[0:00] The twelfth chapter in the book of Psalms. Help, Lord, for the godly are no more.
[0:13] ! The faithful have vanished from among men. Everyone lies to his neighbor. Their flattering lips speak with deception.! May the Lord cut off all flattering lips and every boastful tongue that says, We will triumph with our tongues.
[0:34] We own our lips. Who is our master? Because of the oppression of the weak and the groaning of the needy, I will now arise, says the Lord.
[0:48] I will protect them from those who malign them. And the words of the Lord are flawless. Like silver refined in a furnace of clay, Purified seven times.
[1:05] O Lord, you will keep us safe and protect us from such people forever. The wicked freely strut about when what is vile is honored among men.
[1:21] It is required of stewards that they be found faithful.
[1:34] Faithful. Well, what's a steward? We have stewardesses. We don't talk much about stewards, do we? It's a house manager. He owns nothing. He manages everything for the owner of the house.
[1:48] He was a slave under his owner, but he was a master over all the other slaves in the house. Jesus spoke of stewards often in his parables in the Gospels.
[2:02] Perhaps the most well-known steward in the Bible is Joseph in Potiphar's house down in Egypt. What did he own, Joseph, in Potiphar's house?
[2:15] Nothing. He himself was owned by Potiphar. But he managed everything and everyone in Potiphar's house. In fact, we're told Potiphar put him in charge of his household and entrusted to his care everything he owned.
[2:33] Joseph was a faithful steward. He was trustworthy, which means he was worthy of the trust that was put in him as the Lord blessed the work of his hands in everything he did.
[2:47] And so it's said of Potiphar, with Joseph in charge, he did not concern himself with anything except for the food that he ate. The flocks, the fields, Joseph's got it all in hand.
[3:02] The gardens, the servants, Joseph's all over it. The only thing he concerned himself was with the food he ate.
[3:14] And that means getting it from his plate into his mouth. Joseph would not do that for him. But he did ensure that there was good food at every meal for his master Potiphar.
[3:28] He was a steward. And it's required of stewards that they be found faithful. Now why on Father's Day are we talking about stewards? Well, fathers, are you not stewards?
[3:47] What do you own? I don't mean whose name is on the title deed down at the courthouse, but in the records of heaven.
[4:01] Psalm 24.1 says, The earth is the Lord's and everything in it. He owns it. That means me and all that I call mine is really his and I'm only managing it for him as he has entrusted it to me.
[4:23] That means I'm a steward. And he's entrusted lots of things to me and to you too, fathers. Your money, your time, your body, your health, your mind, your talents, your gifts, your job, your wife, your children.
[4:42] Yes, your children. They are a trust from the Lord. They're not really yours. They're his. And he's entrusting you with them to raise them, to care for them.
[4:56] Eternal bodies and souls that will live forever somewhere. They'll live somewhere forever. Either in unspeakable torments in hell or in unspeakable pleasures in heaven.
[5:11] The stakes couldn't be higher and it is required of stewards that they be found faithful. It's required of fathers that they be found faithful.
[5:23] So God is telling us what he requires from fathers. What will he be looking for on that day of the final test when we stand before him in final judgment?
[5:35] Faithfulness. Faithful fathers of whom he can say, well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your Lord.
[5:47] Good and faithful servants. Good servants are faithful servants. Good stewards are faithful stewards. Good fathers are faithful fathers.
[6:00] Now faithfulness is surely underrated many times in this world because the world doesn't see anything very flashy about it.
[6:12] The world defines greatness in other ways. How much money you make, the kind of car you drive, how early you can retire, the house you live in, the clothes you wear, how popular and powerful you are, how big of a splash you can make in the world.
[6:29] But our God is a God of great faithfulness himself and he places great value upon faithfulness in fathers. Now, that's troubling because faithfulness has never been a strong suit among men down through history.
[6:50] There have been places and times when it's worse than others but 3,000 years ago the psalmist David cried out in the passage that was read for you in Psalm 12 and verse 1, help Lord!
[7:04] Kids, when do you when do you say help? You only say that when you're in great trouble, some emergency, you're crying for help. David's in trouble. There's a great problem, an emergency situation.
[7:17] What is it? For the godly are no more. The faithful have vanished from among men. The faithful, they're a rare bird, they're a vanishing breed.
