What Kind of Dad will your Children Remember? - Father's Day Message

You know, a few years ago I was flying out to Denver on my way to a pastors conference and I was sitting on the airplane was working on my computer and I was listening to one of the music channels and all of a sudden I heard this, the host, a fellow named John Brady tell a true story that really caught my attention.

He told about an incident years ago where he was conducting auditions for new recording artist in Los Angeles and and into his studio walks this middle-age man who identified himself as Mr. Warren Mr. Warren said. He said you know he said I have a 12-year-old daughter who loves to write music. He said not listen to her music and I think she's pretty good. But then again, her father so he said I brought some of her music along and I want you guys to look at it. I want you to tell me that she really have talent or doesn't see because Mr. Warren said if she has talent. I want to get behind her and supporter and she doesn't have talents I want to encourage her to forget about it and move on to something else.

Well, this young lady had talents and her father did get behind her and support her, even though almost no one else supported or and today Diane Warren is one of the most talented and one of the most successful songwriters in all of pop music. She's one for Grammy. She's been nominated for 10 she's 16 Academy Awards for Golden Globe. She's been nominated for. Actually, she was nominated for six Academy Awards shooting with them all and do some of her songs. You'll recognize them are how to lie live song by Trish Yearwood on break my heart sung by Toni Braxton.

Don't take away my heaven sung by Aaron Neville don't want to miss is saying a thing sung by Aerosmith, so the narrator on this plane goes on to say how in 1995 Diane Warren wrote a song dedicated to her father, Celine Dion recorded it in 1996 it spent six weeks at number one on the charts it spent a record 19 weeks in the top 10 in one her Diane Warren, a Grammy in 1996 and then they played on the airplane. The song that she wrote to her father, I want you to hear part of. Sung by Celine Dion flew the main 2000 feet, bawling like a baby. I mean I had tears rolling down my face dripping off my chin. I'm growing wide open my eyes must leave these arms. Evelyn the guy next to me turned to me look like me me like I lost my mind. I mean I was an absolute honor rack on this airplane and I made a complete fool out of myself when I finally pulled myself together and off. I thought you know what, here's an interesting thought when my boys grow up and they become adults and they look back. If they were to write a song about me as their dad. I wonder what they'd writes in the song. I wonder what I want them to write about me in a song. And so I took out a piece of paper on the airplane and I started making a list of what I would really like my boys to remember about me when they look back in the years to come. The things I'd love for them to put in a song about me. And since this is Father's Day. I thought I'd share. Three of those things with you today. There we go number one. I want my children. First of all to remember me as a godly man. Proverbs 20 verse seven says a godly man who walks in his integrity. How blessed are his children after him and this is my great passion for my children I want them to remember me as that godly man I want them to remember me as a man who put Jesus Christ first in his life.

A man who loved God with all of his heart a man who obeyed God regardless of the cost.

A man who modeled for them what it really means to authentically walk with the living God here on this earth. I want my children to remember the time that I prayed with them and lead them to Christ. The times I encourage them in their walks with God. I want to remember the time that I took too much money back to the cashier. The times I gave tracks to the delivery person or to the waiter, the times I told the truth to my own disadvantage. The times I made decisions for our family that were based on walking by faith and not walking by site.

I want my children to remember how I was faithful to my wife and I was faithful to my family and I was faithful to the call of God on my life. You see, gentleman. I believe that the greatest legacy that any father can leave his children is the example of a godly lifestyle lived out in action before their young eyes every day every day every day.

Number two I will my children to remember me as a praying man, a man of prayer. I want them to remember me lying down with them every night in their bed and praying with them and for them when their little about the issues of the day.

I want my school-age children to remember me as the man who sat in the car at the bus stop waiting for the bus to come for the stoplight on the way taking them to school and prayed for them as they were about to enter combat for that day I will my teenagers to remember my getting up early in the morning and put my arm around the before they left to go drive themselves to school and praying for them as they were about to enter the toughest venue in Washington DC public high school in this town I will my children remember that I was a man of prayer for them. Anybody here recognize the names Aaron and her say yes I sound vaguely familiar, while the they should we just talked about a few months ago, your church in Exodus chapter 17 you'll remember there was a fight between the Israelites in the Amalekites and Moses went up on the mountain overlooking the battle and the Bible says that every time he held his staff up in prayer. The Israelites prevailed and whenever his arms got tired and he dropped his staff, the Amalekites prevailed and finally his arms got so tardy couldn't hold them up anymore so Exodus 1712 Moses sat on a rock and Aaron and heard these two men were gone up there with the held Moses his hands-off one on one side of Moses, and one on the other Goss Moses his hands were steady until sunset and so the Israelites defeated the Amalekites here were these two men as a visual picture of of of supporting Moses and holding Moses up in prayer himself and you know this. This story has become a living motive in my family I say to my boys all the time. Hey I and Aaron enter her for you and don't you ever forget it when you're out there taken that test at school when you're facing some issue in your personal life when you're out there looking for the right partner in life.

