SPEAKER_03 0:00

Before I even start, I want to name a mystery, and that was one that Justin referred to earlier this morning when we had communion. It's hard to get our heads around it, but it's true. Think for a moment about Jesus' baptism. Remember, he heard the words of the Father from heaven. You are my son whom I love, with you I'm well pleased. That was a start of his ministry as the Messiah. He hadn't, if you will, done anything yet. But the Father is speaking blessing over him. When we are baptized, that blessing of the Father is imputed to us. That is, it's transferred to us. You all get that, right? You're awfully quiet. You get that, right? This is the great mystery that our Holy Father, through Jesus, transfers his love and pleasure to us. And we can readily say before him, we don't deserve it. And he says, Yeah, that's right. But you accepted the gift of my son. And we're baptized. So I want to just remind you that every time we gather, it's in the pleasure of the Father. And every time we feel neglected, we can't trust our feelings. And every time we feel we're not good enough, well, maybe we aren't, but we have to go deeper than that into our faith. So what we're going to go today about is go deeper in our faith and understanding this mystery of being a dad, a holy dad. So I'm going to ask all the dads here, granddads, stepdads, even if you don't have a good relationship with your kids right now, anybody in serving in a role of a dad, like a coach or a teacher, youth pastor, youth advisor, please stand right now. Guys, stand up. Even if you want to, if you aren't a dad yet, but you want to be, uh, stand up. Let's and you know what? We're glad you're here today. You may have been coming of your own will. You may have been dragged here because it's Father's Day. You may have dragged kicking and screaming. And I sat in the back and realized some of the guys aren't even singing. It's okay, guys. You're here. This is a great place to come. So thank you, dads, for being dads. Thank you. Now, to set the stage a little bit for me, as I reminded you when I was last time here with you, um, I've been at being a dad a long time. My wife is here uh in the back. We, as of this week, have been married 44 years. Think it's a good start. She's the woman, looks like she's 28 there in the back. Uh uh, we have three sons, all grown. They they have wives and families of their own. And as I also mentioned to you before, we have um the the three girls we consider our daughters, not daughter-in-law, because it's not by law that they're ours, it's they're in our heart. So we feel we have six kids, and and I have six people who call me dad. Now I did something with my sons uh just last month. I want to start off with a picture of that. Um we went to a very special place, it's called the Grand Canyon. Uh we had to plan this for 16 months, and when they asked why do you want to do this, Dad? I said, because I can, and it's uh it's on my bucket list. So once I retired as an un everyday senior pastor, I convinced these three guys to get the funds. Obviously, Pastor, I don't have the funds to pay for their trip, but uh we we rallied in flagstaff. Somehow they we were all able to arrange it with family and friends. It's an adventure trip, uh, so we had to justify what our workout schedule is each day. But we um we spent six days on the river. We went 90 miles through the Whitewater Rapids uh camping with others, uh, a group of 23 and our guides along the river, and then we hiked the eight miles out. Uh it was intense. Uh, this is one of my favorite pictures. We didn't take it, but that was us there, and there we are finishing the hike. So um why did I do this? Because I wanted to create a memory. And that's what dads do. I'm gonna mention it again later, but but dads should see as one of our primary responsibilities. We we create memories. We create times that the kids want to gather and be together. Uh, that's a big part of being a dad. And and you know what? All of us guys, we need encouragement in that, don't we? We need encouragement. I was sharing this with some of the guys I work out with. I work out in the in the county with a group called F3. We work out at 5:30 in the morning at schools around the county. There's hundreds of hundreds of us who gather at that hour. But um most of them are you know in their 30s doing crazy things like that. But I showed them these pictures, and one of the guys who's been a dad for all of six months now said, I'm gonna do that when my son's old enough. You see, we all have to encourage each other, but there's you don't need to go on to the Grand Canyon to create a memory. Here's somebody you know fairly well who was creating a memory with his kids. And isn't that awesome? And it didn't cost them a whole lot, I don't think. They didn't catch any fish, but that was something else. But uh, we create memories. We have time, we we teach our kids that they're important. And you know what? We need each other to do that. Now, maybe you're not into doing trips, maybe you're not, but but we can at least be encouraged by what now is available online. Now there was a video that went viral this past week, 47 million last time I checked, and it was a man having a conversation, or at least it sounded like it, with his 19-year-old son. I want you to see it. Did some of you see it already? I've seen some heads nodded. It's pretty listen to this.

unknown 5:31

Yes, okay.

