Pastor Mark Nieting
Matthew 28:16-20
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Grace, mercy and peace from God our Heavenly Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Wednesday evening I came back from a week in San Diego visiting my two oldest children, Ben and Reba. Reba is married to Ian; they’re doing quite well for themselves and have started “thinking” about having children, if you catch my drift. Ben has two daughters: Kaylee, 6, and Karina 4, who are truly the most adorable granddaughters in the world (or at least in my family!) There are few things in life that bring a sense of justice to my soul than watching my son parent his OWN kids. It brings great meaning to the old expression ‘paybacks are tough,” .but as one dad to another, he’s doing a really great job!
In the life of the church we often struggle with what to do with Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. Neither is an official “festival” on the church calendar, as you well know. Today is Trinity Sunday, where we honor God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, a very different kind of “family,” theologically speaking. There are pastors who steadfastly avoid preaching about mothers and about fathers because they don’t want to offend someone whose childhood experiences were less than good. Truth be told, the stories of some of our childhoods may lean towards the negative instead of the positive. Childhood pain can run very deep and we can struggle with it for our entire lives……shaped as we are by both nature and nurture, or the lack of it.
Parenting, whether on the father side or the mother side, is not an easy task. It’s one of the very FEW things in our country for which one does not need a license! Want to keep bees? Get licensed. Want to drive, carry a handgun, even become an interior decorator….get training and a license. Want to have children? Hmmm, I think the majority of us understand THAT process!
But parenting? Actually BEING a Father? To approach this topic we’ll go back to the very beginning and remember the model from which fathering….from which mothering…..from which parenting comes. That model is the creation of man and woman by the Divine Family: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
God created Adam’s body from the clay of the ground, the seed of Adam. Then God breathed, “pneuma’d” was the term Pastor Cofer used last Sunday in his Pentecost sermon, the very act of nurturing life into being. Then God brought Eve into the world and joined them together in the first “couple” our world has seen and told them to “be fruitful and multiply.”
God’s plan is that we are joined together as male and female within the context of marriage, and THEN we can deliberately create new lives to nurture, protect, train and teach so that they can do the same in their good time and according to God’s good plan.
That, my friends, is the context with which we as Christian people should always approach parenting: marriage comes first, then come children, if that’s what a couple desires. Parenting is designed to be done within the context of a nurturing marriage. It’s designed as a two person process.That’s God’s plan. That’s how God wants us to live, and that’s where the very best living is to be enjoyed!
God’s plan is NOT that we have a series of sexual encounters that “accidentally” produces a child. It’s not living together, playing house and seeing how life “works.” It’s not anticipating the consequences that may result in the birth of a child. And no, God’s plan doesn’t include divorce or rape or incest either. All of these things are results of the sin. And yes….ALL of these sins are forgivable, just as all sins are forgivable. That’s the joy of living in God’s grace. That’s THE greatest gift that comes from being a child of our heavenly Father!
I have a confession to make here, one that once I lay it out before God’s throne of grace you may wish to make with me. Here it is: I wasn’t a perfect child. If you’ve ever seen a picture of me as a child that’s hard to believe, but it’s true! My imperfect childhood carries over into my imperfect adulthood and then into my imperfect “spousing” and my imperfect parenting! That’s quite a burden to carry around for any of us, which is why I cherish the forgiveness my Heavenly Father offers to me through His Son, Jesus Christ. I know you cherish that too.
It’s not that God hasn’t had imperfect children before. Adam and Eve started the whole thing with their lack of obedience in the Garden. Then there was Cain and his outright rebellion and on and on it went. Abraham was the same; saac and Jacob, Saul and David…the list goes on and on. In fact, God was USED to his children letting Him down, disobeying Him, not trusting Him; individually and collectively, by His “children,” the people of Israel. God was their Father; they were His children, and their track record wasn’t going to win them awards. It’s why they…and we… need Jesus. God, however….was always faithful. Always there, ready to administer discipline, if necessary, and always ready to forgive.
God has given to husbands and to fathers the very heavy and very important responsibility of being the spiritual heads of our families. We ARE the Christ-figures within the relationships God has given us. It’s not an easy responsibility for any man to assume and to do well, especially our “macho male culture” seems to mitigate against it. But it’s our role….our God-given role. If we, as Christian men in this congregation, take this role seriously, we will be doing everything we can to seek God’s help in leading our families in prayer, in bringing our children to Christian instruction, and in keeping ourselves spiritually strong.
We Fathers need Jesus……not only as our Savior, but also as our role model. In today’s Gospel Jesus was preparing His disciples for His leaving. He had been doing this for 3 years, a far shorter time than we fathers have to prepare our children to carry on. He taught His disciples to pray……we fathers are to do the same. He taught His disciples about worship……we fathers are to do that too. He taught His disciples about relationships……the same applies to us. He taught His disciples the true meaning of sacrifice; of placing others first. Can we do that too?
The role of Fathers in the spiritual lives of our children is hugely understated and underestimated. Need some illustrations? A Swiss study published in 2000 shows that the “religious practices of the family that above all, determines the future church attendance of the children.” The results are SO striking that it’s almost scary: if mom is the one bringing the kids to church and dad stays home, 2% of the children will end up actively involved in church. Reverse it. If DADS bring the kids (even if MOM stays home, and I’m not recommending that!), 44% of the kids will attend (even higher than if both do!).
A study released by the Baptist church concludes that if MOM becomes a believer first, there’s a 17% chance anyone else in the family will follow. But if DAD is the one leading the family to Jesus, it’s 93% that the household will follow! That reflects how God wired up His creation: men, women and children. That’s how SPIRITUALLY influential God has designed FATHERS to be!
I know this can be depressing to single moms and women whose husbands aren’t living out God’s plan…..and that’s why there we are SO blessed at Hope to have so many men involved in our youth program, our confirmation program, and our JamTime program, men who are willing to do whatever they can to help bless all of our children with the spiritual inheritance of the faith.
Dads of Hope, how do we strengthen ourselves in the task of fathering? Young men of Hope, how will you live out your God-given role as the spiritual head of the household that God will give you? Older men of Hope, how can WE live, speak and act as role models for the younger men and the boys of the church so that they too can live out their faith? We can start today, by challenging the devil, the world, and our own sinful flesh and stating that WE, the MEN of God’s church, mean business! We are STANDING TOGETHER as Men of God at the foot of the cross……with Jesus as our leader, pledging ourselves to do all we can to bring our brothers along with us in the journey of being the “Fathers of the Church!”
Amen.
