The Love of a Father

Alright, thank you again, Mr. McNamee. Once again, good afternoon, everyone. Well, you might have noticed, you might have heard this weekend, it's Father's Day. What? At first, anybody said, oh no, I didn't get him anything. How many of you know the origins of the Father's Day celebration? Do you guys know the origins? December 6, 1907. It was the initial. And it didn't really take off after that, but there was a little itty-bitty town in West Virginia that experienced one of the deadliest industrial accidents in American history. Mines number five and six, so Virginia, obviously coal mining country. Mines number five and six at the Menongoah coal mine. There was a coal dust that was mixed in the air that got connected with a little bit of methane gas. And a spark kind of caused the thing to ignite, to ultimately explode. The resulting explosion killed 362 workers at the mine. And when the dust settled, over 1,000 children in the small town were left fatherless. One of the largest industrial accidents in American history. In 1908, there was a woman from Menongoah, which is the city there, named Grace Golden Clayton, who organized a one-time event in 1908 in July to honor the men who had died. And in her words, she wrote, it was partly the explosion that got me thinking how important and loved most fathers are. All those lonely children and those heartbroken wives and mothers made orphans and widows in a matter of a few minutes. You can imagine just the scale of an accident like that. You know, despite her day of memorial, which she said at that time for July 5th, 1908, Grace Clayton is actually not the person credited with founding Father's Day. Sonora Dodd is the person who was credited with founding Father's Day, and she's from my own hometown of Spokane, Washington. So, Pacific Northwest, born and raised. She was sitting in church one day in early May. The minister was giving a sermon on the importance of Mother's Day, and she thought, why don't we do that for fathers? And so, she was inspired to do something similar. Her own father, who was a widower and a Civil War veteran, was able to keep his family together after his wife passed away during childbirth, raising Sonora and his five sons single-handedly. And so, from her description, he was an incredible father, but inspired she lobbied local churches to set aside a day to honor fathers in June of 1910. So, Dodd's idea took off. It began this thing. It began to spread from city to city, outward from Spokane. And in 1966, President Lyndon Johnson made a presidential proclamation. The third Sunday of June was selected as the date, and then in 1972, there was a congressional resolution signed into law by Richard Nixon, permanently establishing Father's Day as a national holiday in the United States. That's kind of some of the origin. But what's interesting, I found it so fascinating. From 1910 to 1966, there were several U.S. presidents that wanted to institute Father's Day as a national holiday. In fact, Woodrow Wilson came out to Spokane on Father's Day of 1916 to give a big Father's Day speech and propose that it become a national holiday, but Congress resisted. Congress actually pushed back for so many years, and their reason was they were concerned it would become too commercialized. They would become something that would lose its original meaning and become so commercialized that they didn't want to push forward with it. Today, Father's Day has become a largely commercialized holiday. It's much like every other holiday in the U.S. Its original roots, however, can't be ignored. It's not about flat-screen TVs. It's not about computers and other electronics. It's not about a brand-new barbecue, although fathers do like grills.

Father's Day is designed to honor and celebrate the important role that fathers play in the lives of their children and in roles in their family. Being a father is an incredible responsibility. Since the early 1940s, there have been numerous studies done on children who grow up in households without a father. In fact, the detriment to children were discovered to be so profound in these research studies that within sociology, there's an entire subcategory to study that deals with exactly that. It's an entire subcategory of sociology known as father absence. And so, as the research was done, they came to terms with and understood that this caused a significant impact on youth.

These studies have shown that children with involved, nurturing, and playful fathers have a higher IQ, better speech development, better cognitive abilities. Toddlers go on to school to become more academically ready, and as teenagers, I don't know how they measured this, but they'll be 43% more likely to obtain As in classes, and 33% less likely to repeat a grade than children who have absent fathers.

The presence of a nurturing father also helps a child's social development, allowing them to be more emotionally secure, more confident to explore their surroundings, have more appropriate social interactions with their peers as they grow older. In fact, this is taken from the United States Department of Health and Human Services. One study of school-aged children found that children with good relationships with their fathers were less likely to experience depression, to exhibit disruptive behavior, to lie, and were more likely to exhibit pro-social behavior.

This same study found that boys with involved fathers had fewer school behavioral problems and girls had stronger self-esteem. In addition, numerous studies found that children who live with their fathers are more likely to have good physical and emotional health, to achieve academically, and to avoid drugs, violence, and delinquent behavior.

Seems pretty solid. The research seems to indicate how important this is. And I think it's important to note that those statistics only pan out when you're talking about a nurturing, caring, and loving father. Because we do know that that is not always the scenario, and that there are times in which a father can cause more damage than if they were absent. You know, fathers provoked not your children to wrath. Ephesians 6-4, it wouldn't be in there if it wasn't a concern.

But in addition, these statistics, interestingly enough, they're not the same if the mother and the father are not within a functional and loving marriage relationship either. It's the whole family unit that causes this impact, the importance of all of it being together. You could be the best mother and father in the world. But upon separating the two, the statistics decrease, the chance for children to exhibit social and emotional problems increase. Father's role in a complete family unit is extremely important.

But in recent data, recent census data—this is from the 2020 or 21 census, whichever one the last one was—in the United States, 24.7 million children are living in households absent of a father. That is approximately—for those that may not be aware of how many children happen to be in the United States—that is approximately one in three children in the United States who are living without a father in their household.

