A Mandate for The Fathers

Happy Father’s Day

The idea for a national holiday recognizing fathers

Suggested by a lady named Sonora Smart Dodd

At the YMCA in Spokane, WA

Mother’s day had just been established the previous year

She heard a Mother’s day sermon and suggested to the minister that there ought to be a day honoring fathers

Her own father was a single dad

He was a civil war veteran who had raised 6 children there in Spokane

It was an idea which was a bit slow to gain traction

And it wasn’t until April 24, 1972 that President Richard Nixon signed a bill to make it a national holiday

So, for a number of us here, Father’s day wasn’t really a thing when you were growing up

But for other folks like me, it is something that we have grown up with

As with Mother’s day, I want to recognize that there are men here who have never had the opportunity to be Fathers

But we have all had Fathers

And, all the qualities that it takes to be a Father can extend beyond biological fatherhood and into the realm of

church

Work

School

Other places where you are in contact with other men and boys

Because it’s there that you are asked to be a mentor, a leader, a Godly example

And just like being a dad, it’s a tremendous opportunity to pass on the ways of Jesus to the next generation

So, the things that I’d like to talk about a little bit today are things that go for dad’s, yes, but for all men who follow Jesus

So, I would like to read from Duteronomy 6 this morning

I’m going to read verses 1-9

And then jump down and read 20-25

And the reason that I chose this passage is because it specifically mentions fathers and sons

Now, granted, the passage is talking to all the people of Israel

But it specifically mentions fathers and sons, and I think that there is a very good reason for that

The Greatest Commandment

6 “Now this is the commandment—the statutes and the rules[a]—that the Lord your God commanded me to teach you, that you may do them in the land to which you are going over, to possess it, 2 that you may fear the Lord your God, you and your son and your son's son, by keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be long. 3 Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey.

4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.[b] 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and 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. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

20 “When your son asks you in time to come, ‘What is the meaning of the testimonies and the statutes and the rules that the Lord our God has commanded you?’ 21 then you shall say to your son, ‘We were Pharaoh's slaves in Egypt. And the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. 22 And the Lord showed signs and wonders, great and grievous, against Egypt and against Pharaoh and all his household, before our eyes. 23 And he brought us out from there, that he might bring us in and give us the land that he swore to give to our fathers. 24 And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as we are this day. 25 And it will be righteousness for us, if we are careful to do all this commandment before the Lord our God, as he has commanded us.

Here in these verses we read what the Jews call

Shamah

The Shamah is contained in verses 4-5

English Standard Version Chapter 6

4 “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6

It is called “Shamah” because that word is the command to hear or to listen

And that is for us too. Hear what God says to His people

It is the first word of this great statement that has defined the Jewish people for generations:

Love

Fathers, men, Our first mandate is to love. Love the LORD your God

with all your heart

With all your soul

And with all your might

Now, it might be tempting for us to try to pick these 3 statements apart and in doing so, lose what this mandate is telling us

We might be tempted to think, “Hmmm, I think I love God with all my heart, but I’m not sure if I love Him with all my soul.”

Or, we might think, “I love Him way down deep in my soul (I think), but not sure about my heart”

Oh, and then there’s my “might”. Sounds like I need to put forth some more effort toward loving God here

And we kind of get mixed up in thinking like that, and we miss what this verse is saying

Basically, the point is this: Love GOD with everything that you have

Don’t leave anything out!

The words “Heart” and “soul” are two words that are used interchangeably in the Bible

They are meant to describe the entirety of a person. The physical, the spiritual, the emotional....everything

In fact, the point that this verse is trying to get across is so strong that the last word, that word “might”, literally means “very”

And if you were going to read it literally, it would come across like this:

You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all you soul and with all your very.

The question, men, for you and for me is this:

Do you love the LORD your God like this?

You know, as men, as mentors, as leaders, the easy, or the “go to” thing for us is to expect people to just fall in line—teach a person the rule and then expect them to fall in line

As dads, the thing that is easy to go to is to just expect our sons, our children, to just fall in line because “I’m the dad and I said so.”

And that might work for a time

But, if your kids, if those in your care and under your influence don’t know without a shadow of a doubt that you love God, there will be a lot of heartache in the things that you are trying to teach them

Those things will be devoid of life, mere action

But if those under your care know that you love God first and foremost, I wonder how that would change

Bind these words upon yourself

How do you do this?

Do I need to bind these things on myself?

The Jews quite literally do this

They strap little leather boxes to their foreheads and left arm

Known as phylacteries, or tefillin

Made from the skin of kosher animals

The one on their forehead has four little compartments, each with a scripture passage

The one on their left arm has one compartment with the four passages written on one piece of paper

Actually, it isn’t paper inside…it’s a special parchment

And the passages are written with a special ink

And if any mistake is made in writing out these passages, the scribe has to start all over again

There are 3188 letters on these parchments, and if any mistake is found, he has to start all over. It can take a scribe as long as 15 hours to write out a set

The passages are these:

Exodus 13:1-10 .

Exodus 13: 11-16.

Deut. 6:4-9. (part of the passage that we read today)

Deut. 11:13-21.