SPEAKER_01 5:34

Did you understand it though?

unknown 5:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:36

No. Oh no, not this one, this one's the randomity of this one. Yeah, I guess. I don't know what you're gonna do next week because they're something.

SPEAKER_00 5:59

Uh uh.

SPEAKER_01 6:01

Oh yeah. Right, don't bring it. You'll say, don't make it like all the way up there, don't bring it up. You know what I'm saying? What in the world? Don't do it if you're taking a lot of light, huh? That's crazy. Right.

SPEAKER_03 6:59

Obviously, I'm I'm at the other end of parenting. When I first saw this, I thought, sounds like talking to teenagers. Just kind of nod your head and you they think you understand. When he was interviewed by Fox News, he said the reason he was doing videos is he does a series of videos because he wants to be able to show his son the relationship they had as he was grown up. You see, we all need encouragement, don't we? We need to realize this is a tough job. It's hard being a dad, especially in our culture. We need encouragement from other dads, those who've done it before, those who are in the midst of it. I I love being at the Grand Canyon with my sons. One night after we had had our dinner, the four of us are sitting there just talking before uh hitting the tent, and there was a question raised by one of my sons to his brothers hey, how do I teach the kids about giving? And for the next 30 minutes, it was dads swapping stories about how to do things well in raising kids. And you know, I didn't have to add a word. They'd already heard from me about being a dad. Uh they needed to have the chance to just share and encourage each other. Uh, moms, we need your encouragement. Um, kids, we need you to tell us when when we can do better at being a dad. We really do, because this is a tough job, and we don't learn it in our culture anymore. Let's be honest about that. We don't learn it in school, we don't learn it in business, we don't learn it in sports, we don't learn it in the military. Where are we gonna learn it if we don't learn it in the church? Now let me let me name there is a tougher job than being a dad, I'm convinced, and that's being a single mom. So hats off to single moms who are here. But I and I mean that, I mean that, but uh if we can be honest for a moment, and I hope I don't this doesn't go is too painful, but moms, you can't do mom and dad both. And and maybe there's times when single moms, you need to reach out to somebody, or if if you're if your husband's not being a godly dad, you may need to reach out for somebody else. Let me give you an example. I'd only been ordained for a couple weeks. I was a new youth pastor in a church. I got a call from a woman who said, Hey Fred, can you take my son under your wing? Now, her son was 13, I was 30. Joe and I had preschoolers. I I didn't know how to raise a teenager, but he didn't have a good relationship at the time with his dad. They were divorced. She had remarried, he didn't have a good relationship with his stepdad, and his his young sister had just died of cancer. He was having a real hard time in life, and she wanted me to take him under my wing. I didn't quite know what that meant, except I needed to invite him to share my life with me. And I needed to help him to see that there was a man trying to live a dad figure in his life who would look after him. And so we got him through high school and I went off to another job. He went off in the Navy. Years passed, he made some very poor decisions about drugs and other things, and one day I got a call and it's from him. Can I come help? And he came to our home. Well, I asked him why'd you call me? He said, I knew you wouldn't turn me away. We helped him start his bachelor's degree, he got his master's degree, he's gotten his doctorate, he's an author, he's been a missionary, he's married, raising his own family. He's now teaching pastors and missionaries at a university around going around the world to share the gospel. He just needed somebody to step in and help his mom. And guys, we ought to man up and do that, don't you think? Yes, we have to be preoccupied with our own children, but there's a whole lot of kids who need an adult male figure in their lives and saying, How are you doing? And I realize that's often getting down on my knees, so I'm eyeball to eyeball with them and making sure I know their name and ask them how their week has been. Guys, we need to encourage each other to do this and to do this well. Otherwise, if we're not careful, our kids will pick up the same values that if we're not careful we're living. And that is that what matters is success, money, being busy, accomplishing things, and if we're not careful in the way we put it with our kids, getting the right grades and doing well in sports. There's a whole lot more from God's perspective than that, don't you think? You see, if that's what we're modeling, that's all they're gonna get. And if we're not active in their lives, that's what they're gonna hear because this fallen culture shouts those values so loudly. We need to encourage each other so that we can encourage our kids so that they learn about truth and righteousness and acceptance and love, where they where they learn about the things that really matter. God and and Christ and living our lives for Him. We really don't live our lives to please everybody else, and our kids don't have to live lives to please us. But if they don't see us living for an audience of one, they'll never get it. And as you'll probably hear me say in a few minutes again, it's not about teaching them rules and regulations. It's modeling for them how to live a life of joy and peace and love because they've accepted the grace that is ours in Christ. Now, while we do need to encourage each other, I want to suggest to you one of the greatest places for encouragement to understand what it means to be a godly dad is to look in the scripture and see what Jesus teaches. He told us that he's gonna come and to reveal the will of the Father. Indeed, he told us he didn't do anything unless he first saw it done by the Father. So we should anticipate that what he has to say is the purest form, the most beautiful form of what it is to be a father. And so we can turn to the remarkable place where God's nature is revealed, and that's Luke chapter 15. So if you have your Bibles, turn with, they're gonna be on the screen for you, but look with me, please, at Luke chapter 15. Now, this is a very unique gospel and a very unique chapter. It's a unique gospel because Luke is not a Jew. Luke was a Gentile, that is, a non-Jew. He was a doctor. And most of us believe that he was writing this gospel and the book of Acts in order to defend the Apostle Paul in the Roman courts. You see, Paul had charges against him, and he was, he appealed to Caesar, but the Roman courts didn't know who this Paul was. So they needed what's called a friend of the court to come and give some explanation. So most of us believe that Luke had to first teach about Jesus and the Father to help the court to understand who Paul and the others are serving. And in this unique chapter 15, he's revealing to us the nature of the Father. There's no other chapter like this in the Bible. Three separate parables about the Father's love and the depth of that love. Now, the first parable, one that we know a lot, is the lost sheep. And it's that shepherd who leaves the 99, as we sang this morning, the great song by uh what is it called? Uh is it Corey? Corey, Ashbury. Reckless love. That's what we celebrate about God, that he leaves the 99 to come after us when we're lost. You ever had that experience? When you're out there and you're making very poor decisions, and somehow God reaches out and gets you to come back. Well, Dad, that's our role as well, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 14:54