These households have been statistically shown to be four times more likely to be below the poverty line. The children are bound to be two to three times more likely to use drugs, to experience educational, health, emotional, and behavioral problems, to be victims of abuse, to engage in criminal behavior, and more likely to engage in criminal behavior than their peers. Sadly, in some communities, if you go into some of the other communities of individuals, the rate of fatherlessness is actually double the national rate. When you look at African-American communities, when you look at Latino communities, it's a significantly higher number, and that has caused a greater degree of issues at times in some of those communities.

A recent survey here in the United States showed that almost 75% of Americans believe—three-quarters of Americans believe—that the fatherlessness epidemic is the greatest social problem facing our country today. That when you take everything the U.S. deals with, when you take all the different social stuff that we deal with, three-quarters of Americans believe that that right there is the core factor driving the social challenges facing the United States today.

Brethren, we are hardwired to need a father relationship. We're hardwired. Not just want, not just hope for, but need. We cannot develop properly socially. We can't develop properly emotionally or spiritually without it, without running through a whole bunch of additional hoops later on. You know, and going through a lot of these different things later on. Why do we have this just intense need for a father? Let's go to Romans 8 to begin today. Let's go to Romans 8 to begin today as we begin to explore the critical nature and critical role that a father plays in the family unit. Romans 8—and we'll bust into a discussion here by the Apostle Paul on the nature of law and of sin and of grace, kind of this section in Romans 6, Romans 7, and Romans 8—the nature of repentance, the nature of redemption. And this section really—I mean, if you look at Romans 6, 7, and 8, you can almost explain the entirety of the plan of God from these three chapters of Romans. It's all there. It's all there from beginning to end. It's all present. Romans 8 will break into the context here in verse 12 of Romans 8. He says, Verse 14, for as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.

Father, the Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children—verse 17—then heirs, heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together. You know, as we look at this section and we look at and consider the concept that's here, those who receive this Spirit of adoption—God's Spirit dwelling in them—they have been given by God the right to cry out, Abba, Father. They have been provided the ability to be a part of the family of God. Now, that term, Abba, that we see, is a familial, intimate term. It's a familial term, and it's an intimate term in Aramaic, but as well as in the Greek language. Interestingly, I found a major debate online about the level of intimacy. Some have claimed that the word Abba means Papa or Daddy, which is the way it's used today in Jerusalem. It's the way it's used today. It's very much a term of endearment. It's like, Papa, Daddy. That's kind of the use of Abba. But they say that at that point in time, that that particular word had a level of honor with it as well. And I think you can make the argument that even that level of intimacy that is used today has a level of honor with it, too. But this whole concept, this whole point that Paul is making, is that we were created, that we were put on this earth to become a part of God's family. That is the purpose. That is the reason for our creation. That is the whole entire purpose as to why mankind exists. It's not random evolution. It's not a cosmic accident. We're here for a reason. And that reason is to become a part of God's family, as God brings mankind into his family through his plan. Paul expounds further on this. If you want to flip over to Galatians, Galatians 3, he kind of brings this concept to bear here as well in a slightly different way. It kind of comes at it from a little bit of a different direction. But Galatians 3, and we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 26, and we'll read through the first part of 4. And I want to be very clear, there's a lot in this section that we are not going to unpack because there's a lot in this section. We're not going to unpack it, but I want to see, again, the point that Paul makes here. Galatians 3, verse 26, Now, verse 4, he kind of continues to build on this idea. He says, He stands to inherit all of it.

And that's, again, what we read in Romans 8, crying out, Abba, Father, again, that level of intimate, familial, you know, calling of Abba, Father.

You know, God's plan, God's purpose is that he makes more children. He makes more members of his family. You know, again, verse 26 of Galatians 3 and in summation, verse 7 of chapter 4, We are sons and daughters, by implication, of God. We are sons of God. Heirs of God, through faith in Jesus Christ and through the indwelling of his Holy Spirit. That is the purpose for our existence. That is the reason why we are here. In fact, Malachi—I want to turn over to the book of Malachi real quick, right here at the end of the Old Testament.

Malachi 2, and we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 12 here, because it discusses now, outside of this analogy spiritually of what we've kind of been looking at to this point, it starts to bring the physical aspect into things. It starts to bring this idea of why we have the things that God has created for us here on this earth, these institutions of marriage, of family, of parenthood. Why do those exist?

Malachi 2, as we kind of consider this idea of raising our physical children, verse 13 of Malachi 2, begins as follows. Verse 13. And this is the second thing you do. He's kind of breaking into here, kind of calling to the carpet here, the people of Israel. And this is the second thing that you do. You cover the altar of the Lord with tears, with weeping and with crying, so that he does not regard the offering anymore, nor receive it with goodwill for your hands. And yet you say, verse 14, for what reason? Because the Lord has been witness between you and the wife of your youth, with which whom you have dealt treacherously. Yet she is your companion and your wife by covenant. So he brings the covenant of marriage in. He brings this physical marriage covenant that we experience here on this earth in to this spiritual analogy that is being built, not just here, but throughout the rest of Scripture. It goes on in verse 15. Did he not make them one, having a remnant of the Spirit, and why one? Why did God bring man and woman together? Because, verse 15, he seeks godly offspring. He seeks godly offspring. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth. So we consider the children that we produce, the children that we raise, the arrows in the quiver, so to speak, that we point towards our God and we draw back in our bow, and eventually we release. Right? When we consider that concept, God is producing, through us, building his family.

Brethren, we desire a father because it's specifically spiritually hardwired into us.