[7:31] In fact, they were an extinguished or an extinct species in David's time. Where have all the faithful gone? They are no more.
[7:42] And that's why David cries, help! Help, Lord! We're in big trouble when the faithful are missing. We're in trouble without faithful men.
[7:55] His own son Solomon surveyed the world of his day and came to a similar conclusion in Proverbs 20 in verse 6. He says, Many a man claims to have unfailing love, but a faithful man, who can find?
[8:12] Who can find? If you find one, hire him. If you find one, marry him. If you are married to one, treasure him and thank God for him and praise him.
[8:24] If he's your dad, imitate him and follow him. A faithful man, who can find? They are as valuable as they are rare.
[8:36] And I think what David and Solomon said in their day could very well be spoken in our own day. So on this Father's Day, let's consider what a faithful man looks like.
[8:48] A faithful father. Obviously, much of this will apply to those who are not fathers, mothers, children, grandparents.
[9:00] But fatherhood was God's idea. In fact, he himself is the oldest, the first, and ultimate father. The one from whom fatherhood gets its name. And as his children, we delight to sing as we will at the end of this service, God willing.
[9:16] Great is thy faithfulness, O God, my father. So faithful fathering. I have five points.
[9:26] First, faithful fathering begins with faithfulness to your God. In his farewell address to the nation, Joshua said, now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness.
[9:39] But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
[9:51] So, faithful fathering begins with this faithfulness to the Lord. For several reasons. It's in knowing God is my heavenly father.
[10:03] It's in walking in communion and fellowship and relationship with him as his child that I learn from him what faithful fathering looks like.
[10:14] In very practical ways, I have a living model to follow in my fathering of my children. He's patient in teaching me.
[10:26] He's faithful to discipline me for my good, to correct and rebuke me. He's faithful to comfort and cheer me, to encourage and to guide me.
[10:38] He's faithful to forgive me. He's faithful to never leave me. He's faithful to provide for me, to meet me morning by morning with new mercies.
[10:49] new mercies. He's faithful to love me with an unfailing love and a commitment. And so trustworthy, so faithful and true is he to me that all I can do is sing.
[11:00] Great is thy faithfulness, O God, my father. Make me a faithful father to my children like you are to me. So we have a wealth of instruction in faithful fathering just by being a child of this father and learning daily from him what it is to be a father.
[11:23] Paul says in Ephesians 5, 1, then be imitators of God as dearly loved children. You know what it's like to be a dearly loved child of this father? Now you imitate him even as you father your children.
[11:38] Furthermore, faithfulness to God will ensure my faithful fathering of my children because if I'm being faithful to God, he's the one who sends me to care for my children.
[11:52] So the one ensures the other. If I'm faithful to God, then I'll be faithful to obey his command not to provoke my children to anger, but to bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
[12:07] If I'm faithful to God, then I'll provide for my children. For if I don't, I've denied the faith and I'm worse than an unbeliever. If I'm faithful to God, then I'll be leaving an important example for them to be faithful to God.
[12:26] This is another reason why faithful fathering begins with being faithful to God. I want to leave an example to my children of what it means to be faithful to the living God.
[12:37] Nothing is more important for our children than for them to be faithful to God. Full of faith in this God. So happy the child who is seen in his father.
[12:49] A man who loves and fears the Lord. Who trusts and obeys the Lord. Who is faithful to the Lord. A man who submits to God's way of righteousness in Jesus Christ.
[13:02] And who knows and enjoys his God. Dad's faithful fathering begins with being faithful to your God. Secondly, faithful fathering includes being faithful to your wife.
[13:18] It's interesting that Proverbs 20 verse 6 says, Many a man claims to have unfailing love. That is at the wedding altar.
[13:29] They claim to have unfailing, faithful love, but a faithful man who can find. Doesn't almost every man promise to forsake all others and keep himself for his bride alone.
[13:46] Yet as many as 57% of men admit to infidelity sometime during their lifetime. A faithful man who can find, who not only promises to faithfully love her alone in joy and in sorrow, in sickness and in health, in plenty and in want, but who actually remains true to her in whatever condition she is in.
[14:10] And so when she's not having her best day, he just goes on loving her faithfully. Faithfully loving her.