When our kids are making horrible decisions. And we leave the 99 to go for the one.

SPEAKER_03 15:04

But the second parable was about the lost coin. The woman who loses uh a silver coin and is frantic until she finds it, and then she throws a party. Now, the problem in our culture is we think of a silver coin and we think of something that at least looks like silver and we think maybe think of a quarter, we're not talking about that at all. Many believe the context was the ten silver coins, the ten denarii, which were days' wages, which were probably part of her wedding headdress. It would have been her dowry that she would have given to her husband after the ceremony. If she didn't have the tenth coin, she wasn't about to start her new life. So she's frantic until she finds the coin. When she finds it, she throws a party. Of course she does. Life can begin. You see what that reveals about the nature of our Heavenly Father, how much he just wants us to accept his love and stop playing the game. That what matters in life is how far we get ahead. I gotta tell you, I was first confronted with that when I was 19. I was in the Naval Academy. I was doing really well there, at least according to all this all the standards, and a friend came up to me one day and he said, Fred, why are you playing the game so hard? And I said, What game?

SPEAKER_02 16:29

And he said, Fred, it's all a game.

SPEAKER_03 16:35

And that was my start of realizing that trying to get ahead, make a name for myself, and impress everybody, there might be something more. My brothers and sisters, you figure that out, haven't you? Dads, you've you've realized, haven't you, you have to teach your sons and daughters that reality. There's something more than the crazy values of this world. We hear that in the nature of the Father. And then we get to the most famous at all of all. Uh when we get to chapter 15, verse 11. And it's listed in most Bibles as the parable of the lost son. But in fact, we don't know it as that, at least in the world, do we? It's the parable of the prodigal son. One of the most famous parables that Jesus taught. Famous all over the globe, famous throughout all cultures. That mystery of the of a guy squandering and wasting his life and then coming back to the Father. And in fact, the the meaning of the word prodigal comes from this very story. The word from the Greek means extravagant, reckless living. And yes, that's one understanding of this parable. But the word prodigal has a second meaning. It's related to the same word we have as a prodigy. It's someone who is overly blessed. That understanding can be applied to the story as well. Because the son is overwhelmingly blessed by his dad. And maybe that's how we ought to men reflect on this story. What this teaches us about how to be a holy father. So, yeah, what I'd like to share with you is just a dad looking at the prodigal son. Turn with me, please, to Luke chapter 15, verse 11. To illustrate the point further, Jesus told them this story. A man had two sons. The younger son told his father, I want my share of your estate now before you die. Wow. Pretty harsh, don't you think? Can you imagine? Even in our culture, a young son coming up to his dad and says, I'm not going to wait for you to die. I want my inheritance now. And he's not joking. Now, in that culture, it is an extreme offense. He is committing what we would call family treason. And in that culture, it was a criminal act. Not only is he denying his dad, he's denying the older son, whose responsibility when the dad passes, is getting more than his what we would call fair share of the inheritance, because the oldest son's responsibility in that culture was to maintain and care for all the brothers and sisters. That's why he got more. It's where we get the term kinsman redeemer, where Jesus goes before us to be the firstborn of our brothers to save all of us. So for him to make this demand in that culture is even an offense to that culture. And remarkably, as we hear, the father agreed to divide his wealth between his sons. A few days later, this younger son packed all his belongings and moved to a distant land, and there he wasted all of his money in wild living. By the time his money ran out, a great famine swept over the land, and he began to starve. He persuaded a local farmer to hire him, and the man sent him into his field to feed pigs. The young man became so hungry that even the pods he was feeding the pigs looked good to him, but no one gave him anything. Here the offense is even greater because now with an unclean animal he is spending his life. You know who he is, don't you? We probably have been there. Some of us have been there ourselves, and we have some of our kids have been there. They're the one that the friends whisper to and say, So sorry to hear about your son. He's a loser, an outcast, the bad apple of the family, the black sheep, the one everybody whispers about, but nobody wants to talk about because it's just too painful. And there he is, living in his guilt, living in his shame, lost. Verse 17. Finally, he came to his senses. It's a wonderful term. In the Greek, it means the same thing. He woke up. Wow! What am I doing here? Why am I living in this shame? Why am I living in this guilt? You know, we all have to get to that point. This is the start of being responsible, of recognizing you've blown a lot of your life and it's time to do something different. Now, if you haven't gotten there yet, you will. If your kids haven't gotten there yet, they will. If your grandkids aren't there yet, they will. It's the wake up and realizing the world is lying to us. There's more to