It's something necessary because God designed the family unit, and he designed it in such a way that there were certain roles in this unit that are absolutely necessary.

He designed it so that the roles in this physical family were the types, or types, I should say, of the roles in the spiritual family to come. There must be a father. There must be a mother. There must be children. Everyone has something to learn spiritually from everybody else as they go through their physical lives. You know, we've mentioned this before. You know, our children here physically, spiritually, are our brothers and sisters.

They cease being our children after this physical life.

At that point, they are now brothers and sisters with the same spiritual promise, the same inheritance, the same everything that has been afforded to each and every one of us.

I think that's a pretty incredible concept, that God has taken this physical analogy, this physical thing that he has created, and he is producing spiritual children.

Brothers and sisters. You know, we're all called to be God's children. We're all called to achieve the spiritual benefits that go along with it. But in order for us to obtain them, we have to practice. We all experience this life. We've all been sons before.

You know, those of us who are fathers, we've all been sons before. Those of us who have been mothers, we've been daughters before.

And even if you haven't been a mother or a father, you've been a son or a daughter.

Right? So we all experience these things, these family analogies here. We go through this physical life.

We learn the lessons that we need to learn here, and one of those lessons that was given to us was given by God through the Sinaitic covenant.

Let's go over to Exodus. Exodus 20. Exodus 20, we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 12 of Exodus. Exodus 20, in verse 12.

Exodus 20, in verse 12, we just see a very simple statement. It says, This passage was the one the apostle Paul called the first commandment with promise. That by doing this, it increases your likelihood for the following thing to happen. In this case, Now it's a simple commandment, but it's a profound conclusion.

We're told to honor our parents. We're told to have a deep respect for them, to obey them. And ultimately, we're told when we do that, that we will see the blessing of a long and a happy life.

You know, physically, we honor our physical fathers and our mothers, you know, this weekend being one of those times in which we do that.

But brethren, how much more important is it for us to honor and obey our spiritual father?

You know, we consider the spiritual aspect of us being sons and daughters in the family of God.

How do we learn to honor God? We learn to honor God by learning to honor our father and our mother.

That's one of the processes by which we learn these things in this physical life today.

You know, again, as we mentioned earlier, not everybody's had the opportunity to have the benefit of a loving and nurturing father.

You know, all too often, our physical fathers are not the loving, merciful, and nurturing fathers that they are intended to be by God.

When you look at the book of Ephesians and you see the instructions to fathers with regards to how they treat their wives, how they treat their children, not everyone had that experience.

Many who have grown up in households with ungodly fathers have a very difficult time having a strong relationship with God the Father.

And it has emotional and spiritual consequences.

You know, a number of men, even those who did grow up in a household with a father, many men see themselves as a provider for their family, and then that's where the role ends.

I make sure you've got a roof. I make sure you've got food, interacting with and spending time with and loving and nurturing.

I made sure you have food. I made sure you have a roof. I provided. I did my job. I did exactly what I've been asked to do.

And so that exists, too. That exists as well.

And again, my father, as many of you know, I've mentioned before, he was a lot like that. He didn't see the need to emotionally provide for us to nurture.

He made sure there was food on the table. He made sure there was a roof, and I'm thankful for that. I am. You know, I am. But there's more to it than that. There's more required of us as fathers than that.

You know, some people, they go out, they go work, they come home, and then they're emotionally distant. They're otherwise involved with other things, or they work all the time. And so, for the most part, in those scenarios, they might as well be absent.

Because they're never home. Or in what they are home, they're not present.

You know, fathers are meant to be providers. They're meant to provide physically for their families, but they're equally responsible for providing emotionally as well.

You know, this is that high calling, that opportunity, and that responsibility to those of us as fathers.

You know, God is a provider. He absolutely is a provider. You know, if you boil down and concentrate on the three things that God has provided for His children, and kind of make an analogy as to what our physical fathers provide, they're one and the same.

In fact, the love of a father, it's critical, and that's the title of the message today, the love of a father. The love of a father.

A good, nurturing, loving, and caring father provides the following three things to his children. And we're going to take the rest of our time today to explore these three things.

They provide instruction. They provide instruction. Instruction in life. Right? Teaching you how to go and to be a man, quote-unquote, as that song from Mulan said. Right? Be a man. But they go out and they teach you to be a man. They teach you how to do these different things.

They teach you how to take care of and how to provide for a family of your own someday. They also protect you.

They protect you.

And lastly, it's not the most fun part of our lives as fathers, but they also correct you.

They also correct you. So they instruct, they protect, and they correct. And these three things are absolutely essential to the proper physical and emotional development of a child. In addition, spiritual development of a child can benefit from these three things as well.

How many of you, real quick, show of hands, learned a lesson, some sort of life lesson or skill from your father that you will never forget?

How many of you think about something? It could be a good thing. It could be a bad thing.

Both of those can be lessons, but most hands in the room went up.

Our fathers instruct us in a lot of different things. They teach us work ethic.

Maybe they teach us how to hunt, how to fish. They teach us how to repair things, maybe.

They teach us how to be honorable, respectful, chivalrous.

Anybody ever remember your dad teaching you to, when you meet somebody, stand up and shake their hand and look him in the eye?

That's what a man does. Stand up, shake their hand and look him in the eye. Right?

I don't know. That was what my dad said.

Try to do that. Try to remember to do that.

You know, most of the lessons that we learn are intergenerational.

You know, many of you know I like to fish. Where do you think I got that from?

