Godly Fathers

The Greatest Gift to give a father on Father’s Day is the same one that is the best gift to give a mother on Mother’s Day.

God Himself tells us that greatest gift in His Word in the 5^th Commandment.

Honor your father and your mother.

God gave us the 10 Commandments to instruct us how we should live – how we should live toward Him, and how we should live toward one another.

Honor means to regard a person with great respect, to esteem them, or to give recognition to them.

Honor means to regard a person with great respect or give recognition to another person.

God included in the 10 Commandments – “honor your father and your mother” to show us how important that is.

Sometimes we struggle to find the perfect gift for our father or our mother on their special day.

The best gift we could ever give our dad on Father’s Day is to honor him.

That’s what we are doing today.

Now, if we are real, Father’s Day isn’t nearly as big a deal as Mother’s Day is. On Mother’s Day family members join Mom in church; after church service is over the family gathers for a meal together to celebrate with Mom.

On Father’s Day, though, some family members who don’t normally attend worship – still don’t on Father’s Day. It’s not as emotional. Businesses don’t profit as much as on Mother’s Day.

But let’s face it. Being a dad is not the easiest job.

The first couple of years of a child’s life a dad encourages his children to

learn to walk and talk. Then they spend quite a bit of time teaching them when to talk and when not to.

Today we live in a culture that really has minimized the role of fathers in the family. For example, look at TV shows. The father is often characterized as a bumbling buffoon.

So, we have Father’s Day – we celebrate the great contribution made to family life by the dads in those families. They make sacrifices – sometimes sacrifices no one ever sees.

Today, as we look at fathers mentioned in the Scriptures, we find a man named Elkanah in 1 Samuel 1:1-11.

Now there was a certain man from Ramathaim-zophim from the hill country of Ephraim, and his name was Elkanah the son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephraimite. He had two wives: the name of one was Hannah and the name of the other Peninnah; and Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children.

Now this man would go up from his city yearly to worship and to sacrifice to the Lord of hosts in Shiloh. And the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were priests to the Lord there. When the day came that Elkanah sacrificed, he would give portions to Peninnah his wife and to all her sons and her daughters; but to Hannah he would give a double portion, for he loved Hannah, but the Lord had closed her womb. Her rival, however, would provoke her bitterly to irritate her, because the Lord had closed her womb. It happened year after year, as often as she went up to the house of the Lord, she would provoke her; so she wept and would not eat. Then Elkanah her husband said to her, “Hannah, why do you weep and why do you not eat and why is your heart sad? Am I not better to you than ten sons?”

Then Hannah rose after eating and drinking in Shiloh. Now Eli the priest was sitting on the seat by the doorpost of the temple of the Lord. She, greatly distressed, prayed to the Lord and wept bitterly. She made a vow and said, “O Lord of hosts, if You will indeed look on the affliction of Your maidservant and remember me, and not forget Your maidservant, but will give Your maidservant a son, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and a razor shall never come on his head.”

In Elkanah’s life two powerful lessons appear. These lessons are such that fathers in every generation then and since can benefit from.

The first lesson is this: GODLY FATHERS LOVE THEIR WIVES

John Wooden, who served as head coach at UCLA, wrote something about fathers, saying: “The best thing a father can do is to teach his children to love their mother,”

Children need their fathers. They need the father’s love and protection.

Think of this: In a marriage, the husband’s first priority is to his wife.

Children’s needs will come first in immediate situations, but ultimately the marriage bond takes first place.

Children who grow up watching their Dad model and express true love for their mother will learn the right way to love and to be loved.

In the Scripture we read that Elkanah showed his love for his wife by giving her a double portion because he loved her. It was a small, but significant act.

Dads today can do the same kind of act. Simple, small acts of showing the mother of his children how he loves their mother.  This is simply showing your love for her in simple acts of care and concern.

As Dads – and husbands, we should be like Elkanah and love the mother of our children with our words and our works.

John Dresser, who is an author, wrote a book he titled: “If I Could Do It All Again”. He listed 8 things that he would do differently if he could go through his years of being a father all over again. The first thing on his list was: “If I could do it over again, I would love my wife more, because by loving my children’s mother more, I would create an environment of security in our home. Our love would be something they could see, something they would never have to worry about.”

Godly fathers love their wives in a way that their children see and understand.

Another thing Godly Fathers love is that GODLY FATHERS LOVE TO WORSHIP.

To quote John Dresser again- “If I Could Do It All Over Again” – “Last, but not least, I would make God an intimate friend of my family. I would speak His name often. I would communicate to my children that God is involved in all our family decisions. I would want them to see me pray and read God’s Word and search for His direction and leadership.”

That is what every child needs in their father.

I read about a young boy who showed up late for Sunday School. His teacher asked why he was late and the boy said: “I was supposed to go fishing, but my Dad told me I needed to go to church instead.” The teacher asked the boy if his Dad had explained to him why it was more important to go to church than to go fishing.

The boy hung his head and said, “Yeah. Dad said he didn’t have enough bait for both of us.” Unfortunately, that sounds like some fathers.

But God has called us to be a better father – the spiritual leader of the family – to be His representative in the family.

One author put it this way: “A child is not likely to find a father in God unless he finds something of God in his father,”

Statistics show that in families where the mother is attends church services faithfully, but the dad only goes about one Sunday each month – only about 1/3 of the children will believe the church is important in their lives.

That is why it is so important that Dads be godly Dads so that their children can find a Father in God.