[14:21] Through thick and thin, he nurtures, he cherishes, he expresses his love for her, he protects her, even protecting her from himself. He lays down his life for her.
[14:33] Dad, you can't be faithful to your children unless you're faithful to their mother. One of the things you're to be teaching your children is the way that Christ loves his church, his bride.
[14:46] And they're to learn about that. They're to learn how does Jesus love his people. They're to learn that not only from your lips, but they're to learn it by watching you love your bride. Because you're to love her as Jesus loves his bride.
[14:59] And so there's to be this stage on which they are seeing the way Jesus loves his people. So your boys are to be learning what it means to be a faithful husband to their future wife.
[15:17] And your daughters are learning the kind of men, the kind of man that she wants to marry. Loving their mother has a whole lot to do with faithful fathering, preparing them for marriage.
[15:34] And so this is God's grand design in creation. It's the way that he thought up the family, the way that he designed the family. It was for children to grow up in a stable home environment where they can thrive.
[15:51] Fathers, are you still pursuing your wife with unfailing love? And is it obvious to your children, happy the children who go to bed each night knowing dad loves mom and he's faithful to her?
[16:07] And if that's you children, you have a dad who loves your mom and is faithful to her, thank God for her. Thank God for him. Not everybody, in fact about half of the children grow up with that privilege.
[16:25] Faithful fathers are faithful to their wives. Thirdly, faithful fathering is being faithful to your church. You know, to read the New Testament is to learn the huge role of the local church in the normal Christian life.
[16:43] And that's because the church is Christ's own chosen and chief instrument for the spiritual life and well-being of his people. His command is what?
[16:54] To evangelize, to make disciples of all the nations, and then to gather them into local assemblies. to baptize them as members of local churches where they're then to spend the rest of their lives being taught to obey everything that Jesus has commanded.
[17:13] The church is central to the life of the normal Christian. So this Lone Ranger Christianity so popular in our day is just a departure from biblical Christianity.
[17:27] No, the local church is where God wants to be publicly worshipped. think about it from God's perspective. Out there in the world, how is God treated?
[17:41] He's ignored? He's blasphemed? His name is taken in vain? Oh, but here and there, everywhere where he has his assemblies, all across this world, there his name is held in high honor and sung to and praised and worshipped.
[17:58] church. He wants that to happen in the local church. He wants his word to be taught, to be preached, his gospel to be ever made known.
[18:11] He wants the prayers of his people to rise together as a sweet smelling aroma. The local church is where Christ wants to be remembered in the Lord's Supper.
[18:23] This is something he instituted for the local church and it's for his glory and for our good. You know, there's there's a whole lot of the New Testament that is made up of the letters written to specific churches, local churches.
[18:44] And that clearly teaches us that the local church is God's chosen environment for growing in grace where authentic love is to be given and received.
[18:56] as our young adults learned in their CTA weekend, where we watch over one another, where we spur one another on to holy living, where mutual encouragement is to happen and where the teaching and preaching of God's word is constantly calling us back in line with God's will, rebuking, correcting, instructing us in the way of God.
[19:23] So these aren't optional extras, but these are the things that all the people of God need. Your children, dads, desperately need in this life. And it's for all those reasons and more that we're not to forsake the meetings of the church as some are in the habit of doing.
[19:39] But to be faithful in our attendance, faithful in our devotion to the public means of grace, active in the spiritual family in which God has put us for our good and for his glory.
[19:53] And that only happens as fathers conscientiously make it a guarded priority in the home. You live in this culture and sadly the Christian culture we live in as often as well reduce the role of the local church to the fringes of life and given it the leftovers of its time and money and energies with little commitment to it at all.
[20:22] Where the Lord's day and the Lord's church have become largely irrelevant to their everyday lives. Dads, that's a call. That's a call to step up to the plate. That's a call to give to your children a correction, a corrective from this serious departure from biblical Christianity.
[20:43] This is one of the areas where the world is squeezing the people of God into its mold. And you need to be the one to rise to the challenge and to teach by example just how central the local church is to your life.
[21:01] You know, children learn that at a very early age. I was speaking with my father-in-law this morning. You know, we just learn those things almost without thinking just by growing up in homes where that's the case.