I got that from my dad. Where did he get that from? He got that from his dad. And so on and so forth. Who knows how far back it goes?

But that was something that we enjoyed. That was something that we enjoyed doing together.

You know, the trend goes on and we pass those lessons from generation to generation.

But the fact of it is, whether we learn those lessons, it's up to us.

In many ways, it's up to us.

It comes down to whether we're willing to listen, whether we're willing to be teachable, whether we're willing to be humble and admit that we don't have all the answers.

My dad, I haven't talked a lot about him a little bit here and there, but he had a gift.

And I don't know any other way to describe it, but he had a gift.

My dad could take a broken piece of any kind of machinery, anything. It didn't matter what it was.

It could be some sort of piece of farm equipment. It could be a car. It could be a forklift.

It could be if it was mechanical, if it had an engine, if it had gears, if it had all those things.

He could take a couple of looks at it. He could poke around a little bit.

And he could have it fixed in no time at all. I mean no time at all.

Now, would it be fixed like a mechanic's garage? Oh, no!

There'd be baling twine and duct tape and all kinds of things, but it would run.

No, he did do a good job on stuff that had to keep running, but some of the other things were...

Yeah, baling twine and wire.

The one thing about dad, though, was he was also an incredible perfectionist.

He was also very much a perfectionist in the sense that it had to be done in the way that he wanted to do it.

It had to be done in that sense. And so after a few times going out to quote-unquote, helping the garage and not doing it correctly, I grew tired of my lessons.

Some of you may have seen the meme or the t-shirt that says, Nothing you say can hurt me. I've held the flashlight for my dad.

Yep, that's me! Oh, and I never held the flashlight right. I never got it in the right spot.

And so, you know, it's one of those situations where after a few sessions of being screamed at about not putting the flashlight in the right spot, I didn't really have much interest to be out there at that point.

So it was a missed opportunity. In some ways, I didn't take the time to learn. And of course, you know, dad wasn't necessarily doing it the right way either. But at the end of the day, am I an okay mechanic? I can keep my car functioning most of the time.

Not with baling twine and wire and, you know, duct-taping things. But most of the time I can get it back running again. I'm very thankful for YouTube. I'm a YouTube mechanic. Very thankful for YouTube. I can watch something once and pretty much know how to do it. So it helps a lot in that way. But brethren, are we teachable? Are we teachable? Are we willing to be led by the instruction of our Father? Or are we always trying to go off and do it our own way? How do we operate? How do we operate our lives? And in addition to being teachable, are we teaching? Let's turn to Psalm 78. Psalm 78. Because again, those of you who are fathers in this room and mothers too, this is a dual-purpose message in that sense, you know, most of what I say here involves the mothers as well.

And grandparents and aunts and uncles and everybody, really, because we all have responsibility in some ways to teach and to be teachable. Psalm 78. We'll take a look at verses 1-7, but we do want to see that the role in particular of much of this instruction, it is the responsibility of the Father. It absolutely is. Psalm 78, verse 1, says, It says, You know, in this case, speaking of it in the sense of generationally, but also culturally, we know that was how that was passed on. It says, verse 4, And of course, then, verse 8, we see why. So that they would not be like their fathers, stubborn and rebellious, a generation that did not have its heart right and whose spirit was not faithful to God. We see that God set it up in such a way that the passing on of the law, the passing on of God's commands was to be done through the role of the Father. It was designed to be the Father's job to teach, to admonish, to prepare our children to live this life.

And, you know, in situations where you're dealing in children, our job as fathers is to also then establish boundaries, to provide instruction in morality, to provide instruction in appropriate behavior and accordance with Scripture. And for the most part, we look at society, that is not happening today. It's not happening today.

You know, we mentioned in Ephesians 6.4, a kind of tongue-in-cheek, but let's go ahead and flip over there and read the rest of that passage.

Often we stop at the whole, don't provoke your children to wrath part, but the second part is even more pertinent to what we're looking at today. Book of Ephesians 6, verse 4. Notice what it concludes. Ephesians 6, verse 4 says, And you fathers do not provoke your children to wrath, and usually it's full stop, and that's it. But what does the rest of it say? But bring them up in the training and the admonition of the Lord.

So we see that the father's role is to bring the children up in the training and in the admonition of the Lord.

So as we think about the ways that we're bringing our children up, are we bringing them up in the world's ways, in the ways that our school system dictates? No. We bring them up in the ways that we see outlined in Scripture. We bring them up in God's ways. We bring them up in God's standards. God's morality. Not society's. You know, we've talked about this before, but if we consider the standard by which we compare ourselves to, sometimes we compare ourselves to the world. You know, I'm guilty of doing this. You know, look at the world and go, oh, at least I'm not breaking into people's cars like that guy. But the reality is, if that's the comparison that we make, and the world continually is declining, where is our standard going to go to? It's going to continually decline. It's just going to continue to drop right along with the world around us. Instead, if we compare ourselves to Christ as our standard, that standard never changes. That's the standard we see in Scripture. That's the standard that doesn't change. Society changes. Society ebbs and flows. Sometimes it's more conservative, sometimes it's more liberal. Sometimes it's more conservative. Christ is steady. God's standard is steady. You know, we consider these things. Whose ways are we bringing them up in? Are we bringing them up in the human, societal ways? The way that we see in the school systems, or are we bringing them up in accordance with Scripture?

