Untitled Sermon (15)

Men of God, the spirit of this age seeks to destroy your lives by promising fulfillment through sensuality. It is a lie from the pit of hell that must be rejected by trusting in Christ, honoring our wives, thinking of the great damage that could come to your children and the horrors of hell.

• The Rejection by the Father Leads to the Child’s Rebellion: David’s children rebelled. The sin of Amnon with Tamar, the sin of Absalom against his brother (which should have been handled according to the law instead of through vigilantism, which only compounded the crisis) and the sin of Absalom against his father’s kingdom all came about as rebellion against David. Nathan the prophet prophesied this after David’s heinous crime of adultery and murder.

Covenant children rebel when they see sinful living in their parents’ lives. Covenant children rebel when they see a demand for holiness to which their parents do not adhere. Let us be careful to say the child is responsible before God for his or her own faithfulness to God. The Bible instructs children to turn to Jesus now; earthly parents are not perfect, and we cannot use their sins to disguise our own. God calls us to repent and be obedient to them. Should they fall, then we are to be obedient to God the Father and continue to pray for and honor to our parents regardless of their condition. God will bless this attitude.

• The Rebellion by Children Toward the Father’s Sin Leads to Repetition of the Sin: Thus, the rebellion led to repeating the sins in David’s own household. Amnon and Tamar represent a rebellion that tragically mimicked David’s own lustful situation with Bathsheba. Absalom, who sought revenge of his full sister against the half-brother Amnon represented the murderous act of David, who had Bathsheba’s husband killed in battle.

The warning of God is clear: “You shall not bow down to them or serve them [speaking of the gods of the surrounding nations]; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate Me” (Deuteronomy 5:9).

• Today Is a Day of Repentance for Men Caught in Sensual Sin: Many probably never heard of the sad marriage of the great Russian playwright Leo Tolstoy. Tolstoy’s marriage was a saga of bitterness. His wife carped, complained and clung to her grudges until he could not bear the sight of her. When they had been married almost 50 years, sometimes she would beg him to read to her the detailed, poetic love passages that he had written about her in his diary 48 years previously, when they were both madly in love with each other. As he read of the happy days that were gone forever, they both wept bitterly.

God does not want you to weep bitterly as you think of what could have been. God is the business of transforming lives today, giving hope today. New life begins with the rejection of the old which has brought sorrow and embracing the new which brings life. Today is a day that God has visited you and called you to return to Him. Today is a day when you must see the awful consequences of your sin. Though your sin be done in secret, the defiance of God in the most private areas will become the devastation of your family and your soul in the most public of ways. Do not go another moment without confession of sin and a prayer to God for His deliverance and hope.

Jesus said that if your eye offends you, pluck it out. Jesus was using extreme language to address a heart issue that demands extreme and immediate attention. It is a call to repent, to turn from the sin in order to embrace healing and renewal and life. The way to turn from something that is powerful is to be compelled by a greater power. The power is the power of God’s love in Jesus Christ. The power is something you can relate to now — the power of God the Father in His brokenness in sending His only begotten Son for you.

The second truth …

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David’s cry ended as, “My son, my son”; but Jesus’ cry was, “My God! My God! Why have You forsaken Me?”

The cry of David was the cry of a broken daddy. The cry of Jesus was the cry of a forsaken Son. The cry of David came from failure to follow God’s plan for living. The cry of Jesus came from fulfillment of God’s plan of salvation for those who have failed. The cry of David brought only more remorse. The cry of Jesus on the cross brings miraculous resurrection.

There is not a case that ever comes before me that causes me to say, “Well, no hope here. No way to mend this. No answers.” No, God in Christ is a Redeemer. He came to bind up wounds and set captives free.

Broken daddies and fractured families are healed by the brokenness of God the Father sending His Son to be forsaken on Calvary’s Cross for you. Not only that, but in Jesus’ being forsaken by His Father on the cross, He was sent to the grave. God did not leave Him there; He raised Him up on the third day. Forevermore, praise the name of Jesus; there is hope and renewal for broken daddies and fractured families through the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

“For our sakes, He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

There is reconciliation for estranged families, renewal and hope for remorseful fathers and mothers, restoration for prodigal children, through Jesus Christ:

“For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through His blood, shed on the cross. Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. Now He has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in His sight, without blemish and free from accusation, if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant (Colossians 1:19-23).

I believe with all of my heart and I have experienced it through all of my life that through Jesus Christ the Redeemer, families can be brought together; marriages can be healed; abandoned spouses and children can be ministered to and given a new life; heart-broken children can be mended; the cycle of pain that afflicts generations can be snapped by the broken daddy, broken not by remorse but by repentance before a holy God who is quick to receive you because of His Son, Jesus.

I end with the words of a wise woman, Elisabeth Elliot:

“The disorders and sorrows in my own life, whether attributable solely to my own fault, solely to somebody else, perhaps to a mixture of both, or to neither, have given me the chance to learn a little more each time of the meaning of the cross. What can I do with the sins of others? Nothing but what I do with my own, and what Jesus did with all of them, take them to the cross. Put them down at the foot and let them stay there. The cross has become my home, my rest, my shelter, my refuge.”

Fathers, ................................is the cross your home?............................for your sins .................past and present? Children, is the cross of Christ your rest and your shelter from disappointment? Or pain? Is the cross of Jesus your refuge?

Regret and remorse are covered in the precious blood of Jesus when our problems are placed at His feet. For Father’s Day, that is good news for David, good news for any would-be Absalom, good news for all of us. Let us pray.

“Oh, Father, the Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, You have blessed the world with fathers. Yet, too often we have obscured fatherhood that You intended by the consequences of our sin. We ask You to redeem fatherhood in our families, our nation, in our lives, through the instruction of Scripture, the grace of Jesus and the transformation of our souls. I pray in Christ’s name. Amen.”