[21:15] Where, yes, we gather with God's people and we see that in our fathers and we pick it up. We want to be like that and we learn something of the importance of that ordinance of the local church, the institution of the local church from a father's contagious love for the church of Jesus Christ.
[21:39] It's worship, it's people, it's ministries, it's outreach, it's fellowship. A dad whose attitude is like David and his lords who said, I was glad when they said to me, let's go into the house of the Lord.
[21:53] Happy the children who have a father who is faithful to his local church, teaching them by example where they're to find God's grace for their lives. Happy the church where fathers are handing down an example of biblical churchmanship to the next generation.
[22:10] Faithful fathering, being faithful to the local church of Jesus Christ. Number four, faithful fathering includes being faithful to your word.
[22:23] I don't know if you noticed it as Stan read Psalm 12, but it starts, help Lord for the godly are no more. The faithful had vanished from among men.
[22:36] Now notice how it speaks of the words of men. Everyone lies to his neighbor. Their flattering lips speak with deception. May the Lord cut off all flattering lips and every boastful tongue that says we'll triumph with our tongues.
[22:51] We own our lips. Who is our master? And so on and so forth. You see, faithfulness has a lot to do with being faithful to your word. And the words of the Lord are flawless.
[23:06] Purified as in a furnace seven times over. So you have the faithfulness of the Lord to his word. In contrast, the unfaithful man is not faithful to his word.
[23:18] So no small part of what it means to be faithful is just this, to be true to your word. Indeed, that's the blameless man of Psalm 15. He speaks the truth from his heart.
[23:30] And he keeps his oath even when it hurts. Has he given his word? He sticks by it. He faithfully follows through on it even when it costs him something to do that.
[23:42] Even to his own hurt. Remember how Jesus put it on the Sermon on the Mount. Let your yes be yes. Your no, no. What's he saying? He's saying, say what you mean and mean what you say.
[23:58] And if you said yes, then stand by your yes. And if you said no, stand by your no. But be faithful to your word. A faithful man is a man faithful to his word.
[24:08] My dad had a paper out when he was a boy and that's probably why we all had paper outs. We do tend to follow our parents, don't we, in many different things. But sometimes he hired a substitute to deliver papers for him and he promised to pay him for it.
[24:27] One time on such an occasion, he still hadn't paid the boy what he owed him. And so as they were eating supper one evening, there was a knock at the front door and my dad's dad went to the front door and found the boy and his father standing there.
[24:46] And the father saying, your son hired my son to be a substitute paper route carrier and he hasn't paid him what he promised. El Bobby was called to the front room with his money bag and he proceeded to promptly pay what he owed along with an apology.
[25:04] And such was the lesson learned that evening that he told me that it set the tone for the rest of his life to pay his debts on time. With his mouth, he made a commitment to pay a debt.
[25:21] And he learned to be true to his word. Fathers, being faithful means being faithful to your word, faithful to your commitments.
[25:31] And is that not one of our chief blessings to have a heavenly father who keeps his word?
[25:44] Joshua thought so. He testified at the end of his life. You know with all of your heart and soul that not one of all the good promises the Lord your God gave you has failed.
[25:55] Every promise has been fulfilled. Not one has failed. And I dare say that what you'll be boasting about when you get old, Christian, is the faithfulness of God.
[26:07] How he's been with you all your days and every promise you laid hold of and prayed through you, you say, not one of them has failed.
[26:19] Great is his faithfulness. What a wreck we'd be if we couldn't count on him. We couldn't count on our heavenly father to be true to his word.
[26:31] It's his utter faithfulness to his word that gives us such a settled peace and rest and confidence in life. Indeed, it gives us strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow.
[26:44] Why? Because I know what my heavenly father has promised. And he who promised is faithful. You can go to the bank with his word. You can you can cast your cares on him.
[26:55] Why? Because he's faithful when he says, I care for you. He means it and he'll show that care for you. I wonder, dads, do your children know of your word being gold?
[27:12] Your word being your bond, your promises, your commitments. Do you pay your bills on time? What about your word given in your wedding vows?
[27:24] Have you pulled out your wedding vows and looked again at what it was you gave your word to? What about your church membership responsibilities, your commitments to the local church?
[27:36] Are you faithful to your word? What about your commitments on your job? Are you faithful there? Faithful to show up every day for the job on time? Can your boss count on you giving him your best?