Deuteronomy 6. This is the passage. The church had an initiative a while back, and it was kind of sad to see it fall by the wayside a little bit, but Deuteronomy 6. We had this Deuteronomy 6 model concept, and it was a good idea. It was just rolled out, I think, at kind of a challenging time and maybe not as much direction as needed to be. But Deuteronomy 6, one of the things we see in Deuteronomy 6 is that as family members, as parents, as fathers, we're to be constantly teaching our children.

Constantly. Deuteronomy 6, verse 6, says, Not just passively, diligently to your children. It implies an extra effort to make sure that it's getting done. It says, Does that encompass any time that's not accounted for in there? That's all the time, right? They'd say 24-7 today. That's what the kids would say. They'd say 24-7-365. That's what that means. All the time, basically. But you're constantly teaching these things.

You're teaching them diligently throughout this time. It says, It says, Not literally, as was done, but in this idea that you should have these things in your mind, in your mind at all times. You should be keeping them in mind. It says, You know, do you consider kind of this concept, I think in pictures sometimes. And what I envision in this, as I look at it, is a father and a son, or a father and a daughter, or whatever, walking down a dusty path hand in hand as they're going to do their chores.

You know, thinking ancient Israel, right? I mean, as they're going out to go take care of the fields, or they're going out to do whatever, you know, it's hard not to see that image of a father and son or a father and daughter walking together, talking together as they go about their day, working together, shepherding together. And you know, as those things take place, and as we go through life, we run into these things, we used to call them in education, we call them teachable moments.

You know, you run into times where it's like, this would be a very good time to impart a life lesson. You know, and you can use that example, that experience to be able to teach those things. That was the way God intended for education to take place. Obviously, we do things differently today. You know, even in a homeschool situation, we do them differently in some ways. But that means that outside of those scenarios, these things need to be taken place. These things need to be done.

Fathers, this is your job. This is the responsibility and the opportunity that God has placed on you as a father to ensure that our children know their ways. That they understand God, they understand who He is. And keep in mind, gentlemen, they are watching our example. They are watching our example. You know, you consider how we're being taught and the fact that we're still being taught very frequently. You know, God's teaching us through all sorts of different things. He's teaching us through experience. He's teaching us, again, through Bible study, through the things that we read here.

He's teaching us through magazine articles that we read, television shows that we see, lessons that we pick up from life experiences, through sermons, through our own personal Bible study, through answered prayer. You know, God is teaching us these things consistently throughout. Are we listening? Are we listening and are we letting God change us? Are we submitting ourselves as a good son to our Father and allowing ourselves to be led and to be instructed? Or are we forging our own path? You know, one thing about parents, they're incredibly protective of their children.

Incredibly protective of their children. And you've heard of mama bears, right? Mama bear is a real thing. For those of you that have never experienced it, my wife has gone full mama bear a couple times, and it's like, whoa, I didn't know you had that in you. Interesting. Okay? All right. That's a whole new facet of you that I did not know. But, you know, sometimes we see this sort of thing in the animal kingdom pretty frequently. I was thinking back on this as I was putting this together.

I had a really cool opportunity a few years back. A couple of buddies and I were springer fishing out on the Lower Willamette. How many of you are familiar with the Sauvie Island area? Been down near Sauvie Island. It's up off the Lower Willamette. And so there's a section down there. There's a lot of barge traffic and things down in that area.

It's the very lower part of the Willamette, right as it comes into the Columbia River. And so they have a lot of pilings and things. And oftentimes on the top of those pilings, you'll have these osprey nests that get in place and they get established. And they're big old nests. Big, big, big nests. And you'll see them fly in and usually they'll bring a fish or something and drop it and fly out, you know.

And you'll hear the little babies go crazy. And then, especially if you're close enough, you can hear the babies go crazy. We were trolling off these pilings because fish like the pilings and the little shoreline there. And we heard this little piercing cry. Just a little, I mean it was small, but it was a little piercing cry. And this little osprey baby popped its head up over the edge of the nest.

It was kind of cool, all gangly, looked a little like a giraffe. It was just a big old neck and you know. Well, we couldn't really tell real well what was going on, but we looked, as we're looking around, we're hearing it kind of go, you know, beep, beep, beep. We're calling back thinking we can talk to the bird. We're trying. And sure enough, we got it to respond a couple times, which was kind of cool.

We didn't realize later on we might have actually contributed to this scenario I'm about to describe, but we look up and there's a bald eagle, like full-on dive bomb heading for this nest. I mean, full tilt, and it's like we just rang the dinner bell for this thing.

But it's coming at this nest and, you know, wings tucked in, you know, I mean it's just straight for this nest. And we're thinking, oh no, now what do we do? Should we, you know, make a bunch of noise? Should we, we're watching Wild America happen right in front of our eyes here, you know?

And we didn't have time to even figure out what we were going to do because out of the corner of our eye came Mama. And Mama or Dada, I don't know which one, I didn't look. But they, I didn't. Same story. Wings tucked, full tilt, I mean Mach 5 just coming out of nowhere, and she hit that bald eagle, talons up as she came in. She did this little thing at the very end and kind of kicked out and came in talons up, hit him. They both kind of tussled in the air a little bit.

The bald eagle's like, what happened? You know, where did this thing come from? So it starts flying away. And she followed it. I mean, she ran it to the point we couldn't see it anymore. I mean, she just ran it completely out of the vicinity. But what blew me away, I didn't realize the difference in size between these birds.

