To Be An Real Dad, You Need To Love Your Heavenly Dad

1. Celebrating Dads

Thank you dads!

You don’t hear many people saying that today. But I want to start my message by saying to dads - Thanks for being the role model for your children. Thanks for being the mentor of your children. Thanks for recognizing that the raising of your children is a duty, privilege and blessing God has given to all dads.

Having said this, I want to make it clear - not all father’s are dads. Every man who impregnates a woman becomes a biological father. And there are biological fathers who remain in relationship with the mom of their children, but are not involved in the raising of their children. These are fathers. I’m talking about dads and in particular I am talking about Christian dads. Dads who realize that they have been given the blessing of a child to raise into a disciple of Jesus Christ so that they might experience life the way it is meant to be lived. What a high and glorious calling you have been given. Being a father is a choice. Being a dad, a Christian Dad is a wondrous opportunity to be God’s instrument of grace and love in a child’s life.

So to all of you dads and granddads. To all the dads and yes granddads of the world who take seriously their calling - I raise a glass, tip my hat, I celebrate you today.

The rest of my message is for dads to use to help them in their calling. For Granddads - it is for you to share with your sons or the husbands of your daughters who are raising your grandchildren. Granddads this is to be done surrounded with, bathed in and filled with love. Men don’t need criticism. They need other men who they know are seeking their best and ready to help them be God’s kind of dad. And granddads this is for you in case you need to step in and be the dad figure for your grandchildren. And this message can be shared with anyone you know who is a dad.

2. Through You Your Children Experience what God’s Love is. You are his vessel of love.

Dads, through You Your Children Experience what God’s Love is. You are his vessel of love.

This may be a little unnerving, but your son’s or daughter’s first experience of what God is like, is you. Listen to this.

What I am saying to most of you, you have either been doing or

It’s time that we recaptured the respect of you

Brianna Haynes – Through The Eyes Of My Father Lyrics

You can’t be real Dad, you need to know your Heavenly Dad.

To be a real friend, a real mother, a real sibling, you need to know your heavenly dad.

You tend to become what you have experienced.

video of boy following dad around

see video in Christian Videos - Fathers day - Through the Eyes of My Father.

Lyrics -

Brianna Haynes – Through The Eyes Of My Father Lyrics

You can bring the best out of your children or the worse.

I knew a guy who was part of all sorts of volunteer organizations, but he was in it for himself. He was well liked. He was celebrated for his work, but get on his wrong side and he would tear you down, stamp on you and cast you to one side. His son saw both the good and the ugly in his father. He saw what his father did was not for the sake of doing good, but to build himself up. I watched the son grow over 10 years and become exactly like his father. Unknowingly his father had mentored him, and been an example to him of what it was to be a man. And he became that man.

He loves you at your worst

This is why I titled this sermon - to be a real dad, you need to love your heavenly dad. Dads and granddads here is a truth for you today. Your children and grandchildren are always watching you. And they are gleaning from your actions, especially your actions towards you wives how to treat people. Your Sons learn how to treat women, how to treat their wives when they get married and how to treat their own children. Your daughters are learning how they should be expected to be treated by men and their husbands and how to treat their children. Over my life I have observed that fathers and dads have a profound influence over the kind of Christian or non-Christian person their children become.

He'll do anything, a father

I have seen families where the father has not been involved in the church, but the mother has. Time and time again there has reached the point in the life of the family when the children, and particularly sons say in one form or another, “Why do we have to go to church when dad doesn’t?”.

He shows you what love is

Saw your dreams before you did

Dads you are the mentor and example of how God wants your children to live. And it never ends.

3. Great News - God has given you a mentor and an example - Himself!

He'll give everything, like your souls desires

I have Great News - God has given you a mentor and an example - Himself!

I see love in my father's eyes, I see love

I had a very angry father say to me once, “When my child was born there was no “father’s” manual and my father wasn’t a very good example. How do you expect me to be a good dad?

I have great news! God has given you a mentor and an example - Himself! Not only is he your mentor and example, he has created you in his image. He has build into you what you need to be the dad he wants you to be. In a sense it is all there ready to be unpacked, set up and used. He has given you a manual and himself to help you do the unpacking, setting up and living in his image. We just need to be open to him and learn from him. Do you remember the words of Jesus. He spoke about this.

Even if you have not had a great example in your life, I have great news! God has given you a mentor and an example - Himself! Not only is he your mentor and example, he has created you in his image. He has build into you what you need to be the dad he wants you to be. In a sense it is all there ready to be unpacked, set up and used. He has given you a manual and himself to help you do the unpacking, setting up and living in his image. We just need to be open to him and learn from him. Do you remember the words of Jesus. He spoke about this.