[27:50] What about promises and commitments to your children? Faithful fathers are faithful to their word. And that's a wonderful thing to give to your children, even like my grandpa gave to my father.
[28:02] And then lastly, faithful fathering is being faithful to pursue the hearts of your children. Faithful to pursue the hearts of your children.
[28:13] On Wednesday nights for three months while the ladies were studying loving God with all their minds, we men were studying Richard Phillips' book, The Masculine Mandate.
[28:26] And he was setting forth the various works that we have as men. And some of that work is homework, work that we do with our wives and our children. And when he came to the section on the work God has called us to do with our children, he said one of the most important verses, if I had to choose one verse in the book of Proverbs that I would choose for raising our children is Proverbs 23, 26.
[28:55] My son, give me your heart. Now that's what we're after, fathers. Yes, we want them obeying and in line and with our, we want their behavior, but we want their hearts.
[29:09] We want their hearts. And for our words, my son, give me your heart to carry any weight with them, then it must be evident that they have our heart. We can't faithfully ask for theirs if we're not giving them ours.
[29:25] And so we're to win their hearts with our love, our genuine interest, our time with them. And why do you want their hearts? That you might point them to give their hearts to Jesus, which is life indeed.
[29:40] Well, Phillips gave us four activities to do with them in the pursuit of their hearts. It was read, pray, work, and play. I just want to have a few words on each of them. The first is read the Bible with them.
[29:56] You love your children by leading them to God. They need to know their God and maker, what he's like, what he said, what he expects from them, what he's going to bring up in their last test of final judgment.
[30:12] They need to know that. They need to be prepared for that day. They need to know the only way of salvation through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. They need to know that God's word is the most important voice on the planet today.
[30:28] And they can learn that very early as dad takes down the Bible when they're gathered together and reads from it. Or do they see dad reading the newspaper far more regularly than reading the Bible?
[30:43] Or watching the news more than reading? They are drawing images about what's important. What voices are the important ones? And dads, you want your children to have an ear to what God is saying.
[31:00] Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly. Or stand in the way of sinners. Or sit in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord. And on his law he meditates day and night.
[31:13] And so you want the word of God. Even before they can understand what that word of God means. They're learning. That book is special to my dad.
[31:26] That book is so important to him that he thinks it ought to be our most important book. They can learn very early that God's voice is the most important voice to listen to.
[31:40] Well in Deuteronomy 6 verses 6 and 7 having given to Israel the Ten Commandments the Lord then said to them these commandments that I give you today are to be upon your own hearts.
[31:51] And then impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home, when you walk on the road, when you lie down, and when you get up. The first principle we see there is for you to impress them and teach them to your children.
[32:04] They've got to be on your heart. They've got to be impressed upon your own heart. You must be in that book making it the one book that you read more than any other.
[32:17] And then there are to be times when you sit together at home and talk about God's word. Often that's meal times. It's often a rare day in our day to get the whole family to sit down together.
[32:30] But we need to. And when we sit down together there need to be times when we bring out the Bible, we read it, we talk about it, what it means, how it applies to a three-year-old, a 17-year-old.
[32:46] We give examples. We ask questions. We do this when we sit together at home. And then when we're driving along the road, it says when you're walking along the road, we don't walk along the road anymore.
[33:00] We drive along the road. When we're going places, we need to be talking about this word of God with them. This means we lay hold of teachable moments just as they come up. And you read through the Proverbs, you see that we were passing by a field that was all grown up with weeds and we learned a lesson.
[33:20] That the sluggard, what happens to his field? Well, his slothfulness, his laziness ends up like a robber and robs him of the fruit, the harvest that could have been his.
[33:34] But it's just a teachable moment. Look at that field. And that field suddenly becomes a Bible lesson. We need to talk throughout the day.
[33:46] Don't be in such a hurry. I've got to get from here to here that we miss the opportunity to teach on the way there the various lessons of life relating everything that we see, everything that we experience to God so that they can see all of life from a biblical worldview.
[34:04] It's all related to him. And we need to make that connection in their minds when we sit together, when we are going along the road, when you lie down at night.
[34:15] I'm sure I didn't lay hold of those times as much as I should have. Those are teachable moments. The last words they hear from a mother or father before they're out for the night.
