The Dad You've Always Wanted (to be)

Introduction

Today is Father’s Day. The greatest need in our society today is for fathers who will rise up and assume their God-given role of responsibility in the family.

Our text gives basic responsibilities for manhood; but when a man becomes a father, those responsibilities are expanded. Let’s look.

Micah 6:8 NASB95

He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God?

1. A Godly Father loves God

Matthew 6:33 NASB95

“But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

A. The basis upon which happiness is built and priorities of relationship.

Matthew 22:37 NASB95

And He said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’

B. If you do not have a right relationship with God, it is futile to think you can relate properly to others.

2. A Godly Father loves his Wife

Ephesians 5:25–33 NASB95

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of His body. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church. Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband.

A. Real love seeks to meet all the needs of another person.

1 Corinthians 13:1–13 NASB95

If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.

B. Your sons are learning from you about how to treat their wives. One day they will treat their wives the same way you treat their mother.

3. A Godly Father loves his Children

A. Love is more than provision for material things.

Don’t miss your children’s childhood; there is no second chance at childhood.

B. When discipline is required, do it in love,

Colossians 3:21 NASB95

Fathers, do not exasperate your children, so that they will not lose heart.

Don’t beat them up out of anger.

C. Children interpret the time spent with them as love. Forget “quality time” vs. “quantity time”

4. A Godly Father is a man of Integrity

A. the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; moral uprightness.

means doing the right thing even when no-one is watching

1 Peter 3:16 NASB95

and keep a good conscience so that in the thing in which you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ will be put to shame.

Proverbs 11:3 NASB95

The integrity of the upright will guide them, But the crookedness of the treacherous will destroy them.

Proverbs 4:25–27 NASB95

Let your eyes look directly ahead And let your gaze be fixed straight in front of you. Watch the path of your feet And all your ways will be established. Do not turn to the right nor to the left; Turn your foot from evil.

Hebrews 13:18 NASB95

Pray for us, for we are sure that we have a good conscience, desiring to conduct ourselves honorably in all things.

B. Honor

Romans 13:7 NASB95

Render to all what is due them: tax to whom tax is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor.

5. A Godly Father is a role model of God

Recent research has shown that parental deprivation and fatherlessness during times of development alter the neurological brain chemistry in children and cause them to be prone to risky behavior and substance use.

There are roughly 150 000 lone parent families in Canada, with 80 percent of those being female lone parent families.

Female lone parent families made up 13 percent of all census families

while male lone parent households were only 3.5 percent.

negative effects of fatherlessness on children:

In society Men are not taught to value fatherhood the same way women are encouraged to embrace their identity as mothers.

Marriage has been the main social institution to tie fathers to their children and the steady rise in divorce rates in the last half of the 20th century has partially lead to our state of rising lone child families.

Canadian Stats

Children from fatherless families are 10 times more likely to abuse chemical substances,

4 times more likely to be raised in poverty,

twice as likely to commit suicide

9 times more likely to drop out of high school.

70 percent of teen pregnancies occur in a fatherless home

girls are 9 times more likely to be sexually assaulted in a home without a biological father.

-Stepfathers and boyfriends pose a much higher risk of sexual predation.

60 percent of accused rapists came from fatherless homes

are 11 times more likely to engage in violent behavior

20 times more likely to be incarcerated at some point.

The official government statistics reveal that fatherlessness is a pressing issue in our society and contribute to a host of social problems.

Fatherhood should be praised and encouraged as a source of pride and meaning for fathers, not just as being in the role of ‘bread winner.’

A positive male father figure is clearly vital in the social and physical development of boys and girls.

Lone parent households do not give the same benefits as homes with both mother and father.

The ideology that women and children do not greatly benefit from fathers is false and harmful to children and society.

The empirical benefits of having a two parent household is compelling.

Conclusion

The Word of God is challenging you to be a godly father today! Will you be a godly father to your children?