Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Many years ago, when I was around ten or eleven, I saw a promotion on TV for a true-story miniseries about the life of Phillipe Charboneau, the illegitimate son of an English duke who was forced to flee to America, where he becomes involved in the events leading to the American Revolution.

It had an all-star cast of actors I already knew from my favorite TV shows: Lorne Greene, Harry Morgan, William Shatner, Patricia Neal (and featuring Tom Bosley as Benjamin Franklin!), and it was set during the American Revolution, one of my favorite historical periods.

When the title came on the screen at the end of the ad, I remember turning to Mom and Dad and saying, “I think I’d really like to watch that show, “The Bastard!” (They had to gently explain to me that, while that did look like a good miniseries, the title was a bad word that we really shouldn’t be using…)

Now, I’m not advocating that we bring that word into regular usage in our day to day lives, but I am going to be using it this morning in its proper context.

And the first question I have is, why is that word so rude and unfit for polite company?

It literally means a son that has no father, or a son whose father will not recognize him as his son.

Now, follow me here: That is the technical definition of the word—a bastard is a son who has no father.

But the popular meaning, the immediate connotation of the word is of a man who is particularly cruel or rude or despicable or unpleasant.

It is not a coincidence that a rude or cruel or despicable man is connected with being a fatherless man.

The word “bastard” is so rude because it implies a man has no father, which used to be a shameful thing in society.

And the word implies that his fatherlessness has made him cruel and heartless and despicable and rude and selfish.

When we look to the Scriptures, we understand that this dynamic of fatherlessness creating “bastards” has a very clear explanation: All human fathers are an image and representation of God the Father.

God created men to represent His rulership on this earth—to subdue and rule and order the world, and to train sons to extend his reach and carry his work of dominion further into all creation.

But God’s Fatherhood that He created to be reflected in mankind as His representative rulership was ruined by the Fall of our First Father Adam.

And as a result, the creation has fallen into chaos and disorder.

And so each son born to each fallen father learns not how to be God’s representative ruler on earth; he learns how to twist his masculinity into the toxicity of selfishness, violence, lust and ego.

And a son who has no father in his life—whether because he was an absent father who left him or an abdicating father who ignored him or an abusive father who hurt him—such a son grows up with no idea how to be a man at all.

He is, for all intents and purposes, a clueless bastard.

He has no father, and no idea how to be a man.

The great majority of the chaos and collapse of the society we live in today is directly tied to this plague of fatherlessness.

In his book Fatherless Generation, John Sowers reports, According to various sources, children from fatherless homes account for 63 percent of youth suicides, 71 percent of pregnant teenagers, 90 percent of all homeless and runaway children, 70 percent of juveniles in state-operated institutions, 85 percent of all youth who exhibit behavior disorders, 80 percent of rapists motivated with displaced anger, 71 percent of all high school dropouts, 75 percent of all adolescents in chemical abuse centers, 85 percent of all youths sitting in prison.

(Quoted in Foster, Michael ; Tennant, Dominic Bnonn.

It's Good to Be a Man: A Handbook for Godly Masculinity (pp.

112-113).

Canon Press.

Kindle Edition.)

In the absence of fathers, clueless bastards are desperate to find anything that will give them guidance on what it means to be a man.

So they turn to books, blogs, YouTube, podcasts—anything that will give them some kind of clue as to what it means to be a man.

But God has designed the world in such a way that there is no manhood without fatherhood.

There is no way to become a man if you have never been a son.

But the Good News that God’s Word holds out for all those clueless bastards is that there is hope.

God has provided a way for fatherless sons to learn to be men:

The antidote to the FATHERLESSNESS of our world is SONSHIP through Christ

We do not call God our Father because His Fatherhood is an imitation of earthly relationships—we call our fathers “fathers” because they are the representation of His Fatherhood!

And that means that even if you have had an absent or abdicating or abusive father, you have a greater Father in God Himself!

I want to spend our time this morning searching the Scriptures to see that this is true—that the antidote to the poison of fatherlessness in our world is found in becoming sons of God through Jesus Christ.