I don't care what challenge you're facing. I am on my knees praying for you in intercessory prayer, holding your arms up like Aaron and her say to my older son Jamie was an anesthesiologist in the Navy every day.

I say to him when you're in that operating room and you have another human being's life in your hands. I want you to know that I'm being Aaron in her for you at home, on my knees praying for you that day that God will guide you. I want my middle son Justin was a lawyer in Chicago to know that when he's working on that deal where you just can't make a mistake that his father is home being Aaron in her for him, holding his arms up in prayer in intercity seating for him before God and I will my youngest son son John to know that when he's out on the college baseball field facing sliders and curveballs and trying to keep his grades up in a tough school like Hopkins that his father is Aaron, and her for him, holding him up every day in prayer. This is how I want my boys to remember.

You know Howard Hendricks at Dallas seminary tells a story about a student he had one year who stood head and shoulders above every other student. He had that year in any of his classes in terms of this kids walk with Christ and he went to him one day. Dr. Hendrix did and he said tell me he said I'm impressed with your spiritual walk who who was the great mentor that you had who was the greatest inspiration you had in the young man said it was my father so I would Hendrix said to MRI. He said tell me the one thing that was the most impressive. The most memorable about your father, and the young man said, what I most remember was my dad on his knees every morning in his room, praying my name out loud before God, he said, is a little boy I would sneak over and I would hide outside his room when he did know I was there and I would listen as he lifted my name up to God in prayer while what an amazing inheritance gentleman to leave your children a dad on his knees being a prayer warrior for his children. That's how I want my children to remember me. In fact, the most commonly repeated phrase in my family that I say to my boys all the time, whether it's in person or on the telephone. It might surprise you that phrase is not so lots. The phrase is let me pray for you, let me pray for you, let me pray for you and whether there on the telephone or whether there in person run from arm around them. You know what I launch.

I launch I start praying for him right then and there, because this is what I believe a godly dad should do this is how I want to be remembered by my children and this is what I want them to copy and do with their children. Number three. And finally, I want my children to remember me as a man who blessed their lives you know lots of dads make a lasting impact on their children. It's just that they make a bad impact on their children there not a blessing their curse to their children. Now that was my day. My dad was not a bad man. My dad was just a bad father. He was emotionally absent. He was physically absent. He was detached and neglectful. He was never involved in any of the details of my life.

I live my life alone.

I didn't really even have a dad except in name only, and folks I want you to know that I still bear the scars. To this day of having a dad like that. He was a curse to me as a father. Well you know what. In 1971 when I came to faith in Jesus Christ. At the age of 22 and I'll save you the trouble on 58 so there but when I did I made up my mind that by the grace of God and with the help of God I was not going to be a church occurs to my children in the way that my father then occurs to me I made up my mind by the grace of God I was going to reverse the curse in the Solomon family that by the grace of God and with the help of God. I was going to institute a new cycle in the Solomon family, a cycle of blessing that my children could pass to their children and their children's children. The problem is I do not do this.

Problem is I had no working model.

I had no example and so I went to the Bible saying is there a blueprint anywhere in the Bible as to how you become a blessing to your children. As a father and I found one in spades. Listen first Thessalonians chapter 2 verse 10 you are witnesses. Paul wrote to the believers in Thessalonica, of how holy and uprightly and blamelessly we behave towards you who believe Paul said we were a blessing to you people and the way we did it. Paul goes on to say is by using the same tactics that a good father.

Use this to be a blessing to his children watch this verse 11.

For we dealt with each one of you just as a good father deals with his children and then Paul lays out three things that are good father dollars to be a blessing to his children.

Number one, we exhorted you number two we comforted you and number three. We charged you to live lives worthy of God and I said wow, look at this here is my blueprint for how to be a blessing to my children.

