Answer the Call... He is Faithful!
Notes
Transcript
To the Men called to be… Well Men!
To the Men called to be… Well Men!
First of all before I want recognize the men in our body both who are fathers and those who stepped in and where father’s.
This is your day to do what you want. Even though your wife worked on Mother’s Day.
I want to acknowledge the women who have had to step in and be both mother and father to their children. Either by choice or circumstance women have fulfilled that role.
Today we are focusing on our father’s. We will have a gift for the guys after the service this morning. I believe that we have some fu-fu lotion leftover from last month. So please pick it up on the way out of church this morning.
Being a father for 31 years has given me some great perspective on fatherhood. I have finally figured out that it is by the Grace of God that we have two very responsible boys who married very well.
Yes, from a few weeks old until they were well into their 20’s they regularly either attended church with us or stepped out on their own and found a church and at least knew where the front door was.
I too have a strong wife and we together made that choice that the church would be the centerpiece of our family.
I was thinking about my Dad, Dale Pagel. He was born in June 30th 1920. He was 10th or 11th out of 10th or 11th. He was a first generation American. His parents, Gustave and Minnie Pagel immigrated from Germany before World War I. They first came to America and settled in Iowa and then moved north to Northeast South Dakota.
By the time my Dad was 10 the country was deep in depression. I remember hearing stories of always have meat from the farm but very little else. There was bartering going on and most of their needs were met.
The needs of the Pagel Family came first. By hook or by crook there was meat, vegetables and of course bread on the table.
I never remember my father talking about his family as loving caring and supporting. The scars on my Dad’s back from a horse whip where the long lasting results of discipline at that home.
As I think about father’s these are some phrases that come to my mind.
Perseverance… Long suffering… Fulfilling of promises… Patient Faith… Running the race with excellence.
These are virtues that we, as followers of Christ look towards fulfillment in our own lives and in the lives of those that God has trusted us.
I’m not sure my Dad, when he was just 50 years old and had just buried his wife, my mom, and was now thrust into being Mom and Dad to an 8 year old, me, and a 22 year old daughter who was not married and had just had a baby.
I’m not sure that he knew much about what it was to be a father, a mother, a caretaker for a new mom and a now a grandpa. But Dale Pagel, somehow found the values in the necessity to be all of those things. And to raise me, a daughter and a granddaughter.
My Dad and I always went to church on Saturday night and then out to dinner at a local restaurant. Never into a bar, never saw my Dad overly use alcohol, never dated any women, never hung out with the guys from the Post Office except on bowling night and
I NEVER HEARD HIM COMPLAIN ABOUT HIS LIFE ONE TIME!!!
Here is what I am now reminded of...
2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds,
3 because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.
4 Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
Dale Pagel may have not known it… but he was committing to the long haul and did it gracefully and mercifully.
I want to return individually to some of those characteristics that I mentioned earlier.
I want us to understand that none of those are possible with God in your life.
No matter how hard we try to do these things all on our own they are impossible without God.
Perseverance - Persisting in spite of opposition. The method used to oppose is found in the Book of Ephesians, putting on the full armour of God.
Ephesians 6:13 (NIV84)
13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when [ not if] the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.
When wherever you turn, the world is against you. fall back, regroup, put your “full armor” on and drive forward.
As a man, as a father who, has had adversity, difficulties, opposition from man and from satan or his minions. It’s how we respond that makes the difference.
Long Suffering - The ability to WAIT without becoming hasty or snarly. It includes the ability to take punishment without becoming irritated or angry, without taking vengeance.
This is a most difficult virtue to practice and least it is for me.
I have trouble waiting for anything. Waiting on Jill and certainly waiting on our boys for anything. I wanted it done NOW. We have to keep in mind the long game...
18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.
That’s the difficulty that our society is in today… We are overly rich, we are wealthy beyond measure on a world stage, We have no sense of WAIT!!!
We avoid punishment or discipline and in a sense have turned our backs to who we are in Christ and instead it’s who we are in the neighborhood.
Fulfillment of Promises - This is also “oaths” and “vows.” I promised, therefore I’m obligated until the one I promised relieves of the promise.
Here is a personal story. When my boys were little, like 4,5,6 years old. I PROMISED them that I would take them fishing.
I recall ever taking them fishing one time when they were teenagers.
I have lived with my failure to take them fishing when they were little for the last 25 years.
1 Moses said to the heads of the tribes of Israel: “This is what the Lord commands:
2 When a man makes a vow to the Lord or takes an oath to obligate himself by a pledge, he must not break his word but must do everything he said.
There is no “out” there… there is no work around there. We must promise carefully and then let your “yes” be “yes” and your “no” be “no.”
In order to not set the bar so high that we don’t even try God does give an infinite number of “do-overs.” Thank you God for “do-overs” especially with our family.
18 But as surely as God is faithful, our message to you is not “Yes” and “No.”
19 For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by me and Silas and Timothy, was not “Yes” and “No,” but in him it has always been “Yes.”
20 For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God.
Patient Faith - Even under severe punishment or provocation, the capacity to bear pain and suffering without complaint.
Thank you God I am not called on to do this… By God’s Grace and Mercy we here in the first world are not called on to have “Patient Faith” that involves pain and/or suffering.
The best example of this will be found in the Book of Revelation. Punishment, pain and suffering will be common for those who have not accepted Christ and must face the tribulation.
9 A third angel followed them and said in a loud voice: “If anyone worships the beast and his image and receives his mark on the forehead or on the hand,
10 he, too, will drink of the wine of God’s fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. He will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb.
11 And the smoke of their torment rises for ever and ever. There is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and his image, or for anyone who receives the mark of his name.”
12 This calls for patient endurance on the part of the saints who obey God’s commandments and remain faithful to Jesus.
Remain faithful… It is our command, It is our reward.
Yes as men but also as mankind.
Lead the way you should in a family and you will never have to worry about this. Lay down patterns of faithful service, lay down patterns of commitment and obedience to God and He will reward us.
“Running the Race” - to stretch out over a distance, space, time, or scope; run or extend between two points or beyond a certain point.
I’m tired… I’ve been running this race for now 35 years. Before that time I was just moving in any direction that my heart and my unfocused mind wanted to take me. Without a starting point and with no end point I had no limits on my life and no guides in which to get me there.
That takes effort… Among that time, several people noticed I was going nowhere very fast. Until God put up a great big stop sign… that I had to run head first in to to get His message for my life.
I don’t wish my early years on any one… The only reason I survived was that He was preparing a hard wall for me to slam into. Only to position Himself right there to pick me up and brush me off and to ask… Is it time Jeff, it is time for my Son Jesus to come to you. After more than a few hits… I finally said “YES LORD, YES!”
Philippians 2:16 (NIV84)
16 as you hold out the word of life—in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor for nothing.
After that experience and those experiences as a man, as a member of mankind, as a husband, a father, and a friend. I run and labor but it is no longer for nothing.
But...
“THAT I MAY BOAST ON THE DAY OF CHRIST...”
I’m not the perfect father, my Dad was not the perfect father. I’m not the perfect husband, friend or guy on the street.
My Dad, Dale Pagel born in 1920 and died in 2008. Lived through some of the most difficult times in our world. The Great Depression, WWII, Economic upturns and downturns. Loosing his wife at 42, acting as mother, father and grandfather in a family fractured and hurting.
But did it with Grace, Mercy and understanding.
How much more do we have...
I am aware of who that I am in Christ… And Christ is still working on me every day until that day, the day of Christ.