Pembina Valley Camp honor1

Pembina Valley Camp

February 4, 2000 Fri Eve.

HONOR

It’s about relationship

You matter to me

Time spent

Involvement and Interest in the same activities

Both ways

Father to Son

                How can you show that your son, or daughter, matter to you?

                Leadership must come from the father.

Son to Father

                Fathers sometimes die

                                Illus. My dad.

                The relationship changes when you grow up. Make the most of it now

                                Illus. My sons. They told me to say this.

God desires to have a relationship

Israel

Jesus

Failures: Samuel,

David

David’s son Absalom

Third born, to Maacah

II Samuel 13:20

                Incident of Amnon and Tamar,

                Absalom has a banquet, his intention is to kill Amnon, he invites his father, David, but he doesn’t go.

Absalom flees to his mother’s parents land and home, his grandparents.

David wants him back, but can’t do it, to save face, to punish

He has him come back, but won’t see him. II Sam. 14:23,24

II Samuel 14:33 - Finally after another 2 years, Absalom goes to see David

II Samuel 15 – Absalom steals the heart of the people of Israel and enters into a rebellion against David.

In the end, he is killed in the battle that follows and David mourns the loss of his son.

Eli failed to discipline his sons.

I Samuel 2:22-25; 3:11-14

God’s action towards us.

We matter to Him

How does God communicate that to us?

Provides for us – Matthew 6:26.

Forgives us, takes the initiative to save us – Romans 5:8; Ephesians 2:4-7.

Invites us to a relationship – Matthew 11:28-30; John 1:12; Hebrews 4:16.

Illustrations

Rebellion, didn’t because I didn’t want to give up hunting and fishing

The whole story is that my dad didn’t really want me along because of what his friends would say and then they would have to take their sons along, but my mom wanted him to and he did. Later I even was allowed to miss school on two occasions, which was a great rarity, in order to go hunting. I loved those times with my dad. He didn’t play with us much otherwise because he was running a home business and was always working.

Did play chess with me.

Key is, you matter to me

How do we communicate that?

Not by defending wrong actions

Discipline does not destroy, in fact it upholds this concept. You matter to me enough that I am going to help you grow up to know right from wrong, to hold you accountable for you actions.

By spending time.

Going to games even when we knew that they would probably lose.

Heard of someone who attended a game and walked out when their son did not play well.

Bible talks about children honoring fathers, this is part of communicating “you matter to me.”

Ephesians 6:2

Gary Smalley talks about the concept of “honor” illustrating it with the concept of a violin of great value.

That is really what we are talking about there.

These principles pertain when it is a son, daughter, other significant person, Big Brother/Sister

God disciplines us

Hebrews 12:5ff.

Communicate value to each other

Eye contact

Spending time

Listening

Appropriate gifts

Hold them accountable

                Distinguish between criticism and accountability.

Identify and reinforce the idea that this is important and must be done

Spend some time talking about how to do it.

Honor, simply put, is communicating to one another that “you matter to me.”