This is the blueprint I need to follow what is it. Well first of all Paul said number one, we exhorted you the Greek word here literally means to admonish to warn, to comfort, to confront rather to correct and it became obvious to me that God was saying correction is a major way that a father becomes a blessing to his children. Proverbs 23 verse 13 says do not withhold correction from your child, even though you punish them with the battle he shall not die. Now he may sound like he's Diane but he's not diet and she may want you to think that years she's Diane but she's not die.

The next verse says if you punish your child with the paddle you will say there's so from death when my younger youngest son is now 22, John was about nine. We were sitting at the table one evening and we were talking about a friend of John's who whose behavior was outrageous. It was horrible.

It was it was disgraceful. It was self-destructive and we knew a little bit about the family and I made the comment that the reason for this is because the first of the little boys dad came in the house, never engage with them, never corrected him. Never spanking just went and sat and read the newspaper and my son John at nine years old asked me an incredibly intelligent question. He said why doesn't that dad do something about his child's behavior like you do about mine. I said John is a really good question. I said let me tell you the answer. The answer is because it takes a lot of energy to discipline a child disciplining a child is stressful and it is that it is exhausting and it's demanding as you have proven my son. My son and a lot of dancers not willing to put out the con energies to set some you know what folks here in first Thessalonians chapter 2 God says if we want to bless our children's lives. We must put out that kind energy. We must get involved in their lives and correct their lives and discipline their lives and so wanting to be a set a blessing to my children. I became a sincere disciplinarian for my children something that was not done to me growing up and you know what, to this day. I'm glad I did it number two Paul said we were a blessing to you because second we comforted you. The Greek word literally means to encourage to cheer up the console to lift the person spirits dad to bless their children's lives. My friends are dads who believe in their children. When no one else will stand with their children when no one else does, who encourage their children when no one else will do that. Who comfort their children when everyone else is ripping them down and who inspire their children to rise up and seek to achieve the God-given call on their life the way Diane Warren's father did for her gentlemen, we cannot do this if we are not emotionally connected to our children. We can't do this in a vacuum. My dad didn't do this for me. For me, because he knew nothing about my life. He knew nothing about my dreams, my hopes, my struggles my problems.

He didn't ask any, wasn't interested and I decided that if I was going to be this kind of dad I had to be involved and connected and a participant in my children's life that I had to go to their piano recitals and I had to help coach their ball teams and I had to lie down with them at night and let them unburden their hearts and talk about their dreams and talk about their problems and I needed to listen is only by being a participant in their life could I comfort them and encourage them the way of good father does that took a lot of time would be much easier to be on the golf course or doing something else you want to bless your children's lives fellows.

This is what you have to do. Finally, number three, Paul said we bless your lives where good father does, because we charged you to live lives worthy of God. The word to charge here means to motivate to stimulate to arouse to challenge and this is where points number one and two from earlier in the sermon come back around being a godly man being a praying man because you see his dad's folks. We cannot talk our children in the living lives worthy of God. We cannot command our children to live lives worthy of God. We cannot tilt our children in the living lives worthy of God. The only real weapons we have the only two sources of power and influence. We have our number one our godly lifestyle lived out in front of our children and number two. Our prayer life for our children listen. Children have a cheese meter as big as this auditorium they can smell a fraud and a fake a mile away and gentlemen. If we think that with a puny prayer life and with an inauthentic Christian lifestyle that we as dads are going to be able to stimulate our children to rise up and live lives worthy of God we are kidding ourselves.

These children will write us off as hypocrites and frauds and fakes and pay no attention to our verbal appeals.

In fact, go, go the other direction as dads gentlemen, it's all about our personal example in our prayer life. I think many of you guys here know the name Jim Dobson. You know my out my wife and I've had the wonderful privilege of becoming fairly good friends with Jim and Shirley over the years and I will say this. Jim Dobson is one of the most godly men I've ever met my life. Jim Dobson lives.

One of the most consistent lifestyles for Christ I have ever seen. And if you asked Jim Dobson why he lives like he does, he will tell you it was the influence of his father. His father died in Kansas City in the hospital after a heart attack a few years ago Jim got to see them before he died. And here is a well part of the account and I want you to listen as I read this to the impact that this father made on his son and how we did it. He did it to lifestyle his own example. That's how he that's how he motivated Jim Dobson to rise up and want to live for Christ. Listen, and I quote. Jim says I stood by his bed and that intensive care unit there amidst the beeping oscilloscopes in the bottles of glucose. I padded those hands that I have loved since my earliest awareness. I told him how I had watched him at home throughout my childhood where it was impossible for him to hide his true nature, but never wants that. I see him compromise with evil or abandon the faith by which he lived.

