the word for sorcerer in Revelation 21 verse 8, the word for sorcerer is the word pharmacon, which has the word drug or pharmaceutical connect to it.  And I think it means the controlling, giving yourself over to a controlling, evil agent instead of your body being used of God.

Another one, not only no addictive or intoxicating substances, but not carnal music.  No carnal music.  Now I do not mean that you can avoid all music that labeled as non-Christian.  But I mean these are the things that you purpose to make a part of your lifestyle.  These are the things that you buy and that you put into your heart and your life.  You should test the spirit of the music.  You should test the spirit of the musician.  Test the lyrics.  Do the lyrics speak of things that are clearly unbiblical?  My ears, my brain, my heart are affected by music.  You see, music is either worship or admonition.  Almost always.  And you want to make sure, it doesn’t mean that everything that’s outside the Christian label, and by the way, a whole lot of things with a Christian label aren’t worth listening to because they teach false doctrine so often.  But you ought to be in this fight.  You ought to be in the fight of no addictive or intoxicating substances.  You ought to be in the fight of no carnal music.  You ought to be striving there.

Now think about these things.  The worldly philosophy of the music: live for today, live for yourself, put your desires first, be fulfilled, let the base nature, uh, have its pleasures.  That’s what the world’s music is seemingly all about.  Sensual pleasure.  Satanism is in much of it.  I think it’s significant that in First Corinthians, or rather, First Samuel chapter 16 that Saul brought in David and he played a certain kind of music that drove the evil spirits away, the Bible says.

Number three, a third positive conviction because we have this superior life principle as Christian dads and Christian homes is no premarital impurity.  Again, my body is the very dwelling place of God.  That’s what we’re building on here.  And I, because of that, I’m not giving my body over to misuse that would dishonor and degrade God.  First Corinthians chapter 6 again, I’m gonna just begin in verse 15.  Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?  Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute?  May it never be!  Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her?  For it says, “The two shall become one flesh.”  But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him.  Flee immorality.  Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body.  And of course, fathers, this would lead to a whole guidance and teaching on biblical courtship and not throwing our sons and daughters into environments where it’s very easy to be tempted and give into the temptation.  No premarital impurity.

Now, do you understand why I had to repent while I was teaching this?  But, dads, will you agree with your preaching pastor this morning, “I want to be in the fight.  I want to be in the fight.  I’m not giving my family and my home over to hell.  I’m gonna be in the fight for the glory of God.”  And by the way, some of you maybe have raised your children and you’d say, “You know, I really wasn’t taught these things this way.  I really didn’t know the practical application of some of these things, and I think I blew it a lot.”  I do want to say this to you.  Yeah, but you did a lot of things right.  And you did a lot of things good.

My father was not a believer.  I have no real hope that he knew Christ.  My father was addicted to alcohol.  But you know what, years ago after my conversion God enabled me to see that my dad did some things right.  And I am still blessed and benefited by those things today.  My dad had an incredible work ethic.  That man worked.  Sixty, seventy, eighty hours a week.  He never cracked a Bible and he never talked about the things of God, and he very often had a very embittered spirit about God and everything.  But I saw my dad get up every morning before the sun was up, and he took care of our family.  And I’m thankful for that.  So, dads, don’t think some of the things you do aren’t big deals.  God uses them.  You did some things right.

I was just a little boy, and my dad had taken me to the doctor and we had gotten a prescription and we went in the drug store.  He went in the drug store.  I waited in the car.  And he got back out in the car, and he sat there for a moment.  Then he reached behind him and he pulled his billfold out.  And be brought out, I think, three crisp new one dollar bills.  And he just sat there.  He knew what he was doing.  He knew I was watching.  He said, “I honestly don’t know these one dollar bills, these new one dollar bills stick together.  I honestly don’t know.  I think they may have given me one dollar too much.  I don’t know.  I’m gonna take that dollar back in.  I’d rather them have it and have a clear conscience about it.”  And my dad took that one dollar bill back in there and gave it to them and came back out.  I’ve never forgotten that.  He did a lot of things right.  So, dads, while we repent and I don’t know a dad here that probably don’t need to repent and look at some things.  You just remember, dad, fifty year old dad or sixty year old dad or eighty year old dad.  You did a lot of things right.  And guess what.  God gets all the glory.  God is good.  Because listen to me.  There is a balance in scripture.  Paul says, “I have fought the good fight.”  Jesus uses the analogy of the soldier fighting and battling in His army.  We sing, “Onward Christian Soldiers.”  And I believe we need a little stirring about fighting.  We need to fight, keep fighting.  Don’t give up.  Keep repenting and keep fighting and keep repenting and keep fighting and keep repenting and keep fighting.  But on the other hand the Bible says in Hebrews, “Enter into His rest.”  Dads, is it not good to know at the end of the day, “Oh, God, I don’t want to stop fighting, but I rest in the sufficiency of the grace of my Savior, King Jesus.  Thank You for His forgiveness.  Thank You for His cleansing.  Thank You for His abundant grace.”  So remember His rest, but keep being a faithful, fighting father for the glory of God. Let’s stand together in prayer…

Outline:

Faithful, Fighting Fathers

Deuteronomy 6:4, Ephesians 6:4

1. Foundational Life Principle:  to love, enjoy, and glorify God
2. Abundant Life Principles
   • Life-long partnerships
     • Modest dress
     • Pure entertainment
   • Authority is our protection and blessing
     • Obedience to parents
     • Respect for police
     • Honor to pastors
     • No encouragement to rebels
   • Our body is the dwelling place of God
     • No addictive substances
     • No carnal music
     • No premarital impurity

A822 – June 15, 2008