life, and we're only gonna find it when we come home. So when he finally came to his senses, he said to himself, At home, even the hired servants have food enough to spare. And here I am dying of hunger. I will go to my father and say, Father, I've sinned against both heaven and you. I am no longer worthy of being called your son. Please take me as a hired servant. So he returned to his father. You know what I find interesting in every culture? These dynamics are going on every single day. As we wake up to the reality that we're lost and we need something more. And it's shaped as a cross, because that's the only way we'll be restored. We need to come home. We need to come home to our fathers and mothers. We need to come home to our Father God. And he finally wakes up. I find it interesting. In the 12 steps of AA, this is step five through eight. It's that honest about yourself, going back, confessing what's wrong, trying to make amends. And it's happening here in this parable. But fortunately, the father now comes back in the scene. Now it's time for the dead. While he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming, filled with love and compassion. He ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him. His son said to him, Father, I sinned against both heaven and you. I'm no longer worthy of being your son. But his father said to the servants, Quick, bring the finest robe in the house and put it on him. Get a ring for his finger and sandals for his feet, and kill the calf we have been fattening. We must celebrate with a feast, for the son of mine was dead and is now returned to life. He was lost, but now is found. So the party began. Go, Dad! Isn't it amazing? While he's still way off, the father sees him and runs to him. Here's a dad who's never given up. We might say, always praying, always hoping, always waiting, and he's ready to run the distance. His son has to start it, but the dad's gonna complete it. But it doesn't stop there. He embraces him, he kisses him, and he orders the servants to give him a ring, a symbol of authority, to get sandals, he's not gonna be a barefoot servant. To get the finest robe. He's a man of standing. He's home. All of these are huge symbols that if we're not careful, we take for granted, thinking, yeah, it's just some more clothes. No, it's not a change of clothes at all. It's a change of identity, a change of status. He's home. And then he goes to the next step and he kills the fat, he orders the fattened calf to be killed. Now, I know for us that's hard to get a head around because we go to Publix or Kroger or whatever, and we buy our meat all clean and wrapped and wrapped in plastic and it looks so good, and we say, yeah, we'll have this one and we'll have this one and we'll not have this one and we'll have this one. But to kill the fattened calf for the sun? That's huge. Nearly 20 years ago, I had the privilege of being in Rwanda. I was in a remote jungle region just south of the Congo, and I was asked to go into this area and preach the gospel. Now, I was the first white man the children had ever seen. It was a unique privilege to be there. And I started on a Thursday and I was asked to preach again on Friday, and I was asked to preach again on Sunday. And the crowds kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger, and I said, What's going on? Where are these people coming from? And the senior pastor said, Well, they're walking up to 12 miles because they want to hear the white man share about Jesus. Wow. Well, after that amazing celebration, I was asked to go to the pastor's home. We would call it a concrete shack, but it was his home. And they killed the fattened chicken. Now, I'll admit to you, it looked more like roadkill. And I was given the honor of having the tail. It still had hair on it. And yeah, when you people aren't looking, you swallow hard. But here it is, almost 20 years later, I still remember that honor. The sun gets the fat and calf. The party has begun. It's celebration time. It's not about what the sun has done. It's not about the offense, not about the shame, not about the guilt. The son's home. You ever been there? You ever waited for years for your son to come home? Or your daughter? And then they do. Nothing like it. Right, honey. There's nothing like it. And it's our job, dads. It's our job, moms. We've got to create an environment where they really believe there's a chance that they can come home. And where they won't get the finger pointed at them. Because that's how God treats us. He welcomes us home. There's no finger pointing with God. He knows what we're like. That's why his son died on the cross. Church, do you get it? Doesn't sound like too many have. Church, do you get it? That's the message of the gospel. That's it. We don't have to prove ourselves before our Father, and our children shouldn't have to prove themselves before us. And again, we will never learn this if we don't learn this from the Lord and from His church. But the story doesn't end there. It seldom does in our life either, does it? There's a meanwhile. Verse 25. There's always a meanwhile, isn't there? There's always all the other folks who don't have the heart of the father, all the other folks who want to point fingers, all the other folks who say, Well, you haven't lived up to our standards. Meanwhile, the older son was in the field working. When he returned home, he heard music and dancing in the house, and he asked one of the servants, What was going on? Your brother's back, he was told, and your father has killed the fattened calf. We're celebrating because of his safe return. The older brother was angry and wouldn't go in.