That osprey was probably a third the size of that bald eagle. That was a big bald eagle. And that osprey was itty bitty compared to that thing. And it didn't care. It hit that thing with everything that it had. And as far as we know, at least that osprey survived that encounter. You know, whether it made it the rest of the way, who knows?

But those of you that have children, you know, there's not a question in your mind that you protect your kids at all costs. It's just what it is. It's just the reality of being a parent. It doesn't even register second thought. You know you're going to take care of your kids. You're going to protect them to the best of your ability. But the reality is, as we all know, we cannot be around all the time. We can't be around all the time. And there are times in children's lives where they grow up and they go off on their own. And we can't always intercede in their lives if they get into trouble when they're out of the house.

So what can a parent do? You know, what can a parent do? Well, we establish rules when they're younger that teach them and train them and allow them to make good decisions when they head off on their own. Proverbs 22. If you want to go ahead and turn over there. Proverbs 22.

Proverbs 22. And we'll pick it up in verse 6. Just again, seeing there's these rules that we put in place when they're young so that, again, when they're older, theoretically, that still holds. That teaching and that training still holds. It says, train up a child. Proverbs 22 verse 6. Train up a child in the way he should go, or she, and when he or she is old, they will not depart from it.

They will not depart from it. We establish these things early on. We ensure that we teach these things. You know, my dad thinking back, he had a lot of rules growing up. I don't think I understood or appreciated them at the time, but looking back now—you know, admittedly, I broke plenty of them myself— but looking back now and realizing with age and maturity, to a degree, that those rules were not there to be onerous. They weren't there to be onerous. You know, they were something that my dad was doing in order to protect me. He was doing in order to ensure that I was going to learn to live the proper way of life. I was going to learn to do those things. And as you go through that and you go through that process and that maturity comes, you realize, what was I thinking? Why couldn't I have just listened? Why couldn't I have just obeyed? Because he was absolutely right! Every step of the way, he was absolutely right. You know, we had a Bible study with the teens last week. We've been going through the book of Proverbs, and we've been talking about different aspects from the book of Proverbs. And one of the ones we were doing was relationships and dating. And I was talking about Fuddy Duddy rules. I said, they're Fuddy Duddy rules. Because when you're a kid and you're listening to these things, they seem really antiquated, and they seem like Fuddy Duddy rules. But as you get older and you learn, they're not Fuddy Duddy rules. They're absolutely accurate. They're absolutely correct. And the reality is, it saves us the pain and the suffering and the consequences of doing it wrong. That's what those rules exist for. They're little fence that have been built around each and every one of us to provide us with protection. Since I've had my own kids, I've made plenty of rules for them as well. And none of the rules that I've set up, they're not intended to make my kids' lives difficult. It's not intended to make them miserable and be exceptionally onerous. The rules are intended to keep them safe. They're intended to protect them from a world that is getting darker and darker. They are a fence, so to speak, between my children and the world around them. And they're meant to be guardrails, in that sense, that are protecting them from other consequences. As we think about the rules that we've established, keeping the rules, obeying those rules, it shows the love for our parents. It's one way that we're able to honor our parents. And our Heavenly Father does the same thing. He's given us a set of rules, a set of teachings in order to protect us and to keep us safe. These laws are not burdensome. They're not to be resented. In fact, Scripture talks about how we must love the law. We must rejoice in it. Recognition that these things are for our good. They're not given to us by a mean, vindictive Father. They're provided in love to His children because He cares for them and wants to protect them. Let's go to John 14. John 14, we'll see an exchange between Christ and the disciples that defines these connections between the law, between Christ and between God the Father. John 14. John 14, we'll pick it up in verse 21. John 14, verse 21 says, That is how we show our love for God is by keeping His commandments. Judas, at this point, it was important enough, you know, John, later in his writings, to define it, not as scary it.

Judas said to Him, Lord, how is it that You will manifest Yourself to us and not to the world? Jesus answered and said to Him, if anyone loves Me, how do we show that love? He will keep My word and My Father will love Him. We will come to Him and make our home with Him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words. And the word which You hear is not Mine, but the Father who sent Me.

Christ tells us that the word given to Him came from the Father, that He gave it to the disciples. They were to keep those commandments, and by keeping those commandments, they ultimately showed their love towards God, and He'll dwell with them. Brethren, we recognize in this covenant that we've entered into in baptism, these things are not optional. These are the terms of the agreement that we've made. These are His terms. God tells us, here's My terms, you'll keep My commandments, and if you do, I will dwell with you.

That's the covenant. You show your love to Me by keeping My commandments and doing what you're told, but it's not an option. These are the rules. If you decide not to keep them, God says you have no part in Me. That might sound real familiar to some of you. How many of you have ever had your parents tell them, My house, My rules. You don't like it? Door's right there. Anybody ever hear that?

One time. I did hear that one time. Thankfully, that was followed up with an, I love you, I don't want you to go, but if you cannot abide by the rules of this house, you will not remain in it. God's much like that in that sense. He wants us to be a part of His kingdom. He wants us to be a part of His family, but there's a set of standards that we must conform to in order to be a part of it. Children that don't obey their parents, they show their parents they don't have respect for them. That's what the message is. If I'm not listening to you, if I'm not following your instructions, I don't have respect for you. That is what's being sent. Even sometimes if kids don't fully understand what they're sending with that message. God doesn't stand for it just as physical parents don't either. And when this sort of thing happens in our lives, we move to the last thing that a good, honorable Father does, and that is correction. That's correction. For those of you that have been parents, you know full well, even once those rules are set, they will be broken. Period. End of sentence. Even if you've got the best kid in the world, they're going to break a rule here and there. They're just going to. Carnal human nature does not like rules. Carnal human nature does not like boundaries. Carnal human nature does not like being told what to do. That is why our conversion is so critical. That's why God's Spirit is necessary as it innervates with our spirit of man and allows us to begin becoming malleable to God and to His way.

