God Our Father
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If you turn to the book of Proverbs in most study bibles the first nine chapters or so are captioned, Guidance for the young, or some such thing. Maybe you haven’t ever thought about it but an overwhelming number of those verses are addressed to “my son.” It is very touching to me to imagine Solomon writing this to his own son, and perhaps he did, but in a greater sense God intended these proverbs for us all.
God offered Solomon the ability to petition Him in a dream, and Solomon requested an understanding heart, to discern good and evil that he might rule justly. God was so pleased with Solomon’s request the He promised Solomon that his wisdom would be renowned (See 1 Kings 3). God at that moment was also choosing to bless you and me through Solomon, by sharing His own wisdom with him AND the world.
Of course God uses the masculine term son but you can be confident that God is speaking directly to us all, boys and girls, men and women. He is our loving Father and wants the very best for each of us, so he starts out with this statement:
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge,
But fools despise wisdom and instruction. (Proverbs 1.7)
The Hebrew word we translate as “fear” means moral reverence, and from this passage and many like it, we can easily discern that it’s a parent’s responsibility to teach moral reverence. Try inserting those two words in the place of fear a few times in various proverbs and they really begin to speak to you…. In a way that a father would, lovingly yet firmly, with a righteous outcome in mind; He is God our Father, instructing us in parenting, by example and through proverbs.
Parenting Is A Kingdom Issue
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Once when I was meditating my way through Second Timothy I had a thought which I’ve never seen in any commentary anywhere! Are you getting nervous yet? Well the good news is that it wasn’t a theological statement and I’m not even saying my thought is true, but the content of what Paul is saying to Timothy applies. So enough telling you about my thought let me just tell you my thought.
I wondered as I read the first seven verses of Second Timothy if Timothy’s grandmother or mother had recently died, and if Paul was consoling his friend. Whether it’s true or not read it and see what I mean. Paul calls Timothy his “beloved son,” mentions his own personal heritage, regards Timothy’s tears, and commends Timothy’s mother and grandmother. It’s just a thought. True or not it’s a very touching passage for me. It’s really wonderful when Christian men can be genuinely and openly affectionate toward one another. I have several men it my life who I love like that and I am grateful; It’s rare I know.
A few days ago I had breakfast with a friend whose mother had died last week. It was very touching to hear him share some very personal things about his mom, a few times welling up with tears. As I sat a listened to him describe her failing physical state I was reminded of my profound admiration for him, and those like him, who honor their parents, right to the very end and beyond. He honored her in life and her memory is honored by him as well.
When God says, “Honor your mother and father” (See Exodus 20:12) It is a command to children and to parents. Parents must demonstrate what godly honoring looks like in how they regard their own parents and the elderly in general. They also set the expectations of their children in what “honoring them” looks like, by the way they model it, and by the standards set at home. Here’s where it often gets dicey. What are realistic expectations for your children? What are the standards we should hold our kids to? Where can we go for help? Be encouraged, and get ready because as you will see over these next six weeks, God is very interested in parenting because parenting is a kingdom issue!
Having Faith in the Promises of God
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Have you ever told someone something and afterward their response was, “Do you promise?” Unless you’re under the age of seven that’s a sure fire way to irritate me! To those who swear oaths Jesus said, “But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one.” (Matt 5:37)
The point is that Christians should be characterized by keeping our word. Do I blow it sometimes? Of course! But my kids know that if I say it, I usually deliver. Even still, I let people down; I’m human. It’s not that I’m super dad or anything, but when you choose to live by a code of honesty you become very careful about the commitments you make! Jesus said that we will be held accountable for every idle word, (See Matthew 12:26) so we need to remember that when we say it, we can’t take it back. Once it goes out into the air it has a result, intended or unintended, and if we try to take it back because our conscience convicts us it’s too late, we have revealed our heart, or at the very least, the fact that we don’t have self-control over our tongue!
When I think of what it means to keep our word, two things come to mind: Confidence and certainty. God expects us to have faith in Him. Faith in God is having absolute confidence in His promises toward us even when we don’t see them materializing. You might say, “But Pastor, I don’t know what God’s promises are.” To that I say SHAME ON YOU! What do you think your bible is!? I’m kidding (a little) because I know that we are all at various stages of personal growth, so here’s what I recommend; receive Paul’s teaching about faith and God’s promises from today’s message personally. You won’t regret it—I promise.
Stay The Course
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I once heard a man share the story of a great marathon runner. The names and places of the story escape me but here was the gist: He finished a famous race and the press surrounded him. They heralded him with accolades and as they began to question him about his amazing win he stopped them and said, “Yes I won but I am not the story of this race. Long after you have gone home, and the crowds have left, a lone runner will finish this race, wounded and broken. He is the real story.” Of course the press all clamored, “Who is he? What’s his name?” to which to runner replied, “Character.”
Author Bill Hybels once said, character is who you are when no one’s looking. That’s not a bad definition, perhaps a little incomplete, but nevertheless I see what he means. We all have various times in our lives when we need additional strength to go on. What sustains you in those times when we are tempted to fall back into our old patterns of action and/or thinking?
Some might say “our character” to which I’d say our human efforts are what got us into trouble in the first place! But for the believer I’d say, it’s our Christ-like character strengthened by our reliance on the Holy Spirit’s power. Unlike the law which pronounces our guilt and gives us no aid in adherence, the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit not only cleanses us from past unrighteousness but gives us the strength to overcome our old nature, AND endure the trials of life. Today’s message is one of encouragement for those who need it and let’s face it, don’t we all?
God Expects You To Grow!
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Spring is here and the time for planting is quickly approaching. Most of us at some point in time have grown something, if not vegetables than perhaps a flower, or some growing experiment in school. Sometimes as adults we can overlook the miracle of it all, that in such a short time, a small seed can explode into a plant bursting with fruit; but not so with kids.
Our family does some gardening every year, often with seedlings and occasionally with seeds, and without fail my kids get SO excited! The very thought that God gave us a seeds, soil, water, and sunlight and from that we can be a part of creating something edible is marvelous to them, and truly the manifold genius of God is revealed in His nutritional providence for all humanity, spoken in Genesis 1:11. As adults we can get very apathetic to this truth since we can walk into any grocery store and the first thing we see is an incredible variety of produce, enough to feed an army in most cases.
Here is the spiritual truth that I hope you draw from this sermon series: God has created an incredible variety of people and he is not apathetic about any of them. Like the little seed that causes my children to dream about the future plant with its glorious fruit, so to God has not removed His eye from you or me. His earnest expectation is that we WILL grow. Why else would he refer to the evidences of Christian maturity as the “fruit of the Spirit?”
So what are you going to do about it? Just like the harvest that comes from gardening, personal growth is not accidental. It is painstaking and doesn’t happen overnight. If you are to experience the benefits of personal growth YOU have to decide to be an active participant in the process, God created you (planted you in a sense) and expects you to grow. Unless you choose to be engaged in the process by reading, prayer, service, and worship (just to name a few) you will never experience the peace and joy of growing in Christ. God wants that for you and so do I.