SPEAKER_02 28:19

Hmm. Hmm.

SPEAKER_03 28:26

His father came out and begged him, but he replied, All these years I've slaved for you and never once refused to do a single thing you told me to. And in all that time you never gave me even one young goat for a feast with my friends. Yet when this son of yours comes back after squandering your money on prostitutes, you celebrate by killing the fattened calf.

SPEAKER_02 28:48

Whoa! Now who's the lost son?

SPEAKER_03 28:54

Just because he was physically present, just because you're physically present, doesn't mean the relationship's right, does it? He says, All these years I've been slaving for you? Can you imagine the father's response? What? Slaving for you? Whoever told you, son, that you had a slave? Whoever told you, or what did you possibly believe that you would have to earn my respect, love, appreciation, or blessings? Where did you ever get that? Maybe the older son was listening too much to the world. They had to earn everything. He certainly never got the understanding of true love from his father, not yet. His father said to him, Look, dear son, you've always been with me. Everything I have is yours. We had to celebrate this happy day, for your brother was dead and has come back to life. He was lost. But now it's found. You see, the father gets it. The father's responsibility is to create a relationship of acceptance and love, of grace and truth. Whether someone in that environment wants to accept it or not.

SPEAKER_02 30:15

But it's available. He says, son, everything I have is yours. Everything. Does the elder son come in and join the party? We never hear. But the challenge is given. Will we hear that challenge?