Our Heavenly Father is merciful God. I think we know that. God is merciful. He doesn't tolerate iniquity, but He is merciful about it. There's a big difference. Tolerance doesn't require change. Tolerance says you're wrong, but it's okay. I'll tolerate your continual indiscretions. Mercy says you're wrong, and it needs to change. Mercy says you're wrong, and it needs to change. I'll forgive you, but you need to fix the problem. You need to sort it out. There's consequences to breaking the rules. There's consequences to breaching the contract. That penalty is death. When it comes to our spiritual condition, that penalty is death. We know Christ paid the penalty for us. That doesn't mean we have free reign to do whatever we want. We're still expected to keep up our end of the bargain, and when we don't, we need merciful correction. Just like when our children break the rules and the standards and the norms that we've set up in our families, they need correction as well. That correction may take different forms in different households, but if you don't provide correction, when children break those norms, they don't learn where the line is. They don't understand where the boundary is. Some psychologists have gone as far as saying children crave boundaries. They don't know it. They don't want them, but they crave them because they're looking for where that line is. One of the things that when I taught, the teachers would all talk about this, and we would talk about it in educators' classrooms as well, because sometimes even the educators had this same issue, but students would experience what we called the slot machine of consequences. What do I mean by that? Every time you break the rule, you pull the slot machine. You don't always win. Sometimes nothing happens. There's no consequence. Oh, man. One out of every ten or twelve, though? Boom! You've hit the jackpot. Mom explodes. Dad explodes. They lose it. They get mad. They yell at you. They do this. Whatever else. But then they go right back to the next ten you got for free, because they're not going to do anything about it. We call that the slot machine of consequences. And it happened with teachers, too, all the time. Kids would break a rule in the class. They wouldn't do anything. Break a rule wouldn't do anything. Fourth one, get out of here! Get out of the principal's office! Right? Well, how does that kid know where that line is? You've never enforced it before. They've blown past it multiple times. Now you're enforcing it, and they don't understand why. Because there's been no consequences up to that point. They pull the slot machine, and every now and again they hit jackpot.

Brethren, consistent boundaries, consistent consequences are critical. They're absolutely critical, because it illustrates to our children where the line of acceptable behavior is. If it is not applied, there is no line of acceptable behavior. It is whatever they decide that acceptable behavior is. There's a proverb. Proverbs 22, verse 15, kids, don't take offense. God wrote this, not me.

Proverbs 22, verse 15, it says, foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child. And then it goes on to say that the rod of correction drives it far away from them. Now that rod of correction doesn't always have to be corporal punishment. It doesn't. Sometimes this has been taken in a very wrong direction, and has been applied to mean, I will beat the rebelliousness out of you, and that's not appropriate either. But there has to be consequences. There has to be some sort of situation where when that line is crossed, a kid knows that right there was the line. You found it. And every single time you cross it, that's still the line, and you found it. And after a little while, they understand where the line is, and they don't cross it. It's a matter of understanding how to make that happen.

It doesn't mean, again, that that response has to be corporal, but that correction has to be there to illustrate where the boundaries are. In fact, there's numerous examples throughout Scripture of places where God had to correct His own people as the narrative progresses. Let's go to Numbers 12. Numbers 12 for the first one.

Numbers 12—we'll pick it up in verse 5—Mereum got a little lippy at one point about Moses' wife, right? Called some things into question. And ultimately, God had to interact here. Numbers 12, verse 5, says, Verse 7, with my servant Moses, So the anger of the Lord was aroused against them, and he departed. And when the cloud departed from above the tabernacle, suddenly Mereum became leprous, white as snow. Aaron turned toward Mereum, and there she was, a leper.

And Aaron said to Moses, In other words, we cross the line, God. There has been a consequence. Please be merciful. Please show mercy. Please show mercy. It says, So Moses cried out to the Lord, saying, Lord said to Moses, Mereum was shut out of the camp seven days. The people did not journey until she was brought in again. And afterward, the people moved from Hazaroth and camped in the wilderness of Peron. So God made it very clear to Mereum and to Aaron and to Moses, for that matter, that she stepped out of the boundaries when she spoke against Moses in this scenario.

Moses' own sister was punished. The whole host of Israel waited on her for seven days, and she was healed. And they went on. God was merciful. God listened to the pleas of Aaron, listened to the pleas of Moses. But you know, it's interesting, we don't see another example in Scripture anywhere else of Mereum speaking against Moses.

We don't see that happening. I think that'd make a believer out of you, I would think. You know, all of a sudden you're a leper. You've worn a leper five seconds ago, and now you're a leper? Yeah, I think that would make a believer out of you.

In fact, she's listed in the same sentence as Moses and Aaron in Micah 6 and verse 4. You can jot it down if you like.

It says, She was put in the same sentence as Moses and Aaron in that scenario as being leaders in the congregation of Israel at that time. It appears that she learned her lesson. Nebuchadnezzar was corrected by God. Let's go to Daniel 4. Now Nebuchadnezzar had a little bit rougher than Mereum.

Daniel 4.

