Sermon Tone Analysis

Follow the Perfect Father

Introduction

It’s been quite a week, hasn’t it?

VBS over 50 boys and girls, songs we learned still stuck in my head, it was a hot one, wasn’t it?,

I had an app tell me it felt like 140 degrees one day, I think it was exaggerating, And we had some intense, storms, derecho, power outages, so thankful to see Eric and Cammi finally get their power back on yesterday.

And a wave of COVID has been hitting a lot of people.

Another piece of news this week was about a guy named Rafael Nadal.

If you don’t know who he is, he’s a pro tennis player, and some are starting to compare him to Tom Brady and football or Wayne Gretsky and hockey.

I’m a big fan, but what was really special this week that he announced he’s going to be a father for the first time in October.

Normally on Father’s Day we often think of honoring dads for working hard, bringing home the bacon, for mowing the lawn and fixing things.

And we should be so thankful for how they serve us.

But we are also celebrating dads today for who they are, for all they’ve done, and for how they reflect our Father in heaven to us.

Some of you are with your fathers today, but others don’t live near you.

I’m thankful I get to see mine tomorrow, God willing, when we drive to meet them on the East Coast.

I know this day is difficult for some of you, for those who have lost fathers, for those who have lost children, for those who grew up without a father in their lives or one that abused or neglected them.

I was so encouraged to read about the Story of how Father’s Day was started.

A woman named Sonora Smart Todd from Spokane, Washington, had the idea to start it in 1910.

She had four siblings and her mother had died in childbirth.

So she wanted to honor her father for raising these five kids all by himself so well.

And over time it was celebrated all over the country but didn’t become a national holiday until 1972, when Sonora was 89 years old.

And I agree, this isn’t a holiday the greeting card companies thought up, we really need to take time to honor our fathers.

What does it mean to be a father?

In a world today where many people don’t know how to define what it is to be a woman, where we call mothers birthing persons, maybe defining what a father is is not so easy.

So here’s the bare bones: a man biologically becomes a father when he plays his role in conceiving a child, and then following through with everything that role entails for that child.

So fatherhood actually begins by cherishing the ability our Creator God has given us to be fruitful and multiply, to create in our own image.

First-time fathers like our Brother Tim Bradley, who’s expecting a daughter in August with his wife Mary, learn that to be a good husband and father, you’ve got to take care of momma and the baby inside of her, to help her sleep through the night, to feel for those kicks and even talk to the baby so he or she can learn his voice, to go to birthing classes with her, to be her rock during that delivery.

To cut the umbilical cord, to get the privilege together to name that baby boy or girl.

To get up for late-night feedings and change diapers and clothes and smell the baby’s head, to rock the baby and sing to the baby and read to the baby and teach the baby to stand and walk and speak and run and swing and… suddenly they’re off to their first day of school and riding bikes and playing t-ball and doing gymnastics and reading chapter books and multiplying and dividing.

And you show them all your favorite things.

My kids love watching tennis like me and playing guitar like me and being smart like their mom.

Man, one of my favorite memories ever was taking my son Adrian to Arizona and Utah last year with one of my buddies from college and his son, and we went hiking in the Grand Canyon and Arches and Horseshoe Bend.

That’s why I chose this background, it reminded me of one of the hikes we went on, and also the opportunity to spiritually lead my son into maturity.

But you know what?

I haven’t experienced the rest yet, but many of you have.

Many of you dads have watched your boys and girls turn into young men and women, grow up and discover what they want to do for the rest of their lives and play sports and move out and go off to school and fall in love and become fathers and mothers themselves.

When my son was 5 years old, he said to my wife Emily: “Mommy, I don’t want to be a garbage man or a construction worker when I grow up, they have to work too hard.

That’s why I’m going to be a doctor or an astronaut.”

But I just mentioned all the good stuff.

Then there’s the hard stuff.

There’s the messes and the kids being loud all the time and less time with your spouse.

There’s the fear of them physically getting hurt.

I probably struggled with that a lot more after I accidentally opened a heavy door into my son’s forehead.

He got stitched up and it’s hard to find the scar, but it’s taken a lot of faith in God to let my kids cross the street or go ride their bikes without me helicoptering over them.

Then there’s this crazy world around us, one that throws out God’s handbook for life and tells our kids to do whatever makes them feel good.

So I read news this week about kids wanting to switch their gender has skyrocketed.

And they’re getting inundated with advertisements that encourage them towards these lifestyles, and TV shows and movies and video games that teach them to love the world.

So that’s a whole other part of being a father, of leading them and teaching them God’s ways.

And correcting them when they go wrong.

It starts when they’re so young, when they disobey and you tell them no.

When they start lying to you and try to cover your tracks.

When they speak unkindly to their siblings or their friends.

And then you’ve got to love them by disciplining them well.

Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

Thankfully, we have a perfect example of a Father, and a perfect example of a Father/child relationship.

We get plenty of examples of Father through Scripture.

We get Noah, who convinced his sons and their families to get on the Ark; we get Abraham and his willingness to sacrifice his only son Isaac to obey God; we get parables like the Prodigal Son and the Father who welcomed him home with wide open arms.

But most of all, we have God himself.

One God in Three Persons, Blessed Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

God didn’t reveal himself fully at the beginning, but over time we learn more about who He is, and how as a Father we are his children if we follow Him.

And that’s exactly what Jesus did here on earth.

He followed his Father perfectly.

We hear echoes in the Old Testament of the Father’s great love for us and then see it on full display in the New Testament.

We learn what it’s like to discipline in love from God, and finally we learn what it’s like to have a real father to child relationship with God, because Jesus modeled it for us.

So we can all learn from our Perfect Father today, how to follow him more, and how to be more like him.

So first,

The Father Loves His Children

How do we know God loves us?

His word tells us clearly in:

We just sang, how deep and vast was the Father’s love for us?

He gave his perfect son Jesus to stand in our place, to redeem us.

1 John 4:9-11 Explains it this way:

Jesus, fully God, fully man, lived a perfect life, died on a cross in our place, was buried, but on the third day he rose victorious!

Once for all the blood of Jesus washed us white as snow.

It made dead hearts alive again.

Jesus gives the most striking picture of the Father’s love in the parable of the prodigal son.

The son takes his inheritance early, runs away and wastes it, finds himself in poverty eating with the pigs, and decides he’ll go back to his home to be a servant, no longer a son.

But the Father did not react the way he thought.

Luke 15:20 tells us:

And Father God has that kind of love for you and me.

In fact, he loves us so much that...

The Father has adopted us into his family as sons and daughters.

Praise God for this truth!

The Father has adopted us, not as second-class citizens, but as full heirs.

The blood of Jesus has made us his adopted brothers and sisters.

Do you think of God this way?

Because this is not just a cool idea.

God wants us to walk in this reality.

Do you talk to him this way, as a true son or daughter of the King of the Universe?

Over and over the Bible encourages us to address God this way:

And Jesus instructed us to pray this way in the Lord’s Prayer:

Thankfully, God is the father of all who trust in Jesus, but he has a special place in his heart for those without a father.

One last thing before we move on.

Have you taken the step of making God your father by trusting in Jesus?

Because Jesus basically says everyone has a spiritual father - either God or the devil.

Listen to Jesus’ words in:

If you haven’t experienced the transformed life, if you are still in the dominion of the devil, I invite you today to be adopted by the Father into his loving family.

It doesn’t matter what you’ve done, or how long you’ve faked it.

You don’t need to clean yourself up, you just need to repent and believe.

So to everyone, do you believe that you are His and that he loves you deeply?

Number 2,