You can look these passages up at a later time if you want

But they quite literally bind these passages on to their bodies as a literal act of obedience to this command

Now, it probably wouldn’t hurt us, if we did this, but as you know, it’s not something that we have traditionally done

And I would question whether or not this is what God wanted His people to do

But, certainly, we should not miss the heart behind doing this

That is, to make the Words of God absolutely binding on ourselves

Maybe it’s in the same way that we consider a contract binding

I am bound to pay my mortgage because if I don’t, I’ll lose my house

I consider my marriage vows binding to Heidi

I can’t spend time with other women (don’t want to anyway)

I must stay faithful to the vows that I made, because if I don’t, I’ll lose Heidi. I’ll lose my marriage

And could this give us the sense of what God wants us to do with His words

We approach Scripture with the heart of “I want to be obedient. Lord, open my spiritual eyes and reveal to me any way that I am not being obedient. I want your word to be binding upon me”

Because this is the way that we show how much we love God, Jesus

John 14:15–16 “15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever,”

John 14:21 “21 Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.””

John 14:23 “23 Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.”

So, the question for us as men and fathers today (and for everyone) is, do you know what the commands of Jesus are,

And do you love Jesus so much that you bind his commands upon yourself?

When He says “Abide in me”, is that binding upon you?

When He says, “Forgive each other, not just 7 times but 70 times seven (as many times as it takes)”, is that binding upon you?

When He says, “Leave everything behind and come and follow me, is that binding on you

When He says, “Make disciples of all nations, is that binding upon you?

I would call this discipleship—learning to live like Jesus

Teach them diligently

Men, all of you are teachers.

Of course, not all of us have a classroom or a pulpit, or a “formal” place to teach, but all of us are teachers

Again, whether or not you are a biological father, you are a teacher

We have young men and boys here and in your extended families, and in your community who watch you

And they take note of your life. They might not be studying you actively and writing things down in their notebooks, but they are watching

And they are making mental notes about your life

You can probably think back on your lives growing up and think of men that you observed, and you made mental notes about and saw how they acted as men

And sometimes these men left great examples and sometimes, maybe examples that weren’t so good

And not because they intended to, perhaps, but because they, just like you are now, were men who still had a lot of growing to do

I had men like this in my life

My grandfather is often one that I thought of, and still do, about the good and godly example that he left me

And I’ve thought about the kindness that he showed me as a little boy, and I think about him when I’m interacting with younger children...”i’d like to be as kind and gentle as he was”.

But I can remember other men...

When I was a little kid up in Canada, a young couple came up to serve,

Man was big and boisterous and one day grabbed me by my arms and swung me out over the lake

And I was terrified and ran home crying

I think he felt terrible, and he never did it again

But it taught me something

I’ve had the chance to interact with him as an adult and I’m not scared of him any more *(I’m still not as big as he is)

But, you know, by your actions you teach

And by your words you teach.

This is probably where a lot of us men struggle…is actually sitting down with other men

younger men

men who are newer Believers than us,

and actively teaching them with our words.

I know it’s where I struggle. We often feel like, “I don’t know what to say”

We often resort to that old saying “more is caught than taught”.

Which may or may not be true

The point is well-taken “Don’t try to teach someone to do something that you aren’t doing yourself”…your non-verbals, your life, speaks volumes.

But, words are ever so important

To be able to actually sit down with your son or another young man and teach them about the ways of Jesus is something that all of us should be able to do

I am reminded of the relationship between Apostle Paul and Timothy in the Bible

Paul was a mentor to Timothy and actively taught him about what it meant to be a believer

In fact, their relationship was such that Paul called Timothy, “My son”, or “My child” in 1 Tim. 1

2 Timothy 3:10 “10 You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness,”

You see here that Timothy was influenced by both Paul’s life and his teaching

2 Timothy 3:14–15 “14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it 15 and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.”

And in chapter 1, Paul reminds Timothy of where he had come from—that he grew up hearing the faith taught and seeing it lived out by his mother Eunice and his grandmother Lois

And it’s just such a good example of someone who was taught well

And again, men, you don’t have to wait until until you have kids of your own

But make it a point to foster relationships with other men or boys in which you meet regularly with them

And when you meet them, you have conversations with them which point them toward Jesus

Have conversations about Scripture and talk about how we live it out

All of us should be ready to respond as it says beginning in verse 20 of this passage

It says, “When your son asks you in time to come, “What is the meaning for these testimonies and statutes and rules that the LORD God has commanded you?”

Then you can tell him, “The meaning is that we were once slaves, and now we are free. We are free because it was the LORD who brought us out of Egypt

And it is out of the fear and reverence of Him that we do this

You know, this is such an important concept here

All of us should be ready with an answer and an explanation for why we chose to love, and reverence and follow Jesus and make His word binding upon ourselves

And too often, the thing is, we may have an answer, but it may sound something like this:

Well, this is what our church says to do

Or, well, this is just what I choose to do, and this is what I think is right

Or (a better answer), this is what the Bible says to do.

But maybe an even better answer would be one that communicates this:

The reason I live like this is because I once was enslaved to sin

But Jesus freed me from sin by His own power, and brought me to a place of victory and rest,

And now, out of love, and reverence for Him, I want to live in a way that declares my allegiance to HIm as my King

And it’s out of my love for Him that I make His Words binding upon me

That is why I live this way

These are things that all of us as men can and should do