I told him that his character had been like a beacon for me illuminating my way and steering me past the snares that had entrapped so many of my friends. Thank you dad I said with deep emotion. He smiled knowingly and I slipped out of his room.

Though the months of past and he's gone now that conversation lingers on the listen. My father, Jim Dobson says exemplified what I believe to be God's concept of a godly man. It made me want to be like that man to choose his values as my values his dreams as my dreams his God is my God. Dobson concludes and says he was a great man. My father not because he was president because he will be remembered in the history books. He was great because of his uncompromising dedication to Jesus Christ and if I can be half the father to my children that he was to me.

They will be fortunate children. Indeed," mile mile you talk about a man leaving a blessing to his trial. You talk about a man inspiring his trial to rise up and walk worthy of Christ and this is how I want my children to remember me as a man who stimulated them and motivated them to walk with God. So to summarize gentlemen I've told you at least three ways I want my children to remember me number one is a godly man number two was a praying man number three is a man who bless their lives by correcting them by comforting them and by inspiring them to live lives worthy of God, and now what I want to do. Fellows is I want to go from preaching to Medlin cannot do that while going to because on the one up here so I'm going from preaching to Medlin and what I want to say now, if he is that if you're here and your father.

This is exactly how God want your children to remember you if you're here your grandfather. This is exactly how God wants your grandchildren to remember you and if you're here your future father gentlemen, this is the target you're gonna try to hit when you become a father start working towards it right now and this is not going to happen by coincidence.

This is not going to happen by accident. Gentlemen were not just gonna wake up one day and somebody sprinkled with dust on us and all of a sudden were these, men making this kind of impact on our children never happen. The kind of dads who are remembered this way our men of intentionality. They make intentional decisions to live in the way that allows them to have this positive influence on their children. First of all, they make an intentional decision to entrust their life to Jesus Christ to accept him as their Lord and Savior and surrender their life to him because gentlemen you cannot give something to your children that you don't have yourself and then after they come to Christ. The middle live like this for middle make intentional decisions about the use of their time and the use of their energy about the choices they make in life about the lifestyles they live and the behaviors that they practice and the values that they hold to. These are spiritual decisions that men make to bring their life into conformity with the values and the patterns of the word of God and instead that instead of living for the way the world tells us to live the way we feel like living on Father's Day 2007. My challenge to you gentlemen is for you to rise up and for you to make these decisions in your life so that the memories your children have of you will be memories that are blessed memories, good memories, so that when they write a song about you will bring tears to your eyes, but tears of gratitude instead of sadness that you let them down, let me just say in closing the gentlemen we only get one chance at this.

I mean, there's so many things in life that if you mess up we can try again. I mean if you mess up the T shot you pull another ball out hit another. I mean if we mess up in a career we start another career. Fellows if we mess up a stock choice. We can sell it and we buy another piece of stock, but you know what when it comes to raising children.

We don't get a second chance this is it, and we we gotta get it right, to the best of our ability. We dare not mess it up because of selfishness. We dare not mess it up because a laziness and we dare not mess it up because of spiritual sloppiness in our lives. The stakes are too high.

Fellows I want to call on some of us here who need radical surgery in our role as dance. I want to call on you to make that make that commitment make that decision with God's help, you can do it if you want to you can do it make 180° turn and become the kind of father that somebody will write a song about you like I am worn wrote about her dad's pretty good, or Jesus you know it's hard to be a dad today. Not only does our culture demean the role of fatherhood. But everything in our culture tells us that the way the Bible says to do it is wrong that we need to do it some other way. Well, I'll stick with the Bible.

I'll stick with doing it the way you say to do it.

Lord, I pray you would motivate every man here to make that same choice and that you would motivate us to rise up above our selfishness to rise up above our laziness to rise up above our spiritual sloppiness and for the sake of our children and our children's children to make good decisions and the choices that allow us to make a blessed influence on our children. Lord help us each every man here be responsible for cycle of blessing in their families father change our life because we were here today and cause us to be the dads that you have challenged us and called us to be and we pray these things in Jesus name. And God's people said what you say amen