[34:28] When you lie down at night, let the last words for the day, the last thoughts in their little head be about God. And then when you get up, you see it.
[34:40] What God is saying is, fathers, there's a whole lot of talking about God's word that goes into faithful fathering. So learn it yourself and then impress it upon their hearts.
[34:53] We're building for eternity. God's word is eternal. We're laying a foundation of truth to live and die on, to face God's judgment with.
[35:05] We're educating and reinforcing their conscience with the word of God so when they go out into a world that has a vanishing conscience, they will have a conscience very well alive and sensitive to what God says.
[35:18] We're pointing them to Jesus Christ, who is himself, a focus of all God's word, the Bible, and how he is the way, the truth, and the life. So we read the Bible and talk about it.
[35:29] Secondly, we pray with them. How do we pursue their hearts? We read the Bible. We pray with them and for them. What a school of prayer children have in just listening to dad pray.
[35:42] A dad who knows God and really believes that he's listening. And prayer is a real conversation. And children pick up on that. Dad is talking to someone. We don't see him, but he's talking to him.
[35:54] He believes he exists and he's the rewarder of those who earnestly seek him. A dad who prays about everything. A dad who sees his need for the Lord's blessing on everything he puts his hand to.
[36:07] A dad whose prayers are full of praise and thanksgiving. Who has a sense of awe of the grace that he's received from his God. A dad who's humble enough to confess his sin in his prayer.
[36:19] His need for the Lord's mercy. A dad who's concerned with the greater cause of Christ's church in the world. He's got all these concerns in his life, but dad's got a kingdom heart as wide as the world.
[36:33] He prays about the nations. People who've never heard the gospel. People in other places. Missionaries. He's a dad who prays with this concern for the gospel conquering the world.
[36:45] He's a dad who prays about the things going on in their children's lives. What may seem insignificant little things to us but are huge to them. Happy the child who in hearing his father pray learns of his father's desires for him.
[37:02] What does dad want for me? And in listening to him pray, he learns that dad wants me to know Jesus. Dad wants me to walk in his ways, to experience life as it's meant to be.
[37:17] Life as it can only be. Joined as one with Jesus Christ. So we pray with them and for them. We work with them, thirdly.
[37:29] Teaching them the value of hard labor. It's one of the first things God taught his child, Adam, to do was to work. And fathers, we need to be teaching that to our children. On Wednesday night, we had testimonies from the men and their job places and some of the challenges there.
[37:45] And over and over, we heard the repeated fact of how it's hard to find faithful workers on the job. That if you just are faithful to show up every day, on time, and do a decent job, you're going to be under demand.
[38:04] Dads, teach them that. Teach them to value hard work as a gift from God. Young men, whatever career you pursue in life, be faithful.
[38:16] Be faithful in your work. Dads, we can teach them much by working with them early. And then lastly, and I want to spend a little more time with this, and I wish I had spent more time doing this.
[38:29] Play with them. Yes, pray with them, but also play with your children. Is it not the chief end of man, not only to glorify God, but to enjoy Him forever?
[38:46] Has not our Heavenly Father richly provided us with everything for our enjoyment? Has He not made all kinds of things just for our happiness, just for our enjoyment?
[39:00] He fills the earth with good things and then gives us five senses to enjoy them. This is our God. This is our Heavenly Father who's just overwhelming us with enjoyments to win our hearts to Him.
[39:17] Well, then fathers, plan times of fun with your children, enjoying each other and God's gifts, maybe common interests that you both enjoy. Oh, but you also need to be willing to choose to play things that they enjoy, even if it's nothing that really suits your fancy.
[39:36] Learn to take joy in their joy and to enjoy the moment together. It's all too easy to get into a rut of joyless fathering.
[39:49] I say that from experience. Life is hard. Work is hard. Raising children can be hard. with financial strains on young families that are hard.
[40:02] Fighting sin is hard. And if we're not careful, it can suck all the joy out of us like a thin, little potted plant on the patio that's in the heat of the sun.
[40:18] And all of our joy is sapped. And all that's left is a joyless, grumpy old dad.
[40:30] A dad to avoid. No, it's important for us to find our joy in the Lord. But he also means for us to enjoy the wife of our youth and our children.
[40:41] There to be bright spots in a difficult world. So fathers, take time and enjoy them. Plan for times of joyful fun together.