Matthew 11:29–30 The Message

Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”

matthew 11:

A father's like the Father in the way he loves you

What Jesus was saying was to fall in love with God, fall in love with his, your heavenly dad. Walk with him, talk with him, learn from him.

A father's like the Father when he carries you through

This is the first step in being a real Dad. Let God your heavenly Father be your heavenly Dad. It is as you do this you develop the image of God within you. It is then that you become the best kind of mentor, example to your child.

In the June 13, 1986 Issue of Christianity Today in a series of articles on The Mystery of Building Faith, How a child learns to love God, Kenneth Kantzer the Dean of the Christianity Today Institute was interviewing Wes Willis, the executive vice-president of Scripture Press in Wheaton, Illinois.

I am my father's daughter always and forever

Kantzer asked Willis: At what age can a child understand what it means to love God?

Kenneth Kantzer: At what age can a child under­stand what it means to love God?

He's the man in my life first

Through the eyes of my father on Earth

Wes Willis began his answer by saying, “ I was thinking about what Donald Barnhouse said when asked that same question. His observation was that you begin teaching a child about God 20 years before their born—the emphasis being that the initial instruction about God grows out of the character of the parent. The way I relate to a child, the way I live, the way I practice my personal and spiritual commitments, all of these are going to influence my child's perception of God and lay the foundation for subsequent, more explicit, cognitive teachings.

We begin to help our children understand God and the love of and for God through our being in love with God ourselves. And it is never too late to start!

A strong hand as your guide

Someone once said to me that you cannot really teach something that you have not taken the time to learn about or experience yourself. Christianity is more experiential than knowledge based. We experience God, then we grow in our understanding of him because it is when we are in a loving relationship with him that his Holy Spirit works in us to help understand the truths of God.

Scripture says,

Romans 12:2 NASB95

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

Feel his strength by your side

He'll give anything, a father

Listen to the paraphrase from the Message.

Romans 12:2 The Message

Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

Romans 12:2

Feels your pain when you do

And here is the beauty of it - you don’t have to do it by yourself. Scripture says, ..

Has the words to give you

Philippians 2:13 NASB95

for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.

Philippians 2

4. How do we fall in love with God?

So - How do we fall in love with God?

He is everything, the man in my life first

For many of us guys this may go back a long way, but remember how you fell in love your wife? Do you remember the first days, the first few weeks and months? You always wanted to be with her. You shared everything. You talked to each other about anything and everything. When you were away from her you would text her (OK for many of us it was write a letter.) I think you get the point.

But before all that started, you had to ask her out- the first date! It took a lot of nerve to do it. Its the same with God. Before you can build a relationship with him, you have to begin that relationship. And that begins with opening your life, your whole to God and letting him renew and restore you. This is what the Bible calls asking for forgiveness.

It’s real easy to take that first step. Just say something like...

“Hey God, I know I have been doing my own thing and ignoring you, but now I want you in my life. Forgive me. I open myself to you and your love and I ask that you show me how to fall in love with you.”

Now you have begun dating God, now you need to fall in love with him. By the way he already loves you. He always has.

You may have been brought up in the church, and now are coming because, well that is what you have always done. Marriages become like that and there are times you need to reaffirm your covenant with you wife. Maybe you need to do that with God today?

Hey God, I have stopped growing in my love for you, but I want to start again. I want to be your man, who can be a mentor and example to others and show them what it means to be your child and grow to understand your truth and live your way.

Now here comes the fun part - falling in love

Remember how I described growing in your relationship with your wife. Now do that with God. Make him your constant companion. I do! I include him in everything. He is my first “go to” person. When was the last time you talked with God, really talked to him? Maybe you could start that today - when you get home take some time to begin falling deeper in love with him.

That’s the first thing to do - pray and start to make it a habit.

The second is read his love letter to you - everyday. This is what the Bible is, his love letter to you. When you are in love with someone you read their love letters over and over and over again until you can almost quote them. Begin that process with God’s love letter to you.

You want to be a real dad - Christ style? Then fall in love with your heavenly dad - Abba! And daily grow deeper in your love for him. It will allow God to work in you to be the kind of mentor and example you children need to be the person God created them to be.

And dads and granddads - Thanks for recognizing that the raising of your children and grandchildren is a duty, privilege and blessing God has given to all dads and yes granddads.

Happy Father’s day.

I see love in my father's eyes, I see love

A father's like a Father in the way he loves you

A father's like a Father when he carries you through

I am my father's daughter always and forever

He's the man in my life first

Through the eyes of my father on Earth

I see love in my father's eyes, I see love

A father's like a Father in the way he loves you

A father's like a Father when he carries you through

I am my father's daughter always and forever

He's the man in my life first

Through the eyes of my father on Earth

Through the eyes of my father on Earth Through the eyes of my father on Earth

Through the eyes of my father on Earth