Where are you hiding, Daniel?

There you are. There you are.

Daniel 4, and we'll pick it up in verse 24.

Daniel 4 and verse 24.

We'll see the process here, ultimately, that God went through with Nebuchadnezzar.

Just prior to this, Nebuchadnezzar had a dream he couldn't understand. He sent for Daniel to interpret it.

Verse 24. This is the interpretation. Daniel says to Nebuchadnezzar, This is the decree of the Most High, which has come upon my Lord the King.

They shall drive you from men, your dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field, and they shall make you eat grass like oxen.

They shall wet you with the dew of heaven, and seven times shall pass over you, till you know that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whomever he chooses.

We know about Nebuchadnezzar as he was prideful. He was the king of the Babylonian Empire.

He had this feeling that what was done and what was there was all as a result of his own hard work.

But he'd forgotten who was responsible for his position.

He'd forgotten who had given him the rulership of Babylon.

And this dream was a warning. You might say, wait a minute, a warning? Seven years of wandering around eating grass? That's a warning? Yeah, that's a warning, in this sense, to pay attention and realize where this comes from.

Could have struck him dead. He didn't. He was merciful.

Daniel 4, verse 29, says at the end of the twelve months he was walking about the royal palace of Babylon.

We see the king spoke. This is the warning that was provided to him here prior to this taking place.

At the end of the twelve months he was walking around the royal palace of Babylon.

The king spoke, saying, is not this great Babylon that I have built for a royal dwelling by my mighty power and for the honor of my majesty?

Emphasis added, while the word was still in the king's mouth, a voice fell from heaven.

King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is spoken. The kingdom has departed from you.

They shall drive you from men your dwelling.

They shall be with the beasts of the field. They shall make you eat grass like oxen.

And seven times shall pass over you until you know the most high rules in the kingdom of men and gives it to whomever he chooses.

Imagine Nebuchadnezzar going, I've heard that before. This isn't going to end well.

The very hour the word was fulfilled concerning Nebuchadnezzar, he was driven from men and ate grass like oxen.

His body was wet with the dew of heaven until his hair had grown like eagle's feathers and his nails like bird's claws.

Nebuchadnezzar looked a little weird when this was all said and done.

He crawled around on all fours as a beast, but his punishment was a merciful correction from the Lord. What was the result? Verse 37, Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, after he had been restored, now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of Heaven, all of whose works are truth, his ways justice, and those who walk in pride he is able to put down.

Lesson learned. Nebuchadnezzar figured it out.

Israelites, God was merciful with them more times than you can count. Based on the two examples that we saw listed above, God wasn't tolerant of their iniquities. He was merciful.

He demanded their obedience. When they stepped out of line, he corrected them, but he was always a father to them.

He was always a father to them. Continually loved them despite their transgressions.

Just as God's children we must love our Father. Listen and be willing to change when corrections apply.

Let's go to Proverbs 15. Proverbs 15.

Proverbs 15. We'll look at what Solomon said regarding the concept of correction here. Proverbs 15, verse 31.

It says, The ear that hears the rebukes of life will abide among the wise.

He who disdains instruction despises his own soul, but he who heeds rebuke gets understanding.

The fear of the Lord is the instruction of wisdom, and before honor is humility.

It takes humility to hear that we're doing something that's not accurate, not correct.

It takes humility.

And God corrects each of us in different ways. Sometimes ways we might not expect.

Might not always be rebuke, quote-unquote, in the strongest sense of the term.

It may just simply be a conversation with a friend over something that we've maybe done wrong. We didn't even realize. We had no idea.

Maybe it's a message that's given during church that strikes home, or it's an understanding that we pull from rereading sections of Scripture, regardless of the method, regardless of however it is that God gets our attention and puts the word into our heart and our mind.

We have a responsibility to listen to that word from our Father, to make that change, because it's expected by God.

You know, fathers provide a critical role in our lives.

Whether we're men or women, the things that we've learned, the person that we become, to a certain degree, the individuals that we seek in marriage, it comes from all of these connections and all these bits of the family role.

Parenting style is all affected by the roles of the family unit.

As we mentioned earlier, 24.7 million Americans today are growing up fatherless.

75% of Americans believe it's the greatest social issue impacting the United States today, and a ripple effect is felt throughout economics, it's felt throughout criminal behavior, even behavioral and mental health, is impacted by absent fathers in a family's life.

And before I move on from this concept, there have been many women who have stepped up mightily in the place of those men, my mother being one of them. You know, I cannot praise her enough for what she instilled in me that my father did not, because it was her that instilled the spiritual side that my dad did not.

That's my mom. That's not my dad. And so there are women that have stepped up mightily to fill the gap.

Gentlemen, we have to recognize, even in those circumstances, there are going to be consequences down the road that are going to have to be worked through and dealt with and figured out.

You know, the role of a father is a critical role. It takes hard work, it takes love, it takes understanding, patience, and a whole lot more. It is not for the faint of heart.

Those of you that have parented, you know it is not for the faint of heart. But God expects us to step up to the challenge in order to learn some very important spiritual lessons.

The love shown by a father through either instruction, protection, or correction is an analog and an analogy to the love that we see expressed from our Heavenly Father to His people throughout history.

This coming Sunday, tomorrow, the world is going to pause and remember and celebrate their fathers and thank them for their part in their life.

And as we do, as we take that moment to remember our own physical fathers, let us also be ever thankful for the example that our great God has given us and be thankful for the love of a father.