[40:52] Why should their funnest times not be family times with dad? Glad memories that will stick in their minds long after they're gone from your house.
[41:04] Fill their minds with bright memories of dad loving and enjoying them just like you live under the security of the heavenly father who takes great delight in you and who rejoices over you with singing Zephaniah 3.17 and shows you and tells you in 10,000 different ways how precious you are to him.
[41:26] Well, all this, you see, is part of faithful fathering. A dad who's engaged with his children, who's giving his heart to them so they know for sure dad's for them, he's looking out for our best interest.
[41:40] Now, I told you, fathers, there's not a lot of flashy stuff here. It's all pretty basic, isn't it? It's all pretty foundational. But we're not talking about being flashy, but about being faithful.
[41:53] Faithful at the basics. And that's what is flashy in God's eyes. That's what he highly values and one day will reward with his well done, good and faithful servant.
[42:06] You've been faithful in a few things. Now, I will put you in charge of many things. You've been a good steward over the little. I'm going to put you in charge of the many. Enter into the happiness of your Lord.
[42:19] So, fathers, he's entrusted you with some precious children. Maybe they're gone, out of the house. You still have much that you can do. Let us be found faithful in fathering them.
[42:34] They're still in your home. You're right in the thick of it. the basics. Faithful to the Lord.
[42:46] Faithful to their mother. Faithful to Christ's church. Faithful to your word. Faithful to pursue the hearts of our children. And it's our heavenly father who gives us the perfect example and then says, imitate him as dearly loved children.
[43:03] Now, dads, if you're feeling bad this morning, we all come short of this standard of faithful following.
[43:18] This sermon was far easier to preach than it ever was to live. And I have two sons down here that would say a loud amen if I told you I come short of this standard. But we have a very gracious heavenly father, don't we?
[43:32] Ready to forgive our unfaithfulness. And he says, if we, this is what our father said, if we confess our sins, he is faithful.
[43:43] Isn't that good? If I confess my sin of unfaithful father, he is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
[43:57] He's faithful to forgive us. He's promised to forgive and he's good to his word. He's not like men. He's faithful to his word. He's not about to break his promise. Cast, take your sins of unfaithfulness to him.
[44:11] Confess them, own them, and trust him for forgiveness. He's not only faithful to forgive, he's also just to forgive. In other words, he doesn't have to compromise his justice in order to forgive us.
[44:22] why not? Because his one and only son, his perfect son, who was perfectly faithful to him who appointed him, he was faithful on our behalf and he took the full punishment for all our unfaithfulness on the cross.
[44:44] And our heavenly father not only is faithful to forgive, he's faithful to cleanse us. He's faithful to help us in our weakness. He's faithful to help us with our failures in faithful fathering.
[45:01] Do you know that he has put his Holy Spirit inside you for this very reason? If you came to Sunday school this morning, adults, you know. Paul said, don't you know.
[45:13] He's there for this very reason to make you faithful. Yeah, that's right. Galatians 5, 22 and 23. The fruit of the Spirit is, and we're all thundering with unison, love, joy, peace, and then we kind of peter out.
[45:30] But you know what the last three fruit of the Spirit are? Faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. So God has his very own Spirit dwelling inside of you, fathers that know the Lord, and the Spirit is in there to produce faithfulness.
[45:52] Jesus says that our Heavenly Father loves to give the Holy Spirit to those who ask. Ask him for more of his work of faithfulness. We're going to sing, Great is thy faithfulness, O God, my Father.
[46:08] But I just want to ask you before we do, is he your Father? Great is thy faithfulness, O God, my Father. Is he your Father? You see, to all who received him, Jesus Christ, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.
[46:31] It's by accepting God's Son that you become a child of God, and he becomes your Father. He's offering the Lord Jesus to you today.
[46:43] Take him at his word. He's true to his promise. Venture on his promise, and you'll soon be singing with us from the bottom of your heart. Great is your faithfulness, O God, my Father.
[46:57] Let's take our hymnals and turn to 27, and let's sing directly to our Heavenly Father. It's a song to our Heavenly Father, to my Father.
[47:08] You sing it to your Father as we delight ourselves in the Lord who is so faithful to us, his children. Stand with me and sing number 27.
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