SPEAKER_03 30:43

The father loves us. He knows what we've done. It's okay. He has reckless love for us. He leaves the 99 to come after us. He rejoices when we're found. He wants to throw a party and shower us with blessings. And dad, that's our job too. To shower our kids with that same reality. So let me just close with three brief, brief practical tips. First, I want to suggest to you the role of a dad is hard. Maybe the hardest thing we ever do, but it is essential. It is essential. I've had thousands of people call me pastor. I've had some people call me father, but I only have six that call me dad. And now eight who call me Papa. That's where the rubber meets the road. Can I accept and love on them? Can I invite them to experience a grace and a love and a joy that can only come from God? And you know what, moms, kids, we need help doing that. It's really hard to do that. Because we don't learn that any other place. Second, we really need to model holy father, and I use holy intentionally. I know it's an old churchy word, but it's an important churchy word because it implies only to God. It means set apart. It isn't just godly being looking good, it's holy. Holy means set apart. My wife and I have have dedicated our family to be set apart from the world. And what we mean by that is they're prayed for every day. Every day. And we want to be available to them every day. And we want to help them through the crises. And we want to praise them when things are good, and we want to encourage them, and we want to bless them. One of my daughters called me some months ago and said, Dad, thanks a lot. I said, What did I do now? I thought I was in trouble. She said, Well, we we were, I had the girls in the car with me. We were heading down the road, a tree fell right in front of the road, I slammed on the brakes, we stopped just a few inches from the branches. But I know you and mom pray for us every day, and we just figured it was the protection of the prayer. Well, I thought it'd be risk, wouldn't risk anything. I just said, You're welcome. You know, so I did. We never know how God will bless if we will just keep trying to model our Heavenly Father. Try to be set apart from the values of this world, trying to demonstrate to our kids that the paycheck really doesn't matter. It really doesn't. Remember time the kids came home and said, Hey Dad, how can we never go on great vacations? I said, What do you mean? I said, Well, all of our kids are going to Disney. How can we never go to Disney? I said, because we don't have the money. And they said, well, why don't we have the money everybody else does? And I said, well, among other things, we tithe.

SPEAKER_02 33:51

Well, what's tithing? You've had that conversation with your kids, haven't you?

SPEAKER_03 33:59

They know you make sacrifices for God, don't they? They're not going to learn it by rule. They're going to learn it in a model, in a lifestyle that's different from what they see everywhere else. And then they may eventually come home and choose the model that you're providing. Third, I'll come back to again something practical. Guys, we have to create memories. We do. And memories don't have to be expensive getaway memories, they really don't. When times were really tough on a pastor's salary, I would often just take a chair. A chair's got four legs, take it out in the backyard, flip it over, and you've got four spokes. And then there's rings they can toss on it. Take a piece of rope and set a lineup and have them toss something or do something or run. And you set up a few stations and you give them scores of one, two, or three or whatever, and then you give them prizes. And you have a family carnival in your backyard, or a family obstacle course in your backyard. Or you go walking in the Appalachian Trail because it isn't that far away. And when the the youngest one at age seven says, Okay, I'm ready to go back to mom, he says, What are you talking about? He says, Well, this hike is too hard. I'm gonna go back to mom. I said, Well, mom isn't there where she just dropped us off a mile ago. Well, where's mom now? Well, she's 35 miles further along, and she's gonna meet us in three days. Well, this pack is too heavy. Well, we'll carry your pack, but there's no going back. We're gonna out for an adventure. So the older brothers and I split up the backpack and let him carry his teddy bear. Okay. You create an adventure. You create a memory. But 20 years later you look back and laugh and say, We actually did that. Being his dad's hard. But men, yes, we can. Even if you're estranged from your your your your children, they're somewhere else. It's our job.

SPEAKER_02 36:13

To keep praying. Let them know that we're ready to have them come home.

SPEAKER_03 36:20

I counsel a man now who's got a daughter who doesn't talk to him. He said to me, What do you do? I said, You keep praying. And he said, How do you know that? And I said, You know how I know that. Because we had to live it ourselves. Just keep throwing a flower over the wall. One day they may pick it up. And then they'll know you're not you got knock out a locked door. They just want to come home. And if they're home now, embrace them and bless them every night. Because that's what God our Father does for us. In Jesus' name. Amen. Shall we close in prayer? Amen. Let's stand. Let's do this. Amen. How about standing?