Turn with me first to Galatians 4 (page 974 of the pew Bible).

The first thing, the foundational truth about sonship for clueless bastards is that

I. Sonship requires ADOPTION (Galatians 4:4-7)

Galatians 4:4–7 (ESV)

4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.

6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba!

Father!” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.

A fatherless son needs to be adopted into a family; he needs to have a Father say “I will be your Father; you will be My son.”

And that adoption takes place when we are redeemed by the blood of the Son of God, Jesus Christ.

There is no sonship with God the Father without repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.

Because it is when the Spirit of the Son of God enters our hearts in salvation that we are able to call out to God as Father, and He looks on us as sons:

Romans 8:14–16 (ESV)

14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. 15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba!

Father!” 16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,

Clueless bastards have grown up as orphans; no father to teach or guide or protect or train them into being a man.

But

There are no ORPHANS in the HOUSEHOLD of God

When you come to faith in Jesus Christ for salvation, you are transformed from being a child of His wrath into a son of His love.

You have within you the Spirit of Jesus Christ—the eternal Son of God Himself—calling out “Father!” to Him.

And that means that when you call out “Father” to God, it is the same as if Christ Himself were calling out “Father”.

The cure for fatherlessness in this world is the sonship that you have through faith in Jesus Christ.

Sonship requires adoption, and secondly,

II.

Sonship requires DISCIPLINE (Hebrews 12:4-8)

Turn with me to Hebrews 12 (p.

1008).

The author reminding his readers not to grow weary in their struggles against sin—and says that this struggle for holiness is essential to being a son:

Hebrews 12:4–8 (ESV)

4 In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.

5 And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?

“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him.

6 For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.”

7 It is for discipline that you have to endure.

God is treating you as sons.

For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?

8 If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.

Clueless bastards have never grown up with meaningful discipline in their lives—and so when they are faced with the teachings of the Scriptures that challenge and rebuke and convict them, they tend to cut and run.

They don’t want God to convict them of their sin and drive them to holiness through His Word—this is why Verses 6-7 remind them that the discipline and chastening they undergo is a good thing, because it means they are sons—if God did not bother to correct you, then He is not your Father!

Chesty Puller, the most decorated U.S. Marine in history, is famous for saying that “Pain is weakness leaving the body”.

The Scriptures say that for the sons of God the Father, conviction of sin is

CONVICTION: The pain of SINFULNESS being replaced by RIGHTEOUSNESS

When you come to God the Father through Jesus Christ to learn sonship, He will discipline and train and convict and test and reprove and grow you into manhood by the ministry of His Spirit working through His Word.

And it will be at times painful—painful to confront your sin, to acknowledge your failure, to stand before the chastening rod of God through His Word.

And you will be tempted to run away; to stop coming to church, to ghost church members, to shut down and not pay attention when the Scriptures are taught.

But that pain of conviction is not a sign that God is angry with you—God’s discipline means He loves you; His reproof means that you are not a clueless bastard, you are His precious son!

The antidote to the fatherlessness of our world is found in sonship through Jesus Christ.

Sonship requires adoption, it requires discipline, and third,

III.

Sonship requires RELATIONSHIP (1 Corinthians 4:14-16)

Turn to 1 Corinthians 4 (page 954).

Paul is writing to the church at Corinth because they were beginning to disregard Paul’s authority as an Apostle sent by Jesus; they were beginning to get more interested in what some of the other, flashier, more popular religious and moral teachers were proposing.

Paul takes them down a couple of notches, sarcastically praising them for how erudite and noble and wise they have become:

1 Corinthians 4:10–13 (ESV)

10 We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ.

We are weak, but you are strong.

You are held in honor, but we in disrepute.

11 To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless, 12 and we labor, working with our own hands.

When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; 13 when slandered, we entreat.

We have become, and are still, like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things.

He then goes on starting in verse 14 to appeal to the relationship he has with them.

Paul was the one who brought them to faith in Jesus Christ, who preached the Gospel to them and established them in their Christian faith.

He writes:

1 Corinthians 4:14–16

14 I do not write these things to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children.

15 For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers.